A Rotary Youth in Japan: On Japanese Graves

DEAD

Japan is very eerie in the sense that everything is left as is. No one really messes with anything. That building is rotting, better not touch it. That stone has crumbled, let’s only move the bits that hinder our daily lives and let the rest fall to bits. I can walk through my town and see both ancient history for the area and a bit of the future all at once.

Japan is a fine balance between both. It’s an odd mix but it works well for these people. Japanese people themselves are a mix between then, now, and the future.

Their language is a relic with no true history, no one know the true origin of spoken Japanese. Their written form of language has roots in Chinese, but other than that, it is unknown. Their actions are the exact same their ancestors did. They bowed, they sat on their knees in the Seiza position, their schools are run the exact same way they were in the past with only a few variations, their homes are styled traditionally with the commodities of modern day living installed into the already existing frame usually, and their physical features really have not changed much over the past thousand years.

Mixed in with these ancient traits, there are peeks into the future as well.

They have made incredible leaps and bounds in trading, manufacturing, and trading since opening their borders back to the world.

Here’s a little lesson in history before we move back into the topic;

From the years 1633-1853, Japan was in a Sakoku state. Sakoku means chained country. They may have begun trading with countries that sailed to them, mainly the Dutch, but they didn’t allow people to be able to leave japan until 1868 though.

They were not completely isolation, just very strict regulations on trading, who could and could not leave the country, and extremely strict rules on foreigners. The only place that was truly ‘allowed’ to trade in was Dejima, Nagasaki at the Dutch Factory. (I’ve personally seen this place, was pretty cool) Trade with China was also allowed in Nagasaki. Korea could trade in Tsushima Domain, which a part of modern day Nagasaki. The only other trading posts were further up north, in Hokkaido. Almost everywhere else it was barred and seen as treason to trade with foreigners.

This policy over trading was put in place by the Tokugawa Shogunate (that’s another story). They were afraid of Japan losing its ‘Japan-ness’.

Lesson END

There’s a lot more to the story, I’m only sharing the basics because there are books out there that could teach you more and better than what I can explain. But the point has been made, Japan was cut off, they had nearly three hundred years of nearly total isolation so they missed the big economy and technology booms of the world.

This just adds to the fact that they truly are people rooted in their own traditions and rules. They are not a melting pot like Europe and America. That is slowly changing, but they are still very much their own people.

The new is beginning to take root around the old, and the old crumbles yet still remains.

I went on a bike ride as I usually do when I don’t want to study and have little else to do. This time I went to an area of town I didn’t know quite well, figured I’d make an adventure out of it. I nearly missed it as I flew by. There were steps going up, that usually means something interesting here in Japan.

I came to a squealing stop, my bike not appreciating my reckless breakage. I turned around and parked beyond the three metal posts meant to keep cars from running into the stairs.

These stairs were old and worn, their edges rounded and breaking a part. And yet a hand rail had been put in rather recently from the look of the white concrete that stuck out like a sore thumb in the dark stone. I climbed up, not sure what would greet me.

I came to the first landing, one path led to what looked like an overgrown patch of farm land. The other path led to a very, very, old grave stone. So old it was green and blue with growths and nearly rounded all the way around. I kept going up, Japanese stairs are extremely steep and very narrow width wise.

A quiet came over the area. Japan has two noise settings. Extremely and unbearably loud, or so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. Sometimes there is a balance between the two, but it is rare and hard to find. It was quiet, a nearly dead quiet.

It’s eerie to hear the sounds of cars and life fade away as you come out of the various levels of chaos. This mini mountain was apparently above them all, or at least a strange bubble of peace between two of them.

I kept on climbing, getting a decent idea of what was to come thanks to the tombstone and field.

I was greeted with another landing, this I walked along the path. This one was stone, crumbled and fading, but still stone. The earth was reclaiming it as it does here in Japan. It’s a creeping process that can be avoided, but people just allow it to happen out what I only can call respect for the old.

The entire walkway was lined, in single file, with various sized headstones.

A mini lesson in Japan again;

You are not buried, ever. You are burned, turned into ashes, have your bones picked from the ashes in a whole process that it taboo to copy outside of the funeral procession, and your bones are placed in your ancestral grave-headstone-vault-thing. I haven’t seen this process and it’s not wildly popular to talk about over dinner, so I don’t know much beyond the basis.

A woman who marries a man is drafted into his family if she takes on his name and is placed under his family’s stone, as will her all her male, unmarried female, or married but didn’t take on the man’s name female, child.

