Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: Bamboo forest walk in Adashino Nenbutsu-ji 

Don't panic. It's not somehow suddenly Monday. I just didn't have a HeyGo round-up to post because the cherry blossoms are apparently somewhat delayed and so a lot of the tours I had planned for last week were cancelled. I would have waited to post these couple of tours until NEXT Monday, but there was some interest in the previous brief glance into a Japanese cemetery last time I posted and, by chance, David went to TWO cemeteries this week.

The first place we visited Adashino Nebutsu-ji is in in Ukyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan. Probably the most fascinating part of this cemetery is the 'pauper's grave,' which supposedly holds some 8,000 exposed/abandoned bodies from the Heinen Period (794 to 1185 CE). 


Image: Graves of thousands of exposed bodies taken in by the Buddhist monks of the time.

It is unclear to me why these bodies had been left to decompose via exposure, though our guide (who is Canadian) seemed to imply that these markers represented an act of charity, i.e. providing markers to those where were perhaps unable to afford a "proper" burial. Buddhism had only been introduced to Japan a couple of hundreds of years before the beginning of the Heinen period (sources say 6th century, and I am seeing 538 or 552?) which makes me wonder if the Buddhists were objecting to some more indigenous practice? That is pure conjecture on my part, however. I have no idea. Anyway, it is a fascinating bit of grave architecture. These stone look impossible to navigate between, though there is apparently a ceremony every year in August to honor these 'forgotten' dead.

At the top of the hill at this same site, there is a more modern cemetery.


Image: More typical, modern grave markers

I took this shot specifically to give a better sense of how one navigates a Japanese cemetery. They are very dense, but there are aisles between the markers, as you can see.

This particular tour also took us to a very nifty "moss temple," but I will save photos of that until next Monday, since it's not "on theme." The next tour I want to feature was another one of Dave's. He took us to Mount Koya's Okunoin Cemetery, which is considered by many to be the largest cemetery in Japan.

It is fascinating and eerie. 

I was particularly fascinated by the number of torii gates in the cemetery. There was one, in particular, that really seemed to still have the presence of a god, because, at the very top of it a tiny tree was growing. 


Image: right in the center of this torii gate is a little pot that seems to have sprouted its own miniature tree. So cool!!

This place very much had the vibe of places like Highgate Cemetery in the London area, etc, because there were wide boulevards and these amazing towering cedar trees. (It was also very clearly a tourist spot because at one of the places that we stopped there was a sign indicated which track you should play on your audio tour.)


Image: The trees and boulevards of Okunoin cemetery.

This graveyard was fascinating in its own right, but the most startling part was when we came across this...


Image: The corporate grave for Panasonic

So. Corporate graves are a Thing. Historically, in Japanese work culture, there was a sense that once you got into a particular corporation, you were guaranteed a job, basically, for life. (This has come up recently not only because it is changing in Japan, but also because it disproportionately excludes women: https://newintrigue.com/2017/02/24/lifetime-employment-in-japan-casual-work-part-time-work-and-women-under-equal-opportunity-law/)  I did not know that this also apparently extended beyond life... 

Because Panasonic's grave was not the only one we saw.

One of the more impressive ones, was for the Nissan employees:


Image: The grave for Nissan's employees looking like some US Civil War monument, holy shit.

Close-up on the Nissan marker:

In case you think I am making this up, here is a close-up.

When I showed this to Shawn she kept saying, "So, this is not the Nissan FAMILY grave??" because, yes, Nissan sounds like a Japanese surname. The person who founded Nissan Motor Company was not a Mr. Nissan, however, but Masujiro Hashimoto. (If you really care, you can read all about Nissan's history as a motor company here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan.) 

But, no, this is a grave for the corporate workers of Nissan. For real. This all makes sense when you consider my pen pal's dilemma. (For anyone stumbling on to this post not having read anything previous, I have a pen pal in Japan, Eiko, who is older and who, in her last letter to me, complained about the cost of paying for a family grave and how she and her husband are considering giving up on theirs.) I guess I can now ask Eiko if her husband has a chance of adding his name to a company's roster of the dead?  

At any rate, these were all over. Not far from the Nissan grave is the one for the employees of UCC Coffee


Image: A coffee cup gravestone, clearly where you need to scatter my ashes!

So, we did not see this so far as I know, but there is apparently also a grave for the "insect victims" of a pesticide company somewhere in Okunoin according to Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/okunoin-cemetery

Here's another cool one. 


Image: a giant rocket gravestone.

I will say I did not catch who this gravestone is for. I presume it is another employee one, but I was not listening to the tour guide because *cough* I was technically on another Zoom meeting when this was happening.

ANYWAY...

SUPER fascinating. I have to tell you that I think Dave is who I would be if I were a HeyGo tour guide. There have been more than one tours that I have gone on with him where he's like, "I'm just gonna go down this one road because there's a neat restaurant with a thatched roof that has nothing to do with what I said we'd be looking at, but..." and this is literally how I travel?? Plus, I am very fascinated by graveyards and cemeteries in general. When my wife and I were fortunate enough to tag along on my parents' trips to France and England, we intentionally went looking a famous cemeteries in both cities. I actually have entire photo albums full of nothing but cool gravestones.