Captain Santa Club

In the middle of the Hiroshima business district is a unique store called Captain Santa Club--"for the people in love with the sea."

Sadly, we walked by before the store was open, but its web site is worth browsing. Sea-worthy T-shirts and caps for landlubbers are the mainstay clothing items here.

Jolly ol' Santa as yacht captain? Aye-aye!

At right, a recent image from the good Captain's Facebook page, which is quite active. - MBW

Japan Tourism, circa 1910

Marketing Japan as a tourist destination is nothing new. These fascinating photos were used to promote travel to Japan a century ago.

Hand-tinted, of course, from black and white photos taken by Tamamura Kozaburo, who set up a studio in Yokohama in 1883.

Kozaburo was known for "Yokohama shashin" which translates to "Yokohama photographs" but clearly, his photos were more wide-ranging. 

Below, Kozaburo's photo of the great Buddha at Kamakura, where we've been more than once. It still looks exactly the same, a century later.

I did not have the fictional tour group visit this Kamakura Buddha in my novel, by the way. Instead, because the group was spending time in Kyoto, I had the "leader" take them to the Buddha in nearby Nara. The Nara Buddha is actually bigger, not to mention being housed in a giant temple.

 - MBW

Where to Go in Kyoto

One of the problems with Kyoto as a travel destination is that there's too much. Too many temples, too many shrines, too many famous (or non-so-famous) sites. It is possible, of course, to hit the most famous—the Golden Pavilion, the Ryoanji rock-and-raked-sand garden, Nijo Castle, and Kiyomizu Temple—in a weekend, but then you've missed the Silver Pavilion, the Daitokuji Monastary's rock-and-raked-sand garden, the Imperial Palace, and Tokufukji.

For my tourists in the novel, I wanted to introduce them to some of the less crowded spots, and one of the places that has blown away everyone I've brought them to is the bamboo forest between Tokufuji, the giant Zen temple, and Okochisanso, the villa of a silent-film star Okochi Danjiro. It is totally foreign, absolutely lovely...and free.

Novelizing Drucker in Japan

The Economist has a cute story on page 61 of the July 3rd issue: "Drucker in the dug-out."

A Japanese publisher, Diamond Publishing, has released a novel titled, What if the Female Manager of a High-School Baseball Team read Drucker's 'Management.' According to The Economist, the book features a fictional teenager called Minami who becomes the gofer for the baseball team’s male coach. "Unlike many of her compatriots, she is the kind of girl, as the book says, who leaps before she looks. Horrified by the team’s lack of ambition, she sets it the goal of reaching the high-school championships." She finds Peter Drucker’s 1973 Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices "and it helps her turn the rabble into a team."

Not only has the novel become successful, it's apparently stimulated sales of Drucker's original. Reportedly some 300,000 copies sold in Japan in the first six months of this year compared with 100,000 copies in the previous 26 years.

Drucker who loved Japan would have been pleased. A year before his death in 2005 he warned that "Japanese firms might soon be overtaken by rivals from South Korea, China and India. He urged them to brace for competition by working out what they were good at, what they should do and what their values were." While there are exceptions, the magazine notes, most large Japanese enterprises "remain corporate octopuses squeezing the life out of Japanese business."

Modernizing Kyoto for Better and Worse

According to a recent New York Times article,a developer plans to build a mammoth aquarium complex in central Kyoto. The aquarium, to open in 2012, is to have a dolphin pool, a penguin park, and a giant wave pool. The developer, Orix Real Estate, says that the complex will bring at least two million more visitors to the city each year. Those opposing the plan say, "Kyoto should not be building concrete boxes. Kyoto's residents and its visitors care more about preserving old neighborhoods. We have the wrong idea of economic development, and it is destroying the city."

I am not sure where I stand on this issue. As someone who has written a novel about a guide leading a tour of Japan, I have strong feelings about the country. The first time I visited Kyoto it was a museum city, untouched by The Great Pacific War (we deliberately did not bomb Kyoto because it held so many cultural treasures). This was before the giant Post Office Tower, before the massive Kyoto Station, before thousands of wooden homes and businesses had been torn down and replaced with concrete and stucco. I've often thought I was lucky not to live in the city through the period of its greatest modernization. It would have broken my heart.

