Tourism in Japan

Religion in Japan

This week’s topic is religion in japan, which is interesting because in Japan religion isn’t that serious as it is in other countries. In Japan people don’t belong to a single religion their whole life long. In japan you can switch between religions to have the right religion which fits best for actually problems you have in a certain time. I’m gonna focus on Shinto especially on the Inari part. Inari is one of the best known gods (kami) in Japanese Shinto. He or she(doesn’t has a gender) is the rice god which often appears as a fox(kitsune). There are approximately 20,000 Inari (fox) shrines nationwide. These god is associated with agriculture, protecting rice fields and giving the farmers an abundant harvest every year. One of the main myths concerning Inari tells of this kami coming down a mountain every spring when it is planting season and ascending back up the mountain after the harvest for the winter. Both events are celebrated in popular folk festivals. Characteristics of Inari shrines are red torii (gates) protected by a pair of fox statues, one on the left and one on the right. Often this god was displayed with a fox face/head or with foxes to his sides, and foxes are eating or hunting mice, so there are very helpful for farmers. But normally the fox itself isn’t the god, the foxes are guardians or Inari’s messengers and servant. Another folk tale says, that after 100 years a fox is able to shape his form to human if he wants, usually a bewitching woman, and is able to hear and see all human activities. Many Japanese families have little Inari shrines in their homes according to a guide who lives in japan since several years, mostly rice farmers. And every day or every week, they give the god some sake to turn him into a good mood. Often the fox also appears as a guarding to protect people from demons which otherwise would come out of the demon gate to the northeast. The red bibs the foxes have are normally to protect them from evil. On the other hand the cape must be red, because red is an important color in Shinto, and the meaning fits to the fox guardians. If you want to know what the color red exactly means you can click this link: RED

I took my pictures at the Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is one of the biggest Inari shrines in Japan. As you can see on my pictures one fox has a key in his mouth and the other one a “ball”. The following Quote explains pretty good what it is and why they have it.“A jewel is also associated with Inari. Wish-fulfilling jewels are usually found on most fox statues in Inari shrines either in its mouth or under the paw (Smyers 112). These jewels represent spiritual and material wealth, fertility, and life; the types of things that are associated with prosperity. The fox holes in the shrines are jewel-shaped in their openings, providing another connection between the wish-granting jewels and tutelary fox-spirits.”(Quote)
The key symbolize the key to the grain storehouse, which was/is also a very important thing to guard.

Sources:

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/oinari.shtml

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fox-inari-university-of-wiscon.htm

http://www.univie.ac.at/rel_jap/start/index.html

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2059.html

Smyers 112 : Smyers, Karen A. The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

Gender in Japan

My first picture shows a host advertising, the second one a club for man.

This week’s topic is gender in Japan, and it is the most challenging one until now. So I decided to write about Hosts and Hostesses in Japan, because we watched the movie “The great happiness place”. In Japan this kind of service is very big. It don’t have the dingy and maybe dirty reputation like in most countries. It is quiet normal for males and some females to go to a bar, which provides Hosts/Hostesses, or pay for sex to forget the daily routine of normal life. I’m starting with the male part. For man in Japan it is nothing forbidden or a bad thing to pay for sex, so there are a lot of places where you can get different kinds of services. There are places like Soapland where you definitely can get sex, there are striptease clubs and there are places where man pay only to talk to woman. In this places you pay a fixed fee per hour for talking to a girl. I wasn’t able to figure out exactly why there are doing this, but I think it is to go to a place where you are taking centre stage and where this woman gives you the feeling to be important or funny. I mean it is a place where man can talk about their work and how hard it is without being seen as boring or whiny which is important in Japanese masculine culture. Also many Japanese girls told me that they not really want a Japanese men, when I asked why, most of them didn’t answer, but a few told me because they are not able to show feelings. So maybe they only go there because they are alone, and wanna talk to a woman. While hostess clubs are well established and normalized in male-dominated Japanese society(Yoda 1981; Allison 1994; Mock 1996), there are also a lot of host clubs for woman. According to the documentary (The great place of happiness) most of the girls which go to these clubs are working in the same business. They are creating a dream world, where a good looking polite guy is treating them like a princess. It is a place where you can gain self-confidence and recuperate feminine attractiveness. Many of them feel alone or just wanted to be seen as individual woman not only as the wife from Mr. X or the mother of Y and because of that they go there to be in a “faked relationship” with the host they pay. Also in an host-female relationship the girl is the one who dominates, because the host want to make money with her, so he’s doing what she wants, which is a really big thing in Japan where normally the man are dominating. According to Akiko Takeyama’s article that often changes after a few weeks/month but at the beginning it is like that. This Host services are mostly not about physical sex, it is about talking and having fun with these guys and to forget the real world for a few hours. It is kind of a disturbing question, why people in a really collective society which likes to be in groups and the feeling of togetherness is having problems with loneliness. I’m not a psychologist, so it would be cocky to try to answer this question. But maybe it animates some people to think about it.

