17 August Samurai, Zen, Kamikaze, a
garden, fireworks at sea, and a couple of high-octane drinks
We
took breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The scrambled eggs
were finished, but we helped ourselves to various other cooked
items, toast and tea/coffee. Yasuko had to return to Tokyo
straight away as she had a teaching appointment later that day,
so we bade her farewell as Yasuko’s mother picked us up from
the hotel and whisked us out for the day.
She
drove us out to the village of Chiran.
This has a small district of
houses and gardens designed for samurai. The 250-year old houses
are lived in still by descendants of the samurai. We were
able to enter and admire the small Zen “borrowed
landscape” gardens.
The concept here is to incorporate visible landscape features
– in this case, the undulating mountains surrounding the
village – into the garden. Thus there were hedges and
trees that had been shaped, and boulders that had been carefully
placed, to echo the hillsides behind. They were remarkably
harmonious and serene places, giving a sense of
“one-ness”. They were very restful, just the spot
for relaxing after a hard day’s butchery. One of the
gardens had a water trough
- not for watering horses, but for washing the blood off swords.
The entrance to each house involved a convoluted zigzag,
back-and-forth pathway that prevented surprise attacks from other
bands of Samurai. Those were the days (and only ending
about a hundred and thirty years ago)!
We
then proceeded on to one of the most remarkable museums I have
ever visited. It is the Kamikaze museum in Chiran. Chiran
was one of the training camps for the kamikaze pilots who were
Japan’s last-ditch defence against the might of the American
fleet approaching Japan towards the end of the 2nd
World War. I had some of the stereotypes I held concerning
the kamikaze heavily revised for me during this visit. The
young men – often just boys - who were selected as kamikaze
pilots, and those who selected them, saw their task as the most
noble of endeavours: willingly to sacrifice themselves to protect
their homeland. This distinguishes them from the
perpetrators of the 11 September 2001 outrage in the USA, whose
act was one of extreme aggression against an unsuspecting and
unaggressive group of men and women and children going about
their normal, everyday lives. The faint resemblance is
superficial.
There is a
remarkable story concerning a 12-year old who volunteered to fly
a kamikaze mission, and who is now a highly regarded preacher of
the Christian gospel and a noted expert on Semitic languages. Here's his story.
Incidentally,
the word “kamikaze” is comprised of two Japanese words:
kami, meaning divine, related to the spiritual realm; and kaze,
meaning wind. It has a strong historical resonance for the
Japanese. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll
begin.
At
the end of the 13th Century, Kubilai Khan, grandson of
Genghis Khan, ruled the remains of the greatest conquered empire
the world has ever seen. Genghis Khan ruled most of Asia,
and had tribute from as far away as Moscow, Kiev and Vienna.
Now the empire had abandoned Europe, but still covered China and
much of the rest of south-east Asia. Kubilai Khan needed to
bring the only significant nation of the region as yet
unsubjugated - Japan - under his control. He sent
envoys to Kyoto to demand tribute, threatening reprisals if they
failed to deliver. The Emperor answered that their nation
had divine origins and therefore was not to be subject to anyone.
The Japanese prepared for attack from Kubilai Khan. He,
however, had assessed Japan’s defensive strength as
incoherent and negligible. So in 1274 he launched an
assault on Japan from southern Korea. This was a combined
assault force with a vast number of ships (accounts vary between
600 and 900 ships) from his own Mongol forces, together with
allied Chinese and Korean vessels. They carried 23,000
armed men, and were equipped with catapults capable of throwing
combustible missiles, while the men were skilled archers. As
the huge invasion force neared the island of Kyushu, a powerful
wind sprang up and drove the ships away from Japan, back towards
Korea, a number of ships and men being lost in the gale.
Kubilai
Khan was nothing if not determined. He set about increasing
the fleet until, in 1281, he launched an assault with 4000 ships.
This time, they succeeded in making a landing on Kyushu. The
Japanese defending forces fought ferociously, and the Mongol army
made no progress beyond the small beachhead they had established.
For 53 days, the battle raged, but no further territory was
ceded. Then, on the 54th day, a hurricane struck
the invasion fleet. The Mongols were blown back to China,
but this time, over half the fleet, and the men on board, were
sunk due to the ferocity of the storm. The winds that had
saved them, twice, from the invading Mongol hordes were known as
the kamikaze. 1281 was the last attempt to invade Japan
until 1945.
The
Museum of the 1945 kamikaze is full of memorabilia from the young
men who flew in defence of their nation and Emperor. 
There are poignant, fearful letters
written by them just prior to their mission, and photographs of
them in training, as well as items of equipment (they were not
issued with parachutes) and personal possessions donated by
grieving families. The pity of it all is that these were
mere boys as evidenced by the photographs, who ought to have been
in school and college, not called to give their lives in a war
that was started by the wicked warlords who were the backbone of
the Japanese government in the 1920s and 1930s.
