Japan D-term blog: Japan D-Term Super Express blog MJ

Edo-Tokyo Museum

The Edo Tokyo museum was our first historical excursion, we had a fantastic guide who was very passionate about the history of Tokyo and it showed in her presentation. Learning about Edo Japan was in a way refreshing but also felt eye opening. The Edo period of this city's history was certainly traditional yet in some ways it also felt very modern; the architecture and fashions of the people were distinctly traditional Japanese, yet the layout of the city and cultural engagement felt more modern. For example the way the markets (and supermarkets) were set up, the ways people shared laundry, the popularity of books and newspaper-like industries, as well as the organization of public servants such as the fire brigade reminded me of a modern city life but the wooden houses, clothing, and distinct class differences (specifically between the samurai and all other classes) are features of more classical societies.

Akihabara

The apparent peak of nerd culture across the globe and for Japan. Akihabara is a fun place but I feel like it glorifies unproductive culture a bit too much, the amount of time I saw shirts that said “NEET and proud” or something of the like was a bit scary. It is a good place to visit in moderation but I fear about the effect it can have on the social and mental health of frequent attendees. The best comparison I can liken it to in the United States is Las Vegas, its okay to go there for a few days but people who spend a disproportionate amount of time there are unlikely to be productive or happy in my opinion.

Yatsukuri Shrine

The Shrine to memorialize the Japanese historical wars from the Meiji Respiration up until the end of Wields War II. To be honest I felt I didn't see much of the actual shrine, the museum was the main focus for our group on this excursion. Ordinarily, I love war museums chronicling the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The museum at this shrine was no exception.

Hakodate

The first day on the Shinkansen was a fun experience, it was by far the fastest train I've been in in my life and very comfortable. Lately I feel I've had a huge appreciation for the impressive feats humanity is capable of, the fact that we have built technology to carry large amounts of people hundreds of kilometers in just hours is incredibly fascinating to me and makes me proud to be a human. To narrow in on that point though, the Japanese ability to take things made by outsiders assimilate and improve them within their own culture is immensely impressive as well. So much so to the point where one of the parts of Japanese culture that outsiders find impressive is that recurring theme; the adaptation of outside inventions into Japanese culture.

That being said, after today's visit to the Ainu Museum, the tradition of adapting outside inventions was not exercised in what I would think of as a particularly moral way. The Ainu were a native, apparently less advanced and organized, people who were pushed to smaller and smaller populations and land as the Japanese became more powerful. The Japanese did not adapt any Ainu inventions, likely because the Ainu were less advanced and the Japanese saw no benefit to adapting Ainu inventions. The Japanese did however adapt the Americans system of systematically eliminating the Natives control of the land. All in all in was very interesting to visit and explore Hakodate for one day.

Sendai

I went into Sendai with no expectations, in all honesty I had no idea there was a major city called Sendai in Japan, the experience was satisfying. During our short stay in Sendai we visited a beautiful Buddhist temple, unfortunately it was partially under construction so we did not get to enjoy the full experience of the temple. The temple was surrounded by beautiful natural scenery which was complimented by Buddhist masonry. It was humbling to see that the Buddhist culture which had been adapted by the Japanese continued the Japanese culture of manipulating natural structures to appear beautiful without losing their natural beauty. A short walk from the temple we took a ferry ride across the most beautiful Japanese bay. The islands protruding from the waters and the gorgeous scenery made the boat ride unforgettable, I'm incredible thankful to both the past and present Japanese people for not tainting the beautiful natural spectacle with human augmentation.

Kyoto

On our first day in Kyoto we only got to spend about half a day of touring the city. (As the other half was mostly traveling from Sendai.) However Kyoto is one of the most magical cities I have ever visited, a quick train ride brought us to Arimori village, a place that looked straight out of a Japanese fairy tail. It was a place where people still clearly lived, worked and played, and yet the feel of old time japan strongly persisted, this beautiful town was one of my most memorable experiences so far on this trip. Later that night, I and a few others, including Matsubara Sensei, explored Kyoto station. This fascinating architectural masterpiece left us with oohs and ahhs at every turn, here we got to see the city from a unique point of view and were time and again impressed by the pure scale of the Japanese modern marvels. The amount of shrines and temples we visited while in Kyoto was astounding, in just one day we traveled to five different locations and explored various historical sites, mainly Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and Shogun estates.