Which, of course, is nonsense. I didn't have to live in the drafty, uncomfortable houses. It's not my city, not my country. I have no say in what the Japanese do or don't do. If they want to use the wood from an old temple to heat the bath water, that's their business. (Reportedly, an American scholar saved the Phoenix Temple from such a fate in the Meiji era.)

The Times reported that Japan attracted only 6.79 million foreign visitors in 2008--fewer than Ukraine. Ukraine! There seem to be at least three problems: The cost to get there from the US or Europe, the cost of touring there, and questions over what foreign tourists want to see. Chinese tourists, for example, have ancient temples of their own. Officials say the new aquarium will attract more Chinese.

Perhaps. But it seems to me that most of us travel for pleasure to have experiences we cannot have at home. If Kyoto becomes a pale imitation of any other city, why go there? It was, in my limited experience, utterly unique. Now in some areas it is just like any other Japanese city. And destroying one of its few parks is not—again, my opinion—going to add to its charm.

Where to go in Kyoto III

The Ryoan-ji in Kyoto is the most famous rock-and-sand garden in the world, and as a result it is usually mobbed with tourists. (The first time I saw it, in the mid-1950s, I was able to sit on the veranda for an hour virtually undisturbed by another person; those days are long gone.)

The Ryoan-ji, however, is not the only rock-and-sand garden in Kyoto. The Zuiho-ji has a number of such gardens...and I have never found it crowded with tourists.

A daimyo (feudal lord), Sorin Otomo (1467-1568), founded the Zuiho-ji as a family temple in 1535. Otomo was the family name; he took the name Sorin when he became a lay Buddhist monk in 1562.

Otomo inherited the domain of Funai, on Kyūshū, from his father. Over twenty years of warfare and rebellion, he unified much of Kyūshū under his control and secured a significant gain in his clan's power and prestige, Otomo is significant as one of the daimyo to meet personally with the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier in 1551, one of the first Europeans in Japan. Though Otomo converted to Christianity 1562 (the same year he became a Buddhist monk), he probably saw this as a politically strategic move and was not religiously motivated. Jesuit records refer to Otomo as the "King of Bungo" (one of the Kyushu fiefs). He sent political delegations to Goa in the 1550s, and the Tenshō embassy to Rome in 1582.

The Zuiho-in is a sub-temple of the main temple of Daitoku-ji, a major Zen temple located in northern Kyoto. The focus of the Zuiho-ji is its rock garden. The main garden is a combination of moss and rocks and an acclaimed example of a dry landscape garden-karesansui. Behind the main hall is the Garden of the Cross (with rocks laid out to form a cross). There is also a Tea house Ansho-ken within the precincts.

My picture does not do the temple or the gardens justice, but there are many exquisite photos of the temple at this site. The Zuiho-ji is one of Kyoto's hidden gems.

Where to go in Kyoto II

Recently I wrote about the must-see sights in Kyoto. The problem with these famous sights in the ancient capital is that virtually every visitor who visits Kyoto wants to see them, and because around 5 million tourists visit every year (the city population is only around 1.5 million), the popular sites can be mobbed.

Fortunately, Kyoto has so much to see, it is possible to have a rewarding experience without fighting the crowds. One special spot I've found is the Shisen-do (the House of Poet-Hermits).

One Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672) built it in 1641 as a retirement villa. Although the city now surrounds the grounds, it was countryside when Ishikawa built the home; what is now the villa's parking lot was a rice paddy. Once you pass through the ancient gate, you have no sense of the modern city beyond.

Ishikawa, born in a samurai family, became a personal attendant to Tokugawa Ieyasu who eventually became Shogun. After Ishikawa disgraced himself in a 1615 campaign (he rushed into battle, killing several enemy, thereby violating military discipline which prohibited the Shogun's attendants from fighting), he became a scholar and eventually retired to Kyoto's northeastern hills, designing both the house and the gardens. He spent his last years writing poetry, tending his garden, watching the moon and the changing seasons. The main room is decorated with portraits of the 36 most famous ancient Chinese poets.

