In Kyoto, and in my body

[imomus]

Driving in Japan is just like driving anywhere else, except more expensive. This afternoon Hisae and I jumped into the Daihatsu Naked (we were wearing clothes) and pointed it in the direction of Kyoto. Osaka suburbs seemed to go on forever. I snapped a cassette into the deck; an evangelical tape in Korean (Hisae's mum is a Korean Christian).

It was odd to hear the words 'Abraham' and 'Israel' popping up in the Korean spiel. What right does this Middle Eastern religion have to be as far from its home territory as Korea? Then again, what right do I have to be 'Japanising' the world?

I do feel evangelical about Japanese values, and I do feel they're universally applicable. This morning there was a news story on the BBC about an alarming increase in brain diseases in all developed countries -- except Japan. Japan is almost always the exception to such trends, and it seems to me to be related to the Japanese attitude to the body.

I give Hisae my big anti-Christian speech as we drive towards Kyoto. Christianity is worse than what came before it (various animistic folk religions revolving around plantation, vegetation, incantation) and what came after it (pragmatic materialism). It's a religion which invests everything in the metaphysical instead of the physical. The thing about the metaphysical is that it's about what's absent rather than what's present. Of what's absent, we can only make assertions. Whereas what's present can be tested and tasted. Christianity is one of those religions that pulls back from life and forces people to make untestable assertions. If you disagree with my assertion about the ultimate values in life, and there's no way to settle the matter by testing what's tangible, we'll probably come to blows. That's why Christianity has engendered such violence.

We got to Kyoto and the atmosphere lifted as we ascended little roads towards Ohara. There, in the gathering dusk, we climbed a temple path through the forest to the 'mute waterfall'. It wasn't mute; it made the rushing, crashing sound of all waterfalls. But Hisae explained that a Buddhist monk had come here to play music, and one day had noticed that the sound of the music and the sound of the waterfall had become one sound. Therefore, he said, there was no longer any separate waterfall sound. It was 'mute'. All was music. Now that's a religion for me!

We drove back into town, stopping to eat and watch the annual illumination by fire of the huge Chinese character on the mountain overlooking the town -- apparently the character just says 'BIG', which is what it is. (Tonight is the Daimonji Okuribi Festival, or Farewell Fire Festival; a shinto ritual designed to send the ancestral spirits back to the other world. Five fires, shaped as kanji characters and symbols, are set on five mountainsides. The fires burn from east to west in the shape of the characters, "dai" (large) , "myo", "ho", boat, and a torii gate.)

Now I'm at a place called Club Ichi Maru Maru in central Kyoto. It's something we don't have in the West: a huge complex where you can walk in off the street, have a sauna, surf the net, read mangas, relax in a vibro-massage chair, play video games, watch TV, even go fishing in an artificial rockpool... A place you can take your body and your mind, and know they'll both come out refreshed. I just had a scorching sauna and a shower, and I feel totally embodied. I feel I'm in a non-Western, non-Christian society which sees body and mind as one and the same thing, and truth as something completely tied up with the here and now. No wonder kids in yukatas by the banks of the river seem relaxed and happy. No wonder Japanese people live longer than anybody else in the world, and get fewer brain diseases. Christianity may have reached nearby Korea, but -- thank God -- it doesn't yet seem to have made much of a dent in Japan.

Comments

christianity and japan

[(Anonymous)]

Your entry hits on one of the things I miss most about living in Japan: a refreshing freedom from Christian chatter and values.

Shusaku Endo, himself a Roman Catholic, writes about the first failed attempts by missionaries to bring Christianity to Japan in his novel Silence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shusaku_Endo

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

JJ's club- that's my hood! I like playing unlimited taiko video games there...

Glad to hear someone has an optimistic view of Japanese society- most of the Japanese kids I know are buckling under the pressure of societal expectations and desperate to find a way to the west where they believe they wont have to trade in their dreams for a mind numbing office job- then again that might be my particular microcosm, working at an "international center".

message from ur fans in hong kong

[(Anonymous)]

hello momus,
my name is carotte and i'm from hong kong.
i just wonder when will u arrive in hong kong?
as ur fans, we want to talk about music and literature with u.haha
hope u can send us an email : shoegazingirl@yahoo.com.hk
Carotte.=]

[mizugami.livejournal.com]

After hearing so many different sources bashing all aspects of Japanese society, reading this made me remember all the reasons why I have always been intensely fascinated with traveling there someday. You captured the subtleties perfectly... the value of the tangible over the intangible, and just what seems to be the purity of the entire culture. Lovely story about the monk. I can't wait to get there someday. There's more to it than anime, crowded subways, and capsule hotels.

out of the bounds of christianity

[jozefpronek.livejournal.com]

I read with great pleasure your description of the temple path, the Club Ichi Maru Maru... and in a former post your description of the way even a train driver takes his job with utmost seriousness. I have never had the chance to go out of the bounds of judeo-christianity (I live in South America, one of the strongholds of the church, and have lived in the US, Europe and Israel in the past).

