7. Japan Highlights

My month in Japan (33 days to be exact) was incredible and I loved every minute of it - I'm 100% coming back one day! I'm writing this from Pokhara in Nepal which makes me even more nostalgic for Japan than I would have been otherwise - so far Nepal has been a mixture of food poisoning, extreme air pollution, and terrible infrastructure! I could not have chosen a more contrasting country to visit after Japan!

So in order to indulge my nostalgia, here's a list of Japan highlights I haven't written about yet :)

1. Cherry Blossoms

Hanami in Hiroshima

Japan's cherry blossoms are famous world-wide and I am so happy that I managed to time my trip so that I was there for cherry blossom season. The perfect time to see cherry blossoms varies from place to place, and full-bloom only lasts for a few days at a time, but I managed to see more than my fair share of sakura. But what makes the cherry blossoms so special is the Japanese reaction to them. While the Japanese tend to be more quiet and reserved in public, where there's a cherry tree, there's a group of ecstatic Japanese people beneath it, drinking and laughing. 

The act of viewing cherry blossoms is called hanami, and is a national pastime. People bring tatami mats or blue canvas sheets outside with plentiful picnics and celebrate en masse. There are public parties in parks and gardens where the cherry trees are lit up and there are street food stalls lining the paths. I was lucky enough to stumble upon two such celebrations, one in the famous Kenruko-en garden in Kanazawa and one in Muroyama park in Kyoto, which my friend Rosie found. Muroyama park was especially amazing, with people sitting on tatami mats eating and drinking as far as the eye could see! 

Muroyama Park

2. Miyajima Island 

Lauded as one of the "Three Most Scenic Spots of Japan" I had high expectations for Miyajima Island. I had been promised charming free roaming deer and a mystical floating torii gate out on the water. I was initially very disappointed... the charming deer were scabby, dirty and tried to eat my travel guide, while crowds of other tourists marred my view of the "floating" gate. Eventually I was herded into the Itsukushima Shrine. The bright orange shrine was first built in 593, is supported on stilts to protect it from water at high tide, and is dedicated to three goddesses, one of which is worshipped as the deity of traffic safety.

I tried to make the most of things and amused myself by "ironically" taking pictures of other tourists getting photos in front of the floating gate from the shrine's outcropping pier. As if sensing my lack of appreciation, the goddesses of the sea, fortune and traffic safety sent me not one but two traditional Japanese wedding parties to prove me wrong and inspire some amazement and enthusiasm! The brides were beautiful, with elaborate hairstyles and dressed in colourful kimonos. Both couples had a bossy professional woman fluttering around them for at least 20 minutes adjusting minute details before the photoshoot could start. I joined the other tourists and excitedly, and non-ironically, took as many pictures as I could! 

As if that were't enough, my favourite goddesses sent a deer walking into my picture just as I was about to leave the shrine. Needless to say, I didn't leave and instead tried to follow the deer's path as it walked through the stilts under the shrine's walkways. Of course, all my ducking and peering earned me plenty of strange looks from passers by! 

3. Nara Dreamland

On the day Rosie arrived in Japan to join me, we went to see the abandoned Nara Dreamland themepark which closed in 2006 and was inspired by Disneyland California. I definitely prefer abandoned theme parks to running ones! There are no queues, no screaming children, no overpriced fast-food restaurants, and very few other people... a misanthropist's ideal day out. It was very atmospheric and eery. Everything had been just left there and was rusty and overgrown. It was like looking into some post-apocalyptic future where nature was reclaiming it's territory... should I worry that I preferred it like that?! 

4. Himeji castle

Himeji castle was stunningly beautiful, like a fairy tale palace a little girl (me!) wants to live in for ever. It dates back to 1333 and incredibly survived extensive bombing during WW2 and a massive earthquake in 1995. The interior isn't beautifully decorated like most castles in Europe would be, it's main function was military and defensive. Unfortunately, that's about all I can tell you about the castle, because our volunteer guide, while clearly very nice and friendly, was impossible to understand. I'm sure you can imagine our horror when we realised that we could barely pick out individual words from his steady stream of commentary, only after agreeing to let him guide us around the entire castle. Like good Brits, we nodded and smiled the entire time while screaming on the inside. But it was still a very beautiful castle.

5. Geisha spotting in Kyoto

While I was catching up with writing my blog, Rosie discovered the geisha district in Gion which was just around the corner from our hostel in Kyoto. She came back to get me and we had a lot of fun hanging around the streets and looking out for real geisha running between houses from one appointment to the next. Real geisha are incredibly rare in Japan, and are mainly reserved for the entertainment of the wealthy (outside of occasional spring dances in public - unfortunately I didn't manage to see any!) I met some tourists in Tokyo convinced that they had just seen a geisha, and I didn't have the heart to tell them it was just another Chinese tourist who had rented a kimono for the day. 

Blurry picture of a geisha I saw

6. My last night

At the end of our trip, Rosie and I stayed in an airbnb in Osaka. Our room was in a building called Happiness 3, and the owners really lived up to that name! We met Kazuma, his fiance and two of his friends for dinner on our last night. They took us to a great restaurant, where the tables are all in separate booths separated by light coloured screens and sliding doors. I had the most amazing meal that night, with plenty of hot sake. They ordered lots of food to share, we had sashimi, tempura, sushi, chicken, octopus and so much more! Our hosts were really fun to talk to and we laughed a lot - it was great finally being with the locals in the private booth instead of sitting at the bar and randomly pointing at things because I couldn't read the menu (although that does hold its own appeal!) All in all, an amazing last evening. 

6. Disaster, WW2 and Art

Disaster, WW2 and Art

Before coming to Japan, I knew shockingly little about Japan's involvement in the Second World War and the extent to which fighting also occurred in East Asia. Since then I've made an effort to educate myself, and changed my itinerary at the last minute to include Hiroshima. I was partially inspired to do so by some of the art I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo which dealt with WW2 and which I found particularly moving. I decided to seek out more art from that time and write a blog post about it.

