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Tradition v. Star Wars

July 31, 2015 / John D. / 0 Comments

A preliminary sketch for the ‘Star Wars’ float to be on display at the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri festival depicts C-3PO and R2-D2. Festival organizers have dropped plans for the float to join the parade. | LUCASFILM LTD.

Green Shinto has carried many reports about how shrines act as the custodians of tradition, while at the same time trying to appeal to a younger generation with anime, manga, New Age power spots and other gimmicks. However, news from Aomori and the famed Nebuta Festival suggest there are definite limits to how far the authorities will go…

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Aomori Nebuta festival organizers refuse to let ‘Star Wars’ floats join parade

Kyodo/ Japan Times Jul 31, 2015

Nebuta float (courtesy japan.hillground)

AOMORI – Organizers of the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri Festival, scheduled to start in Aomori on Sunday, will not put the much-awaited floats based on “Star Wars” characters on the streets, as they feared the design goes against the cultural tradition and the floats would attract too many visitors, causing turmoil.

Many residents who had been hoping the floats would become a good opportunity to promote the city said they were disappointed by the decision.

Organizers announced in July that Nebuta floats depicting “Star Wars” characters would appear in this year’s festival. The design was created under the supervision of Lucasfilm Ltd., the producer of the films, as the first attempt to create floats using characters from movies.

The promoter of the film series asked that the floats be pulled down the main streets of the city, but the organizers refused and instead decided to reveal them at an event to be held on the eve of the festival and put them on display during the festival.

Photo courtesy JapanShops

“We put priority on preserving the tradition. I don’t regard (“Star Wars” floats) as Nebuta,” said Hidenori Nara, head of the organizing committee. The latest episode of the film series is expected to be released in December, and Nara said if the festival is seen as a part of film promotion, it could have a negative impact on the event in the future.

Organizers also said there were concerns that the appearance of “Star Wars” floats would lead to a sharp increase in the number of visitors, making it difficult to ensure safety.

Creators of the “Star Wars” floats said they cannot understand why the floats cannot parade on the streets, saying they would help boost the region’s economy.

Noboru Shirakawa, a 68-year-old resident of Aomori, said children and visitors from abroad would have enjoyed looking at “Star Wars” Nebuta on the streets more than the traditional ones.

Aomori, which hosts the festival designated as one of the national important intangible folk cultural assets, was ranked the most popular tourist site for festival-goers in a survey by major travel agent JTB Corp.

Photo courtesy JapanShops

Animal cruelty (Ageuma)

July 29, 2015 / John D. / 10 Comments

Westerners who know little or nothing of Shinto like to think it’s a ‘green’ religion. Yet strangely the voice of Shinto is completely absent from anti-nuclear demonstrations, from protests against the dolphin massacre at Taiji, and from any kind of objection to whaling. In fact, the Shinto establishment is very much aligned with the Abe government in supporting all three of the anti-environmental measures.

If Shinto was truly concerned with environmental matters, it would certainly not be practising animal cruelty. Yet that is exactly what it’s doing at the annual Tado Festival in Mie Prefecture. The sickening Age-uma festival has featured on Green Shinto twice before (see here for details), and the authorities have even been taken to court to stop the barbaric practices. Yet animal welfare monitors report that this year’s festival continues to show absolutely no improvements at all.

Ironically, the horse is a sacred animal in Shinto, as it is regarded as the mount of the kami. A few special shrines keep a white horse on the grounds, and ‘horse pictures’ are the origin of the votive plaques known as ema. Yet despite this, Shinto shrines apparently see no problem with maltreating horses, leading sometimes to severe and crippling injuries. It’s a matter of ‘tradition’.

Photos on this page from anonymous sources

Here is the report of the Japan Animal Welfare Society for this year’s festival (Newsletter 83, Spring 2015, p.9). The emphasis is theirs…

Age-Uma still running

JCAW representatives visited the Age-uma Shinji again this year to observe and report on the cruel practices. This festival, held in Inabe and Tado Shinto Shrine, uses horses in a shockingly abusive way, where they are ridden at high speed and encouraged to jump a high, vertical stone wall.

Unfortunately, the abusive actions of festival staff have continued despite numerous warnings issued by JCAW (Japan Coalition for Animal Welfare), including a request for action officially filed with the local police department.

JCAW will continue to monitor this festival and devise new ways in which to change the current situation.

This festival uses horses in a shockingly abusive way, where they are ridden at high speed and encouraged to jump a high, vertical stone wall.

For more about the Japan Animal Welfare Society, please see here.

