Hit me with your rhythm stick part 4 – the gardens of Japan

Recent travels had alas, taken me nowhere near the destinations mentioned in Ian Dury’s classic tune, hit me with your rhythm stick to further my pointless quest to visit all of them. Although Japan had always been on my somewhat nebulous list of places I ought to get around to visiting one day, I’ve never been a Japan obsessive, as many who celebrate particular aspects of its culture can be. However, being in the region made it a more reasonable financial investment than coming all the way from the UK. So with no great preconceptions I blearily stumbled out of Narita airport, after a sleepless night flight from the Philippines to discover I absolutely fucking loved the place.

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

Although I certainly didn’t expect hostility from the people, I’d read a number of pieces which suggested that the Japanese weren’t the most engagingly friendly race and few would speak English. I can only assume that those who made such inferences must have been walking around with a Fuck Japan t shirt on, or something similar, as I found absolutely everyone to be delightful. I left every shop, cafe or restaurant with a smile on my face as it was always such a pleasure dealing with people. I never had any concern that the ubiquitous smiles and greetings lacked sincerity. Many spoke enough English to ensure that travel around the country was an entirely painless and confusion free experience. Even the biggest railway terminals with over twenty platforms were easy for non Japanese speakers to negotiate and the hyper efficient rail system showed up the UK’s, prehistoric clusterfuck of an excuse for transport for what it really is.

I could waffle on about the numerous culinary, historical and cultural delights but we’re here to talk about gardens. I’d generally associated Japanese gardens with the more Zen variety but in reality these only formed a small sample of them. Most gardens were in fact far less formal than many, traditional European designs, preferred by royalty and elites. There was little in the way of straight lines or orderly layouts of trees and plants. If anything, they gave an impression of being a recreation of nature but with a bit more regular weeding and trimming. With at least 1500 years of tradition behind the concept of Japanese garden design, it’s fair to say that there’s more to them than meets the eye.

Water is an essential feature in every garden it seemed to me, in the form of lakes, ponds and even streams. Not surprising given the role it has always played in traditional beliefs, such as Shinto, particularly with regards to purification rituals. The neatly arranged flower beds we’re used to in Europe were almost entirely non existent, in fact flowers themselves seemed almost non existent. I only saw one exception in Kyoto, which explicitly made reference to European ideas. In their place were mostly trees, bushes, rocks and gravel, that even when purposefully positioned were unguided by geometry. If not determined by what is simply pleasing to the Japanese eye, I can only assume that the more mysterious aspects of the spiritual traditions of Taoism, Shinto and Buddhism guided the hand of Japanese garden designers. I was invariably left with the impression that their designers went to great efforts to achieve a specific effect whilst looking as though they hadn’t actually thought about it at all.

Zen gardens on the other hand were clearly designed to create a very specific effect, just one that remained entirely opaque to the non expert such as myself. Rather than pretend I have even the vaguest notions of their meaning, I’ll let this well informed article do the work for me, for anyone who’s interested. At the very least they offer a serene opportunity to ponder upon whatever takes your fancy, from divine mystery to the utterly mundane, away from the distractions of the hectic modern world. Perhaps here, Ian Dury’s rhythm stick took on a more philosophical interpretation, the rhythm of the universe or of your own heart in sublime contemplation.

Zen and the art of horticultural maintenance

For all of Japan’s unique cultural heritage, it’s people are no less afflicted by the pressures of 21st century life than ourselves, so I have little doubt that its gardens provide valuable solace to its people and will remain rightly treasured for many more centuries to come.