Lesson END

These headstones are not very ornate in most cases. They usually are just a long, skinny, block of granite with the families name embossed into it and maybe some message. I can’t read kanji well enough yet to really say what was written on the ones I have personally seen. They are a timeless beauty that I appreciate. They are art.

Families wash these stone with water and brushes, they offer sake and rice to the ancestors, they visit the stones to consult with their ancestors in a time of need, and they teach their children the names of their past family members.

These stones are a big deal.

Until a family forgets where theirs is, or when the last member of a family dies. These stones are left to crumble peacefully. No one daring to touch them, least they piss of a slew of ghosts. It is beyond rude to touch another family’s stone, since it is an embodiment of their family.

These ‘dead’ stones are mixed in among the ones that you can tell were either recently replaced or are well taken care of.

It’s these ‘dead’ stones that are my favorite. They are old, they seem unloved, and they seem to emit a sense of calm. Like the stone itself has come to realize that the family is no longer coming back, that it is alone in this world, and that it will crumble and die. It’s a peace of accepting ones fate and not fighting it.

I could sit under a stone, a forgotten stone, and just be for a while. I did that and I enjoyed it wholly. There is just a Zen that can be found in these quiet places of reverence. I’m not personally very religious, but I enjoy the peace that comes with holy places.

The ones that are well taken care of, I appreciate their beauty and the work the family has put into keeping it all clean. They don’t have this peaceful feel though, these stones don’t know abandonment and so they are just a stone to me. Beautiful and expensive, but unfeeling and unanimated.

The tragic ones, I always seem to love them more. The moss growing thicker, the smell of light mold and a slight hit of rotting stone, the dirt around them piling up and beginning to eat away at the base, the overturned areas to place incense sticks, and the missing bottles of sake and tea cups; these all add a sense of solitude and peace.

There was barely any sound besides that of my shoes crunching the gravel and sand. It was a good time to just not think, to just appreciate the beauty and peace around me.

I then continued on my down the path lined with stones, still not having reached the top.

I stepped on something that didn’t crunch, but shattered in a sound I’m familiar with. The sound of breaking china. It sounded just like that time my sister threw one of mum’s fiesta ware plates. It was an eerie flashback to have in an eerie place.

I looked down to see that I had wondered into a small corner patch, thick with weeds and dead grass. A small piece of blue and white china of what could have only been the remains of a tea cup under my foot. This prompted me to look for whole cups or bottles, a little forgotten tragic from a patch of forsaken and forgotten land. With all my efforts I found two beautifully designed cups, elegant and certainly expensive, left there to rot and break with the rest of them. I also found an old sake bottle. It was brown, which is rare to find. They are all clear glass now. So I knew it was old.

I have a habit of ‘rescuing things’.

I kept my treasures in hand and went back to the main path, going back up the stairs. There was more to see, I was certain of that.

I reached the top layer of stones, and that was all I could see. Tombstones, row after row. All in various states of repair or disintegration. It was a sight to see. I wandered around these stones, peering at the ones still wet or a stick still burning. I watched those whose mold was blossoming and saw a few pieces actually fall from their bodies.

It was a sight to see. A quiet, peaceful, and sad sight. I found a basin to wash my cups and bottles in, I also found a huge marble in an unruly pile of grass in a corner I found.

The rows were not endless, but I spend the better part of two hours exploring and offering my thanks to having stopped and turned around.

I found another stone, all alone in a corner. There was no true path to it, the grass around it was gray and brown, the stone itself was broken in half, and it looked so sad. It was clearly ancient, even the kanji on it old and worn down, I almost couldn’t tell there was any kanji until I peeled back a section of moss, I don’t care if it went against tradition. I grabbed a bucket and brush and washed the poor thing, there was no way I could clean off the moss and grime.

I did my best, washing it for the first time in who knows how long. I couldn’t find a lighter so I couldn’t burn any incense. I found an abandoned can of ceremonial sake and placed it next to the shattered alter. I gave it maybe its first prayer in a long time, I don’t think I did it right though. I did the same thing I do for Kyudo. Bow three times, clap twice, and bow twice more. It may not have been right, but I put my heart into it so I hope that counts for something.

I felt bad leaving it behind. The poor, forgotten, stone.

I had to return to my home though, there was dinner to help make, and children to watch. I couldn’t spend the rest of the day meditating in front of it after all….