Takayama Showa-kan

This article is based on a visit made on Friday, 18 May 2018.

Previously on Sekai Ichi, I visited the Sakurayama Hachiman shrine, home to a museum about the city's semi-annual festivals.  Its location proved to be a fine starting point for walking into another of Takayama's most famous attractions, the old town.  However, on the way there, we stopped at a museum offering a more recent slice of history: the Takayama Showa-kan (高山昭和館) museum.

What is Showa?  In Japan, the reign of each Emperor is given a unique title, which is also bestowed upon that Emperor himself after his death.  For example, the reign that started this year (2019) is called the Reiwa era (令和, lit. 'fair peace').  The Showa era (昭和, lit. 'enlightened peace'), then, was the period ruled over by Emperor Hirohito, lasting from 1926 to 1989.  This holds the record for the longest reign of a Japanese Emperor, and indeed, much happened to Japan during these 64 years, some of it infamously unfortunate.  But most Japanese who were alive back then associate Showa more strongly with its post-war half, from the mid-1950s on, when the country embraced democracy and capitalism, and its economy grew at a meteoric rate.

The halls of this museum are done up to resemble a cityscape that may have been seen in 1955 or so, and are lined with rooms which re-create different kinds of homes or businesses.  The car seen above is a Daihatsu Midget, a three-wheeled mini-truck first manufactured in 1957.  They came in one-seater and two-seater varieties; the model in this museum is the latter, and you can even sit inside it.

This room is the living quarters behind a general store; the store's counters are out of frame.  It would be interesting to compare these to the model homes in, say, the Fukugawa Edo Museum.  Maybe this is just one room out of many in the house, maybe it isn't.  Living standards had certainly improved since the Edo period, but space has always been precious in urban Japan.  One thing's for sure: there was a wider variety of stuff available in the Showa period.  The TV in back plays a loop of vintage shows, and there is a shogi (a Japanese strategy game which evolved from chess) board which these two 21st-century ladies are happily chatting over.

Moving on to the restaurant, and -- hel-lo, whom do we have up there...?

I'll try to ignore that temptation, and instead take a closer look at the food models adorning the restaurant's shopfront, which is common in Japan even today.  The advent of plastic manufacturing gave restaurateurs the ability share their menus beyond the barriers of language.  I, and many others, I'm sure, are thankful for that.

One of the rooms you can enter from the main hall is an appliance store.  Electric appliances like these became status symbols of the post-war Japanese.  Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister from 2001-2006, compared the most sought-after home goods of a given time to the three treasures that make up the Imperial Regalia of Japan; for example, the washing machine, refrigerator, and black-and-white TV.  I mentioned this comparison in detail before, on my article on the Edo Tokyo Museum.

Next door is a toy store.  I described the evolution of Japanese toy trends in another article, on the Arima Toys and Automata Museum.  The collection on display here encapsulates the transition period I described then.

The second floor offers more to explore, such as rooms from a private home and a school.  I honestly doubt that every student in a given class would use their own typewriter, but having them here does help to show the evolution of technology that took place during this time.

Speaking of technology, video games also helped define the late Showa period.  Japanese arcade games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man became worldwide phenomena in the late '70s and early '80s, and Nintendo and Sega both launched their first home consoles in 1983.  Here, on the second floor of the Showa-kan, you can play on a couple of Nintendo's Famicom and Super Famicom systems.  (The latter was actually launched in 1990, after the Showa period ended, but... eh, close enough.)

However, an even more widespread pasttime in Japan, both then and now, is pachinko (パチンコ).  To play, you shoot little metal marbles into a vertical board lined with pegs.  The balls bounce around these pegs on their way down, and if they fall into the right holes, you'll get additional balls to keep playing with.  It bears resemblance to pinball, but the player's only control is how rapidly the balls are shot into play.  The balls you earn can be exchanged for prizes, and even though most gambling is illegal in Japan, there is a booming grey market of exchanging those prizes back for cash.  At the Showa-kan, you can try out some old-style pachinko machines for free.  No prizes, though.  As for the real thing, pachinko parlours are very widespread across Japan, but the experience of being in one is extremely loud, like a casino on steroids.  I think I'll stick to video game centres if that's all the same to you.

Or, I could just go out and visit Takayama's old town.  Join me there, next time on Sekai Ichi!

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Hours: Open from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.  No regular closing days.

Cost: ¥800.

Address: 6 Shimo-Ichinomachi, Takayama-shi, Gifu-ken 〒506-0858

Access: From the Takayama Bus Centre, take the Machinami loop bus to Betsu-in Temple (別院前) (¥100).  The Counterclockwise route takes 11 minutes to get to this stop, while the Clockwise route takes 21 minutes.  From the bus stop, head west, downhill along the main road, and take the third right, at the traffic light.  The museum will soon be on your left.

You can also reach the museum in about 15 minutes on foot from Takayama Station.  Turn left out of the station's East Exit, then take the second right at the traffic light.  Continue on up the main road for about 850m (½ mile).  After crossing the river, turn left at the next traffic light.  The museum will soon be on your left.

Website: (English) (Japanese)

Takayama Festival Museum

This article is based on a visit made on Friday, 18 May 2018.

