Japan Musings 7: Fuji Center

Hokusai, Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji

A co-worker talked to me about his long term interest in Shotokan, a form of Karate, talking about how it was as much about thinking as about the body.  He invited me to attend a session, and sure enough i found it interesting on many levels, like much from Japan.

Each session began with a sit, in which you put your feet beneath your body and hold that posture in silence until the sensei says to end it (seiza).  i found this to be incredibly painful.  If you haven't spend your life sitting the way the Japanese sit, and decide to go at when you're in your late 50's, you're going to hurt.  But sitting there one morning, a thought came..

i felt my body planted and one with the earth.  How could i not, with all the pain it was sending to me head?  And me head seemed apart from all this, as the collector of messages but the generator of none.  The body was earth, the mind the sky; one planted in the realities of planet and life and aging, the other floating in thoughts of candy bars and pipe dreams.  The image that came into me head in that instant was Mt. Fuji.

Mt. Fuji is many things.  It is the earth solid and sure of itself as any mountain, yet its top is covered in snow and often de-materializes into cloud.  It's perfect symmetry and isolation objectifies this aspect of its nature.  It is and it isn't.  It was just this i felt sitting in seiza, with body of the earth and mind of the sky, and in the many depictions of Fuji in art, where its identity shifts from earth to flower to sky to wave; it can be what you imagine it to be.  What appears on the one hand to be so insistent and clear about its identity can on another day become vague and indifferent about the same.  And so another example of the Japanese sense of de-centered being discussed in earlier posts.

Fuji is about which Japan revolves, a single, insistent point of reference.  Hokusai created his series of views of Mt. Fuji in a way that described just such a centeredness, as he moved around the mountain as all revolves around the mountain, describing it in all seasons and weather.  The paradox is that Japan revolves around a center that at times doesn't exist, it focuses attention on something there as much as not there, and the fact that Fuji is a volcano can't be dismissed.  As mentioned previously (Japan Musings 2) about the train station as empty center, so Fuji, the assumed symbol of stability and gravity, is little more than a valve of the earth core, expelling when the time comes, emptying itself and revealing the true center, that of the earth itself.

And so The Land of the Rising Sun, de-centered, in flux and fluid, and prepared to reset the calendar any moment, Mt. Fuji or not.

Matsuyama Castle

These images by photographer Eisuke Muroga of Matsuyama Castle show the unique nature of the Japanese castle when compared to the European model.  The high stone base is a dry wall, meaning no mortar was used in its construction, with the gaps in the stone filled with smaller stones, which aid in draining the wall of water and allowing flexibility, so important in earthquake prone Japan.  Though not on display in this castle, many Edo period walls were constructed with the stones laid on the diagonal, which further aided in resisting lateral forces due to earthquake.

These castles depended not only on their walls for defense, but were often built on hills or mountaintops, to further frustrate an attacking army.  The other obvious difference with the European model is the wood structure perched on top of the wall.  From a formal standpoint, i love the differentiation of the occupied space, in wood, from that of the "earth", in stone, if for no other reason than its articulation of the Japanese cultural relationship to nature, which i think is summed up in the picture above, where nature is understood not as something to be dominated, but to exist alongside as an equal.  The delicacy of the wood structure sitting on the stone wall is telling.

i believe this castle was only used for ceremonial purposes.

Japan musings 6

Shinto, the religion of Japan, doesn’t identify any one god. There are many gods, so to speak, though they are less gods than spirits (Kami), and may take the form of mountains, wind, or trees, but at the same time exist within people. If the center-centric cultures of the west can be said to originate in monotheism, or at least find definition through monotheism, than its not unreasonable to find in Shintoism the Japanese preoccupation with the periphery or edge, but here its more nuanced than saying Shintoism = edge or periphery, and more accurate to say that Shintoism denies any one center. It is multi-centered, but where many claim center, center ceases to exist as its namesake declares, and assumes another role, that of localized node, or a character within a cast of characters. The periphery then exists less as the perimeter of an established center then as a container of multiple characters, and this is the more accurate rendition of perimeter within the context of Japanese culture. Rather than “all roads lead to Rome”, one has a rice paddy, with a clear, defined edge but many claimed “centers”.

 We understand a path as a means to a destination. European cities exist as a network of paths that allow us to travel to various destinations, but they also establish a hierarchy within the city as to the relative importance of those same destinations. Our cities are organized around these paths, and through their association with destination and hierarchy, they exist as extensions of the city center, whether localized as a neighborhood center or centrally as the Town Square. Its not a surprise, then, that our doors along these paths are numbered linearly according to their position on the path. This is the primary means of way finding in the European city, organized by number along a street.