The building is now owned by the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism. The portraits are now reproductions. But the villa and the garden are, I believe, almost the same as they were in Ishikawa's day. I have always found the Shisen-do to be a lovely, tranquil spot...and uncrowded.

What to see in Kyoto

A friend asked what she should see on her first, and short, trip to Kyoto. The only honest answer is, I don't know. One could (and I have) experience a number of different Kyotos--a Buddhist Kyoto, a Shinto Kyoto, a garden Kyoto, a museum Kyoto, a tourist Kyoto, a craft Kyoto...but you get the idea. I once stopped with my group at an exhibit of model homes a contractor had built and we all had a wonderful time going through them.

There are, I am afraid, a number of famous things to see. These are the things that if you don't visit them, people say, "You were in Kyoto and didn't see...." So let's start with those:


Kinkaku-ji, The Golden Pavilion. Perhaps the most famous temple in Japan, but the grounds are mobbed and the last time I was there you shuffled along pressed by the mob behind even though they do not show up in the picture above.

Sanjusangen-do. An extraordinary building filled with more than 1,000 statues of bodhisattvas and a central Buddha. Go very early to beat the crowds.

Kiyomizu-dera. A temple complex on the Eastern hills above Kyoto. From the platform high above the ground, you can look over the city. Water from a sacred spring gives you health, longevity, and success in studies.


Nijo Castle (the gate above) was the shogun's villa when he visited Kyoto. The scale, art, and grounds were designed to impress the Kyoto aristocracy. They impressed me, and the thing is big enough that I've never felt crowded.

Ryoan-ji. The temple with the world-famous dry garden...five groups of stones in raked white sand. The first time I saw it, I was able to sit on the veranda undisturbed for an hour. Today it is mobbed and the experience does not lend itself to contemplation. Go, but don't be disappointed by the bustle.

Next post, I'll talk about some of my favorite places.

Japan Times profile of a favorite blogger

The Japan Times, my favorite English-language Japanese newspaper, has posted a profile of one of my favorite bloggers about Japan, Shari Custer, who writes one of my favorite blogs about Japan, 1000 Things About Japan.

Asked whether her attitude toward Japan has changed over time, she is quoted as saying, "I went through the same phases that most people do when they live in Japan for some time. At first, all is sunshine and roses, then I got angry and depressed. Eventually, my perspective became more balanced. Part of my blog’s purpose is talking about both sides of life here. There are good things, but also bad ones. I realize that conclusions about Japan are subjective. My experiences are authentic, but my emotional responses to them are ones that others may not share."

At the end of the interview (which I encourage both my faithful reader to read), she is asked about other bloggers.

"I love Shibuya 246 for the way in which it feels both like a 'brand' blog (not personal), but still has a real human feeling and the author connects with his readers. The pictures are also excellent. I also follow a lot of personal blogs written by women in Japan because I think you learn the most by hearing about experiences that others have had and most male Japan bloggers don’t tend to write about their lives or experiences."

Thanks to Sheri, I've also begun following Shibuya 246, and commend it to your attention.

Japan Living Arts

An acquaintance of mine, Steve Beimel, is writing an interesting blog, Japan Living Arts.

Steve, who is fluent in Japanese, founded Esprit Travel & Tours in the early 1990’s, as a U.S.-based tour company specializing in culturally focused tours to Japan and catering to enthusiasts of the arts. He and I jointly led a tour in Japan and I was dazzled by his knowledge of Japan and the culture. He has worked with a wide range of masters of traditional culture including art, crafts, architecture, gardens, music, theater, cuisine and religion. He now lives with his wife Ritsuko in the northern foothills of Kyoto.

His blog, which almost always includes wonderful pictures, focuses on contemporary arts and artists, including architecture, ceramics, textiles and more. I regularly check the site, and my only complaint is that Steve is not able to post more often than he does. But if you are interested in traditional Japanese art, I recommend a visit to the site. Even if you are not interested in Japanese art, Steve's blog gives a peek into a world few of us will ever be able to see.

