Nara winter highlights and two interesting interviews

The deer and the woodwork are part of the wonders of Nara in winter and any other season.

While much of Nara's fascination lies in its magnificent temples and Buddhist images, the traditional homes, shops and inns in the narrow streets in the center of the city, which have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, are also highly recommended. Nara Town is strongly connected to the origins of the Japanese traditional arts: Noh theater (nohgaku), tea ceremony (chado) and flower arrangement (ikebana).

Nara's machiya, the name given to the long, narrow town houses that line the streets to the southeast of the Tourist Information Center, have served as home and workplace to the townspeople of Nara for hundreds of years, and provide an interesting window through which to view the historical, cultural, and economic history of the city. Because tax was determined according to the width of a facade, these dwellings were purposely designed to long and narrow. To achieve optimum privacy in the limited space available, strict rules governed which side of the house the long corridor or doma was positioned on and the exact location of the inner garden or nakaniwa. Another notable design feature of these dwellings is the hako-kaidan, literally box-staircase, where the space available underneath the stairs is cleverly turned into a chest of drawers.

Museums in Nara Town: Naramachi Shiryokan: A fine folk museum housing tools, everyday household objects, etc. from the Edo and Meiji periods. A 12-min walk from Nara JR/Kintetsu Stn. Open 10 am - 4 pm. Closed Mondays and over the New Year. Tel: (0742) 22-5509. Nara Orient-Kan: A museum devoted to Nara's role as an important center on the Silk Road. A good display of Persian and other Oriental crafts and artifacts. A 15-min walk from Nara Kintetsu Stn. Open 10 am - 5 pm. Closed Mondays and over the New Year. Tel: (0742) 24-8415. Nara Municipal Museum of Photography: This modern, superbly-designed addition to Nara Park is home to the photographic works of the late Irie Taikichi. Taikichi's photographs cover a span of 50 years and offer a unique chance to experience, in outstanding photographic form, the many seasons and sights of Nara. Special exhibitions related to Nara's history and culture are held regularly at the museum. The museum is just to the west of Shin-Yakushi-ji Temple. Open 9:30-5. Closed Mondays.

Nara December Event Highlights

Shikayose (Deer Calling): This unique event (a French horn is used to call the deer) is held daily, between 10 and 11 am, at Tobihino in Nara Park, between December 15th and March 18th (except during the New Year's holiday).

Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri: This special event takes place at Wakamiya Shrine (a sub-shrine of Kasuga Grand Shrine) from December 15th to 18th. Celebrated without interruption since 1136, this festival ( an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Asset), was initiated to beseech the Gods to end a prolonged famine. The highlight, Owatari-shiki, which takes place from 12:30 to 3 pm on the 17th, consists of a grand procession featuring costumes (perfect reproductions) ranging from the Heian to the Edo period. At 1:30 on the 17th, an outdoor noh performance is given in front of Yoko-no-Matsu, the pine tree before which the first-ever Noh performance is said to have been held.

Nara January Event Highlights

Ochamori/Bugaku Hajime Shiki/Wakakusa Yamayaki: These three major festivals are all held on January the 15th, . In the morning, Ochamori, a grand tea ceremony featuring a huge tea bowl and tea whisk, will be held at Saidai-ji Temple, from 10 am to 3:30 pm. For a fee of Yen 1,000, visitors can participate in this unique, 1000-year-old tea ceremony. At 1 pm, at Kasuga Grand Shrine, Bugaku Hajime Shiki, the new year's first performance of bugaku, or ancient court dance, will be performed. Entrance is free. Finally at dusk, the spectacular highlight of the day: Wakakusa Yamayaki (Young Grass Mountain Burning), which dates back to a boundary dispute between Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji temples during the 7th century. Just before 6 pm fireworks light up the sky over Mt. Wakakusa and shortly afterwards, priests and firemen with torches set fire to the dry grass on the mountain. The whole mountain quickly becomes a raging sea of fire. Try to arrive as early as possible, before the crowds start building.

