Author: Amajin

Nagasaki

Nagasaki has a lot to offer for a small city. Perhaps that’s why it seemed to be full of Japanese tourists, clutching their one day passes, just as uncertain about the streetcar route as we were.

Dejima had been an artificial island ordered constructed just off Nagasaki in 1634 by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to isolate foreigners, specifically the merchants and seamen facilitating the trickle of foreign trade. (You may remember Tokugawa from some of our postings in 2013.) Initially it was the Portuguese, then the Dutch, who inhabited the island for a rent of roughly $1 million a year. When Napoleon swept into the Netherlands and the Dutch lost their overseas possessions to Britain, Dejima became the only place in the world where the Dutch flag flew from 1811 through 1814.

Some school kids dressed up in Komonos take a break to enjoy cotton candy. The handy excuse for the attraction was a sugar warehouse where the Dutch stored this inbound commodity.
With the gradual reclamation of land from the harbor, Dejima is no longer an island. However, the long range plan is to restore it so thoroughly that it will once again be completely surrounded by water.

There are many attractive exhibits and signage in English is very good. This tiny European outpost played an outsized role in the opening of Japan to the technologies and cultures of the outside world. These are some of the plants introduced from Europe.

Still an island is Hashima, uninhabited until 1810 when coal was discovered and the island began to be developed, and better known to the Japanese as Gunkanshima or “Battleship Island.”

From certain angles the island does look like a battleship, although it is more akin to an offshore oil rig. The coal mine under the sea bed extends far beyond the outline of the island above. It operated until 1974 and supported a mini city on the island that had the highest population density of any place on earth. The island was expanded to accomodate the workers needed by the mine, and their families, by moving sea walls further out over the years so that it is now three times its original size.
Our guide sought out people who had lived on the island and they all told him that Hashima was a fun place to live. They had the highest adoption of electronic devices in Japan and lots of organized activities, including a swimming pool. Of course, the teenagers simply dove into the sea.
The force of typhoons since 1974 has devastated the island and compromised the 30′ + sea walls. Tourists are kept well away from the crumbling buildings.
We don’t know how this fisherman reached his perch and hadn’t actually noticed him until we reviewed the day’s photos.
At the Peace Park we met a man who survived the bomb only because his foreman had reassigned him to a different area of his factory just before the explosion. The complicated posture of the Peace Statue is explained as the right hand extended up in a warning against nuclear weapons, the left arm extended out in a gesture for world peace, the legs signifying both meditation and an aggressive stance to protect the world and the eyes closed in meditation.
The Jesuits arrived in Japan in 1549. Both the Shogunate and Imperial government granted permission to found a mission, apparently motivated by a desire to help counter the influence of the Buddhist monks and to encourage a trade relationship with Spain and Portugal. After seeing that Spain had taken over the Phillipines after converting the population, however, the Shogunate recognized Catholicism as a threat and banned Christianity. In 1597, Hideyoshi Toyotomi ordered the crucifixion of 26 Christians at Nagasaki – 6 Franciscan missionaries, 3 Japanese Jesuits, and 17 Japanese laypeople. They were arrested in Osaka and Kyoto then marched to Nagasaki through the snow so that their crucifixion might be a warning to Nagasaki’s large Christian population. Persecution continued through the 17th century and the church was driven underground until the reopening of Japan in the 19th century.
Yes, the architect of St. Philip Church traveled to Europe to study with Corbusier and was influenced by Gaudi. He converted to Catholicism.
The view at night from the mountains rimming the city and the harbor is . . . well, you may supply your own words.

 

