Sacred Spaces
I can’t believe it’s already nearing the end of October! Things have been moving so quickly since I switched from Assistant English Teacher to not-very-bright research student, it’s all I can do to get a short post up here and there lately. Auditing about a dozen classes at Hiroshima Jogakuin and then doing 8 more hours a week of Japanese study via tutor and an evening class at the YMCA doesn’t leave much space to breathe, let alone think… but that hasn’t stopped me from rejoicing in the wonder that is Hiroshima’s autumn, and I’d like to share some of Japan’s best season with everyone. As you can see from the picture of my friend’s house below, for starters the weather has just been astonishingly beautiful lately – perfect for mountainside mushroom hunting and outdoor yakiniku BBQ, like we did at his place on the 17th.
The flowers in the foreground are cosmos bipinnatus, just “kosumosu” in Japanese. Although they’re not native to Japan, they’ve become a symbol of autumn here over the past several centuries. Someone at the party told me that during World War II, when all things European and American were being cracked down on by the government, people still loved them and referred to them as “aki-zakura,” the ‘cherry blossoms of autumn,’ in order to avoid using the foreign-sounding name. There are whole flower parks devoted to them at this time of year, but I just enjoy finding them along the road and train tracks here in Hiroshima’s abundant countryside.
September’s lingering heat isn’t even a memory now, and along with the fall flowers and fruits local harvest festivals are bursting out to enjoy the crisp air. The maples aren’t showing any signs of turning yet, but there’s still plenty of color to go around: no Western Japan matsuri is complete without the costumed melodrama of kagura, the crimson lanterns of food stalls and game tents, and the shining roofs of mikoshi being carried around town. Fuchu, the little town just outside Hiroshima City’s limits which is famous as the wealthy home of Mazda‘s corporation headquarters, used the extreme height of their central shrine staircase to erect huge banner flags above tempura octopus and goldfish scooping booths (left). And while in Onomichi with a couple of visiting friends, we caught this sacred parade headed down the street right in front of a famous noodle restaurant, Shukaen 朱華園.
It’s easy to spot matsuri in the offing here – everywhere there’s a festival scheduled, there will be strips of white paper strung around the buildings on lines of straw rope. These fluttering barriers are called “shimenawa“, and as the Wiki says, they are normally found in and around Shinto shrines and are used to mark off sacred spaces or objects. But during festival season you can see them almost everywhere in and around Hiroshima Prefecture, as one neighborhood jinja after another holds their harvest festivities in rapid succession. Anyone who enjoys street food and kagura performances could easily spend every one of their October weekends – and a good number of their regular evenings as well – just hopping around the dozens of little matsuri all over the city.
Here in Ushita, I went out to take pictures of the shimenawa put up for Ushita-Waseda Jinja’s fall celebration. There must have been dozens of people who helped to weave these miles of handmade rope, not to mention making them appear like magic overnight, hung from every streetlight, bush, fence and building in sight. Not to mention the strings which were draped across high balconies and roof eaves which seemed completely inaccessible to a non-ninja like myself… The luminous tufts of white paper had a truly transformative effect when I saw them at midnight, softly whispering like tiny ghosts along the otherwise perfectly still streets of my neighborhood.
Given the amount of merry-making that’s been happening this month, I’m planning on posting at least two more entries concerning some of the live performances I’ve seen the last couple of weeks. Please check back for some photos/video and info on kagura, gagaku and Noh!
