Ylva and Kajsa II and a feminist look at the Japanese cultural arts

The lake at Arashiyama.  (Picture courtesy of Ylva)

A few days after the day in Arashiyama, I met again with Ylva and Kajsa for a morning of sight seeing.  We went to Fushimi Inari, the fox mountain a few stops south of Kyoto station on the train line to Uji.  The main buildings of the shrine give the appearance of order and decorum, their square structures almost uniformly painted with a fresh coat of vermilion.

The two foxes on either side of the main gate hold a jewel and a key to the storage room, symbols of financial success. Foxes are also famous, however, for trickery.  Behind the main shrine buildings, vermilion gates in various states of decay form a tunnel covering paths winding up the mountain.  We walked up a little way, passing miniature fox shrines made of stone and adorned with miniature red gates.

We climbed steep stone steps and came to a small lake with a dark shrine building at its shore.  There, under heavy eves hung with thick silk banners, fat white candles with wide flames more reminiscent of a fire than a candle flame illuminated stone fox statues with a yellow flickering light.  We prayed to the tricksters for respite from their tricks and turned to walk down the mountain again as rain began falling.

International Exchange: Ylva and Kajsa I (revised)

Ylva, me, and Kajsa (in that order) on the Togetsukyo bridge in Arashiyama.  (Photo courtesy of Ylva Henrikson)

In the beginning of August, I got a surprise E-mail from two young women from Sweden, who were coming to Japan and wanting a guide into the world of noh.

I met them at the end of the month in Asakusa over a sushi meal.  Ylva and Kajsa are contemporary dance artists and were researching for a performance inspired by Mishima Yukio’s modernized version of the noh play Hanjo.  The story centers around a young woman, who has been left by her lover, who promised to come back after he finished some pressing business.  Waiting for him to return, she becomes distracted to the point of madness and wanders Japan looking for him.  In the noh play, she eventually meets him at a shrine in Kyoto.  In Mishima’s play, after spending every day in a train station in Tokyo, waiting for him to come, he comes to her home, but runs away when she doesn’t recognize him.

It seems to me in Mishima’s case that the young man doesn’t seem to understand the woman’s madness.  Is this perhaps indicative of something larger in our society?  Do we emphasize conformity so much that we cannot understand individual pain?

The End of Summer at Horin-ji

The priests’ prayers before the Noh performance.  Their robes were sumptuous purple and orange silks.  Only one of them wore black silk.

The temple Horin-ji annually holds a Noh performance on September 9th.  I wrote a little about it two posts ago.  Usually Udaka Michishige performs, but two years ago I was too busy with work to go watch, and last year September 9th landed on a weekend, so Udaka-Sensei was too busy to perform.  Finally, I had another opportunity this year and made sure I was able to take time off from work to go to the temple in Arashiyama.

I joined Sensei and a troop of young people who study with him and generally support his activities, including his two sons, Tatsushige and Norishige, who are actors in their own rights, his daughter, Keiko, who carves masks, his daughter-in-law, Haruna, who is also a semi-professional actor, and Natsuko, who also studies mask-carving, but has taken on a leading role in organizing events and working PR for Sensei.  We made an excursion out of the event, for the weather had grown sunny after a few rainy days that had brought an end to the summer heat.

“Makura-Jido” at Horinji Temple

For those of you who have heard me talk about Noh and about Udaka-sensei, but have never quite understood what it was I was talking about – maybe you simply haven’t seen a Noh performance before – here is a You Tube recording that may show you some of the appeal. This video is of Udaka Michishige-sensei dancing “Makura-jido” at Horenji Temple in 2006 on September 9. I do not know who took it, and there are some shaky spots and a pillar that gets in the way of the view, but I am glad they did. I remember that morning getting a call from Sensei saying he was picking me up to go, but I was already at work and had been unable to get the day off. Seeing the video only makes me regret not having gone even more.

Watching the video, you can see the chorus sitting across from the camera. It was a pleasant surprise when I realized I knew all of them. On the left is Ono-sensei, a professor of environmental biology at Okayama University and student of Udaka-sensei, in the middle is Udaka Tatsushige-sensei, Udaka-sensei’s son, and on the right is Urushigaki-san also a student of Udaka-sensei. To the left are the musicians, and the performance is taking place facing a Buddhist altar inside a temple, which is a very rare setting. I haven’t had another opportunity to see a similar performance.

Alex’s Birthday Party

Remembering a dream the night before – mist over the rice paddies in Kameoka

When I heard Alex Kerr’s birthday party was to be held at his home in Kameoka with many guests and fine entertainment, I could not quite imagine what it would be like. I had only read of his house in his book, Lost Japan, and created a fairytale image of aesthetic perfection in my mind. Since beginning work at Iori, the company of which he is chairman here in Kyoto, I’ve learned that aesthetic perfection is second nature to Alex. I’m reminded of a time shortly before guests were supposed to arrive in our arts dojo, when Alex transformed our driveway into a garden lounge. In the arts dojo itself, Alex kept a set of two gorgeous crane folding screens from the Edo period (roughly 17th century) until recently. When we prepare for a full-scale arts program, Alex takes the arts dojo as his canvas and creates within it a balance of art and space that becomes a stage for Alex’s magic. With this in mind, my excitement of seeing his home at its finest only increased my excitement for the party.

On Monday…

On Monday, I took a trip to Heian Shrine with my friend Hana. We were in search of wisteria, those luxurious hanging vines covered in small blue flowers. We didn't find wisteria, though we did find…

A New Blog

It’s cherry blossom season in Kyoto

I have been living in Kyoto for almost 2 years, and I want to start this blog to write more seriously about thoughts from my experiences, from Japanese literature, and from my various traditional arts classes. I have been taking private lessons in tea ceremony for two years, took lessons in wearing kimono for one year, and I recently started lessons in Japanese calligraphy and Noh theatre. Although I do have a food blog, Cooking with Chopsticks, I wanted an outlet that forced me to organize more serious observations. And so, everything I write here is a work in progress. Please bear with my strange flights of reason (if they may even be called reason instead of fancy).

Whenever I meet a European or North American unfamiliar with life in Japan, the divide between East and West is brusquely revealed. I felt the same divide when I was graduating high school and realizing most of my education thus far had been quite Euro-centric. I write this blog to begin refining my own understanding of Japan. If in the process I might help someone understand my fascination with the beauty of Japanese arts or help someone understand a theory in Japanese thought, I will consider my writings a huge success.

Finally, in choosing the title of this blog, “While the Mountain Sleeps,” I drew on a poem by Yosano Akiko, and applied it to my own drive towards certain goals.

“Mountain moving day has come,”
is what I say. But no one believes it.
Mountains were just sleeping for a while.
Earlier, they had moved, burning with fire.
But you do not have to believe it.
O people! You’d better believe it!
All the sleeping women move
now that they awaken.

Yosano, Akiko. “Mountain Moving Day.” River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko. Trans. Sam Hamill and Keiko Matsui Gibson. Boston and London: Shambhala Press, 1996.