Heaven and Hell in Hakone

Before being enveloped by the madness of the new academic year, I took the chance for a brief visit to Hakone, the last opportunity to re-charge the batteries (jūden suru =充電する) before classes begin. Hakone is a mountainous resort area a couple of hours west of Tokyo famous for its hot springs - and by association its volcanic activity. For most Japanese it also brings to mind the 100-year-old Tokyo-Hakone ekiden (long distance relay race) which is staple viewing in the New Year. Broadcast in its entirety on January 2nd (Otemachi to Hakone) and January 3rd (Hakone to Otemachi), the race has become a cultural institution which sees millions of Japanese glued to their screens as the university students complete their individual legs (20km~23km). Usually nothing much happens but now and again there is a show of individual fighting spirit or grit (konjō) which captures qualities which Japanese tend to value like perseverance, endurance, and team-spirit.

My trip was a much more sedate affair which involved a small minpaku (lodge, like a B&B) in the Gora (強羅) district, quite a few baths, and walking around Owakudani Valley and Lake Ashi (including the lovely Hakone Shrine, giant cedars, and famous torii gate on the lake's edge). Being up in the mountains, the heavenly cherry trees were still in bloom, in contrast to Tokyo where they had long finished. 

Taking the ropeway to see the boiling Sulphur springs at Owakudani Valley (the old crater of Mt. Kami) is quite an experience, not least because of all the signs warning of volcanic activity and the health risks due to the volcanic gases. Even riding up in the gondola, "people lacking confidence in health" are encouraged to cover their mouth and nose with the wet cloth provided! Arriving at the top, I found that the trail around the crater was closed off (due to increased volcanic activity); certainly, the smell was rather overpowering and the various warning signs, including one warning us to run into a building if the volcano erupts (!), were just a touch disconcerting. With this in mind, I decided to take shelter in the Geomuseum which gives great bilingual descriptions about the history of the volcano (a small explosion occurred in 2015), shows how the spring water is drawn and pumped, and discusses the mystery of the black eggs which turn that colour when boiled here (something which reportedly occurs only at Owakudani!).

 After the fumes - and bone-biting chill - of Owakudani, it was something of a relief to come down to Lake Ashi. Forgoing the pleasure of a trip across the lake on a full-scale pirate galleon (?), I headed towards Hakone Shrine, first founded in the 8th century, following a cedar pathway which shadowed the old Tokaido (Kyoto to Edo) Highway. The shrine itself is protected by a rather marvellous pair of moss-covered komainu (guardian lion dogs). As mentioned earlier, the torii or entrance/gate to the shrine is located on the shore itself, reminiscent of the famous "floating" vermilion torii at Itsukushima Shrine in Miyajima, Hiroshima. Gazing out over Lake Ashi through the torii gate, the hell-like scenes in the Owakudani Valley (short video below) seemed like a world away.

'Tomodachi' Spirit: US forces in Japan and Yokota Air Force Base

 "Japan and the United States will continue to move forward shoulder-to-shoulder as 'tomodachi' to finish the reconstruction of the Tohoku region." These words were part of a joint statement by Japan and the US to mark the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11th 2011 (usually written as 3/11). Here in Japan, the media has been full of stories of tragedy and resilience over the past month and some of those stories focused on the disaster relief support carried out by the US forces in Japan (USFJ) known as "Operation Tomodachi" (tomodachi means "friend" in Japanese). The ambassador at the time, John Roos, called the operation "a shining example of the importance of the U.S.- Japan alliance," while a writer in the Japan Times noted how 3/11 was pivotal in the development of the Japan-US security alliance.

Non-Japanese (and even many Japanese!) may be surprised to know that Japan is the country with the highest number of active US troops in the world. Japan hosts around 54,000 active military personnel across 85 facilities totalling some 311,000 ㎢ (the main 23 bases are listed here). The USFJ headquarters is Yokota Air Base, 28 Miles Northwest of central Tokyo in Fussa. It is a massive installation, 136,000㎢ with a 3.3km runway, houses, shops, and even a high school!

I have never visited Yokota though my daughter got invited by a friend for trick or treat one Halloween and I have also heard good things about the two-day Friendship Festival in September when the base opens up to the public. With this in mind, I decided to visit the Base Side Street aka Fussa Friendship Promenade which runs along the busy Route 16 in front of the base. While the barbed wire concrete wall is peppered with lots of scary warning signs, the street itself boasts lots of interesting and unique US styled shops and facilities, from fast-food and hip-hop paraphernalia to tattoo parlours and Christian centres of worship.

