Near the middle of the island of Kyushu lies Kumamoto, home of one of the three most famous castles in Japan. To the east of the city of Kumamoto stands Mt. Aso, a beautiful, eerie active volcano which is home to the largest caldera in the world; it emits gas almost continuously, masking the top in a thick fog of acid. I had visited the city once before for a single day to see the castle but left early to escape the cold weather and drizzling rain; later in the year, however, I decided on a whim to make a day trip for a change of scenery. Spontaneously, I ended up on a late morning train to Kumamoto.
As I watched the beautiful mountains covered with brilliant, new green leaves, yellow bamboo, and the occasional fuchsia rhododendron fly by, I considered my good luck. The sky was blue, the air balmy, the day perfect. The muted sounds of the train were those of business travelers, not tourists, and the peaceful atmosphere lent me a surge of energy and of excitement. This journey was, I realized, my first experience with solitary travel. I was filled with a sense of anticipation as I watched the fresh golden light on the texture of the mountains. The day unfolded emptily before me, with no one but myself to dictate the schedule, the route, the spur-of-the-moment changes. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.
My first stop was at Honmyouji, a Buddhist temple located at the top of a tall hill north of the city. When reading through a small, pamphlet-style guidebook on the Kumamoto area the night before, the images of this temple had caught my eye. Even better, it was located right next to the train station just north of Kumamoto, on the way to my other destinations. This station is the last one before the main Kumamoto train station, and I expected it to be a little larger, or simply more developed, than it was. Instead, it made me think of my own little farm town's station, rusty and run-down and generally uninviting. The street outside was empty, pachinko parlors and slot casinos standing stark and quiet in the morning sun, neon lights dark and sleeping. I had an eerie feeling of solitude as I walked down the street next to the empty streetcar tracks, the only moving thing as far as I could see.
The walk up to the temple followed a side street filled with small businesses run by ancient women, hunched over and napping, fruit and vegetables displayed in small plastic baskets in front of them. A little farther along, the grocery stalls disappeared and the street became a hushed cobblestone avenue with Buddhist temples and cemeteries along either side. Here and there, cars were parked on the side of the road, and families of old people were getting out to conduct some small cleaning ceremony at the graves. The shiny black cars, the tall old trees, the quiet of it all, made me feel as though I'd somehow been transported back to a small town in the US. Despite the few cars sitting quietly in the shade of the arching trees, my sense of solitude persisted. A light breeze that came and went, and a few bees sleepily made their heavy ways through the deeply-set gardens full of dark, aromatic leaves that rested against the cemetery walls.
As I reached a tall, steep set of stairs set into the hillside, the road narrowed to the width that would accommodate travelers on foot, rather than cars. A few more shops lined the street immediately before the steps, selling sundries like candles, incense, small grocery items, and souvenirs, presumably to be brought to the temple. Gathering up my energy, I passed these hushed shops and began my ascent of the steps.
In the center of the stairs, stone lanterns filled a wide, deep ditch; each stood perhaps a few feet tall and a foot wide, and they were crowded in tightly at seemingly random angles. The lanterns had heavy, square stone bases, some obviously aged longer than others; a few had lichens growing up the sides, others were marked and discolored with age, and a few shone brightly in the sun, devoid of imperfections. Each was topped with what looked like a hat, shaped in the way one would imagine a peasant's hat to wear in the rice field, gently pointed and spreading wide. Between the body and hat, each lantern had a unique 'head' - some square, some perfectly round, others with many more corners. All were hollow, however, and had a hole cut through the middle in a square or round shape: this is where, presumably, one could mount a candle and thereby make these mysteriously-shaped monuments useful. In the daylight, however, it was the clear blue sky that shone through those openings, their shadowy outlines stark against the bright light.