 In Japan, things are arranged inversely. Though paths take people to their destinations, the nature of the city structure is such that the importance of the path is diminished. If in the European city the path has an “object” quality in terms of its assigned importance, in Japan it is the city block that is object. The Japanese city/town is defined not by a city center, but by a multiplicity of centers each with a sphere of influence around which the city is organized. Each door is numbered according to the sequence in which it was constructed with respect to the local node or center; the street is only of secondary import, and is usually not even named.

Japanese Penguin

The compartmentalization so clear in this diagram can be seen throughout Japanese culture, from rice paddys to the bento boxes. The expression of multiple centers over the means of connecting those centers is the Japanese expression of a de-centered/multi-centered society, and can be found to originate in Shinto where there is a heightened value placed on the expression of ones relationships to another person, as opposed to having the rules of that interaction codified by law.

Japan musings 5

Where in the west, and perhaps most of the rest of the world, things are fastened and secured through a direct, center oriented, confrontational relationship between 2 objects, in Japan, those same two objects are secured through tangental, peripheral relationships.  That Japanese culture and being is grounded in notions of de-centering, favoring the peripheral over the centered, is central to understanding not only the Japanese way putting two things together, but also understanding their relationship to nature.  This pervasive and simple notion, observable throughout Japanese culture, and noted over and over in these musings, is the beauty of the place, and not to be found anywhere else in the world.

When you walk through a Japanese garden or temple or manor house, you will observe that no two objects are put together against their will (yes, objects have will).  They will instead be placed adjacent to each other such that each maintains its integrity and self, and thus exist in harmony with each other, and by extension establish harmony throughout the construct.

In these examples of Japanese fences, you can see that the members are allowed to slide by adjacent members, with each component serving its own function, but not in such a way that it becomes subservient to another.  The fences, when wood, are rarely set into the earth by digging a hole and setting in a post, but rather they are often set onto a stone wall or base, which itself is set into the earth as a stone might naturally do.  This is practical, as the wood is kept from the moist earth, but also establishes the same hierarchy held by nature, thereby ensuring the small piece is in harmony with the much larger whole.

photopassjapan.com

The same phenomenon, that of component pieces passing by each other yet bound to create a new whole, can be seen in the wood framing of temple roofs, where the Japanese developed a sophisticated language of wood joinery.  Wood joinery, of course, exists all over the world, but in Japan it is consistent with a prevailing attitude toward design in general, and so takes on special significance.

The example above shows clearly wood members passing by other members in order to create a hierarchy of support and structure.  This passing doesn't occur without one member acknowledging the other; one member receives the other in such a way as to address one or more of the forces acting on the whole: compression, tension, bending, and shear.  The example above is interesting because it shows two beams that appear to be coming out of the corner post, or attached to it.  In fact, these beams are passing by the column (the beam is in fact 2 pieces), but internally their anatomy's are interlocked such that they become one being, allowing forces to be transferred from a horizontal member to a vertical one.  Notice also the diagonal beam, which is in fact two beams joined together, and how the tiny gap between them articulates the line created by the intersection of the beams below, as well as the corner of the column.  This articulates a larger truth, that of the comfort the diagonal has as in the Japanese orthogonal realm, which is nothing more than a restating of the presence of typhoon, earthquake, volcano, or other divine intervention to mans imagined ordering of the world, and the Japanese acceptance of this in their design vocabulary.  In the west in particular, the diagonal is an alien presence, and is usually only awkwardly addressed.

Japan musings 4

If you didn't know what sushi was, you probably wouldn't eat it.  Many know what it is and that's reason enough never to touch it.  Sushi doesn't really look like "food".  It inhabits strange territory that only the Japanese could have invented, and is very much a product of the Japanese attitude and relationship toward nature, and reinforces the preceding discussions about the formal structure of Japanese culture.

The invention of sushi involved the reconciliation of land and sea, a reconciliation that might describe Japan itself.  It was found that fish could be preserved if it were wrapped with rice that was allowed to ferment (along with salt).  And so fish, one of the staples of the Japanese diet, was married to the other staple, rice, which was produced inland.  The result was something that phenomenally reinforced the edge over center, as if to declare to rice that land will not own our cuisine, and to seafood that the ocean will not be central, either.  The interstice, the coast, will be our center.