Saga & the Yoshinogari Historical Park

At the Yoshinogari-koen train station, just three stops from downtown Saga, the tourist office lends bicycles for the 1/2 mile trek to the entrance to the historical park. It’s a nice ride through local rice fields.
Once inside the park, one of the first things to strike you is the seriousness of the ancient fortifications.
It reminded us of The Seven Samurai, the Kurasawa film, with row upon row of pointed stakes to blunt a mounted attack.
The reconstruction at Yoshinogari is the largest in Japan of a prehistoric moated village. It dates from the Yayoi period, roughly 500 B.C. to 200 A.D., and is unusual for covering all of the Yayoi period.
The reconstructed area is quite extensive and there is a shuttle bus to help people get around. From the size of the tour bus parking area, we were happy to have been there during the off-season.
Storage buildings were elevated. Habitations were dug into the ground to take advantage of the natural cooling and heating that comes from being in the ground. Ceremonial buildings seem to have been elevated And, of course, so were all of the watch towers and elaborate defensive positions.
We briefly joined a Yayoi king and his wife. The volunteer guide (day job: helicopter pilot for the Self-Defense Force) who briefly befriended us confided that the king’s wife is sitting Korean style (one knee raised). Scholarship indicates that the Yayoi swept into Japan from either Korea (the leading theory) or China near the Yangtze River, mostly displacing the native population (today’s Ainu).
An arms storage building for the very well-defended settlement.
Burial jars.
Birds on top of gates or tori are everywhere through the reconstruction. Birds with wings down indicate defense, while wings out signifies attack (or some such thing, according to the volunteer guide). Yoshinogari was well worth the visit.
Back in Saga, we walked to Saga Castle – also a reconstruction. It’s the largest wooden building in Japan and a special exemption was obtained for its reconstruction because it significantly exceeds the maximum size permitted for wooden buildings. Having now been in a number of large wooden castles and temples, it was interesting only for its dimensions.
Dinner was in a private room at a restaurant near the hotel, allowing us to unwind a bit.

Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka

Fukuoka – as the gateway to Kyushu – is also a gateway to Asia for Japan, with important connections by sea. The Asian Art Museum is dedicated to the art of contemporary Asia. We were drawn to the works we wouldn’t equally expect to see in Berlin or New York. To us, they were the most interesting and appealing.

Of course, we actually saw some of this Chinese artist’s work in Philadelphia and also loved it then. He explodes gunpowder to create the bursts.
A Thai artist, innovating from a Buddhist tradition.
The only title we can remember: “8 Strokes”, by a Korean artist now living in Germany and executed in 8 strokes.
A Bangladeshi artist uses traditional tapestry techniques to depict something of village life.
An Indian rickshaw painter creates works that can be enjoyed next to canvas hanging on a wall.
As a bonus to our day in Fukuoka, we stumbled upon the rehearsal of a string trio with piano and sat down to listen before heading back to our hotel.

Otaimatsu at Nara

Before Tokyo (Edo) was the capital of Japan there was Kyoto and before Kyoto there was Nara and at Nara for more than 1,250 years there has been Otaimatsu each year at Todaiji Temple.

The Temple precinct of Nara feels like the ancient capital it is, well-worn and burnished by time. Up a slope within the Temple complex is Nigatsudo Hall.

We came to experience a unique Buddhist ceremony. Eleven monks come to stay at the Temple to pray for peace and cleanse the world of sin. Bamboo poles are donated to the temple and the donor’s names are written on them. These poles are then transformed into torches with baskets attached to one end ready to be ignited for the ceremony.

Awaiting the night, people stand or kneel at the foot of the hall in the hope that sparks soon to come will land on them and protect them for the coming year. Upon the conclusion of the festival spring will have arrived. In preparation, workers with water tanks on their backs wet down the sides of the wooden structure and the slope just above the onlookers. Fire has destroyed quite a few temples in Japan, although they are quickly and faithfully rebuilt.

Each night during the annual festival the monks carry ten of the giant torches up into the hall, run across the upper porch and, culminating the firey display, waving the torches in circles and showering the crowd below with sparks, bringing oohs and ahs. Men with brooms patrol the porch above the crowd along the wooden wall, brushing the embers away.

After the ceremony the crowd goes up the steps and into the Hall, looking for bits of ashes to improve their prospects for the year . . .

and then head home.

