| Submitted by: Mark Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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I think they may have been college students. Particularly notable was one British woman about 6'6' who seemed to know a fair number of the people there and spoke in a loud voice.
The movie was THE GHOST OF APRIL, A 1988 Japanese film. (Review at the end of today's log.)
After the film we walked back to the Ryokan, stopping at two department stores on the way to check out the sushi selection in their basement food departments. We got ourselves a good sushi dinner. We also stopped at a bakery and picked up desert (though we didn't actually eat it with dinner).
On the way back we noted a poster with a big picture of Anne Frank. We don't know if they are showing the recent film ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED or if they are doing a version of the play, but the cost is 2000 yen and it is a two-night event.
In the room we had a sushi dinner and wrote. At 8 PM we tried to watch the X-Files, but it was dubbed into Japanese. They do not seem to have any English language programming on TV or radio.
SHI-GATSU KAIDAN (THE GHOST OF APRIL)
CAPSULE: This 1988 Japanese film seems to be an IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE aimed at teenagers. A rather too average high school girl hovers between life and death, wanting to die, but discovers the value of life and of being herself. The film is a little light in approach, but is quite watchable. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)
The ghost story is a staple of Japanese cinema. Such films as KWAIDAN and THE GHOST OF YOTSUYA are popular examples. But almost all of the ghost stories we see coming out of Japan are first period pieces and ghost stories only second. Whether there are many contemporary ghost stories made in Japan that we do not see in the United States I do not know. THE GHOST OF APRIL is a film I saw at the Japan Foundation Kyoto Office and it is radically different from the Japanese ghost stories that have come to my country. Many of these are morality tales of wronged people coming back for revenge. This 1988 film is about a contemporary teenager and seems to be aimed at teens in Japan. The plot is at once reminiscent of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
As the film opens Hatsuko (played by Nakajima Tomoko) seems to be in a mysterious state of half life and half death. She walks barefoot through misty landscapes and floats in clouds. She does not know how she has gotten in this state until a guardian comes along to explain to her. Gennojo (Yanagiba Toshiro) tells her he is like her. He is dead but is not yet ready to pass on to the next world where all memories of the past life are erased. Gennojo has been in this state since early this century when he was killed by a balloon of his own devising. Hatsuko is shown her last day when she rebuffed the school geek Natsuyama (Tsunoda Eisuke) who claims to be able to see ghosts. She also was spoken to by her heartthrob Tsudanuma. Then on her way home she followed the whimper of a puppy into an abandoned factory where she was killed by a falling girder. But there is a complication. She is in this half state because she accepted death even as the girder was falling. The girder missed her and she was hit by only a bento lunchbox. That would not have been fatal, but for her acceptance of death. This means Hatsuko has the choice of life and death. But she prefers death with Gennojo to her unhappy life. Gennojo wants her to review her life.
This is a film of uneven production quality. Konaka Kazuya who directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Seki Kenji has some nice images, but he let some sloppiness sneak into the production. In one scene the puppy who fits into the plot seems to be staring at the camera rather than at anything in the scene. The plot loses some credibility when one of the characters invents a ghost detector. The viewer suspends some disbelief just to accept that ghosts exist. Asking the acceptance of a second far-fetched premise is a mistake. The last few minutes of the film also seem to weaken the story with familiar cliche. On the other hand there is a very effective scene involving the souls of dead birds and the climax is nicely done.
It is not easy to judge acting in a language you do not understand. Mis-delivered lines may go completely unnoticed. Still the actors do a reasonable job. Yanagiba is most notable as the otherworldly balloonist. This is not a film about or engendering deep emotions, but it is a reasonable film for a young audience.
THE GHOST OF APRIL (April is the month, not a character) is a different sort of Japanese ghost story aimed at teens but watchable for adults. I give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
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10/24/96 Kyoto Temple Walking Tour
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We were both up, at least momentarily, at 4:30. But once this place quiets down we can almost get the room dark. Not that it really matters to me. In India someone we met recommended traveling with a sleeping mask and I find it a good idea. We have a light right outside our room and there is a window in the door. We have taken to draping a towel over the door top to get rid of the window.
The best of the FM stations, the one that plays some classical, was playing Gregorian chants.
We ate our cakes from the bakery the night before. My chocolate cake had only a little chocolate flavor, But it did have a chocolate cream in the center. What Evelyn thought was a green tea pastry filled with red bean paste was actually filled with non-descript purple fruit jelly.
We are toward the end of the trip and are taking a laid-back view of getting up and running around Kyoto.
It is 8:24 and we are leaving the Ryokan. There is a junior high just around the corner and we have to fight the tide of kids coming in the other direction. Boy, do the Japanese have a lot of children!
A woman lets her dog poop on the sidewalk, then wraps a plastic bag around her hand and picks it up. Cities and dogs don't really mix. There are a lot of tour busses taking school children on field trips.
