In the centre of Tokyo, in Otemachi — one of Japan’s most expensive districts, in the shadow of the Imperial Palace and surrounded by the headquarters of major corporations — there is a gap. The land here is among the most valuable in Japan. The site itself is modest in size, but its estimated value…
The first time I visited Kanda Myojin, I was a university student with a free afternoon. A class had been cancelled, and a friend suggested we go. Even though I was studying at a university in Ochanomizu — walking distance from Kanda Myojin — I had no idea the shrine was even there. I remember…
There are more than 30,000 Inari shrines in Japan. That figure — more than any other type of shrine — suggests a kami that has woven itself into the fabric of ordinary life. Inari shrines appear in city neighbourhoods, tucked between office buildings, at the edges of residential streets, inside the grounds of larger shrines….
The headquarters of all Inari shrines in Japan — the sōhonsha, the original source — is Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, a shrine that has been in continuous existence since 711 CE. That is over 1,300 years. It predates most of what we think of as “historical” in the Western sense. Many visitors to Fushimi…
I was three years old, and I do not remember any of this. My family was visiting Nara. We went to Nara Park, where the deer roam freely among the tourists and the ancient temples, accepting crackers from anyone holding one. My mother bought a packet of shika-senbei — deer crackers — and held them…
If you have ever visited Japan, you have probably noticed how many convenience stores there are. What you may not have noticed is that there is something even more common. Japan has approximately 80,000 Shinto shrines. There is an old Japanese saying: inu mo arukeba bou ni ataru — “even a dog, if it walks…
Every time I consider the rituals of Shinto purification, I find myself drawn to the simplest elements — salt, water, and boundaries between ordinary and sacred. At shrine receiving counters, I often find myself reaching for the salt. I can’t fully explain why. There’s already salt in my kitchen — ordinary salt, bought from a…
If You Want to Photograph a Torii Gate, Consider Donating One First Behind the main hall of Hie Shrine in Tokyo, past the small Inari shrine, there is a corridor of small red torii gates climbing the hillside in a tunnel. I was waiting for a family to finish their photographs — the parents repositioning,…
When I moved to the United States after getting married, my first apartment opened directly into the living room. This sounds like a minor thing. It was not. Looking back, it was the first time I began to understand something important about Japanese ideas of cleanliness and space. In Japan, every home has a genkan — a small…
At the computer museum where I volunteer in the United States, there is a shrine. This is not an official shrine, nor is it connected to any religious organisation. It was created by museum volunteers and is dedicated to a fictional deity — Misoroku-no-Mikoto, the patron kami of 36-bit computers. His messengers are a group…