All the statements are based on the documentary (The great happiness place), the article by Akiko Takeyama (Commodified romance in a Tokyo host club) and personal experiences and opinion.

Globalization/The Japan Version

Last Saturday I went to Kôbe. There is a place called Kitano, which is a nice place to see globalization. It has a lot of western style houses, wedding places, international restaurants and shops. Kitano is located on a hill in the north of the Sannomiya station. When Kôbe’s harbor became an international port, many foreign traders and diplomats built houses in the Kitano area. And most of them built houses which look like their houses back home, that’s why in Kitano are a lot of western style buildings. Because many of these houses are still standing Kitano has an exotic atmosphere for Japanese people and maybe also for foreigners who don’t expect visiting a place which looks like back home in Japan. That brings us to the wedding places, which are all over this place. Many Japanese people want to marry in Kitano, because it is exotic, beautiful and something different for them. In my opinion it’s the same reason, why some western people marry on Hawaii or other tropical islands. I also founded a restaurant which has a Japanese and a French menu with high class dishes. I saw a lot of European flags and restaurants around this area. There are also many shops in this area, because many Japanese people are visiting this place as domestic tourists. My first picture shows the Weathercock House, which was “constructed as the house of German trader G.Thomas in 1909, and famous for the weathercock on the steeple. Designated as a National Important Cultural Property.”(Source). I think this already gives you a good look, how different the houses looks like in comparison to Japanese houses. My second picture shows the Denmark House, which is “exhibiting the Andersen history and Viking life style, sponsored by the Embassy. Imagine the scene of the Viking era.”(Source) By clicking on the link you can see another picture of the Denmark House from a better ankle. To end this up, in Kôbe and especially in Kitano you can find a lot of things, which are related to globalization.

I recommend to watch the photo's in the "Spring 2009 Globalization Kobe Fieldtrip" post on the visual anthropology website. There are many good examples for globalization in Kôbe.

Sources/Links

Globalization Kobe Fieldtrip
Information about Kôbe and Kitano
Frommer's Japan 7th Edition

Sports and recreation in Japan

Is Japan a healthy country ? I’m now in Japan since nearly seven weeks, and according to what I saw and experienced the answer is a clearly: Yes it is. It is not only the more healthy food, which differs from my home country it is also the motivation of people to do sports(based on my experience and the people I met so far). The last weeks I met a lot of Japanese people and talked to a lot of Japanese people and almost all of them are doing some sport. There are in sport clubs at their Universities or Schools. Last week I met two guys in the park near the Seminar house in the evening who played soccer. After we started a conversation, the third question of them was: Which kind of sports do you do ? And which kind of sports is famous in your country ? So, I was glad to tell them that Germany is a big soccer nation, and resulting out of that we talked a little while about soccer. But they told me doing sport is not only because of fun and staying fit, it is also to be part of a group. There are so many clubs at Japanese Universities and schools, that you should join a group to make friends and have a group you are belonging to. According to what I see, many sometimes older Japanese people are jogging or “power walking” in the park for recreation and to stay fit. I saw a man who was really old, jogging around in the park like a 30year old. At the Kansai University you can see every day persons who are training or practicing something. For example Baseball, Rugby, Lacrosse, Tennis, Judo and so on. There a nearly unlimited possibilities at our University to do sports. Like I mentioned before, there are clubs for nearly everything. Because baseball is very big in Japan I took a picture of the Tokyo Dome (outside after the Game) and another one at our University. I wouldn’t shot a picture of someone jogging in the park in the early night. I didn’t feel well about it, like disturbing their recreation. And I also wasn’t able to watch a Japanese soccer games until know ;(((. But hopefully I would when all the midterms are over.

