Popular Culture in Hiroshima and Nara (Chris)

Pop culture is not as prevalent as one would think in Japan. It might just be an American stereotype of Japan, but it is not as noticeable as Americans may think. The things that I think of when I think of pop culture in Japan are J-Pop music and anime/manga.  Some of these things show up more than others.  The fictitious J-Pop character Hatsune Miku shows up every once in a while. The anime/manga Shingeki no Kyōjin (also known as Attack on Titan) is currently really popular alongside One Piece, which has been around since the late 90’s. It is fairly easy to find promotional items that feature characters from either of these anime. But these things are things that show up if you look for them. Stores do not play much Japanese music, but a lot of American-styled music, and covers of American music. One of the grocery stores near where I live seems to play the ABBA Greatest Hits Album only. Manga are not seen much publicly, but you step into a bookstore, and you will see a lot of different manga. It seems that stereotypical Japanese pop culture only appears in pockets around Japan. Denden Town was where I saw most of these, but other than that I do not see many of these types of pop culture.

The might-be-mascot-of-Hiroshima-Castle cat

The main type of pop culture that appears in Japan is mascots. Mascots in Japan are cute, simple, and usually represent a company, a site, or even an entire city and prefecture. Mascots appear in all shapes, and sizes. They are used as a marketing campaign to make a lovable character that will become associated with the company. A popular mascot is Kumamon. Kumamon is a black bear that represents the Kumamoto Prefecture. In the city of Nara there is a mascot named Shikamaru-kun.  Nara is famous for its overly friendly deer, and Shikamaru-kun is supposed to represent that aspect of Nara. Another mascot of Nara is Sento-kun. Sento-kun is a Buddha child with an antler rack on his. The reason that I see for him being a mascot of Nara is that Nara is famous for two things: friendly deer, and Todaiji Temple.  Hiroshima, on the other hand, was much harder to find a mascot. The closest I found was a samurai cat at Hiroshima Castle. I have no idea what this cat’s name is, but this cat appears to be a mascot at Hiroshima. There is no mascot for the Peace Garden area, which makes a lot of sense due to the history that the garden represents. Mascots are thing in Japan, there are just some that are more popular than others.

Group shot with Sento-kun

My trip to Nara was terrific. The friendly deer is something I would not expect. In America, deer are not friendly, and seem more nervous than anything else. In Nara though, the deer are very friendly, and will play with you. Todaiji Temple was quite a site. The main thing about this 1300 year old temple is the giant Buddha that fills the temple. It is a sight that cannot be described in words. So, if you go to Nara, play with the deer for a few hours, and go to Todaiji Temple. There are other places to go, but those are the most famous things in Nara.

Picture of me with a majestic deer

The buddha at Todai-ji

In Hiroshima, I went to the Peace Garden and the Genbaku Dome (a memorial near the hypocenter of the first Atomic Bomb), and listened to a testimony given by a bomb survivor. It is difficult to go to these types of places. The still air and the large amount of feelings that exist on the topic can be felt.  It is a sad place that marks a scar on humanity that cannot be erased. It is really hard to go about the rest of the day with the thoughts of the destruction that happened at Hiroshima. 

Genbaku dome

The rest of the day consisted of wandering around the city and visiting Hiroshima Castle. Sadly, by the time I got there the castle had closed for visitors for the day, but there was a shrine nearby that me and my friends visited. From there we had to start the long walk back to the train station to catch an overnight bus back to Osaka. It was a long day, and an even longer night. The night concluded with my falling asleep on my futon at 8:00 in the morning. I currently have no plans for the weekend as this week is the start of midterm testing for me at school. So, until next time. Sayonara.

Hiroshima Castle

Museums as Re-imagined History? (Dylan)

My usual habit when I travel is to go right for the local museums, so a blog post about one shouldn’t have been terribly difficult.  Except that they’re all in Japanese.

Old family names do not make it easier.

While I’m sure that museums in areas of Japan that see more foreign tourism probably have most things labeled in English, up in the less-travelled northern half of Tohoku, English labeling is understandably minimal.

he one mitigating factor is that some sites in the area do still get some international tourism, and in this area the main one is the village of Kakunodate, and particularly the samurai estate of the Aoyagi family.  The estate has now been transformed into a museum featuring the possessions of the Aoyagi, distributed throughout the grounds.  The organizing principle is simply to keep things where they were kept when they were in use (or so the English labels seem to say).

 

On the other hand, I admt, this does seem a strange room for an amory.

So I’m writing this based off the more limited English-language information and without the ability to comment on what might have been said in Japanese or how that might change the nature of the exhibits and what they’re conveying.

The setup of the museum isn’t really any different from other historical museums I’ve been to.  With the focus on displaying artifacts where they were kept, it maintains the same setup and provides the same information that museums of the same type I’ve visited in the U.S. and U.K. provided.  Actually, in the English, there’s less sharing of folklore than in those other museums, so it might be less interested in regional or national mythos.

