A Trip to Nogi Shrine

Written as a field report for my Shinto class. The requirement of the report is that it be at least two pages and be about an experience I had with Shinto. Shrine visits are recommended. I chose Nogi Shrine because it seemed to me to be an oddity. This paper is written with the fact in mind that the intended audience (Kenny-sensei) has visited the shrine before.

A Trip to Nogi Shrine

Date: November 17, 2007

Location: Nogi Shrine; near Fushimi-momoyama station on Keihan Line

History: In 1912, General Nogi Maresuke, a hero of the Russo-Japanese War, positioned himself and his wife in front of a portrait of Emperor Meiji. As cannons announced the passing of the Emperor’s funeral procession, the couple committed ritual suicide in order to follow Emperor Meiji into death. The act was highly reminiscent of feudal Japan and shocked a public who at that time thought it had long since cast off such cultural values and stepped into a modernized and Westernized world. (McCain) I have yet to find an exact date for the shrine’s construction or who proposed the shrine’s creation and why.

Description: Nogi Shrine is small and made up of a few buildings and monuments that encircle a little garden. Starting with the gate, the nature of the structures flows in a clockwise motion from structures that have very little to do with Shinto to structures that are distinctly Shinto.

Memorials to Nogi

To the left of the gate are many memorials to Nogi Maresuke as a person. There is a bust of the man cast in bronze, a monument with a large anchor attached, and a museum dedicated to the artifacts of the once-living man. The only hints the shrine gives at first to the fact that it is indeed Shinto is the purification water stationed near the museum for visitors to wash their hands in and a distinctly Shinto altar on the second floor of the museum that houses a statue of Nogi and his wife. Everything else inside the museum is more reminiscent in nature to artifacts found at Graceland—even General Nogi’s dentures are proudly displayed on the second floor.

The Unknown Building

Next to the museum is a small and narrow building that seems to be either the priest’s quarters, a storage facility, or quite possibly both. The building is protected by Shinto ropes indicating the kami’s presence. Inside the door at the center of the building is a smaller Shinto altar that looks more like a family altar than anything else. An empty room with tatami floor can be seen through the window to the right of the door. In the room to the left of the door, however, is something quite interesting. The room is filled with wooden dolls, ranging from approximately two to three feet in height and all except one wearing a red cap and a slightly scary smiling expression that looks strikingly like Daikoku-ten (the one different doll had a white cap instead of a red one). Though the dolls may actually be someone other than Daikoku-ten, there are a few other strategically placed items on the premises that make me suspect that the dolls are indeed of him.

Additionally, in front of the Unknown Building is a small alter to a red-bibbed stone person, complete with a brass statue of Buddha sitting next to it. This raises some interesting questions: What is a guy like Daikoku-ten, who is clearly of Buddhist origin and one of the seven lucky gods, a guardian of children, and a miniature of Buddha doing in a Shinto Shrine to General Nogi Maresuka, of all people?

Clearly Shinto Aspects

Moving clockwise, the rest of the shrine is distinctly Shinto with only a few small nods to General Nogi himself. Directly next to the unknown building is a model of Nogi and his wife preparing for suicide. Next to that is a statue of Nogi in full priest’s costume, indicating that not only is he a kami, but the head priest of his own shrine. Next to that is a two-building complex that I would like to call the Outer and Inner Sanctuary. The Outer Sanctuary is the much larger building of the two and is accessible to the public. Located behind the Outer Sanctuary is a separate building that is off-limits to the general public and is most likely the Inner Sanctuary. Guarding the Outer Sanctuary are two statues, one of a mare and one of a stallion. This is the only shrine I have been to that does not have a statue of a horse inside a building, but instead has the horses on full display. The fact that there is one male and one female possibly indicates Nogi and his wife. Another interesting feature to the Outer Sanctuary is that it has an entire row of rice bags lining the building on the outside just below the rafters. Firstly, these rice bags reminded me of Daikoku-ten, who is often seen seated on top of them, and secondly, rice represents wealth. So a man who killed himself to follow Emperor Meiji into death suddenly becomes a kami of wealth?