Renzo Kita, Last Moment of the Admiral, 1943, MOMAT

However, I really struggled to find any more art dealing with WW2 since then. I quickly realised that the subject is a very controversial one in Japan and that I wasn't the only one ignorant about Japan's role in the war. According to an English person I met who was teaching in Japan for a year, Japanese children are barely taught anything about the Second World War in schools and many are even unaware that they lost the war and surrendered. I found a very interesting BBC News article by a Japanese woman describing history lessons in schools. The students cover the entirety of Japanese history in only one year (often not even reaching the 20th century due to lack of time), and only 19 out of 357 pages of the government-approved textbook even discuss the war. Only one sentence describes the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while one-line footnotes mention the 1937 Nanjing massacre in China and the use of comfort women (roughly 200,000 forced prostitutes, mainly Korean) by the Imperial Army of Japan.

The latter two atrocities are two of the principle reasons why there are still tensions between Japan and China and Korea today. The dispute about the comfort women wasn't settled until last December, when Japan and Korea decided to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the issue, including $8 million reparation money going towards support funds for the surviving women and an apology from the current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Many Koreans were angered by this deal and the lack of communication of the Korean government with the victims. Coincidentally, my internship workplace in Berlin was right next to the South Korean embassy and shortly after this deal was made, I saw a protest outside the embassy where a group of women were protesting against the decision. I picked up an information leaflet, and that was the first time I had ever heard of comfort women. 

Unfortunately, there's a significant revisionist movement in Japan headed by Nobukatsu Fujioka who is a professor of education at Tokyo University. He denies that the Nanjing masscare (or Rape of Nanjing) ever happened and insists that the comfort women were paid prostitutes (despite testimonies of surviving soldiers confessing to rape and violence.) These denials make relations with China and Korea increasingly difficult for Japan, and these countries pay close attention to public Japanese statements about the past. Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2, Abe failed to apologise for Japanese actions in the war, despite echoing past apologies, angering China who railed against it in their state media. Similarly, visits of government officials to the Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines the war dead including 14 Class A war criminals, regularly produces outcries in other Asian countries. But the lack of education about the war in Japan means that many Japanese people don't understand why there is still so much hatred directed towards their country from their neighbours.

After I read about these controversies and spoke to other travellers shocked by the lack of awareness they encountered about the Second World War, I tried to remain critical when looking at WW2 art and visiting Hiroshima.

Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, after the bombing
(1945 Picture by AP - 2014 Picture by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is beautifully laid out and comprises many memorials, the Peace Memorial Museum, and the Atomic Bomb Dome. The dome, a former trade hall, is one of the few structures that survived the initial atomic bomb explosion and was right under the epicentre. It was kept standing as a memory of the atrocity. The main purpose of the memorial site is to promote peace, and it is part of an initiative to try to make the world atomic-bomb free.

The Atomic Bomb Dome today

Monument to Korean Victims and Survivors

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was created in 1954 .However, the monument to Korean Victims and Survivors wasn't erected until 1970. Of the 200,000 Hiroshima citizens who died as a result of the atomic bombing (including radiation-related deaths in the aftermath), 10% were Korean. The memorial plaque states that these Koreans were living there as "soldiers, civilian employees of the army, mobilized students and ordinary citizens". This is definitely a white-washing of history - the vast majority of Koreans living in Japan during WW2 were forced labourers. According to Korean historians, approximately 670,000 Koreans were taken to Japan for manual labour. Approximately 60,000 of them died between 1939 and 1945, mostly due to exhaustion and poor working conditions (wikipedia).




The most condemning description I read of Japanese action during the war was at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. It was a very effective, beautiful memorial where I watched a couple of moving first-hand accounts of the bombing. However, the sentence "we recall with great sorrow the many lives sacrificed to mistaken national policy" shocked me with its extreme use of euphemism. The word "sacrificed" also made me feel uncomfortable with its associations of martyrdom and patriotism. This sentiment echoed the WW2 art I saw at the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, where the majority of the paintings held a sense of heroic sacrifice.

Ken'ichi Nakamura, 1945, MOMAT

I found Nakamura's 1945 painting Sergeant Nobe's Suicide Attack on Two B-29's Over Kitakyushu visually beautiful, dominated by the impressionistic sky. The top centre shows the explosion, with 3 planes falling to the ground. The scene illustrates the 1944 American attack on the city of Kitakyushu, when two young Japanese men flew their plane into two U.S. B-29s, according to the description a tactic devised by the soldiers themselves. The description and the painting focus on the heroism of the act, the self-sacrifice which brought down the enemy. The distance in the painting removes any reality of the horror and the loss of life entailed in the actual event.

Similarly, the painting Special Attack Corps Setting Out From a Homeland Base II focused on heroism, in this case of a suicide attack unit. The picture was commissioned by the army, so it is no wonder that there is no political criticism in the piece. However, I struggled to find any critical art work from the period at all! The painting is certainly effective. I was moved by the stoicism of the soldiers knowing they were going to die, the calmness of a group in the background praying. I found it subtle- the heroism lies in the expressions and the composure of the soldiers rather than in any kind of pomp or fanfare.

Sentaro Iwata, Special Attack Corps Setting Out From a Homeland Base II, 1945, MOMAT

The gallery dedicated to art from the Second World War at the MOMAT surprised me in its repeated portrayal of heroic sacrifice. I often associate art, especially from the 20th century on-wards, with dissent and social or political criticism and was surprised not to find the same in Japan. This is in tune with Japanese society, where the emphasis lies on maintaining social harmony while their sense of identity is much more tied to community than in our individualistic western culture.

Fumiaki Aono, 2013

While Germany's Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (coming to terms with the past) can't be applied to WW2 in Japan, I did see it in Kanazawa's 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art where the current exhibition focused on nuclear disaster. Japan's 2011 tsunami and ensuing three nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima resulted in almost 16,000 deaths and brought Japan to its knees. Only one piece in the museum was directly inspired by the disaster - Fumiaki Aono's Restoration/ Substitution/ Coalescence/ Connection. Aono walked along a beach after the tsunami and collected items from the debris. He created a sculpture with the things he found, combining a two-part storage unit, a wardrobe, part of a pink tile wall (probably from a public bath), pieces of clothing, cups, slippers and a faucet. The artwork is hopeful, one of restoration and rebuilding rather than destruction. But it is also sad and moving, the objects acting as witnesses to a disaster where the victims cannot, and reminding the viewer of the people they once surrounded and belonged to.


