time travelling back to march...

"deep silence

the shrill of cicadas

seeps into rock"

-matsuo bashō, translated by lucien stryk

haikus are traditionally about nature. they bring us into the present moment. they don't tell you about the poet's epiphany, like a lot of western poetry does. they show you the beauty and stillness of nature, and allow the epiphany to come naturally.

anthropologist takie sugiyama says that a lot of japanese art is built around silence. in traditional music, "silent intervals called ma are central while sounds play an auxiliary role in marking ma." japanese painting also focuses on "the expressiveness of blank space, the spatial metaphor of silence..."

i just graduated high school, and i spent all of senior year extremely overstimulated. i still am, but being out of school helps. the world is just too busy and loud and chaotic. every day i find my senses assaulted by endless noise and chatter. 

when i went to japan with my family in march, i was in a state of autistic burnout. as excited as i was for the trip, i was desperately hoping that i would be able to find some silence despite the busyness of travel. i kept a journal on this trip, and i thought i would share some of my writings along with photos i took. 

...and maybe a bit of yapping about japanese culture and history, because i'm a nerd at heart.

tokyo!!

"my breakfast consisted of rice, fish, miso soup, broccoli, two other types of pickled vegetables, and a flan type of thing. my grandma recognized it, but she didn't know its name. [...] we spent the first part of the day walking around. some parts of the city are super quiet, and we also went to this market area by sensō-ji that was very crowded. everything is super cool. the way the city is set up is very interesting. i love all the temples and shrines."

"ueno park was lovely. we went to the tokyo national museum, it was incredibly cool! i loved seeing all the archaeological artifacts. we also saw lots of edo period art, which mum was obviously obsessed with. i liked the noh masks and costumes. such a cool museum!!!"

the edo period silk depicting two women is "courtesans under cherry blossoms" by utagawa toyokuni. i have grown up around edo period art, because my mom is both an art history nerd and an edo period nerd. the art is notable for its delicate beauty.

i didn't include a picture, but noh is a type of classical japanese theatre/dance. it involves elaborate costumes and masks. my favourite mask that i saw was shakumi, made by master craftsman zekan in the azuchi-momoyama-edo period. it depicts a mother who has lost her child and become distraught with longing and grief.

the last image, of the little clay dude, is one of my favourites from the museum. it is a dogū clay figurine from the jōmon period (ca. 11,000 BC-ca. 5th century BC). these figurines have breasts and protruding belies, likely symbolizing fertility and pregnancy. it is believed that the dogū figurines are charms created to pray for easy childbirth and fertility.

also from the jōmon period, we saw stone rods that were phallic in shape, likely representing fertility charms for men. i was also interested by comma-shaped beads called magatama, appearing from the final jōmon period through the kofun period. they were threaded and worn as  accessories, and the shape indicates that they symbolized children and parents. another item likely used for fertility and reproduction-related rituals.

"the stationery store was very neat. i bought all sorts of little paper things and stickers, as well as some gifts for my friends. i also got a notebook. then we walked to another stationery store called itoya. it was huge! 12 stories tall! there were so many awesome things. they really had everything from posca pens to filofaxes to stickers. i was obsessed. i want a filofax so bad. i could hear them calling my name... "cadence... cadence... spend $200 on me..." but i had to resist."

"after lunch we went to the nezu museum, which was probably my favourite part of the day. we saw a really interesting exhibit about sekishū tea rituals. it reminded me why i love history, just really cool stuff. i didn't see all the exhibits because i went on a walk through the museum gardens with mum & grandma. the gardens were so gorgeous and peaceful even though it was raining."

an interesting fact about tea: yoneichi type seto tea ware containers are named after the play yoneichi. this is because the main character in yoneichi carries a bale of rice on his back, and the tea container supposedly resembles the shape of the bale.