Next to the two-building complex is a much smaller and much newer (judging by the color of the paint on the wood and the fact the paint hasn’t begun to peal) building that has a prayer bell and offerings to the kami inside. Interestingly enough, more of those huge rice bags are positioned on the structure. The food offered to the kami are red apples, a traditionally wrapped offering (similar to what I saw at the Kurama Fire Festival), two bottles of sake (one for each kami, I guess), and… a plastic wrapped bag of the local favorite doughnut-like candy? Maybe the reason that Nogi had dentures is because his teeth fell out due to eating too much sweets. In that case, it must be awfully hard for him to eat the apples offered to him without his dentures!

Visitors

Visiting Nogi Shrine on November 11, 2007 were two blond-haired foreign girls (myself and my history-buff friend Ruth who I had brought along for the company), two older women (who stayed approximately as long as we did), an older man (I never saw him actually leave but he was gone within fifteen minutes of my seeing him), a young woman (who visited the children’s diety for a very brief second and then quickly left), and a young man (who darted in with camera in hand, disappeared into the museum, and then darted back out in a matter of minutes). The place was surprisingly quiet and no one rang the prayer bell while I was there. At least a second visit is needed to be able to say for sure if the low traffic at the shrine is normal or if people did not visit Nogi that day due to shichi-go-san festivities going on at a much larger local shrine that is conveniently close to all three train stations (Keihan, Kintetsu, and JR).

Priests

There were no visible priests at the shrine during our visit but I am almost positive that there are indeed priests at this shrine. First, if you go clockwise from the prayer bell structure, there is a long and narrow building devoted to the sale of o-mamori and ema, items that are normally sold by priests. Second, the empty second half to the unknown building could possibly be a priest’s quarters. Third, there is an Inner Sanctuary that is off limits to the public. Come to think of it, I could smell faint incense coming from the Inner Sanctuary when I was standing nearest to it.

Thoughts

To be perfectly honest, Nogi Shrine is downright weird. It has the feeling of a Shinto Shrine crossed with Graceland and with a dash of Buddhism thrown in for flair. But because it is weird, it is really fascinating. I will definitely go again to see if I can find an answer to any of my questions.

Class Video

As an end of semester project, our Japanese speaking classes asked us to write, memorize, and present a skit entirely in Japanese. We of level three were given the specific directions of no more than four to a group (though you can bring in outside assistance for a very short period of time), and the skit itself had to be approximately 9 minutes long, videos prefered.

And this is what we came up with. Ruth, Autumn, Amanda, and Nikki star in a stunning film about a drunken salariman who comes home, hits his head, and dreams up a manga about beautiful women samurai. It has ninjas, samurai, honor, fantastic death scenes, and a few guest appearances from Jack. We called Johnny but he was too busy with Sweeney Todd so we got the monkey instead. We hope you enjoy...

The Genuine Life of Samurai

Time, why are you not my friend?

Life is insane and I certainly don't have enough of this little thing we call time. I have less than three weeks, three papers, a video that we have to make, as many interviews as I can fit in, a trip to Nara, two afternoon finals, and four Japanese finals (it's actually two finals with two parts but each part is a final in and of itself so...). And then it's back home to the States to spend Christmas with my family! I'm so excited about that! But there's still three weeks of stuff to do and stress is definately not fun...

It's been almost two weeks since I wrote last, and I'm sorry about that. So, here's what has happened. After I last wrote, I spent that Saturday shopping in Umeda with Ruth, where I saw a camera for 300$ that I wanted (since mine is old and starting to fall apart). It's a canon, and when Ruth looked it up on Best Buy's website, it is a 600$ camera in the states, available only by special order. It is a freaking awesome camera, with 10X zoom, image stabilizing tech (so no more blurry night photos), and really nice video capability. Thus this camera is staying in the back of my mind as a maybe. It's a fantastic buy, if I can come up with the money. But first things first, of course, so the camera must wait until next semester when I can finally assess whether or not I am capable of buying this thing. Because that's a lot of money and I don't impulse buy things that are that expensive. We'll see if I decide that I really need it.

That Sunday, the original plan was to go to Fushimi-inari and then continue from there. What happened was that for the two minutes we were at Fushimi-inari station the weather had decided to pour down rain. So, we got back on a train because the shrine has no cover and all those stone steps plus rain didn't sound like a fun idea. However, as soon as we left Fushimi-inari for Kyoto Station (where we would be dry), the weather cleared up and there was no need for an umbrella. So...