Our walk takes us through what may be the largest and densest graveyard I remember ever seeing. From the map I think it is the Nishi-Otani Cemetery. At first it does not look all that big, but as you walk through it you keep seeing fields of densely placed plots. Inside there are concessions for materials to decorate the graves. All this was just a few blocks from out Ryokan.
As we approach the first temple of the day, there are mobs of children on field trips and the inevitable group photos. Class leaders carry numbered flags. There are signs up complaining about a proposed high-rise building that would destroy this temple's hilltop view of the city. A cartoon shows a high-rise next to the sphinx, the acropolis, and the pagoda. I cannot translate, but have an idea what it says.
The Kiyomizu-dera Temple was begun early in the Heian period in 798 AD when a monk enshrined an image of Kannon here. He picked a place near a scenic waterfall in the hopes of getting better attendance. Well, it couldn't hurt. The waterfall these days has been channeled into three little trickles with people lining up to drink the water, collecting it in bamboo dippers.
This is a large temple complex of buildings crowned with tile or thatched roofs. The centerpiece is the pagoda. You cannot enter the pagoda, however. It is here just as you enter. Further on there are some iron items that visitors try to lift. The meaning of this action is shrouded in a foreign language--probably Japanese. There are a pair of iron sandals and what looks like two iron pikes. I tell Evelyn that whoever lifts the iron pike will be the rightful ruler of Britain. Just try to convince the British.
This is a big pavilion with a lot of halls. We pass a rack of prayer plaques. Most are in Japanese, but I find one in English. Someone has written the prayer 'I hope God will give me all I wished.' What a sentiment! What a touching thought!
There is another pagoda off in the woods and we go looking for it. We find it too. It is not in very good repair. But then getting there is the real fun. This is a nice natural wooded setting for the temple. There is a lot of hill climbing and stair climbing we will feel at the end of the day.
Toward the end of the visit we come on the Jishu shrine which has a sort of carnival atmosphere--they have fortune telling stones to help you with your love life. They have care removers. You write about something that worries you on special paper and drop the paper into a tub of water. This is the water soluble paper that actually was developed for the CIA within the last 20 years. Just what it has to do with this 1200-year-old temple, I am sure I don't know. There is a special wishing stone. There are love stones that if you can walk from one to another with your eyes closed supposedly you will be lucky in love, and there are good luck charms for sale. Japanese Buddhism is indeed an odd religion. I wonder how much of this fortune-telling is really taken seriously by the Buddhists. Do the monks really believe that your fortune can be shaken from a box of sticks?
Afterwards we walked down Kiyomizu-dera, a row of souvenir shops. We probably have to start thinking of souvenirs to bring people. We hardly even bring souvenirs for ourselves. So far we have spent 500 yen on a prayer plaque for ourselves. We neither want to pack much nor spend a lot. And things are pretty expensive here. Even a nice item looks fairly plain and simple unless you really spend a fortune. Things look like they cost a lot less than they actually do.
Kodai Temple was established in 1605 by a noblewoman, Kita no Mandokoro in memory of her late husband. She was Mrs. Toytomi Hideyoshi. The construction was financed by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Like nearly every other historical site in Japan, it has been ravaged by fires. Only recently has it been opened to the public. There are many things to see including a bridge hat supposedly looks like a dragon's back. One of the halls has a ceiling taken from Hideyoshi's own boat. The tour takes the visitor through a bamboo grove, the first I have seen. The souvenir store sells books about an apparent public television series about Hideyoshi.
This really is one area where I get the experience like I had in Thailand that you go down the streets and there are these fascinating temples all around you. They are different from Thailand, but the experience is similar. (And I think I have a slight preference for the style of the temples in Thailand.) I guess that makes it easy to create walking tours.
From there we walked through Maruyama Park. Itself of little historical interest I was a nice place to walk. There were vendors selling hot dogs on sticks. I told myself I would not get any American food, but they certainly know the art of making a hot-dog look tempting. Instead we passed by a vendor selling something I did not recognize for 400 yen. It looked Japanese and I have not been served anything I have not liked in Japan so I figured go for it. We got ten balls each about an inch in diameter, pasted with a dark brown sauce that looked like Chinese hoisin. Then they were sprinkled with some herb. I can only guess what the balls were but I think they were rice pounded to the consistency of bread dough and laced with tidbits of shrimp and octopus. Evelyn did not care for it and ate only two of the balls. The first one was hotter than she expected and she had a hard time with it. I found it great... big surprise! It reminded me of Low Bock Go, Chinese turnip cake you get off the fry cart in dim sum restaurants.
The park is swarming with kids. Probably on lunch break from a field trip. Kids love sushi here I guess. Also there are a lot of little bento boxes.
As we continued walking we saw at a distance a huge orange Torii gate. |
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