Racing the Squalls

You can't step in the same river twice.  Heraclitus' best known quote applies as equally well to Japan as it does to Greece.  When I arrived in Japan in 1994 I wasted little time in traveling across the country as much as I could, assuming, as most of us do, that I'd only be here a year or two.  I saw a good deal that initial year, but having limited Japanese, and only a basic understanding of what I was looking at.  Recently, with over two decades of experience as my guide, I've begun to revisit some of those places.

You can't step in the same river twice.  Nor can you bicycle the same plain.  I must have visited Asuka sometime in 1995, and followed a recommended hike down from Okadera to a bicycle rental place to finish the rest of the sites in the saddle.  I remember little of that trip, but have stronger memories of subsequent visits, mainly road walks detailed on this blog over the last few years, though the highlight would surely be the almost primordial Kodo gig amongst ancient tombs (especially the part where I wandered off during the Odaiko solo and was mesmerized by the shadow of the drummer dancing upon the stones).  The bicycle-friendly maps I'd seen during my walks had tempted me back yet again, and it was time to revisit the sites themselves, to interact and learn from them, rather than simply stroll past.

The heat of August is always unpleasant, making even the act of brushing your teeth a sweaty affair.  But it seems the perfect time to lose the few kilograms I'd put on during two weeks in Alaska.  The weather has other ideas, and the thunderstorm that awakens me successfully keeps the sun at bay.  Yet the forecast looks promising so I jump a train south, wincing out the rain-soaked windows.

I depart Asuka in sunlight.  As a stream of schoolgirls walk heavily down the station steps, I wheel in the opposite direction, east.  Not far off is one of Asuka's highlights, the Takamatsuzuka tomb, a pine tree covered hillock as evinced by the name itself.  The sides have been cleared and turned into a pleasant park, criss-crossed with paths for the cyclist or pedestrian.  I cycle up and around the pines, as beneath me, an imperial lost to history lies surrounded by an array of elaborate wall murals.  The Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, and Vermilion Bird find parallel to figures found in a similar tomb in Mongolia, depicted as traveling in an entourage of Sogdianian traders of the Central Asian Silk Road. These, as well as the adjacent Asuka Bijin beauties are National Treasures, and defy any attempt to remove them due to the fragility of the stone.  (As such they were on view to the public for a short time earlier this year.)

A bicycle underpass brings me to a small museum whose highlight is a large diorama of the entire plain.  More important on such a hot day is the air conditioning and cold tea.  Out front, vine-laden gourds get a similar cooling due to a misting system, under which I too take a turn.  Behind the museum is a small pond, completely covered with lotus plants, many blooming a brilliant purple, a suitable august color, if using the term in both its connotations.  Two old-timers sit beside the pond, their camera lenses as large as cannons.  I am tempted to ask what they are shooting, but another mist begins to fall from the sky above me.  

Through a small village and into a bamboo grove, I come to the paired stones known as Oni no Manaita (Demon's cutting board) and Oni no Secchin (Demon's toilet).  Japanese legends are rife with oni, and due to the time frame, I presume that they began with encounters with larger, hairier refugees from the Asian mainland, who hid themselves as brigands in the hills, descending to raid villages and carry off food, women, and livestock.  This pair of stones is supposedly where their victims were carved up for dinner, and then subsequently disposed of through defecation.  

All this may have occurred during the time of Tenmu, the 7th Century emperor who had commissioned both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, the only "religious texts" associated with Shinto.  The gods seemed occupied with myself as well, if in the form of a heavier rain, causing me to find shelter briefly under the roof of a small gate to Tenmu's tomb.  The weather breaks out again a few minutes on, as I marvel at the Kameishi stone carved to look like a turtle.  Beside it is a shelter covered in corregated iron, which offered benches for visitors, as well as a series of shelves displaying local produce bagged and tagged at 100 yen.  It is easy to entrust the honor system, what with all the gods and ancestors about.  