Reaching the top of those stairs only took several minutes, but I was left with the feeling of spending an eternity with the silent figures of the strangely human lanterns. Upon entering the temple gate, I felt as though I had passed through another world to arrive at my destination, somewhere timeless and hushed and utterly spiritual. The beautiful sight of the line of lanterns descending down into the trees, with the city of Kumamoto rising above to complete the skyline, was captivating. I wanted nothing more than to sit for a moment in the quiet, ancient world of Honmyouji's temple complex, appreciating the blue sky, the quiet, the birds calling, the peacefulness of the day. I stood in the entrance of the temple for a moment, looking back down the hill and at the city. Behind me, a few old women fed flocks of pigeons who had obviously come to know them well.
Filled with a sense of satisfaction and newfound confidence, I decided to explore the rear of the temple. Small birds flitted back and forth between the several large buildings as I followed the path around the main temple building and to a large, open enclosure filled with brightly-colored paper lanterns. A small podium for leaving an offering was situated in the middle of it all, and incense smoked lazily from the sticks that had been lighted next to the offerings.
There is a certain custom, more Japanese than anything, by which one leaves snacks in certain appointed places. I have found the snacks in the most surprising places; from shrines in the center of a city to lone statues guarding mountain trails, one will find carefully arranged food and drink left for the spirits invested in that place. The gifts from delicately sliced oranges to freshly-picked vegetables, containers of yogurt, juice boxes, plastic-wrapped prepared food from the supermarket, and even cans of beer. If the spirits might enjoy it, it seems to be fair game for what might be termed an honest religious ritual.
At the same time, this ritual is not a somber and formal act; rather, it is something more personal, a communication with the idea of spirituality on a casual and conversational level. What would the people have thought who left plastic-wrapped asparagus or cans of beer for the Boddhisatva living in the mountain near their apartment, train station, school, and fast-food restaurants? It is the kind of decision that must involve personal assumptions about the object of deification, assumptions that it shares some common human element with the worshipper. It is a hot day, therefore the Buddha must also be hot and because I want to have a cold beer and eat cold tofu, I'll leave the Buddha some of that too. I always imagined that sort of dialogue going on when I found some of the quirkier offerings, always seemingly left there in a fit of sincerity. What else would prompt the purchase of a fruit-punch juice box for Buddha, but the tacit assumption that Buddha might also want what I want?
This custom came into my mind as I sat behind Honmyouji and catalogued in my mind the heap of offerings that had been left for the spirits of the place. Each item was individually wrapped in Japanese style, recently purchased from the supermarket with ingredient stickers intact. There were tomatoes, asparagus, snack mix, ears of corn, yogurt, sugary drinks, all placed carefully as though they were being given to a human being as gifts. Nothing was unwrapped or prepared to eat; it was politely preserved in a freshly-purchased format, ready for presentment but not consumption. I had never stopped to think about the reasons behind the offerings before, but at Honmyouji I found myself wondering about the purpose within a person's mind and heart when grocery shopping for Buddha.
What were goals that lay behind that process, the assumptions of the people who left the offerings? There was a link between personal desires and the assumption of what the spirit must also want; personal hopes, desires, fears, aspirations, dreams - all of these were represented here in this temple. In bringing the offering, one attempts some sort of personal communion with the spirits in a place whose sacred nature has been culturally established, and seeks to add that dimension of spirituality, the feeling of a benevolent protector, into one's life. But as I sat looking at the sunlight glinting off the shiny plastic and styrofoam that encased the perfectly green sprigs of asparagus, I wondered if that were really all. The reality of the communion may not be with the spirits or the sacredness after all, but rather a communion with the self.
I was in a wonderful mood by the time I came back down the stairs, feeling more relaxed and happy than I had in weeks. My own communion with the self had lent me a kind of serene new energy as I set out on the rest of my journey.
The sun shone broadly overhead as I began a leisurely walk behind Kumamoto Castle on the way to Natsume Soseki's former residence, the next place I had planned on visiting. Huge green leaves rustled overhead and the quiet of the day persisted; the mechanics' shops and convenience stores at the side of the road were strangely silent and only the occasional car whizzed by me. The leafy ivy clinging to the castle wall, like the nearby trees, rustled lightly in the breeze and lent the road a cool and lush air, despite the hot sun.