Because the Aoyagi family built the estate right around the transfer from the Edo Era to the Meiji Era, the exhibits do feature a sometimes odd mixture of traditional equipment that wouldn’t even be out of place in the latter days of the Sengoku Era and equipment that was clearly introduced in the Meiji Era, including a remarkably large exhibit of phonographs.

The question posed for this blog post was to search for signs of how history is being reimagined in Japan as a part of local, regional, and national identity.  But while maybe there’s something in the Japanese exhibit explanations that I couldn’t pick up on, so far as I can tell, in this museum there was a conscious effort to not do anything of the sort, and while they certainly do take pride in having been home to such a notable family as the Aoyagi, they’re going to maintain the pursuit of historical neutrality (even if that’s futile – another story) and avoid the romanticization of the past that it’s so easy to fall into.  I could dig through everything I saw in the town until I pulled up something, but – if I wasn’t able to immediately pull out anything from this trip, if I have to work to find any evidence of history being reimagined instead of being presented as plainly as possible in the hope that that can be avoided, isn’t that, itself, notable?

In the end, the story the museum was trying to tell was the history of a local and once-notable family.  There was a fair amount of local pride in it, as one would expect.  But the exhibits were still largely treated like museum exhibits, with a handful of people (including myself) trying to read everything and everyone else mostly pursuing a photo op, the museum the sort of local landmark that everyone must visit because it’s there and well-known.  Still, it’s a good museum, and if you can read amore of the kanji than I can, I definitely recommend paying it a visit if you’re in Tohoku.

History and Manga (Chris)

It has been a while since I have written my last blog post, and much has happened since then. Denden Town was a lot of fun. It is a pop culture shopping district area is the best way to describe it. There is also a multi-story arcade in the Denden Town area. The highlight of that arcade was the Gundam simulator. For those who do not know, a Gundam is a giant pilotable mecha, so the Gundam simulator was just a video game with a really complicated controller. Hanging out in Denden Town was a good area to explore, but a lot of the merchandise in that area was really expensive.

Outside the Denden Town arcade

Inside the Gundam simulator

This past Sunday, I went on a field trip to Kyoto and went to the Manga Museum. The Manga Museum has a huge collection of manga, but it does not explain much about manga. There was one small exhibit that talked about manga, but it only gave it in a current sense. A better description would be that the exhibit described the current state that manga is in. There were segments on art style, income of artists, and manga on the global scale. The talk about manga in the past is not even touched at all. Even though all the manga in the room are arranged by release date, there is no talk about the history of manga. It was a bit disappointing to see that the history of manga is not considered important at the Manga Museum. The only reason that I can think of for this is that manga is tailored to a younger generation that is not interested in fancy academics, but instead is interested in reading manga. The Manga Museum is worth a visit, but do not expect to learn much about manga. 

Outside the Manga Museum

Inside the Manga Museum

Similar to the Manga Museum, the history is not a thing that is often seen in Japan, unless you go to a place that is historical. To refer back to a place that I talked about in an earlier blog post, Kiyomizu Temple is a place that has huge amounts of history. The way you get there is by traversing through the very modern, big city area of Gion-shoji for a while. You know when you are near Kiyomizuj Temple when the architecture completely changes to a more traditional style, and stays that way all the way up to Kiyomizu Temple. When I was there, it was late in the day, so there was not much activity happening, but the only historical thing was observable was the architectural style in that area.  This was also the most expansive thing that I have seen in Japan that could be considered historical. The only places that I have been to, so far, that show off that traditional flair are at temples and shrines. Religion has had a major role in Japan’s history, and the fact that these religious sites are maintaining the traditional look that they have had for hundreds of years shows that the stoicism that is maintained in retaining a “true” historic look is quite astounding considering the large amounts of modernity that Japan has gone through.  There are some modern advances that are used at these religious sites, mainly at office buildings and shops for the convenience of the workers that use that space for business instead of religious duties. Also, how much has religion evolved when there is, somewhere, a shrine that is devoted to Thomas Edison, and treats Edison as an electricity “god”. With this particular shrine as an exception, modernity and tradition are mostly segregated, but fit into the weird puzzle that allows them to be next to each other without being seemingly out of place.  

As this week closes, my friends and I are planning to visit Nara, and visit some of the major sites. I also have decided to join the Archery Club at Kansai Gaidai. The club materials are not exactly the correct size (in my case) for students. But, it is a lot of fun.

