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Trip To Mt. Fuji (Fuji-Mineyama)
10-12 October 2004
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Here's a photo of Fuji-Mineyama CP Church, near Mt. Fuji
(about 2 hours bus ride from Sagamino). Unfortunately it was
cloudy and rainy almost the entire time I was there, so this
photo isn't exactly "postcard" quality. Anyway, the
church is literally at the foot of Mt. Fuji, at about 550
meters elevation -- and the view out the window of this church
is EXACTLY of Mt. Fuji -- it is a view that any Japanese
person would envy (I'll show you the view below).
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The pastor of Fuji-Mineyama CP Church is Pastor Yano, and he
lives in the church (on the second floor) with his wife. They
were amazing hosts!
And this
is their Pocky Clock. I dedicate this shot to all you Pocky
People -- you know who you are.
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One reason I was down
near Fuji, was because Monday (11 Oct 2004) was the annual
memorial service for the CP churches in Japan Presbytery. Now,
stick with me and I'll try to explain all this... You see,
Japan Presbytery owns an area in a large cemetery at the foot
of Mt. Fuji. This plot, in this cemetery, is where most of the members of our
churches bury their dead -- since they are outside the
all-pervasive temple burial system in Japan, they quite
literally have no other place to go. So Presbytery owns this
large burial area/plot, and once a year everyone goes there
for a memorial service, and to check on the bones of their
family members kept there. You can see there was
quite a big crowd. I'm not sure how to say this, but there was
something about it all that really spoke to a sense of
community -- everyone gathering to remember their loved ones together, not in a figurative way, but in the very place where
they are all buried. I don't know -- I guess I felt touched by
it, especially since it was only two days after the funeral
for Pastor Sesoko.
Click HERE
for a short video clip (click to download, or right-click and
"save as")...
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After the service,
Pastor Yano took me and Pastor Satoh to a few temples and
shrines to help us (well, ME anyway) get a first-hand view of
the situation. You see, the tradition is, in Japanese culture, that you
bury your dead in a small plot at the Buddhist/Shinto temple
or shrine -- and wherever your family's ancestors are buried,
whatever temple that is, you would say you "belong"
or are "members" of that temple. The monks at the
temple keep a record of your family's genealogy (usually going
back hundreds of years), and they come around from time
to time and say some memorial chants and such, and help
maintain the gravestones, etc. (Of course they do this in
exchange for some "gratuities" but no one can fault
that part -- it's a real service they provide).
The thing is, though,
consider a person's situation who decides they want to become
a Christian. Once they are baptized, all those bones -- the
remains of generations of their ancestors -- have to be
dug up and moved somewhere else. All traces of Buddhist verse
or temple membership must be removed -- the gravestones
sometimes have to be literally smashed into pieces --
gravestones that might have cost as much as $20,000 each. Now,
surely, Americans don't have the same sense of respect towards
our ancestors as the Japanese do -- but even YOU wouldn't want
to be the one responsible for disturbing the remains of 15
generations of your family -- remains that have sat
undisturbed for literally HUNDREDS of years -- would
you?
Okay, and so, NOW try to
imagine a high school kid, for instance, in 2004, who falls in
with this bunch of Christians -- do you think their parents
would be happy about that? The idea that their son is meddling
with people who might eventually cause him to dig up THEIR
bones and take them out of the temple?!? I mean, don't miss
this part -- Christianity is an "evil" religion
in the eyes of many Japanese. We're the 'pagans' --
dig?!? And THAT's why less than 2% of the population of Japan
is Christian. It's very, very hard to break the hold, if I can
call it that, that the temple system has on families.
I mean, of COURSE it's even
more complicated than that, but you get the idea about this
particular issue, I hope...
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This is a large,
stone lamp just outside a Shinto shrine. Notice the Shinto chicken (still tastes like regular chicken,
I'd bet)... The chrysanthemum logo on the light is, they
explained, a classic symbol for Japanese nationalism --
"in WWII every Japanese ship had that flower on it's
side"... |
Inside the shrine
there were hundreds of these small plaques covered with
people's wishes and prayers -- you buys your plaque, you
writes your wish, you hangs it up -- pretty simple system.
Some of the wishes sounded pretty quaint as they read them
aloud... the guys even chuckled at a few... But then they read
one wishing for "my mom's recovery from serious
illness" -- and suddenly it wasn't "cute" to me
anymore. I just kept thinking (I still am) how if that
was that person's best hope -- putting their "wish"
down on an overpriced piece of wood and hanging it at a shrine
-- I mean, if that's their best hope, then they really are
HOPELESS. That's what I keep thinking... |
The last day I was
there (Tuesday), we went for a fantastic walk around a lake
near Fuji -- this shot is from the PERFECT spot to view the
mountain in all its glory.
What? You can't see Mt. Fuji in
this small thumbnail? Okay, look at the larger version, but be
warned -- it was CLOUDY that day.
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I had to be REALLY sneaky to get these shots -- but I wanted
to show how Japanese fishermen go all out on the equipment. I
mean, these guys are each fishing SOLO -- but they have more
equipment than guys who have BOATS. And you'll notice, all
their stuff MATCHES. So, this lake was
circled with these guys, each of them carrying so much gear
that they needed matching carts to carry it all.
One funny thing -- we saw this one old guy in particular,
maybe the oldest guy out there -- and I couldn't get a
photo of him, because he kept turning around and smiling at us
(VERY friendly) -- but Tsuruko (Satoh's wife) smiled, and pointed
out that his gear was almost GLOWING, it was so clean.
"His stuff is too white," she whispered. "He
must be NEW!"
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Here's the crew, with
Pastor Yano and his wife on the left, then the Satoh family
(Satoh on the right, with wife Tsuruko, and their daughter
Fumika and son Tabito). Sadly, Tabito was too distracted by
big sister's garland to look at the camera. But if you look at
the larger version, I think you can see that even though it
was cloudy and rainy, it's STILL a pretty spectacular
landscape. |
Tabito was getting
tired, and decided to have a small snack... |
Here's another
fisherman, with a perfect spot -- and his own, one-man tent... It was raining by this time,
so he was the ONLY fisherman around that lake who wasn't
getting wet! |
After our long walk in the rain, we stopped by the Milk
House -- they milk the cows every day, and make some of the
best soft ice cream you've ever had... in Japan, I mean...
near Mt. Fuji... |
"Yo, homies!!!
Check my GIRL, clowns! Oh, YEAH, baby, she's DOPE -- and she's
up in McDonald's,
bro! Now, you keep it REAL -- and stay in skool -- WORD!!" |
In the entire time I
was there (three days), I got exactly ONE photo of Mt. Fuji that was usable
at all -- this is it, from early Tuesday morning (about 7am).
Just 15 minutes later, you could not see the mountain at ALL
-- seriously -- it was completely covered in clouds. Now, this is the view directly out the front
door of Fuji-Mineyama church -- you can imagine that when it's
not hazy, this is one AMAZING view...
The colors -- yes.
Photoshop, yes... yes it is...
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