A video installation in a dark room adjacent to the sculpture highlights the inability of humanity to learn from past suffering. The Finnish artist Mika Taanila created the piece entitled The Most Electrified Town in Finland, where three large screens play videos of the construction of the nuclear power plant Olkiluoto 3 in southwestern Finland. These videos are mixed with black and white videos of northern-European nature and colourful scenes of everyday life. There is an overarching sense of doom, with workers moving like ants over the gigantic structure and the empty nature images suggesting a future, total return to nature.

Mika Taanila, The Most Electrified Town in Finland, 2004-2012 (www.tentrotterdam.nl)

The next artpiece was inspired by Chernobyl, framing the video installation with the two worst nuclear disasters in history. The Japanese artist Kenji Yanobe travelled to Chernobyl (where a nuclear reactor accident occurred in 1986) which inspired "rebirth after despair" as a theme in his work. In Kanazawa, he installed the piece Viva Revival Project: Stand-Up, a massive robot modeled on a child. Opposite this robot hangs a fluorescent smiling sun. After it "emits" 20 pulsing radiation exposures, the child slowly stands up. More than this installation, it was the photograph of Yanobe at Chernobyl in a yellow radiation suit surrounded by debris, including a broken piano, dolls and a globe, which really impressed me.

Kenji Yanobe, Viva Revival Project Stand-Up, 2001

Kenji Yanobe in Chernobyl

Coming Up: Japan Highlights - final post!

5. Naoshima Island Part Two: Interactive Art

Naoshima Island Part Two: Interactive Art

Since publishing my last post, I've discovered that writing about interactive art is incredibly difficult. It relies so much on personal experience, even more so than other art, but I've found a (possibly unauthorised) YouTube video of one of my favourite pieces to help ease you in. The Japanese artist Rei Naito and architect Ryue Nishizawa created the incredible Teshima Art Museum in 2010, a single art space where Maja and I were entertained for a surprisingly long time. The best endorsement of the museum came from Maja, who, while we were waiting in the irritatingly long queue, decided that she had had enough of art and sightseeing and that she refused to be impressed anymore. As soon as we entered the space and realised what was going on, she exclaimed that it was absolutely incredible and the best thing she had ever seen!

See for yourself!


While I know little about architecture, the architect also staying at my airbnb said the museum is an architectural wonder. It is a seamlessly curved concrete shell, which echoes the contours of the surrounding hills. On either end of the cave-like space, there are two elliptical open holes. This means that the art space changes according to the weather and the height of the sun. The effect was other-worldly in its naturalness and seeming timelessness.

Teshima Art Museum (www.domusweb.it)

 (https://theolderpennsister.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/a-sacred-space/)

What captivated us even more than the surreal space was the artwork. We were warned before entering to look where we were stepping and that everything on the floor was art. There were a couple of small sculptures on the ground, some looking like hollow plastic balls. But mainly there was just water. At first we thought the water was mixed with some kind of chemical or gel, causing it to stick together and move in such a fascinating way, but we discovered that it was all natural water being pumped from a well beneath the museum and into the space through tiny holes in the floor. It was the coating on the concrete surface which made the water move like a living being. When we first entered the space it was a bit windy and long, thick bodies of water were racing towards a shallow pool like big caterpillars.We spent around an hour watching water and could easily have stayed even longer. It was mesmerising watching it move around, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, moving around in small and large formations, swirling away into a hole in the ground or joining one of the big pools in the sunny area... you get the picture! Everyone had to be careful not to walk or sit on an area with water, or get caught in the two loops of ribbon hanging from the holes and waving in the wind. One tourist got into trouble for blowing on some drops of water, trying to get them to move. I guess he wasn't technically touching it!

It was the participation and the wonder of the spectators walking through the space, or sitting in the sun and staring at the water, that made the art so special. The museum demanded exploration and a willingness to participate, to let yourself be awed by something as simple as water. It certainly inspired a child-like wonder in everyone. The best example for this was a Japanese grandmother who came with her grandchildren and couldn't contain her loud excitement, even after being reprimanded several times. The toddlers, however, were exemplary.

I would love to visit Teshima again and see the museum in different conditions. It must be even more magical in the rain, or at sunrise or sunset. It was like an organic being, despite being entirely made up of inanimate things. Before my trip to Naoshima and Teshima, I had never thought of concrete as a potentially beautiful material, but this museum managed to used ordinary materials and make them into something inspiring and breathtaking.

Teshima Art Museum (wordlesstech.com)

James Turrell's Open Field

I've already written about two of the art spaces in the Chichu Museum of Art. The incredible design and organisation of the museum, where every detail is designed for maximum impact, already contains a certain interactive aspect. But the art space dedicated to James Turrell's work took this interactivity one step further. Particularly one of his installations, Open Field, requires active participation. Again, only small groups were allowed in at a time, and a guide took us to black steps leading up to what looks like a plain blue screen.

Open Field, James Turrell, 2000 (http://benesseartsite.jp)

When everyone was gathered in front of the screen, the guide told us to touch it. Our hands went right through it. We were then asked to walk into it. The moment when we passed through the screen into a room suffused with blue light is almost indescribable. The sudden shift in perception was dizzying and, once walking through the room, there was a general feeling of amazement and exhilaration.

Open Field, James Turrell, 2000 (http://memory-imprint.blogspot.jp/)

The viewer must participate in order to experience the artist's desired effect, which asks the viewer to question the accuracy of what we see and perceive by actively tricking the viewer's perception. I liked the idea of hidden rooms, hidden worlds, behind a deceptive surface, and the act of penetration and immersion to discover the reality. Being actively involved creates a more personal, individual experience of the art. I guess it could be seen as a metaphor for art in general, where in order to truly experience or understand it, it's necessary to take some time and look beyond the first impression. 