"we got katsu and curry for lunch, i really enjoyed it. then we started to walk around akihabara, which is an area with lots of anime and gaming stuff. we went to this place called gigo that had a bunch of claw machines and rhythm games and whatnot. my brother actually won a goku figure after about a million tries."

"then we met up with our friends. ari and i went around looking for sonny angels and other cute things. we went to many different stores and eventually found the sonny angels. i bought a totoro pin, a cute cat blind box, a hirono blind box, a smiski, and 2 sylvanian families. ari got a cute blind box and 2 sonny angels. then we got taiyaki which was absolutely scrumptious. it had strawberry cream filling."

odawara and hakone :-)

"we met up with our relatives immediately after getting off the train. they were very nice and generous. [...] with the family, we went to visit locations relevant to great grandma's life and our family history. first we went to a cemetery where our family is buried. we put an offering of incense at a grave and said a buddhist prayer. i think that mum & grandma were very moved, which makes me happy for them. it was a beautiful ritual - i like the use of incense offerings."

"after this, we went to see the school great grandma attended as a teenager. it may have been a replica for museum purposes, or it may have been the real thing. none of the relatives knew. it's crazy to think great grandma was taught there when she was around my age."

"after we looked around the school, we took a look at a buddhist temple. it was kind of a long walk up a bunch of stairs, but it was through a beautiful forest. it was so wonderfully quiet and still, up in the mountain at the temple. how can i get that life without being a monk, that's the question."

"we said goodbye to the extended family in hakone. they gave us strawberries and oranges as omiyage, a japanese gift-giving tradition. our hotel is meant to be a very quiet, calm place, which is right up my alley. [...] it was great to see and learn things relevant to my family history, and it was a nice ending to the day in this quiet mountain town."

i found a lot of places in japan to be refreshingly quiet. even where there were people, many places weren't as noisy as i was expecting them to be. in large part due to the philosophies of the shinto and buddhist religions, but also due to social attitudes related to confucianism that have permeated much of east asia, japan is generally quieter than canada. i wonder if there is any way for me to cultivate that kind of 'buddhist-temple silence' in my own life.

ideally without becoming a monk?

"i'm eating scrumptious miso soup and a chicken & egg rice bowl, which is also delicious."

"we got a taxi to moto hakone, where we spent some time looking around an open-air edo museum. we could almost see mt. fuji, except it was covered by clouds! we wanted to walk the old tokaido road, but it took us a while to find the beginning. when we did, we found it was VERY cobbled. a lot of it was either steep uphill or steep downhill. poor grandma! i found it a lovely walk through the beautiful forest. it took just over an hour, though grandma says it was 5 days."

"the onsen was really amazing. i was so awkward at first simply because being stark naked in front of my mum, grandma, and a bunch of strangers is so WEIRD. but it became normal eventually. we first went into a super hot bath. i was pink when i came out, like a chicken. then i went into other baths that were less hot but still perfectly nice and warm. it was in an outside area so we were surrounded by nature. it was so pleasant to feel the breeze while resting in the warm water."

something i didn't mention in my journal, but that i think is cool: we stopped by a gift shop while we were in moto hakone, and we found a keychain with our family kamon! it is the beautiful ume kamon, if anyone is interested in uhh (checks notes) japanese heraldic emblems 

kyoto!

"the place we're staying in kyoto is nice and cozy! it's a traditional machiya, which is like a townhouse. upstairs, there are tatami floors and futons to sleep on and everything. [...] we left at 10ish to do a 'hop on, hop off' bus tour. we got the train to kyoto station, where we bought tickets for the bus tour and got on."

"our first stop was nijō-jō, a historic castle where the shogunate lived during the edo period. mum was nerding out. we saw lots of edo artwork on the walls inside of the castle. it's remarkable how intricate everything was, even the door handles. then we walked through the garden areas for a while, looking at the gates, and water, and trees."

the artwork inside the castle had specific meanings, which i found really interesting. tigers were painted on the walls in waiting rooms to intimidate visitors, because tigers symbolize power. pine trees were depicted in murals because they are evergreen, like the power of the shogunate. 

