TRAVEL

Japan

Shinto to soothe the soul

John Casey finds purity in the landscape, shrines and hot baths where the sun only rises I FIRST visited Japan in the winter of 1980. As the plane descended to Tokyo, the clouds parted to reveal a snow-capped Mount Fuji. The next morning, I visited the Meiji shrine. Slight snow was falling, three cranes flew overhead and, to my amaze- ment, the long avenue into the shrine was lined with ice sculptures and thronged with thousands of girls in exquisitely embroi- dered kimonos.

A few days later, a group of Japanese professors gave me a geisha party. Two elderly geishas sang and danced and made polite conversation in Japanese. Towards the end of the evening, one of them brought out the only English sentence she knew, and which she must have saved for quite some time, 'Very nice eyeblows you have!'

Geisha parties are rare in Japan. My visit to the Meiji shrine coincided with Coming- of-Age Day, when thousands of young peo- ple come to pay their respects to the great Emperor Meiji, founder of modern Japan. It is not like that every day. Nevertheless, I have never got over my first, romantic impressions of Japan, even after six or seven visits.

Yet Tokyo is certainly not traditional Japan. You can get a good first view of it, in all its architectural anarchy, from a trendy and expensive restaurant, the New York Grill, on about the 50th floor of the new Hyatt Hotel. For expensive and ele- gant modern Tokyo, you can wander around the Akasaka district (where you can also visit the excellent Suntory Museum), or the shops of Omote Sando. Lovers of discos and clubs will want to explore Rop- pongi by night. Still better and more sleazy is Shinjuku, full of bars, yakuza — Japanese gangsters, whom you can recognise by their perms and tinted sunglasses — and houses of pleasure. There is at least one substan- tial building where expensive gigolos are provided for respectable housewives.

Enough of that. You cannot visit the Imperial Palace, but you can watch hun- dreds of Japanese jogging around it in a strictly clockwise direction. One of my favourite places in Tokyo is the Yasukuni shrine. This is a centre of Japanese nation- alism, where the spirits of all who died in war are enshrined. It boasts a modest mili- tary museum, and most days you can see veterans bowing to each other, each bow clearly reflecting the rank of the superior officer. The Yasukuni is the place where the cherry-blossom season is officially declared, when the buds have reached the requisite maturity. But if you want to see the best garden in Tokyo, you might try Rikuji-en, near Ikeburo, which is one of the finest survivals of a garden from the Edo (pre-1868) period.

You should certainly go to the kabuki theatre. Kabuki was the popular art form of the late-Edo period, a sort of mixture of opera, pantomime and melodrama, with elaborate scenery, balletic stage-fights and vigorous dancing. The older patrons know each drama by heart, and periodically call out the stage-name of their favourite actor. The best kabuki I ever saw was the Forty- Seven Loyal Retainers, which is the essence of the art, with impossible loyalties, suicides and amazing changes of scenery culminat- ing in a magnificent snowstorm. Head- phones with excellent simultaneous transla- tions are available.

I lived for six months in Kyoto, the old imperial capital, as a visiting academic. All visitors fall in love with Kyoto. It is a city of 2,000 Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and was never bombed. (Astoundingly, it was on the original list of targets for the atomic bomb. The American defence secre- tary, Henry Stimson, had visited Kyoto for a couple of days before the war and per- suaded Truman to take 'my pet city' off the list.) Everyone visits the temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkalcu-ji), so called because the walls are covered in gold leaf. It is a replica, the original having been burned down by a deranged novice monk. Apart from the gold, the main selling-point of Kinkaku-ji is its beautiful reflection in a lake. The great drawback is that it is the most tourist- infested place in the whole of Kyoto. I once contemplated getting in touch with the clerical arsonist, long since released from prison, to suggest a visit so that he could compare the replica with the original.