I tried the bagels at HOOP which has an amazing selection including seasonal flavours - cherry blossom anyone? - and even sweet rainbow ones. One interesting feature is the ability to pay in US dollars and the English menu. Paying in US dollars or credit card is a staple along the strip. The nearby Nicola Pizza even gives discounts (and a free glass of beer!) to those showing their military ID. Right next to HOOP is Blue Seal ice-cream which many Japanese think is American, specifically Hawaiian, but which is actually Japanese. The confusion is understandable: according to Wikipedia, the United States military created the ice cream for its soldiers in Okinawa "to boost morale and give them a familiar taste of home" (its slogan is "Born in America, Raised in Okinawa"). In fact, the first Blue-Seal factory opened on a US base (in 1948) and the ice-cream was not sold to the Okinawan general public until 1963. 

Okinawans may have a soft spot for American ice-cream but American bases are somewhat less popular. While the "tomodachi" narrative dominates most discussions on US troops in Japan - even more so these days as friction with China and North Korea increases - among Japanese who live near US bases another narrative exists, one which sees US troops as a danger and a nuisance and the security treaty as an unequal one that makes Japan little more than a colony of the US. This is especially true in Okinawa where 75% of US bases are located: this means that an astonishing 18% of the main island in Okinawa is effectively US territory! A series of incidents - from noise pollution and aircraft accidents to environmental degradation and crimes committed by US personnel - have created a strong anti-base movement in Okinawa that has seen tens of thousands protest and demonstrate. Indeed, while April 28 1952 is celebrated throughout the rest of Japan as the day sovereignty was returned to the country (主権回復の日), in Okinawa it is known as the day of disgrace/humiliation (県民屈辱の日) since Okinawa remained under US control until 1972 - and, some would argue, remains under (at least partial) US control to this day.

Scepticism and Distrust towards Vaccines in Japan: Uncertainty Avoidance and Cultural Uniqueness

 

Vaccine info sent to over 64's

While COVID-19 jabs in the UK have been progressing at a brisk pace - the goal to vaccinate 15 million people by mid-February has already been met - Japan is very much behind the curve. The first batch of Pfizer vaccines arrived at Narita on February 12th and were formally approved two days later under an emergency process with simplified screening. Health-care workers started to get shots from February 17th with full-scale jabs for over-64s to begin April 26th. Under-65s with underlying health conditions should be eligible by July or August - which means, even as an educator, I probably won't be getting mine until the autumn! But while I'm keen to get it done soon most Japanese are very cautious as the survey data below shows.

(Average data from three surveys: Yomiuri, Dec, Mynavi, Dec, and akippa, Feb)

The degree of scepticism hit home in a recent conversation with my dentist, a well-educated English-speaker who trained in the US. She bemoaned the fact that as a health professional she would probably have no choice but to be vaccinated despite her worries over safety and potential side-effects. The akippa survey echoed these sentiments, finding 82% of Japanese were worried about side-effects while 71% were worried about safety. Thus, while there are few true ideological anti-vaxxers in Japan, like those libertarians in the US or France, there are real doubts about the vaccine and a strong "wait-and-see" (yōsu o miru =様子を見る) attitude, making Japanese some of the biggest COVID-19 vaccine sceptics in the world.

IPSOS Global Attutudes survey, January (available here)

The global data shows that Japan is ranked low in terms of willingness to be inoculated and even lower (2nd from bottom) in terms of enthusiasm and trust in the effectivity and safety of the vaccine. "The Japanese," IPSOS summarises, "seem to be the most hesitant to be vaccinated." These attitudes pre-date COVID-19; an article in the medical journal The Lancet last year based on 2015 research found Japan to have the second lowest vaccine confidence in the world - just above Mongolia. So why the scepticism? There are a number of reasons. One is what the Washington Post calls a "history of vaccine mistrust" caused by a series of vaccine scares in the post-war period. The second is a national character that leans towards risk avoidance. And the third is a belief in Japanese uniqueness. A final overarching factor may be a growing distrust of government: while in the past Japanese have typically put a lot of trust in their government recent years have shown a growing intolerance for mistakes and obfuscation (think Fukushima).

