Demo

The president of the United States of America, George W. Bush, visited Kyoto November the 15th and the 16th. As the first guest ever he stayed in the Imperial Court Guesthouse.
In advance of this visit, the surroundings of the Imperial Palace have been stacked with policemen in order to prevent a possible terrorist attack. In their risk calculations they put highest priority on foreigners. So when I was biking towards class I was stopped by a policemen under the guise that he wanted to check whether or not my bike was stolen and therefore he had to call another policemen to tell him the number of my bike.
At that time I just accepted it as one of the strange things that can happen to you, but now I realise it was out of possible terrorist attack considerations. At the university campus a very big cardboard, announcing that there was going to be a demonstration against Bush, greeted me at the front gate. Being always in a hurry to be on time in class, I never really read what it was saying. But one of my friends did read it and he told us that on Tuesday there was going to be a demonstration. 7 people including me were interested in going and to have a look what Japanese demonstrations were like. We would meet each other at the campus at 7 o’clock and than join the campus. At 7 o’clock we were there, but no one else. We figured out that my friend also did not look that well on the cardboard and that we had to go to a different place. So we hiked downtown and there we heard and later also saw the demonstrators and we joined them for the last 200 meters of the demonstration, which was crossing the street and ascending some chairs to end at a road for pedestrians, which runs next to the main river of Kyoto, the Kamogawa. There I got the chance to have a better look at my fellow demonstrators and to my surprise I saw lots of elder women and men but almost no students while the demonstration was organized by students of Kyoto University. Moreover most of them were wearing both sunglasses as a head and some even had a scarf in front of their mouth so that they were unrecognisable. When we asked why they demonstrated in this outfit they pointed at the people of the bridge, who were also wearing the same kind of outfit, and explained that they were the police, who were taking pictures of the demonstrators. These pictures would be distributed among the major Japanese companies and the demonstrators could not get a job. This also explained at least partly the very few demonstrators, people that might be interested in going refrained from it out of fear of the consequences. Another reason was that apparently young Japanese did not have a real interest in politics, they don’t really care by whom they are ruled.
I was shocked by this curtailing of the democratic right of demonstrating and freedom of expression. It limits the way in which people can express an opinion that differs from the opinion of the government. And it feels like it is a small step from a government that limits your freedom of expression to a government that subscribes what you should think. So I decided to go to the second demonstrating on Wednesday, this time also wearing a hat and a scarf. Again some 80 people gathered and under the escort of 700 policemen we went on our march around the Imperial Palace. I am afraid that Bush did not even hear us, but I think it is a good thing to raise your voice in an environment were they try to stop you from expressing your opinion.

In the world of giants.

This weekend I went on a trip to Tenri and Nara together with my fellow students of Japanese religions. Tenri is a Japanese city named after the religion that has it origin there, Tenri-kyo. And more than 50 percent of the people that live in Tenri are believers of Tenri-kyo and you notice this immediately because they all were clothes on which the name Tenri-kyo is written. Tenri-kyo is the oldest of the so called new religions of Japan.It was founded by a female peasant, Nakayama Miki, who underwent a revelatory experience in 1838. Her followers refer to her as Oyasama (lit. Honoured Parent) from this date onwards. We went to their Head Quarters, which an enormous temple-complex in the middle of the city. The main shrine complex in Tenri centres around the Jiba, which is believed to be the central point from where human life stems from. One of the interesting aspects is that the Jiba can be worshipped from all sides, it literally is the centre of devotion. The whole structure resembled a really great Buddhist temple, it was really massive and it even had a kind of ancient feeling hanging around it, while it actually isn’t that old.
The focus of the Tenri religion is to attain yoki yusan, the 'joyous life', on Earth through charity and abstention from greed, a self-serving life, hatred, anger and arrogance.
One of the other characteristics that stands out is that in Tenri one regards the human body as a thing which is borrowed from God (Oyagami) while our minds are our own. Because of the fact that our body isn’t our own we have certain duties towards the God, namely to live a joyous life and also to bring joy to those around us. We were shown around and later also got a lecture about the history and teachings. There were also students of the Tenri-University and we could ask each other questions about our religious beliefs. Afterwards we went together for dinner and then we bought some beers and shoushu (strong Japanese liquor) to continue our conversation in a more relaxed way. Around 12 o’clock some were getting sleepy while others were getting hungry and although I didn’t fell in one of the categories, I went out with the people who wanted to eat the famous Tenri-ramen. In the Ramen-shop we got the luminous idea to see another side of our Japanese friends by going to karaoke. First, we settled for 1,5 hours of singing but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we went on and on and on. One by one the Japanese left us, the crazy foreigners singing rock songs. At 5 o’clock we got kicked out of our box and after walking back to the dormitory we could enjoy a half hour rest because at 6 o’clock we had to be awake again in order to go to the Tenri morning service. Kind of dazed and still under influence we went into the cold morning and saw that at 6.30 the whole temple was filled with people in order to do the morning service. I tried to follow them in doing their service, which consist of a practice which is called te-odori, the hand dance. It looks like a kind of sign language which they perform, while they at the same time are saying prayers.
After going to their museum, we took the train to Nara, the first real capital of Japan. Autumn had coloured the whole city in various kinds of red an yellow colours. Moving along old-fashioned roof-covered shopping streets we went up to go to Todai-ji, presumably the biggest wooden structure in the world. I have to rely on the same adverbs I have used before to describe it: it’s huge, enormous and massive. You feel so little in the presence of this enormous construction build by the same small humans like you. And than to realize that probably the present building is only 2/3 in size of the original one. The building is so massive because it contains a Buddha of gigantic stature, almost 15 meters tall. It’s not exactly the original figure because in the ninth century an earthquake knocked over his head and both in 1180 as well as in 1567 his right hand was melted in a fire. I have been before to Nara but still I was gripped by the enormousness of both the Buddha and the temple and my lack of sleep only contributed to the feeling as if I was walking in a place build for giants. In this state of being half-awake we went to other temples in the neighbourhood before we arrived at 5 o’clock at an Anglican church, with the appearance of a Buddhist temple. And although you would think that it is strange that a western church has such a Japanese appearance it made absolute sense. Of all the buildings we had been to during the last two days, this definitely had the most religious feel attached to it. Perhaps because this was a human size church, not one for God or for giants.

