I started this series of posts by describing the experience of being in Japan. One reason I did so is because that experience is one of the highlights of visiting Japan. More fundamentally, in this post I will suggest that you need to consider the sights of Japan as a whole in experiential terms. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that "sights" - meaning, things that are to be seen - is the wrong word and "gestalt experiences" would be a better phrase, but this post is already sufficiently pretentious. Time for a break.
In my first post, I described the quotidian aspects of being in Japan. Let's consider another example, perhaps one more common to Brits: visiting New York.
Simply being in New York - experiencing the fact that it's "just like the movies" - is one of the highlights of any such visit. You want to "be a part of it", as the song has it. If you were to have a thoroughly New York-y day, you might: buy a hotdog from someone with a strong accent; see some yellow taxi cabs; watch steam coming out of the ground; go to a big park (Central Park); observe that there are lots of straight roads lined by skyscrapers (some of which are readily recognisable); spot guns, fire hydrants, fire escapes, stoops, brownstone buildings, "DON'T WALK" signs and so on; and ride the subway. These experiences are not in themselves terribly exciting things to do, certanly not individually, but they have a cumulative effect of contributing to that feeling of experiencing New York which is one of the reasons you went in the first place.
Being in Japan is similar: sitting on a fast train or buying food from a convenience store are also not terribly exciting things to do in their own right, but they contribute to the overall experience. But what is striking about the Japanese experience is that the quotidian is not only distinctive but also pleasant.
Of course, there needs to be more than just the everyday to make a long trip worthwhile. New York and, say, Venice are nice places to stroll around, but they each have vaut le voyage highlights too. What are the Japanese sights?
There are many sights, but you need to think of them differently from the sights of a similarly old European country. To try to explain, I'lll start by telling you what not to expect.
Tokyo has been a prominent city since the 17th century. It had a million inhabitants in the 18th century. But it went through a lot in the 20th century. Wikipedia tells me that the "raids that were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, are the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people" - incendiary bombs are very effective against wood and paper housing. And that was just one raid: strategic urban bombing had been going on for some time before that. (There is a Studio Ghibli film, Grave of the Fireflies, dramatising the effects of similar bombing on the civilian population of Kobe. Worth a watch.) What you see in modern Tokyo, therefore, is a lot of post-war development.
The next point to note is that Tokyo is not a place for what we might call landmarks. There's Tokyo Tower (which owes a lot to the Eiffel Tower) and the Tokyo Skytree (the tallest tower in the world) but there is not monumental architecture in the manner familiar to visitors to European cities. Indeed, it is unlike other Asian cities that I know: there is no setpiece - no physical drama - equivalent to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, or the Taj Mahal; and while Seoul and Tokyo have many street-by-street similarities, Gyeongbokgung Palace is definitely not in Tokyo (and not only because the captions in the museum are definitely not written by Japanese people). Even Singapore, which, like Tokyo, is safe, clean and largely built since the War, has a desire to create dramatic setpieces: think of the merlions, Marina Bay Sands, the Gardens by the Bay or the amazing centrepiece to its airport. That is not Japan.
Here is Tripadvisor's list of the top 12 sights of Tokyo:
The Lonely Planet has a longer but similar list, adding the Ghibli Museum (obviously not old) and the Imperial Palace (which I will come back to). CN Traveller has an overlapping list which is a little more heavy on places to consume food and drink, while Viator has a similar list, albeit one that starts by proposing that you leave Tokyo entirely to see Mt Fuji. One thing they all agree on is that, as mentioned in my first post on Japan, the crossing in Shibuya is one of the top sights of Tokyo, and I think you can calibrate your expectations accordingly.
These are all good recommendations. (To the best of my knowledge, that is. I wasn't bothered about going up a tall building to see a city that is mostly unfamiliar to me, so I haven't done that and can't comment - I bet that the experience will be typically well-managed and affordable, as is the Japanese way, but that's just my prejudices speaking.) But you'll have noticed that what you are going to see in Tokyo is mostly (a) either a park or a neighbourhood and (b), as I've hinted, not that old.
Let's take the Meiji Shrine. It's very nice (gardens, gates, path, pleasant shrine complex); it's just by Harajuku, so it makes a lot of sense to see it; it's quirky - look out for the barrels of wine. But it is not old. It's the shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken (it is not their tomb - their bodies are elsewhere), who didn't die that long ago, and so it's only about 100 years old. (And even that's leaving aside the fact that lots of what you see now is much newer than that, for various reasons, not all of which are related to the War.) That's pretty unusual for a Top 10 highlight of a European city.