Previously on Sekai Ichi, I embarked on a day-trip to Takayama, starting with the Hida Folk Village just outside of town.  Now, the city of Takayama is especially famous for its festivals, held twice-yearly: the Sannō Matsuri (山王祭り) in spring (14-15 April), and the Hachiman Matsuri (八幡祭り) in autumn (9-10 October).  From what I have gathered, it is supposed to be a stunning experience, especially in the presence of the massive shrine-floats, or yatai (屋台), that are carried about the old town.  But, as you can tell from the dateline at the top of this article, I obviously missed out on either of the festivals.  Fortunately, there are places where one can witness glimpses of the festival experience year-round, and one such place is the Takayama Festival Hall (高山祭屋台会館, Takayama Matsuri Yatai Kaikan), where some of the actual yatai used in the processions are stored when not in use.

This museum is located in the grounds of Sakurayama Hachiman-gu (櫻山八幡宮), the Shinto shrine which serves as the base of the autumn festival.  The spring festival is based at Hie Shrine in the south side of town.  The bus from Takayama Station drops you off near this wooden torii gate.  It's one of the larger toriis I've yet seen in person, and it would have to be in order for the festival floats to fit underneath (which I'm not sure if they do).

For a shrine in a city of this size, Sakurayama Hachiman-gu has a nice bit of woods surrounding it to the back.  I think the unpainted wooden tones of its main hall fit in nicely.

As a Hachiman shrine, also related to the one in Kamakura, it is dedicated to the Shinto war god of the same name.  Hachiman is the second-most prevalent deity out of all the Shinto shrines in Japan, second only to Inari-Okami (as in Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Shrine) [1].  As such, the bronze horse statue near the entrance does fit the theme of cavalry soldiers or archers.

Paying your way into the museum, you will enter a giant hall, and follow the path around the windowed-off centre of the room where the floats are parked.  The floats on display in this museum are the same ones that are used in the festivals every year.  The selection is rotated three times a year, in March, July, and November; the rest are privately stored elsewhere around the city.  When it's time for them to be moved out, one of the room's walls has a massive sliding door big enough to move the floats out through.

The shorter golden float shown above is the mikoshi (神輿), which temporarily houses the patron deity of the shrine.  In essence, a mikoshi is a portable shrine.  The one here weighs in at a massive 2 and a half tons (2,267 kg), and takes 80 people to move it!

The other yatai are much taller than the mikoshi --  the "Jinma-tai" (神馬台), shown above, is the tallest at 8 metres (26 feet and 3 inches) -- but come equipped with wheels and require fewer people to pull them about, about 20 to 30.  A hidden fifth wheel is used to turn the yatai in place.

Another testament to the intricate adornments of these yatai are the moving puppets that occupy the upper tiers.  For example, on the "Hotei-tai" (布袋台), a larger figure stands out and waves, while a smaller figure swings itself across the bars hanging out to the side, one at a time, before ending up on the bigger guy's shoulder!  The whole thing is operated by eight puppeteers, and even if I can't say whether or not they were working the thing in person while the float was at rest in the museum, it was impressive to watch!

Another fun thing to watch would be the video that plays on loop in a back room.  It shows footage and explanations about both festivals, with Japanese narration and English subtitles.  Visitors may check it out on their way up and around the museum, culminating with close-ups with a few more artifacts from the festivals such as yatai wheels or happi coats (shown), before reaching the exit.

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Also located in the shrine complex, and included with admission to the Yatai-kan, is the Nikko-kan (桜山日光館, Sakurayama Nikkō-kan).  This large hall contains scale models of Tosho-gu Shrine (東照宮, Tōshō-gū).  The real Tosho-gu is located in Nikko, all the way back in the Kanto region.

Tosho-gu (the real one, that is) serves as the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康, 1543-1616), a successful warlord who kicked off the Tokugawa Shogunate, the shogun dynasty which effectively ruled Japan from Edo (modern-day Tokyo), for over 250 years.  In respect to his grand status, his initially-simple mausoleum was expanded upon by his grandson, Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川家光, 1604-1651).  Pictured above is the Yomei-mon (陽明門), the giant gate which stands in front of the shrine's main hall.

To end this article, let's appreciate the detail of the miniature Tosho-gu with a close-up shot.  The full-sized counterpart is no less ornate.  After all, it is the origin of the famous "three wise monkeys" woodcarving.  I hope to see it myself in person some day, along with the rest of Nikko.  But for now, I have another one of Japan's must-see places to cross off my bucket list.  Next time on Sekai Ichi, I shall venture into Takayama's old town!

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Hours: Open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM; closes at 4:30 PM from December through February.  No regular closing days.

Cost: ¥900; includes entry to both the Yatai Kaikan and Nikko-kan.

Address: 178 Sakura-machi, Takayama-shi, Gifu-ken 〒506-0858

Access: From the Takayama Bus Centre, take the Machinami loop bus to Sakurayama Hachiman-gu (¥100).  The Counterclockwise route takes 12 minutes to get to this stop, while the Clockwise route takes 17 minutes.

Website: (English) (Japanese)

[1] Motegi, Sadazumi. "Shamei Bunpu (Shrine Names and Distributions)" (in Japanese). Encyclopedia of Shinto. Retrieved 17 October 2019.  http://k-amc.kokugakuin.ac.jp/DM/detail.do?class_name=col_eos&data_id=22988