First, many older Japanese remember the Preventive Vaccine Law (PVL) of 1947 which made vaccinations mandatory (until 1994); refusers were actually fined until 1977! However, in the post-war period a number of incidents chipped away at people's trust in the public health system, including the 1980s HIV-tainted blood scandal (which saw some officials, executives, and doctors charged with manslaughter). Then, in 1993, the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine was withdrawn after only 4 years after reports of a few adverse reactions were highlighted in the media (recent years have seen a rubella resurgence here). A more recent example of the sensitivity of the Japanese vaccine side-effects came when the government stopped recommending the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2013 after stories of severe headaches and seizures. These cases illustrate the hyper-sensitivity of the government to public opinion on the matter of vaccines regardless of the scientific data (MMR and HPV are seen as safe and effective by WHO and almost all other countries, including the UK).

Source: Hofstede Insights (available here)

The second reason explaining why Japanese might distrust vaccines relates to a tendency to minimise risk whenever possible. Geert Hofstede, the Dutch social psychologist who devised a framework for classifying national cultures, found Japan to be "one of the most uncertainty avoiding countries on earth." He pointed to the fact that Japan is constantly threatened by natural disasters, like earthquakes, as one explanation for its emphasis on planning and preparation for the future. In terms of vaccine anxiety, Yongue highlights risk avoidance as a key factor in vaccine regulation. "This can be illustrated by two policy choices," she argues, "approval of fewer vaccines than in other developed nations and extreme caution vis-a-vis the introduction of combination vaccines." Of course, citing "national character" can also be a convenient excuse to protect local companies from foreign competition. In fact, the idea of Japanese as particularly risk adverse seems odd given that Japan is the 3rd largest gambling market in the world and also suffers the third biggest losses - this despite gambling, aside from a few exceptions, being illegal since 1907!

The third and final factor contributing to the low level of confidence towards vaccines in Japan relates to an ideology that sees the Japanese as unique, a homogeneous people (tan'itsu minzoku) who constitute a racially unified nation (tan'itsu minzoku kokka). This has led to various claims that Japanese are physically different from others: a case in point came in 1987 when agriculture minister Tsutomu Hata  claimed that Japanese are more suited to eating grains than meat because their intestines are longer than those of Westerners! In the field of vaccines, this belief manifests itself in a strong reluctance by Japanese regulators to accept foreign data, meaning that companies are required to conduct new trials in Japan, a barrier which can be prohibitively expensive for foreign drug companies (Yongue 2017:228). The concerns are not entirely unjustified. In 2003, a rheumatoid arthritis drug, leflunomide, was approved without conducting late-stage trials in Japan; later a number of patients died from pneumonia, something which had not been seen in the West. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, even though drug trials contained some 5% Asian participants, the perception that Japanese in Japan are somehow "different" from "foreigners" undoubtedly contributes to the feelings of mistrust among the general public (only 160 participated in the Japanese trial for the Pfizer vaccine which is the only one to date which has been approved).

So what is the government doing to recover trust in the safety of the covid-19 vaccine? One thing it is doing is conducting a detailed survey of 20,000 health-care workers who were the first to receive the vaccine: data from the survey will apparently be made public weekly. The government's secret weapon, though, is an anime-like dog character called Corowa-kun (mixing "corona" and "vaccine" the latter which is pronounced wakuchin in Japanese, reflecting the German influence of many medical terms in Japan). The chatbot is available on the Line app where a panel of doctors answer users' questions and dispel any doubts they may have. Will this be enough to convince a nation of sceptics - and perhaps save the Olympics? I have my doubts.

Repairing Broken Pottery and Celebrating Imperfection: Kintsugi and Wabisabi

In Japan, we may have a new year but nothing much seems to have changed: the declaration of a new state of emergency (kinkyū jitai sengen =緊急事態宣言) has increased the pressure to stay home. With vaccination for the elderly not to begin until April at the earliest (!) - and the state of emergency to be extended beyond February 7th - the Olympics is looking increasingly unrealistic. Against this background, there are plenty of people trying new indoor hobbies - there has been a mini house cleaning/clearing out boom (driven by the ubiquitous Marie Kondo) and the baking boom was also a thing here in Japan. In this vein, this month I'm going to introduce a centuries old traditional Japanese ceramic repair technique called kintsugi (金継ぎ), literally "golden repair/patch" which you can easily try at home!