Nara Kobaien Sumi Factory: Handmade sumi ink for more than 400 years

Sumi ink, used in Japanese ink paintings/scrolls and calligraphy and letters, was invented in the 2nd century AD in China using the soot of burnt pine wood. In the 7th century, Koreans brought this method of sumi making to Japan. By the 8th century, the imperial government of Nara had made sumi production an official task. An important sumi maker for over 400 years, Kobaien in Nara is well worth a visit. Here, in spacious surroundings that have hardly changed for the last several hundred years, the visitor can see the fascinating process of sumi production. Since the early 18th century, thanks to the invention of the rapeseed oil production method, Kobaien has had the unique reputation of the being the finest sumi maker in all of Japan. At Kobaien the entire process from soot collection to mixing, kneading, pressing and drying has been opened to the public. Soot is gathered from 200 rapeseed oil candle/collectors by hand, about 1.2 kilos per day. The soot is then mixed with an animal-based glue and turned into putty form. It is then pressed in wooden forms and dried in sand for weeks. Finally, it is polished, decorated and sold to artists all over Japan. Kobaien is located a few minutes from Kintetsu Nara Stn. Open 9:00-17:00, during the winter season only. For tour reservations or more information: Tel: (0742) 23-2965.

The rest of this post consists of:

A Talk with Malte J. about the sounds of Japan
An interview with Johnnie Hillwalker: tour guide and big walker

Content by Ian Martin Ropke, owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with Japan private tour clients and have worked for all kinds of families, companies, and individuals since 1990. Clients find me mostly via organic search, and I advertise my custom Japan private tours & travel services on www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps in Japan! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. I, Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), am also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!

A Talk with Malte Jaspersen about the sounds of Japan

This interview with Malte Jaspersen took place in June 2002. At the time, Malte was making special "sound shows" in Kyoto for German radio. Malte Jaspersen was born and raised in Germany, where he studied law and theater. He was member of the international theater group, "Drugie Studio Wroclawskie." In 1989 Jaspersen moved to Kyoto to study Noh theater and Noh mask carving from Noh master Michishige Udaka. He continues to make Kyoto his home and over the decades he has produced a number of major documentaries for German public broadcasters, including work on water, geisha, and Japanese manga comics.

YJPT: How did you come to the idea of recording sound and making programs for German radio?

MJ: When I came to Kyoto for the first time, I was overwhelmed by all the sounds I encountered. The sound of the waste paper collection trucks, the tofu bicycle horns, the mad sound pouring out of the doors of pachinko parlors, the sounds of rain, the sounds of insects and wind just below what at first appears to be silence in gardens. So I bought a DAT recorder and began to record things all around me. Then, I met a producer at Radio Bremen (a German public radio station) who bought my idea to produce a one-hour-long soundscape that attempted to capture Kyoto, past and present, anything from the most subtle sounds to the bosouzoku (hot rodders). The piece was later also broadcast among others on BBC and ABC Sydney, so I decided to make it a little bit longer. This is how my first CD [see below] came to be.

Compared to TV, it is, much easier to produce a radio-program, because I can do almost everything myself. I do interviews in Japanese and this helps to establish a better contact to the person I'm talking to than if I had to use an interpreter. I produce about two or three shows a year. This process begins with me writing the script, collecting the sounds related to the script, and making a rough sound mix on my computer here. Then I do the final mix in radio production studios in Germany using professional actors to narrate and so on.

YJPT: What kinds of programs have you produced?

MJ: One program I did was about geisha. There are many interesting sounds in the geisha world: the music, the songs, the sound of their wooden shoes or their feet on the tatami mats when dancing, even the sound of their hair being combed. Some of the elderly ladies, in Gion and Miyagawacho, I interviewed, spoke quite openly about the good and bad aspects of their world.

