Nikko, The Three Monkeys and coincidence

Improbable autumn perfection in Nikko

Nikko is a World Heritage Site, and only two hours away. It is the burial place of Tokugawa Ieyesu, the Shogun who unified Japan and ended the battle period, ushering in the Edo Period when foreigners like me were not welcome unless they were arms dealers. Stupendous as Nikko is, I am satisfied with the living heritage woven into the small community I live in, so it took nearly two years to get round to seeing it, and I was punished with a very disorientating coincidence, if you believe in that kind of thing - punishment and coincidence I mean.

I prefer the small scale to the bombastic, accidental beauty to the grand scheme, and in my view tiny local shrines that a few families have visited for centuries are more connecting than those that have become a major business.  By the same token, the light and life you experience on a hill is more important than its height. In any case, thanks to nuances of weather and season you never go up the same hill twice.  Travelling deep is better than travelling far. Live by the aphorism and you will die by the maxim, I say, and you can misquote me on that.

Aphorisms don't travel well, or at least they change as they go. Take the three wise monkeys, for example. In the west seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and speaking no evil suggests a kind of selfish avoidance of noticing anything bad in case you have to take responsibility for doing something about it. In Japan it is amongst other things about keeping yourself pure and avoiding spreading evil. From it's origin, probably in China, it has changed it's meaning as it has spread and been appropriated, gaining a power that is more paradoxical than any single interpretation. Like many symbols that at first seem simple, it is, in the end mysterious.

The Three Wise Monkeys, the famous 17thC wooden carving at Nikko

On our return home from Nikko last autumn I left a web radio station playing upstairs and went down to chat with my wife. We fell to talking about the three monkeys and their meaning for a few minutes, until I went back upstairs to continue working. As far as I am aware - which may not be very far as it turns out - I had not thought about the three monkeys for a very long time -  at least for a few years. Having just talked about them for the first time in memory, I re-entered the room exactly on cue to hear an old R n' B song playing. The singer asked me "Have you heard the one about the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil?" Exactly on the nail, as I came into the room, as if it had been timed for maximum effect. As I said, mysterious. It freaked me out I can tell you, and sent me scuttling down the stairs.

Anyway, I must go now, I have just thought about someone I haven't seen for years - that will be them on the phone now.

Now tell me your freaky coincidence story...

An abandoned village

San-Jo, in a remote offshoot of the Tadami valley, was left to the woods thirty years ago.

That most private of places now open to the elements: someone's bath

It is the graves that tell you there was once a village of twelve houses in this beautiful, hard place. The valley entrance is guarded by tall crags, breached only by an unsurfaced road in need of constant attention to stop it falling into the river a hundred feet below. From the concrete bridge that now skirts the cliff you can still see the crumbling remains of the old track that was cut into the vertical rock face.  Originally the route over the hills would have been the quickest way to the next village in the main valley. Before cars this would have been at the least a four hour walk, and in winter much longer in snow shoes even after them. In the four months cut off by snow, the twelve houses would have been their all in all. Then each small village would arrange a temporary school for the local children - if there were any.

The literal meaning of San-Jo is 'the place of three', and whether by coincidence or not, there are three large standing stones by the road, now near a collapsing shed and an up-ended fridge.

Three stones by the track at San-jo

They have the look of placed monoliths, rounded and unusual in that they are without any markings. They and the gravestones will outlast everything else, and the long-gone people. Some of the gravestones are dated from two hundred years ago, in the Edo period, and many are much older, worn and crumbling into the ground. The ground around them is kept clear - respect for the dead is one of central pillars of Japan, but there are no offerings or flowers. Even an outsider can feel the pain of this evidence of bloodlines ended or scattered far into the cities, with no-one caring enough to return. I have been in cleared Scottish glens with the same atmosphere and a palpable sense of the lives of others in the land.

The fate of San-Jo foreshadows what may come to many villages in Aizu. In our own, half of the houses are already empty, and the average age is seventy. Some of the graves  go untended, signalling that the family has moved away to the cities. It may be that the current generation of older people working the land and gathering wild food in the woods are the last to live in this ancient way here.

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Born to be mild

There are times in a man's life, wonderful though domesticity may be, that he has to get the hell out of the house, and yesterday was such a day. If you are getting the hell out, then Aizu is the very heaven you need to get out into. My particular golden cloud of choice was a lovely fast three hour circuit with a good pass in the middle, this day tinged with the first lick of autumn.

Looking back on the climb between Yokota and Fuzawa

I took a few minutes after the tension and adrenalin had worn off to stop at a sign marking the site of a secret Christian village from the Edo period when to refuse to stamp on an image of Jesus could mean a very inventive and painful death. It wasn't clear if the graves clustering at the edge of the forest were from the village or later. There were no Christian symbols on them, but no nearby later houses either - though there could well have been. The draining of young people into the cities since the fifties has led to a contraction from the less hospitable sites of habitation which is still continuing. If I were in fear of my life I would have chosen the slightly more hidden valley off to the side of the main valley, though even then it is hard to imagine in these close-knit communities that it was actually a secret. The local population must have known, but very sensibly did not want to pass it on to the kind of authorities that would do something horrible about it. Best leave them to it, eh? Just swop a few veg every now and then. I will explore on foot another day.

Here?

Or up here, round the corner and tucked away? Note the gratuitous bike shot.

The cobwebs were completely blown away by a fast descent into Fuzawa - and it's sadly closed down primary school - swooping through the hamlets and crammed-in paddies on the way down to the big valley that cuts south from Tadami. I had an entertaining race with an O-ji-san (elder) on a moped with something vegetable strapped on the back. I overtook him on a nice straight section, and hammered away, though the bugger caught me on an uphill, dammit. Sadly, I don't think he was aware he was in a race, it not being part of his normal universe to compete with a manic gaijin whilst taking the veg home. He is probably a demon at the gateball though, dog eat dog, no holds barred.

There are good roads both side of the river heading for Tadami, but I like the one on the east side as it is quieter...erm...even quieter and gives good views of the rock slabs that make up much of the riverbed. On 252 heading east, I enjoyed the strangely comical sight of a band of motorcyclists on extreme choppers coming the other way. Their hands were way above their heads to reach the lofty bars, which gave them the look of praying mantises or conductors about to deliver a huge orchestral stab. They may well have been fashion angels rather than hell's angels, salarymen on an expensive rebellion jag, but  if you actually drop out here, you don't eat, let alone buy custom bikes.

Their small front wheels were extended way out front, with lines of chrome lights up the forks. Very stylish, very post-modern Peter Fonda, but the prospect of negotiating zig-zags with a drop beyond the crash barrier with such a set-up is truly terrifying, and if they managed to teeter and wobble over 252 to the Niigata side, they have my respect.

Now there's a race I'd fancy, never mind the mopeds. Come on boys, it's just you on your bikes, me on mine, and 15km of downhill mountain road. I'll bring the veg.

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