Walking the Tokyo
streets in the evening we can see many people flooding the enormous pedestrian
walkways. It seems people here, although they are famous for their hard working
for long hours, yet don’t go home straight-away after work. They like to stroll
the streets, the shops, the coffee shops and bars after work. The atmosphere is
lively, many of them are just chit-chatting outside bars or at the squares in
Shinjuku.
Shinjuku area is
constantly a bustling, busy town, being a business district in the day and an
entertainment district at night. This area initially flourished as a post town
for travellers, and gradually developed into a downtown area after the railway
station was completed after the Meiji period. Furthermore, many of the lines
used by majority of the people living in East Tokyo gather at Shinjuku,
evolving the station into a huge terminal.
If you are into youth
fashion, there is nowhere in the world that people can see such a dynamic,
colorful and youthful street fashion culture with fascinating styles changing
every day like whatis happening in
Japan, especially Tokyo, the new raising fashion capital of the world.
If you're looking
for certain youth fashion styles, Takeshita Street , and the surrounding
areas,offer countless different unique
styles. You can get band shirts, 'princess' style, goth style, and even
costumes. That's what makes this street so unique and popular. You can buy
everything from boots to earmuffs, and band t-shirts to badges in lots of
styles you might not get at home - and at decent prices, too.
It hard to imagine
how fashion of Japanese pop culture has developed into such a free style trend
that value individual uniqueness in a country of collectivism, focusing on
harmony, politeness, hierarchy and tradition.
Away from the busy
streets, there is another world.Inside
a grove of trees through the winding path with 3000various sizes of stone lanterns along the
walk , stands the Kasuga Taisha temple. It is a Shinto shrine, its location was
purposefully chosen inside a grove of trees. Shinto is deeply connected with
nature and walking through the woods makes it feel you are in another time,
even though you are just a few miles away from the busy streets.
The 3000 lanterns
are symbolic of the 3000 Kasuga shrines spread throughout Japan. Each lantern
is donated by a citizen to show thanks and support to the shrine. Writing on
each lantern shows which deity the lantern is donated to, or the person’s name
that donated the lantern.
I discovered Katsushika’s work while looking
at souvenirs displayed at the front of a souvenir shop in Mount Fuji 5th
station, pictures of a great engulfing wave with Mount Fuji at the back ground
on mugs, fans, key holders, and tee shirts. Somehow its uniqueness sticked to
mind as something of Japanese painting style, in otherwords it branded itself
as something Japanese, it becomes iconic. Such is the power of this picture.
Later, upon browsing the internet I
discovered that it is the well known “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” woodblock
print work by Katsushika Hokusai, which is part of his Thirty-six Views of
Mount Fuji woodblock work.
Then I attempted to reach Katsushika-san for
an interview, and managed to meet him in one great sunny morning at his
residence.
I said:
“Katsushika –san, your famous “The Great Wave
off Kanagawa” and other most important work from the Mount Fuji series were
made at the beginning of your “final years”. You already had a long career in ukiyo-e – the
art of the floating world – with beautiful prints of hurried pedlars, kimonoed
courtesans and pilgrims spellbound by the moon over your home city of Edo (old
Tokyo). Yet, your master piece creativity seemed to bloom in your final years,
in your seventies. Why did you “emerge” so late?”
Katsushika-san:
“The 1820s was a difficult time for me, I was
struck by lightning at 50, suffered a stroke in my 60s that required me to re-adapt
to my art work. So I did little work in my sixties; my wife got ill and one of
my daughters died. I could cope because that time I was prosperous from my
work.
But then I was faced by my grandson
misfortune who had a lot of debts from gambling habit and I had to pay off all
his debts. But in about 1828, I sent my grandson away to the far north of Japan
where he couldn't gamble. Then I was free to devote my energy to my creative
work. Although, even while drawing the Thirty-six Views, I had scarcely any
food. Edo was ravaged by smallpox and flood, and a fire in 1839 destroyed all
my studio work.
One of the factors for the emergence of my
work was the introduction of Prussian blue to the market, imported from the
West. As a synthetic pigment, it is more lasting and it lowered the price
enough that it became feasible to use the shade in prints for the first time.
A print produced entirely in Prussian tones looks
like a landscape during pre-dawn. Also, the Great Wave seascape incorporated a
middle distance, with Mount Fuji in the remote background, so that the foaming blue
foreground wave gives the picture a deeper dimension.”