After a brief rest, I pedal away with one wary eye on the western sky.  I follow a pleasant path meant specifically for bicyclists, with leads me through rice fields to Tachibana-dera, the supposed birth place of Shotoku-Taishi, and one of seven temples that he had commissioned.  The late 6th Century imperial regent was an early propagator of Buddhism,which had not long before been introduced from China as a way to civilize the wild tribes of the Japanese archipelago. The temple is named for a type of mandarin orange that comes from a tree transplanted from China, and is also well known for the Janus-like two-faced stone, carved to represent good and evil.  In the adjacent Ōjo-in hall, the visitor is encouraged to recline on the tatami mats and admire the 260 flowers painted on the ceiling.

In its day, the sprawling grounds of Tachibana-dera would have abutted those of the adjacent Kawahara-dera, whose modest form stands amidst an open patch of land, the foundations stones of its ancient incarnation still visible amidst the grass. It is a pleasant surprise in a country known for its shoe-horn approach to development.  I express this very point to the wife of the resident priest, how unusual it is that the temple lands weren't broken up by the pro-Shinto Meiji-ists at the end of the feudal period, or by the occupation forces after the war.  She smiles in a way that shows that she too is pleased.  I had initiated our conversation by asking the meaning of the sign out front claiming that this temple was the first in Japan to do sutra-copying.  This practice began in the 12th century, when the temple was already five centuries old.  Parishioners lay clear paper over a sutra (usually the Heart Sutra), and trace the characters in order to gain merit.  With the recent influx in foreign tourists, the temple has begun to offer the service in English.  The wife asks me if I'd like to try but I beg off, not liking the look of the sky and still having ground to cover.  

It is a gentle rise to Ishibutai tomb, a wide open patch of grass at the center of which is a massive pile of stones, the largest megalithic site in Japan  The grassy tumulus has long disappeared, but perhaps the mountain itself was meant to take on that role. There is little to see inside, so it is better to step back and ponder how anyone could have moved stones of such size (the ceiling stone alone weighs 77 tons), or the reason why, though similar sites can be found the world over.  

Asuka village proper begins here.  Backtracking slightly, I enter a small lane that has maintained the look of the feudal period that came a century after the height of the Asuka civilization, a look that is unspeakably Japanese to the foreign eye.  Simplistic buildings of dark wood stand shoulder to shoulder, most converted to galleries or cafes.  My ears pull the focus from my eyes, captured by a recorded lecture piped from one of them. Inukai Manyo Memorial Hall is dedicated to Professor Inukai Takashi, who walked throughout the country to sites related to the 1400 year old Manyoshu, one of the world's earliest collection of poems.  He felt that visiting the sites would bring a deeper understanding of their meaning, visiting 250 of them over 50 years.  His exertions led to the Manyoshu's current popularity, and he even collected a number of the poems which he illustrated in the form of karuta cards, a game popular at New Year's. His daughter has continued this work of illustration, and I read through a series that she has translated into English.  She joins me as I eat a plate of hayashi rice in the museum's cafe, the enthusiasm about her father's work as colorful as the prints on the walls around us.

Manyoshu has a close association with Asuka, and not far off is a even larger museum dedicated to the work itself.  But with the weather holding, I prefer the poetry in motion of bicycling.  I do make a brief stop at the Sakafuneishi which stands on a hillock above.  This large 5.5 meter stone sits alone in a stretch of bamboo forest, and it is presumed that the mysterious, almost alien-like grooves and channels carved into its face were for some ancient means of oil or alcohol production, though to me it resembled perhaps a primitive operating table (Though I have been recently watching The Knick).  A further section, mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, was discovered in the year 2000, and can be seen below at the foot of the hill.  

From here it is a short ride to Asuka-dera.  A temple has stood on this site since 588, built under the guidance of Korean craftsmen, (who had a hand in much of the culture developed at the time, and whose name resonates in the bizarre pronunciation of the kanji for many villages in the area).  I step inside and begin to learn about the temple's history from a young monk who seems happy to talk with visitors.  We stand before the temple's Great Buddha, the oldest in Japan.  There is a steadfast dignity in the old Buddha's gaze, unwavering since the year 606, but the scarring in the copper strongly reflects the impermanence of form.  This impermanence is further exemplified in a small pagoda that sits out back beside the rice paddies, which commemorates the death of Soga no Iruka.  His execution, and his father's subsequent suicide, marked the demise of the Soga clan, immigrants from the mainland who founded Asuka-dera and were the Asuka era's most important family.  

