Explore everyday life in Japan
Since my first day in Japan, I have found it very easy to forget where I am. Perhaps that sounds strange, but I’ve always felt like Japan is just another place that I am. There are two things, however, that always remind me that I am, indeed, in Japan. Those two things are the strange, beautiful shapes of Japanese pine trees, with their deeply grooved reddish bark, and tori gates.
You will, of course, find tori gates near all major shrines and temples in Japan, but what is surprising, is just how often you will find these gates, along with the small shrines they often accompany, and where you will find them. You could be walking down a major city street, notice a small opening between two massive buildings, look into it, and see at the end of a heavily shadowed walkway a small tori gate standing before the entrance of a shrine whose history and significance is probably remembered only by a few.
Or, you could be entering a mountain trail and find a tori gate greeting you at the trailhead. If so, you will probably find another tori gate waiting for you near the mountain’s summit. You might enter into a park, walk under a giant red tori gate, move along the park’s footpath, pass under another tori gate, wander further into the park and find a small hill with a staircase covered by a hundred tori gates. You could even be traveling around the coast of Japan by boat and find a tori gate at sea.
Tori gates are literally all over Japan, and they represent something that it is very old, something which has a beginning that is lost in time. They are said to be the markers of what you might be able to call sacred space. They signal to us that we are entering, or possibly just nearing, a spiritual place. If your purpose is to make a prayer or a wish, your approach will begin at a tori gate.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting daily updates about life in Japan, please consider following me. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.