On the way to Kyoto Station, we stopped at a buddhist temple just a block away. It was described in Heather's guidebook as "the largest wooden structure in the world" but it was under renovation so the largest wooden structure was completely encased in a large steel structure. We could walk inside the steel structure and see the outside of the wooden structure, but heaven forbid we see the inside. I was not impressed. I'm sure when it's finished, it will be quite beautiful but... I probably won't get to see it. The interesting thing about this temple is that you don't have to pay to go in. (most buddhist temples charge you to go inside, which is why I have been inside so very very few) Additionally, inside the main gate is a stone courtyard that is covered in pigeons. While Heather resisted the urge to kick one, I completely gave into the urge to terrorize them. Yes, I acted like a complete two year old and ran to the center of the flock, hoping to make them all scared and fly away. But no, instead of humoring me, they all just kinda waddled out of my way. I was very disappointed. And I'm sure I looked like a fool but I don't care.

Now, on to Kyoto station. Kyoto station is an 11 story building about three blocks away from shichijo station, filled with shopping and, by the way, completely decked out for the holidays. We completely bypassed Thanksgiving and gone straight into Christmas. Which downright annoys me. Plus, Christmas here is completely the retail version of Christmas, so it kinda depresses me because Christmas here has no soul. Another reason I'm happy to be going home for Christmas. We did not actually go shopping in Kyoto station because it was fantastically busy and we felt no need to trapize through womens clothing that neither Heather and I can possibly fit into because we're both way too tall. We did travel to the top floor where we had probably the most fantastic pizza I've had in Japan yet. It was cooked by a real brick oven. Didn't think I'd find one of those in Japan but oh my goodness... fantastic.

Then, after Kyoto Station we decided to walk from Shichijo to shijo (for those of you who can't tell, Shichi is the word for 7 and shi is one of the two ways to say 4. Jo, I assume is either stop, street, or something along those lines. On the Keihan line, there is a Shichijo, Gojo (5), shijo, and Sanjo (3). Not sure where the other numbers ran off to, but this is Japan and I have learned not to ask. So from Shichijo to shijo was approximately 5 or 6 blocks. We stopped at the sister temple to the Tallest Wooden Structure in World Temple (I remember no names, I'm sorry) along the way, but that one was not anywhere near as impressive. Both were under renovation.

At Shijo, we walked back to the Keihan line and stopped at what Heather called the "incredible store of insane cuteness" and is actually an accurate description of this place. This is where I found a present for Yoshi, since Sunday was her birthday. I was quite proud of myself because when I gave it to her later that evening, I had apparently chosen the perfect gift. Makes me happy. That evening was spent with Yoshi and family, where we had a small cake, her favorite meal, etc. She turned 16.

Last week was downright busy. There was originally a plan to skip Shinto class and go see Nogi Shrine but we were tempted with a movie and decided to show up that wednesday. How I wish we hadn't! It was the most senseless movie I had ever seen! I could see where aspects of the movie had shinto references but in all honesty? It was pointless. And the sad part is that this was the highlight of that week. Not to say I didn't have anything to do last week, far from it, but that's the only thing worth writing about. Most of what I did that week was homework. And lots and lots of it.

Last Saturday, I finally did make it to Nogi Shrine during shichi-go-san. I am working on a feild report of that trip and I shall post it here when it is done. That will be one paper less for me to write. But for now, just know I went to Nogi shrine during the day, then left for home before it started getting dark. Then, I went to Kyobashi to have dinner with a friend over Subway (best subway sandwich I've had in my life, thank you). Sunday, I went to Seminar house four to watch Princess Mononoke. Then it was back home to do even more homework.

This week too has been characterized by two things--homework and cold. The homework is more annoying than anything else; our video is due next week so we are hurrying to get it videotaped and stuff like that. It will be a really cute video, so I'm happy with the plot and we've poured a lot of work on it. It's just the actual practicing the lines and filming that we have to do now. Sigh. And no one has time.

