Category Archives: Tokyo

Peace in the heart of Tokyo

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Although I have lived in Japan for about 20 years, and in Tokyo for almost 15, I still love exploring the city and showing people around. Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to show a new Tokyoite around, lucky me! We managed to see quite a lot in two and a half hours; we did a lot of walking and experienced the collision of traditional and modern, peaceful and screechingly raucous, autumn colours and teenage fashions.

The route we took started at Meiji Jingu, then down Takeshita Dori, over to Omotesando (past Kiddyland, a brief stop in Oriental Bazaar and a short visit to Union Church), along Cat Street to Shibuya (stops at Muji and Tokyu Hands) and ended at the Hachiko statue in front of Shibuya station.

Today was a very busy day at work; I didn’t feel like I stopped all day, and in the middle of it all a colleague did something really annoying which left me in a kind of fizzy, mentally-hopping-up-and-down state. Not conducive to sleep; even though I am tired and it’s after 1am, I am sitting here, pecking out my frustrations and feeling the tension slip away as I focus on what I saw yesterday afternoon.

Meiji Jingu (Meiji Shrine, 明治神宮) is a 175-acre forest in the heart of Tokyo. It was built to commemorate the Emperor Meiji and his wife, the Empress Shoken. It was flattened (like almost the whole of the city) when Tokyo was firebombed in World War II, but rebuilt, and it’s a place of extraordinary beauty and peace. Some of the trees are huge and the torii (the wooden gateway to the shrine) towers over the visitors. It is a vast, green space, and the shrine itself is beautiful. It’s very simple and always gives me a feeling of great stillness. There is something about the wood everything is made of, it feels organic and almost as if it grew out of the forest.

Meiji Shrine 2

In front of the shrine is a place where anyone can write their prayers and leave them to be offered by the priests. It is amazing how many different languages are represented on these ’ema’ (絵馬), or votive tablets. So many people come to this place and open their hearts to the universe, and when they go home they leave their hopes and prayers mingled with countless others, wood on wood, open to the elements, to prying eyes and other people’s cameras.

Prayers at Meiji JinguSometimes it is good to feel small. To stand under a towering torii and feel as tiny as an ant, to know that the nature surrounding you is vast and ancient, that the paths lead into the forest, but also back to traditions and beliefs that have guided and strengthened people through hundreds and thousands of years. Whatever your faith, it is good to stand there, let your tensions and worries go, and feel your spirit soar.

Meiji Shrine gateway

Advent Sunday, 2012

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Christmas TreeI work at an Anglican school, and every year, on the Friday afternoon before Advent begins, we have a short service for the lighting of the tree. We don’t get a special Christmas tree every year, instead we decorate the large conifer at the top of the drive. The chaplain leads us in prayer, we sing a carol (It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, sung to the American tune which always reminds me of Home On The Range), the tree is lit and the choir sings Joy To The World. We stand at the top of the drive, effectively blocking the way out of school and so swelling our numbers with any girl on her way home but lacking the gall to wriggle through the throng. Before the short service we are issued with candles inside paper cups, this year handed out with warnings to hold the cup carefully; it seems the hole in the bottom was a little big and to hold only the candle would be to invite danger. I had never noticed before, but after the tree was lit I saw a member of the office staff inside the tree; I imagine he had been tasked to flick the switch and was then stranded but illuminated, wondering where he should go.

So the tree is lit, and while all the shops seem to think it’s Christmas already, I am looking forward to Advent. School has been particularly hectic recently; we are in the middle of speaking tests, so I suppose that’s not surprising. Squeaking through the tests with my little froggy croak has entertained the girls no end but has been quite a frustrating experience, and I shall be glad to finish everything and stop talking for a while. We have two more weeks of work; tests, grades, preparation, and then I fly back to the UK for Christmas there.

Today I have been struck by sounds; this occurred to me when I heard the 5 o’clock chimes, which are broadcast every day, as far as I know all over Japan. I have always believed that it is a traditional way to alert schoolchildren to the time and that they should be on their way home. I think every ward in Tokyo plays a different melody. I have also read, however, that it is a way for the ward office to check that the emergency announcement system is working (in case of earthquakes etc.), but I prefer to think it’s a service to Japan’s children. I sat here listening to the chimes and thought about other sounds that I had heard today.

Earlier this afternoon, when I was on my way home, I saw a crow sitting on a railing near the station. Japanese crows are very big, not easily intimidated, the kind of bird to sit calmly on a railing only a metre or so away from you, regarding you with darkly glittering beady eyes and occasionally cawing in a raucous and territorial way. This one let me take its picture, it’s quite dark but I shall include it anyway:

CrowMy day started with a quiet service at church, space and peace after a long week. On the way home I stopped at a 2nd-hand bookshop and bought a copy of The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki. It is the same edition I read when I was at secondary school. I re-read it when I was living in Japan in the early nineties, and I have been feeling the urge to read it again. To find a worn copy with the same cover I remember from 1987 almost makes me feel like I have found my own copy again! I shall look forward to reading it over the holidays and blog about it later.

Makioka SistersThe end of another weekend. I have spent time with good friends, in person and on the phone. Despite my inclination to sleep away part of this afternoon, the universe conspired against me and instead I had a long chat with an old friend, a much better way to spend the time. I feel connected and my batteries are re-charged; I’m ready for another week.

Right where I’m supposed to be

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It seems like it’s that time in the term, that time of year, when ‘where has the time gone?’ becomes ‘how am I going to get everything done?’ and it’s all too easy to stay at home doing piles of marking or feeling guilty about not doing piles of marking. So I decided that this afternoon I would not to succumb to either hours of wielding a red pen or sitting at home casting around for what I have been reliably informed is ‘displacement activity’, but that I would go out and meet a friend for coffee. What made this post bubble up in my mind, though, was not the hours spent putting the world to rights, but the journey home.

10:30 and I needed to get back to Shibuya station to catch my train home. I briefly considered waiting for a bus, but must admit it was a flicker of consideration really, before I flagged down a taxi. It wasn’t a long journey, basically a minimum-fare trip straight down Roppongi Dori, but the taxi driver turned round several times to check where I wanted to be dropped off. Since the station is big and has a number of entrances, I told him that any would do; not a satisfactory answer. He turned round again to ask for more clarification. Just as I was starting to wonder, ‘What kind of taxi driver are you?’ he added to his apology for not being clearer about directions, ‘I’m from Tohoku.’

I asked him how long he had been in Tokyo (6 months), whether his relocating had any connection to the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake (yes), and if he had been a taxi driver in Tohoku (no). It was just a 5-minute taxi ride, but it was also a few words that stopped me in my tracks. ‘I’m from Tohoku.’ A whole life behind a sentence. I wonder what he has been through in the last 18 months.

On the train down to Jiyugaoka it was quite crowded, but not squashed. Just enough that it was a little difficult to find a strap or bar to hold onto. Twice, a woman about my age, standing with her young son, almost went flying as the train slowed down. I was tucked into a corner, but reached out and caught her. The first time she smiled but said to her son that she was embarrassed. The second time I grabbed her she laughed out loud and held onto my arm for a moment as we nodded at the perils of commuting.

A transfer at Jiyugaoka and I was almost home. At 11 the train was still full enough for some people to be standing up. Near Ookayama the lights in a university were still blazing, Tokyo seemed hours away from sleep. I walked home under a clear sky full of stars with Pizzicato 5 turned up loud on my iPod. Some days I get lost in work, today was not one of them.