Coming up: Disaster, WW2 and Art

4. Naoshima Island, Part One: Tadao Ando

My three days on the islands in the Seto Inland Sea have definitely been the highlight of my trip so far. Naoshima island is really one of the most special and unique places I've ever been to! Towards the end of the 20th century it was turned into an art and architecture project in an attempt to revitalise the local area which, like many rural places in Japan, was decaying due to the numbers of people moving to urban areas. As a result, the island has the most amazing contemporary art museums I've been to, as well as a variety of other fantastic art projects. I've had to split my post about Naoshima island into two posts, because I've seen so many amazing things and have so much to write about!

The best airbnb in the world

Airbnb common room and Yoshio preparing the feast

My 700 km journey from Tokyo to Mukaejima island, where I was staying in an airbnb, was relatively relaxing. I took my first ever bullet train to Okayama which was amazing, mainly due to the very generous leg room available. This was followed by two very wobbly local trains (I checked the bathrooms and they were still spotless - how?!) to Uno port. I just about suppressed the urge to shout "UNO!" whenever I saw a sign. From there I took a ferry to Naoshima island and my airbnb host Yoshio picked me up in his little motorboat and took me to Mukaejima island, only about 100m away. I had to wait for him for over half and hour and an old drunk Japanese man joined me and talked at me for the entire time. For all I knew he could have been telling me his life story. I just hoped he wasn't trying to tell me that a serial killer lived on the other island who regularly picked up tourists.

Fortunately, the airbnb was wonderful. It's basically a hostel with many guests at the same time. I stayed in a traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and sliding doors in an old house 30 metres away from the main house. The main house had some dorms and a common room where every evening the guests and the hosts prepared a feast together for dinner. My first night there were dumplings, grilled fish, chicken, miso soup, rice, mashed pumpkin, potatoes and baked radish, and it was the most delicious meal I've ever had. And the food only got better each night! I stayed there for four nights and Yoshio ferried us between the two islands every day.

Tadao Ando and Naoshima's museums

Tadao Ando is a famous Japanese self-taught architect. I never truly appreciated architecture until I saw his work on Naoshima which so beautifully complemented its surroundings and the work of the artists inside his buildings. He believes that "to change the dwelling is to change the city and to reform society"(wikipedia). This is certainly in tune with his work on Naoshima, which has changed a decaying island into a centre for contemporary art and a wonderful destination for foreign and Japanese tourists alike. 

Zen Buddhism greatly influenced his art, and it is this aspect which impressed me the most. Zen emphasises simplicity and focuses on inner feeling and experience rather than on outer appearance. Ando's buildings principally use a light-coloured concrete and are often mainly underground. Because of this, his buildings seem somewhat unimpressive from the outside, but the interior spaces and the way they are laid out are phenomenal.

Entrance of Lee Ufan museum

I especially saw this in the first museum I went to, the Lee Ufan Museum. Lee Ufan is a minimalist Korean artist known for his contribution to contemporary art in Japan. While I liked his ideas, what made his work really special was the combination of his pieces with Ando's architecture. It was clear that the museum was designed as a whole, rather than as a building in which to display various exhibitions. The museum is situated at the top of a valley with outdoor artworks on a meadow sloping down to the beach and sea. The entrance of the museum is hidden behind concrete walls forming two corridors you have to walk through to get to the reception. 

Shadow Room, www.studioleeufan.org

Each art work corresponded perfectly with the room it was in. The first room, Encounter Room,

was bright with six minimalist paintings hanging on the walls, all combinations of glue or oil and stone pigment on a large canvas. In the middle was a sculpture which I particularly liked called Relatum, a steel plate cracked into four sections, covered by a glass plate with a natural rock sitting on the point where the cracks meet. The intact glass plate is impossible and acts as a transparent barrier between cause and consequence. Ufan's art thematised the natural location of the modern building, often just combining a natural rock with a plate or rod of steel. After the bright room you enter a dark corridor leading into three dark rooms. I loved the last one, called Shadow Room, a narrow concrete corridor with just one rock sitting in the middle. A light came from behind casting a black shadow and a series of video clips were projected onto the shadow, including a wandering moon, a busy road crossing, and waves crashing onto the shore. The effect was surreal, an unreal, dream-like space where you can watch an accelerated, repetitive outside world through a shadow on the floor. I've never seen a museum like it, with every aspect (of course including the bathroom) complementing and referencing the rest and creating a complex relationship between interior and exterior worlds.

I walked from the Lee Ufan museum along the beach and up a hill to Benesse House, a hotel and museum complex also designed by Tadao Ando. Opened in 1992, the brochure says it focuses on the concept of "coexistence of nature, architecture and art", so along very similar lines as the Lee Ufan museum. The brochure, in typical Japanese translation style, also wished: "may your encounter with art here, sublimed by the stunning landscapes of the Seto Inland Sea, be a delightful and enriching experience."

Time Exposed, Hiroshi Sugimoto, 1980-97, Benesse House

It definitely was, although the museum wasn't as perfectly coherent as the Lee Ufan museum. It has forty contemporary artworks spread over three floors by a wide variety of Japanese and international artists, including Andy Warhol. Again, the sprawling architecture was amazing and often played off the art and vice versa. For example I really liked the piece Time Exposed by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Along two walls are a number of photographs which initially all look like the same image, blocks of white and black. When you look closer, you realise they are all images of an ocean. Over almost two decades, Sugimoto took photographs of oceans from different corners of the world, exploring the concepts of time, distance and unity. The works were displayed on Ando's characteristic concrete walls outside, with a gap looking out on the Sea, offering a view similar to the subject of the work and inspiring a sensation of the timelessness of nature. As the photographs are permanently outdoors, they themselves show the wear of time through fading and exposure to various weather conditions. I found the exhibition comforting somehow, that no matter what we do to the planet, no matter what buildings we build and how easy it has become to travel across the world, the ocean will outlive us.