While the pagoda still stands, most other temples from the period remain only as foundations.  I play connect the dots with the ruins, most impressive being Dainkandai-ji's multi-level stone stele, and the Yamada-dera site, portions of which have been converted into the impressive Asuka Historical Museum today housing many of the old Buddhist art and relics. 

Similarly, Asuka-dera's original structure was disassembled to be rebuilt in Nara as Gango-ji, supporting that temple's claim of being the first in Japan.  Buddhism itself is based on the idea of change, and change to the area came quickly.  Unbeknownst to Shotoku Taishi, the coming of Buddhism was the beginning of the end to the Asuka, as the world he knew evolved into a more refined society due to that belief system's code of morals and ethics, followed by the more political Risturyo Codes a half-century later.   This codification too was a Chinese import, Confucian at heart, and thus began the rush to catch up with the Continent and throw off Japan's subordinate status. The imperial court entrenched itself not far to the north at Nara, and just after the turn of the next century, the move was complete, and the country began to take on a shape familiar to modern eyes.   

On the turntable:  James Galway, "Over the Sea to Skye"
On the nighttable :  Deborah Dawkin, "Knut Hamsun, Dreamer and Dissenter"

Middle of Somewhere

I've walked a great number of roads in this country, but today was the first time I've walked a road that no longer exists.  There is a triumvirate of ancient paths between Asuka and Nara, traversed perhaps when the former capital passed the baton of Imperial seat to the latter.   I'd already walked both the High Road and the Low, so I figured it was time to honor my Buddhist heroes and take the Middle Way.

The walk started at Asuka Station, with the first hour or so passing between monuments dating to a time when the wild Jōmon tribes began cutting their hair, putting on robes, and calling themselves the Yamato.   This is perhaps my favorite period in Japanese history, a time when Japan was most soulful, to judge from the ancient shrines, burial mounds, and the trendy accessories of an import called Buddhism.  (Sadly, a lot of this went away two centuries later with another import.  The Ritsuryō codes gave birth to a bureaucracy that quickly entrenched itself so effectively that it survived 1500 years of near constant regime change.)  So it was with great joy that I walked, eyes filled with some of the greatest beauty this land can offer, right down to the temporal shapes of the sakura.

I had little to go on, map-wise, except for one that was simply a single line running between the shrines that acted as way points, a map that paid no heed to the contemporary reality of house, factory or fields, passing directly through them.  And most amazingly, my path did indeed run arrow straight, like a compass pointing due north.  I found small dirt paths between new suburban homes, crossed parking lots, and tightrope-walked low berms between earthen plots.  I only had to deviate once, at a concrete ditch which my legs were a decade too old to leap. After a brief detour, north again I went.

The day was warm and fine and busy with old timers working in their gardens or preparing their fields for planting.  By contrast, the suburbs north of Asuka were near devoid of life, and the few people I did meet seemed unable to return my greeting.  Perhaps this too is part of the Ritsuryō.  Beyond these deserts, I startled a pair of mandarins who took flight from a small canal, to land again upstream. They rose with a great deal of kinetic energy, far more than it would take to say hello.  

Leaving this no-man's land I was approaching Nara, my path now called Route 53.  There were no sidewalks, so my mind grew occupied with mental martial arts maneuvers as defense again oncoming wing-mirrors. In quieter moments, my eyes sought vistas familiar from previous walks, of Mounts  Miwa and Ryozan, of the forests of Kashima Jingu and the dormitory village of Tenri, of the as yet unclimbed peaks of Nijo-zan, and Katsuragi.  

