Finding Hideyoshi’s Shrine - A Scavenger Hunt (Mahala)

For my scavenger hunt, I was given the hint:

Find the main shrine to Hideyoshi in Kyoto and also the uncomfortable memorial to his invasions of Korea nearby.

My first step in this journey was establishing what this “uncomfortable memorial” was my assumption that Hideyoshi had many shrines in the country due to his very important status in Japanese history. So, I knew that my location was in Kyoto (because of my university’s location, and the destination of our class trip) and I looked up any Korean memorials that could be connected to Hideyoshi. My research led me to the Mimizuka site. It is the burial mound of the noses of 38,000 Koreans that were taken as war trophies during the Hideyoshi invasions. It is a one minute walk to the shrine that honors the man responsible for the mound.

Upon further research I learned that the shrine has a pretty complicated history. The original site was torn down and buried by Tokugawa Ieyasu and was then rebuilt by Emperor Meiji about 200 years later. The initial destruction was because Tokugawa Ieyasu felt that honoring the man that he replaced was offensive to his position. However, Emperor Meiji believed that the people should honor Hideyoshi to reconnect with their national history and pride.

So I had my location and I just needed to visit. On a very hot Saturday, I took the train into Kyoto and first found Mimizuka. I did not stay for long, as it freaked me out to stand in front of something so dark. The gate to the mound was closed, and there was trash in front of it. This made me quite sad. I then walked to the shrine, which was also a short visit since most of the shrine was closed off. I had gone during unconventional hours during the work week, so that’s probably why it was closed. At the shrine, there were the main steps which led to where you drop your 5 yen coins and pray, and they were paralleled with two ema holders. Ema are wooden plaques that people write wishes on and leave them at the shrine. In the front of the shrine there was a statue of Hideyoshi.

These places are significant because of the fact that Hideyoshi was such an important person in Japanese history. He was one of the three men responsible for the unification of Japan. In his time of power, he led two separate invasions of Korea, which resulted in Mimizuka. Later in the Meiji period he became a symbol of Japanese nationalism and identity, which resulted in his shrine being rebuilt. Japanese history would be completely different if not for Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Mimizuka

Prayer altar

Stature of Hideyoshi

Say What? (Victor)

I don’t get to hear a lot of the dialect from my area, Osaka, partially because of my bad habit of staying inside my room when I’m not in class, but also because many of the Japanese students in the seminar house, and around campus always try to use English when speaking to me.

Eat and eavesdrop to learn Japanese.

I tend to hear the most of Kansai-ben when I go out to a cafe or restaurant alone, and I have nothing to do but eavesdrop on neighboring tables.

The two most common phrases I hear are ええで which is equivalent to いいよ, and おおきに, the equivalent to ありがとう. This makes sense considering I hear it at restaurants where phrases like “No problem/okay’’ and “Thank you” are commonplace. I was also specifically taught the phrase おおきに at a small basement restaurant in Kyoto called Teppan Tavern Tenamonya, which I highly recommend. At the end of the meal, they gave us a thank you card that says おおきに on it, and the owner, and chef, of the restaurant made sure we knew what it meant and had us repeat it out loud after him.

Let the bourbon flow! Even though I only got cocktails.

Kansai-ben speakers will probably despise me for saying this but another reason I don’t pick up on the dialect a lot is because most of the time it’s not different enough from Tokyo-ben/standard Japanese that I get confused. If I said that out loud to someone from the Kansai area I’d probably get yelled at. I’ve been told by my Japanese professor here that the people who use Kansai-ben are not only very proud of how they speak, but also specifically have a special hatred and sense of superiority towards people from Tokyo and how they talk. I may be misremembering, but the first time I really noticed Kansai-ben was when I went to a bourbon bar called Rogin’s Tavern in the middle of Osaka where an old man was having a conversation with the bartender that I felt I should’ve been able to understand but was having a strangely hard time. Also, it was my first bar experience so that was pretty fun and funky.

Say What?: My Experience with the Kansai Dialect (Mahala)

Before coming to Japan, I was aware that the Kansai dialect was a bit weird compared to the Japanese I have been learning for the past 3 years. I was a bit scared because, truthfully, I had no clue what that meant. However, after being in Japan for about 5 weeks now, spoken Japanese does not seem super different like I expected it would. To be honest, I have really heard about 2 or 3 words that belong specifically to the Kansai Dialect.

The word　めっちゃ　is probably the most common kansai word I have heard. It means ‘a lot’ or ‘very,’ and replaces the word とても. I kept hearing this word all of the time and finally figured out its meaning. Another word is おもろい　which replaces おもしろい and means ‘interesting.’ There are probably many other words that are Kansai dialect, however as I learn more every-day language in Japan, these words are never differentiated from “normal japanese.” There have been a couple times where my japanese friend has been asked to give us some words in Kansai-Ben, and she can’t really list more than three things., Kansai dialect is how she speaks, it isn’t anything different or unusual.

To me, adopting these words has been strange. In some instances, when describing something I try to adopt めっちゃ into my sentence and I am unsure whether I am using it correctly. I know I am, but because I learned a different word previously, it feels wrong when I say it. However, as my Japanese improves, I know that being immersed in the Kansai dialect will eventually cause me to use words from Kansai and I think that that is really cool.

A night out in Ebisuhigashi, Osaka.