Gion, Part 3: Chion-in

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

The Buddhist master Hounen is one of the most famous Japanese philosophers in history, perhaps surpassed by only his own disciple, Shinran, who was a much more vindictive and exclusionary person anyway. Though he received his religious education from the Tendai monks of Hieizan, Hounen eventually broke away to form the Joudo-shuu or Pure Land school. Unlike its counterparts, the Joudo-shuu holds that the only thing necessary for salvation is recitation of the nenbutsu - basically invoking the name of Amida Buddha over and over again. This was quite a controversial theory at the time, as it implicitly denied the value of the multitudinous practices of other sects. Basically, unlike Shinran, who believed that the only road to enlightenment and shaking off this mortal coil was putting all of one's faith in Buddha, meaning the entire matter was out of mortal hands, Hounen insisted that you had to cut your own path, and locate the Buddha yourself.

Hounen lived a fairly eventful life for a monk, enduring the assassination of his father and experiencing periodic exile. Eventually he founded 知恩院 Chion-in (whose characters are a highly poetic way of saying that it is a place to achieve knowledge), where he propagated his beliefs, and died years later, penning a single page of advice on his deathbed. Hounen is, so far, my favourite Japanese philosopher, and Chion-in is, so far, my favourite temple.

 Unlike much of what has and will appear in this series, Chion-in is relatively unknown. That, and the Hounen thing, makes me kind of feel like it's my own special place. It's easily accessed via Yasaka-san, which looks like this, in case you've forgotten. The facade is stupidly photogenic.

 Turn left here and head down the road, through the wooden gate. You'll come to a roundabout...

 ...and see a much larger wooden gate. Like, really big. In fact the largest of its kind, apparently, although I seem to remember that Toudaiji has a much larger one that's incredibly similar, so there's probably dozens of these kicking around in various places. Asakusa almost certainly makes some claim to this effect, because Kantou thinks it has the best of everything.

 It's a giant, mazelike complex. It's great.

This is the plaza as seen from the top of the steps. To the left is some kind of museum or something; right in front of us is Chion-in-dou, which is probably another good way of getting here, though you might as well pull through Yasaka-san as long as you're here. The night I met up with those yankii, I drank out in the area to the right. Had a Phaedrus Moment when I turned around to take this picture. See that tree in the corner, up against the white wall? I pissed on it.

 Like many Buddhist temples, Chion-in features freakishly steep steps.

 Guest house.

 Unfortunately, the main building of the complex is under construction, and probably will be for some time, thus enclosed within this giant weird brown box-building thing. But you can still go inside! An old lady saw me looking back and forth, trying to see if you could, and came over to explain it to me, in Japanese no less.

 "Saint Hounen Something Something"!!

 At first I thought these people were praying. They aren't - they're putting their shoes in plastic bags.

 The beauty of the wooden art is somewhat marred, yet oddly complemented by the modern-style metal scaffolding.

 No idea what these are. But the couple walking in front of me took photos so I did too.

 The best photo I have ever taken. Everything about this is beautiful.

 The inner sanctum is quite impressive, and there was even a session in...session, but of course that wouldn't be appropriate to take pictures of. Instead I took a picture of my shoes, to underscore how ridiculous I felt carrying them around in a plastic bag.

 Outside again. The inner temple part leads you on a linear path, spitting you out somewhere completely different. You get to walk over a sort of bridge-path thing to get there, no matter where you start, so there's that. At the end you deposit your plastic bag in a receptacle for someone coming the other way to use, and don your footwear once more, ready to continue your walkabout.

Not pictured: A display on the "Seven Mysterious Things of Chion-in." My favourite is a forgotten umbrella, whose origin is unknown, and which is now regarded as being in some way holy (various different ways depending on the tradition being followed.)

 The front gate, viewed from higher up and farther back. See, it is pretty sizeable.

 The place was crawling with couples. It would be a pretty lame first date, but I bet it's awesome on a relaxed afternoon with somebody you care about.

 Some incense-burning going on in that background building.

 Foot traffic really dies off once you advance past that main building, and especially so if you follow the little path around behind it. Nothing much beyond that except for a ton of stairs. Hey - who's that?

 Hounen! It's him!!

 Stairs.

 They lead here.

 A smaller temple off the left. A giant group of Japanese tourists eyed me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

Back the other way, and it's just rows upon rows upon rows UPON ROWS UPON ROWS of Buddhist headstones, such as they are. The paths are all infested with spider-webs and it's never clear if you've reached the top or not, until you hit the electric fence and realised there's nothing spectacular up there at all. Well, maybe one thing: The views over Kyouto are pretty awesome.