I've mentioned Tenri before so won't go into it again here.  But I'm always amazed and the size and the scale of the place (built upon the site of what had been the capital for a decade at the end of the 5th century).  I noticed today for the first time a whole section of their campus tucked up in a nook of the hills, all tall apartment flats and massive boxes that could only be auditoriums. Incredible how the visions of a middle-aged peasant woman could grow into an organization with over 2 million followers.      

Just beyond was the Nara river,  little more than a small creek of one-meter-across.  On its far shore was a small hut sheltering a couple of dozen Jizo, who found eternal shade beneath the broad branches of the chestnut tree above.  Raising my head to look beyond its upper reaches, I found some comfort in my first glimpse of Wakakusa-yama's bald pate.  Not much further to go. 

The rest of the day was a slow creep into Nara.  There wasn't much to catch the eye, so I allowed the ears their turn, offering them the voice of Allen Ginsberg to distract them with some of his poems.  All the way, cars rushed by like the ghost of Neil Cassidy. 

In Nara proper, I eased off my ever-linear northern trajectory and detoured into the warren of lanes south of the station.  Most tourism in Nara is centered around the deer park, leaving me alone to walk the narrow paths lined in wood and tile and earth, which front temples and galleries and cafes. There is a definitive Bohemian feel to Nara, albeit one grounded in the 8th century.  And as I wrapped up my stroll I felt yet again how much preferable the place is compared to Kyoto. 

This thought returned to me that evening, when I attended a small festival at Goryō Jinja, my neighborhood shrine.  Yet even at this stripped down scale there was little warmth.  Whereas most festivals I've attended in Japan gave a sense of cathartic communitas, in Kyoto they take the form of touristic processions, where the only real community participation entails standing in the heat along the route. Actors move along in fixed lines and positions, dressed in attire that was traditionally never worn by the commoner, implying a certain separation.  It inevitably culminates in a group of men carrying or dragging along a shrine or a cart or those towering yamaboko.  In Kyoto, history's weight is heavy.     


On the turntable:  Art Pepper, "Goin' Home"
On the turntable:  Toby Thompson, "Positively Main Street"

Poipourri of Strolls

I have a busy day ahead,  a series of hikes and walks splayed across Nara prefecture, which now appears bigger on maps than it had before.  I'd only be able to cover that distance by car, so I rise with the sun and drive into its fresh rays not long afterward.  This early start ensures that I beat Kyoto rush hour traffic, but I hadn't counted Nara city proper, so with a crawl I move in the long shadows of its ancient relics.

I am nearing my first destination when a sign welled up, for something called the Ancient Tang Burial Mound.  Intrigued by the name and the low tower silhouetted against the hills, I pull into the car park.  The tower is built into one corner of a man-made pond, punctuated by wooden planks used as a seat for fishing, and ringed with sakura just coming into bud. The park that surrounds it had been built in 1994, but there seems to be a bit of expansion going on, and I wondered if it were connected to the recent influx of Chinese tourism, and whether those tour groups found their way out here.  Upon approach, I find the tower was off-limits to climbing, but it makes for a pleasant excuse to stretch my legs and bladder. There is a basic information sign telling me that the tomb had been discovered in 1901, but not when it had been built.  There are photos of a few broken relics, now housed in a nearby museum, but I can't budget time to investigate further.  I am intrigued by this long dead Chinese, of a status that warranted him a sizeable tomb.   This area is rich in Korean influence, reflected both in its place names and its artistic traditions, though the Tang had come a bit later and their touch lingers to this day.   

My actual first destination is the alleged burial mound of the legendary Himiko, a shaman-queen who appears in the archives of that Tang Dynasty.  Japanese records are non-existent, so the location of her tomb is in dispute, if she had existed at all.  I had already visited one of her 'tombs' on Kyushu's Kunisaki peninsula, and a month ago I learned of this Hashinaka site.   A flotilla of ducks floats across the placid surface of the pond that bordered this reasonably sized tomb, though the lack of infrastructure gave hint of few human visitors.  There is a small rock garden and a cafe, and how pleasant it would be to sit at the waters edge and ponder what may have been.  Instead I park my car near a kindergarten on the opposite side, the laughter of the children dissolving into that of crows, feisty and active in the forested tomb above.  I circumambulate around the tomb, to the accompaniment of the usual sounds of morning, of the excitable voices of old woman greeting one another in the street, of the bangs of construction somewhere out of sight, of the canned music of a kerosene truck circling slowly and optimistically.

