Miyazaki, the sun-blessed land, better serving tourists despite new difficulties

Dec. 26, 2013

Miyazaki, the sun-blessed land, better serving tourists despite new difficulties

Miyazaki, which occupies the southeastern part of Kyushu, one of the four main islands of Japan, used to be called “Hyuga” or “Himuka,” which literally means the land facing the sun. The sun comes up from the horizon and shines on the land, whose 400-kilometer roughly straight coastline faces the Pacific to the east.

The coasts have diversified features. Not only sand beaches but beaches with rocks of fantastic shape also can be found. Watchful visitors may find marches and inlets, some of them known as places of rest for migratory birds on their travel between Siberia and Southeast Asia.

Miyazaki was always high on the rankings of favored destinations for honeymooners until a few decades ago. Various nice foods are available and beautiful natural spots and historical sites welcome visitors in warm weather, but diversified tastes made it just “one of many” tourist spots. To be worse, Miyazaki Prefecture experienced a series of unfavorable incidents in the past few years. The spread of foot-and-mouth disease, an infectious disease, seriously damaged the prefecture’s cattle raising industry. This was followed by a bird flu epidemic. A mountainous tourist area in the southern part of the prefecture had to endure bad days following a volcanic eruption.

As the adversity has come to be stabilized, local people are pinning hopes on the attractiveness of new tourist spots. Built halfway up a steep hill facing the Pacific is Sun Messe Nichinan, a theme park which is known for precise replicas of giant “moai” stone statues. The facility, opened in 1996, attracted 2 million visitors in the first 13 years. The theme park is becoming even more popular for tourists from outside the prefecture.

The mysterious moai statues, which feature long faces and long ears, were built by ancient Polynesians on a solitary island in the distant sea and they became known to westerners in the 18th century. Then, more than 800 moai statues were found across the island, most of them buried under the ground. Polynesians called the island Rapa Nui, but it was known as Easter Island in the West.

The seven Ahu Akivi moai replicas, about 5.5 meters high and weighing 18 to 20 tons, stand in line at Moai Square in the theme park. An episode leading up to the replica construction is back to the 1990s, when a Japanese team helped rebuild 15 Ahu Tongariki moai statues on the island. In exchange for their three years of service, an association of Rapa Nui elders and islanders permitted Japan to build moai replicas for the first time and only once in the world.

The Nichinan coast and Moai Square face Easter Island, which belongs to Chile, right across the Pacific. The name of the stone statues is said to consist of “mo” which means “future” and “ai” which means “live,” together meaning “living in the future.” The moai statues will keep standing there with their eyes straight up to the sky, warmly welcoming visitors and encouraging local people while reminding them of the sun-blessed nice location.

Balloonists’ int'l fest grows to visitor-friendly event for people in Saga

Nov. 7, 2013

Balloonists’ int'l fest grows to visitor-friendly event for people in Saga

An annual balloonists’ international meet in Saga, southwestern Japan, amounts to a pleasure for many residents of the region in autumn as 800,000 to 900,000 people turn out to watch the event. Dating back to 1984, the international balloon festa is the biggest in Asia in terms of the number of competition participants. But it also includes various attractions, among them the "Balloon Fantasia" event which started in 1992. The 2013 Saga International Balloon Fiesta, officially called so, brought together 101 balloons from 13 countries for a five-day run toward a long weekend in early November.

The venue of the fest was a launch area established on a vast flood plain along Kase River flowing through rice fields in Saga. Participants included not only pilots with competition balloons but also those with “special shape balloons” for the Balloon Fantasia.

The special program began as a function for those who heartily support the festival, organizers said. It has grown to a popular event which entertains kids and others allowing them to have a close look at balloons and touch them on the launch site. This year’s Balloon Fantasia was joined by nine animal-shape and other special balloons. Some children had a chance of getting on the basket of balloons anchored to the ground.

Visitors also could enjoy the La Mongolfie Nocturne night show, with tethered balloons lit up by red and yellow flames from inside, in the last two days.

The special shape balloons for this year’s Balloon Fantasia included the Octopus 2, operated by a veteran female pilot and her volunteer staff. Their balloon weighed about 250 kilograms, including two gas cylinders and various instruments. “You can get closer over here. Just take a look at our gear,” the pilot said, while igniting the double burner in a show to watchers around the balloon. Their balloon was the most popular for kids among seven special shape balloons in a performance for the first day.