That wraps up the big landmarks of northern Gion, so in the next installment, we'll be venturing a little further afield.

Goukon

Probably most people who've spent a long time with Japan have some invisible checklist in their head, filled with all the things they'd like to do, eventually, at some point, when they get around to it. One thing I've always been curious about is going to a goukon, a group date. Until now, I'd only ever seen one in the drama Nodame Cantabile, which featured drinking, singing, and an aged German orchestral conductor, only one of which, I suspected, was common in actual goukon. I finally got to see for myself earlier this week when Shiga, in apology for having fucked up an English Club conference in Oosaka for me, invited me to one.

To be honest, I was a little conflicted at first. On the one hand, what if the girls were hot? On the other hand, would they be going to a goukon if they were hot? On the other hand, would they get invited to a goukon if they weren't hot? On the other hand, if they were hot, I was likely to get nervous and kill the mood for everybody, so hadn't I best bow out, for everyone's sake? On the other hand, what if they were hot?

I was definitely nervous, partly for the obvious reasons, and partly because I wasn't entirely clear what was expected of me. How much of the conversation would I be expected to carry? Would it be structured (perhaps with set questions, or maybe set up like a mini-speed dating session), or more just a party with a particular theme? What boundaries was I working with; for example, would the girls pretend that they totally had nooooo idea that it was supposed to be a goukon, thus making it passe to call it one in front of them? And if the girls did not find me sufficiently entertaining, would I be forever blacklisted from all goukon in the Kansai area, or perhaps summarily executed?

In the end, my curiosity, desire for blogging material, and love of women won out. As anybody in an international relationship will tell you, differences in dating culture are very real, with their own shortcuts and pitfalls to learn; like, I've dated a couple of Japanese girls, right, so I guess I've got some understanding, except that I've actually never dated a Canadian, so in fact I know nothing because I have no basis of comparison. Anyway this whole concept just seems so uniquely Japanese, or if it isn't, then in any case it's definitely not part of the English-speaking world. How do these even work? Obviously this isn't exactly a broad sample, but here's what happened.

In a somewhat strange twist, the event transpired to be held for Shiga's 20th. Which, I guess you can do whatever you want for your own birthday, although oddly enough he did all of the invitation, planned everything himself, and, when he called the restaurant, was awkwardly forced to admit that he was, in fact, making a reservation for his own birthday. To cap it off, Shiga has explained to me more than once that he specifically decided he wouldn't get a university girlfriend because he wants to focus on his studies...yet this is the second goukon he's singlehandedly organized in the last six months. Sometimes I just don't know about that kid.

What really surprised me was the size; in contrast to the raucous 30+ nomikai I had envisioned, it was to be a small gathering of only eight, that is, four on four. Shiga selected what I can only assume to be his three closest and least creepy friends for the task; Photography tragically came down with a bad cold just the day before and had to send a proxy, which was awfully good luck for that guy. In a sitcomesque twist, the guy he sent in his place was basically just Photography as played by a different actor. Shiga's final pick was a guy who already had a girlfriend, which seemed to me to completely defeat the purpose, but ok. For the girls, he grabbed a friend of his from high school and entrusted her with the rest. So the players were chosen: Shiga, myself, Photography's buddy, a guy with no solid reason for being there, and four girls from a university even more obscure and low-quality than our own.

To ease the process, Shiga opened up a LINE conversation and had everybody introduce themselves, which I expected, but this then spiraled into a round of small talk that I would have thought more appropriate for the evening itself. But then I thought, what if this is actually all part of the process. What if they're all feeling each other out right now, making judgments on who's a good conversationalist, who has the most interesting hobbies, who might be worth looking into further. And then I thought, shit, I'm kind of not saying anything at all, here. Excellent, we're fucking up already. I hastily tried to powerslide back into the fray, with no idea what kind of impression I was making.

Mercifully, this stage somehow only dragged on for a few days. In stark contrast to many things I've done in Japan, where the planning time for any given social occasion exceeds the length of an average parliamentary session, with just as many sub-committees and as much indecision, the day was upon us almost before I'd prepared for it. I did my normal date things, which is to say, I straightened my hair, tried not to dress like a homeless person, and so forth, and then we were there, suddenly a blob of eight young, vibrant people trying not to make eye contact or accidentally interact with each other. Shiga had reserved a private booth in a really, really upscale-looking cafe/bar type thing in Imagium, which favourably impressed the girls but made me worry for my pocketbook, even though I knew the price had already been set beforehand. The lighting was low, the décor mildly eclectic, the patrons mixed, and the staff unusually jokey and conversational.