The basic idea is that chipped or broken cups and plates can be fixed using a lacquer (known as urushi) mixed with powdered 24 carat gold. The urushi itself is the toxic (!) sap which contains the allergenic compound urushiol (also found in poison ivy). As this suggests, it is best to do this in a well-ventilated area, with gloves, and stop immediately if you get an allergic reaction (the vapour is rather overpowering and can cause a rash). The urushi itself is mixed with flour and water to make glue but needs a lot of time to dry; consequently, repair can be a long process - a labour of love - with multiple layers added one on top of the other (see here for a picture of how the finished product should look). I used a simple set (pictured) from amazon but the results - and the smell! - were far from ideal. See here for a great video - with a soothing shakuhachi bamboo flute soundtrack - describing the process and proper tools/ingredients in detail (there is also a BBC video here).

The BBC video introduced above is subtitled "embracing the imperfect" and this concept is typically linked to the Japanese notion of wabisabi (侘寂) an aesthetic that is often portrayed as "unique" to Japan that centres on seeing beauty in impermanence, fragility, and imperfection. A classic example is the Japanese garden, which in contrast to a Western garden with immaculately cut lawns and perfectly arranged shrubs and trees is much more haphazard, proudly bearing the marks of ageing and the effects of natural change. One illustration is the way moss is left to naturally cover ancient statues rather than be removed like it might be in the West. For a good historical overview of wabisabi - and its connection to Buddhism, tea-ceremony, and haiku - see here.

Unfortunately, waxing lyrical about wabisabi as a "unique" sense of Japanese beauty that shuns Western notions of perfection and symmetry contradicts starkly with the popularity of new products in Japan. Two good examples are houses and handbags. In the case of the former, Japanese typically want to buy a brand-spanking new house or apartment which means that they often turn their noses up at older houses which quickly lose their value and are demolished (the average age of a house in Japan when it is knocked down is 30 years!). This contrasts with the UK where old houses are valued and admired for their character and ambience. In the case of the latter - handbags - "perfect" Louis Vuitton and especially Coach brand bags are massively popular amongst Japanese women: Japan is apparently the 2nd largest luxury market in the world (behind the US). Indeed, second hand-shops are basically invisible in Japan: compare this to UK highstreets where on average almost 8% of shops are second-hand charity shops, like Oxfam, Barnardo's, Cancer Research, and the Heart Foundation. As suggested in the first paragraph though, Japan may be changing: the pandemic has triggered a house clearing and a second-hand goods boom. Interestingly though this has two features which are different to the UK: first, it is the secondhand luxury good market that is booming; and second, goods are bought and sold online anonymously using apps such as the massively popular Mercari. Plus ça change!

Praying for a Better - and Healthier - 2021 at Toshogu Shrine, Ueno's Hidden Gem

As 2020 draws to a close most Japanese are getting ready for hatsumōde (初詣), the first shrine visit of the year when people pray for good fortune. After a 2020 to forget, it is not to difficult to imagine what people will be wishing for this time round but if you're looking to avoid the queues - Meiji Shrine typically sees some three million visitors in the first three days of January - I recommend the much quieter and older Toshogu Shrine (東照宮) in Ueno - established in 1627 and dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, previously one of the "Great Unifiers" of Japan but now a powerful deity that visitors can pray to for good luck.

Not only is Toshogu Shrine less crowded than many others, it is also noticeable for its fusion of different styles: while the shrine itself is obviously a Shinto monument it is located on the premises of Kan'eiji (寛永寺), a Buddhist Temple and features a 32m 5-storied pagoda built in 1631. As I wrote  earlier in my post on the old capital Kamakura, until the 1868 Shinto and Buddhism Separation Order (神仏判然令), the two religions were freely mixed and combined. In Meiji, the pagoda was only spared demolition because it belonged to Kan'eiji Temple. The Buddhist influence can also be seen in the golden Chinese-style gate (karamon＝唐門) on the main shrine building, decorated with hand-carved flowers and birds and protected by two dragons - ascending and descending - carved into the gate pillars (these dragons are said to go to the nearby Shinobazu Pond every night to drink!).

A third  pointer to the Chinese influence are the 50 unique copper lanterns (tōrō=灯籠) lining the approach to the shrine (red dots in the map above). While such lanterns were originally used only in Buddhist temples mainly for illumination purposes, here they are not used for lighting but rather for purification: as we have seen before, purity and impurity are key elements in Shinto. As well as the copper lanterns there are also many more stone lanterns which begin when one walks through the stone torii gate which marks the entrance to the shrine (blue dots on the map). 

