Taking the Pure: The Day of the Jichinsai

This is what we found when we arrived at the site last Saturday--a beautiful, bright and sunny day, with nothing remaining on the lot but what you can see here--the pile of Sajima ishi and the tree. And a brilliant red and white curtain enclosing three sides of a Shinto altar. It was the day of the Jichinsai, the ritual of ground purification that marks the start of construction, and according to the kannushi, the Shinto priest from the Yokohama shrine who conducted the ceremony, we couldn't have picked a more auspicious day. It's a pretty straightforward concept: calling various gods who may be disturbed by the construction, making some offerings, and asking for acceptance.

It lasted for 30 minutes or so--and was moving in its simplicity. The three of us took the front seats, you could say (if there were seats), and T, the architect, Y, the contractor, and the site manager also took part, standing slightly behind us.

After purifying the offerings and all of us, the kannushi performed the koushingi, the calling of the gods. The prayer culminated with a long, nasal oooooooooh note that spilled out of the space enclosed by the curtain as it rose in pitch and volume, that was followed by two claps. The gods were now with us.

So it was time to make the offerings: of rice, sake, the bounty of the sea, represented by some dried squid, and the bounty of the mountains, represented by squash, apples, carrots, a sweet potato, and--for some reason--a pineapple, which I'm pretty sure is not on the list of local produce. (But, since it was given to us later, along with the leftovers of the other offerings, did make a nice addition to breakfast the next morning.) The chanted prayer asking for safety and good fortune was hard to follow, but we could make out my name and the name of the contractor.
That was followed by the more solemn Shihoubarainogi, in which the kannushi went to each of the four corners, and tossed pieces of hemp fiber like confetti.


He then left the space and went over to an old well that had been uncovered by the workers tearing the old place down. The contractor told us that wells are considered places where specific gods reside, so they are going to bury it under the foundation without destroying it. The hemp squares were tossed over the well, and the kannushi spent some time praying next to it. (He didn't seem to mind that he'd parked his van with one tire almost resting on the edge.)

Then it was time for our participation. There was a small cone of sand, about two-feet high, with a branch of bamboo sticking out of the top--representing the land and the forest that once covered it. The architect was handed a wooden scythe by the kannushi, and he struck the cone three times, saying, "Ei, ei, ei!" before pulling out the bamboo branch and laying it to the side. This marked the clearing of the land. Then I was handed a wooden hoe, which I also used to strike the cone of sand three times, each time shouting the "ei!" of long life. M and m repeated the action. This marked the preparing of the land, and the violation of the earth that accompanies it. Then the project manager was given a paddle, and he followed suit, marking the construction of the building.

The final bit of the ritual was the offering of the sacred sakaki branch and, following the kannushi's example, we all took turns putting the branches with the paper prayers on the little altar. Then he made a final prayer, including another long, rising nasal oooooooooh that the gods rode back to where they came from.

Then we had a toast with sake, taking a sip and pouring the rest onto the ground. In the middle of packing up, the kannushi suddenly looked around, and said--as if he'd just noticed--"What an incredible place!" Then he bent down to load his truck, while we walked around the lot with the komuten people. The boundaries of the house have been marked with red surveyor's string, which gave us a feel for what the place will be like. The lot looked surprisingly large without the two houses, which means we might have enough of a garden to grow stuff. I was also thrilled to find that the base wood piece of the tokonoma was in good shape, meaning it can be cleaned up and used for the new place.

After everyone said their thanks and goodbyes, we stood there in the empty lot. It had become very hot, 28C, but we no longer had any place to relax and we hadn’t brought any beach things. We took a walk to a local shop where we could buy some fresh shirasu, then walked down the beach, looking up at the hole in the horizon where the old place had been, and where a new one is now on the way.