What organizers call the “Kid’s Day” is aimed at having children personally touch the balloon envelope and play inside of an anchored balloon to let them learn about balloons pleasantly. A balloon workshop was also organized for those who are interested in balloon competition. About 4,000 organizing committee staff and volunteers were busy keeping the event site clean and making it more accessible and comfortable for handicapped and elderly people.

The operator of the Octopus 2, a university staffer, has 29 years of experience as a balloon pilot. She usually operates in the Kansai region of western Japan, but she has participated in the Saga Fiesta 19 times as a Fantasia balloon pilot. “We have only a few places this big (for balloons) elsewhere. So, I love Saga very much,” she said.

Wild bird tells late arrival of autumn after long, hot summer in Japan

Oct. 30, 2013

Wild bird tells late arrival of autumn after long, hot summer in Japan

My wife and I spent one night with a seriously injured wild bird in late October. The bird, believed to be a spotted redshank, a migratory bird, was squatting right in the middle of a wet road in a chilly rain when he was found by my wife early in the morning. He was desperately flapping his wings, but he was unable to fly, according to my wife. He appeared to be almost dying, with his red legs numbed and his right eye damaged. She decided to take home the bird quickly, skipping a morning stroll with our dog. My wife feared the bird may be dead as traffic would soon become busy on the road.

She carefully brought him into a small plastic bag, which she happened to have with her, while using her umbrella. As soon as she was back home, she told this to the wife next door, who wasted no time to come up with an unused flowerpot and a bunch of straws for her. “A nest can be made with this stuff, you know,” she said.

My wife followed her advice and placed a makeshift nest she prepared at a corner of the garage. She brought a piece of fish meat and a few drops of fruit juice for the bird. She also told this story to a friend of her, who is well versed with wild birds. After seeing a photo taken by my wife with her mobile phone camera, he concluded the bird she rescued is a redshank wearing summer weathers, in view of its long, sharp bill. "You've done a good thing," he told my wife.

Spotted redshanks, a kind of sandpiper, spend summer in Siberia and fly southward from autumn to winter to Southeast Asia. Some of them stop over in Japan en route to the south, if not frequently.

Keen, moving emotions come home even to persons like me, who have renounced the world as priests. The autumnal evening is coming; a flock of sandpipers is flying away from a brook.

(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem made by a samurai-turned priest, self-named Saigyo, who left many impressive poems in waka anthologies compiled late in the 12th century.

My wife went to see the bird from time to time after preparing the nest for him. Initially, he little moved with the food untouched, but later, she saw him slightly moving his head.

Japan was enveloped by heat waves almost throughout this summer. A few typhoons brought rainfalls to some parts of the Japanese Archipelago, but hot weather continued into September and early October. What Japanese weathermen call the “tropical night” with the lowest temperature in a day not falling below 25 degrees centigrade (77 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale) was recorded at not a few places across Japan even in September. But autumn has finally come as the seasonal clock turns ahead by a notch.

Migratory birds have come to signal the end of the long summer, telling Japanese they must be prepared for cooler weather in the months to come. As autumn is seen to be shorter than usual this year, weather is expected to be colder toward the year’s end.

The injured redshank was seen to recoup his strength after staying a few days with us, but my wife saw the nest vacant the following morning. She missed the bird, but she prayed he would be alive somewhere. She had a chat with the wife next door several days later and she was told, “My husband says he saw a rare wild bird climbing up a tree in our garden a few days ago.” The bird must be “what you took care of,” she said. My wife felt quite relieved to hear this.

Late blooming sunflowers lure people to farmers’ market in southwestern Japan town

Sept. 28, 2013

Late blooming sunflowers lure people to farmers’ market in southwestern Japan town

The sunflowers planted in a fallow rice field in Haki Town, southwestern Japan, bloom　late August to September. This is a little later than the ordinary blooming season, but the timing is rather convenient for local people, because the flowers attract customers to a farmers’ market there with many kinds of fruits to be harvested around the time of the year.

A local farmers’ group sows the field, just in front of the Farmers Station Basaro building, with sunflower seeds in July every year. The number of flowers is said to be 160,000, but because some flowers failed to bloom this year, the number is actually around 140,000, said a clerk at the information desk.

