The Old and The New
Whilst staying in Okayama I took two day trips, one to the historic old town of Kurashiki and another to the contemporary art-obsessed island of Naoshima.
The historic district in the urbanised city of Kurashiki is an image of old Japan. The small river running through the middle of the area has drawn the comparison of Kurashiki as the “Venice of Japan.” I tend to dislike comparisons of places as the somewhere of somewhere because everything, to an extent, is the something of something and if you don’t know what the first something is then really your second something is just as unknown as your second something so really the something of something is the nothing of nothing. Even if you did know what the first something was, you don’t know what thing in that something that the other something is. Is it the everything of the something or is it just some things of the something? So the something of something doesn’t really mean anything. Clear?
Free tours are a rare thing to come by in Asia. It tends to be more of a European thing. Whilst free tours have begun to pop up in large cities like Seoul and Tokyo, the free tour concept is yet to take over the tourism industry in the continent. Particularly in north Asia where tipping tends to be not only unnecessary but taken more as an insult, you are unlikely to come by a free tour, especially in smaller cities. So when I read that there was a free tour in Kurashiki I thought I’d attend.
The tour I went on was run by a volunteer (so it is genuinely a free tour, they won’t accept tips even if you try). I met my guide outside the tourist information centre after lunch. She was a retired lady who was born in Kurashiki but had moved around various prefectures in Japan over the years. Before retiring she worked as an educator at a shipping company, teaching Japanese to Chinese and Filipino workers. When I arrived she had excitement and surprise written all over her face - the tour was not usually a busy one. On the day I attended, the group consisted of a family of three from Antwerp and myself. Acting as their adopted son, we spent the afternoon guided around the small historic area of Kurashiki before having iced tea at a local cafe.
Kurashiki itself straddles the old and new. There are old stone bridges covered in engraved dragons reaching from one side of the river to the other. There are old palatial houses built by the rich Ohara family over generations. Some buildings have traditional Japanese styling, others draw inspiration from the emerging Western influence that began when Japan reopened from its isolationist regime in the late nineteenth century. The city was also the first in Japan to have a museum dedicated to Western Art, another reminder of the country’s political shift one hundred and fifty years ago. There’s a traditional ‘ryokan’ (Japanese inn) with a wood burning stove at the hearth which Sophia Loren stayed at when she visited Kurashiki. There’s a large wooden hall with tatami-covered floors overlooking a manicured garden, still used for tea ceremonies and wedding receptions. There are even sake breweries in town with large balls of cedar hung out the front door, a traditional method of displaying the maturity of the beverage.
A short ferry ride from the port of Uno, about forty-five minutes by train from Okayama, takes you to Naoshima. A small island in Japan’s inland sea, a large portion of the island is dominated by the Mitsubishi refining plant. However this side of the island is the face of industry hidden from view for the average traveller. Instead we all go to Naoshima for the modern art on the other side of the island.
Arriving in the island’s main port of Miyanoura in the late morning, I made my way towards a bike shop across the road. Cycling around the island, I was told, was the best way to see it. However my arrival came right as all three bike shops in the port sold out for the day. The moment I entered the queue, each shop, as if in comedic harmony, put a magnetised ‘Sold Out’ sticker over their e-bike and bicycle signage. I resigned to walking in the summer heat instead.
The island is kind of like Okayama’s Capri. Natural beauty permeates the landscape with yellow sandy beaches along the coast (I find that’s the best place for them) and an evergreen interior. The museums that dot the southern half of the island stand out with modernist indifference. Hard, brutal buildings made of concrete that speak to the tsunami of ostentatiousness that now overwhelms the island. Much like Capri, the charm of the landscape seems to be the drawcard which has been exploited for financial gain.
The museums are overpriced and begin with a thirty-something in an ironed white t-shirt asking you if you’ve made a reservation followed by a look of shock in their eyes when your answer is “no.” All this to see a piece of canvas painted white or a fragment of stainless steel bolted to a wall. So instead you can admire the modern buildings which have been manoeuvred into the mountainside, waiting for their eventual ownership by a James Bond villain. There are still various pieces of art freely on display around the coast of the island alongside rows of palm trees dropped in from the set of The Thunderbirds.
At the time I visited, the beaches were warm and inviting. Gotanji beach, on the south coast, had a series of brightly coloured sculptures along its edge - Japan’s answer to the famous Baywalk Bollards found on Geelong’s waterfront. The pinnacle of the sculptures was the ‘Yellow Pumpkin,’ an art piece featured on every brochure for the island. It is the flagship sculpture of the island - a large yellow squash covered in black dots plonked on the end of a pier overlooking Shikoku. It is the ultimate symbol of the island - a natural, pristine landscape with a piece of contrasting, contemporary art dropped in. The images taken of the pumpkin depict what the island aims to be. The queue of tourists waiting to take that picture depicts what the island actually is.