As for the cold... During the day, I am just fine, even without a coat that I stupidly forgot to pack. I just wear layered clothing and normally only need two layers to be quite comfortable. It's like a typical fall day in Arkansas. It's like the days when its warm in the sun but cold in the shade (which are the kind of days that I love anyway). But oh at night... At night there is no sun so it gets really cold. And the best part of it all? My room is the same temperature as the outside. Why? Because I have no significant heat source whatsoever. The only thing I have is a small foot-pad thing that's about a 3 inch by 5 inch square and even on its strongest doesn't get very warm. And my host mother has specifically warned me not to run it while I am sleeping. Well that's great and all but I kinda would like to keep all my toes thank you.

Now before you start freaking out, my friends, let me explain. It is quite normal in a Japanese house to have no central heating and air. For heat, most families use a variety of electric heaters and no one thinks this is strange. It is not normal, however, for those living in a Japanese house not to have some form of electric cover or electric rug under their futon. Many people say that they are actually quite comfortable at night with the electric rug or cover, depending on which they have. I am sure I would be comfortable too if I had such things. But I do not. All I have is that foot pad, which I guard with my life. But I still have to turn it off when I sleep (lest my host mother get angry and take it away) so... I generally end up doing my homework while huddled up under the covers, which is actually fairly uncomfortable because there is no flat surface to write on and not enough room to spread out whatever I am working on. In general, I look forward to going to class because at least in the CIE they keep things nice and warm. Sometimes too warm, but I can't be too picky. I'm just trying to last until the 16th, when I come home for Christmas.

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me...
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

International Festival 2007

So. Last weekend was the International Festival, presented by the Japanese students of Kansai Gaidai for the community of Hirakata. It started Friday (Japanese students had Friday off from class, whereas for 留学生 such as myself, class was in session) and ended Saturday. Friday was spent having to go to those pesky things we call classes, say "yo, I'm here, k, see you, bye." Fortunately, most teachers simply took roll because they were forced to by the CIE and told us to go enjoy the festival. I saw a group of pre-kindergarden aged kids in their little pre-kindergarden sized band do a band preformance with such a high level of cuteness that it almost outdid the Razorback Band. Almost. I also watched the cheerleaders do their routine. As a competeing entity, their preformances were really good!

And then, instead of being a good little kid, I chose to go with Heather and Zack to Kiyomizu Temple in hopes that we'd catch it in it's bright red finery. Many photos were taken, but the maples on the temple grounds hadn't quite begun changing their colors so it wasn't as fantastic as we had hoped... Oh well, we'll just have to go again. I also discovered three very important things in Kyoto while I was there. First, there is a candy store near Kiyomizu where you can try the japanese candy before buying. Normally, the traditional candy of Kyoto is red bean paste wrapped in a soft floury substance. It is absolutely fantastic, but... Even better, I discovered, was the same thing essentially, but with chocolate instead of red bean paste and the floury thing flavored into either banana or strawberry. Oh goodness. Second, there is a little shrine at the bottom of Kiyomizu that was selling, of all things, candied clementines and red bean paste in fried pancake batter. Both were also absolutely fantastic, but the clementine was the best. And third, I discovered indian food. This being Japan, Indian food is much less spicy than the real thing, but that suits a spice weakling such as myself just fine. I had dal, nann, and a pomegranate lassi (I simply must learn how to make this amazing food), and tried butter chicken, and some sort of mutton curry (the mutton curry wasn't so great, but that's because that curry was the next step up on the spicy scale (which, in Japan, medium is nothing and high is OMGMOUTHONFIRE!!!). I also tasted mango lassi and blueberry lassi, and decided that I was the wisest of the three in choosing a pomegranate lassi. And decided that I must learn how to make this thing called a lassi myself.

Saturday, I spent most of the day at the festival. Justin was the gaijin-on-display for the opening ceremony, so of course I had to be evil and show up and take photos. Heather was busy being Canada for a day, so I of course went and harrassed her at the Canada booth as well. Nikki preformed for the world dance exhibit (more blackmail photos), and Ruth was America for the Fashion Show. Strangely enough at the fashion show, America was the only country besides Japan that got an excited applause. Interesting. I have photos of the fashion show too (evil laugh). I also watched Tomoko and the rest of the Cheerleaders one more time in an attempt to get better photos (a successful attempt too). After the fashion show, Ruth and I went and caught the last half of the Sound of Music, preformed in butchered english with cues and tones taken straight from the movie. And completely off-key, with the exception of Captain Von Trapp, who managed to sing Adelweiz fairly decently. Ruth and I have determined that we must watch this movie again soon. Especially since the Japanese preformance ended immediately after Von Trapp sings for the first time and tells Maria to stay.