The sunflowers are as big as the size of the human face, sometimes, bigger than that, but this year, the size is smaller than usual due to heavy rain in August, the clerk said. The sunflowers endured heat waves this summer, but they were vulnerable to wetness, she said. Visitors can not just enjoy the flowers, but they can also cut whatever flowers they like by themselves while strolling in the field. They can buy the cut flowers for 50 yen apiece. The sunflowers are also for sale at the farmers’ market.

Haki used to be a rich rice growing region, but farmers had to find new crops amid the government’s policy of cutting back on the rice acreage from the 1970s to the 80s, she said. Their idea was to plant such fruits as persimmons, grapes and pears. To this end, they brought slanting land under cultivation. Their effort bore fruit, but in some years later, they had to think about what to do with excess crops. Sometimes, they had to throw away surplus products on the field rather than shipping them to the market. A solution to this was a plan to build a farmers’ market station to provide their products directly to consumers. Their income came to stabilize only in recent years, she said.

The sunflower, Himawari in the Japanese, is the symbol flower of Haki Town, which merged with two neighboring communities in 2006 to become a single administrative region in Fukuoka Prefecture.

The planting for the Sunflower Fair in mid to late September started in 1997, one year later than the opening of the Basaro market. The planting group had a headache in growing sunflowers every year. Sunflowers are often accompanied with replant failure, or injuries by continuous cultivation. To solve this problem, the group also grows rape blossoms in the field for soil improvement.

It is quite unusual that sunflowers should continuously bloom for as long as over 10 years, according to the clerk at the information. The edible rape blossoms grown in the field are sold at the market early spring. “Please come again and see the yellow rape blossoms cover the field in spring,” she said smilingly.

Old Kobe elementary school building reborn as tourist spot to demonstrate local brands

Aug. 29, 2013

Old Kobe elementary school building reborn as tourist spot to demonstrate local brands

Kitano Elementary School of Kobe was closed in 1996 following a decline in the number of pupils, but two years later, it restarted its life as a new, experience-type tourist spot. The elementary school, set up in a fashionable uptown area in Kobe in 1908, endured the devastating earthquake of January 1995, which claimed about 6,400 lives and flattened many buildings in the internationally known port city and neighboring regions. Further back, the modern three-story building survived the repeated U.S. air raids in 1945 toward the end of the Pacific War.

The closed school building was remodeled to help revive tourist demand following the great earthquake and activate local industry, while maintaining its original look and design, including corridors, an auditorium and other facilities inside, as much as possible.

Currently called Kitano Meister Garden, the structure houses about 20 tenants; the first floor is occupied by food and confectionary shops, while the second floor is used by handcraft shops and ateliers. The tenants, which use what used to be classrooms on both sides of the corridor, are partially reshuffled from time to time.

The new tourist spot not only sells original Kobe brand products but also provides visitors with an opportunity to take a firsthand look at how these products are made. The auditorium on the third floor is used as a hall for various events and workshops. At craft shops on the second floor, visitors can have a chance to make their own products, such as accessories, soaps and Japanese-style candles.

As about 19 million tourists visit Kobe every year, Kitano Meister Garden attracts about one million tourists, mainly females and package tour visitors, having surpassed 10 million in terms of the cumulative number of visitors in 2010. The former playground, to the west of the school building, is remodeled as a parking lot and it is occupied by many sightseeing buses almost all the time.

The former school building faces the northern part of what local people call Tor Road running north and south between the Kitano area and the portside former foreign settlement of Kobe, one of a few ports opened to foreign countries by the Kokugawa shogunate government in the middle of the 19th century. The Kitano area, which lies on the foot of the Rokko Mountains, accommodates over 30 time-honored foreigners’ residents, some of them designated as public cultural assets. Kitano Meister Garden is expected to make the area even more attractive to visitors, demonstrating Kobe’s further attempt to overcome the effects of the killer earthquake while preserving its exotic atmosphere as an international city.

Heart-calming lotus flowers loved by Japanese over centuries as symbol of purity

July 30, 2013

Heart-calming lotus flowers loved by Japanese over centuries as symbol of purity

Lotus flowers have continued to calm Japanese people’s heart over centuries, sometimes seen as a sacred Buddhist symbol or as a symbol of purity.

