Friday, 8 April 2016

Zen and Now - The Transforming City of Kyoto

A Twenty First Century Eunuch
Kyoto was Japan's capital city for over a millennium and is regarded as Japan's most beautiful city which boasts ancient temples, hidden gardens and traditional wooden houses.  Although areas of the city show classical Japan as you might imagine it can be hard to look past the urban sprawl that has chaotically been pieced together to form modern Kyoto.  As such I found it difficult to really engage with the undoubtedly amazing history and culture of its celebrated past.  With most major sites spaced out around the city and the crowds gathered for the Sakura it proved difficult to get around. We therefore separated our trip into different visits seeing the east, west and centre over three days although there was still some serious walking involved to even get around these smaller sections of the city. This could have been made easier if we had decided to make use of the ‘slaves’ that were pulling wealthy individuals around in strange carriages like trussed up horses.  I couldn't escape the idea that these men dressed in tiny shorts and a tight t-shirt were 21st Century eunuchs as they came trotting past with their gleaming black carriage in tow.  The only disappointed/surprise to me was that the occupants didn't have a whip to complete the image. Despite my insistence on walking everywhere the ancient sites we did see in Kyoto were impressive and we got to visit the International Manga Museum to learn more about Japanese modern culture as well.

One of the amazing flowers in the Zen Garden
We had to base ourselves in Osaka as Kyoto was far too expensive and I of course managed to book a flat in what turned out to be in the centre of Japan's largest red light district (who knew their second biggest industry was sex – worth $24 billion a year!).  We therefore had to catch the train to Kyoto each morning and although this was only 30 minutes (if you managed to catch the rapid service) it made for very long days exploring.  On our first visit to the city we headed west to explore the bamboo forest and a few of the Buddhist temples.  The gardens at Tenryuji Temple were without doubt the most immaculate and sculpted that I have ever seen and were full of hundreds of brightly coloured flowers and cherry blossom trees.  Outside was the famous bamboo forest and as we walked between the soaring bamboo trunks if felt as though you had entered a world from a sci-fi film.


From the bamboo forest we walked back into the city and chanced upon a type of traditional Japanese theatre known as Noh that is now rarely performed.  Noh is structured around music and dance and combines very slow, exaggerated movement with an even slower storyline that quickly sent a number of the older members of the audience to sleep.  It is famous as the Shite (the central character in the play – hahahahahahahaha) and the support cast wear haunting wooden masks and so despite the monotonous 30 minute routine it was interesting to see whilst sat in a traditional temple.  Our final stop was to the impressive Daikakuji Temple which is regularly used as a filming location for period dramas.  Set alongside a pond and with perfectly raked gravel gardens the highlight was the ‘nightingale floor’.  This is made of dry wooden boards where the nails are designed to rub against a clamp to make squeaking sounds that warned the occupants of invading Ninjas and Samurai – very cool!  
The Shite in his mask
A Shinto shrine in the bamboo forest
Rather than discussing all of the temples we visited (they are fairly similar) the religion in Japan as a whole is unique and interesting as it combines Chinese Buddhism with traditional Japanese Shintoism and so each temple has various shrines inside to pray to. Upon visiting a Shinto shrine worshippers wash their hands with a tiny wooden barrel on a stick, often in a beautiful pool, and then ring a bell to summon their audience, light some incense and say a prayer. Many people also opt to write messages on paper or wooden plaques and tie them on the various displays with some shrines even having robot machines that select and hand to you your fortune!  Even the Catholic Church could learn a little from the money making of these temples –as each temple is usually dedicated to a number of gods people end up paying a small fortune to offer prayers to each shrine as well as to purchase all of the sacred paper and incense.  It makes the Popes money making trips to South America seem more like the disappointing work of second hand car salesman!

Glossing over our second day (The Imperial Palace in the centre is totally hidden by walls and surrounded by a wide gravel path – well worth the two hour walk -not!) we stumbled upon the International Manga Museum.  This turned out to be a huge library for Manga PHD students as well as teaching Manga heathens such as myself about one of Japan's biggest industries.  The museum was full of all ages as young and old packed the sofas to read Manga comics from a 70 year period.  It turns out Manga comics are aimed at all types of audiences from teenage high school dramas to more perverse male (and female) adult comics with most things in between.  It is a trillion dollar industry in Japan and I sat in the garden and I looked at a survivor’s recollection of the A-bomb in a translated Manga series under a cherry blossom tree for the afternoon.

The view from Kiomizudera Temple
Once I had finished a rant about the length of bus queues and terrible public transport in Kyoto our final day was spent in the east of the city where surprisingly there were some more temples and a lot of beautifully dressed women dressed as Geisha amongst the crowds.  Avoiding the temptation to cross dress for the day (Kimono renting shops are big business) we visited the impressive Kiyomizudera Temple that has a wooden platform 40 foot above the ground made using no nails which offered amazing views across the city and mountains beyond.  Heading further north for lunch we bought our standard Bento (boxed meal) and settled down by the river where we were treated to a very strange drumming performance by what appeared to be the Japanese version of the seven dwarfs as they marched up the footpath. After the unexpected concert we visited the unusual Nanzenin Temple that has a huge brick aqueduct running through the middle of it but at this point we felt a bit ‘templed out’ and headed back to our base in Osaka for our final night in the red light district. 

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