A final unusual feature of the shrine is the monument holding the eternal flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, decorated with thousands of paper cranes. As detailed in a previous post, the cranes come from the story of Sadako Sasaki who developed leukaemia after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and folded more than 1000 cranes in a futile attempt to prolong her life. While today they have become a symbol of peace they are also a broader reminder of the sanctity of life. As such, they may well serve as a potent reminder to visitors who come in the early days of 2021 to pray for health, longevity, and recovery from illness - things I wish for all of my loyal readers in the coming year.

Japan's Obsession with Poop (Part 2): Lucky Golden Poos, Unko Kanji Drill books, and Toilet Humour

The last post on Japan's obsession with poop generated a lot of attention and not a little feedback from Brits surprised that the Japanese think nothing of talking about poop and related bodily issues which would be considered embarrassing in British culture. That prompted me to write more on the subject - starting off with something that both cultures share: kids' fascination with toilet humour.

Click to preview

Few kids like to study and Japanese kids have their work cut out for them: in elementary school alone students have to memorise 1006 kanji (Chinese characters), most of which have multiple readings. This of course is much easier if learning is fun, so enter the Unko (poop) Kanji Drill Books, a six-book series (one for each grade) that features Unko-sensei that has sold millions. Each kanji has three separate example sentences - each containing the word poop! For example, one of the sentences for the kanji for take (取) reads, "A foreign news agency came to interview me (取材) about my poop." Great fun to read aloud (see here for some screenshots)! The concept has been so successful that there are now books for learning maths, craft, time, katakana/hiragana, and even English!

Golden poop crane game

But it's not just for the kids. There are mountains of unko themed goods including unko cushions, toys, soap, and even toilet-shaped curry bowls. The most popular though is golden poop (kin no unko =金のうんこ）which is supposed to bring you luck. The reason for this is because the "un" in unko is pronounced the same as un (運) which means fortune or luck. Bracelets, key rings, and charms for mobile phones have apparently sold millions in recent years and gave birth to the ubiquitous smiling poop emoji(💩). Indeed, it is quite common to send the swirly multi-tiered poop emoji to a friend to wish them good luck. This is also possible face to face wish using various rather ingenious poop hand symbols (shown here)! The most famous - and biggest - golden poop of all though is the giant Flamme d'Or on top of the Asahi Super Dry Hall building in Asakusa on the East bank of the Sumida River (pictured). Designed by French artist Philippe Strack, Asahi maintains it is a symbol of the company's "burning passion" to advance forward but Tokyoites know better and fondly refer to it as ōgon no unko (the Golden turd) while the beer hall itself is called the "poo building" (unko/unchi biru). There are even rumours that it was originally intended to stand vertical but that the company changed its mind after realising how it would look!

The "Flamme d'Or", better known as the "Golden Turd" (Skytree in the background)

 

For those familiar with the elegance of the tea-ceremony (sadō) or traditional dance (buyō), the prevalance of toilet humour in Japan may come as something of a shock. But all complex societies are full of such cultural contradictions: they are just easier to see in a culture that is not one's own. So Brits may be taken aback by the film Ohayo by legendary director Yasujiro Ozu - whose Tokyo Story was voted by his peers as the greatest film of all time -  which opens and closes with a farting competition that ends rather unfortunately. But alongside the Queen, politeness, queuing, and afternoon tea there is a whole literary and historical culture of cynical and ironic scatological humour - poo jokes - from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Swift. "There's a cheerful pride," writes the New Stateman, "with which Brits embrace bodily dysfunction as a part of our comic culture." Perhaps Japanese and British are not so different after all?

Japan's Obsession with Poop (Part 1): The Unko Museum

Japan, like any other country, is full of contradictions. One area where these contradictions seem to particularly noticeable is the toilet and the things that go in there. Japanese toilets are well-known for their hi-tech functionality; I recently returned back to my university campus after a long corona-break and found that the toilets had been refurbished, complete with a control panel with pressure, volume, privacy, and "wand-clean" buttons (don't even ask about that last one). The privacy button is usually known as "noise-princess" (oto-hime=音姫）and plays a loud waterfall-type sound so as to disguise the "embarrassing" sounds you typically make while on the loo. 