A short drive away is Omiwa Jinja, where I park and walk up to the adjacent Hibara Shrine. Here I am given a sash, a blessing, and a somewhat stern reminder of the rules.    I must appear impatient as I am eager to set off before the group of perhaps 60 old timers kitted out in hiking gear.  I move up quickly and steadily, legs taken aback at the steep pitch of the trail.  I overtake a few people, a family, a middle-aged woman and her less than enthused teenage son, a number of women walking alone.  The forests are wild, untouched, far more beautiful than the straight rows of cedar beyond the fences.  There are a number of features along the way, a waterfall, a spring, an ancient and majestic cypress, towering, towering.  I make good time, nearly half that as predicted by the maps, and before I know it I am standing before a large circle of stones.  This is one of Japan's oldest holy sites, and even today the mountain itself is seen as a god.  In a remote corner of the peak a woman is doing full prostrations to the god, her devotion obviously far deeper than that of the usual 'power-spot' groupie.  I descend just after her, and her sureness of foot betrays the fact that she is quite regular in her veneration.  As I drop lower into the forest, I pass another young woman, with the supple and straight posture of the yogini, feet bare to absorb every bit of prana that the gods allow.  

Onward, south to Uda, an ancient village celebrated in the Manyoshu for its light.  The sky isn't the red of the poem, but a rich blue that doesn't seem to mind that the leaves and flowers have yet to return.  This next section of walk takes me forward through the centuries, from the ancient Asuka countryside, to the mountain temples of the Muromachi, to the centralized hub of Edo town.  Visiting one temple, Tokugenji, I see that the house adjacent to the main hall is littered with drums of a variety of cultures.  Curious, I call out to whomever it is I hear washing up back in the darkness.  I expect a shaved-headed older priest, but instead I am approached by a man closer to my age, with tidy beard and long scraggly hair.  Under the pretext of him clarifying a name on the temple's historical information sign, I shift to ask him about music.  So begins a half-hour conversation about life, music, and common acquaintances.  I'm not sure from his look and manner whether he is the priest here, but his life and vision is far closer to the Buddhist ideal than the more programmed ordained.   His wife, a woodblock printer, joins us, and though I could pass the afternoon here, I need to peel off at some point.  After a quick look at the Oda clan graves in the forest above, I drop down to walk the compact and well-preserved grid of narrow street that make up the town center.  It is a beautiful and quiet place, and once again my mind begins to explore the contours of a life lived in these remote reaches.     

After a long meandering drive through the hills that border Mount Yoshino, I find myself less enthused with the town of Gojo, which is spoilt and overbuilt and hides its lovely old post town look away beside the river.  This single street is the only thing of interest here, and I don't take long to trace its length up and back.  

Then, and finally, I continue to Taishi-cho in order to trace a section I'd skirted as I walked adjacent along the Takeuchi Kaidō.  At its most extreme reach is Futagozuka Tomb, tree-covered and bored out to partially reveal the entrance to the twinned tombs within.  It is rare that you are allowed to walk atop one of these tombs, and from the summit I stand and watch the sun dropping toward Kansai Airport far to the west.  As I turn again toward my car, I see two women in an adjacent field, one lightly patting the belly of the other who has apparently toppled over.  She is quiet and breathing regularly, and I sit with them until a group of men return to help.  I stand there a moment more, wondering what, if anything, to do, until I figure that there is little I can do, and that medical attention had been called.  But the image of these woman stays with me as I too head toward that setting sun, until the traffic pulls my focus back once again to the passage of the road ahead.  



