Archive for April, 2007

Dad’s Day Off #2, Part 2: A Day in Fukagawa

Today I finally had some time to finish going through the pictures from my day in Fukagawa and writing captions for them. I wrote about the first half of the day in this post.

After I finished wandering in the beautiful Kiyosumi Teien Gardens, I headed for the Enma-Do Temple. The outside looks like a typical, highly adorned Buddhist temple, but the interior is something else entirely:

Enma is the Japanese Buddhist version of what to begin with was the Hindu god Yama: god of the dead. The Hall of Enma that so impressed the locals in the 17th century has been updated in such a way as to equally impress those of the 21st. …Enma has been refashioned in almost psychedelic minimal, mirrored retro-sci-fi chic. This is true blue-tinted otherworldliness for the Nintendo- and PlayStation-trained believer.

That quote is from the walking tour at the Tokyo Visitor’s Guide site, and I can’t praise it highly enough. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s very easy for a Westerner to get lost when walking in unfamiliar Tokyo neighborhoods, even with a good map, as most of the streets don’t have names. Following the guide’s landmark-based directions, I wended my way past a bicycle parking area, then walked a ways under a freeway overpass, maneuvered through a couple side streets, and found myself at the next stop on the tour, the Fukagawa Fudoson temple. “Fukagawa Fudoson is a temple of an esoteric branch of the Shingon sect of Buddhism” - one of the things that sets this temple apart is that it specializes in road safety. Unlike every other temple I’ve seen in Tokyo, it has a parking lot. It’s there so you can drive in and get your car blessed by one of the monks. I was lucky enough to be there to witness this ritual - see the video below. Since I don’t have a car here to get blessed, I settled for buying one of their key chains, which hopefully will have enough residual spiritual power left after I bring it back to the US to keep us safe on the roads in Philly ;-).

From there I wandered into some of the nearby shops, and then went around the corner to the Tomioka Hachiman shrine. If you’re wondering, “temples” here are Buddhist, while “shrines” are Shinto (Buddhism was imported to Japan many centuries ago, while Shinto is a native religion). Apparently there’s some spiritual rivalry going on here, as the shrine is right next to the temple, and they both specialize in road safety rituals. But what the shrine is best known for is its place in the history of sumo:

While sumo is an ancient sport dating from around the 8th century at the latest, it was only in the Edo period that it came together as an integrated national sport. This process began with kanjin-zumo, or tournaments held at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples to raise money for new buildings or building maintenance.

Annual 10-day kanjin-zumo tournaments began to be held at Tomioka Hachimangu shrine in 1684 on the site of the elementary school beside the present shrine. It was at these tournaments that features of modern sumo such as yokozuna dohyo-iri (the ring-entry ceremony), the banzuke (wrestler ranking sheet), and sumo stables became established, thus earning the shrine an important place in the annals of the game.

Although the word “stable” connotes animals in English, sumo training centers are nonetheless referred to as “sumo stables.”

Exiting through the shrine gate, I walked down Eitai-dori, the main shopping street. When I made my first trip to Tokyo in 2000, most of the neighborhoods had a multitude of small, busy stores and alleyway specialty shops. In the popular shopping districts, these are mostly gone now, replaced by mega-stores and malls that are all too familiar to an American. But the small shops still thrive along Eitai-dori, where the chain stores haven’t moved in yet. The majority specialized in a variety of different foods, so I was regretting that convenience store lunch I had.

I found my way to Kiba park, which is the first park I’ve seen so far in Tokyo that features big, open grassy fields. That’s what American parks are normally like, but Japanese parks tend to have either landscaping that’s too nice to run around on, or compacted dirt for kids to play on (where they all get very dirty). So it was nice to see some simple expanses of green, with people having picnics and playing frisbee.

At the far end of the park is the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. I haven’t been in an art museum in a very long time, due to both lack of interest and lack of time. But I decided to check it out, and I’m glad I did. Perhaps art appreciation is something that comes with age, as I really enjoyed my visit (but to be honest, I was also glad the museum was small enough that you could get through the whole place in less than 2 hours). No picture taking was allowed inside though, so I can’t show you what I saw :-(.