On the other hand, Japanese are far more open than, say, the British, talking about poo and related bodily issues. They will quiet nonchalantly tell you that they have an upset stomach and diarrhea using the phrase onaka o kowasu (literally "I broke my stomach"). They will also share the fact that they are constipated (benpi=便秘 meaning "secret" or "hidden" poo) - something that apparently 20% of Japanese men and a whopping 40% of women suffer from - without batting an eyelid. The everyday casual words for poo are unko and unchi - the latter apparently softer - while the scientific word is ben (excrement) which leads to the formal word for toilet (ben-jo=便所, literally poo place) though nobody ever says that - the English toilet (toire=トイレ) is the normal word with o-te-arai (hand-washing [place]) used by those looking for an extra euphemistic layer of politeness. If you're looking for a ruder word closer to the English "s**t" you could kuso but even this is pretty mild in a country which lacks any decent swear words (interestingly, hana-kuso or "nose-poo" is the word for bogey and is not rude at all!).  Just how open Japanese are about the whole poo thing is illustrated by the Unko Museum which I recently had the pleasure of visiting.

"Please enjoy the MAX UNKO KAWAII world," reads the English blurb, "by looking, touching, taking photos of, and playing with poop." This is not just poo-PR: on entering the museum you are met with a line of toilets and are encouraged to sit on one and do your thing (the group of four young women in front of me found this all rather hilarious, in contrast to the rather embarrassed English chap behind them). Magically, a plastic poo appears in your toilet and you are then given a stick which slots in the bottom of the poo so you can carry your poo around the museum. Yes, really. It is, as the blurb promises, all very hands on.

 The museum itself is rather small with a few poop-themed rooms including a poopy convenience store, a flying poop room, a poop volcano, a crappy arcade, a "let's draw your poop" gallery, and (perhaps most interestingly) a poop merchandise of the world section. This latter mini-museum features real poop paraphernalia from all over the globe including a  British offering I had not seen before: a "Poo head" game (pictured above second from left). The Japanese offerings - and there are a lot of these type of goods here in Japan - included a poo-shaped rubber (eraser) and a panda poo snack (though the Spanish Caganer dolls - above right - take some beating in terms of realism).

 

I've actually realised that I've much more to say about the subject of poop in Japan - looking around they are, in fact, rather obsessed with the stuff - but I'm all pooped out and have decided to split this post into two parts. So you're going to have to hold on another few weeks to find out about lucky Golden poos, poo kanji drill textbooks, and toilet-bowl shaped curry. In the meantime, if you're in Tokyo why not pay a visit to the musuem - who doesn't need a plastic poo on a stick to take home?

The Master of Haiku: Basho, Banana Trees, and Beloved Frogs

An old silent pond  (古池や)　　

A frog jumps into the pond -  (蛙飛び込む)

Splash! Silence again　(水の音)

Matsuo Basho (1686)

Last month's post introduced Shin-Ohashi ("New Big Bridge") on Tokyo's Sumida River, noting how its construction was watched - and written about - by that most famous poet of the Edo period Matsuo Basho (1644-94). As I explained, Basho, who lived on the eastern bank of the river in a cottage, watched and wrote about its construction. Today this whole area is dotted with (not always easy to find) reminders of his presence. 

As the map shows, down the road from the Basho Museum are the remains of the great man's cottage or hermitage (written as anseki or 庵跡 in Japanese), very close to the location of the first Shin-Ohashi Bridge. These remains are marked by a tall stone (pictured) located inside a tiny Shinto Inari shrine. Note the two stone frogs at the base of the stone: Basho is said to have been given a frog like this after writing his famous haiku (top) which became one of his most treasured possesions. Apparently, it disappeared around the mid-19th century but was rediscovered in 1917 after a typhoon prompting the establishment of the present shrine. After going missing again in 1945, a member of the Basho Preservation Society found the frog hidden away in the family safe and donated it to the Basho Museum.

The museum itself is rather marvellous, one of those hidden Tokyo gems. In front of the museum are a number of banana trees: Basho is in fact a pen-name which was given to him because his cottage was surrounded by banana trees (Basho is the name of a type of Japanese banana!). When I visited they were holding a special exhibiton focusining on his most famous collection of haiku, Oku no Hosomichi (奥の細道）or The Narrow Road to the Deep North. This collection is based on his 2,400km journey through the North-eastern areas of Honshu (1689-1691) which is traced in red on the map below. In fact, probably my first contact with Basho was in the "Deep North" - as an English conversation teacher in Yamagata where I started my love affair with Japan. Climbing the 1000 stone steps to the 9th century Yamadera Temple I learned that Basho stopped here and composed one of most famous haiku about cicadas and the stillness of summer (look out for the Basho statue and rock inscription of the poem  in the lower area of the temple grounds).