The bee farm, located in Asakura, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, attracts customers not only with its honey products but also thousands of lotus flowers planted in a 3,600-square-meter field in the backyard.

Lotuses, planted in damp grounds or ponds, have horizontally extending subterranean stems. The plant comes from the mud but beautifully flowers every summer, making people view the lotus flowers as a symbol of purity. Lotuses not just charm people with its pink or white flowers, but their stems are also edible and their fruits can be candied. As lotus flowers are frequently referred to in Buddhist scriptures, Buddha statues sit on the pedestal made in the shape of lotus flowers.

The lotus field, which lies behind the 104-year-old Fujii Bee Farm, is manured with compost made of wastes from its honey-producing line. The pink flowers bloom from late June to August, but the abnormally hot weather this summer has made them blossom a little earlier.

Winds are blowing around me with a sweet fragrance given off by blooming lotus flowers; the water in my heart is being purified before the pond out there.

(A personal translation)

This is a poem made by Teika Fujiwara, a noted waka poet who was active in the Imperial court from the late 12th century.

The lotus flowers in the backyard of the bee farm are exposed to heat waves almost every day this summer, but the flowers and leaves stand upright on their feet, gently swaying on summer breezes.

Love-related shrine in southwestern Japan tipped as new local tourist campaign spot

June 28, 2013

Love-related shrine in southwestern Japan tipped as new local tourist campaign spot

Koinoki Shrine was just one of subordinates of the 800-year-old Mizuta Tenmangu Shrine in Chikugo City, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but it is much better known than ever among young women longing for the appearance of good partners.

The shrine is located at a corner behind the main shrine with colored, heart-shaped stones buried around the hall of worship. The small shrine has been touted as the god of marriage and happiness over centuries, but it is charged with a different heavy task of helping boost the largely rural city with its power of love. Koinoki, which literally means the “tree of love,“ is dedicated to Koinomikoto, a fictitous figure which embodies an exiled ancient court official’s passion for his beloved ones left behind. Since there is no shrine of this kind across Japan, local people came to believe that Koinoki Shrine can be a main feature of their campaign of reactivating the city’s tourist business as well as the city as a whole. As a result, they launched the “Koi-Guru” (love gourmet) campaign in January this year while declaring the city as a “town of love.”

The city has prepared what it calls the Koi-Guru Pass”, a booklet introducing sweets, drinks and other gourmet products newly developed by local restaurants and food makers. Worshippers pay homage to the main shrine, where Sugawara Michizane, the exiled scholar-turned court official in the Heian peiod, is enshrined, and then go to the pink-colored shrine through an approach lined by display screens reading “Koi-Guru Pass Launched” and “Chikugo, the City of Love.” (A related story can be found in the post published on Jan. 28, 2013.)
Worshippers can draw “koi mikuji” sacred lots at the shrine and offer “ema” votive picture tablets with their wishes for love written. The tablets are hung in front of the hall of worship for a while so that the god can appreciate their wishes. The start of the campaign is expected to make the shrine's business busier, but local people hope that young people will visit the city more frequently and find their happiness at the shrine so that the city may also become happier and livelier.

Kabuki actors gather for boat parade to demonstrate start of performance in Fukuoka

May 31, 2013

Kabuki actors gather for boat parade to demonstrate start of performance in Fukuoka

A busy riverside area in the heart of Fukuoka City, southwestern Japan, became what may be termed a mobile, open-air theater this week. The Hakata Riverine district was occupied by more than 30,000 people hoping to take a glimpse of 10 Kabuki players who gathered for a spectacular boat ride before the start of their performance at the Hakataza theater.

Accompanied by theater executives and local celebrities, the Kabuki players boarded 10 different boats and went down on a canal slowly to a wharf near the theater. The 800-meter elegant boat parade was watched by spectators flocking on bridges and promenades on both banks of the canal.

The “Funanorikomi” boat procession began in the Edo era as an event to herald the start of Kabuki performances in Kyoto, the then capital of Japan, by actors who arrived from Edo, the old name of Tokyo. Similar water parades later began to be held in Edo and other places with big Kabuki theaters. But the Funanorikomi parade now can be seen only in Osaka and Fukuoka. The parade in Fukuoka started in 1999 on the occasion of the opening of the Hakataza theater. The parade has come to stay as an event which tells people in Fukuoka the arrival of summer, as it takes place at the end of May every year. Kabuki world people and theater executives pinned even greater hopes on this year’s parade because it was aimed at not just demonstrating the forthcoming Kabuki performance at Hakataza in June but also introducing two actors on their succession to big stage names to fans in Fukuoka.