Munakata-Okinoshima W.H. bid

July 29, 2015 / John D. / 0 Comments

Fukuoka ancient monuments tabbed for UNESCO heritage list

Kyodo (Japan Times) Jul 28, 2015\

The Council for Cultural Affairs has picked a group of five ancient monuments in Fukuoka Prefecture as a candidate for UNESCO cultural heritage status in 2017.

Munakata Shrine in northern Kyushu

The government will recommend the Munakata-Okinoshima monuments to UNESCO by next Feb. 1 for screening by the World Heritage Committee in summer 2017.

The monuments include the island of Okinoshima, which lies midway between Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula.

The island is home to Okitsu-Miya Shrine, which was used for prayer rituals for Japan’s successful exchange with the Asian continent in the fourth to ninth centuries.

About 80,000 articles unearthed on the island have been designated as national treasures, including a gold ring made on the Korean Peninsula and a cut glass from Persia.

A local government official said Okinoshima is suitable for the UNESCO cultural heritage list as it represents a rare case where the island itself has traditionally been worshipped.

The group of monuments also includes the Munakata Taisha shrine pavilions and ancient tombs on the northern tip of Kyushu.

Japan already has 18 sites on the UNESCO list, including the “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution” approved earlier this month.

The shrine at Oki Island, only open once a year for its festival

See http://explorer.road.jp/islands/okinoshima201105/ for more pictures, as above, of the Oki festival.

Festival yakuza

July 26, 2015 / John D. / 1 Comment

Yakuza at the Sanja Festival (photo by 'Yumi' for Japanworld)

Yakuza play a prominent part at the Sanja Festival (photo by ‘Yumi’ for Japanworld)

The ties of the yakuza with Shinto are not widely-known, but they certainly exist. They are not perhaps surprising when one considers that the mores of the yakuza are deeply rooted in Japanese traditions. It’s why gang leaders are often pictured making shrine visits, so as to enhance their self-image as guardians of Japaneseness. And yakuza rituals often borrow deeply from Shinto practice.

A news item in Japan Today touches on the close ties between the yakuza and the huge Sanja Festival, which took place in May. The article raises more questions than it answers. What was the purpose of the two men? How and why were they ‘unlawfully’ manoeuvering a large mikoshi? What indeed was going on?

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2 yakuza members arrested for obstructing Sanja Festival

Japan Today Jul. 26, 2015

Two yakuza members have been arrested after they obstructed the Sanja Festival in Tokyo’s Asakusa district in May.

The suspects were identified as Shuichi Obitsu, a 46–year-old executive member of organized crime group Sumiyoshi-kai, and Masahiro Kondo, a 30-year-old member of the group, Fuji TV reported Saturday.

According to police, the two men unlawfully maneuvered a large mikoshi (portable shrine) during the festival near their office. Police said they showed off their tattoos and yelled at spectators to intimidate them, all of which disrupted the flow of the festival.

Police said the pair have been charged with creating a public nuisance.

There have been many similar cases caused by yakuza members at the Sanja Festival in the past.

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For the background to this story, see this article on yakuza involvement by ampontan.
For pictures of yakuza involvement in Tokyo’s Torikoe Matsuri, click here.

There’s little mistaking the festival costume here! (courtesy the japanismo site)

Fushimi Inari Motomiya

July 20, 2015 / John D. / 4 Comments

Fushimi Inari’s magnificent entrance gate lit up for the festival

It’s at times like this that one understands why Kyoto has been voted the most popular destination on earth by readers of Time Inc’s Travel and Leisure Magazine. We’re in the midst of the Gion Festival, between the first parade and the ‘after parade’ on the 24th. The Shimogamo week-long Mitarashi Festival has just begun. And this holiday weekend sees too the huge Fushimi Inari Motomiya Festival, when worshippers from across Japan descend on the shrine.

Fox masks are a theme of the festival, in honour of Inari’s guardian animal

For two days the shrine is absolutely packed with visitors, with the highlight coming on Sunday evening when the approach and buildings have special illuminations and are lit up by lanterns. It’s a very special event at this very special shrine, which in the world’s no I city has recently overtaken Kiyomizu Temple as Kyoto’s no. 1 tourist destination.

One of the main attractions are the hand-painted lanterns, which make the approach an artistic and aesthetic experience (as well as a frantically jostling and crowded one). The ones on the outer fringes are clearly done by elementary school students, but as one approaches closer to the Worship Hall the paintings grow in sophistication. Some in the inner compound are almost breathtaking and clearly worthy of being presented for the enjoyment of the kami.