Deep in Osaka

Up an elevator in the heart of Japan’s second largest city is a window into the
the streets of 1830s Osaka faithfully recreated inside . . .
While the 21st century remains outside the window, 8 floors down, at the Museum of Housing and Living.
In another part of town…
the crowds await the arrival of the sumo stars.
Sumo has been part of life in Japan for over 1500 years and became part of the ceremonies of the Imperial Court in the 8th century during the Nara Period. The first matches had religious importance and ritual remains an integral part of the sport. The dohyo or sumo ring is treated as a sacred space, women are forbidden from entering. The roof is meant to resemble a Shinto shrine, the four tassels representing the seasons. Here the wrestlers are led out into the dohyo and introduced by the gyoji or referee.
The wresters go through preliminaries. They clap their hands to get the attention of the gods. They throw salt to protect against injury. They slap their bodies and stomp their feet, all in preparation for the bout.
Then it can be over in seconds with an explosive burst of raw energy or the wrestlers may stagger about for a while until one of the wrestlers either touches the ground or is pushed from the ring (sometimes onto spectators seated nearby). After watching it for a while it becomes clear that there is a lot of technique and skill involved, not just massive force from the imposing size of the players. There are no weight classes. As the day progressed, the level of contestants steadily improved. Early in the day, the crowd was sparce and most matches were over in seconds. By the afternoon, the matches became more interesting to watch and by mid-afternoon the sumo stars began to arrive to prepare for the final matches of the day. A number of times it wasn’t clear who won a match. The judges in black kimonos by the side of the dohyo then confer and either decide the winner or order a replay of the match (which we saw only once).

Weirdly Wonderful

Kabuki! Men dressed in elaborate kimonos with extravagant makeup. Musicians playing the shamisen, flutes, drums, and an assortment of other instruments. Singers with a sound like cante flamenco, bending their tone in and out of tune. Extravantly stylized, but exquisitely expressive, acting and mime. Speaking voices modulated to an extreme, so much so that the limits of the human throat seem to be approached. Fable-like story lines. These are the elements of Kabuki and they are strangely compelling when all put together.

So, the four of us ventured into Kyoto to see it live and with good seats. As the time for the performance approached, the atmosphere became more surreal as uniformed young women intoning a warning chant-like against the use of photography or recording devices worked their way up the aisles, as a wood block sounded seemingly at random.

We were able to follow the stories reasonably well thanks to plot synopses in a booklet with the bios of all the actors, including this gentlemen who played a young woman who succeeded in outwitting the hermit so the dragon could be unleashed and the drought brought to an end, or something like that.

Keeping with the theme of a cultural day, we took a taxi to a candy shop where we learned how to make the traditional confections served in the tea ceremony.
We all passed the test, although the shapes Jim made were a little harder to recognize. In our boxes, we were given two candies as models and lumps of materials to try our hand at the art. It took us about an hour to complete the task, while our teacher turns out about 50 per hour that are beautifully finished.

Back in Japan

We’re back in Japan to visit Kyle & Ai.

Since it was a work day for Ai, we headed into Kyoto with Kyle for a tour of the Imperial Palace.

Even though it was a brisk day in Kyoto, we learned there were another 9 1/2 inches of snow back home. It was here in Kyoto that Shogun Tokugawa turned over power to Emperor Meiji in 1868, ending Kyoto’s 1,000 years as the capital of Japan when the Emperor moved his capital to Tokyo.

The main ceremonial building of the palace complex is the Shishinden, where enthronement ceremonies took place. When Emperor Akihito acceded to the throne in 1989, the Imperial thrones were flown by helicopter to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

The feet of the Emperor at Kyoto never touched the ground. The Seiryoden was the Emperor’s residence. He would sit on raised tatamis to receive people and retreat to the tent behind when he tired. If he left the building he would be carried.

Of the 1,800 paintings in the Palace, these are a few of the very few that can be seen by the public. They adorn waiting rooms for aristocrats seeking audiences with the Emperor. The lowest order of nobles were assigned to the room decorated with blossomin cherry trees and with red tapes between the tatami mats. The next highest group used the room with cranes and white tapes between the tatamis. The very highest of the nobles waited in the room with white tapes and tigers on the walls. In its adoption by the Japanese, the zodiac retained the tiger even though the only sign of tigers ever having lived in Japan are the fossil remains of prehistoric times. However, the tiger has always been a potent symbol of bravery, dignity and the power to protect.

The Oikeniwa Garden, inside the palace walls, provided a moment of traquil reflection . . .

before returning to the modern city of Kyoto and a bit of shopping and lunch.

Berlin: Day Four

We started our day at Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, originally consecrated in 1895 and named by Kaiser Wilhelm II in honor of his grandfather. It was irreparably damaged in a bombing raid in WWII and a modern church has been constructed in four buildings clustered around the ruins. The 1963 construction is undergoing renovation. The figure of Jesus is made of tombak, a metal with which we hadn’t been familiar.