The Past Within Us (Janae)

Movie Poster (original link here)

It feels like I've been seeing this movie poster (for ‘Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno’) everywhere in the city: at 7-11, in the mall, in the train station.  I feel like there must be even more samurai movies in Japan than there are World War II movies in the U.S., and they've enjoyed popularity since the times of Akira Kurosawa.  This particular movie is based on an anime and is loosely set in Meiji era.  I think cultural appreciation has allowed these films to (generally) have an impressive amount of accuracy too.  Traditions like kimono-wearing and kendo are still practiced and respected, especially in schools, so the creators and viewers both have a great appreciation for the history shown in films like these.  This contrasts to what I've heard from some international students about how many of their traditional practices are being looked down upon in their country as backwards and quickly replaced by the modern by anyone with means.

Taiko drums in Akita City.

I've also noticed many different traditional clubs and practices in Japan.  I've seen martial arts demonstrations in the mall and heard students practicing on taiko drums for the festival club, and I have many friends who have joined tea ceremony, calligraphy, flower arranging, kimono, and kendo clubs.  It’s interesting how much more widespread and popular kendo is in Japan compared to something like fencing in the U.S.  And how many clubs for traditional dress do you see in the U.S.?  People are very enthusiastic about and dedicated to keeping traditions alive here. 

Calligraphy-style writing on a shopping bag.

The above two examples just come from traditions I've seen in everyday life here.  Even though in the present day simple font is much more common than the elegant and precise brush strokes of calligraphy, I still see calligraphy inspired fonts on everything from restaurant signs to shopping bags.  I think this means that using calligraphy still makes customers feel that a product or service or event is old-timey and/or authentic, so it’s useful in the present day as a marketing tool.  Do good memories from calligraphy club in high school really influence a person to go to a ramen shop with calligraphy in its title?  I can’t say for sure, but, in any case, I think there is an enormous amount of nostalgia and respect for the past.

I think these references to the past in Japan, whether through samurai movies or calligraphy on shopping bags, also serve to create and nourish a Japanese identity that is often used to support social norms.  The themes of honor and loyalty in samurai films can inspire salarymen to be completely devoted to their company, and the precision and elegance women are taught to wear a kimono correctly with can teach them a traditional Japanese woman ideal that is actually a modern creation itself, constructed from jumbled elements of the past.  It might just be my imagination, but when I look at a lot of old black and white photographs of women wearing everyday kimono, their kimonos sometimes look a little disheveled, or at least not as impeccably perfect in the way that kimono are worn today.  It makes me wonder if this whole idea that everyday kimono must be worn in a very precise fashion, with not a fold out of place because precision is a Japanese value, isn’t one that has been constructed in more modern times.

The Past in Present-day Japan (Crystal)

I am lucky to be attending a university only a train away from both Osaka and Kyoto. Kyoto especially is a stunningly historical city. One of the reasons it is so popular is because it is host to around two thousand Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines dating back hundreds of years. Although it is just as full of modern conveniences as any major Japanese city, there are references to traditional Japanese culture everywhere you look.

The Otowa Waterfall at Kiyomizu-dera

One of the most visibly obvious signs of this is the fact that you often see Japanese people wearing traditional clothes like kimonos. While traditional clothing are often worn at festivals, ceremonies, and other special occasions, it seems pretty rare to see people wearing kimonos, hakamas, and the like around the street – unless you’re in Kyoto. Though they don’t represent a majority, it’s common to see women and (fewer, but some) men sporting traditional clothing, especially around the temples. Kimono rental and dress-up services aren’t just for foreign tourists; most of the customers are Japanese (though probably still tourists, I would imagine). It’s a fun activity, paying to get dressed up and made up in traditional clothing before hitting the historical town and visiting shrines.

The fact that Japanese people still wear traditional clothing was a little surprising to me at first. In the US, we don’t really have a “traditional” dress that is still worn. One could look to early colonial settlers, but no one (to my knowledge) wears anything like that outside of reenactments and maybe the Amish. In Japan, however, the echoes of the past are still alive today. The kimono, which has remained more or less unchanged since the Edo period, still has a lasting presence today.

Japanese Women in Kimono at Kiyomizu-dera

Even the continued popularity of shrines and temples is a testament to Japan’s past. Even in my day-to-day life in Hirakata and the surrounding areas, I pass small shrines all the time, including on my walks to and from school every day.

From research I have done, both online and from talking to Japanese students, it seems to me that most Japanese people are not very religious, in that they don’t follow strict dogmas or even necessarily really believe in gods. However, shrines and temples are still very popular, and many people still go there to pray for numerous reasons (for anything from entrance exams to the souls of tragedy victims).

Clearly there is something about the shrines besides religion that attracts people. Maybe it can be explained by “spirituality”, but I think it also speaks to the importance of tradition and respect for the past. For one thing, many (though certainly not all) kami (gods/spirits) are said to be ancestors. Visiting a shrine can therefore be a way of honoring your family’s history. But even if ancestors aren’t on the mind of Japanese when they visit a shrine, it’s clear that they are following an ancient tradition that has been passed down for over a thousand years.

All in all, it’s fascinating to see this kind of historical presence so prevalent in Japan. I certainly haven’t seen anything like it where I’m from!