Congratulations at this point to the Japanese soccer team for qualifying to the soccer world Cub 2010 in afrika. (German Source)

Japanese pop culture and entertainment

The topic this week is Japanese Pop culture. On my pictures you can see a Japanese person doing Cosplay (hopefully) at the Meiji jingu bridge in Tokyo, Harajuku. Back in Tokyo we wanted to see people who are doing this hobby. So we followed our travel guide to Meji jingu bridge, which is according to this guide a hotspot for cosplayer's. Lucky us, we found two. On the one hand it was a little bit disappointing because there were only 2 persons who were dressed up to the max, but on the other hand it was during the week, so we were happy to see at least two. Sunday or Saturday are the best days to go there to see many people. There were also other people who liked shooting picture of him/her (I'm very sorry, but I'm not sure ;( ), and it seemed that she/he was enjoying it, because that proves that her costume is good, crazy, flashy whatever. So I took a picture from the photographer taking a pictures and also did one by myself. The person with the complete red costume and the photographer did kind of a photoshooting, because it tooks too long to wait until they were done, but I got a photo of the other person with the black shirt. There were quiet a lot of people around this area going to Meiji Shrine. I also read on the Internet that there are performances of people sometimes, like a dancing act or something like that. In my Opinion Cosplay is part of the Japanese Pop culture because it has his roots in Manga and anime, and its big in Japan. There are competitions in Cosplay too. ( Cosplay competition, Rules of competition )

It also swapped over to Europe and the US the last years and as you can read on my first link there are international participants.

I added a few links below, where you can see a lot of pictures of other Cosplay acters and where you can read more about Cosplay itself.

Pictures:

Photos 1

Photos 2

Information:

http://www.cosplay.com/

What is Cosplay ?

Neighborhood Hirakata

I'm living at the dorm number 4 in Hirakata next to the Park and the graveyard :). Hirakata so far is a little "city" with no real night life at all but it has an university, some karaoke bars, the park next to the dorms and the theme park. I wasn't at the theme park until now but it sounds pretty good. The park next to the dorms is so far the number one meeting point for the gaijin's at night, and because of that there was already a little bit trouble because of nuisance. That’s the other side of Hirakata beside the noisy theme park, the exchange students and karaoke bars. Hirakata is a residential area and more countrified than big cities like Osaka or Tokyo, where noise isn’t a problem. There are no skyscrapers around, only small houses with thin walls. No district where the fashioned youth of japan showcases themselves and no luxury label shops. Around the University of Hirakata are only some traditional maybe family owned shops. It’s a place where you have to go to the main train station to change traveler checks, because the small banks around the university don’t do it. In my opinion Hirakata is a nice quiet and traditional place, where people live who doesn’t fit into a metropolis like Tokyo or don’t want to live there. The partly old houses in Hirakata shows how Japan is divided into a modern technological society on the one hand and one with love for the traditional lifestyle on the other. But it’s not only the technological part (the cell phone network is miles beyond ours, that’s why many “old” cell phones doesn’t work here) it’s more the behavior aspect. In compare to Hirakata, in big cities like Osaka or Tokyo you can see many business man working until night and you can feel the stress of the people, it’s like they have no time for resting or an easy life. In Hirakata it seems that everybody has time to enjoy other things in life expect working, the lifestyle is a little bit more traditional. Like you can see on my 2 pictures above there are some beautiful old fashioned houses left, which look like decades ago. There are so many traditional festivals and events in Japan, which proves that many of them like the past with its traditions. I don’t wanna say they wish to live in the past, they only enjoy remembering it. Even in Tokyo I saw some “old school” houses in the middle of the city.

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Below I added a few pictures from Tokyo, which also shows the contrast between modern and traditionel. The first picture shows this traditionel building surrounded by skyscrapers. The second one shows a very quiet szene in a park near to the Tokyo Tower. With the third one I tried to catch the difference between the beauty of nature and the noisy city in the back.