The new star actors, Ichikawa Ennosuke and Ichikawa Chusha, led the procession while waving their hands to fans from their boats. Some fans shouted cheers and their company name, Omodakaya, toward the procession. Kabuki plays and dances, backed by bands of musicians, date back to the early 17th century. Initially, the plays were performed by “yujo” prostitudes, but this style was banned later. Instead, performances only with actors flourished. The Kabuki performances then have been inherited almost hereditarily over the centuries.

At the front of the procession was a boat with two paper lanterns held high up on bamboo poles, followed by boats with the 10 actors on board and tall flags wearing their respective names put up. The parade was even more exciting because many spectators scattered confetti distributed by organizers on Ennosuke, Chusha and their comrade actors. Confetti were also seen falling on spectators themselves and press photographers who took their positions in the press area trying hard not to miss their chance.

A few big-caliber Kabuki actors died of illness around the turn of the year. This spread fears among Kabuki world people and fans about the future of the centuries-old performance. But new actors are coming to the fore to succeed their art, among them Ennosuke and Chusha. The new-generation Kabuki actors are expected to help create richness in today’s stressful life in Japan while adapting the traditional art better to the current situation.

Slow boat ride attracts tourists to Yanagawa as “Town of Water”

April 30, 2013

Slow boat ride attracts tourists to Yanagawa as “Town of Water”

Time passes slowly in Yanagawa as it entertains tourists with a relaxing boat ride through a water district, called “Suigo,” in a historic, poetic landscape. Suigo is actually a network of small waterways and canals extending in every direction around the Yanagawa Castle ruins and the “Ohana” villa built by the Tachibana Clan family which ruled the region from the early Edo era  in the 17th century.

As “donko-bune” boats operate almost throughout the year, tourists can enjoy their time while watching water flowers and weeping willows down the stream from spring to summer. In the winter time, boats with “kotatsu” low, covered tables which have a heat source underneath are provided. Boats pass under 13 bridges before reaching the end of the ride in the Okinohata district, a fishermen’s town which faces the fertile Ariake inland sea.
Okinohata is known as the birthplace of Hakushu Kitahara (1885-1942), one of the most distinguished poets in the 20th century. He produced not only a lot of nostalgic poems but also lyrics for children’s songs. Ariake sea, lying west of Yanagawa, in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, has 6 meters of difference between the tide marks, the biggest in Japan. This creates vast tidelands as a fine living environment for various fish and small marine creatures.

With the sun setting, the tide is rising.
On the evening tideland, a crab mutters,
having finished his long day of work.
(A personal translation)

This is a short poem written by Hakushu and included in a collection of poems and photos titled “Composition of Water,” published in 1943.
In the course of the 70-minute boat ride, which is available from 9 in the morning to sunset, boatmen sometimes sing local folk songs with a slow rhythm while steering their boats with bamboo poles. Tourists can also see time-honored structures and monuments along the waterways, among them the narrow stone water gate at the entrance to the former Yanagawa Castle. They may also see a traditional “yotsude-ami” fishing net with four bamboo rods combined and buy foods, drinks and others at a waterside market.
The holiday-studded “Golden Week” from late April is the most profitable season for nearly 100 boatmen, who belong to five different boat operators. After carrying tourists to the terminal in Okinohata, a busy town with Japanese-style restaurants and souvenir shops, they return with vacant boats to pick up tourists again. “This is the third job for me today. I may be asked to do it once again,” a veteran boatman with a sweet voice, who introduced himself as “Mr. Tsutsumi,“ said happily on a fine weekend day.
Hakushu, whose real name is Ryukichi Kitahara, admired his birthplace in his works, admitting “Yanagawa is the mother of my poems and lyrics.” Tourist spots in Yanagawa, which has a population of 70,000, are sparsely located but linked with riverside promenades and alleys.This, coupled with lack of smokestack factories, is a reason for its unique atmosphere. Hakushu's love for the “Town of Water” is shared by today’s Yanagawa people, who should further try to preserve its environment and landscape over the years.