My literature class is pretty much my favorite because we read lots of things and then sit down in our small class (there are 10 students) and have actually really good discussions about them. It's sort of an introductory course in many ways--we're not focusing in-depth on any one thing, but instead reading a whole range of works from across the opus of classical Japanese literature. This began with histories (mixed historical and mythical, really) of Japan that were written in the late 700s, went into Heian era literature with (of course) the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book and a couple diaries and a lot of poetry. Now we're moving into things from the medieval period. It's really interesting to see these different works of literature in sort of a timeline; most of the classes I've taken up 'till now focus more narrowly on a certain work or time period and go more in depth, but I feel like I'm getting a really solid overview of all the things here, which is really exciting. I am a book nerd.
And then there is religion class, which is pretty much perfect to have in Kyoto because something like 80% of the places we talk about are within day-trip distance from here, and at least half are places that I've already been. So when we talk about the development of Buddhism in Nara, and how things worked when the capitol moved to Kyoto in 794 (I think? Within a couple years of that), I have a context for the places we're talking about, how far apart they are, how they look different, how they might interact with the imperial court considering where that was, why it's important that Enryakuji is in the Northeast corner of Kyoto (a lot of ancient Japanese superstition revolved around geomancy--think of feng shuei--and the Northeast was considered the 'demon's gate', and very unlucky, so a temple directly northeast of the imperial palace was ideally situated to protect the imperial family from evil), etc. I'm learning a ton, but it's hard to say what exactly I'm learning, because a lot of it is things like why the northeast is bad and who these various gods are and what these various ritual tools and symbols mean and how all these different buddhist sects are different. It's like I'm getting all the background info needed to contextualize religion here crammed into my head all at once, and it's fascinating, but it would be really hard to say "Oh, we learn ____ in class".
Outside of class is also busy. We had our program's spring trip just now--I'm actually writing this just after getting home. We went to Kyushu (the southernmost island that is considered part of mainland Japan) by bullet train (!!) for three days.
- Thursday: Train to Kyushu, bus to Nagasaki, visit museum about the atomic bomb (Nagasaki was the second, and as of yet last, city to be hit by an atomic bomb, on August 9th, 1945), hear a survivor of the atomic bomb speak about the experience. It was an emotionally charged day, to say the least. (I don't think most Americans know that the bomb was dropped right in the middle of the city. Within a 1 kilometer radius, there were two elementary schools, two middle schools, a hospital, a prison, and a Catholic church. It wasn't even a particularly carefully chosen target; that's just where in the city the plane happened to be when a break in the clouds appeared. I learned a lot here.)
- Friday: Spend the day exploring the city of Nagasaki, then go to Unzen hot springs to spend the night. I went to Glover Garden during the day (a collection of gardens and western-style houses from when Nagasaki was one of the only places in Japan where foreigners were allowed to come trade) and fed half my lunch to six adorable stray cats who followed me around a park. The hot springs were wonderful--one of the baths had ROSES in it! Like, real roses! Another was outdoors (on the roof), and there were fairly high winds, so you could sit in the (really really hot) water and have (cold, cold) wind blowing over your head and sort of balance out the temperatures. There is also a 'jigoku', or hell (a hot spring so hot that no one can go in it) about a 10 minute walk from our hotel--we walked over by moonlight at like 1 AM and it was all ghostly looking, and with the steam rising up from the rocks and the smell of sulfur and sound of boiling water all around, you can really figure out why this kind of hot spring is called a hell. It's amazing.
- Saturday: Bus to a place where we painted some mugs (the town, which I think was called Ureshino 嬉野, was supposed to be famous for this kind of pottery) and ate lunch, then bus to a recreated Yayoi ruin (Yayoi is an ancient Japanese civilization, which we know about from pottery remnants and ruins and a couple odd notes in Chinese records), which was basically three villages reconstructed, with explanatory signs on what all the different things were and how they were used. It was really interesting. Then bullet train back to Kyoto, and home.
We have our spring break in late March and I am trying to plan what to do with it. It's our last significant break in Japan, meaning it's my last chance for the present to travel to places further away from Kyoto! I keep oscillating on what to do but I actually have to make up my mind pretty soon so I can find accommodations, so we'll see.