As we sat down, broken up into teams of two, I realised that although I had gathered some basic impressions about the people I was about to spend the next couple of hours with (remember, I didn't know anybody there besides Shiga), I could not for the life of me tether the faces in front of me to their LINE personae. Fortunately neither could anybody else, prompting a recap of the small talk that had already ensued. The first ten minutes went roughly how you would expect a room full of 19-year-old Japanese kids to play out, which is to say that momentum was painfully slow to build.

It was at this point that I had a minor revelation: I can lead an English conversation to water and outright force it to goddamn drink, but I still have limitations in Japanese. In English, I can dominate a crowded room without ever raising my voice. I can end an argument with a few well-chosen words, or shut down a heckler with a surgical barb. I can cajole even the most listless and uninterested of interlocutors into choking out an opinion or a response. In Japanese, I'm still working on that. I manage much better when somebody else is doing the legwork, allowing me to focus on timing over volume. When I get that going, I can appear fluent, and witty, and “learned” with two syllables. If I'm with somebody shy, I struggle. The two girls sitting across from me and Not Photography were shy.

Luckily, as I have mentioned before and will do again, Shiga is savvy. I have solved many problems by throwing Shiga at them, or asking him for advice about them, or casually mentioning them in his presence. So when he saw that the conversation on our end of the table had somewhat bottomed out, whereas his was rockin', he called for a change of seating on the pretense of just mixing it up. Fortunately, the other pair had a lot more energy and sociability, and so thanks to this tactical move the tempo was able to start ramping up.

All four of the girls were in the physical sciences; specifically, they were being educated as sports trainers. All were passionate about sports and were even in the “sports rehabilitation club” at their school, whose athletes they actually treated for actual injuries. I could not care less about either sports or biology, but I feigned profound interest as I tried to at least figure out what exactly the fuck they studied, and how. Shiga's friend, though she didn't look it, was one-quarter French and one-quarter Italian, and was considering studying abroad to France. Somehow the fact that I am a foreigner didn't come up until almost the end of the night, making me wonder if they'd noticed. I may live for attention, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't refreshing.

For my part, I think I did all right. I certainly didn't dazzle my audience with a jaw-dropping display of courtship prowess, but at least I managed to avoid being blatantly offensive, or worse, boring. Being that it was a goukon, we had decided before that the guys would bear a little more of the cost, and then there was a great kerfuffle as everybody except for Shiga simultaneously tried to avoid letting Shiga pay for himself. I purposefully laid out a little extra just because I'm older.

Rude Boy: Thank you very much, seriously!! I had a great time! And your friend from high school is cute ^^ But I wonder if I took my non-joking joking flirtation too far? If I did, I'm sorry

Shiga: It's fine! She says so herself ^^

Rude Boy: What the hell? Did you show her the message?!

Shiga: I showed her! She was super happy

Rude Boy: ...lol, whatever

I do still have one question left unanswered: Exactly how many goukon result in a romantic relationship? I'm going to suggest “not very goddamn many,” but I could be wrong.

Gion, Part 2: Yasaka-san

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

For its fame and accessibility (it's like ten minutes on foot from Sanjou-Shijou), 八坂神社 Yasaka Jinja is one of those things that you sort of have to see if you come to Kyouto. Yasaka-san, as older people affectionately call it, is not as spectacular or exciting as some of the city's other attractions, but the exhibitionism generally gets reserved for the temples anyway. Which seems strange, doesn't it, considering that the latter is a place for adherents to practice asceticism and restraint, whereas the former is a home for the gods themselves. Anyway, Yasaka Jinja is a nice little place, a convenient meeting spot, and popular for hatsumode, among other things.

 Here we are a few steps back from the shot that closed out Part 1.

 From time to time they set up a bunch of food stalls selling staples like mochi and takoyaki, creating a festival kind of atmosphere. I used to think I just had impeccable timing, but actually it happens with startling regularity.

 There's a lot of open space in the main section, which as far as I've seen appears to be characteristic of many shrines.

 If you read Japanese, I heartily recommend creeping these things. They paint all the hopes, pain, and humour of life, compressed to the size of a small wooden panel. It's like the Twitter of prayer.

 Just to the right, you can get your fortune read.

 This, of course, is the main reason you'll have come: Throw in some money (a 5-yen coin, if you've got one) and ask for good luck on your shuukatsu or konkatsu or whatever.