The questions they ask!

Although I had been extensively briefed to lead a tour in Japan, and although I've read extensively about Japanese history, Japanese culture, Buddhism, Shinto, Japanese gardens, and although I had already visited and was familiar with many of the sites the tour group would be visiting, I was not prepared for the questions people asked.

They did not ask about the subjects on which I was prepared: What is a bodhisattva? When did Buddhism come to Japan? Why don't Japanese gardens have flowers?

They asked things like: Why are some Japanese license plates yellow and some white? Why are the Japanese so polite? And—an example I used in the book—what kind of flower is this? A friend who has led many, many more tours of Japan probably has more arcane knowledge about the country than most natives because he's been asked so many off-the-wall questions...and has taken the time to find the answers.

I was talking about this with a tour guide in Italy, and she agreed that tour members could ask surprising questions. She once explained the Roman bus system to a group and said, "When you want to get off at your stop, push the red button to signal the driver."

A member of her group held up her hand and asked, "Can you describe the red button?"

Well...it's red...and it's round...and you push it.

Will Miss/Won't Miss Things About Japan

One of the blogs I've been following faithfully is 1000 Things About Japan. The author is an American woman who has lived in Japan for about 18 years. She lives in Tokyo and teaches English in her apartment. A year or so ago she announced in an earlier blog that she and her American husband had decided to return to the States and that she would begin a daily blog of things she will miss/won't miss about life in Japan after she's left.

As a recent example of something she will miss: "About a three-minute walk from my apartment, there's a dingy little restaurant which uses buckets of red hot coals to cook its food. In the evening, when they are in full service mode, these buckets are sitting outside full of glowing coals and the air is filled with the heavenly scent of grilled food which is made with them. The smell is distinctive and extremely enticing. I'll miss the lovely scent of this old-fashioned cooking style and having a chance to encounter it often."

And something she won't miss: "Because of the long, humid summer and generous amounts of rain in Tokyo, I always have problems with spices and salt caking into lumps. While I keep most of my spices in the refrigerator, I simply do not have the space to keep everything in it and the result is having to whack the counter with the jars to try and break up the inevitable bricks that form. What makes it worse is the fact that spices are pretty expensive in Japan so wasting them can mean losing an investment. I won't miss my spices and salt forming bricks and blobs and becoming unusable because of the weather"

She accompanies each brief post with a picture, and I find her observations about everyday, ordinary life in Japan fascinating. And I'm fascinated that she seems to notice everything. I will miss her blog when she returns to the States...although at that point, perhaps she'll begin writing about the things she notices in everyday, ordinary life in America.

Nara Celebrates Its 1300th Anniversary

Until around 600 CE, Japan did not have a set capital. We don't know for sure because the Japanese had no written language until they were exposed to Chinese by Buddhist monks who had come across the Sea of Japan from southern Korea. Among the monks' ideas was that of a capital city and Nara was one of the first.

This year, Nara is celebrating its 1,300th anniversary. It has reconstructed the eighth-century palace that was leveled when, upon the death of the emperor, the capital was moved to Kyoto in 784 CE. The government has also built a life-size replica of a ship that carried Japanese envoys to and from Tang China.

So this is a good year to visit Nara. You can check out the New York Times story. This is, after all, the city with the largest wooden building in the world that houses a bronze buddha that is larger than the one in Kamakura, the Daibutsu in the Todaiji.

Introduction to the book and the author

Getting Oriented is a novel set in Japan. The action follows a group of ten American tourists as they visit Kyoto, Nara, Hakone, Nikko, and Tokyo. Their guide is Philip Fletcher, recently down-sized and whose wife had been killed in an accident a year and a half before the novel opens. Phil speaks Japanese and is offered the tour-guide job by an old college buddy.

I wrote the novel because I am fascinated by Japan, Japanese culture, American responses to the culture, and because I was interested in the way a group of strangers react to each other and to a foreign culture. I plan to use this blog to talk about Japan, Japanese, and writing.