I found myself challenged by, and in strong disagreement with, the premise of the From a World as Large as Life exhibition:

The information-oriented society, which enables the exchange of large volumes of information instantly across vast distances, is forming increasingly sophisticated new networks. While granting us barrier-free access to information and other conveniences, however, high-level information technology is producing profound changes in the character of our perceptions and consciousness. As our perceptions and experiences become encoded for electronic transmission, our personal bonds with others weaken, just as our sense of time and locality, and even our own existence, grows thin. Trends in recent years of seeking inner “healing” or a return to nature or tradition reflect the consciousness of people who feel something is not right in the information-oriented society. Such investigations into alternative lifestyles nevertheless depend on information technology and also become encoded to a degree.

Technology has not weakened my personal bonds with others, it has strengthened them. This blog allows me to share my experiences here in Tokyo with far away friends and family. Skype lets me make calls to friends and family that I otherwise could not afford while here. I suppose technology is bad for interpersonal relations if you spend all your time watching TV, playing video games, or surfing the internet. But the same can be said of spending all your time reading. I have met people and made new friends on the internet: these are communities defined by mutual interests rather than geography. While that is different, I don’t see how it is necessarily bad. And I also participate in my local community, both here and in Philly. As a parent with a child in school, you’d have to work hard to avoid it!

I think most of the frustration many feel with technology has more to do with the pace of modern life rather than the technology itself. The tools made available by technology are nothing more and nothing less: they are tools. I read an article once which pointed out that, given the year-over-year increases in worker productivity provided by technology, that we could all work 2 days a week instead of 5, if we were willing to live at the level of material wealth the US had in the 1950s. It also pointed out that survey data showed Americans were happier in the 50s than they are now, and worked fewer hours on average. Our current situation is not the fault of technology per se. I would instead attribute it to a culture of competitiveness and the natural consequences of a global, market economy. If we want to be less competitive economically and lead less frantic lives, that’s a question we have to ask ourselves as a society. Blaming computers or cell phones misses the point - they are a consequence of the situation, not the cause.

Well, that was quite a tangent. Anyway, it was both a fun and thought-provoking day off. I’d say it was actually the most relaxing and pleasant day I’ve had yet in Tokyo. I’m hoping to come back with Maria and the boys. There are some nice playgrounds along the way - especially the Kiba Shinsui water park, adjacent to the main Kiba park.

[tags]Japan, Tokyo, Fukagawa, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, temples, shrines, sumo[/tags]

April Fools’ Day in Tokyo - Hachiko is Gone

April Fools, from the Japan Times - the Hachiko statute was stolen! April Fools, from the Japan Times - the Hachiko statute was stolen!

The original photo of Hachiko, before the dog was digitally removed The original photo of Hachiko, before the dog was digitally removed

In Japan you’ll encounter April Fools’ hoaxes as good as any in the US. The Japan Times had a great one today - they reported that the Hachiko dog statue was stolen from Shibuya station, and provided a convincingly Photoshop’d picture as proof. Although the statue itself isn’t anything that special to look at, it is one of the most famous landmarks in Tokyo. Shibuya station is one of the busiest train stations in the world, and Hachiko is its most popular meeting point - it’s almost always surrounded by a throng of teenagers.

A network technician described what clearly appears to be a well planned caper. “Five men in khaki work duds, wearing hats, safety glasses and gauze masks, moved in about 1:43 a.m., after the trains had stopped running,” said the man, who declined to give his name.

“They set up traffic cones and ‘Men Working’ signs, and then raised several blue vinyl work sheets around the statue. It took them about 10 minutes to get it off the pedestal.

…As news of the theft spread, a large crowd gathered, with several teenage girls appearing close to tears. “Can’t somebody do something? This is really vexing,” sobbed Saitama teenager Satoko Kawasaki, who held up the image of Hachiko she had recently shot using her cell phone camera.

“Without Hachiko, Shibuya Station won’t be the same any more. I might as well tell my boyfriends to meet me by the statue at Ebisu.”

My Mom and step-father are visiting, and we first heard about it from them, as it was reported on the BBC News channel in their hotel (I don’t know if the BBC was in on the joke or if they were fooled as well). Maria and I weren’t thinking about the date, and we fell for it. “How could they steal a statue that’s 50 ft from a police box?” “But even in the middle of the night there’s lots of people in Shibuya, and work crews aren’t out that late, are they?!?” We happened to be in Shibuya today, and saw that Hachiko was there: “Wow, they found it and put it back already… hey… now wait a second…”