Ryoan-ji temple contains the most famous rock garden in Japan. The 15 rocks set in sand are variously said to symbolise mountains above clouds, rocks in a stormy sea, a mother tiger and her cubs fording a river, or the human soul rising above suffer- ing. Indeed, in accord with a fundamental principle in Japanese aesthetics, one is per- mitted to see whatever meaning one wishes. The garden is meant to soothe the soul, but it is so noisy with tourists and loudspeakers that I usually left it in a vile temper, having arrived in a serene mood. Perhaps the monks encourage this as a Zen paradox.

My other favourite temples include Daitoku-ji, which is a Zen complex of small temples, quite a few of which are closed to visitors. The best garden in the complex is probably the one in the Koto-in sub- temple. Then there is Ninna-ji, best seen in the cherry-blossom season. Sanjosangen-do temple houses 1,001 statues of the Buddhist goddess of mercy. There is also a small stat- ue of the god of the winds, which seems to me a masterpiece.

When I lived in Kyoto, I used to go to my local sento (public bath) most days. In a sento you are given a piece of soap and a little 'modesty towel'. Equipped with these, you sit on a small stool before a pair of hot and cold taps, and wash yourself with what Gibbon called — correctly — 'oriental scrupulosity'. You often see fathers and sons, or just friends, enthusiastically scrub- bing each other's backs. Only after the washing is complete may people get into the various hot and scalding-hot baths.

Sentos are an extremely ancient Japanese institution, and have their origin in the reli- gious demand for purity. Now, they are essentially for the working class, many of whom still do not have baths in their hous- es. My local sento was much frequented by Yakuza, whom one here recognised not by their perms and sunglasses, but by their tat- toos, which sometimes cover their whole backs down to their thighs. These tattoos do not in the least resemble the crude things you see in Britain. They are elabo- rate, often beautiful works of art — drag- ons, Buddhist gods, even cherries which turn purple as the heat of the bath takes effect.

I once found myself sharing the sauna of the sento with six Japanese, and I was the Only person without a tattoo. Yakuza who commit an offence against their boss volun- tarily cut off the tip of a finger. The man next to me had the whole of his left index- finger missing. Many visitors to Kyoto (and elsewhere in Japan) like to stay at traditional Japanese inns. There are two sorts. The minshuku are the less expensive, costing between 5,000 and 7,000 yen a night (£40-£50). For this you get bed, a Japanese breakfast and dinner. The iyokans are more expensive, on average between 10,000 and 25,000 yen but for the most famous, the sky is the limit.

A day trip by train from Kyoto to Nara is easy. The chief attraction is the Todai-ji temple with its Daibutsuden hall. This is the largest wooden building in the world and houses a giant bronze Buddha. Just outside Nara is Horyu-ji temple, with some of the oldest wooden buildings in the world, and in its Chugu-ji sub-temple the famous Hanka Shiyui statue. This is a Buddhist goddess of mercy sitting with legs half- crossed, her finger resting meditatively against her cheek, smiling. In fact, the famous smile is not very obvious from the front, but if one goes round behind the stat- ue and comes out on the left, a boyish, secret and rather charming smile appears, as though she is pleased at just having thought of something extremely clever. And indeed she has. The guidebook informs us that she is 'thinking calmly how human beings can be saved from suffering'. Well might she smile!

For me, one of the most beautiful places in Japan is the Ise shrine. Ise is the chief Shinto shrine of the country, and the ancient centre of emperor-worship. The sun goddess, Amaterasu, from whom the imperial family and all Japanese are descended, lives there. (I found it odd that I visited the house of the sun goddess in the pouring rain — a naïve reaction.) Here, as well, are kept the originals of the imperial Japanese regalia, copies of which are in Tokyo. The priest of Ise is always a member of the imperial family, and the Emperor goes there periodically to report to his ancestors.

1 enjoyed the first half:' The shrines are surrounded with noble beech-woods, many of the trees being of great age. The beech is used to replace all the chief buildings of the shrine every 20 years. It must be admitted that Ise is not of great architectural interest, and will appeal most to those who love the purity of the Shinto style and the venerable ambience of the place.