Two years ago, a friend of mine and I made a piece on the literary work Hojoki, written in the early 13th century by Kamo no Chomei. In the tale, he--a former poet at the court in Kyoto--retires to a small hut at the edge of the city. Here he writes about the world around him: the natural cycles, society, earthquakes, hunger, and sickness. Meditating in his hut, he tries to determine if he is still part of this world or free of it. In the piece, there is a reference to the fact the capital of Japan had to be moved because of the massive changes visited upon Kyoto. Interestingly enough, around the time we produced the piece in Germany the capital was moved from Bonn to Berlin.

The last piece I made was about the Kyoto pro soccer team, Purple Sanga, and their German coach, Gert Engels. He was hired to take the team back from the second tier to the first tier. I made a portrait of him that spans an hour. The piece came out really nice and it was an added bonus that he succeeded in getting the team back up to the first tier.

I have also done pieces on the art of Noh-mask carving, and on the fun of dining in Japan (it was recently published as an audio-book in Germany). Right now I am working on a piece about bamboo.

Selected descriptions of tracks from the CD “ Water dripping in a dish” by Malte Jaspersen: Onomatapoeia: Kyu-kyu, shah-shah, potan-potan, biri-biri. A play on sounds. I discover tones I had no idea existed. A crowd of people walking down the street goes zoro-zoro. When the snow is falling the sound is shin-shin. The stars twinkle pika-pika. Dripping water goes potan-potan. A contacted wall socket bites back biri-biri. And gatan-gatan rattle the wheels of the railway train. Fingernail loom: Five narrow grooves have been filed in the fingernail of her right middle finger. The weaver uses them to tension the gossamer-thin threads in the freshly woven kimono girdle. With her left hand she guides the shuttle, thread by thread. Her most treasured finger, she says, is the one with the grooved nail. It glides over the silk as over harp strings. Shintoist prayer and maneuvering cart: By four in the afternoon, their piety has vanished. The prayer for the drinks merchant has taken full effect. And now the cart with the shrine has to be maneuvered round the corner of the street. Three men with long poles lift up the sagging overhead power lines between houses; others bend a few traffic sings out of the way. No problem. Music students by the riverside: The walls of Japanese houses are thin. That’s why students of music, especially players of wind and brass instruments, cannot practice at home. So they do this in the evening on the banks of the River Kamo. If it’s raining, they stand under the bridges. In winter they play wearing gloves. You can listen to this track and others by Malte at: https://wavefarm.org/wf/archive/9vaqvt .

An interview with Johnnie Hillwalker: tour guide and big walker

Mr. Hajime Hirooka, or Johnnie Hillwalker, a veteran tour guide with 34 years of experience, has received honours from the City of Kyoto and Kyoto Prefecture for his excellent in the tourism industry. He was elected to 5 terms as a member of the Japan Guide Association. Retired now, he spends four mornings every week guiding foreign tourists along Kyoto’s less travelled streets. This interview took place in March, 2002.

YJPT: What made you start up your own tour guide business? And how is the business going?

Hirooka: I worked for the Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) for 34 years before retiring last March, so although my walking tours are new, I am certainly not new to Kyoto tourism. Now I am doing this business on my own. I see travelers from all around the globe walking around in Kyoto, but I don’t think that by just roaming around they can understand what a wonderful city this really is or how intriguing Japanese culture can be. They have spent so much time and energy to come here, but I have a feeling they aren’t really getting the full picture. For me, I feel that knowing facts from books and direct understanding are two very different things. Based on my 3 years of experience as a professional tour guide, I can offer visitors some inside knowledge about the emperor, shogun culture, Shinto or Buddhism, etc.

Now four weeks, or 16 days of walking, have passed since I launched into this business. I wonder whether I can make a success of it or not. I still don’t know the answer to that yet, but so far 40 people have joined my tour, and there were only 4 days when I couldn’t find anyone to join me.

YJPT: How many people generally go on your walking tours, and what kind of people are they?