So what is haiku? Most people know that haiku consists of 5/7/5 syllables but in reality it is the sound and rhythm that is most important and not all "haiku" (especially English haiku - see here) religiously follow the 5/7/5 mantra. Moreover, pauses and silence can be a key part of reading a haiku well. It is also widely known that haiku contain a seasonal word (kigo=季語) - the frog in the example represents spring - but less well known that a cutting word or letter (kireji=切れ字) is also a requirement in traditional haiku - "Splash!" in our example - marking a break, turn/twist, or even dramatic ending (in English, this is often performed by punctuation). If you're looking for some inspiration, I recommend the garden just past the shrine which contains a statue of Basho gazing thoughtfully over the Sumida River.

Fireworks and Haiku over Shin-Ohashi Bridge: Cultural Magic on Tokyo's Sumida River

Library of Congress

The Sumida River in Tokyo, much like the Thames in London, is the lifeblood of the city, flowing 27 kilometres through 7 wards. There are 26 bridges, spaced around a kilometre apart, and it is possible (for the most part) to walk along the western bank promenade ("terrace" in Japanese) and pass under each bridge. The river and many of its bridges have featured in ukiyo-e prints (subject of last month's blog) and in the stretch between Kuramae and Ryogoku Bridges, a number of pictures by Hiroshige are displayed. Perhaps the most striking of those prints is Hiroshige's 1857 "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake" (pictured): a metallic engraving of the same picture can be seen on the bottom of the giant central orange pillars on the current Shin-Ohashi Bridge. The print was famously copied by van Gogh (Bridge in the Rain, 1887) and indeed ukiyo-e in general had a significant influence over many of the Western (post) impressionists.

The name Shin-Ohashi ("new big bridge") is rather appropriate since it moved and been re-built a number of times. The first incarnation was completed in 1693 a little further downstream of the current (Western style) version which was built in 1885 and again in 1976. Interestingly, with a bit of detective work you can find the small stone monument marking the site of the original bridge (near the Mannenbashi-Kita traffic lights). On the side of this monument are two poems about the bridge by the famous Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (1644-94) who lived on the eastern bank of the river in a hut and watched its construction. In fact, this whole area is something of a shrine to the master of haiku poetry with a tiny but lovely museum and a hidden statue of the man gazing serenely over the river (to be the topic of the next post!). The area is not so serene on the 4th Saturday of July though: it is then that the big-daddy of Japanese summer fireworks takes place, the Sumida Fireworks Festival (隅田川花火大会), which, dating back to 1733, was the first public fireworks display in Japan. In recent years, it has attracted upwards of a million spectators, though was sadly cancelled this year (these days fireworks displays in planetariums - known as “hanabirium” - have become popular instead!). Since today is haiku day (8=ハ 1＝イ 9＝ク）and with apologies to Basho, who probably never saw fireworks, here's my attempt at a haiku followed by scenes from the 2016 display:

 

Fire Flowers Bloom (花火咲く）

Memories of Smiles（笑顔の思い出）

A Dark Summer（暗い夏）

Pictures of Japan's Floating World: Natural and Physical Beauty in Ukiyo-e

For those starved of culture during the lockdown, the reopening of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum on July 23rd featuring a brand new ukiyo-e exhibition was a moment for celebration. The museum is located in Ueno Park which contains a host of other world class museums as well as Ueno Zoo and some impressive temples and shrines (plus the famous statue of "Last Samurai" Saigo Takamori covered here and the rather lovely Shitamachi museum introduced here). The entrance to the Metropolitan Art Museum is famous for the giant stainless steel sculpture entitled “my sky hole 85-2 light and shadow” created in 1985 by Bukichi Inoue which magically reflects everything around it.

So what are ukiyo-e? Ukiyo-e are basically woodblock prints for mass consumption created during the Edo period (1603-1868). The term "ukiyo" (浮世) is made up of the characters for "floating" and "world" and carries the sense of transient, hedonistic everyday pursuits enjoyed by ordinary people during what was a peaceful, thriving period in one of the world's biggest cities. Much like modern fashion/celebrity magazines, they featured beautiful courtesans, famous Kabuki actors, and strapping sumo wrestlers - the style leaders of the time. Starting off as black ink prints, colour was gradually introduced together with Western style perspective. Later prints featured some stunning landscapes, such as Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai probably the best known ukiyo-e print in the world. In these landscapes, nature and climate become an important element: in particular, the snow/moon/flower (setsu-gekka =雪月花) theme, representing (like haiku) the seasons of winter, autumn, and spring (cherry blossoms) crops up quite regularly.