There
are examples of some of the aircraft used. The young men
were trained in take-off, manoeuvring and navigation techniques,
but were not taught to land their aircraft. Outside is one
of the huts used by the squadrons the night before their mission.
The boys lived in basic, not to say, harsh, conditions. There
were few luxuries. By the exit is a Shinto shrine dedicated
to the memory of these young men who flew from Chiran and a
handful of other bases, knowing they would never return.
After
lunch in a roadhouse (excellent tonkatsu!) on the road back to
Kagoshima, we drove to the Iso-ten. Notice the Shimadzu sign
(quartered circle) in the top left of the ticket. The symbol is
everywhere.
Iso
Garden is the villa and gardens built by the 19th Shimazu daimyo,
Mitsuhisa, in about 1658.
The later daimyo involved
in the Richardson affair
was also instrumental in starting Japan’s first factories,
here at Iso-ten. There are foundations of his ironworks,
and the building that houses the glassworks that made the prized
Satsuma glass ware is now a museum. Japan’s
first gas light is there, too, bearing no resemblance at all
to anything seen in the west.
The garden is extremely beautiful, with
yet more of the trees pruned into shape over hundreds of years.
There are a number of stone emplacements in the garden, of an
intriguing nature. There is the oldest bamboo plantation in
Japan, started with just three saplings from China in the 17th
Century. There is also a diverted stream meandering through
some of the grounds. Apparently it was a recreation in the
19th Century for the daimyo to send little rafts
bearing a glass of sake downstream. These would be picked
up and drunk by courtiers, who would then have to compose a haiku
before the arrival of the next little raft bearing sake.
As the evening wore on, and the daimyo increased the rate at
which he launched the victuals, the haiku became ruder and more
raucous, to the vast amusement of the court. Something like
this, perhaps?
Floating down the stream
Another cup of sake -
Haiku make me sick.
We
fleetingly saw some of the Iso-ten wildlife. 
Leaving
the garden, too late to view the museum, Yasuko’s mother
drove us to the ferry at Noriyo-Sen before leaving us.
There we boarded for an evening firework cruise.
There were several hundred
festive Japanese on board, some having brought picnics, and
others (like us) buying barbecued snacks on board. We
cruised round the attractive harbour and could see the Sun Royal
Hotel standing high on the shoreline. On the middle deck of
what served in the daytime as a car ferry, was an, er,
entertainment.
It
was some Japanese bloke singing songs accompanying himself on the
accordion. He interspersed his songs with what Stephen said
were old music-hall-type jokes of the “My
mother-in-law’s so fat….” variety. Miss
Kagoshima 2000 and Miss Kagoshima 2001 were on board, identically
dressed, and apparently hosting the fun. We poor mortals
who had not brought our blankets to camp out on the middle deck
and thus were confined to sitting in comfortable chairs on the
top deck were not denied access to this feast of entertainment.
The ferry company had thoughtfully provided two large television
screens at each end of our deck, together with approximately
10000 watt amplifiers, so that we did not miss a note, or a joke.
Val
was approached by various Japanese people wishing to practice
their English. Westerners, especially English people, are a
rarity in Kagoshima, which is off the tourist trail (though it is
well worth a visit). So once again, they were besieging
this red-haired giantess. As dusk gave way to darkness, the
passengers were instructed to go to the port rail. 
When we were assembled, fireworks were set off from
some small boats nearby. This was a spectacular display,
whose noise must have resembled the bombardment of
Kagoshima.
After
we had reached dry land and taxi-ed to our hotel, we walked into
the entertainment district and had a pleasant meal in a small
Chinese restaurant. One of the other diners was a salaryman
on his way home after a busy week. We watched with
amusement as he fell asleep at his meal, his head drooping until
it lay comfortably in his plate, a sticky red sauce coating the
side of his head. The waiters ignored him completely.
Perhaps it’s a regular Friday night ritual.
After the meal, we
walked around until we found a bar that looked approachable.
It called itself “Gaspanic”, after the famous night
club in Roppongi, Tokyo, though it was a typically small drinking
parlour. The bar specialised in Shochu, a sort of weakish
Japanese vodka. Stephen and I were offered a special local
variety, brewed from sweet potatoes (a Kagoshima speciality) and
unique yeast, so rare it was not on the bar list. Shochu is
about 30 proof as contrasted with normal vodka, which is
generally 40 proof. It has an indefinable, slightly sweet
flavour. I can confirm that the special shochu tasted
slightly better than the first one we tried. As neither of
us enjoys spirits much, and had only tried it because it was a
unique opportunity, I can say no more. It was a good
nightcap, and we slept soundly.
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