The parting of the seas in Korea

AN ARTICLE THAT APPEARED in the Nishinippon Shimbun about the Yeongdeungje Festival coming up this Monday and Tuesday on the island of Jindo at the southwestern tip of South Korea describes an event so intriguing it’s worth including here.

Also known as the “Mysterious Sea Path Festival”, the event is held to capitalize on the phenomenon of a literal parting of the seas. Visitors get to play the part of Moses by walking on the seabed from the village of Hoedong on the southeastern edge of the island to the nearby islet of Modo when the six-meter-deep sea parts at low tide for two hours to reveal a path about 2.8 kilometers long and 40 meters wide.

This phenomenon first attracted widespread attention in 1975 when Pierre Randi, then the French ambassador to South Korea, visited Jindo and couldn’t believe his eyes. He was so excited that he wrote an article about it for a French newspaper, calling it the South Korean Moses Miracle. Apparently, as so often happens, the locals didn’t realize what they had going for themselves until a visitor pointed it out. The phenomenon also became well known in Japan after enka singer Tendo Yoshimi struck pop gold with a song about it called Jindo Monogatari (The Jindo Tale). Tours from Japan to Jindo are well advertised and easily arranged.

About 500,000 people converge on the island from throughout South Korea and overseas to walk the walk. When the seabed begins to emerge, local people start the procession to Modo, banging gongs and bearing banners in accordance with tradition. Groups of tourists follow, some collecting edible seaweed or octopus as they go.

There’s a lot more to do than take a quick stroll along a muddy path, however. A temporary stage is set up during the festival for performances of ganggangsullae (a traditional circle dance performed by women on the night of the eighth full moon), ssitkim-gut (a shaman ritual for consoling the souls of the dead), tashiraeki (a drum performance to console relatives of the deceased), and deulnorae (songs sung while working in the fields). Some of these performances have been designated as important intangible cultural treasures of South Korea. Visitors also can sample the delights of Korean food and confections sold at 100 shops set up along the seashore.

Perhaps there’s more to the Moses connection than meets the eye, as Jindo is also considered to be the center of shamanism in South Korea. What more can you ask for? Shamans casting out the devil, the beach and sea during warm weather, Korean food, gongs and drums, and folk dances performed by women on the night of the full moon—how could anyone pass this up?

For those whose senses have been numbed by modern life, there will also be a laser show, fireworks, and a rock concert allowing the party to last deep into the night, long after the walkway to the island has sunk beneath the surface of the sea once again.

Incidentally, Jindo is the third-largest island in South Korea, and is part of a group of 250 smaller islets. The parting of the sea is a semi-regular occurrence that happens from one to three times during the year.

That means if you miss the fun this week you won’t have too long to wait until it happens again!

UPDATE: Frequent poster Martin F sends in this link from the English-language Korea Times. The snippet has a photo of this year’s event and contains the report that the organizer wanted to set a Guinness world record for the largest number of people crossing an area at the same time.

I agree with Martin’s comment that this effort spoils the event. Pretty much anything involving the Guiness world records nowadays–an interesting idea for a book when it was first published–misses the point.

Kyushu castles

WHILE I’M TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS, you might enjoy visiting a website devoted to the castles of Kyushu, put together by David O’Grady. It’s not inclusive yet, but there are photos, maps, and historical information. The sites covered range from full-scale reconstructions to overgrown embankments with a marker. He even includes Yoshinogari, which was more protected settlement than castle, provides the fief value for each castle without explaining the units, and has a subjective rating system, but visit and see for yourself!

Hold on…

…a bit more. Three reasons for the light posting lately.
1. Developing several longer posts
2. Other business to take care of, and
3. Trying to rearrange my daily schedule and avoid this:

Thanks for your understanding!

Note: The above cartoon comes from this site, which you might enjoy.

Matsuri da! (78): Take tea and see!

THERE’S SOMETHING BOTH SOOTHING AND ELEGANT about tea–unless your idea of tea is to throw it overboard into the Boston Harbor. The tea ceremony, for example, is one of the most refined of Japanese traditions. Even tea plantations have a certain quality that places them a cut above the ordinary agricultural enterprise. I visited a tea farmer south of Ibusuki in Kagoshima about 10 years ago, and walking through his fields was such a peaceful experience it almost felt as if I were in a formal garden. (Of course, the pine forest to the east and the view of the sea a 10-minute drive to the south contributed to the mood.)

The tea farmer told me that during the season—which is right now—he had to work pretty much round the clock for about six weeks, but during the rest of the year, maintaining his plantation didn’t require his constant attention. Still, when they’re out harvesting tea, farmers don’t dress like the women in the photo.

Two of those women are miko, or shrine maidens, from the Kumano Hongu Taisha, a Shinto shrine in Hongu-cho, Tanabe, Wakayama. Helping them were five women from a sort of women’s auxiliary group associated with the shrine. They are shown picking the new tea from a field just behind the shrine for the New Tea Festival held on the 9th. During the festival, samples of the crop are offered to the divinities and members of an organization for local tea producers offer prayers for better quality. The event is held every year just before the harvest begins.

Each tea-producing area in Japan has its special varieties, and in the part of Kyushu where I live, the tea grown in Yame is considered to be the finest. In Hongu-cho, the miko were picking otonashi tea, which is a local specialty. Otonashi tea has been grown in the area for more than a millenium. The story goes that people came from the capital in Kyoto to visit Kumano and planted some. Perhaps they were Japanese versions of Johnny Appleseed.

According to the producers’ organization, 40 households cultivate otonashi tea on about 7 hectares in two neighborhoods in the district. During the peak production years of the mid-60s to 70s, about 12 hectares were devoted to cultivation, but the aging of the population has resulted in fewer farmers, and that has resulted in less tea.