Natsume Soseki, a writer of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is arguably Japan's preeminent novelist; when asked whose writing represents their spirit, culture, and nation, many Japanese will name Soseki without hesitation. He is said to represent the very soul of Japan in his work. While I cannot vouch for that aspect of his writing, he was the first author whose work I read in the original Japanese outside of a class. I was immediately enamored of his vivid, eerie images and odd turns of phrase. Perhaps his ways of describing his surroundings are established standards in Japan, but to my mind they were utterly new and fresh: the blue rice fields, the dim picture of a dream, the roiling sea, a baby on one's back as heavy as a stone.
Soseki lived in numerous places throughout his life, but at several times he was in Kumamoto. He journeyed to Mt. Aso while there, and wrote his well-known novel Kusa makuri (usually translated as The Three-Cornered World but literally meaning The Grass Pillow) based on his experiences in the mountains. While many of his other homes are now private residences and closed to the public, one is kept open as a museum and memorial to the great author.
Stopping several times to peer at my map, I tried to reconcile its neat picture of streets with the jumbled neighborhood before me. Houses were packed close behind high walls with portions of garden peeking out above - tree branches, flowers, leaves, ivy - and a narrow river flowed quietly to the east. I found Soseki's house nestled in a dim alley, protected from the busy main roads by layers of houses and from his neighbors by a tall, thick stone wall. At midday, the neighborhood was deserted save for the occasional moped or car buzzing down the narrow streets, and the only sounds were the muffled traffic on the distant main road and the singing of insects hidden deep in the lush trees. Shaded from the sun, I felt somehow protected by the silent gardens and cool interior of the house as I entered.
I slipped off my shoes in the entryway and bowed my head to enter a spacious four-roomed house, constructed in the late 19th century of polished wood and cool tatami floors. The hushed rooms were mostly devoid of furniture and were instead filled with displays on poster board about the author's life in Kumamoto. Here I was, shoes off, stretching my toes on the floor of Natsume Soseki's house and squinting at old photographs of his family. Few of his things remained and the rooms had been transformed into a low-budget museum, leaving the place with an impersonal feeling. The life-sized mannequin of Soseki, seated at a writing desk with pen in hand, did nothing to add to the ambience.
Alone in the museum, I sat for a a moment on the veranda overlooking the garden. I could hardly picture Soseki having set foot among the posterboard and plastic recreations that were strewn throughout the house, but there was still a certain personality here: the dark, polished wood, the floorboards worn by years of stocking feet, the faded stains on papered doors. The garden had once been carefully arranged by the hands of a living person, someone who sat to clear his mind in just the place where I had stopped. His feet, and the feet of his wife and children and friends, had slid against that smooth wood; their hands had rested against doorjambs and their knees had knelt against the reed mats, just as I did a hundred years later.
In the sitting room, there was a second low writing desk next to the Soseki mannequin, and a guest book and pen had been placed there. Kneeling down at the desk, I found myself again facing the garden, as I imagined the author himself might have done. I leafed curiously through the book and skimmed several of the countless confessions from visitors - Soseki had influenced them all, motivated them to read and to write, to think and dream. I, too, took the pen to share my connection with future visitors. At that moment I did not feel my usual alienation from Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking. I instead felt only my connection with others who had read his works and been moved, who had remembered quotes and felt compelled to share them with others, here in the guest book. I wrote hesitantly, fearful of miscommunicating my intentions in written Japanese, but without any misgivings as to the content.
Soseki was the stimulus that motivated my study of Japanese literature, the person whose writing convinced me that my intellectual interests could lie in novels and narratives rather than historical evidence and demographic data. His short stories showed me for the first time how compelling and beautiful and ultimately alien a foreign language can be, how it influences thoughts and expressions and ways of viewing the world. Even as I was unsure of my precision in expressing my thoughts in written Japanese, I felt an inexplicable confidence that future readers of my short entry in the book would understand what I tried to say.