We next visited one of 16 atomic bomb shelters constructed in Berlin in the 1970s. It was intended to house 3600 people for two weeks and there were rooms designed to count people through peepholes so that no more than the allotted number could enter the shelter itself. It would have been insanely cramped and claustrophobic if ever used, not to mention that the 16 shelters would only have housed 1% of Berlin’s population. There were no mirrors so as to discourage suicide and deprive the berserk of potential weapons. The kitchen in the photo would serve 1800 people. Two of the four well water pumps were left as manually operated ones to provide the opportunity for exercise or to vent pent up anger.

After a civilized lunch, a visit to the Kathe Kollwitz museum and some shoes-off time at the hotel, we returned to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an evocative city block near the Brandburg Gate. Our first evening we walked through in the dark. The terrain undulates across the field, so that the blocks vary greatly in height to maintain only slight variations on the visual surface. Jewish people had been deeply woven into the life of Berlin for centuries. Perhaps 10,000 live there now.

For our final dinner in Berlin, we went for sausages – good ones. We were encouraged by the warm smell of a wood fire and sausages being grilled. We weren’t disappointed.

We also returned to the Brandenburg Gate to check out the festivities marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The balloons lined 10 miles out of the more than 25 miles of death strip that once kept East Germans out of the west. Tonight it was the scene of a party with balloons marking the path of the Wall.

All along the path of the wall, large screens played out scenes from the time when the wall separated families and destinies: scenes like an East German official saying, “If people don’t respect our borders, they will taste our bullets” and footage showing the wide “no man’s land” on the east side of the wall laced with barbed wire and guards on both sides lobbing tear gas canisters at each other.

At Checkpoint Charlie or Potsdamer Platz it is hard to believe that 25 years ago you would be staring at a wall dividing a divided city in a divided country and that shortly before that era you would be standing in the center of capital that, to use a term often repeated on explanatory signage throughout the city, was at the heart of a period of “madness.”

Berlin: Day Three

A whole area of the Pergamon Museum was just closed – until 2019 – the area housing the famous Pergamon Altar, for which the museum is named. Thank goodness! Otherwise, we’d really be suffering from museum overload. There was enough jaw-dropping material remaining to keep us fully engaged. We’ve included a scant sampling with no real detail (because we’re not taking notes, sorry!).

King Nebuchadnezzar built a massive processional way and entrance gate for the city of Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, around 575 BC. Ishtar is a Babylonian goddess of some sort. This was one of eight gates. Impressive.
This mihrab or Islamic prayer niche is, we would guess, ten or twelve feet tall. It is, of course, the focal point for prayer and certainly creates an impression conducive to sublime meditation.
This is the earliest known example of writing that is not cuneiform. It is a Semitic writing that is the ancestor of Greek, Arabic, and Roman writing.
In the Neues Museum, next to the Pergamon, there are a few “must see” objects. One of them is a late Bronze Age (probably around 1000 to 800 BC) hammered gold cone shaped hat filled with power enhancing knowledge, like a 19 year calendar that successfully ties together the solar and lunar calendars. There are four such hats discovered to date, although cone shaped magical hats are apparently known in a number of cultures.

For a change of pace, we visited the East Side Gallery, an area of the Berlin Wall covered with street art. “The Kiss” between Gorbachev and Honecker is a classic. It was a little more difficult making the trip to see this than expected because one of the train systems was closed due to a strike. Oh, well.

After our daytime adventures, we headed to Gendarmenmarkt and Fassenbender & Rauch who bill themselves as the largest chocolatier in the world. Upstairs is a cafe where all of the menu items incorporate chocolate. Some menu items are more successful than others, but we thoroughly enjoyed our pre-concert dinner.

(Full room)

After dinner we walked over to the Konzerthaus to hear Ivan Fischer conducting the Konzerthausorchester Berlin in Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C Major. Much to our surprise, this was a symphony in the round with audience members interspersed among the orchestra on the floor of the hall. We spoke with the violinist behind us and learned that this was, in fact, the first time they had ever done such a thing. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. We certainly did, although – as one might expect – the balance of instruments was tilted towards whoever sat closest to you. We got a lot of double bass and first violin. Of course, the antiphonal effect was amazing. Fischer gave a talk before each movement and responded to comments on social media at the conclusion. This was all lost on us since it was in German. Directly in front of us, in the press section, a woman was doing what – for want of a better term – we’d call automatic drawing. She had large sheets of paper on her lap and moved a pencil around the paper in response to the music. At times it was as if she were frenetically bowing a phantom instrument. Unfortunately, she didn’t know the score and would get caught up in something that didn’t shift in time with the music. A strange phenomenon to add to our entertainment. All in all, a lot of fun.