Hirooka: In the biggest group so far, I got 7 participants which included an American, a Canadian, and an Australian family travelling with their two children and the grandfather. Altogether in the short time since I branched out on my own I have guided 9 Americans, 8 Canadians, 7 Britons, 7 Australians, 2 Austrians, 2 Malaysians, 2 Japanese, a Dane, a German, a Swiss, and a Belgian. Basically, I am meeting all kinds of people.

YJPT: What do foreigners seem to be the most curious about on your tours? What kinds of questions do they ask?

Hirooka: They seem curious about the bibs on the stone ojizo-san Buddhas, Buddhist offerings like flowers, fruit, bottles of sake, and the wooden goma sticks, the white fortune papers tied to trees in shrine and temple grounds, Shinto decorative ropes, and the red paint on special buildings at Shinto shrines.

They ask all kinds of questions like, “What happens to the offerings left at the shrines, does someone eat or drink them?” I must say that I don’t always know the answer, so I try to answer as best as I can, “The Buddha eats them in the night, but he doesn’t like sake so somebody has to help him!”

I am always ready for any questions as we go walking through the back streets. “Are they soldiers?” I tell them, “No, they are school children.” “Why is there gravel on the ground?” I explain that “lines are raked into the white sand at temples.” “What does it signify?” Well, this is one question I have really come to dislike. I hate the word “signify.” Or maybe I just don’t understand it. As a tour guide, I could make up a meaning for everything — and Japan would be a country full of great significance. But some things are just part of the culture and can’t be explained. Even after 34 years in the business, I am still taken aback by some of the questions I get asked. “Why do the schoolgirls’ uniforms look like sailor uniforms?” was one!

YJPT: Your English is definitely the tool of your trade. Did you study English especially to go into this line of business?

Hirooka: Not at all, actually. I learned English during the war. It is said that English was banned here during the war but that wasn't true of my school, there were exceptions. In second grade, I had a very good English teacher named Shibazake Takeo who wouldn't speak any Japanese in our class at all. I was the worst student in the class. After the war, I saw Shibazake on a famous NHK English program called "Come, Come Eigo" as the host. I am lucky to have been influenced by his strong personality, and feel it was a real plus for me.

The truth is that in 1947, just when I turned 17, I fell ill with tuberculosis. Many people around me died from the disease, but not me because I knew the cure was in getting enough rest. I’m am a person who really hangs in there until the end. I do things completely. I was in bed for ten years, and since I couldn't go to school, I studied independently. It was during those 10 years that I really studied English hard. My family had no money but we were the type of family that never threw anything out. We had textbooks from the Meiji Period (which are probably worth a lot nowadays) and lots of other English books and magazines around. I pulled them all out and read them from cover to cover. I studied English just to kill time. And I thought that I could reach a high level of English proficiency if I really tried.

YJPT: You have been visiting temples and shrines for 34 years. Do you sense any changes in the attitude of Japanese people toward religion, faith and spirituality?

Hirooka: Well one thing is that people are not as controlled by superstitions as they were a generation ago. I would also say that things like the temples, shrines, the world of the geisha, and the Kyoto’s culture and ancient handicrafts are all things that make up the uniqueness of Kyoto, but actually belong to past societies. The people of Kyoto nowadays carry these cultural assets on their shoulders. Although the older generation is slowly passing away and the next generation is building a new society and system of values, I think the old culture is still strongly in force here.

Kyoto attracts people from all over the world — some for one day, some for one week, and some for their whole life. The city is both very modern and international. People tend to do all kinds of things these days. Some foreigners are even becoming tea ceremony teachers. The people who were born in Kyoto and live here don’t really have a choice but to adjust to the changes. Of course, the people here change with the times but in many cases their lifestyle depends a lot on the old culture of Kyoto and they simply have to adjust to the traditions here somehow.

I think things are changing below the surface. Even though they are able to enjoy many parts of the ancient traditions, there is less of a feeling of responsibility for the old culture from young people because they were not part of its development.

A Talk with Malte J. about the sounds of Japan
An interview with Johnnie Hillwalker: tour guide and big walker