I spent the rest of the day Saturday at home, working on the powerpoint for our presentation due on Monday. Mind you, my host family recently bought a new computer with windows vista on it, so nothing in powerpoint is where its supposed to be anymore (not that I was that familiar with powerpoint in the first place). Secondly, its entirely in Japanese, so I spent my time saying things like, "Hm, what's this say? Su-la-i-do. Slaido. Slide! Okay, slide, okay, I need one of those. *click* Okay, I have a slide, now I need a graph. Oh hello, random kanji that I don't know. Um... Kay. That looks like a graph, let's click it! *click* Oh, wait, no, that's not a graph, that's a picture, back up. Okay, that ALSO looks like a graph! *click* Yay! I found the graphs! So that's the kanji for graph. Okay, now how to enter data into the graph... Okay, that icon looks like the icon for excel, which is usually used to put stuff into graphs... *click* and she finds the data input! Yatta! ...more kanji I don't know. Hm. Kay. This one's on the left, so it probably means okay, this one is the middle and I have no clue what it means, and this one says Ki-a-n-so-lu... Cancel. No, I don't want to cancel, I want to click okay..." It went on like this for hours and by the end of it all, it was midnight thirty (yes, midnight thirty is a perfectly acceptable time word), my brain was mush, and I'm sure my host family (who doesn't go to bed until 1 I found out) thought I was absolutely crazy because I was saying all this out loud to myself to make sure I was doing things right. Then I had to figure out how to save it in a non-vista-compatible format. That was a real trip.

Sunday was spent sleeping, having lunch with Heather, and then going to Yawata to finish working on our presentation with Ruth and Nikki. I evilly added the blackmail pictures to the powerpoint presentation. Mwa ha ha. Anyway, we worked on that for a while, had dinner with her host family, and then Nikki and I went home.

Monday was presentation. We were first. Apparently we did freaking awesome and scared everyone else. We did not feel so confident. But then again, I hate presentations. Went home, went to sleep.

Tuesday and Wednesday were Kanji tests (of two sorts). My free time (what little I had) was spent making an emergency birthday gift buying run to Hirakata on Tuesday and an emergency birthday gift wrap buying run to Kuzuha on Wednesday. I love wrapping gifts, so naturally, I had fun.

Yesterday was a three person birthday day. Audra, Nikki, and Nikki's friend Sara all turned 21, so that evening I went with Nikki to her birthday dinner. We took her to a sushi restaurant where the sushi comes to you (see here). The sushi there wasn't as great because it had this little dash of wasabi they put in the rice under the meat. I didn't know until I bit into the sushi and went "what is this thing that's biting into my tounge? Oh, it's wasabi... >.< (<--unhappy face)" But for 100 yen a plate, it wasn't so bad. After sushi, we took Nikki and Sara to Ages Cafe. If you think coffee house and substitute the coffee for alcohol, you have Ages. You can order snack food at Ages, but the main menu is the bar. And by the way, peach snops with apple is fantastic.

This weekend is going to be busy too. On Saturday, I will be going to Umeda in the morning to go electronics shopping with Ruth. My headphones are a piece of crap and I can only hear out of one ear now so I'm going to go buy some freaking nice headphones in a country where quality electronics are their number one export. So for the same amount I spent on my good headphones that are sitting at home in the US, I will get not "good" headphones, but "freaking fantastic!" headphones. I likes this idea...

And Sunday is a trip to Fushimi Inari. We're starting out at Fushimi Inari but we might somehow end up in Shijo for candied clementines, indian food, and maybe this little place called Kiyomizu that we've all heard about but never been to... :) Have to be home before dinner though. I am eating dinnerwith my host family because its my host sister's birthday! I fully intend to do my birthday shopping while I'm going to shrines and temples (shrines and temples always have tons of shops around them, which of course is a fantastic business location because of tourists).

Thus is the extent of my plans. And before I end this blog, I must give a shout out to Reggie, being the bravest of us in the computer lab to complain to the staff that it is entirely too hot in this room (it's like 85-90 in here while the rest of the world is like 50). It's been like this for weeks and finally someone complained.