Amano no Sato

The village exceeds my expectations, I had no idea the village would have such a rich cultural and historical background. In addition to the expected farming land there was also an impressive rose garden which used patented systems to grow a maximized amount of roses all year round. I knew there was a major shrine which was a world heritage site in the village but I had no idea that there would be so many other minor shrines such as the ones in honor of the famous Waka poet and his family, or the one about the nightingale lover. It makes me wonder, is this village unique with its cultural history or are there many small scale villages similar to this one. If the former is true then I am so thankful I got the chance I got to visit Amano no Sato and I think NCCs future D-term trips should make a return to this village. If the latter is true however I think it might be good for future D-terms to explore new Japanese villages.

Nagasaki peace museum

I think that the Japanese take completely the correct approach to handling the catastrophic atomic bombings. The bombs were dropped in the past and there is boring that can be done to change the past, however humanity should focus on not letting anything like this ever happen again. I heard a other museum-goers commenting today about how awful America is for dropping the bomb. However the way I see it, japan doesn't view this as a place to place blame because no matter what is said or done now nothing can change what happened, what they do focus on is how the tragedy occurred, what led up to it and efforts that are being made now and can be made to minimize the possibility of another WMD being used. It makes me extremely curious about the way Japan's roll will play out as nuclear weapons continue to become more accessible to globalized nations.

Himeji

The Himeji castle was perhaps my favorite excursion on this trip, as one of the best best castles in the world, the White Heron did not disappoint. This Tokugawa era castle which was finished too late to ever fall under attack and luckily has survived many tragedies which had befallen other castles of the same bloodline of Himeji. The amount of traps and strategery which went into to design of the castle were so intricate that I almost which it would have been part of a battle just to see how effective an attack could have possibly been. Personally I feel the only way to take this castle would be to starve out the defenders rather than to attack this monster. The history of the residents of this castle ties closely to the Tokugawa family.

Epilogue:

*Hakone

Hakone was not a place we stopped on our trip, but after going there I felt like it easily could have been, Hakone was the final checkpoint for many of the Feudal Samurai who had to make the journey to the Tokugawa Capital; Edo once every year. (and stay in Edo for six months) As the final checkpoint the location was very beautiful but also had important geographical features that made it difficult to attack. It was very high on a mountain, with many lookouts scattered around the checkpoint campus to spot incoming troops, as you can see here:

At the location where the Samurai would check in to Hakone there were rows of bows and guns to discourage any violence during their stay as can be seen here:

These samurai were, of course, very proud, upon each arrival there would be a huge parade of the Samurai's underlings. The Samurai were allowed to bring only a limited amount of his followers, but as the exhibit said, he would not want to bring less than the maximum amount so as not to appear weak compared to the other feudal samurai. Here is a rendition:

Hakone was truly a fascinating place to visit, when we were discussing the Edo period checkpoints both in class as well as at the Edo-Tokyo museum I had always imagined them as being just some large inn on the side of the road dotted throughout Japan. Now I can see that the amount of thought and cleverness that went into the development of the Checkpoints was far more refined than I had first speculated. Hakone was more like Himeji than anything else in my opinion due to the fact that everything was built with a specific purpose in mind. The roads on the campus were winding so as to not easily be memorized, the outer gate was wider than the inner gate to funnel the incoming parade into manageable segments. The "check-in" point was at the lowest altitude of the area and was far more exposed than anywhere else. The very checkpoint itself was high up on a mountain and difficult to reach on foot. Hakone was a wonderful experience for me and I absolutely would support a consideration of a NCC visit there in the future.

Here are some other pictures I took: