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Japanese Archives of Asian Historical Documents

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Japanese Archives of Asian Historical Documents

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This site houses archival documents related to Japan and its Asian neighbors.

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What Japanese Students learn about their own history

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What Japanese Students learn about their own history

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This is the website for the exhibition in Philadelphia on the Samurai tradition.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art - Collections : Search Collections

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The Philadelphia Museum of Art is the cultural heart of a great city-the place for creative play, with a surprise around every corner.

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A book review that discusses the emerging contemporary art of Japan

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BEYOND CUTE.: Discovery Service for Cambridge School of Weston

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The concept of a nation that limits its engagement with other nations, choses who it engages with and on which terms. The question is whether this still applies to Japan, as it did in the past, and if so, what form sakoku takes.

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This is an article from 1912 that describes the secret of the Meiji Regime. It is an interesting read, as long as you know that it dates back to pre-World War One.

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Garrett Droppers, The Secret of Japanese Success, The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Apr., 1912), pp. 424-438

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We will be watching parts of this video in class as well, however, you can explore it on your time.

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No Sex Please We're Japanese (Current Affairs - This World - BBC2)

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2013 One of "This World's" highest ever audience raters. Directed and self shot in Japan with Anita Rani as she investigated the nation's...

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Temples, Mountains and Solitude in Japan

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Temples, Mountains and Solitude in Japan

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This article not only gives you great views of Shinto temples but leads you into the mountains of Japan.

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"Your eyes should be neither open nor closed," explained the monk at the front of the room. "They should be sort of sleepy - like a Buddha." It was my first time meditating, and I was anxious about making some sort of conspicuous misstep. I squinted, then tried to relax my eyelids, but inadvertently began to focus on the bright orange cushion of the person in front of me. I closed my eyes with an inward sigh of exasperation at having such a difficult time following instructions. The monk leading the session told us cheerfully that it might help to rest our vision on the tips of our noses.

I was sitting in the carpeted meditation hall of an 1,100-year-old Buddhist temple in Koyasan, in a mountainous region of southeastern Japan. The hall was separated from the temple's garden by only a thin sliding wooden door, and the air inside was crisp and piney, threaded with smoke from incense burning on the altar. About 15 other sleepy-eyed tourists from the United States, Europe and Australia (the class was for English-speaking visitors) surrounded me across the floor, steadily counting their breaths.

Koyasan is one of the premier destinations for Buddhist pilgrims in Japan, and is considered one of the holiest sites in the country. It was chosen 1,200 years ago by the monk Kobo-Daishi for its lotus-like geography - a shallow valley nestled into a mountain - to be the headquarters of Esoteric Shingon Buddhism. The religion, which dates to the Tang dynasty, places an emphasis on daily ritual as a means of reaching enlightenment in an immediate, practicable way, developing what several monks described as a "Buddha nature." Over the course of the last century, the religion's birthplace has also attracted an increasing number of visitors without any background in Buddhism - visitors who seek out mountains, peace, history, or just a fleeting connection with the mysticism of another time.

I came for a little bit of each of these, teased by the promise of a remote corner of the country, thousands of miles removed, both physically and mentally, from the frenetic anxieties of New York. I wanted to challenge myself to a place with a different logic and rhythm, and to see myself disappear briefly into the magnitude of a 1,200-year-old rite. Also appealing was the prospect of a place that was truly dark at night - a place where the thick, spindly velvet of steep, tree-covered mountainsides soaks up the darkness completely. And like many others, as I would learn, I also wanted something a little bit naïve and capitalistic: to buy an ascetic experience.

THE MOUNTAIN IS DOTTED with a total of 52 shukubo, temples that historically offered overnight lodging to pilgrims. Most of these have also begun to welcome non-pilgrim tourists in recent decades (there are a dozen or so holdouts). For $80 to $150 per night, per person, you can sleep on a tatami mat on the floor of a traditional guest room in a 1,000-year-old temple, eat the monks' traditional vegan fare, and participate in the daily meditation and prayer. A few of the temples advertise amenities like sutra writing classes, views of monks raking the gardens below, or natural hot springs to bathe in - features you can't filter for on Airbnb or Hotels.com. And in the case of many of the temples, you can't be totally sure what you are getting - an ambiguity that appealed to me in an era when every possible travel destination is so scrupulously documented and Instagrammed.

Although the temples on Koyasan were originally reserved for the most devout pilgrims, Buddhism is famously accepting of other religions. So over the last century, as temples in Japan and elsewhere began to struggle financially with fewer donations coming in, the natural solution was to open the doors a little wider and welcome visitors who were curious about Buddhism.

Reading up on the shukubo options before my trip, I learned that many previous visitors to Koyasan were irked by the simplicity of the lodgings. Some wrote on TripAdvisor.com that their rooms were too cold, or that they could hear their neighbors snoring through the 200-year-old paper walls of the temple. More than one reviewer complained that the multicourse vegan meals were too simple to satiate people who are accustomed to eating meat. "Take snacks or you will starve," one warned.

Others felt that they weren't quite receiving a good enough spiritual bang for their buck. "I expected something a bit spiritual and to feel that Zen/Buddhist vibe," one visitor from Ohio complained, "I have to say I did not feel it." Some complained that the monks running the temples didn't speak enough English, or didn't offer visitors enough individual attention. "The major disappointment came during dinner," another wrote. "I was expecting to have the opportunity to mingle with the monks."

I found these comments more entertaining than dissuasive. I wanted to go and prove to myself how little I was bothered by a chill in the air or a little noise through the walls. Maybe that would be its own form of spiritual growth on a micro scale - proof of my own congruity with the universe even under mildly uncomfortable conditions.

Arriving at this micro-enlightenment would take many modes of transportation, it turned out. Although Koyasan is only about 86 miles outside of Kyoto, the journey to get there is its own self-selecting odyssey. From Kyoto, I took three separate trains past power plants, greenhouses, small towns, backyard yuzu trees and grass tennis courts. At the base of the mountain, I shuffled off the train and onto a cable car along with a handful of European backpackers. At the top of the mountain, a bus waited for us to make the final journey along mortifyingly steep cedar-studded ravines into the center of Koyasan.

I arrived at my temple, Eko-in (part of the Danjo Garan temple complex), just as an American couple and their teenage son were checking in. A monk showed us where to put our shoes by the broad carved wood entrance. Outfitted with wooden slippers, I walked through a maze of creaky wooden hallways to my room, a small, serene square of space with elaborately painted sliding doors and a large window looking out onto the temple's central garden. The room came equipped with a TV, a space heater, a telephone, and Wi-Fi. Waiting for me were some small red bean sweets and a kettle full of hot water for tea.

When it was time for dinner, a fleet of several monks arrived, bearing a carafe of hot sake and several lacquerware platforms for the food, each containing a clutter of small bowls. The traditional temple cuisine, called shojin-ryori, incorporates a bright variety of tastes, textures and colors. Tiny cups of vegetable broth and miso soup flocked around plates of delicate tempura squash, lotus root and shiso leaves. A pot of slightly bland but hearty cabbage and mushroom udon sat over a little flame. My favorite dish was one that Koyasan is famous for: a savory tofu-like pudding called goma dofu, made from ground sesame and arrowroot flour.

Once it was dark, I slipped out of my room and down to the main entrance of the temple to retrieve my shoes and join the nighttime tour of Okunoin Cemetery. An English-speaking monk led a group of about 20 guests from Eko-in and some of the surrounding temples through the lantern-lit paths of Japan's largest cemetery, pointing out the moss-covered tombs of important national figures, including the inventor of Kabuki and the founder of Panasonic. Since Buddhism values all forms of life, our guide explained, not all of the graves belonged to human beings; the writing on one of them translated essentially to "R.I.P. Ants." In the 600-year-old cedars overhead, we could hear the chirps and squeaks of flying squirrels rippling through the brisk air.

In the early morning, before breakfast was served, guests of the temple were invited to attend morning prayer and a daily fire ceremony. The printed schedule left in our room requested that visitors not use flash photography and issued a stern warning: "The morning service and fire ritual are NOT A TOURIST SHOW, monks must do them every day to show daily appreciation to Buddhist saints."

In spite of this, few attendees of the fire ritual could resist capturing a moment or two of cellphone video: the drums, chanting and flames rising up to the ceiling of the temple as the presiding monk burned a stack of wooden slats with prayers written on them. Most managed to do this surreptitiously while kneeling quietly. About halfway through the ceremony, though, my eyes widened when I recognized a Frenchwoman from the cemetery tour standing at the back of the room, doing what could only be described as dancing to the beat of the drums. None of the monks seemed visibly bothered by her spontaneous self-expression.

KOYASAN BECAME A Unesco World Heritage site in 2004 (as part of the sacred sites of the Kii mountain range), and since then, the number of annual foreign visitors has more than quadrupled, while the number of Japanese visitors has declined.

More tourists seeking solace and simplicity can make a place a lot less placid, and as a visitor, it's difficult to avoid the fact that you're contributing to the din and litter that comes with this influx of foreigners. And yet, it is incredibly moving to be invited into the quiet, enveloping darkness of a cemetery at night - to add your footsteps to the tens of thousands that have worn down a stone path over the centuries. You come to realize how little space you can take up and how little noise you can make if you want to.

Jynne Martin, a friend who had recommended Koyasan, first traveled there 10 years ago and returned this past winter, staying at Shojoshin-in both times. On her first trip, she saw only two other tourists at the temple - the rest of the visitors were pilgrims. On her most recent trip, she saw exclusively tourists.

To her mild disappointment, Shojoshin-in had updated their amenities to include TV and internet in all of their guest rooms. A few convenience shops and a vending machine of beer had also been added to one of the main roads in town. Even so, for Jynne, Koyasan did not lose its magic. "I feel like there's this echo and resonance within the forest and in the cemetery and in the temples where there's some low hum or vibration that feels like it's just been going for years and years," she said. "I think there's just a beautiful energy on the top of the mountain. Even with the TV and internet."

After checking out of my room at Eko-in, I chatted for a few minutes with Yuta Kobayashi, one of the monks who run the temple. Mr. Kobayashi told me that while the temples in Koyasan used to rely on devout Buddhists for donations, they increasingly rely on income from tourists. "The Japanese government and the Japanese people don't have a responsibility to keep the old buildings or to keep the old culture," he said.

I asked him if he ever reads online reviews of his temple. He told me that he does. "Good opinions or bad opinions - I accept both," he said. "And if I can change or make something better, I want to do my best." The only type of review that ever irks him, he added, are reviews that accuse the temple's 1,100-year-old rituals of being performatory or touristy. "We do this every morning," he said with a laugh. "Even when people don't stay here."

IF YOU GO

At Eko-in (497 Koyasan; 0736-56-2514; ekoin.jp), for 15,000 yen per person (about $130), you can reserve a traditional guest room with a garden view, a shared bathroom and two meals. For 20,000 yen per person, you can reserve a room with a private bath and toilet. Prices fluctuate slightly based on season.

At Shojoshin-in (556 Koyasan; japaneseguesthouses.com), 10,800 to 12,960 yen per person will get you a room with a shared bathroom. For 16,200 yen per person, you can reserve a room with a private bathroom. Two meals are included, but no alcohol is served.

Guest rooms with shared bathrooms at Fukuchi-in (657 Koyasan; 0736-56-2021, fukuchiin.com) range from 14,000 to 16,500 yen per person, depending on whether or not the room has a garden view. Rooms with private toilets are available for 18,500 yen per person. An outdoor hot spring is available to all guests.

The New Generation of Japanese Accommodations

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Where Sand Dunes and Camels in Japan Evoke the Sahara

In Rural Japan, Lifting a Shrine and Building a Friendship

A Muslim American's Homecoming: Cowboys, Country Music, Chapatis

From Poland to Lithuania: A Writer's Search for Her Jewish Past

A Family Travel Playbook: Make Plans, Prepare to Let Them Go

Cobblestones? Check. Castles? Check. Budget? Check. Why Romania Is Worth the Trip.

The New Generation of Japanese Accommodations

HEADS UP

Where Sand Dunes and Camels in Japan Evoke the Sahara

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Seeking Solitude in Japan's Mountain Monasteries

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"Your eyes should be neither open nor closed," explained the monk at the front of the room. "They should be sort of sleepy - like a Buddha." It was my first time meditating, and I was anxious about making some sort of conspicuous misstep.

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What Japanese Women Think of Ivanka Trump

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What Japanese Women Think of Ivanka Trump

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Following the visit by the President and his daughter, here is a short report on what Japanese women think of Ms. Trump

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What Japanese women think of Ivanka Trump

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The first daughter and adviser to the president is accompanying her father on his trip to Asia.

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Tulip Mazumdar (Yes, she shares her name with Top Dog Tulip) reports on the state of Love in Japan.

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shrinking population: how japan fell out of love with love

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Shrinking Population: How Japan Fell Out of Love with Love - BBC Radio 4

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Tulip Mazumdar finds young people in Japan rejecting intimacy and a population in decline.

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The continuing story of 12 seven year-olds in Japan and their growth.

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The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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Woodblock prints were initially used as early as the eighth century in Japan to disseminate texts, especially Buddhist scriptures. The designer and painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (died ca. 1640) used wood stamps in the early seventeenth century to print designs on paper and silk. Until the eighteenth century, however, woodblock printing remained primarily a convenient method of reproducing written texts.

In 1765, new technology made it possible to produce single-sheet prints in a whole range of colors. Printmakers who had heretofore worked in monochrome and painted the colors in by hand, or had printed only a few colors, gradually came to use full polychrome painting to spectacular effect. The first polychrome prints, or nishiki-e, were calendars made on commission for a group of wealthy patrons in Edo, where it was the custom to exchange beautifully designed calendars at the beginning of the year.

Woodblock prints of the Edo period most frequently depicted the seductive courtesans and exciting Kabuki actors ( JP2822) of the urban pleasure districts. With time, their subject matter expanded to include famous romantic vistas and eventually, in the final years of the nineteenth century, dramatic historical events. These pictures could be made in great quantity and featured popular scenes that appealed in particular to the wealthy townspeople of the period.

Despite the fame of great print masters like Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), each print required the collaboration of four experts: the designer, the engraver, the printer, and the publisher. A print was usually conceived and issued as a commercial venture by the publisher, who was often also a bookseller. It was he who chose the theme and determined the quality of the work. Designers were dependent on the skill and cooperation of their engravers and of the printers charged with executing their ideas in finished form.

A woodblock print image is first designed by the artist on paper and then transferred to a thin, partly transparent paper. Following the lines on the paper, now pasted to a wooden block usually of cherry wood, the carver chisels and cuts to create the original in negative-with the lines and areas to be colored raised in relief. Ink is applied to the surface of the woodblock. Rubbing a round pad over the back of a piece of paper laid over the top of the inked board makes a print.

Polychrome prints were made using a separate carved block for each color, which could number up to twenty. To print with precision using numerous blocks on a single paper sheet, a system of placing two cuts on the edge of each block to serve as alignment guides was employed. Paper made from the inner bark of mulberry trees was favored, as it was strong enough to withstand numerous rubbings on the various woodblocks and sufficiently absorbent to take up the ink and pigments. Reproductions, sometimes numbering in the thousands, could be made until the carvings on the woodblocks became worn.

Department of Asian Art. "Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ukiy/hd_ukiy.htm (October 2003)

Guth, Christine. Japanese Art of the Edo Period. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.

Illing, Richard. The Art of Japanese Prints. London: Octopus, 1980.

Kanada, Margaret Miller. Color Woodblock Printmaking: The Traditional Method of Ukiyo-e. Tokyo: Shufunotomo, 1989.

Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.

Merritt, Helen. Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.

Singer, Robert T., ed. Edo: Art in Japan, 1615-1868. Washington: D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998.

Thompson, Sarah E., and H. D. Harootunian. Undercurrents in the Floating World: Censorship and Japanese Prints. New York: Asia Society Galleries, 1991.

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Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

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These pictures could be made in great quantity and featured popular scenes that appealed in particular to the wealthy townspeople of the period.

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Read about the experiences of one journalist in rural Japan

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When volunteers were called up to the line, without thought I stepped forward. Hirota, oddly enough, did not. Instead he donned a whistle and took a place on the outside, as one of the steerers.

Our team would be coached by the kiyari-shu, the procession's leader, who would sing regional songs to cheer us up and dictate the length of our suffering at each waypoint; nine in total.

Presently, he sang for us to lift. We pressed the shrine a full arm's length above our heads and the men around me started chanting, "Ya, ya, ya!" I joined the rhythm, the acceleration, and just like that our ship was underway.

The enthusiasm, however, wore off quickly. Feet were stepped on, dances were performed out of sync, and then an unexpected fight broke out between the left and right sides-which is to say unexpected only by me. It's actually a completely regular occurrence during the procession, where one bearer shouts, "Come at me!" and the two sides attempt to hurl the mikoshi to the ground by pitching it onto and over the backs of the opposing team.

I let my side down, by dumbly absorbing blows, instead of heaving back punishment.

But what surprised me the most was how quickly carrying the mikoshi went from fun, social activity to actual labor to medieval punishment I'd have traded my morals to escape. While the others lounged on a blue tarp, guzzling beer and feasting on store-bought trays of sushi, tempura and onigiri, I spent the break huddled in a remote corner, convinced the next few hours were going to take years off my life.

"It's heavy, isn't it?" Hirota said. He was already tipsy, and wanted me to be, too.

"More than I thought, but maybe with both of us next time, it won't be so bad."

Hirota sighed. Bad news. Since he was a leader... he didn't have to say any more. Since he was a leader there would be no challenging ourselves together. While I bore the load with the rest of the grunts, Hirota's entire lifting duties would consist of holding a whistle, and he probably knew that when he recruited me.

"It's an important position," he called back, leaving to join the others.

I took a long pull of the sake he left and spat half of it on the grass. I couldn't believe it - bamboozled! By the samurai of dubious origin.

What happened to ganbarro?

The tradition of carrying the mikoshi is centuries deep, though which exact century is still up in the air. One of the first recorded mentions of mikoshi took place in 794 A.D. in Kyushu, where the god of the Usa Hachiman Shrine was brought outside on a palanquin to either - depending on accounts - ensure the safe construction of the Great Buddha at the Todaiji Temple or suppress a revolt. Possibly both.

However, by the beginning of the 11th century, while Murasaki Shikibu put the finishing touches on what many consider the world's first novel ( "The Tale of Genji"), her contemporaries in Kyoto were already marching mikoshi through the city streets to ward off malevolent spirits and natural disasters as a part of their festivals.

Today these processions still take place, and not only on a grand scale like the Sanja Matsuri in Tokyo and the monthlong Gion Matsuri in Kyoto, and not only in every city, but in almost every neighborhood of every city in Japan.

As we entered the third rest stop, another procession was pulling away. It was our neighbor - or rather, the neighboring community, which was holding their festival on the same day. Unlike ours, their ujigami was ensconced in a large, wheeled float that was covered in paper lanterns and pulled by its bearers via two enormous dockyard ropes.

Also unlike ours, their procession was musical. Drummers and flute players sat inside, sending out a charged and playful melody. An ujigami is a Shinto deity and therefore has no name, no features, no disposition, but it can retain a certain characteristic. Whereas our ujigami liked to be jostled and bobbed like an upside down pendulum, this one liked music. I watched a 4-year-old girl run after the float, trying to wallop the two enormous tao drums sticking out from its rear like exhaust nozzles on a space shuttle. They were too high for her, but still she lunged, arms flailing in rhythmic circles, until she finally got close enough to hop up and deliver a bang.

A big hollow sound answered back and she ran into her father's arms, dirt-scraped, smiling, triumphant. "They don't have enough people. This will be their last year," a man said.

This struck me as sad. Partly because their group was only slightly smaller than ours, but there was something else. You see, Miyoshi lies on the far southern tip of the Boso Peninsula, where every weekend surfers and cyclists flock in from Tokyo and Yokohama to take advantage of the beaches and ocean-view roads, but between those coasts lies a landscape that echoes of a pastoral past.

A place where farmers sell crops via unmanned, roadside stands to customers who pay on the honor system; where crows are formidably enormous, and the summer growth is so explosive it foams right into passing traffic; where every summer morning Asian lilies open with a pop(!)-scenting the air with licorice-and every summer night bush-league yakuza rattle past your windows, gunning motorcycle engines.

There's a delicate balance to it all that is held together by a community willing to bend and band together.

But what happens to a place when its people are no longer strong enough to take care of their community another year?