On the turntable:  Art Pepper, "Lost Life"
On the nighttable:  James Kirkup, "Me All Over"

Journey through the Past

The weather forecast showed 12 degree temps, which the sunny morning skies confirmed.  I decided to spend the day playing connect the dots.  I had already walked a series of routes down in south Nara prefecture, but subsequent internet fiddling showed me that I had 'eaten the loaf, but left the heels,' if you will.  Where did those routes connect?  A fine day to find out. 

Nothing terribly special to report, as I'd already consumed the tastiest bits.  Nara is world famous for its lengthy history, nearly 1500 years of history, so its no surprise at how lived in the area looks.  Even the newer house look weathered, the older ones hanging on.  There are the odd small blemishes of industry, and the obligatory highways and rail lines, but I like the way the mountains and fields close in to hug everything. In particular the first section of the day, along the eastern reaches of the Yamato Kaidō, as the valley walls grow closer and closer as if to shield its kiss with the Hase Kaidō, a kiss I'd missed on my walking the latter road two years ago. 

Not far away is the junction with the Kami-tsu-michi.  I had thought that I had covered this 2-km elbow of the Ise Hon Kaidō while on a walk of the Tokai Shizen Hodō in 2009,  but the TSH is further up toward the hills, a fact I discover as I sit sunning myself beside Shiroyama Jinja, perusing a series of online websites and refueling on a rice ball and some cold chicken.  The Ise Kaido proper follows the river below, and so now do I.  A handful of children play in its dry bed, two grannies gossip on a bench above.  I criss-cross someone's farm, passing a number of signs pointing toward the seemingly infinite shrines and ruins that dot this, the Yama-no-be Michi, one of my earliest walks in the area, and still one of my favorite walks in Japan.  I move through the village of Miwa, following the shrill sound of a flute to an Hatsu Ebisu festival and its giant red fish omikoshi.  This is an affiliate shrine of nearby Miwa Jingu, where the god of alcohol is deified. I smile at the smaller shrine's eponymous beer, and realize that I have yet to drink that particular brand this year.  Hatsu Yebisu is most definitely called for, but will have to wait, as February is generally a dry month for me.  (Perhaps then, a Super Dry instead?)  A handful of steps away brings me to Miwa Jingu's massive torii, supposedly the tallest in Japan.  Not long after arriving in Japan, knowing that sake is enshrined here, I sat drinking a cup in the shadow of that very gate, watching the sun set over the Katsuragi range.  This gate more or less marks where I had thought I'd finished my walk of the Kami-no-michi in 2014.
But now, my walk of the Ise Kaido can finally be called complete. 

I toast this with a tea and some chocolate, before heading down Route 169, into the heart of Sakurai.  It is a modern road, yet thankfully lined with mom and pop shops rather than box stores.  It never ceases to amaze me just how many beauty salons and eyewear shops there are in Japan.   It is as its citizens want not only the perfect coif, but also the ability to clearly see the perfect coif of everyone else.   (This is where I will insert a snarky quip, saying "for a people so dead set on 20/20 vision, it is amazing how astigmatic is the government's hindsight view, in following the definition found in Merriam-Webster: 'showing incapacity for observation or discrimination.'" Perhaps my own lenses are rose-tinted.) 

The Kami-tsu-Michi is now cut by a rail line and a river, but after a little creative detouring, I am walking the section known locally as the Yamada Kaidō (confused yet?).  It is more or less the rural Route 15, which curves itself toward Kashima Jingu.  The sky clouds over for the first time all day which brings the wind and chill.  Alternately, the mists of time part to reveal the landscape of the sixth century capital Asuka, dotted with dozens of key-shaped burial mounds.  A village, then a town escort me back to the rail-line, which I follow south a few kilometers until I enter the train station. 

This ending will too serve as a beginning.  I have one last road to walk down here, leading from this tomb kingdom of Asuka to the later-era Heijo Palace of Nara, paralleling the temporal progression that marked the transition from newly sedentary hunter gatherers to a more established civilization defined by collective agriculture and a new import --  Buddhism.