As I paid a brief visit to a neighborhood shrine, Fujisaki Hachimangu, I considered my options for the remainder of the afternoon. I recalled a large mountaintop nature preserve mentioned in the guidebook my friend had lent me, but had dismissed it as too far from the more famous sights I had scheduled for myself. Standing outside the compact red shrine, however, I noticed a neighborhood map that had quite clearly marked the park nearby. There was Tatsuda Nature Park, a lush green square poised at the top of a cartoonishly winding road behind Kumamoto University.
Ostensibly, I had come to Kumamoto to see the famous garden, Suizenji, located near the center of the city; how could I justify spending my afternoon at a nature preserve instead? On top of that, it looked as though Tatsuda might be more than a half hour walk away, nearly guaranteeing that I would not have time to spend in Suizenji afterward. Still, I was filled with an excited sense of adventure. Why not change plans? After all, who did I have to answer to?
My walk to Tatsuda took me through a decidedly surreal neighborhood: unlike the eerily still areas I had been to earlier in the day, this was a bustling, crowded local market. Perhaps the strangest thing about this area was its narrow roads, so packed with vendors' stalls that even a scooter or bicycle couldn't navigate them. In Japan, no matter how narrow or dangerous the road, someone usually finds a way to squeeze a car, small van, motorcycle, or at least a bike through. Here, everyone was on foot. Brightly colored flags and signs stretched overhead, and I felt as if I were in a warm, bustling tunnel. Old women manned stalls packed with squid, vegetables, toys, herbs, fruit, fish, rice, plastic-wrapped snacks. I could barely press through the crowds as I tried in vain to navigate my way through.
As an American in Japan, I was regularly amazed by the narrow, winding roads, packed with more people and traffic than I thought possible. This market, however, surprised me anew. I was in a maze of primary colors, an alternate dimension that could accommodate many times the number of bent old women, fragile girls, and screaming elementary school children than the Japan I knew.
Somehow, I managed to match my map to the unnamed streets of the market and navigated my way to the busy main road that leads past Kumamoto University. There, the color and noise subsided and I left the market behind.
Kumamoto University's neighborhood offered me another scene that I hadn't experienced in some time: a college campus. Students my own age were milling around with their friends, posing for passerby as they balanced on their orange low-rider bikes, showing off their style. Some of them glanced at me as I passed, but they did not give me the usual stares; rather, it was an expression of mild interest that quickly passed. I was confused for a moment as I tried to understand what they thought of me, a lone, young white woman walking down the street on a weekday afternoon, but then I realized - they thought I was one of them. An exchange student. I was being mistaken for a fellow student, not a teacher. I felt a delightful rush as I processed this new feeling. For the better part of the past year, I'd been seen by kids a little younger than me as impossibly older, a teacher, not a contemporary; even kids my own age looked at me as though I were something separate and out of reach. I'd forgotten all year to be young, after being looked up to as someone older by my own students, someone equivalent to their other teachers who were nearly twice my age. I'd forgotten that only a year before, I'd been just like the students in Kumamoto - in a world all my own, poised and ready for something but not quite sure what it would be.
By the time I reached Tatsuda, nearly a 40-minute walk from Soseki's neighborhood, it was hot, I was tired, and I'd had enough of walking up hills. The park, thankfully, proved to be the perfect remedy - it was empty, and in the midst of the tall bamboo and sighing leaves it was cool, inviting, and quiet. It smelled deliciously like forest. In Japan, there simply aren't many places to go where one doesn't hear the noise of others, where the smell of civilization cannot penetrate. Even in the middle of what looks like wilderness, on top of a mountain or hidden deep in a forest, there is the sound of cars and tractors and trains, the smell of diesel exhaust and burning garbage. Tatsuda was amazingly removed. Birds chirping, not a person in sight, no smells but the bamboo and the leaves on the ground. No other people.
The park gave the impression that it was administered by someone with an interesting sense of humor; the first thing I noticed were the restrooms, tucked away in a brown state-park-style building. They were not labeled with words, but rather with painted-on gingko leaves - green for woman and yellow for man.