A Japanese Heart

In a previous post I talked about my unpleasant encounter with a banana-pizza, a foreign dish turned upside down into something to suit the taste of the Japanese (and perhaps also curious foreign visitors). Until now I’ve kept my mouth shut about what I consider to be the worst smelling and tasting thing that you can come across in Japanese cuisine, natto. To get the image right, the English translation is fermented soy beans. In spite of the obvious drawbacks, like having a bad smell, the Japanese are generally fond of this thing which they put on their rice and spaghetti. And most foreigners can’t stand the smell let alone the taste.
During a wonderful BBQ I told a Japanese friend that I couldn’t bear eating natto which made him exclaim that it was really delicious and that it was a shame that I couldn’t appreciate it.
If I didn’t like natto I would never be able to have a Japanese heart. I told him I was not really in need of a second heart and would be quite happy with the one I have.
But it made me think back of my days in Fukuoka when I wished that I could blend in some more with the Japanese, not always being the foreigner. Of course classmates and my host family saw me in a different perspective than just a foreigner, but still that’s what you always were. In Kyoto there are so many foreigners that you more easily blend in the street life.
But for long-time residents the question of the Japanese heart or to be more specific the Japanese nationality still remains. No matter how long you live in Japan you are not able to get the Japanese citizenship and not able to vote in the elections. You always stay registered on your Alien Registration Card. The question becomes even more penile for children born out of marriages of mixed nationalities. Before reaching the age of 22 they have to decide whether or not they want to have the Japanese nationality or not. They have to make a choice between being Japanese or being the other nationality. There’s no middle road, you are not able to have two passports.
When I got home from the BBQ a package from the Netherlands had arrived and Saint Nicolas (Sinterklaas) had brought me loads of Dutch candy. The good old man was kind of early but he surely did make my Dutch heart jump up and down.

Value Creation Society

As previously stated the image of Japan you have depends on the things you see or are willing to see in Japan. And of course in which area you interest lay. Because I am following some courses on Japanese religion it is not really surprising that I have some opportunities to visit religious institutions. As part of our study program we went to Soka Gakkai, one of the biggest “new” religions in Japan. We already had some lectures on other “new” religions (generally speaking the religions that originated from 1868 and later) but not yet on Soka Gakkai . Our teacher wanted us to go there without to much previous knowledge so that we first had our own impression before it was coloured in by him or by the media.
So here I go: Their headquarters/main building was just a big block in Osaka. It was not really pompous, but it didn’t look like a religious institution either. Inside, we first entered a hall which looked to me as a museum where they kept all the prices. It had awards, and big pictures of the handing over of doctorates to the present president of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku Ikeda. There was nothing in the building that reminded me of the Buddhist background of Soka Gakkai. We were directed towards another smaller room, there our delegation was placed opposite of the delegation of Soka Gakkai, all men and everybody was wearing black suits.
We started off with an introduction of Buddhism and the place of Soka Gakkai in Buddhism.
Soka Gakkai belongs to the group of Nichiren Buddhism in Japan. Nichiren was a thirteen century Buddhist monk. And he discovered the "ultimate truth" in the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist scripture. The two main points he found in this sutra are: All individuals are manifestations of Buddha nature. And all individuals can achieve Buddha hood at any time. After this general introduction we could ask questions. What I found remarkable there was how sure they were about their beliefs, our questions didn’t cause any doubt, and their frequent quotations of the president of Soka Gakkai, Daisuke Ikeda.
I asked was why they don’t teach any religion in any of their elementary, high schools and university. They seemed to be proud about it and stressed various times that didn’t have any religious classes. Instead they try to incorporate the Soka Gakkai values in the whole school curriculum. They told me that it was because of the indoctrinating religious teaching about so called State Shintoism in the period before World War II, which is said to be partially responsible for the behaviour of the Japanese during WWII. I was surprised because I would thing you could also have religious classes without solely focussing on one religion, but showing that there are more religious views in the world. Than I asked if they could elaborate some more on the values they were trying to teach, because until that moment what they told me is that peace, culture and education were the things they promoted. Although of course this is a very nice position, I think it is not something that would be disputed by other religious groups or secular people. But unfortunately they couldn’t explain to me how they gave this hands and feet, except for the fact that their leader Ikeda, had wrote a number of interesting books in cooperation with international scholars about this kind of topics.
The basic practice of Soka Gakkai they told me is the daily chanting of "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" and reciting Gongyo (Expedient Means Chapter and Life Span Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which takes about 5 minutes to recite). Most important in this study are the collected writings of Nichiren. And now comes the crucial point of Soka Gakkai: it’s followers believe that through chanting one becomes energized and refreshed, both spiritually and mentally, and most important, more prosperous. So by chanting you can help to improve you financial position, which is a great impetus for people to try the chanting.
After the meeting we moved on to the Soka Gakkai Museum, which was not so much a museum about the history of Soka Gakkai in the Kansai region but it mostly focussed on the visits of president Ikeda to the Kansai area. So my impression was that there was a great focus on their spiritual leader, even surpassing the teachings of the Buddhist monk Nichiren who is said to be the founding stone of Soka Gakkai.