As in the very best of Shinto, this is a festival of the people which mixes enjoyment and light-heartedness with spirituality. There’s no sign here of the rightwing nationalism that the Abe administration is seeking to impose on the country at large, and it’s a reminder that Inari is not a member of Jinja Honcho.

The festival is very much this-world focussed, with the kami seen as a living presence and fox-masks in abundance. The predominant feeling is of gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of life. Gratitude that such a place as Fushimi Inari exists. Gratitude for such a wonderful festival. Gratitude for living in Kyoto.

Even amidst the excitement and illumination the guardian fox keeps tight hold of the granary key

Jostling crowds squeeze past the stalls on the narrow approach road

At festivals participants get to have as much fun as the kami

Animals are nearer to the divine, they say…

Even the shrine’s white horse seemed in a good mood…

The shrine office did good business too.

Some of the artwork around the stage was impressive

There were all kinds of subjects and styles

Lantern artwork

lantern art

There was traditional dancing too…

… and people left with warm hearts and happy memories for another year of Inari providence

Gion 2015 (Kikusui)

July 16, 2015 / John D. / 0 Comments

Gion Festival fan

Musicians packed together on the Kikusui Float

The evenings before the grand parade on July 17 mark the busiest, bustling peak of the month-long Gion Festival, but this year a typhoon currently hitting Shikoku threatens to wreak devastation. At the time of writing it’s the evening of the 16th, and a fierce wind has set in bringing driving rain. Whether the main parade tomorrow morning will take place seems doubtful. [In fact, it did take place!]

In the happy hours before the typhoon, I managed to walk around the downtown area where the 33 floats (known as yamaboko) are set up. Many display their treasures and altars for public viewing, and some allow access onto the floats from the second-floor of the adjacent building.

The top of hoko floats reach upwards towards heaven like lightning conductors

Each float has its own history, its own traditions, and its own neighbourhood support system. I like to concentrate on one particular float each year, and this year focussed my attention on the Kikusui (Chrysanthemum Water) float.

The original float burned down in 1864, then after an absence of 88 years the present float was built in 1952. It is one of nine huge hoko in the festival, which means it has an enormous tall pole, weighs about 12,000kg, and needs a team of some 30-40 to pull it, with two men piloting it round corners by slipping wet bamboo beneath the fixed wheels.

The Kikusui float took its name from a well in the neighbourhood, which was associated with a Chinese legend about a Chrysanthemum Boy. He was a favourite of the emperor, and forced into exile by jealous rivals at court. But in his new place of residence the boy was able to drink dew from the leaves of chrysanthemum flowers and so lived to be 700 years old. It’s for this reason the float has tapestries depicting scenes from the Chinese story.

Tea is served! Not only that, but you get to keep the plate with its chrysanthemum design.

In one of the adjacent buildings a set of green tea and Japanese cake was served, in front of an altar with a doll representing the Chrysanthemum Boy of ancient China. The doll is a substitute for a chigo (page boy), into whom the kami would once have descended (one can easily imagine a spirit descending down the long pole and into the human vessel).

Before the main parade on July 17, the doll is moved from the altar and onto the float. I was told that it is manipulated so as to move in the same Noh-like manner as the human chigo in the grand parade’s leading float. It’s as if both are unconsciously moved by an animating spirit.

Each of the floats in the Gion Festival produces its own chimaki amulet. These distinctive charms are hung on entrances for good fortune, especially businesses (the festival was run by city merchants in the past). Those who buy the Kakusui amulet are allowed access onto the float, where one can see for oneself the small size into which the musicians are squeezed. Because of the Chinese legend, the Kikusui charm is said to promote longevity in addition to good business – so if you’d like a long prosperous life, try heading next time for this fascinating float!

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For the first of a 10-part series on the Gion Festival, click here.

For an overview of the modern Gion Matsuri, click here. For a brief report and pictures of the evening before the parade, known as yoiyama, click here. To learn about the spiritual side of the festival, click here. For a talk about the shamanic elements, click here.

The Kikusui Float charm, designed not only to bring success in business but to ensure a long life

The big wheel can move forward, but it can't turn corners

The wheels on the float are fixed and so can’t turn corners, necessitating complicated manoeuvres

Tea is served with Japanese elegance

Tea is drunk in front of the altar with the Chrysanthemum Boy doll

The sales girls do a brisk trade of amulets and other festival goods

Last year’s charms are discarded, to be ritually burnt

Beneath the float can be seen bamboo strips that will be placed beneath the wheels during the parade in order to help navigate corners. Notice the aesthetic quality of the rope binding the wooden parts of the float (no nails are used).