Sonatine for Goldfish, Nam June Paik, 1992
http://ffffound.com

I found some of the other artworks at Benesse House simply hilarious. The American Korean artist Nam June Paik put an aquarium inside a cast of a TV. There's a goldfish swimming around inside which many people found amazing and definitely spent longer looking at than the other artworks put together. The piece is as old as I am, and all I could think about was how many goldfish have they put inside that TV set in the last 23 years? I guess the piece is also a comment on our perception of the world we find ourselves in... the series of goldfish must all have died with a god complex, having spent their lives being stared at in awe and hearing the questions "is it a real goldfish? What does it mean?" Another funny piece was Jonathan Borofsky's Three Chattering Men, 1986, which comprises of three statues of men attached to speakers repeating the word "chatter, chatter, chatter". The recorded men had an American accent and I was just reminded of all the American travellers I've met who just won't stop talking about nothing. (Sorry Americans!)

I could probably write a novel about all the art I saw in Benesse House, but for the sake of (relative) brevity I will move on to the Chichu Art Museum, also brilliantly designed by Ando. This is definitely the most popular museum on the island, and you have to go there early to get timed tickets for later in the day. The museum is entirely underground with only windows visible from above.

Chichu Art Museum, Photo: Iwan Baan, (http://111.89.141.224/en/chichu)

There are only three "art spaces" inside, the most popular being a large room lit by natural light displaying five pieces from Monet's Water Lily series. The Japanese are absolutely obsessed with Monet, and while in the past I always found his repetitive themes somewhat boring, I gained a new appreciation for him in this room. The reason the museum needs timed tickets is that they only let a few people into any art space at one time, meaning that you have a much more personal experience of the art. There is nothing as disappointing as going to the Louvre in Paris to see the Mona Lisa, only to find a tiny canvas surrounded by a crowd of tourists struggling to take pictures. Understandably, of course, because reproduced images of the Mona Lisa are so rare... Being almost alone with these paintings in a large, bright room was incredible. The paintings were from Monet's later life, and therefore more experimental and rough in style. I found that the further away I stood, the clearer they became, and it was fun experimenting to find the ideal distance from each painting. 

Another art space was one giant hall (below), called Time/ Timeless/ No Time by Walter de Maria. When my friend (from the airbnb) and I first went in, it took our breath away. It was unexpectedly large and cavernous, and we were the first to enter. My friend, Maja, said it reminded her of a cathedral, while I had immediately thought of ancient temples and sacrificial alters. The window to the sky, the steps, the organ-pipe-like gold leaf sculptures, and the mysterious, 2.2m diameter granite sphere, all felt religious or mystical and, combined, certainly impressive. This space is also a prime example for how Tadao Ando and the respective artists (excluding Monet, for some reason) worked together to create the museum. The architecture in these museums is part of the art, which, in any other space, wouldn't have half the impact.

Time/ Timeless/ No Time, Walter de Maria, 2004
openbuildings.com

Coming up: Naoshima Island, Part Two, starring art as an interactive experience and Teshima Island

3. Art in Tokyo: a brief history of Japan

Art in Tokyo: a brief history of Japan

In my final year at Oxford, I received a travel grant from Oxford's History of Art department to explore Japanese Art. This is one of the main reasons I could come to Japan and I was really thrilled when I received it!

There are so many museums and galleries in Tokyo and I went to as many as I could without feeling overwhelmed. It's also really great to have a purpose other than just travelling when abroad, because, as many of the people I've met have mentioned, sightseeing and visiting temples day after day can get a bit wearing after a while. It took me ages to find an internet cafe to continue writing my blog, and I am now sat in a bizarre 24 hour manga-cafe in Hiroshima!

In this post I wanted to write about some of the art I saw chronologically, and ended up writing a lot about the historical context - Japanese history is so interesting and unique, and understanding it has really helped me to understand the art better.

Seated Nikko Bosatsu, 8th century, Nara period
Tokyo National Museum

Buddhism was officially introduced to Japan in the 6th century. Before then, art mainly consisted of earthenware, ritual items and objects like bronze mirrors. The introduction of Buddhism inspired the development of new art forms like temple architecture, calligraphy and paintings. I especially liked the statue "Seated Nikko Bosatsu", the bodhisattva of sunlight and good health. After I saw it, the weather definitely got warmer and my jetlag started going away. There must be a link. Made of wood and decorated with gold leaf, it dates back to the Nara period (710-794) when the capital of Japan was in modern-day Nara for over eight decades. Traditionally, the capital of Japan has always moved according to the home of the new Emperor or Empress, which is why there are so many impressive castles and temple complexes to see all over Japan. 

After the Nara period came the Heian period (794-1192), which is considered the golden (and last) era of classical Japanese culture. So it's no wonder that the capital of Japan during that time was Kyoto, the second most popular destination in Japan after Disneyland Tokyo. During this period, esoteric Buddhism was introduced to Japan resulting in the development of new forms of art. I really liked the illustrated scrolls which portrayed the origins of temples and shrines and, in the second half of the Heian period, illustrated poems and literary works. The calligraphy itself is beautiful, and combined with delicate illustrations, the scrolls are amazing.

The Kamakura period (1192-1333) marks the beginning of medieval Japan and the introduction of Zen Buddhism from China, which emphasised the practice of meditation. My couchsurfing host Hayato shared his own traumatic experiences of Zen with me and told me about the time his class at elementary school was forced to meditate for 5 hours or risked being smacked on the shoulder by a monk using a keisaku, "a flat wooden stick or slat used during periods of meditation to remedy sleepiness or lapses of concentration" (wikipedia). What a way to achieve peace of mind and unity with nature! The Kamakura period also marks the first shogunal (military) government of Japan, after the Minamoto clan seized power through military force and established the new capital in Kamakura. While Japan remained an imperial dynasty (and still is today), the power transferred from the emperor and the imperial court to military clans and their armies of samurai warriors.

The art of ink painting was one of the main cultural influences that arrived in Japan from China along with Zen, and became one of the major genres of Japanese paintings. This continued through the Nanbokucha (1333-1392) and Muromachi (1392-1573) periods and I definitely fell in love with a set of ink-painted screens from the Muromachi period called "Landscape of the Four Seasons", a typical theme from the period. The level of detail the artist Yogetsu achieved in the two six-panel screens was incredible. The different textures of the water, mountains, trees, people and buildings created a beautiful contrast of sharp detail against a hazy, distant background. I spent a long time picking out the little details and scenes which you don't notice at first glance.