Sajima Stone

Those large blocks of stone piled haphazardly on the left (and the one tossed on the storm door in the center) are Sajima-ishi. They were used to form the foundation of the old house, brought from a quarry in Sajima, the next village down the coast. You can often see them in the area, used for walls, etc., and though the salt wind will erode them slowly if they're in the open, these blocks from under the house are in pretty good shape. I couldn't count how many there are in the piles of rubble, but there's no reason to get rid of them, and I think we can use them to build the driveway or as garden stones or under a deck or something.

It looks like today is going to be another fine one, so I imagine the old landlady's house (with the pink storm doors) is coming down. It will be interesting when we go down next weekend to see the land without any structures on it.

A Brief Horizon

What a difference a week makes. The top photo is last Sunday, just before we pulled out of the driveway with a full load of things to take back to Tokyo. The second was taken this morning, when we stopped by on the way to meet with Y-san, the contractor, and T-san, the architect. (They're big files, so if you click on them, you'll get the enlarged version.) They were showing us a house they'd built nearby, so we could see some of the choices of window interiors and colors, and to see the stain job that was done by the owner on the wood in their Japanese style room.

I thought they were going to tear down the landlady's house first, but obviously they decided to go after the old place first. I was kind of surprised to see they'd gotten a backhoe down that narrow driveway, which has sped things up. The trees look like they are in good shape. I'm glad they're able to work around them: I remember how subdivision developers in the U.S. used to tear down every tree in sight, and then landscape it after the houses were done. And that's what a lot of builders automatically do here as well. But we didn't want to take any of them down.

The weather was perfect last week, so I'm sure that helped the schedule. Now the destruction crew has to get started on the other house and get the land cleaned up and prepared for the Shinto ceremony next Saturday.

The house that we were shown today was just finished last month, and was in a valley a few miles away. There were some very nice touches, and it had a good-sized deck overlooking the neighbor's impressive Japanese garden. You can tell that the owners put thought into a lot of the details. But like every other one of the houses that Y and T have shown us, it's filled with some of the funkiest furniture you can imagine. Mind-boggling.

Fort Akiya

Go back and take a look at this photo from the last post. I haven’t seen such a level of craftsmanship in the service of protecting one’s property since the awesomely complex forts we used to build in the woods when I was a kid. Both the faux wrought iron post box in the foreground and the stacked pile of concrete blocks, rocks, lumber, ladders, plants (I even think there’s an abandoned washing machine in there somewhere) that protects the old man’s brown house from the street are actually illegal.

For building permits, we were told we’d need to show access, and contractors and even a friend in real estate told us that this road called for a setback of a couple feet on both sides, and that we could very likely get both of these irritants removed. They suggested we talk to legal experts for the prefecture, which we did, and they told us to go to the city office to get the official surveys of the road. Which we did. And they told us, looking very embarrassed, that they couldn’t give us the survey results for the fifty meters of road in front of our house because it hadn’t been done. The official kind of furtively showed us a map that clearly showed those fifty meters crosshatched in red—in other words, that section of road doesn’t officially exist—and said they’d run into some resistance when trying to survey, and basically, they didn’t know when next they’d get around to it.

“In the next couple of years?” I asked. “We can’t really say,” was his reply. “Ten? Fifty?” A few shrugs. “A hundred?”

“I don’t really want to give you a date,” he said.

And we laughed and left, and decided to just accept it. In the year or so following the days spent tracking down that reply, I’ve gotten used to the three point shuffle into the driveway, and dodging the bricks, and just chalk up what will be a daily occurance to quaint, rural assholeishness.

Though maybe someday I'll get around to showing these guys what building a real fort is all about.

m Gets the Job Done

On Saturday, we signed the builder’s contract. We dated it Sunday, which—like today’s start of destruction—we selected off of a special calendar that has all the auspicious and not-so auspicious days according to both the Buddhist and Shinto calendars. I’ll transfer the first payment today, but I guess Saturday marked the moment of no return.

