Neighbourhood Kawachinagano

We understand neighbourhood as a community defined not only by its geographical position but also by the interaction of its habitants. Given that, defining my belonging to one proves rather tricky, for I have lived in two very different environments now, Kawachinagano and Hirakata. During the fall semester I lived with a homestay family in Suehiro-cho, Kawachinagano-shi, and had the opportunity to participate and be envolved in some neighbourhood activities mainly through my family. But I also have interacted, though more briefly and in a more reduced scale, in Hirakata.

Kawachinagano is a very calm, countryside-like city, with a lot of neighbourhood organizations, each one linked to a shrine, with more than five shrines in the area. The first thing I learned about them was how to throw the garbage. The classification system varies from place to place, and it is considered the neighbourhood responsibility to keep the streets clean and have an organised garbage recycling. That is why, my host mother explained to me, there are rarely litter bins in the street, for "no one wants to have a dirty area near their houses", as it would reflect badly on them how the people made use of it. Also, tasks like removing dry leaves from the pathways are also responsibility of the neighbours and the dutie passes from house to house on a weekly basis. As a part of the neighbourhood, even though briefly, I participated too in those duties, often supervised by some passingby おばあさん (obaasan, grandmother, old lady).

This is the river that constitutes the border of the neighbourhood, past this point all you can find for around 3 km is forest.


Perhaps a better example of the construction of the neighbourhood would be the Danjiri Matsuri. It was held in late October in Kawachinagano, and I was able to be envolved in its activities. The Danjiri Matsuri is a festival that need of the community collaboration in order to be done. One of its main activities consists in parading the local Kami-sama, god, in the wooden cart called mikoshi. Since it is all solid wood, its weight makes it impossible to be moved by one person, and this is where the community comes in, for everyone participates in moving the mikoshi. The men carry it  (and are the only ones allowed to get on), while women and children go ahead of it with a rope for directions ( Video ). Also, other non so active participants are all the neighbours who all along the way prepare sancks and drinks for the little breaks that the carriers make on their way through showing the Kamisama where are the boundaries of its area, what is the place that they "protect".

At night, All the different mikoshi are united in a joint display, where all the different communities participate in the same parade, while competing as to which is the better cart, who sins more louldly and etc.  You can watch the video here.

Even as a gaijin, foreigner, they, as often happens in Japan, made me feel very welcome and invited me to participate in it, also sharing its rewards, as when the morning parade ended and all the senior members of the neighbourhood association ( called Nagano, as can be seen in their robes), had prepared flavored ice creams for all the participants.

Early Impressions of Japan

When I first came to Japan, six months ago, in about a week I had a large number of concentrated first impressions, which would pretty much become the base (hopefully to be developed) of my understanding of "Japan".  I still don't know what I expected it to be like, for my images of it were mainly extracted form pieces of manga, anime and Studio Ghibli movies, but one thing Japan doesn't lack of is display, so quickly I was filled with lots of  snapshots and pieces of the big puzzle that constitute it.

Curiously, many of those images seemed to be opposing each other, they didn't seem to be part of the same environment, like they don't belong together, but still coexist and are seen as normal for the japanese people,  while struck me as, at least, remarkable . For example, it can be seen in the constant struggle between modernization and conservation, the old and the new Japan, where homes jammed in narrow streets vary from old, with tatami three-generation family wooden houses to large, new buildings with several dozens of one-room apartments, suited for single people, students, salaryman with their home elsewhere and the like.

This can be seen in many places, but perhaps more clearly in Kyoto, where shrines and temples are integrated sacred spaces in the modern landscape, full of little shops, malls and traffic jams. Some are separated through symbolic 鳥居 (tori, shinto shrine archway), which clearly delimitates the change of environment, and some others constitute more hidden, subliminal details that, if paid attention to, can raise more than one alarm.

In the left, The Sanjusangendo Temple, or Temple of the Thousand Buddhas, that was originally finishes in 1164, though reconstructed many times since, and two benchs situated just in front of it, with the clear branding of "Cocacola" on both sides.






While still confused by some of this elements, thruth is that this sort of curiosities, contradictions and little details just continue to add to my previous amazement regarding Japan, and every new experience and reflection I get about it exceeds each other, making this country more appealing day by day.

                                               Shrine Archway that separates it from the city.