I said:
“ The period of ukiyo-e – the art of the
floating world – represented the floating Japan, or the prosperous Japan, which
generally depicted the pleasurable side of urban living – courtesans and kabuki
actors included. It was the period of Japan’s hedonism world, living life for
the moment, partying, dancing, getting drunk, along with the economic boom in
Edo (old Tokyo).The art of this
floating world, ukiyou-e, raised with the demand,pictures of Kabuki, beautiful women, geisha,
courtesans became popular and displayed at homes. Hence you were floating too,
your wood block print works were sold well that time.
Then came your Great Wave woodblock print depicting
a very huge wave about to swallow the two floating boats of fishermen. Was it
some kind of a “tsunami warning” to the floating world approaching in a few
minutes?”
Katsushika-san:
“It is not a tsunami, it is a huge wave, but
not a tsunami. It was meant for decoration, depicting one of the various views
of majestic Mount Fuji, in Prussian blue. For me, the world is more panoramic,
and the joy lies in making new graphic representation for each visual
phenomenon. Such that more than 5000 prints of the Great Wave had been made and
sold that time.”
I said:
“Indeed
you are known to be a good businesman, you have a good sense about popular
demands. You are also good in promoting yourself, creating massive paintings in
public with the help of your students. At a festival in Edo in 1804, you
painted a 180-meter-long portrait of a Buddhist monk using a broom as a brush.
Years later, you publicized your best-selling series of sketchbooks with a
three-story-high work depicting the founder of Zen Buddhism.”
Katsushika-san:
“From the age of six, I had a penchant for
copying the form of things, and from about 50, my pictures were frequently
published; but until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice… Thus
when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to
see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I
will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at 110, every dot and every
stroke will be as though alive.”
I said:
“You painted dragons, creatures of long life,
by the dozen. You painted the phoenix, bird of resurrection, and Mount Fuji; immutable, enduring, outlasting all your
fellow painters, calligraphers, woodblock-cutters and sellers of coloured books
who scrabbled for a living Edo, old Tokyo.
You changed your name so frequently, about 30
times, often related to changes in your artistic style and production, that are
used for breaking your life up into periods.”
Katsushika-san said smiling:
“In my seventies, I was Manji, which meant
‘ten thousand things’ or ‘everything’. That is what I wanted to paint —
everything. My tombstone shall bear my final name, Gakyo Rojin Manji, which
translates to “Old Man Mad about Painting.”
I said:
“ You also made manga drawings. There is 15
volumes of them a pictorial encyclopedia of everything under the sun: frogs,
snakes, samurai, sumo wrestlers, parasols, fish markets, farm ploughs, oceans
and tea bowls. You also made ‘shunga’,
or Japanese erotic ‘spring pictures’, which is quite sexually explicit like the
Dream of Fisherman’s Wife which became one of the most celebrated of all
Japanese erotic prints.”
Katsushika-san:
“Shunga is sexually explicit art, produced to
exactly the same technical perfection as art in other formats by the same
people. The Dream of Fisherman’s Wife was based on the story of Princess
Tamatori, highly popular in the Edo period.
In this story, Tamatori is a modest shell
diver who marries Fujiwara no Fuhito of the Fujiwara clan, who is searching for
a pearl stolen from his family by Ryūjin, the dragon god of the sea. Vowing to
help, Tamatori dives down to Ryūjin's undersea palace of Ryūgū-jō, however then
pursued by the god and his army of sea creatures, including octopuses. She cuts
open her own breast and places the jewel inside; this allows her to swim faster
and escape, but she dies from her wound soon after reaching the surface.
The Tamatori story was a popular subject in
ukiyo-e art. The artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi produced works based on it, which
often include octopuses among the creatures being evaded by the bare-breasted
diver.
The
Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is not the only work of Edo-period art to depict
erotic relations between a woman and an octopus. Some early netsuke carvings
show octopus fondling nude women.”
I said:
“ Then who are the consumers of this Shunga art?”
Katsushika-san:
“In the Edo period it was not only men who
appreciated Shunga, but women were also customers. Further, there clearly was
interest in Shunga from the young and old, regardless of status or location,
and included commoners in the cities, farmers, as well as first-class
intellectuals and powerful daimyos.We
can also see that shunga was not simply for stimulating sexual desire, but
aimed to depict a wide range of aspects of sexuality.”