The harvest began a few days early this year on April 28 and is expected to continue to about May 10.

Wakayama has thoughtfully provided a short English page on otonashi tea, which you can see here. There’s a brief explanation of its characteristics and a photo of a hillside plantation. (You don’t have to listen to the RealAudio; it’s just a woman reading the English text you see on the page.) Here are two larger photos on a Japanese page.

I’d like to try some of that myself—green tea is my beverage of choice throughout the day—but it’s not so easy to have an otonashi tea party. Most of the crop is sold in Hongu-cho for use in the home or as gifts. Next time you’re in Wakayama, be sure to bring me back some!

Matsuri da! (71): Demons detest smelly sardines!

AT TIMES LIKE THESE, it would helpful if computer technology had reached a point of development at which odors could be conveyed over the Internet in addition to audio, text, and video images.

That’s because some folks in Hiroshima City had a bright idea for driving out pesky demons way back in the Heian Period (8th to 12th centuries)—roasting sardine heads. It worked so well they’ve been doing it ever since.

The news department of RCC television filed a story about this year’s event earlier this month that you can see and hear with RealPlayer, if not smell it. The story lasts 58 seconds, the link is here, and it won’t last forever, so click quick!

Here’s a translation of the news reader’s summary:

Today is Setsubun (the 3rd). A Shinto shrine in Hiroshima City conducted an ancient Shinto rite for vanquishing demons by roasting sardine heads.

The Sumiyoshi shrine in Hiroshima City’s Naka Ward has been holding this event, known as the Yaikagashi, as a Setsubun festival since the Heian period. The shrine maidens roast the sardine heads, and legend has it that the odor will exorcise the demons.
　
(Shrine maiden at the start of the ceremony) “Everybody, let’s quickly roast 1,000 sardine heads to drive (the demons) away.”

Fanning the flames with a large fan will create such an unpleasant odor that it will disperse the red devil and the god of poverty.

(Woman) “I want to go golfing. I want a special invitation to go golfing.”

This drives away the evil spirit connected with last year’s incidents that involved golfing invitations and other deceptions. (This is a reference to former Vice Defense Minister Moriya Takemasa and his golf games with a former executive of Yamada Corp., who was involved in a financial scandal.)

After the rite, everyone was given a sardine head impaled on a holly olive branch to take home.

Now if that won’t drive away the demons, nothing will!

Observation from translation work

Translation work is very busy, so I don’t have the time to do much today. One job I am working on, however, had some interesting content.

A large travel agency is planning a big promotion overseas to get foreign sports teams to stay in Japan before going on to Beijing for the start of next year’s Olympic games. They are touting the facilities, the lack of pollution, the variety of food, the public safety, and the ease of access to Beijng.

The agency is serious–and they report the British swimming team has already decided to stay in Japan first!

Kamm on Tibbets

BRITISH PUNDIT Oliver Kamm has an excellent (though somewhat densely written) post on the death of Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets called The Cranks Emerge. He skewers extremists on both the right and left who would impugn Tibbets and the task he willingly undertook.

It is a followup to two recent posts he wrote on the same subject, here and here.

I’ve disagreed with Mr. Kamm before, but not this time.

BTW, sorry for the atypical blog-style posts, but I’ve got work to do!

Matsuri da! (47): Almost as good as hurling thunderbolts!

THERE’S NOTHING THE JAPANESE LIKE BETTER than a blazing fire festival. It makes no difference whether the event is a small one, such as the ceremony in which a 200-kilogram homemade torch is physically hauled up a small mountain and ignited at the summit, or a large one, such as the Daimonji in Kyoto in which five larger-than-life images are burned on the hillsides surrounding the city.

But there’s no limit to the Japanese imagination when it comes to creating festival activities, and if you don’t believe me, look no further than the Hifuri Festival held in Hino-cho, Shiga Prefecture, on the 14th and 15th last week.

Hifuri literally means “fire-flinging”, and no, that’s not the rock-n-roll fantasy of teenage boys, that’s exactly what happens. At 7:30 in the evening, about 200 local residents gather at one Shinto shrine in the town, bringing with them an equal number of bamboo torches measuring roughly 2.5 meters in length. They set out together and slowly parade through the town to the Kuchinomiya Shrine, which has several old pine trees about 10 meters high. The townsfolk surround the trees, light the torches, and at a signal from the taiko drums, hurl them all at once at the trees. The reports say everyone is riveted by the sight of the arcs of fire sailing through the night sky.

As we noted with the Daimonji in Kyoto earlier this week, the spirits of a family’s ancestors are said to return to the family home during the O-bon period (which just ended). Traditionally, they were sometimes greeted with mukaebi, literally “welcoming fire”, and sent back to the spirit word with okuribi, or “seeing off fire”. The Hifuri Festival is part of that tradition.

Legend has it that the more burning torches stick in the pine boughs, the better that year’s harvest will be.

Not mentioned in any of the reports I investigated was what happens to the flaming torches once they’re lodged in the trees. Do they burn out without igniting the pines?

It must not be a serious problem. The pine trees are still there, and the townspeople come back every year to do it again!

Note: The shrine’s name is 口之宮, and I had to make a guess at the reading because I couldn’t confirm it.

Translation work…

…is keeping me busy, so it looks like I won’t have the time to put up a post today. Thanks for stopping by.

Hang on…

…for just a little bit longer. I’ve had some important translation work to do, and the posts I have planned require some time and organization. I should have something up soon. Sorry for the delay, and thanks for stopping by!