Morning snow at Yoshiwara, Moon over Sumida River, and Viewing Cherry Blossoms along the Sumida River all by Hiroshige. From Library of Congress (no known restrictions on publication - see Jim Breen's position on copyright here)

Another thing I noticed while looking over the 450-odd pictures in the exhibition was the obsession with beauty and the "ideal" Japanese woman. In fact, hair styles aside, the ideal appeared to change very little from Moronobu's 1680 "Two Lover's Embracing" through Kitagawa's 1792-93 "Three famous Beauties" (pictured) to Kikukawa's early 19th century "July". Invariably, women were represented as having a doll-like beauty, tall, willowy, graceful, and elegant with an elongated face, narrow, widely spaced eyes, a long, flat nose, and large ears which were always visible. Eyebrows were usually high and artificial - or completely shaved off (apparently the sign of adulthood, marriage, and/or having a child - see here). Lips were tiny, painted rouge, and consistently pursed shut - no smile or teeth are to be seen (though Kitagawa does have a picture of a woman blackening her teeth here).

A final noticeable feature of the bijin-ga (beautiful woman pictures) is the pure white (irojiro =色白), smooth, unblemished skin. In the age of Black Lives Matters, it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that this reflected a Caucasian ideal; however, ukiyo-e predates the phenomenon of akogare or adoration/looking up to the West: Western (white) beauty as the ideal, as seen in the portrayal of Japanese with Caucasian features and fashion, only began during the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Russel notes that the Japanese have traditionally viewed their skin as white, only later coming to see themselves, at least rhetorically, as members of “the yellow race." One reason that was said to be considered beautiful at this time, not only in Japan but across Asia, was the fact that those working outdoor in the rice fields tended to have darker skin, denoting a "lower class." As you ponder whether beauty is indeed skin deep, I'll leave you with one of my favourite ukiyo-e which shows that humour too was a feature of many of the images!

Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "Young Woman who Looks like an Old Lady"

Black Lives Matter in Japan too: Police, Foreigners, and the Japanese Media

As the slogan "Black Lives Matter" reverberates across the globe, Japan too has seen a number of marches, including 3,500 in Tokyo on June 14th (BritishProf pictured left). Like earlier marches in Tokyo and Osaka, the march had a local slant: discrimination against non-white foreigners in Japan. In Tokyo, marches have finished up at Shibuya where on May 22nd two officers pulled a Kurdish man from his car and knelt on him in a manner reminiscent of George Floyd's death three days later (various videos here). However, aside from a short piece in the Mainichi Newspaper, none of the mainstream Japanese media have touched this domestic story while at the same time reporting heavily on the BLM movement in the US and Europe (the implication being that racism is a foreign problem).

Instagram Posts in the lead up to the Tokyo June 14th March (© blmtokyojp)

A kōban or police box in Shibuya

The failure to make local connections while reporting on incidents abroad illustrates just how taboo the topic is for the Japanese media. As John G. Russell has written, those who attempt to highlight the existence of racism and discrimination in Japan often come in for heavy criticism, especially from the right, despite racial profiling and indiscriminate police questionning of non-white foreigners being widely reported in the foreign community. Another example is the coverage of the #MeToo movement abroad while largely ignoring sexual harassment and assault in Japan. A prime example is the way journalist Shiori Ito, one of the few women who has spoken out about her sexual assault, has been almost totally ignored in the mainstream media - and vilified on social media (see here for a simple overview of her case in Japanese and English).

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Japan may ostensibly be a democracy but the powder-puff feel-good fluffiness of the Japanese media has led to it being referred to as masu-gomi (mass garbage) in a play on the Japanese word for mass media (mass-komi). The coverage of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which the New York Times described as a meltdown early on in contrast to the Japanese media which largely parroted the government line that it was not, is the most well known example of the toothlessness of the Japanese media. This case was highlighted by the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression in a 2017 report which noted increasing government pressure on the media (and increasing self-censorship aka Chomsky's propaganda model). Reporters without Borders ranked Japan at 66 in 2020 in its Press Freedom Index, a massive drop from 11 in 2010. For Japanese readers, Why is the Mass Media called Mass Garbage? (マスコミはなぜマスゴミと呼ばれるのか) by Kazuo Hizumi is an eye-opening read. In sum, it is quite ironic that the only political party to have shown any interest in bringing Japanese special interests to light is the Communist Party, coincidentally the only voice that also promotes the idea that black (minority) lives matter in Japan, too.