On Kimono Sunset and Praying Hands

I have reached a level of comfort in Japan that has taken time to develop, but that has enabled me to learn much along the way about this most unusual of western-eastern cultures. Each time I come here I learn more, and the more I learn the more I seek to explore further.

It is an axiom of good tour design that each day brings something new to the traveler. Even when visiting many shrines or numerous temples, there must be something different and extra each time.

My past tour of Japan was different from all the others in that it was significantly longer than the usual tours I lead and as such it gave me time to explore more and go pretty far off the beaten track to seek out special locations for my travelers.

One such location was the Itchiku Kubota Museum of Art, a stone's throw away from Lake Kawaguchi on the road from Hakone to Matsomoto, gateway to the Japanese Alps. Just so my biases are up front, I love Japanese art in almost any form – but I was not prepared for the surprising reaction I had to what I was to see in this museum.

The late Itchiku Kubota, who died in 2003, was a kimono artist who created the most amazing art using a tie-dye art form known as Tsujigahana. It involves a myriad of tiny knots tied into hand-woven cotton cloth that creates bubble-like indentations in the cloth, which are then individually colored using a variety of natural colors and dyes. But it wasn't the art form that grabbed hold of my attention. It was a short video describing his work which was shown as we entered the museum. In it, Itchiku Kubota describes how, as a Japanese prisoner-of-war in Siberia during World War II, he witnessed a sunset that captured his imagination. While I don't speak Japanese, the video had English subtitles. Now, subtitles often cannot transmit the emotion of the language being spoken, but in this case the subtitles weren't necessary. Kubota describes in rapturous adjectives the overwhelming beauty of the sunset he witnessed, and here he ensnared my heart completely. My military service in general and wartime experiences in particular have had a great effect on my life. My late father had been a prisoner of war and spent time on the run in the snowy plains of Russia and the Ukraine. I remember wartime sunsets in the desert and the overwhelming spiritual feelings they evoked in me. And here was this talented man who was describing to an audience of art students how that Siberian sunset had moved him to create what would be his primary ad foremost work of art, his Siberian Sunset Kimono. The emotion with which he described this life-changing vision moved me to tears. I stood behind my travelers with tears rolling down my cheeks, completely enthralled by the description this man was telling his audience of his great vision.
A few minutes later, I stood before this Kimono detailing the Siberian Sunset. And once again, completely overwhelmed by the incredible beauty of Kubota's work, I wept again.

Kubota was the first living artist ever to be exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. That display was of a set of 30 Kimono (out of a series of 80, called "Grandeur of the Universe") on which the artist has created a massive artwork describing a landscape that changes over the seasons. To say that it is spectacularly breathtaking is like saying the Grand Canyon is a ditch. I have never seen art of this sort in my life. Even now, three weeks after the visit there, I don't have – I cannot find – the appropriate adjectives to describe what I saw or to express how it made me feel. Awe might be a good word, but insufficient.

A second place that was truly far, far off the beaten track was the village of Shirakawa-go, way up in the lofty valleys of the Japanese Alps. A somewhat similar village is portrayed in the movie "The Last Samurai" (which was filmed, to my great disappointment, in New Zealand). The thing about this place is that the village is a living museum. Many of the houses are traditional tall, A-framed Gassho Zukuri homes, with thick thatched roofs and steep sloping sides. It was drizzling when we arrived, which made for an even more mysterious mood as we strolled through the village and made our way into one of the houses. Gassho Zukuri means "Praying Hands" in Japanese, the way hands are held in many faiths in the east when people pray. Thus, the steep A-shape is reminiscent of praying hands, leading to that name being given to the architectural style of the homes. Wandering among the rice paddies, the streamlets and the pathways between the homes in the village, I felt like I was a character in some illustrated fairy-tale. This is an area that gets locked in once the snows arrive to the Alps.

Originally populated by the defeated Taira clan, who retired there in the 11th century to seek solace and privacy, the area has survived as a site of traditional Japanese culture and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

These two additional sites have added immensely to my understanding and appreciation of things Japanese. Off the beaten track, yes, but definitely worth beating a track to get there.