First we went to the train station and I ate a Belgian waffle. Unfortunately I had brushed my teeth a mere hour before and as any reader of Cat and Girl will tell you, non-organic toothpaste contains a foaming agent that desensitizes your tongue to sugar, so I didn't taste much of the waffle. But once I did taste it, it was delicious.
Next we got on two trains to ride into town. The second was a really whiny and rickety train, which reminded some classmates of India. A guy got on the train and chatted with me in Japanese. He then found Brian-sensei and told him that this area of Japan was the first to be settled in recorded history, predating even the ancient capital Nara. Brian thought he was a crackpot but the sign at the train station said the town was first mentioned in 732 C.E. So who knows?
We walked down a very long highway passing by many gravestones and rice fields. Finally we came to Route 666. This is where the temple was, no joke.
Brian-sensei explained that we should not walk up the middle of the staircase because that's where the new abbot is going to walk.
There was a Buddhist flag flying from the temple.
As you can see it is a very nice temple.
We arrived on time, that is to say, several hours before the first ceremonies were to begin. The temple's parishoners drove us down the highway to a large, traditional building where the last remaining fujifu (藤布) weavery in Japan was housed. Fujifu is a traditional form of weaving in Japan which the company president, Masao Koishihara, claimed dated back to the Jomon period, over 3,000 years ago. I'm sure Brian-sensei was quite skeptical of this claim but I found it a fascinating idea.
The general idea is that the wood of the fuji, or wisteria tree, is stripped of its bark and refined several times until it becomes fibrous and woven. He actually ripped a branch off of a wisteria tree in the weavery's front yard and demonstrated for us. I took many pictures which are all on my Picasa album.
It was mentioned in the 9th century Man'youshuu, poems #413 and #2971. In the Edo period when trade with the outside world was barred, there were fujifu weaveries all over Japan. (Koishihara seemed distinctly nostalgic for the era of isolation.) Once cheap cotton arrived from the West, fujifu was no longer profitable and quickly disappeared. According to Koishihara, in the 1960s there was only one person left doing fujifu in Japan, an old fisherwoman who made her bags out of it. He presented us with one of the bags, clearly a priceless item; he said he learned the practice from her. He then showed us a $350,000 kimono made from fujifu, which he said was sold to Noh actors and other upper-crust types.
However, while looking up the information for this post I found a website of a group of people who appear to practice it as a folk craft rather than a luxury fabric. The website is interesting in its uniqueness because all the other sites about this practice only show pictures of Koishihara and his employees, not any other group. Also, the people who made the craft website seem to call it fujiori (藤織り) rather than fujifu. But the pictures of the process are clearly the same. So, it's possible they never got the news that there was only one person left practicing this art in the 1960s. And I care about this why? Well, because the stuff they make out of wisteria is really quite nice to the touch.
So, we came back and watched the beginning of the shinsan ceremony, which is what you see here. I can now tell you exactly how to install an abbot if you're interested. After it ended, surprisingly, we had a huge feast with udon, tempura, and lots of beer. Actually, the only drink available was beer, and even the monks drank it. This is the Japanese approach to religion, I think. The temple took us to a local hot spring, which is really not something I can artfully describe with words. Public baths at a hot spring is a lot different from a bath at home, and they are quite nice. When we came back I walked up the hill where the gravestones were and heard some very loud chirping somewhere close to me. I flashed a picture and there was a huge cricket there.
I think that's enough info for today. Maybe I will pick up again this afternoon, which is like 5AM American time.