 

Berlin: Day Two

Ah . . . the initial motivation for our trip to Berlin, an exhibit put together by the Danish National Museum, the British Museum and the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum here in Berlin. As photos were not permitted, words will have to suffice.

As we pointed out in our post from L’Anse Aux Meadow, the Vikings have been reappraised in recent years. They are no longer seen by scholars as merely bloodthirsty debauchers, pillagers, rapists and all-around scoundrels. That was apparently the norm in those days and, in any case, it was their enemies who wrote their history. They are now recognized as having had a well-established and capable society that held sway over a very considerable area for a few hundred years.

They came to control Ladoga in present day Russia and were invited by the Russian princes to establish control over what were fractious Russian tribes, founding what became the Rurik Dynasty of the Kievan Rus’ (see our postings from Russia). They provided the guard to the Byzantine emperors (the Varangian Guard). They founded the first towns in Ireland (and, we’re told, are responsible for the red-headed among the Irish). They, as we all know, established at least one base camp in North America. And, without the Vikings, how could Wagner have written The Ride of the Valkyries? Need we say more?

By the way, we do have one correction to a prior post from Newfoundland. We reported that, according to our Parks Canada interpreter, only one metal Viking helmet had ever been unearthed. We saw three in the exhibit, although we can confirm that they did not have horns. There was one skull with teeth filed down to provide a fearsome impression, but that’s not unique among the world’s peoples. There were also a lot of swords, including Ulfberht swords. These Frankish swords were the best money could buy in the 9th century and were favored by the Vikings. Sometimes their enemies would dig up the graves of Viking warriors just to have the best in modern weaponry.

You just might think there’s a conspiracy to bring the Vikings back to full respectability or perhaps mount a campaign to take over the world in their name when you realize that something you use every day is named after the king who united the Danish tribes and converted them to Christianity. The Bluetooth logo is a combination of the runes used to create the initials of none other than Harald Bluetooth (died 985).

We went next door to the museum built on the site of Gestapo headquarters to become immersed in true evil. The Topographie Des Terrors demands a lot of reading and studying seemingly countless photographs documenting the rise of Hitler and the SS. It is horrifying to see photograph after photograph of both cheering crowds and of people lined up for processing or execution or detention, middle-aged men in suits, some portly and some thin, with their arms raised facing a wall or of village women and children tied to ropes held casually by soldiers pausing for a photo op. A lot of people were making their way patiently and soberly through the exhibits. There were groups of school children and a few foreigners, but mostly Germans reading intently. It makes you wonder whether the rest of us will continue to remember the lessons of the twentieth century.

In front of the Terror museum a block long section of the Berlin Wall has been preserved and we found a preserved East German guard tower near Potsdamer Platz. One grim period followed another, although we are beginning to find opportunities for humor in thinking about the division of the city and of the country until just 25 years ago. In comparison, it is a lesser wound to heal. Nonetheless, the partition of Germany was certainly not a time to recall with affection.

Down the street is Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous crossing point between East and West Berlin during the occupation. It was a frightening place in those days with incredible anxiety on both sides. Many Germans died trying to escape to the west over the wall and this was one of the few ways to make it through without being killed.

The Currywurst Museum is a short walk from Checkpoint Charlie. It is a delightful celebration of a very popular street food. What, you may ask, is currywurst? In brief, it is slices of sausage topped with a tomato/curry sauce that you eat with a tiny fork off a paper plate. It’s quite delicious. The museum cleverly intertwines stealth history lessons in their kitchy presentation.
It seems that currywurst was invented during the Russian blockade of West Berlin, during the time of hardship when provisions of any kind were hard to come by and cigarettes were the currency. A housewife experimented with tomato sauce and the British curry powder no German had a use for and ended up opening a small chain of currywurst stands.
To round out the day, we made our way to KaDeWe (“caw day vay”), the famous Berlin department store. The food emporium is on the sixth floor and has a series of little cafe bars. We perched on the stools at one to rest ourselves and enjoy some cappuccinos and a lovely German pastry before taking the U-Bahn to the stop near our hotel. So far, Berlin has been living up to its reputation as a dynamic and accessible city filled with a fascinating mix of people. We’re enjoying being part of that mix.