All about Shugakuin
There’s a lot to show about Shugakuin, a neighborhood gem in northwest Kyoto (Sakyo Ward). “This place is straight out of a Studio Ghibli film” is what one family said. It is an appropriate description. Shugakuin was home for my sister’s family (and partly mine) in the spring and summer of 2015. We stayed at the Kyoto University International House, across the street from Shugakuin Station of the Eizan Electric railway, a small, one-man, local train that passes through Shugakuin and into the Kurama mountains.
Shugakuin was very different from the places I know as residential neighborhoods. Zoning laws appear to be open and single-family homes exist alongside multistory apartments, both modest and on the higher end. And the homes exist alongside very green mountains, a river and random fields. On the days in Kyoto, it was almost an everyday routine to walk alongside Kitayama dori to Matsugasaki Station or down a narrow street that leads to Qanat, a nice shopping complex where we could eat ramen and look at nice clothes. My sister found the latter route and to her shock (and later, mine), she found a sports center for the disabled just minutes from the apartment. It became routine for my niece to visit this sports center and it is here that she learned how to swim. Here are two routes we took regularly (note: These are cognitive maps and based on memory and photos so it might not be entirely accurate.):
From Shugakuin International House to Matsugasaki Subway Station
From Shugakuin International House to Qanat Shopping Complex
Inside and around the Kyoto University International House
My nieces made a friend with a girl next door (from Korea but having spent some time in Japan) and they would often communicate from their respective balconies.
The views from our room were breathtaking and it seemed like every time we looked out, the scene was the same but very different. In the mornings, a grey heron, always solitary and flying in its characteristically slow-motion fashion, would head in the direction of the river.
The views from the balcony, however, were not just about Shugakuin’s striking natural beauty or its surprises. It wasn’t long before one neighbor, presumably a university student, became a very familiar sight. Every day, he sat for hours studying by the window, in an apartment across the street, and he never wore any clothing. In a life is full of uncertainties, seeing him every day offered a sense of relief and reminder of being in Shugakuin.
The park across the street
Every day, the neighborhood’s kids would trickle into the park after school, then around dinnertime, they would head home.
Cognitive Maps
Shugakuin International House to Matsugasaki Subway Station
On one walk, I noticed that there was a bare spot (in the ambiguous shape of a kanji character) on the nearby mountain. This spot is part of the Daimonji Festival (aka Gozan no Okuribi trans. Five Mountain Send-Off Fire) spectacle when mountains in five directions are lit in fire sequentially*, revealing distinctive kanji characters and symbols.
(The prominence of the festival’s single, nature-related symbols and Shugakuin’s natural elements reminds me of the conspicuous banners found in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980)). The start time is precisely 8:00 p.m. and by 8:30 p.m., all mountains are simultaneously lit.*
For anyone who watches anime, I found out about this festival from a Detective Conan episode where a festival is based off of the Daimonji Festival.
I see many sources use “surreal” to describe the phenomenon. But also, it is an extraordinary human feat that involves lugging and arranging firewood. Here is a map of Shugakuin that shows two of the bonfire points.
Shugakuin International House to Qanat
Views from the window
Kurosawa trivia: Kurosawa, while then an established filmmaker, struggled to get Toho Studio’s funding and support for Kagemusha’s completion. Kurosawa’s previous film had flopped and Toho was having financial problems of its own. It was only after securing Lucas’ and Coppola’s financial support that Toho was convinced of Kurosawa’s justification for the film’s viability. On a slight tangent, something I only realized recently is that Darth Vader’s distinct helmet is modelled after a kabuto (beetle) helmet, the headgear prominently worn by samurai in reality and in Kurosawa’s period pieces.
(No editing or color alteration; just nature doing its thing.)
The park across the street
Every day, the neighborhood’s kids would trickle into the park after school, then around dinnertime, they would head home.
Obon (*only my sister’s family was in Japan by this time)
(Sanshin is a three-stringed Japanese banjo of Ryukyuan origin that strongly evokes the islands and its history. I know of it from the Boom’s Shima Uta).
{I am aware that many hold a perspective far different from my own. Some of the information I see has me aghast but at the end of the day, I can’t change what is expressed here. There is something in this place that acknowledges loss (including the ones that come with disability and age), death and other conditions (who makes our food and other essentials) contemporary societies do not want people to think about.