The combination of fish and rice did not proceed without changing the nature of the fish or the rice.  The fish lost its fishness; it is no longer identifiable as such.  It has been sliced into an abstract of both size and form, and its canvas is rice, which must now be self supporting.  Often sticky, the rice may assume the form of the fish, or it may be bound together with the fish by a band, also eatable.  The new creation is not cooked but is raw, with the shiny flesh of the sea creature showing itself to the world, and the granular cloud of white grain beneath, as if soft bones clinging to each other.  Sushi declares itself not fish, not rice.  Its a new species, only minutes from life, served with brethren equally alien, from both land and sea.

This remaking of nature in mans image in not a new idea.  The history of the garden is the history of just such remaking.  But in Japan this remaking is allowed its own realm, where the remade version is understood not as mans interpretation of nature but as the nature of nature.  It is the essence of nature; more nature than nature.

Kani miso              ©Hiromi Kikuno

©Hiromi Kikuno

Japan musings 3

Last weekend i was in DC, but missed the Cherry Blossom festival.  There were still a few pink shiners around town, but for the most part they were gone.  And thats the nature of the cherry blossom, it flowers for a few days, then its poofed.  As you probably know, the cherry trees were a gift from Japan to the US in 1912 to symbolize friendship between the two countries.

Cherry blossoms carry great cultural significance in Japan.  Hanami is the name of the celebration of the blossoming of these trees, when the people of Japan go out for no other purpose than to enjoy the sight of these trees in bloom.  If you've read the previous musings on Japan, you can see where this is going.  The Hanami is another aspect of Japanese culture that exemplifies the celebration of the moment over the eternal, rebirth over extended life, and the certainty of change.  One might say it's finding the eternal within a moment.  That beauty is found and celebrated in the short flowering of the blossoms is characteristic of Japanese thought, where there's a cultural recognition that a moment may give rise to a new Era or the destruction of a foreign fleet of invaders.  So, is it the beauty of the blossoms that is celebrated, or is it their transience?  There are many beautiful flowers in Japan.  I think without a doubt it is the transience that is celebrated, and its not a leap to think of the blossoms as the visual equivalent of haiku, as they are both celebrations of the moment and the ephemeral.  In the image below, so central to the psyche of Japan, we see celebrated the moment in two of its three aspects; about to pass, and pregnant.

i love that the Japanese 100 Yen coin has on one side a depiction of cherry blossoms.  Isn't money the perfect vehicle for transience?

It probably isn't polite to mention that many kamikaze pilots would have painted on their planes imagery of cherry blossoms, but its not irrelevant, either.

Since i'm in this discussion about the place of the moment in Japanese culture, its hard not to mention their attitude toward the camera and the snapshot.  It doesn't matter where you are, if you live in an interesting enough place that is subject to bus loads of Japanese tourists, say in Paris or Rome, you've seen them pull up, unload the tourists, tourists zoom out and take group pictures, get back into the bus, and pull out to the next destination.  For some reason i thought this happened only in Europe, after having traveled half the world, but when i went to Japan i saw it to the nth degree.  The big difference i noticed between the way most tourists photograph a tourist spot and the way the Japanese go about it is the importance the Japanese place on placing themselves in the picture, as opposed to simply taking a picture of the attraction and cutting out the people as i would do.  i like to think of this phenomenon as related in its psychology to that of the Rising Sun.  Japan is the "Land of the Rising Sun", as one can see in its flag, but this description is interesting with respect to the displacement it conjures.  For whom is it the land of the rising sun?  If you are in Japan, an island floating in the sea, and you are on the east coast standing on a beach early morning, you will see the sun rising in the east, but you will not yourself experience a rising; you are separated from it by perception, and will experience only the sun rising.  If you are in China (Korea), however, the sun rises over a land to the east, and so this land may be witnessed as a land of the rising sun.  This displacement is central to the Japanese psyche, and so reinforces the notion i mentioned in an earlier musing of the Japanese aversion to "center", and shows that even where you might think they have accepted a notion of center, as in their flag, within itself one finds it is in fact a center removed.  Thus the tourist, and pictures of themselves.

Japan musings 2

It's interesting to look at one of the most famous Japanese prints made by the artist Hokusai, and here find relevance to the idea of the vacant center, which i referred to earlier.  The print i'm referring to is "The Great Wave":

Whats interesting for me about this image is the way the wave implies a circling of the mountain in the background (Mt. Fuji).  Its not a circle completed, but one implied, and it has an interesting relative in the 5 yen coin, where a rice shoot is shown to be bent in the wind, creating, or reinforcing, the vacant center.

