Religion in Japan

Beside technology, religion probably constitutes the second most popular interest among foreign visitors and scholars. Religious events in Japan draw tourist attention each year. Many visitors like to observe authentic religious events. Most first time visitors make visiting spiritual sites a must on their list of places to see. Indeed the sacred Sensoji Temple in Asakusa was one of the most visited spiritual tourist attractions in Tokyo. Many Japanese and foreign visitors flocked around the front gate to catch a glimpse of the Golden Dragon Dance Festival that took place on March 18^th this year. Many first time visitors were surprised to find themselves in the middle of the chaos.

The dance is organized by local men and women every year. It is based on the legend that 1000 pine trees sprang up overnight near the temple on the 18^th day. Three days later a dragon, about 100 shaku (30 m), descended into the pines and was never seen again. The Golden Dragon Dance, which is based on this legend, has come to be linked to the unveiling of the temple’s sacred image for public viewing. People who volunteered for the Dance have engaged in the symbolic act of purification during the preparation process, thus linking myth and religion.

Click here for more information regarding the Golden Dragon Dance in Asakusa.

Globalization- The Japanese Version

(Japanese man in St. Patrick's Day Parade, 2007. Image from www.daylife.com)

Nothing says globalization more than a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Japan. The Irish Network Japan (INJ) organizes a St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the street of Omote Sando, Harajuku, a part of Tokyo, Japan every year. The parade was first organized by the organization in 1992 with the support of the former Irish ambassador to Japan, Mr. James Sharkey. Since then, the organization has continued the tradition each year to bring to the Irish community in Japan a meaningful and fun St. Patrick’s Day. This year was no exception. The 2009 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Japan did not miss the mark compared to parades organized by larger Irish communities elsewhere, most probably in the West. There were giant floats, Irish music, men wearing kilts, Irish flags, things adorned with images of shamrocks. Anything that could be associated with St. Patrick’s Day were there and more.

However, it was quickly noted that this was no typical Irish parade that one finds in the West. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade this year in Tokyo had a blended flavor of Irish and Japanese culture, more specifically Japanese kawaii pop culture. Everything looked very “authentic” from the outset; there were men in kilts playing the bagpipes, big green floats with shamrocks plastered all over, Irish flags that lined both sides of the street. But a closer look and suddenly you realize that beside the group of 50 Westerners (who may or may not be Irish descents) walking ahead, the rest of the parade consisted of Japanese followers. Of course it was also a bit unusual to find half of the bagpipe players to be Japanese. Given the friendly relations that both Japan and Ireland have cultivated, one may not be so surprised to learn that many Japanese people have come to welcome and embrace Irish culture and traditions. Yet, it is interesting to note the way Japanese people have learned to merge their own culture with Irish traditions.



It is probably not too hasty to assume that Japanese people have injected their own kawaii (cute) concept into the theme of the parade this year, as they may have in previous years. The most visible trace of course was the giant dogs that were dressed in cute dogs’ outfits. Of course, not to miss the theme, the Japanese St. Patty’s Day Parade dressed all of their dogs in green from head to tail. They even played with the styles of the outfits. There were dogs that wore capes and hats, while others that were dressed in shimmery outfits.



One dog, dressed in a dog’s kimono outfit, stood out in particular. It is interesting to note the sort of local ideas that Japanese people take to mesh up with foreign practices to create something totally different but totally fitting to their taste. Here is one example of how Japanese people glocalize a foreign form of celebration to fit something of which they can be direct participants. From globalization to glocalization, that’s how Japan does it. Find anything global and fit it into its local taste. And this is the Japanese version of globalization.

Information about the history of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Tokyo has been obtained from the INJ’s website: http://www.inj.or.jp/stpatrick_e.html.

Photographing Japan

"...a photo is something that you develop and print yourself, in the dark, and that remains in the dark until you decide to show it."