However, on a recent stay in Finland, I had the feeling I was somehow far from the center of christianity. Although nominally the Finns belong to some church or another, many people there claim that the attitude toward the various churches there is of placid detachment. My own impression is that they accepted for convenience the lutheran church, but without the crazy extremes of central Europe or the Mediterranean.

Their attitude to the sauna has something in common to what you describe in Japan.

While in Finland, I often had the (fantastic) impression of not quite being in Europe.

Of course, the parallels end there. Japan has traditions that are far older than Finnish traditions, in many ways.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I'm not a practicing christian, nor a christian apologist, but I do wonder if your generalization holds for every historical and local manifestation of christianity. After all, don't certain manifestations channel that metaphysical focus back into solid ethical and activist commitments. I guess I'm thinking specifically of the franciscan order in its earliest days and of the 'liberation theology' movement in 20th century Latin america.

Also, my would-be defense above doesn't really match your 'physical'/'metaphysical' division, since that seems to ignore ethics. I would think that any purely physical or purely metaphysical belief system would lead to a kind of solipsism (either everybody else is just matter or everybody else doesn't matter), but a religion whose metaphysics were bound up with its attitudes to the nontranscendent world would seem to not lead to the single-minded life-denial that you seem to detest (and rightly so).

I'm not trying to say that I've seen a lot of christians whose belief systems I would rather not share. But I think the danger of privileging the metaphysical over the 'physical' is one present in many belief systems (not all of them religious ones). I am also not sure that such a desire to privilege is always necessarily a danger.

Which is to say, I get and respect your point, but I would withdraw complete agreement until I see the 'long' version.

just curious.

[jieun.livejournal.com]

do you feel that the Japanese are an inherently superior race?

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

...Christianity is worse than what came before it (various animistic folk religions revolving around plantation, vegetation, incantation) and what came after it (pragmatic materialism)...

Oh my, quite the Pandora's box...many generalizations to flesh out and qualify. Look forward to the ensuing discussion.

W

big bad god

[auto-appendix.livejournal.com]

Ichi Maru Maru sounds totally fantastic. A place unimaginable in the toxic, self-flaggelation of the UK, as if the Royal Festival Hall were filled with flotation tanks (there, I've just imagined it!)... However, don't you think this Christianity bashing is just a little bit easy? I'm not a Christian, find the whole idea of God absurd, but can't help but admit that my epistemology is very much a Christian one. How much more thrilling to reclaim a(n atheistic and communist) Christianity for ourselves and thoroughly turn it inside out, much in the manner of Zizek's book 'The Fragile Absolute'!

Re: big bad god

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

The exclusionary instinct will always eventually exclude the self.

[evalien.livejournal.com]

Wish i was there. I totally agree with you.

[porandojin.livejournal.com]

i was told korea really took all the bad things from christianity- i can't imagine how they being so neophite and fanatic /we have a lot of daewoo expats here/ deal with prostitution which is so popular there /in a way it is in japan/- and they seem to reject all the buddhist heritage as it was smth ucivilised etc ...another funny thing is they embrace only western kinds of christianity- no otrthodox, chalcedonian etc which are so much cooler /although i must admit polish popular catholicism is quite interesting- it is so havily into cult of Virgin Mary am not really sure if it's not some kind of Isis-Astarte remain/ ... before the 2nd war the Vatican sent a polish monk Kolbe who was a very succesfull in buliding powerful catholic institutions in Poland- he made all-national radio, paper and magazines and even build a town especially for a cult of Immaculata- sent to Japan to build the church there, but it was a total failure- and apparently all these few new baptised were women! ....the only christian church i would like to see in japan would be the orthodox one- it's all about form and rites, and their theology goes to the point of totall salvation ... /sorry for my english/

Re: big bad god

[auto-appendix.livejournal.com]

That sounds intriguing. Care to elaborate?

[123soleil.livejournal.com]

Japan has 7 olympic medals by now: 5 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze. Austria has only 1. I put the blame on catholicism. Yep.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

i am not a big fan of christianity, and i also think that japan is a pretty screwy place... although i really like alot of the cartoonish shinto things, like the big penis festival. i think one can use some of the processes and understandings of these more comfortable, accepting and silly ways of expressing culture in any of our own interactions with our "home cultures"... so that one doesn't become one of these americans who knows more about japanese culture and history than they do of their own history and culture... eventually these people are only able to live inside of convention halls wearing sailor suits which is a brain disease yet to be catalogued by today's psychologists. in america we can approach the pancake and marx brothers movies in a way that incorporates them more fully into our national character and thus, brings a certain fluffy and slapstick element to our being.

