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| Ouchi-juku |
The first place I visited was Ouchi-juku (大内宿), a historical post town in the town of Shimogo. (I actually passed by this area during TwT 3.) This town was a popular location for traders and travelling royalty during the Edo Period. The huts along the main street had straw roofs, just as the houses in the past did. There were vendors in each one, selling various tourist fare, and many of them also served as soba shops. (I think I counted at least ten of them on that street.) In addition to picking up some early presents for family back home, I even managed to hold a conversation with one of the Japanese vendors, who was surprised to learn that I was a student at the local university.
The streets were lined by two small streams, and the townspeople were putting them to good use. Occasionally, a shopkeeper would come out and, using a bucket with a long handle, splash some water along the dirt road. (I assume that this is to keep the ground "cool.") In addition, vendors also used the flowing water as coolers for various bottled beverages. And as it turned out, some of the vendors even lived in these houses, as I could tell by some of the furnishings in the back of these house. That's a definitely interesting way to live.
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| The cola was from the stream. The cider was not. I had both. |
I walked along the main road first, and then stopped by some of the shrines on the mountain cliff. Along the way, a Japanese couple offered, in English, to take my picture for me. I obliged. I also visited a small shrine west of the main street, separated from all the action. The whole area felt very calm, even as the number of tourists increased throughout the day.
As I was nearing the end, I felt nature calling, and I needed to pick up now. I headed back up towards the public bathroom, which was behind a hotel-turned-museum that I had missed. I decided to pay the admission fee and go inside. This hotel was apparently for royalty passing through the area; they even had their own entrances. The building was a replica, but they had a video on loop showing the construction process (in Japanese, of course) and how the construction was done mainly by volunteer work. There were, however, actual period pieces throughout the entire hotel, and some older electronics from the early 20th century as well. I'm actually glad that I had to turn around!
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| Honjin, once a hotel, now a museum |
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| All original pieces from the Edo Period |
After Ouchi-juku, I decided to head up to Iimoriyama, more specifically to the site where the Byakkotai (白虎隊) committed suicide. Before I go on, I should give a brief historical run down, as my history classes back in school didn't go deep into the post-sakoku history of Japan. So, let's get to it:
- "Sakoku" (鎖国) refers to the isolationist policy that Japan enforced throughout the 17th, 18th, and part of the 19th centuries. Trade and entry in and out of the country was very restricted if not outright prohibited, and these rules could be cruel even for the Japanese. For example, if you were a seaman who ended up getting shipwrecked or kidnapped on the open waters, you could not come home. If you did, you were put to death.
- In 1853, Commodore Perry, on behalf of the US, sailed to Japan and landed in what is now Tokyo with the demand that Japan open its doors to diplomacy and trading with the US. Perry brought along some of his ships, complete with 19th-century armament, and this was an intimidating factor. It's kind of like confronting someone while you're open-carrying and they aren't. You can say no, but if things get really testy, the other person has very little chance of coming out on top. A year after his initial entry, both countries signed a diplomatic agreement.
- This agreement, and others made in the immediate future, did not sit well with everyone. Many Japanese people saw this as infringing on Japanese sovereignty, which lead to hostility and racism against foreigners coming to Japan. This was further stimulated by a policy inspired by but not acted upon by the imperial court called "sonnou joui" (尊皇攘夷). The British were especially targets of this policy, but even though this was around the start of the period when the British Empire began to shrink, they still had plenty of strength to fight back. A few shelling incidents by the British largely shifted the focus away from the presence of Westerners to the presence of the Tokugawa shogunate.
- Said shogunate was led at the time by Yoshinobu Tokugawa (徳川 慶喜), who took over the job from his predecessor Iemochi three years after the start of explicitly anti-foreigner activities. The shogunate, responsible for keeping the peace, was not doing a good job on either front, and this called their existence into question. Yoshinobu tried resigning his post as the shogun, but internal forces hostile to the shogunate basically manipulated the imperial government in 1868 into trying to abolish the shogunate altogether. Yoshinobu did not like this, and the Boshin War started. (For the record, the Aizu clan supported the shogunate.)
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| The entrance to Iimoriyama was lined with various vendors. |
There's plenty of information that I left out, but that should get you started on how this all came to happen. On with the post!
In the fall of 1868, the Battle of Aizu took place. There was a reserve unit of 16 and 17-year olds called the Byakkotai. 20 of these samurai were cut off from the rest of their forces after the Battle of Tonoguchihara, and Iimoriyama was where they retreated to. While taking refuge on the mountainside, they saw that the castle, Tsuruga-jou (鶴ヶ城), had caught fire. They immediately assumed the worst: that the city had fallen and their leaders were dead. As part of the code of being a samurai, it was customary to not get caught, even if you had to die in order to prevent doing so. Therefore, the samurai engaged in seppuku (切腹) (warning: do not click on that link if you're squeamish) as their castle burned in the distance.
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| What a view! |
One small problem with this story, though: the castle wasn't actually burning. The city was on fire, sure, but the castle was fine. It was just that it looked like the castle was burning from the viewpoint on the mountain where those samurai were looking.
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| Gravestones of the Byakkotai |
You're probably wondering how we know that this was what the samurai were thinking. That's because one of them actually survived. He was rescued by a passing peasant, and he recalled the situation to her. However, the other 19 samurai were all dead at this point. The attraction that I was heading to was their gravesite, with all of their gravestones lined up in a single row.
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| Apparently this monument was made from a pillar in Pompei. |
Instead of taking the rather steep staircase to the top of the cliff, I decided to splurge and pay for a ticket on the moving ramp up the cliff, which was just as steep. I walked around and saw the gravestones, as well as two monuments presented by the Italian and German governments. Those monuments would be touching, if it of course weren't for the fact that they were donated in the 1930s, which was during the "golden days" of fascism. (The three countries were the Axis powers after all.)
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| Sazaedo |
Next to this memorial was a structure called Sazaedo (さざえ堂), a temple built entirely of wood in 1796. It's one of the oldest structures in Japan based entirely on wood. You enter it, go up a spiral ramp, then reach the top and come back down on another spiral ramp (seriously, the layout of that place confused me) before exiting through the rear. It cost 400 yen (yikes!) to go inside.
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| At the top, where the ramps reverse directions. Note the decals; they were everywhere! |
After stopping at the shrine next door and descending the hill, I decided to go into the Byakkotai museum. At this point, I remembered that when I first came to the university, I was given a card that could serve as free admission to any museum in the prefecture. I used it at the ticket gate and got in for free. (I'm not good at thinking these things through.) Unfortunately, there was a sign right in the entryway that forbade pictures, but the general gist was that everything in there was about the Byakkotai, including a cheap 80s anime about the suicide running upstairs on loop. And as it had turned out, the story of the Byakkotai has been covered in popular media. A lot.
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| Memorial statue for the Byakkotai |
I finished my lunch at KFC at around 1400 hrs, which was over three hours before the power was expected to be turned back on. However, I didn't want to go to any more exhibits under the impression that I'd need another day to kill. I decided to go back to the beach area on Lake Inawashiro that I went to earlier this summer to kill some time. The trip there and back took plenty of time. And as it turns out, next to the beach I went to was another beach where you can actually drive onto the sand. Maybe next summer I can hold some sort of beach party on a beach like that. I wonder if I can make the 4th of July a thing here...
This past week I've been working on a lab project for a paper with a PhD student who is graduating this month but will be sticking around at the university for another year or so. That's been keeping me busy during the day as I wait for my summer vacation to end. (You know you're an adult when you want summer vacation to actually end soon.) But then again, I'm sure that the month will be over before I know it.
-wp
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