 There's the south gate, which leads to some other interesting parts of Gion, though I would recommend you actually leave by the east gate if you plan on walking south. The streets you'll end up taking are a little more interesting.

 This would be the east end here.

 On the north side, meanwhile, you can find some bits and pieces like this. If you, like me, can spend hours thoroughly exploring a shrine or temple, it's mildly worth strolling through. Otherwise no.

 This gate leads to a park in the northeast, which is also worth a miss. When I say the word "park," what do you envision? If you said "a field of dust," congratulations, you live in Japan.

 A famous baseball player from the mid-20th Century, if I had to guess, which I don't.

 All right, let's wander back. South gate...

 ...east gate.

 What the hell?

 Oh, got it.

 It's an anti-nuclear protest. Nuclear power is a question of much debate among the Japanese populace in light of Fukushima, but this protest was actually against nuclear weapons. I don't know if this was a perfunctory event or if some politician suggested that maybe they should consider discussing the possibility that Japan possessing nukes might be beneficial in some way. Either way, it's fitting that they would choose the location of this particular sakura tree, a Kyouto symbol of peace, as their site.

Here it is lit up during hanami season.

 Live music washed throughout the area. I'd say that most Japanese people agree with the sentiment these people were expressing, though they would not share their enthusiasm or, judging by this photo, their lifestyle.

 There's a weird little modern art outdoor exhibit on top of a hill behind this whole area. Make of it what you will.

Past even that, we arrive at this statue. It's certainly striking; who is this guy to have earned such immortalization? Why, it's cultural hero Sakamoto Ryouma! Kneeling beside him is his retainer, Nakaoka Shintarou, who was also killed when Sakamoto was assassinated. At the time, Sakamoto was beloved and esteemed as a visionary, and indeed he was quite ahead of his time intellectually, so his death was met with shock and dismay. Though the Mimawarigumi eventually confessed to the crime, it was initially believed that the Shinsengumi were responsible, which led to the group's swift downfall thereafter. Well, that and the fact that the government they served was overthrown, but yeah.

Gion, Part 1: Welcome to the Jungle

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

One of the gifts blogging has given me is a greatly increased appreciation for photography. I used to be indifferent, almost averse to photo ops, reasoning on notability and the power of my own memory, so as a result there are actually some fairly large gaps in my life that I wish I had a little more evidence of. Now, though, I reach for my camera like John Marston reaches for his revolver: At the slightest provocation, with startling speed and accuracy, I will whip it out of my pants and snap off a shot. It's become almost a sub-hobby of blogging itself, and I quite enjoy displaying the occasional pretty picture amid the mass of blurry, incorrectly framed, and poorly lit captures that make up the bulk of my efforts.

With that in mind, I'm going to be something a little more involved than my usual stuffs, and embark on a little Gion Photo Project. In past posts I have simply travelled to a location, seen what I could see, and gone home, but this time I conducted a number of shoots over multiple days, to gather more and varied material. I chose Gion as my subject, just because it's accessible, it's famous, and I think a lot of people might like to see it. Maybe I'm wrong. Hope not.

Gion, of course, is the largest geisha district left in the country. Despite their being a perennial symbol of Japan in the minds of everyone ever, their numbers and significance have dwindled over the last hundred as a result of public apathy, which I would speculate comes from their practicing an outdated medium that nobody enjoys anymore. There is an ongoing push for their preservation, but I'm pretty sure the only way you're going to see a real geisha now is at either a horrendously expensive teahouse or a horrendously expensive performance. That does not mean there's nothing to see in Gion, however.

If you approach Gion from the downtown area, this is the first thing you'll see, sitting directly atop one corner of Gion-Shijou Eki. Notice the mixture of pagoda and Western-style architecture, which suggests the Meiji era, although this might just be me talking out of my hat. Apparently this the place to go for song and dance performances, though obviously I've never been, because I'm not on a business trip or independently wealthy.

 Shijou, east from Gion-Shijou Eki. Kinda the main drag of Gion, if you're gonna pick just one. I like it. Not as much as downtown, but it's cool. Gion is often misunderstood to have been the ancient pleasure quarters, which isn't exactly true, but if you got your money, honey, Gion's got your disease, as long as your disease is upscale shopping and dining, which it has in spades. The best restaurants invariably have long lineups piling down the sidewalk and I suspect it's a good place to buy souvenirs.

 This is the biggest tourist area in what is already a tourist town, and City Hall knows it. おこしやす、by the way, is just 京都弁 for ようこそ。You know, add a little local flavour to the signage and whatever. Fun fact: The local term for geisha (芸者) is actually geiko (芸子).