This week's post focuses on one of Japan's very own professional photographers, Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-1999). Hamaya, a native of Tokyo, began his career focusing on photographing daily life in Japan. At the age of 15, Hamaya taught himself how to take pictures with a focus on ordinary people and their everyday lives. As Hamaya moved on to become a freelance photographer working with Oriental Photographic Industries and later for other employers, he experimented with different themes and subjects in his photographs. Some of the themes that Hamaya experimented with were ancient rituals and farming practices. Hamaya became the first Asian photographer of Magnum Photos, a photographic cooperative owned by its own photographer-members. He gained recognition after World War II for his work during the war. Among his numerous accomplishments, Hamaya was also awarded the Hasselblad Foundation Award (1988) by the Queen of Sweden and the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society (1997).

(Hiroshi Hamaya. Geishas, Ginza, Tokyo, 1937. Borrowed from Artnet, http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425907579/376/hiroshi-hamaya-geishas-ginza-tokyo.html.)

For his work throughout his career, Hamaya experimented with different types of subjects. He concentrated on capturing ordinary people on film during the early stage of his career, choosing to focus on people and their interaction with the environment surrounding them. Hamaya later traveled to other regions of the world, specifically Manchuria and other parts of mainland China, to capture images of war. For this post we will focus on his work in Japan. For a part of his career, Hamaya chose to dedicate his work to presenting the daily lives of ordinary Japanese people in photographs. Even before this, Hamaya had focused on photographing the people of the city that he grew up in, Tokyo. Many of his early photographs consisted on images of geishas, cafes, and street life in the vibrant city. It seems that he balanced his work in presenting two social extremes, one of the vibrant and upbeat city that he was part of and the other of the quiet sleepy towns in rural Japan. His work covered different lifestyles and aspects of Japan, but was not diverse enough to encompass the different aspects of Japanesse culture . His narrow focus, although fell short in presenting various aspects of Japanese culture, did present accurate pieces of information of a specific event existing in a certain time at a certain place in Japan. His work in the city presented a description of the traditional practice of geisha that has continued to exist in the present world. His photographs are not an exaggeration of everyday lives, but a true snapshot of what is happening in everyday Japan. Overall, Hamaya's work come as close as you can possibly get to presenting an accurate description of Japanese culture. By providing images of the two ends of the social spectrum in Japanese society, Hamaya leaves the audience wondering about the in-between groups of people, whose images are not captured by the photographer.



(Hiroshi Hamaya. Toyama woman planting rice, 1955. Borrowed from Steven Kasher Gallery http://www.stevenkasher.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=197)

Considering the photographer's choice of subjects and themes, I believe Hamaya had attempted to capture images of his subjects interacting with their environment in their natural form. Simple pictures, such as a still image of two geishas walking on the street staring at the camera or a cutoff snapshot of a woman whose pants are covered with mud, don't focus much on who the subject in the picture is as individual, but rather these images provide context as to the cultural interaction or lifestyle that's common of a people of a region. I believe that Hamaya's photographs seek to convey to the viewer a sweeping view of a culture that isn't entirely depicted in every captured images of the photographer's.

"A photographer's role is to show what words and other forms of expression can't convey."


Other works include:
Yukiguni (Snow Country, 1956)
Ura Nihon (Japan's Back Coast, 1957)


All information and images were found at the following websites:
Michael Hoppen Gallery
Frank Horvat Photography
PhotoGuide Japan
Studio Equis
Lens Culture- Photography and Shared Territories (blog)

To view photos by Hamaya and other members of the cooperative go to Magnum Photos.

Japanese Pop Culture

You may have heard the term kawaii screamed out by a group of teenage girls walking down the street or by a pair of mother and daughter shopping at Kiddyland for school supplies. Kawaii is not just a term used by Japanese people to describe tiny, cute things. As explained by Laura Tiffany, who published an article examining the effect of kawaii on Japanese pop culture on MSNB online, the term kawaii has evolved into a concept that permeates almost every aspect of Japanese culture. Adopted by companies in the entertainment, dessert, and gaming industries, the concept of kawaii has helped drawn large numbers of Japanese customers to these businesses. As I have observed in the few months that I have been in Japan, everywhere I go, everything I do, kawaii has been the ultimate idea and tool used to draw the attention of passerby like myself to a company's product. I noticed on one of my trips to Kyoto that even in a historical site like this former capital city, kawaii is used by local shop owners to draw tourist businesses. One of my first encounter with kawaii was during this Kyoto visit. The colorful umbrellas drew my attention and I immediately stopped to admire to delicate looking umbrellas that didn't look like they would be able to withstand the beating of a mediocre rainstorm. But that doesn't matter to Japanese shoppers. The bright colors and unique patterns were part of the kawaii scheme. Cuteness is all that matters.




