In the last five years my wife Charlotte and I have spent a month traveling in Japan. Throughout our wandering its people treated us, two naive Americans, with patience and good cheer, and in the process revealed their genuine character. Here are a few observations.
- In Tokyo where density is a cliché, we saw the well-tended trees and understood the people’s true spirit.
- On the island of Miyajima where the luminescent red torii stands in the Inland Sea acclaiming the natural splendor of Mt. Misen, we watched tourist walk out during low tide to touch the red gate and leave coins as talismans.
- Unexpectedly entering a city of gleeful, energetic people a short walk from the profound sadness of Hiroshima’s Peace Dome.
- With distant snow covered peaks in the background we sampled Takayama’s traditional sake and miso amidst its ever-present watercourses.
- Nikko’s cascading rivers and mountain mist that define the onsen experience, and the pride that the inhabitant take in the surrounding beauty and natural bounty.
- The Kenrokuen garden of Kanazawa where brightly uniformed attendants in conical bamboo hats use such care in sweeping the centuries old moss clean of fallen burgundy and golden leaves.
- Ancient Mt. Koya’s deep quiet in amongst the graves and massive cedars where families come to honor their departed.
- And sophisticated Kyoto, devoted to the preservation of Japan’s finest traditions. It is nestled in its mountain home much like Florence is in the Tuscan hills where my ancestors lived.
- Finally then to Konnichian, Urasenke’s garden of teahouses that represent the birthplace of chado, the way of tea. Where over four hundred years ago Rikyu and Sotan laid the foundation for the practice we follow today. And where the present 15th and 16th generation grand tea masters extended us a warm welcome and a willingness to pass on chado’s knowledge.
Of course each memory could be expanded on, but to what end. Basho’s brevity better serves to describe the experience. As we traveled we found ourselves planning for the next visit. Alas, we could spend 10,000 years and not see all that Tokyo has to offer, let alone the rest of Japan.
Japan is technology, infrastructure, design, and intellect. It is outrageously garish and incredibly subtle. It is exotic and down home comforting. It is regal in a Victorian way and unsettlingly modern. It is all these simultaneously. No better example of this than the Shinkansen.
I tried to photograph the scenery flashing by my window at 200 MPH. The attempt made my brain hurt and my body longed for its next warm soak. It took me too long to realize that photography was not the answer. I finally turned the video recorder on and let it run, hoping that once home slow motion will provide a sense of the fleeting images.
I write this 6000 miles further east then I was two days ago. My body is longing for a dinner of soba or udon or tempura, for a good beer and miso soup, and for the delicate pickles and rice that end each meal. It will take a few more long nights to get back to normal. But what will that be, now that we have experienced this other world.
We will remember Japan for its sweet, sincere people who treated us with such grace. And for the way their faces lit up when we announced we were from Chicago, and how they told us that they were coming—to see the Cubs of course!
Volume 5836 (14), 1/1/2011