Aww yeah, the SKETCHY part of Gion! And right off Shijou, too. Awesome stuff. The density of Girls Bars, kyabakura and dive bars rivals Kiyamachi.

 This is just here because I want to stress that Gion is really just a normal part of a normal city. You walk far enough, and you start to find rundown apartment buildings and people living their daily lives. Like everywhere.

 Though I won't deny that Kyouto has a ton of fun little backroads and alleys to explore. I've spent hours wandering around areas like these.

 Is that a magical riverbarge floating above Shijou?! Ah, no, it's the backside of a restaurant on Kawabatamachi.

  Go left at Yasaka-san and you'll find the loneliest road in all Gion. I actually started to get introspective and moody just walking down it, pushing past prostitutes and watching the cars fly by.

 I walked that loooong path only to find that it kind of goes nowhere.

 Planning a trip to Gion? You might want to remember this gate.

 Cause this is where it leads. This is probably more like what you envisioned Gion being, isn't it? It's certainly a nice walk.

 You can maybe find some geiko teahouses if you're seriously looking for one.

 Throughout Kyouto at large, you are likely to find Japanese tourists decked out in yukata, but those numbers skyrocket in Gion. Don't immediately assume that you have spotted a troupe of those elusive geiko and start frantically taking hundreds of pictures, as those most eye-rollingest of foreign tourists do. They're there, but you're unlikely to find them. Rule of them: If you see a woman you think is a geiko, she is probably not a geiko. If she's in public and her face isn't painted, then definitely not.

Yasaka-san at night. Two kyabakura girls watched me take this photo. "Now Rude Boy!" you exclaim, positively stamping your feet with indignance. "Just because a girl dresses a certain way in a certain part of town doesn't automatically mean she's a kyabakura girl!" You know what, don't even. Sometimes you can just tell, don't even pretend that you can't. Plus, one of them went into a kyabakura almost immediately after, so yeah, kyabakura girl.

Here's the view from the steps of Yasaka-san, which is going to segue nicely into Part 2.

Barroom busking

Tonight Cologne and I went on a little expat-bar pub-crawl. Anybody familiar with this blog will be able to guess how I feel about expat bars, but Cologne loves the living shit out of them, and since half the Japanese in the room are there because they want to meet foreigners, I will grudgingly concede that they are, counterintuitively, a good way to meet people. We ended up at Zaza's, but we started at Pig & Whistle, because Pig & Whistle.

I was wondering if Golden Week was maybe going to draw a significant crowd, but it was actually kinda dead (though Sanjou Oohashi was decently populous). Actually, us two and a busily busing white guy were the only foreigners in the place, so I was ready to get comfortable. Tonight they had a few different acts for our entertainment, including a little three-piece set of guitar, drums and keyboard, and damn but the keyboardist was a cutie. Neither of us knew a single song they played, but it was all pretty soft and relaxing stuff – a little light jazz, a bit of blues, and Feist. Canada represent! I winced when Keyboards, the frontman, described one of the songs they were covering as originally having been played by “four black people,” but otherwise it was pretty much just some mild background music to accompany the Asian Ballroom Dancing Championship and secondhand smoke.

Then, in their last song, the guy announced that he was super sorry and all, but he was going to come around with a hat and if you could maybe consider giving them a few hundred yen for their trouble, that would be just dandy.

So what the fuck's up with that? Go ahead and try that in a Canadian bar and see what kind of a reception you get. Probably something like “Um...no? I paid for my beer.” See, your audience is doing you a far bigger favour by experiencing your work than you're doing them by producing it. Doesn't matter how good you are or what you do. Whether they're listening to your set, watching your film, or reading your slashfic, they have absolutely no goddamn obligation to do it and you'd better well appreciate it, because to some extent creating quality art is an end in itself, but you're lying if you try to tell me that you don't then want to show it off.

You can come back to me and say that they're just offsetting the costs they incurred in terms of transportation, purchasing their masses of equipment, and, you know, investing years into learning how to play an instrument. But then I'll ask you, what the hell is that shit? Music is a hobby like any other, and hobbies cost money. Maybe you have aspirations, somewhere in the far, far future of being able to make a modest living off your skills, but pleasure, self-fulfillment, and the enjoyment of your audience should be the rewards you're shooting for. In the meantime, just be satisfied with your free beer and the fact that, hey, you actually got to play for somebody other than your parents and partners for once.

Cologne and I both shifted uncomfortably and coughed up 500 yen each, but it fucked with the mood a little bit. We left shortly after.