No map links per se, due to the nature of the day.  Instead:

On the turntable:  Annie Lennox, "Medusa"
On the nighttable:  John Nathan, "Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere"
  

The Low Road to Nara

Standing before the concrete water basin, I am suddenly enshrouded in white.  As I was undergoing my water purification before entering Kashihara Jingu, a group of about two dozen priests surround me, and begin to go through their own ablutions.  Slightly intimidated, I move away from them, over the raked gravel that covers this wide open space.  In shrines of this scale, the sense of airiness always feels that the whole place will take flight.  Perhaps the stone covering the grounds is a way to tether it to the earth.   

In entering the shrine, I have left the Shimotsumichi, one of the three old roads that had once led to the Heijō palace from the south.  This palace was the home of the Imperial court during the Nara period, which lasted for the majority of the 8th Century, a time when that city was considered the true end of the Silk Road, its treasures having been filtered through the parallel palaces of the T'ang.  

I allow my detour to continue, swinging widely to the east, in order to visit the site of the old Fujiwara palace that preceded Heijō as the capital, though for a mere 16 years.  This site served as both a physical and temporal transition from the earlier Asuka capital a short walk south.  I love this area, so rich in history, so fertile and broad in the never-ending rice paddies and the tell-tale tufts of forest that mark the eternal resting places of Imperials dead for over a millennium.   This Fujiwara-kyō is simply massive, taking me a good half and hour to cross, passing dozens of two-meter high pillars laid out in parallel rows here and there across the plain.  Marking the locations of ancient buildings, I lean on what I expect to be wood, but find to be instead some spongy synthetic material.  The color is similar to my T-shirt, which had been orange when I put it on at dawn, but is by now sweat-soaked to a dull ochre. 

Heading west brings me to Ofusa Kannon-ji temple, its courtyard filled with roses.  Above, hundreds of glass wind chimes have been hung.  In summer, the Japanese believe that a wind chime helps to cool the body, since the sound of striker on glass is the sound of the movement of wind.   As I pass beneath however, the breeze stirs up not a delicate jingle but a cacophony of a fully-loaded tray dropped in a restaurant.

Back to the old road proper, narrow and lined with old wooden structures. A pair of old men hang paper lanterns over the road, the sign of an impending festival.  I'm on the outskirts of Yamato Yagi, a town famed for its preserved look.  Unlike the broader streets of the later Edo period post-town, these older lanes are far narrower, the structures darker and less earthen.  At the crossroads of the equally old Yokōji road, a man beckons me into what had once been an old inn and is now a very simple history museum.  The caretaker is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but all too often his enthusiasm turns to me and just how remarkably foreign I am.  I have complained about this in the past, where I want to have an intelligent conversation about history and culture, yet the other party can't see past my eye-color and the unique structure of my nose.  I can understand the natural curiosity about 'other,' I mean, at this very moment I am seeking out that which is particularly Japanese.  But after a few basic polite questions, it is nice to move on.

So I do.  Beyond the train station, the town becomes yet another suburb, and beyond this I follow a small river.  I love Nara for its water.  Steams cross and recross, leading to and from what must be hundreds of small lakes and ponds that dot this entire basin.  I am accompanied by water the rest of the day.  The river here is alive and healthy, filled with fish and turtles and cormorants.  The lower tree branches on the far bank are bedecked with trash and debris, compliments of a pair of powerful storms that roared through the Kansai during the past two weeks.  The pillars of bridges are similarly tangled with a snarl of reeds and tree limbs. 

And so it goes for the next six hours.  Where the earlier part of the day had been a delightful stroll along the cusp of history, the rest of it is spent atop a berm, with water ever to my right, houses representing a half-dozen different generations to my left.  On such a hot day, the water should be inviting, but factory after factory shadow the canals on the far bank.  I get a short reprieve in the form of a small village completely surrounded by moats like a medieval European town, but here too the water is a suspicious hue.   