And what is the "vacant" center in the print?  It is Mt. Fuji, the spiritual center of Japan, and perhaps its primary symbol.  This print verifies the central role a "Great Wave" has in the history and making of the Japanese nation, as i alluded to in the first post, but beyond this narrative, there is another layer of information contained in this print that alludes to the fundamental quality of Japanese being.  If one looks again at the print, Mt Fuji appears as any other mountain, but it differs greatly in its formality.  Mt Fuji is a volcano, and as such may be said to be "empty" in the sense that it is but a conduit for the molten center of our planet.  If one were to look down onto a volcano from above, Mt Fuji might appear as the coin does, with an empty center and full perimeter.  In this sense, a volcano is the ideal iconic image of the history and collective experience of Japan, as it is simultaneously at peace in its harmonious, singular composition, and menacing in its reality as a volcano.  It duels with itself in appearing to be central while simultaneously denying center, or rather presenting center as something empty, vacant.  Many of Japan's sensibilities and customs come from this tension between center and perimeter, order and disorder; where often the perimeter is activated by en emptied center, and as i'll later demonstrate, the appearance of "empty" is anything but.

Roland Barthes explored this notion in his musings about Japanese train stations, which in his mind were the genuine "centers" of Japanese cities, rather than the Town Halls, Squares, and civic buildings of western cities.  He noted that the train station, which was generally full of people and thus heavily populated, was in a constant state of flux between emptying and filling, much like a heart, filling with blood only to send it away.  This state of flux makes it a very unique kind of "center" as it is one that does not hold its contents, but expels them, both inward and outward.  It is a center that exists in and celebrates the moment, the moment of arrival and departure, rather than the passing of decades and centuries.  This celebration of the moment over what elsewhere might take the form of a collective salute to history is also a very Japanese notion, and not unrelated its inclination to reset its calendar, or design with an acknowledgement of disorder, upon the arrival of epic "moments".

Japan musings

For much of its history, Japan has been isolated from western influences, with the exception of 200 years between the 15th and 17th century, when the Portuguese "discovered" Japan. Japan closed this opening in 1639, and it wasn't to open again until the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1854. The result of this relative isolation is an incredible unity of thought and purpose that crosses all aspects of its culture, and which struck me dumb when i visited in the early 90's. i plan to ramble about many of the visual aspects that struck me, and no doubt you will recognize the thoughts of others, such as Bataille and Barthes, though i've forgotten which are the pillaged thoughts.

Japan is a "frame" culture, as can be said of American culture.  But the idea of frame in Japan is very different from that in the US. Whereas the American frame is one of extension and allowance, it doesn't deal well with disruption, and is averse to variation, though of course has had to allow for it. The American "frame", if one is to think in these terms, is also very "center" oriented; the Japanese frame not so.  The Japanese "frame" culture is one that celebrates the interruption of the frame, and relishes these interruptions as though works of art. As it must. For Japan exists in the ocean, at the edge of a tectonic plate, and so has a history pierced, and to a degree defined, by natural disasters in the form of earthquakes and typhoons. These cataclysmic events are not welcomed per se, after all they are cataclysms, but they have been "let in", and one could say the aesthetics of Japan are partially characterized by a "disaster mentality", a mentality that from a formal standpoint favors the perimeter over the center, and celebrates interruption of the standing order, the flecks of disorder. The traditional Japanese calendar, for example, is marked by eras, most of which are defined by the arrival of a new emperor, but some of these eras are defined by the occurrence of an earthquake or tsunami, at which, in one sense, the calendar is "reset", and a new era defined.  Thus a natural disaster, a disruption of the established order, is celebrated as the birth of something new, rather than the demise of the existing order.

From a formal standpoint, Japan is all perimeter. It is a number of islands with a variegated coastline and high, dense mountains. The "center" does not want to be occupied. And so most of the population has lived on or near the coastline, and the Japanese people have long favored fishing over agriculture and animal husbandry (fishing can be seen as the taking from without, farming as a taking from within, and so it involves a "reach", a distention from the self, the home). Even the production of rice, which is central to their diet, involves the creation of many small "seas", or paddy's, which i will discuss again later. This notion of favoring perimeter over center can be seen throughout Japanese culture, from the treatment of packages to the presentation of their food, and from their way of greeting to the way they build their temples.  It permeates everything, but this is not the most interesting feature of the Japanese "sense"; what is most interesting to me is the consistency of this feature as an aesthetic, as if it were a gene all Japanese are born with, a folklore passed on through generations, and the amazing ability of this aesthetic to extend throughout Japanese culture, from teenage fashion to fortress walls.



More to follow...