Landscape of the Four Seasons by Yogetsu, 15th century, ink and light colour on paper, Tokyo National Museum

Close up of a scene from the other screen

The beauty of these screens completely contradict the historical events of the Muramachi period, during which Japan was at civil war. By 1477 there were hundreds of independent states throughout Japan ruled by daimyo - feudal lords who fought for control of the country. Awesomely enough, this is also where ninjas came from, who were hired by the daimyo as skilled spies and assassins. During all of this, the first ever Europeans to set foot in Japan (Portugese traders on a Chinese ship that was blown off course and landed on a Japanese island) sparked the introduction of muskets and Christianity to the country. 

During the following Azuchi-Momoyama period, Japan began to be reunified, and after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the famous Edo period (based in modern-day Tokyo) began under the rule of the Tokugawa clan who ruled for an uninterrupted 268 years of relative peace and stability. Correspondingly, the arts flourished including the theatre of kabuki, haiku poetry and the publishing industry. Wealthy merchants patronised these arts and were known for their hedonistic lifestyles, employing courtesans and geisha entertainers. This lifestyle was referred to as ukiyo - "floating world". The characteristic art form of the Edo period is the ukiyo-e woodblock print, the popularity of which swiftly spurred the development of coloured woodblock art. Many of these were mass-produced for the consumption of common people and depicted scenes of ordinary people's lives and landscapes. 

One of the most famous ukiyo-e artists is Katsushika Hokusai, who created the famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. I went to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art which has a collection of 12,000 ukiyo-e pieces (about 70 of which are put on display at any time). I was really lucky, because one of the impressions of Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa was currently on display when I was there, which is arguably the most famous piece of Japanese art. It is part of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series and shows Mount Fuji in the background and thirty people in three boats hanging onto their oars as a wave is about to crash over them. I love the tension in the print, which is so alive that you feel like the wave is about to crash and splash out of the picture. I also like that Mount Fuji almost looks like it is part of the waves, and so small in contrast to the vast empty space above and around it. It definitely makes a nice change to the endless paintings of Mount Fuji filling the frame that I've seen in many of the museums here!

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Hokusai, published between 1830 and 1833

Nakamura Nakazo I  (kabuki actor, born 1736)
Katuskawa Shunsho

Most of the ukiyo-e on display in the Ota Memorial Museum were by Katsukawa Shunsho (born 1726) in celebration of his 290th anniversary. He was particularly popular for his realistic portraits of kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers. The portraits of the kabuki actors were especially impressive because of their expressive faces. But I also enjoyed the portraits of the sumo wrestlers. I'm in Japan during sumo season, and while I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time to actually see a match, I loved watching them on TV screens. Onscreen and in ukiyo-e alike, sumo wrestlers look downright miserable. The matches are hilarious: there's at least ten minutes of ritual and prancing about before the match starts, and then it's over in about five seconds. Apparently, the wrestlers are all superstars here and have gorgeous girlfriends. Go figure.

As I've mentioned before, the Japanese are all obsessed with the Edo period during which Japan's population doubled to thirty million and literacy rates increased drastically. But to remain so stable, the Tokugawa rule preserved a strict social hierarchy and was brutal, handing out harsh punishments for minor crimes and ritualising the ancient form of suicide through self-disembowelment as a punishment for criminals from the higher classes. The third Tokugawa shogun implemented the closed country isolationist policy, which forbade Japanese citizens from leaving the country and highly restricted international trade. Trade was only carried out with the Netherlands, China and Korea, and outside influences were kept limited. However, Japan did export goods to Europe and in the 19th century ukiyo-e prints became widely popular in Europe and influenced and inspired many of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists, including van Gogh, Monet and Renoir. Van Gogh made copies of two Hiroshige prints (see below) and coined the term Japonaiserie to express the influence of Japanese art. In one of his letters he wrote "all my work is based to some extent on Japanese art".

The Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige)
Vincent van Gogh, 1887

Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge
and Atake, Hiroshige, 1857

The end of the Edo period began in 1853 when the American Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan with a fleet of gunboats and demanded that Japan end its isolationist policy and open it's ports to American trade under threat of destruction. （U-S-A! U-S-A!)　The shogunate was forced to give in to these demands thereby angering many people, which lead to the overthrowing of the shogunate and the reinstatement of the emperor as the nominal supreme power in Japan. This was the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912). In 1869 the imperial family moved to Edo and renamed it Tokyo. The Meiji government promoted westernisation and there was an influx of western goods which were widely popular. This was also a time of expansion abroad using military force. By the end of the period, Japan had fought wars with China and Russia, thereby conquering Taiwan and Korea.

Nude Beauty, Testugoro Yorozu, 1912、MOMAT

The effect of westernisation can definitely be seen in Japanese art from this period. While European artists were influenced by ukiyo-e prints, after the end of Japan's isolation, Japanese artists explored western techniques and drew inspiration from western artists. I saw Nude Beauty in the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo and immediately noticed the similarity of technique to van Gogh, especially in the grass the painter's wife is lying on. The artist, Yorozu, also departed from traditional Japanese mediums like hanging scrolls and decorative screens and instead used oil on canvas. The painting also marks the beginning of the Taisho period (1912-1926) in which Japan developed stronger democratic institutions and gained international influence, siding with the Allies during WW1 and gaining new colonies in the South Pacific which were seized from Germany. Due to this increased democratisation, the individual became more important during this era, and this can definitely be seen in the painting. The woman clearly departs from the traditional Japanese image of beauty, with her awkward position, armpit hair, and lack of traditional clothing and make-up.

The Boys' Festival (1936) and Doll Festival (1934)
Kiyokata Kaburaki, MOMAT

The Showa period (1926-1989) followed the Taisho period. The years leading to WW2 were characterised by a rise in extreme nationalism and expansionist wars. After their catastrophic defeat in the war, Japan was occupied by foreign powers for the only time in their history. (I want to write more about　Hiroshima and art in the Second World War in another post.) The art I've seen from this period is very varied, from traditional Nihonga (Japanese-style paintings) to western-style paintings and forms in between. I especially enjoyed pieces which experimented with the traditional　Japanese style. The pieces on the right from the 1930s, for example, use the traditional form of the hanging scroll with a twist, experimenting with space and framing. I really liked the one on the left, The Boys' Festival, where the frame seems almost more important than what would traditionally be the focus of the piece, even overlapping and intruding on the centerpiece. The bold colours of the frame also go against tradition - usually the frame is a dull-coloured pattern which complements the painting but doesn't draw away from it.