The forest, too, was not what it seemed. It was not simply a nature preserve, but full of strange artifacts hidden in the dark groves, waiting to surprise me. There were several old-fashioned tea houses, constructed not of smooth, dark wood and reed mats but with rough planks and thatched roofs. They were of a rustic style that I had never seen before, but they fit perfectly with the backwoods ambience of the place. Long abandoned, they sat quietly and darkly, blending in with the surrounding trees.
As I walked on, I found something even more surprising: lanterns. There were stone lanterns, similar to the ones at Honmyouji, scattered everywhere in the woods like small, friendly forest beings. The lanterns were at such random intervals, placed at such haphazard angles, that it felt as though they had simply sprung into being there, frozen in time, rather than deliberately put there by human hands. Sometimes I saw them alone, or with a few companions, lurking silently in the woods; I also found several groves that were dedicated to the lanterns. Here, they stood in straight lines, in patterns, in groupings. They were sometimes all of one size and style, and sometimes they were all mixed together, short and tall, fat and angular, round and square. Some had three or four bent legs, others pressed heavily into the ground with their thick stone bodies.
One site in particular struck me for its strangeness, its meticulously groomed grounds utterly incongruous in the tangled bamboo forest. Unlike the other sites, unkempt and overgrown and aged, this place contained a line of shelters made from freshly cut blonde wood, shining flawlessly in the afternoon sun. Each shelter contained an enormous, fat lantern - larger than me, and more bulbous than anything. There was no way that these lanterns could have been made for a practical purpose, for they were all gut and had no hole for a candle. So smooth and light and polished, I had no doubts that they were constructed specially for placing in these tiny shrines . The shelters were even shaped like Shinto shrines, and there were flowers and candles placed around the lanterns.
A shrine for stone lanterns, there in the depths of the forest.
I sat with the benevolent, mysterious stone figures as long as I could, until the time began to creep up on me. I didn't want to be caught in the dark, and I had a train to catch back home. Grudgingly, I began my descent from the hilltop. Much as I didn't want to leave Tatsuda, my original goal goal - Suizenji - was still ahead of me. With a feeling learned in Japan - gaman, to persevere - I continued on toward the city.
By the time I reached the train station, roughly a half hour walk in the beating afternoon sun, I wanted nothing more than to sit down for a long, long time in the shade. Perhaps to have a coffee. I persevered some more, however, and a short journey later I found myself at the entrance to Suizenji, beating the 5:00 closing time by about an hour. There, I was greeted with a disappointing sight - an unimpressive landscape composed of smooth rolling hills, manicured lawn, scrubby pine trees, a lovely blue pond. Suizenji resembled nothing so much as a golf course.
Now, given the deterioration of my mood on the train there, my memories of the park may paint it in an unfavorable light. And after experiencing something like the quiet, mysterious Tatsuda and its stone inhabitants, how could a Momoyama park really compare?
Suizenji is meant to be a recreation of western Japan on a small scale - the rolling hills and bumps were placed there deliberately in order to depict the Tokaido, an Edo-period (1600 - 1867) highway that ran from Kyoto to Tokyo. Suizenji attempts to sculpt the major landmarks of the highway in earth, complete with a miniature Mt. Fuji at one end of the garden. As with all Japanese gardens, each element is carefully planned, designed, and constructed, with nothing left to chance, and is full of meaning. The garden is meticulously controlled by the designer and maintainers each step of the way. Perhaps this is why the garden felt too understated and too tame to me, after seeing the wild and unkempt beauty of a very different style of park.
I left soon after I arrived at Suizenji, too tired to sit and fully appreciate the view of the sparkling pond under the clear blue sky. Instead, I stopped at 7-11 to pick up coffee and sweet bread, and I made my way to my express train back north.
Just like the journey there, the ride back was smooth and quiet, the train speckled with a few business travelers who kept quiet conversations with each other. Tired but satisfied, full of reflections on my I watched those same rhododendron-covered hills fly by in reverse in the fading golden sunset.