Episode 10 - Busan - Tokyo (March 21 - Apr 11, 13)
About Korean sentimentalities, underground street artists and Japanese and Korean martial arts. We visit atom bomb memorials and Zen Buddhists and drink Japanese tea dressed in monks’ robes.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The big container harbour and trade centre of Asia: Busan. It was once a bridge head and South Korea’s last stronghold to regain its original territory with a lot of aid from the US-Americans and the UN.
We find that the Koreans are very open-hearted people with an excellent cuisine and a penchant for sentimental moments. During one incident, an older Korean man came up to us on the beach, glanced over the ocean and sang his own interpretation of the Casablanca evergreen “As time goes by” for us. One must probably wait forever for a moment like that on the beach of the German Baltic Sea.
Friday, March 22, 2013
We meet (underground) artists of Busan. Among them is Kay2, who prefers to be called “street artist”, graffiti artist, or “writer", as it is called in the trade. He tells us of the possibilities that the country offers its young people, but also of the constraints and the narrow-mindedness of the political leaders. Thus, all countries somehow seem to have their similarities. But he also tells us of a movement that has found its home in Busan, which focuses on other values rather than earning money.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
In the morning, we head straight to the cemetery for the Fallen during the Korean War, which is a United Nations memorial. Apart from a countless number of volunteers, we meet the military ballet, which raises the flag of the UN in accurate exercises every morning. A ceremony carried out from the soldiers with the utmost precision, they guard the last resting place. The director of the UN memorial tells us how important this place is for the many visitors and the bereaved as a memorial of the scars of that war. Also as a reminder of the constant threat of the North, that has been the topic of many conversations. The war between brothers is sadly a current topic at the moment. We leave Busan and board for the ferry heading to Japan.
Monday, March 25, 2013
The first thing we do after arriving in Fukuoka, Japan, is going through customs. Our last border clearance, and, as usual, it takes more time than expected. While some of us wait in the arrival hall, our drivers, Gregor and Ingo, must declare the equipment, register the busses and have their drivers’ permit be officially translated. No wonder that people say that Japan has the most similarity to Germany. With a half`s day delay we head towards Hagi. The little border town was spared during the war and is the Samurai capitol, located on the Western coast of Japan.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The houses of downtown Hagi are maintained almost faithfully. In the alleys between the curved rooftops, we meet two full-time Samurai. It is their duty not only to startle tourists and to bring the traditions closer to those coming from afar, but to be chivalrous role models for the school children and the citizens. Koike-San, the senior Samurai, tells the unsuspecting secondary school pupils to cite the Samurai code. They faithfully obey, as was to be expected.
Koike-San tells us proudly of his family`s heritage, for he comes from an old Japanese pirate dynasty.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
These tense times are also an issue at our next stop. Hiroshima. An expression, a city, where we all think of horrible images. We drive to the “Peace Memorial Park”, monument and meeting place for one of the most terrible moments in the history of mankind. At the Atomic Bomb Dome, the destroyed and wilted building, our hearts grow heavy. Here, we sense the dark history, the deep sorrow that covers this area. A memorial against mechanized and anonymous war with weapons of mass destruction. A moment of reflection for us all.
In the park next to the memorial we meet a survivor who shares her memories with us. She speaks of the guilt of the people that followed, of suppression and concealment. And of the day that the German Robert Jungk encouraged her not to be silent anymore, but to speak, as her contribution to a nuclear-free world.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Since we want to document our journey with the camera extensively, we divide the trip to Hamasaka into two travelling days. Along the coast line we get driving footage of beautiful bays, impressive hillsides and the omnipresent cherry blossoms. A serene, not digital and non-blinking Japan. Breathtakingly beautiful.
After driving on the adventurous and muddy serpentine road, we reach the monastery Antaiji after dark. After being greeted cordially, we fall into our beds dead-tired in the unheated guest area of the monastery. Very close to each other.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Here, we encounter a kind of Zen Buddhism, where the practitioner finds unity of body and mind by simply sitting. A minimum of three hours, sometimes up to 15 hours a day. No praying, reciting, nor “Oms”. Simply sitting. With crossed legs. “The purifying thoughts will come on their own”, Zen-Abbot Muho Nölke tells us, “one must simply sit long enough”. He is one of the few foreign abbots in Japan. He runs the monastery for almost ten years, and found his way to this religious community through a Zen meditation class working group in his boarding school in Braunschweig. After his Japanese studies, he was a simple monk for many years, before his former abbot appointed him to be his successor.
Early in the morning at 6 a.m. we start shooting at the monastery Heian-jingū shrine. We can film the wonderful gardens that fill up with hundreds of tourists at 8 o’clock sharp. At 11 we meet a young group of rickshaw drivers, some work full-time, some drive tourists and locals through the alleys of Kyoto part-time to finance their studies. They tell us stories and legends of the old empire.
We meet a real sword blacksmith in the “Solingen”, or “Sheffield” of Japan, historically well-known for its Katana (Samurai swords), and, since the Second World War, for its kitchen knives. The master blacksmith shows us the process in which the iron sword is first layered in different levels with different densities of metal. Then, as is known from Damascus steel, it is folded and then fulled. Alone this process takes up to 120 hours for one sword. Only then it is brought into shape. Then it goes to the polisher, sheath maker and handle weaver. Due to this long process, a master sword can cost from 100,000 Euros going up.
On our way to Tokyo we stop by at a Cormorant fisherman. This “water falconer” has a breed of a dozen Cormorants, which are tied to his boat and go fishing. But since it is recuperation time for the fish, we only accompany him while he teaches the new Cormorant generation. These are a bit shy in front of the camera at first, but then show us what they have learned from their master. He lives in a wonderful historical fisher house with a stone garden atrium, which is over 100 years old. In this place we would have liked to stay longer. But the road to Tokyo is calling for us.
In a suburb of Tokyo we meet a 68 year-old “uprooted”, a former resident of a village within the vicinity of two kilometres of Fukushima. We meet her in a park, which was her refuge for the first year after her escape. She lived here in her car, along with her husband. But she was lucky and was able to build up a new existence. She now lives in an apartment house. But she does not want to shoot there with us.
sees her “luck” as a burden, now having the potential to fight for the other victims.
Our last day off. We go to Akihabara Electronic City, a part of town which is one sole technical market. Here, we can let our consumption binge run free.
We meet our “urban ninjas” at 9 in the morning at a playground in a shopping mile in Shibuya. Here, the boys run and jump in the direction of our vehicles over everything that gets in their way. We drive to several “spots”, and they show us what they can do. Maggie and Vasco, our vans, also become part of their parkour. The group talks about their sport, their attitude of life, and living in Tokyo.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
We arrive in absolute darkness. We point the camera in the supposed direction of the Fuji, according to navigation software and the compass. But at early dawn we realize that we cannot see three metres in front of us! Rather disappointed we sink into our camping chairs.
Ansgar Frerich