Re: big bad god

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Once you start excluding whole swaths of human experience and/or perspectives from that which you deem 'correct,' you inevitably run afowl of yourself. You find yourself doing that which you've pointed out as a fault in others.

[neurasthenic.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, Nick, were you raised Christian at all? I'm thinking no but I'd find your answer interesting. I agree with what you say but feel like my Christian upbringing has made certain elements of that outlook inaccessible (at least now, when I can only ponder them, and Japan - not taste or touch!) Getting out of America is one of my priorities, but I wonder if I'll ever be able to truly feel and live Japanese values. I want to feel the enchantment of Shinto, but it's so far from my early wiring. Maybe actually being in Japan would make such things possible...

Robyn

[geeveecatullus.livejournal.com]

austria never really succeeds anywhere but wintersports.

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Your thoughts on Christianity are disengenuously simplistic. Despite my personal stance as agnostic, or even atheistic, I think one should not so quickly dismiss such an impressive human mythology.

Christianity was not so simple a stepping stone as you describe it. Animism to Christianity involved many stops along the way including most obviously and majorly Paganism, and Judaism. To examine the epistemological evolution of man is to acknowledge Christianity as a major influence. Religion is a matter of humanizing objective reality. Animism claims everything is chaotically and sporadically spiritual. Paganism claims major human-like Gods influence different forces. Judaism united the world into a kingdom under which we were subjects. And Christianity made us citizens with God rather than subjects under him.

Before the advent of Christianity we had prohibitive morality. And much of the prohibitive laws were as much about religious competition with Pagan rituals as they were about social behavior. Though Christianity has all the same political faults and more, it was a move forward.

That's not to say I think it should remain the dominant view of things, but I think it's unfair to completely dismiss it's value. Even now the allegories Jesus told, and his fights with the Pharisees are excellent ethical reading. Even some of the lesser-known chapters like Thessalonians offer interesting thoughts on alcoholism and general soul-subduing debauchery.

I understand what you mean about Japanese religion, however. I was lately reading on Tenryki (Lord, is that how it's spelled?) and was quite impressed with it. Despite keeping roots in somewhat anarchonistic creation myths the message of the Joyous Life -- living for the sake of being good, and being good for the sake of life -- is further advanced even than the moral constructs of Christianity.

But then, that's probably not what you were referring to, is it? This reliance in the body I understand it's the only sure thing in life. I can't recall who wrote this, Coisteau? something like that, he wrote about our obliviousness to the plodding reliability of our bodies. Maybe we have ignored them because in modern times we hardly use them for labor, or so often get disease, etc etc, or maybe we are more away of decay?

I could really go on forever about this, but I will leave you with this thought. Is it your body that allows you appreciation for the cosmos, or is it your consciousness that does?

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Oh, as a post-script, the Japanese live so long and so healthily because of their diet. The whole raw food trend was largely influenced by findings on the Japanese lifestyle... I read those studies, hmm, a year or two ago I guess? I don't know if more findings have been made...

[niten.livejournal.com]

I've spent some time amongst adherents of Tenrikyo, and I must say that although their temples looked impressively buddhist-esque, the feeling that I got off them was essentially christian. More in the sense of their eagerness and perhaps zeal if you get what I mean. It had a very different feel from the at-ease that I seem to pick up from Japanese buddhism and shinto.

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Well, their is a religion of moral obligation, not ease. But then, Shintoism is rather a racist religion, isn't it? I've heard that basically it worships Japan and the Japanese. I've even heard the word jingoist thrown around some...

[123soleil.livejournal.com]

austria - 8 mio people – that roughly makes 16 mio legs.
from this 16 mio legs, 4 mio are too old to go skiing, 4 mio are too lazy, 2 mio are too young, and the rest – the owners of 6 mio legs - are too poor. so actually it’s a wonder. And this wonder could – again – be connected with catholicism somehow, which I doubt.

[klig.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in the journal of yuki_onna, someone who has had rather different experiences of Japan from you.

[(Anonymous)]

I enjoy the attitude toward religion(s) in Japan. They freely mix a bit of buddhism, a bit of shinto, a bit of christianity, a bit of whatever else. Where I grew up (Northeast US), you are either Catholic. Or you are Jewish. Or you are Presbyterian. Etc. etc. There are no two ways about it and there is no overlap. That always seemed much too limiting to me and does not allow for cross-pollination of ideas and enjoyment of the many facets of life.