Scenes from the Chinese legend of the Chrysanthemum Boy adorn the sides of the float

The Kikusui float is noted for its particularly lavish decoration, making it stand out during the grand parade

Some of the floats are in narrow packed streets, difficult to negotiate even for the many pedestrians. This is the view from the second floor of the Kikusui float, with an octopus dumpling stall in the foreground.

Pilgrimage

July 13, 2015 / John D. / 3 Comments

In Edo times the pilgrimage to Ise was a bustling, jostling affair that mixed the secular and the spiritual

It seems wherever you go in Japan, there is a pilgrimage route nearby. Some of these are major pilgrimages, like that of the Kumano Kodo, while others are local and less well-known. There are 33 Kannon pilgrimages, Seven Lucky Deity pilgrimages, and miniature versions of the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage. Some have fallen into disuse, or are largely carried out these days by bus. Nonetheless the combination of movement, place and spirituality continues to have a powerful attraction, even in the modern age.

In the article below, the British environmentalist Satish Kumar writes of the many benefits of pilgrimage. He’s a remarkable figure, whom I’ve been lucky to meet on a couple of occasions. Once a Jain monk, he has campaigned for peace and nuclear disarmament, notably by walking over 8000 miles to the capitals of four nuclear countries – Washington, London, Paris and Moscow. He is editor of Resurgence, runs the Schumacher Collge of environmental studies in Devon, UK, and insists on reverence for nature as the basis for social and ethical action.

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(Satish Kumar, extracted from an article in Kyoto Journal, no. 78)

Satish Kumar, earth pilgrim, at a talk in Kyoto two years ago

Being a pilgrim is a state of mind; it has nothing to do with actual travel. Travelling is symbolic. We travel in life, and through life. All of life is a journey. The journey is metaphorical as well as literal. Making a journey from A to B is only the ostensible goal. But going from A to B is not the point of the pilgrimage. Wherever you are, with your consciousness, with your way of being, with your way of looking at the world, with your way of connecting with the world, you are a pilgrim. A pilgrim is someone who sees life as a sacred journey, who sees the Earth as a sacred home, who sees the universe as a process.

When you are making a physical journey and living thanks to the hospitality of people along the route,you experience the generosity of your host and humility in yourself. That experience can linger even after the physical journey. So, the physical pilgrimage and the metaphorical pilgrimage are interrelated.We make the outer journey in order to make an inner journey. Our inner landscape is shaped by the outer landscape and viceversa.Therefore,by making a journey to holy places, such as the River Ganges, Mount Kailash, Santiago de Compostela or Iona, I was moved to explore my inner landscape, and make my journey to the holy source within. The abundance and the majesty of the Earth inspires me and lifts my spirits. Thus, the outer journey and the inner journey become one.

Traditional pilgrim garb was natural, simple – and hard on the feet.

If you only want to get somewhere, then you are a tourist. A tourist looks for self-gratification. A pilgrim seeks to commune with the other and unite with the whole. For a pilgrim, every moment is a sacred moment, a beautiful moment; every moment is an opportunity to connect. Connecting and relating is true spirituality. Spirituality is present everywhere, in every moment, at every time. Just as there is no moment when we are not breathing, in the same way there is no moment when we are not spiritual.

To be a pilgrim is to be on a path of adventure, to move out of our old comfort zones of certainty and to learn to be comfortable with uncertainty, with surprises and with the unpredictable. We have to let go of our prejudices and preconditioning, to make strides towards the unknown. It is a natural human condition to be afraid of the unknown. But the holy grail is not a tourist destination! There are no guidebooks, there are no road-maps, you cannot book your accommodation in advance!

When we consciously become pilgrims, our journey becomes a hero’s journey. The mythologist Joseph Campbell talked about this journey. Heroes are those who are prepared to take their lives in their hands. They are not afraid of risks. They are not self-centred, because they are totally and unreservedly dedicated to their quest. The Buddha was a hero of this kind. He left behind his princely palace, his wife and child, his wealth and comfort, his servants and courtiers. He moved out of his comfort zone, seeking the end of human suffering. He did not contemplate for a moment the impossibility of the task. The innocence of his mind was such that he was prepared to go through any difficulties, any problems, any obstacles, to fulfil his quest.

In essence I realised that being a pilgrim is a state of mind, a state of consciousness, a state of fearlessness.

Modern-day pilgrims head for Nachi waterfalls in Kumano