What about the Imperial Palace? I said I'd come back to it. The name suggests that you might be getting some Big Castle Action here. You won't.
The picture of the Imperial Palace at the Lonely Planet link above is taken from a famous bit on the periphery where you see a couple of bridges and a pleasant pavillion, near to a historic gate with an historically important killing. Here's my photo from the same spot, which gives you more of an impression of what it is like to be there (i.e., you are likely to be far from the action).
The Imperial Palace, to the visitor, is mostly just a large garden with some buildings that you can spy from a distance. It's outward appearance is very definitely not designed to impress or overawe in the manner of Versailles, St Petersburg or even Buckingham Palace.
(An aside. Just as the vast population of Tokyo - something that is potentially awesome, even overwhelming - appears, to Western eyes, to be carefully avoiding causing offence by sight, sound or smell, so too the extraordinary history and traditions of the last remaining imperial presence on earth - something with surely an immense potential to overawe - seems to consist of a restrained set of buildings modestly and politely obscured by a number of carefully tended trees. Draw your own conclusions.)
So that is, at some length, what you won't be going to see. Now let me tell you what you will see. As I said, it's all about experience.
One of the great glories of Japan is its gardens: Kanazawa alone has at least three wonderful ones (Kenroku-en, Gyokusen-en and the garden of the samurai's house). I don't pretend to know much about gardens, but I can say that Japanese gardens are designed to be experienced. The different vistas, the ornaments (bridges, lanterns and so on), the designs of trees, the sounds of waterfalls, the sight of the koi swimming - all this is something that you need to be in to "get". That, I suggest, is a strong pointer to the rest of the sights of Japan: the gestalt is key.
Let's just go back to the various lists of Tokyo's highlights.
- Neighbourhoods: visiting a neighbourhood is inherently an immersive experience. (Harajuku was a surprise to me: I was expecting edgy - and you might see some naughty things in this photo below (look out for the rabbits on the shop sign, if visible on your screen) - but it's more like a chichi upscale shopping district occupied by independent shops. Think of a smart but quirky Cornwall village rather than Brixton.)
- The Ghibli Museum. I heartily recommend this to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the films. It's hard to explain, but it's a building to experience, rather than a straight museum.
- Teamlab. This is a set of rooms with ever-changing light shows of various kinds, abstract or representational, some inter-active and some not, some with smoke or hanging structures or moving balls, and so on. It's very Instagram-able, but don't let that put you off: it's absolutely something you need to be in, something to wander around within and experience.
- Shibuya Crossing. I keep coming back to this, but there's a reason it's iconic. Crossing the road as holidaymaking experience!
In this context, I think it's also worth pointing out that one of the most famous aspects of Japanese culture is the tea ceremony, i.e. an event to experience from within, to participate in, rather than a thing to see from without. You can watch Morris dancing, an opera or a cricket match - you've 'done it' even if you just sit in a chair - but you can't 'do' a tea ceremony without drinking tea. The parallels between the tea ceremony and the Mass are well attested (Jesuits, eh?, they get everywhere) and that, in I hope not a blasphemous way, is a good indication of what I've been getting at: Mass is an experience, not a thing. I've said I won't go all Mysteries of the Ancient East on you, so I'm not going to make too much of this fact, but I will say that it is not a surprise to me that Japan should regard a wholly immersive and carefully curated experience as one of its cultural treasures.
There you have it. Should you go to Japan - and I suggest that you do - be prepared for the gestalt. Be prepared for something to do with Holy Mass and something to do with crossing the road, plenty of green thoughts in green shades, some immodest rabbits and a modest imperium, museums that aren't museums and shrines that aren't tombs. You'll love it.
Another interesting post.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously liked being in Japan ( as did I and I was not on holiday ) but it sounds as if there's nothing particularily exciting to see or do. A restful place but also guarded, with an undercurrent of nervousness perhaps?
I wouldn't put it that way. It is restful, in that it is well-ordered and everything works, so there is no effort being there (as there is many places). But it is exciting in being so different, quite apart from the 'sights' themselves. Guarded? Nervous? I don't know and I wouldn't want to say: I don't speak Japanese so I can't claim to have any particular insight into their character - I can only comment on the experience of being there as an outsider.
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