I didn’t have to spend much time in Japan to begin noticing the importance the country places on incorporating nature into everyday life. Being one of the biggest urban cities in the world, I had pictured Tokyo as being rather gray and concrete all the way through. While there are definitely some spots like this, what is more common are traditional city features such high-rises and paved streets mixed with shrines lined with gravel or sand and beautiful trees lining walkways. Even on the first day in Tokyo I noticed this, as the picture below is of the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center grounds- the hotel that we stayed at for the first ten days that we stayed in the city.
As you can see, greenery was packed into every corner of the property, with mature trees and bushes lining the paved walkway. There was also a garden in the back of the building that we were staying in that was covered in grass and flowers. This was unlike any hotel I had ever stayed at in the United States, and it felt nothing like being in one of the largest cities in the world. The hotel was also surrounded by a beautiful space known as Yoyogi Park, which was quiet even during the busiest time of day. The Meiji Jingu Shrine, which is a famous Shinto shrine in Tokyo, was even located in this park and could be accessed through walking trails that came straight from the hotel.
Along with the greenery, I also noticed how many sculptures throughout Japan incorporated wildlife into the design. For example, when visiting Sensō-ji, a famous and historic Buddhist temple in Tokyo, there was a statue that featured a small group of pigeons. This statue, as seen below, had the birds perched on different parts of the structure acting like the birds naturally would. Throughout the grounds of the temple were many pigeons wandering, looking for crumbs left by unsuspecting visitors. Thus, the statue seemed fitting, immortalizing the nature that lives with the temple.
This is something I haven’t seen much of in the United States, but I saw many important sculptures and structures with birds or other animals included, and I think it adds an important sense of reality to these things. Rather than the historic statues or monuments seeming lifeless and disconnected from the current world, the addition of pigeons makes people realize that people created those structures, and those people lived in a world much like our own.
Another place we visited outside of Tokyo also made me realize how important nature is to Japanese culture and people. The place was Miyajima, which is an island a small distance from the coast of Hiroshima. The island is famous for the Itsukushima Shrine, which has a torii gate that appears to float in the ocean during high tide. The shrine is a World Heritage Site and stands on the beach on tall beams to keep it above the water. Though the entire island is filled with beautiful landscapes of flowers and trees, one of the most surprising things to see when we arrived on the island were wild deer. The deer roam freely across the island, as seen below, as they are considered sacred.
They could be seen approaching visitors who had food or paper in their hands, which explained the need for an announcement once we got off of the ferry to protect paper maps. The way the deer were respected and able to live on such a popular island without being bothered by people was something I don’t think I could ever see in the United States. It showed me how important nature is to Japanese culture and people, and how even in places with millions of people, greenery and wildlife can make a big impact.