(Kanazawa, Japan)...The Continued Artistry of Post-Tsunami Japan: It is now a little more than two years since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan, but bathing in Houshi natural spa in its namesake hotel, which has welcomed guests since 719, I could be excused for thinking nothing was amiss. In the village of Awazu, sleeping on tatami mats in Zen peace, dressed in a yukata robe and eating sushi, life was good, a
nd my foremost concern was that it’d be very nice if the Japanese government weakened a little the yen, its currency.
Travelers often get scared by world news. When there are so many places to choose to travel to, this is understandable, but when our biggest concern might be security, Japan offers the perfect destination. Expense and fears of radiation (current advice is to stay at least 50 miles from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station, even though radiation levels are lowering to normal levels) ate to one side, Japan’s warm welcome, punctuality, organization and rich culture are on the other.
And it is its culture that is revamping Japan’s image in Westerners’ eyes. A short plane hop from Tokyo’s Haneda airport (as eclectic and wonderful as Narita, Tokyo’s international airport, is stark and dull) lies the Hokuriku region and the cities of Toyama, Fukui and Kanazawa. These western parts of Japan are where its art truly flourishes.
Kanazawa was the base for samurais (a note in one samurai’s house thanks a friend for bringing him the head of his enemy) but now is the country’s center for golf leaf, fitting considering that Kanazawa means “marsh of gold” in Japanese. I watched the delicate process of taking golf leaf from sheets and literally (and gently) blowing it onto varied surfaces at this small city’s Hakuza showroom-store, after seeing it lovingly applied to ceremonial, very tall, incredibly ornate carriages at the Ecchu Yatsuo Hikiyama Museum; amazingly, these priceless exhibits are slowly pulled around a suburb of Toyama every May. In Toyama, along a back street, the houses of which seem to be one after the other the repositories of painstakingly created crafts, Kamejiro Masuda showed us the process of producing world-class sake at the small Masuizumi brewery, while just down the road, Mitsuoko Motors makes hand-crafted sports and luxury cars, with a chief designer apologizing to me for being so young, in a country where old age is revered. Hundreds of other beautiful and interesting cars were displayed (in some kind of order, so its pamphlet believed) in the Motor Car Museum (Japan’s largest) in Komatsu and which also featured in the gents’ toilet, 15 or so differently shaped urinals (to be used) from around the world. Nearby, the Echizen bamboo gallery makes gallery-worthy sculpture and other crafts from the world’s tallest grass, bamboo.
Other sites spoke of peace, tranquillity, skill and patience. The Ohi Chozaemon Ware studio and museum, where delicate pottery (see photo) has been made for royalty and notables in Kanazawa (really, the capital of Japanese art) since 1666, makes a perfect physical counterpart to the cerebral, beautiful, grand Eiheiji monastery in Fukui where monks have quietly gone about their business since 1244.
Back then to sake, if you’ll allow me, for a last toast to Japanese art and the country’s post-tsunami comeback. Masuizumi means “fountain of happiness,” and what really came across on my visit was the never-compromising attention to artistic detail over the slow span of many centuries, in which no doubt numerous earthquakes and tsunamis have come and gone, none of which severely altered thousands of craftspersons’ state of sublime consciousness to their finished products.
My last stop was to the World Heritage site of Gokayama, a “lost” mountain village of thatched farmers’ cottages. The snow was 10-foot deep in February, but the warmth of this country shone through in a snug cottage by a central fire pit in which a Japanese tea ceremony was being prepared.
Japan is coming back, and in a country where Bullet Train cart-vendors turn around and bow at passengers when they reach the carriage’s electronic doors, the sooner travellers realize that this is a country to be marvelled at the better.
(Brooklyn native Evelyn Teploff-Mugui, who I met in Southside Coffee, Brooklyn,produces a newsletter and markets art for Kanazawa.)