At this point, I am puzzled as to why the maker of the map I am following chooses to send me to the west, rather than on the due-north trajectory that would take me directly to the main gate of Heijō palace.  Later at home, as I look at Google Street View to see what I missed, I notice that he did me a favor in detouring me off a narrow, busy road with no apparent shoulder.  Instead, I walk the bank of a much wider river, all the way into Nara proper.  Along the way, I find a mystery.  Six stone Jizo statues are lined up nearly behind a tree, but behind them is what looks like a cemetery, though devoid of all grave markers.  Even odder is that each grave looks freshly dug, these symmetrical little piles of earth topped with a pair of tubes meant to hold flowers.  I wonder if the people at rest here have been recently moved, their old plots now earmarked for some construction project.  As we have just passed the Obon holiday, I further wonder if the souls of these people had been able to find the way to their new home. 

Further on still, I come to a small park that supposedly contains a marker for the palace's old gate.  The park is overgrown and unkept, and amidst the high grass I see only a few stones written with poetry.  Yet upon one has been carved the illegible, flowing grass-style Chinese characters that may be commemorating the old gate.  Sharing the name with its better known descendant in Kyoto, the Rashomon here is as equally absent as the newer one about which the film was made.  And where Kyoto's grand old Suzuku boulevard now goes by the name of Senbon-dōri, here, what had once been the palace's main thoroughfare is now a canal that carries away what the modern city of Nara now longer needs, serving as an ironic metaphor to Japan's relationship with its own history.



On the turntable:  "Rhythmes et Melodies de L'Inde Classique"
On the nighttable:  Donna Henes, "The Moon Watcher's Companion"


 

Warning! This post has too many metaphors...

Last week, in a surprise move, Kodo played a gig in Nara-ken. The event was Tenkyo-sai, held every year amongst the ancient burial mounds in Asuka. This festival is the showcase of Yamato Daiko, essentially their scaled down version of Earth Celebration. I'd been wanting to see Yamato for about a decade now. And I wasn't disappointed. Young taiko groups tend to overemphasize flashy movements in an attempt to hide lack of power, but Yamato has both, dynamic, well-choreographed moves and a full sound which strikes the listener in the chest where it should. Their handling of bachi is incredible, with sticking so high that it'd get you penalty time in the NHL. Over half the group is women, equal in power to the men. Strangely, they all have big boobs and even bigger hair. Essentially, they're from New Jersey. One song has them all playing shamisen, knocking hell out of the things in a frenzied jam. Another number features the two lead male players, in sort of a drum battle. During this piece, they keep rolling out bigger and bigger drums in a mockery of the arms race. Then by the end, both players begin to harmonize, finishing with a handshake. Very Japanese.

Then Kodo came on. They are currently in the midst of a full tour, and as this gig seemed a mere hiccup, we got a younger, more stripped down version of the group. But blazing just the same. While Yamato may have power, Kodo has POWER. Plus their playing had the usual finesse; move subtle, more tradition. This younger Kodo was missing all of the older, pre-apprentice program stars but one, the one I call Mohawk Boy. During one piece he was at the end of a five person drum line. The other four, all former apprentices, had identical sticking exact to the millimeter. Only he was slightly different. Marcin has a theory that Kodo's apprentice program is creating almost an assembly line of drummers, at the risk of creativity. I agree, but feel that this is making for some incredibly precise stage shows, something I've noticed over the past few years. While the live shows will get better and better, future CDs will no doubt suffer. Think Grateful Dead. (Sorry Mickey Hart, dude!) On stage or off, Kodo doesn't need the flash of the younger groups since the music is what has always driven audience emotion. (Think European film vs. Hollywood.) A testiment to drumming's shamanic role.

Prior to the fireworks show which closed the festival, the two groups combined to perform "Zoku." Here the differences were glaring. Yamato members looked like kids, jumping around, while Kodo, the elders, played solid and steady. (Or, a flashback to the 2002 Soccer World Cup: workman Germany against the "play" of Brazil.)

It's OK kids, the food is just as tasty at the small table, but the conversation doesn't resonate as long...


On the turntable: Aki Ueda, "Invisible Visions"
On the nighttable: Joseph Svinth, "Getting a Grip"