Japan is now in the Heisei period (1989-) and while I haven't yet had the opportunity to travel to any of the other periods, I can confirm first-hand that the Heisei period is brilliant. I have seen loads of contemporary Japanese art and will definitely be writing more about it, because I find contemporary art particularly interesting, but here's one to leave you with. The museum's description explains the title of Rose Colours Ahead, Behind by stating that the various rose-coloured forms in the painting "occupy positions not readily distinguished as ahead or behind on the picture plane." As soon as I saw it, I thought the title was a brilliant pun based on the fact that the two big shapes could either be the backs of two heads, or a pair of buttocks. Is my mind just in the gutter, or did the museum experts fail to identify the true meaning of this work?

Rose Colours Ahead, Behind", Toeko Tatsuno, 2011
Muuseum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

2. Tokyo Highlights

I'm really sad to be leaving Tokyo tomorrow! Even though I've been here for two weeks, I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface and could spend another month exploring the city. I'm definitely coming back some day. Here are some of my Tokyo (and around) highlights.

Akihabara

The "electric town" of Akihabara is basically all Japanese stereotypes mashed into one area of the city. Glowing signs line the streets advertising  multi-story arcades, sex shops and "geek stores". The geek stores are crammed with expensive figurines and Pokemon cards and the sex shops with items ranging from the funny to the disturbing. We went into some arcades and ended up stuck there for hours trying and failing at all sorts of games. When you go in you're hit with a wall of noise and it's amazing to watch Japanese people who have clearly spent way too much time practicing.

Before we left, we tried out a maid café. They were everywhere and entirely bizarre. Young waitresses dressed in French maid outfits, cutesy decorations, food in the shape of teddy bears and a perfectly choreographed, somewhat stilted karaoke dance performance. The whole thing was an unsettling mix of innocent and sexual, and while the Japanese tourists were clearly having the time of their lives, the other Western tourists were clearly mortified to be there.

Tsukiji Fish market

I went to the fish market on my first morning in Japan with a photographer from Miami who I'd met in the hostel. After our breakfast, during which he stated in truly American fashion how humble he was feeling at being there and making a new friend (he never did add me on Facebook afterwards), we went to the wholesale section of the market which is opened to visitors at 9 AM every day. It's the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world with over 65,000 employees. It was really awesome to walk through and watch how smoothly everything operated. The various fish and sea creatures in bloody bowls were fascinating and gross. My American friend stopped every five minutes to spend twenty minutes taking photos of the same thing, so I made friends with some of the shellfish vendors who enjoyed showing me how they extracted the flesh from the shell and cut off the bad bits. Tasty.

Wholesale fish and seafood market

Museums

The museums here are amazing. I've been to seven so far and they've all been spacious, modern and relatively empty with really great information signs or leaflets. I'm going to write a separate post about the art I've seen here, but one of my favourite museums was the Edo-Tokyo museum which describes life and culture in Tokyo back when it was called Edo and it's transition to the mega-city it is today. The Japanese are obsessed with the Edo period (1603-1868) and even have an Edo themepark. The museum has reconstructed full size buildings and scale-models from the period, and way too much information to take in, but it was a really good introduction to Japanese history.

Gardens

When you're in the world's largest metropolitan area with over 30 million people and the buildings to match, you definitely occasionally need a break! Thankfully there are several beautiful gardens around the city, some dating back to the Edo period. I loved the contrast between the traditional Japanese gardens and the surrounding high rise buildings. While I was a bit too early to see cherry blossoms, in one park I saw gorgeous plum trees in blossom, a heron and a woman in a kimono walking through a yellow rape seed meadow.

Hama-rikyu Gardens

Couchsurfing

I spent 3 nights couchsurfing with a great Japanese host called Hayato, because I wanted to spend some time with a local. He lived in Kodaira, a "bed town" on the outskirts of Tokyo where lots of commuters live. We spent two days together and he answered lots of my questions about Japan and the people and was super friendly and hospitable. We went to Kamakura, a town south of Tokyo, which was the seat of the Shogunate (military dictator) during the Kamakura period which ended 1333. There are loads of famous shrines and temples there as well as giant statue of Amida Buddha. I especially liked the Hase-dera temple which had great views of the ocean, a gorgeous Japanese garden and less tourists than the others.

Hase-dera Temple

The next day we hiked up Mount Takao to see great views over the Greater Tokyo Area. It's a really popular destination for Japanese tourists and I was amazed to see so many Japanese grandmas doing the trek. They were definitely more able-footed than the elegant Japanese women navigating the steep cobblestones in 6-inch heels.

Kabuki

Today I went to the kabuki theatre to see one act of a five hour performance. Kabuki is a classical art form which started in 1603 and it is undoubtedly the most bizarre thing I have ever seen in my life. I'm not sure I can describe it, but for me it felt like a mix between theatre, interpretive dance and a funny-voice competition. There were up to 27 performers on stage all dressed in incredibly intricate traditional costume and make-up, and from my view at the very back, they looked like puppets. Every movement and sound had clearly been minutely choreographed, but I had no idea what was going on. It was definitely impressive, but one hour was definitely enough.

Kabuki actor
(http://www.seejapan.co.uk/jnto_consumer/experience/traditional/traditional-cultural-experiences/where-to-see-performing-arts)

Nikko

I spent two nights in a town up in the mountains 140 km north of Tokyo. On the first day I took a bus into the mountains and went on a slightly terrifying hike by Lake Chuzenji. I only found out afterwards that the hiking paths in the area were closed due to snow. I hiked for around 5 hours and was completely alone the entire time, trying to navigate the path through snow drifts and along steep slopes. On the way back I took a shortcut along an abandoned highway also closed for the winter. The whole thing was surreal and spooky, but the gorgeous view of the lake and mountains made it worth it. After the hike I took another bus up to Yumoto Hot Springs where I had been promised a great onsen bathing experience, but when I got there it was just an empty, sulfuric ghost town. I knocked on a few doors that looked like they could be hotels, but everyone just seemed confused. I gave up and went to a nice outdoor onsen in Nikko instead.