A week earlier, we made our unofficial round of visits to all the neighbors, informing them of what we’re doing. We weren’t looking forward to it, since there had been some bad feelings with the people on the land straddling our driveway, but to our complete shock it turned out quite well.

Of course we let m present the package of senbei crackers (figuring it’s hard to be mean to a five-year-old bearing gifts), but everyone reacted to our news with real warmth, offering help (and gossip about other neighbors). We’d been worried about parking for the builder’s trucks since the road and driveway are so narrow, but two neighbors even offered the use of their driveways for parking. In most cases, we had to tear ourselves away from the extended conversation so that we could make the rounds before the week ended.

So we’re left with pretty good feelings about our move later this year. The driveway problem, which had been gnawing at me for years because the old man on the corner has made it all the more difficult to turn by planting a horrendous cast iron post box jutting out from his property and coming out and screaming like a drunk monkey when he thought I trespassed on an inch of his property, kind of melted in the light of the friendliness of his wife. Not only does she basically call him a stubborn old goat but she’s taught us that the way to deal with his poking his head around corners and grumbling at everything is to completely ignore him, which she does with such great gusto that I’m beginning to emulate her.

The old man on the other corner is now in an old folk’s home, his wife in the hospital. He’s even crazier than the first old man, and he’s never made much sense, but he showed up one day a few weeks ago (he’d escaped from the home for the day and swore he’ll someday make it back for good) and offered the use of his corner of driveway. I was stunned that he was being intelligible, and we had a long talk in which I learned that our old house had actually been first located down the coast a few hundred meters, and that it was disassembled and rebuilt where we are now around 1920. Which means that it goes back even further than I thought, and probably dates from the Meiji period. (We’ve also learned since then that he has a photo of the place when it still had its thatched roof, so I’m going to jump him the next time I see him and wangle a copy.)

So who cares about a driveway that takes a few minutes to maneuver into when you’ve got friends around? Or at least, not so many enemies.

Shell on the Beach

All of the old doors and windows have been removed and loaded onto the trucks, for transportation to the komuten’s office for storage while the new house is built. I’ve stripped as much usable materials as I could (you can see the hallway on the left where I’ve taken up the flooring, which I hope to use for desktops and bookshelves), though I could do with a few more weekends. If I had the time and the space, I think I would have taken the whole place down myself. But the workmen are showing up on Monday—that’s tomorrow—to start taking the place apart.

It’s been quite an emotional couple of weeks. Luckily, the run of Golden Week holidays was mostly fair weather, which let us enjoy the house to the last moment. Our good friend, awesome photographer, and soon-to-be-Akiya neighbor Ben came over and spent one whole day (and early the next morning) shooting the place. It was fascinating to watch him study the place for the right angles and the right light, and we’re dying to see the photos.

The last day of the holidays was pouring rain, and I spent it mostly by myself doing the last runs carrying stuff between Akiya and our Tokyo house.

For some reason, I started getting visitors. These completely unfamiliar faces knocking on the door, telling me that they’d heard that we were tearing the place down, and how they’d like to see it before we do. hey’d walk in the room and see that view of the sea rising outside the bare tatami room and wooden engawa, and they’d just plop down on the floor and sit there for a while, making sighing noises. One was a potter, there were a couple of architects, and a mix of weekend Akiya people and natives, but they all reacted the same way.

I spent a lot of time talking to the house, thanking it for all the incredible times I’ve spent there: from moments of introspection and meditation to wild parties where you couldn’t see the tatami for all the spread of wasted bodies. (Though the latter, I have to admit, have not been a part of the last few years as maturity, I mean geezerhood, has caught up with me.) I moved all the shoji doors and wooden fusuma doors into an approximation of what the new house will be like, and explained to the house why we were tearing it down. I drank a glass of sake from a bottle I found in the last cleanup, and poured another glass onto the floor of the engawa, and said goodbye.

When we came back on Saturday to take the windows, etc., I felt like it was already an empty shell.