"after lunch, we went to a temple called kinkaku-ji. it was very big, golden, and beautiful, sort of situated in the middle of a pond. there were beautiful, calm gardens all around that we walked through. [...] our next stop was the nishiki market. there was so much food and so many shops! it was overwhelming, but not in a bad way. it was a cool area. i got a mango drink, a snoopy-shaped taiyaki (snoopyaki), and some sashimi. i wish we could've stayed longer, i would've eaten even more! but tragically it started to close, so we left."

"the arashiyama bamboo forest was very pretty. it was so lush and green and tall. it was cool, too, which was nice because it's very warm out. we walked through other gardens and they were also beautiful. then we came to the side of a river. there were people in boats on the side of a river, so we paid to be taken on a little boat ride. it was so lovely and calm. we saw lots of ducks and even a tanuki!"

folk tales are one of the biggest parts of japanese culture that my family has retained through immigration, internment, and displacement. that means i grew up with stories of the trickster tanuki who can turn into a teapot. it felt so special to see the actual animal in person!

"this morning i woke up feeling a bit under the weather, but persisted onwards to kiyomizu-dera. it was huge, and brilliantly coloured. we spent a while walking around and looking at different parts of the temple. i left an offering at the saisen where you pray for easy birth, just in case i ever decide to have a child. i bought two charms (called omamori, i believe?) at the temple, one for academic achievement (PLEASE SAVE ME IN AP LIT) and one for good luck. i will give the latter to hadlee."

it worked... i got a 5 on the AP lit exam... do i need to convert to buddhism now?

"we went to the area of the city where historic roads are preserved. mum told me that this is where you can see geisha, though you're not supposed to take a picture of them. i was looking forward to seeing the historic buildings, and doing a kimono & tea ceremony with mum & grandma, but i suddenly felt very tired and unwell. against my will, i returned to the machiya with my brother & dad, where i napped for two hours."

toba <3

"today i had buttered toast and hot water for breakfast - why am i eating like a british orphan? anyway we left at 8 to go to kyoto station. the train ride to toba was nice. when we got there, we first went over to mikimoto pearl island. toba is known as the 'city of pearls' because, you guessed it, they produce lots of pearls. on mikimoto, we first went to the pearl museum, which explained in detail how pearls are cultured, what is done with pearls, and the history of pearls."

pearl earrings from ancient rome. not only are they beautiful, but they're roman. in case you've forgotten, i love ancient rome.

"we went to the pearl shop, but we were quickly interrupted by the ama pearl diving display starting. we went out to watch the female pearl divers. it was super cool in my humble opinion. there were 2 women who dove beneath the waves a bunch of times to pull out pearl oysters. apparently, the traditional reason for female pearl divers is because they used to think that women having breasts meant they had bigger lungs. crazy, right?"

somehow, it's over

i do think traditional japanese poets and artists got it right when they decided to start with silence, and build their art around that. nature was here first, before we came up with phones and cars and other clutter. in the shinto wedding ceremony, the marriage is sealed when the bride and groom drink from three different cups of sake. unlike with a christian wedding ceremony, no words are required to finalize the union.

in shinto, the eight million gods live in all natural things. they are all natural things. they don't need words spoken on their behalf to bless the newlywed couple, because they are ever-present in nature. i don't practice shinto, and neither does my japanese family, but i understand how you could see god in the natural world. i do see god in the natural world, and in silence.

i feel most connected to myself and to the world when my mind is quiet, and when the world is quiet. on this trip, i felt connected to my family history, too. because of my autism, i prefer to live life slowly and quietly. as much as i enjoy travelling to new places, fast-paced trips to big cities tend to overwhelm me. it feels comforting to know that my japanese ancestors had a similar reverence of silence, even if it's for completely different reasons.

thank you for reading, if you did! have a lovely day :-)

(also take a shot every time i say lovely LMAO)