View of Lake Chuzenji from my hike

On my second day I went to the World Heritage site in Nikko which has lots of ancient temples and shrines surrounded by woods. The main Shinto shrine Toshogu was really beautiful and atmospheric, but unfortunately overrun by tourists and parts of it were under construction. But I really enjoyed the main hall which had paintings of 100 dragons on the ceiling and was less refurbished and gaudy than some of the other buildings. 

Tokyo Skytree

Skytree is the world's tallest tower at 634m and it looks awesome. I wanted to go up it, but the three hour queue changed my mind! But I decided to mention it, because on my way there a Japanese man in the subway elevator repeatedly hit me with his rolled up newspaper, gestured at my height and said "Skytree". He followed me for about 10 minutes and kept hitting me, while pointing towards the tower. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time in my life that a random man in the street compared me to a building.

Coming up: art in Tokyo 

1. First Impressions

I’m one week into my month in Japan and I am happy to say that the gruelling 26 hour journey was worth it (the gruelling aspect of the journey can largely be blamed on an armrest-hogging, leg-space-invading neighbour).

My reception in Tokyo was more than bizarre. As soon as I left customs and entered the arrivals area, a camera was thrust in my face and I was interviewed. As much as I have always dreamed of appearing on a Japanese tourist-watch YouTube channel, this dream didn't involve me looking even more haggard than I did during finals. Somewhere out there, there is a video of a troll version of myself wearing a massive purple backpack, manically grinning in an attempt to be polite, and unintelligibly trying to answer questions I can no longer recall.

Thankfully, the majority of Japanese people are without camera-team and don't seem to find me particularly fascinating (after travelling in Vietnam last year, I was worried that I would spend another month feeling like a conspicuous white giant). They are also No. 1 on the list of my favourite things about Japan so far...

1. The people

It's definitely a cliche (and a generalisation) to go on about how nice and welcoming the people in the country you're visiting are, but in Japan it's really true. Everyone I have met so far has been super friendly, smiley and helpful. When I was working out how to go through the barriers at the airport train station, a woman immediately helped me out and then made sure I knew where to go next. And today I was 10 yen (6p) short at a subway ticket machine, and when the woman behind me noticed, she immediately grabbed her purse and gave me what I needed. Lesson learned: when I'm back in the UK I’ll try not to laugh at confused tourists like I used to and be helpful instead.

2. Food

The food is as awesome as I expected and surprisingly cheap. So far I've eaten something different for every meal and after making fun of people for photographing their food for years, I have now turned to the dark side. On my first morning, I went down to the Tsukiji fish market at 6:30 AM and had a sushi and caviar breakfast, which was absolutely delicious and undoubtedly the freshest fish I have ever eaten.

Sushi and caviar breakfast with miso soup and green tea

3. Public toilets

They are everywhere, super clean and the seats are heated. Enough said.

4. Etiquette and customs

I'm sure there are loads of etiquette rules and customs I'm still oblivious to, but I enjoy those little rituals of day-to-day interactions in Japan that I'm aware of. Money should generally not be placed in someone's hand, but into a tray on the counter, and when receiving a business card you should take it with both hands and bow. There's a lot of bowing, especially when parting. So far I haven't managed to out-bow the other person because I inevitably end up feeling like a nodding dog, but I look forward to doing it so naturally that by the time I return home I'll be doing it to the cashiers in Tesco's.

5. Public baths

I went to a public bath on my first night in Tokyo, driven there by the freezing cold and the need to do something to stop myself from sleeping too early. I was a bit nervous about it, but read up on public bath etiquette beforehand and had an amazing experience. Not being able to see without my glasses made me feel much less exposed (sound logic of course), and the massaging jets in the hot tub did wonders for my flight-broken back.

6. Clean streets

I have never seen streets this clean. Ever. After a week in Tokyo, I still haven’t seen a single piece of litter. This is a complete mystery to me, because there are also no bins anywhere - I’ve had to carry around my rubbish for entire days at a time. How is this possible?!

7. Public transport

Like the streets and public toilets, the public transport system is spotlessly clean. It was pretty confusing at first, with many different types of train and subway lines, each with separate stations and ticket systems. But the maps are great, you never have to wait more than 3 minutes for the next train and (compared to London) travelling is cheap. But it can also be terrifying. I experienced rush hour once and have never been so disoriented in my life. I also stupidly left my bag in a locker at Shinjuku station yesterday without realising that it’s the world’s busiest transport hub (Guinness World Records), with over 3.5 million commuters every day, and has well over 200 exits. Needless to say, I’m lucky that I’m not still looking for my bag a day later.

Rush hour at Takadanobaba station

8. Umbrellas

As soon as it starts drizzling, everyone in Tokyo pulls out a long umbrella with a hook handle. Literally everyone. And there are umbrella stands everywhere. I especially enjoy the fact that there are lockers especially for umbrellas.

Umbrella lockers outside the museum for contemporary art

9. 7 Elevens

There are convenience stores at every street corner, and the most popular one is 7 Eleven. They are great for buying cheap meals including sushi, salads, noodles, baked rice and hot dumplings. Also amazing are vending machines selling hot drinks in cans. This blew my mind when I first encountered it! Nothing like a hot can of coffee fresh out of the vending machine in the morning.

10. My Hostel

The hostel I’m staying in would have been number one on my list, but yesterday a snorer moved into the bunk below me and that is unforgivable. But otherwise, the hostel is the best I’ve ever been in. You can pull curtains around your bed for privacy, the staff are great and have loads of suggestions for what to do, and the lounge areas are really chic and comfortable. The other travellers (bar the snorers) are great too and making friends is easy.

Coming up: top things to do in Tokyo, and art in Tokyo