I watched the procession disappear back into its neighborhood for the last time, where the drumbeats faded to a murmur: the sound of an ujigami retiring.

"Even if I drink sake, my spirit doesn't get drunk, until the matsuri is over," our kiyari-shu sang. It's not exactly the accompaniment you'd expect to hear at a religious procession.

These songs - some silly, others bawdy, most not for children - weren't going to help anyone up the steps of enlightenment; they were made to lift the spirits of generations of farmers, who were out seeking their gods in their own way.

But at the time, I could not see that. By now, all of my fellow grunts had either drunken themselves stuporous or had long since been rendered mute by pain. And yet the kiyari-shu still pushed - always prolonging each dance so that it was longer than the last; once we had given the supreme effort, he always found a new verse and kept on singing. My breaking point came at the seventh leg. I had made it seven hours. Seven hours of that unfamiliar god towering over, biting into my shoulder, and I hurt right down to the skeleton.

When the dance was finally over, I practically threw my beam on the sawhorse and stormed off through the crowd.

I walked down a country road bordered by rice fields until I was far enough away to have to consider whether I should just walk home. Unsure, I stopped. While the Japanese countryside may lack the sheer expansive scale of a heartland, it is heartlandish. At this point in the summer, the rice stalks were dense, yellowing and just starting to bend. Herons, white as candles, patrolled the shadows of their rows. A hand touched my arm.

It was Hirota. I was too angry to talk, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he offered a can of Pineapple Strong Zero - my favorite - and we drank in silence next to the rice fields, watching the wind comb them. "I wanted this to be fun for you," Hirota finally said.

He was always trying to include me. And how many foreigners come to live in Japan, especially rural Japan, and find inclusion just out of reach? I suddenly felt ashamed of my anger. Here was the man who signed the lease for my apartment, without my even asking him; who taught me how to wrestle octopus and fist-sized mollusks from the ocean floor and later how to dice them up into fresh sashimi. He had invited me into his home and counted me among his community, and it was about time I started acting like it.

On our return, I scooped up one of those balloon-size sake bottles off the blue tarp, and tilted it back with the rank and file until we were all sputtering alcohol. If the summer matsuri is as much about sharing happiness as sharing hardship then it was time for me to even the balance.

I grabbed a shovel and drew a sumo ring in the dirt. Ten minutes later, I was standing outside of it, holding up the fat arm of a fisherman who had ousted me.

When it was time to march again, Hirota put his whistle around my neck and took my place in line. But for the final length, we went together.

Back at the shrine, after 20 minutes of continuous jostling, the men holding the mikoshi were crumbling. Backs were bending and the right side was starting to buckle. One man shouted, "Let this be the last one. Ganbarro!"

"Ganbarro!" we answered back.

And the kiyari-shu found another verse and kept on singing.

If You Go

Japan's three largest festivals include Tokyo's Kanda Matsuri, Osaka's Tenjin Matsuri and the Gion Matsuri in Kyoto. All events are public and free for spectators.

The Kanda Matsuri ( gotokyo.org/en/kanko/chiyoda/event/kandamatsuri) (mid-May, 2019) features several processions, including floats with characters from famous folk stories, samurai on horseback and the Sengan mikoshi (weighing in at approximately 3.75 tons). It takes place in odd numbered years, alternating with the Sanno Matsuri ( japan-guide.com/e/e3065) (mid-June, 2018).

Osaka's Tenjin Matsuri ( osaka-info.jp/en/events/festivals_events/post_20) (mid-July) is most notable for the brilliant 90-minute firework display that lights up a traditional fleet procession crisscrossing the city's Okawa River. Visitors can view the torch-lit boats from several historic vantage points, including Osaka Castle.

The Gion Matsuri ( jnto.go.jp/eng/spot/festival/gion_matsuri) is sometimes referred to as the most famous festival in Japan. It spans the entire month of July and features numerous events; the highlight occurs on July 17: an extravagant procession of 32 ornately decorated floats, known as yamahoko, which have been recognized by Unesco's World Heritage list for their outstanding cultural value.

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In Rural Japan, Lifting a Shrine and Building a Friendship

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When volunteers were called up to the line, without thought I stepped forward. Hirota, oddly enough, did not. Instead he donned a whistle and took a place on the outside, as one of the steerers.