I said:
“ Thank you for the interseting chat
Katsushika-san, wish you long life and success with your work….”
This is an imaginary interview in memory of Katsushika
Hokusai.
Tokyo Disneyland was the first Disney park
to be built outside the United States, and it opened in 1983.The park was constructed in the same style as
Disneyland in California and Magic Kingdom in Florida. The park has seven themed areas: the World
Bazaar; the four traditional Disney lands: Adventureland, Westernland,
Fantasyland and Tomorrowland; and two mini-lands: Critter Country and Mickey's
Toontown.
Many of these areas mirror those in the original
Disneyland as they are based on American Disney films and fantasies.
Fantasyland includes Peter Pan's Flight, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Dumbo
the Flying Elephant, based on Disney films and characters.
Cinderella’s Castle is the fairy tale
castle at the center of the Tokyo
Disneyland. It serves as worldwide recognized icon and the flagship attraction
for the theme park.
Cinderella’s Fairy Tale Hall is located in
the castle where various artworks are exhibited that show scenes from her
story.
In the lobby and corridor, guests will find
eight murals showing how Cinderella changed from beloved daughter, to servant
girl, and then to Princess.
The murals mozaik were designed by
Imagineer Dorothea Redmond and crafted and set in place by a team of six
artists led by mosaicist Hanns-Joachim Scharff, the 4.6 by 3.0 m ornate panels are shaped in a Gothic arch. The
murals took 22 months to complete and contain just over 300,000 pieces of
Italian glass and rough smalti (glass made specifically for mosaics traditionally
used by Italian craftsmen) in more than 500 colors.
Many of the hand-cut tiles are fused with
sterling silver and 14-karat (58 percent) gold, and some are as small as the
head of a tack. Looking closely at these ornate murals, one will notice that
each of Cinderella's wicked stepsisters appears with a little added color - one
sister's face is clearly "red with anger", while the other is a
little "green with envy" as they watch Cinderella try on the glass
slipper. Source: Wikipedia
Nara is the capital city of Nara Prefecture located in the
Kansai region of Japan. Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 794, lending
its name to the Nara period.
Tōdai-ji or Eastern Great Temple, located in the city of
Nara, is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Seven
Great Temples. Todai-ji , is a complex of buildings that includes the world's
largest wooden structure, and the main hall houses the colossal bronze Buddha
statue .
Buddhism’s influence grew in the Nara era during the reign of Emperor Shomu and his wife,
Empress Komyo who fused Buddhist doctrine and political policy—promoting
Buddhism as the protector of the state.
In 741, reportedly
following the Empress’ wishes, Emperor Shomu ordered temples, monasteries and
convents to be built throughout Japan’s 66 provinces under the jurisdiction of
the new imperial Todai-ji to be built in the capital of Nara.
The vast temple at Todaiji was constructed as a symbol of
imperial power, and took over 15 years to complete at great expense. Emperor
Shomu’s motives to build Todai-ji temple on such an unprecedented scale seem to
have been a mix of the spiritual and the pragmatic: in his bid to unite various
Japanese clans under his centralized rule, Emperor Shoumu also promoted
spiritual unity.
Todai-ji would be the chief temple of the monastery system
and be the center of national ritual. Its construction brought together the
best craftspeople in Japan with the latest building technology. It was
architecture to impress—displaying the power, prestige and piety of the
imperial house of Japan.
On the centre of this Buddhist temple, you will be able to
find the biggest statue of Great Buddha, or Daibutsu, made of bronze. The
height of the statue is reaching 15 meters and weighs 500 tons.
The Buddha is seated with the palm of his right hand
extended forward. This gesture means "fear not" and “conversion of
jealousy and envy” into all-accomplishing wisdom.
Deer, regarded as messengers of the gods in the Shinto
religion, roam the grounds freely. According to legend a mythological god,
Takemikazuchi, arrived in Nara on a white deer to guard the newly built capital
of Heijokyo.
The deer that populate Nara are Sika deer or spotted deer
and are also known as bowing deer because they often times bow their heads
before being fed.
You will find a lot of deer and you can also feed them if
you want, but you need to buy the food first.
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