The insanity of consumers over this idea of owning something cute has played a big part in driving the economy of Japan. I never understood this idea of kawaii when Japanese students studying in America tried to explain it to me. On my recent trip to Kiddyland, I noticed a new sign outside the door with images of kawaii cartoon characters, such as Hello Kitty, beckoning customers to come in and shop their spring products. Of course this sort of advertisement appeals more to the younger generations and their parents who are shopping to prepare for the students' return to school.



Of course, I, too, got lured in by the cute sign and ended up buying a kawaii hand towel and eraser (pictured below).




Here is a link to a website where you can shop for all things kawaii: http://www.shopkawaii.com/.
Click here to be linked to Laura Tiffany's article on Japanese pop culture and the concept of kawaii.

Japanese People

Most of us have probably encountered this problem at one point or another starting with our very first interaction with people of other cultures. We must have met and will continue to meet thousands of people during our existence on this planet, but our perception of these people relies mostly on the well learned system of observation and categorization of people in our brain. Our recognition of a person of different cultural or ethnic background is dependent on physical appearance and the depth of our cultural understanding. To ask someone to describe a group of people from one culture in a couple of sentences is difficult, to request that this description be in pictures and that these few pictures capture the various types of people of one culture is impossible. The backbone work of this week's post is an incorporation of my independent work, i.e. pictures that I shot of local Japanese people of the Osaka area, and images borrowed from the internet community. This post is my attempt to capture some aspects and characteristics of Japanese people.

To classify Japanese people of the Japan today, we do not look just at the way the local people dress, but we have to also examine the activities in which they are engaged. Below, a picture of a local band, consisted of young Japanese males, is one representative of Japanese people. This image more or less describes one of the many popular activities in which Japanese youth like to do during their past times. The second image clues us in on an activity of the middle aged group, consisted of a couple and their family. Family life, while is slowly being replaced by career oriented lifestyles chosen by Japanese women, still plays an important role in Japanese society. Here, a family is partaking in a cultural activity that is part of Japanese culture preservation and history learning. The third image provides a shot of various types of Japanese people mingling together, making up the complete view of Japanese population with which some of us come to associate. The last image is of Japanese women in kimonos. Needless to say, this is the typical image of traditional Japanese females. All these pictures were taken within 1 mile of Kyobashi station.

The presence of the women in kimonos adds to our collection of images of Japanese people. Most foreigners would expect to find women and men in Japanese traditional clothes to be the ultimate representation of Japan, but in fact, Japan, an industrialized nation, is characterized by various types of Japanese people.

There are, however, other, less known, groups of Japanese people who have not been introduced above. The other two groups of Japanese people that foreigners may often not come to associate as Japanese are the Ainu people of Hokkaido Island and the Japanese buraku community.

(This image of an Ainu couple was obtained from the University of Minnesota Duluth's website. http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1095/Ainu.html)

(This is an image of a homeless person taking a rest in the park. It has been obtained from Black Tokyo's web page at http://www.blacktokyo.com/2009/01/27/japan%E2%80%99s-outcasts-revisited/.)

It is of course impossible to capture the essence of the Japanese people in a couple of shots. On my recent visit to Osakajo Castle on one weekend I've taken some pictures of people in the park near the castle. These snapshots are probably decent representatives of the Japanese population within the Kansai region. Almost every weekend, Japanese people of all ages and interests gather in the park near the castle to see performances or to give them. Japanese youth gather to hang out, put on a free show, or advertise their band to an audience of passerby. Couples also bring their families to Osakajo Castle to visit the historical site and relive a cultural experience. The park is brought alive every weekend by visitors of all ages, ethnicities, and interests.

Here is a link to a recorded report on the Ainu community in Hokkaido. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYEhubSOtcI. The report was made by ABC Australia.
Factual information regarding the Ainu people can be found at
http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/the-jomon-of-japan-13000-bc-to-300-bc/ and http://www.cwis.org/fwj/22/ainusupp.htm.