When I first moved to Japan, there was a "get to know the area" tour that I went on. Part of the tour was near Kintaikyo Bridge, and then I was given free time to walk around the area before the bus loaded back up to return to where I was staying. I spent a lot of the time exploring the Samurai Art museum near there. Some of the museums that I have been to in Japan have descriptions of the artifacts in English as well as Japanese. I've been to a few museums that are entirely in Japanese, which makes it hard to tell what I'm looking at, so this was a lot more interesting to me since I could read it in English.
This trip was about as far from today as one could get, since it was one of the first things that I did when I got here, so I don't remember that much about the artifacts. The building is 3 or 4 storeys tall, which seems like a weird estimation of height; how could I be off by an entire storey? Here, a lot of buildings build upward and have elevators or escalators or stairs to allow people to move between them. There are so many buildings that are like this that I find it difficult to keep them straight. There was a ground floor, and when I came in, there was a work crew sitting on the ground, either packing or unpacking something to/from boxes. Then I went up stairs from there.
Most of the museum was dedicated to artifacts of warfare. Everything was in glass cases, so while I took a lot of pictures, some of them are not very good quality because the reflection from the glass makes the content hard to see. I thought about trying to clean them up with a photo editor, but that seems like a lot of work, so I didn't.
I'm a nerd and I spend a lot of time playing and thinking about DnD and other role playing games, so when I go to a museum like this, I usually get inspired to be creative with it. I immediately want to play some sort of role playing game set in the world that I'm seeing. I took a lot of the pictures with that in mind. I don't know that I'm going to get a chance to play a game in this setting. Playing one while I'm here seems reductive; one doesn't play a escapist role playing game to experience the world that they live in (or rather, shouldn't). If people here were interested in experiencing that world, there are much better resources than a white boy from California to use. When I get back to the US, I don't know that I would want to try to bring this experience back with me; I think that people have a preconception of the kind of person who is fascinated by Japan, and I don't want to cultivate that as my image. I don't personally believe in that stereotype, having met a lot of people here who match some but not all of the points. Regardless, I don't want to be painted with that brush, so I don't think I'll be running that game.
Ok, so I do have something to say about this one. Many of the helmets have animal shapes on the top. Different animals symbolize different things. I think the crab is defense, since they have shells. I don't know that there is a right or a wrong answer, since symbols are as much (if not more) interpretation as they are intention. So if I see this as symbolizing defense, it means defense to me. In the absense of intention of the creator, that's what it means to me. I suppose even in the presense of intention from the creator, I could still see something else, but I shouldn't say "This is what the creator meant" unless I knew what they meant.
I liked this one a lot also. Initially I thought this meant fear, cowardice, aversion to combat, a rabbit running away from a fight. The description pointed out that rabbits are fast and agile, so this would symbolize those qualities instead of what I immediately thought of. The description also pointed out that a rabbit on men symbolized speed and agility, but a rabbit on women symbolized fertility, because of course it does. Of course, it would not be a rabbit on a helmet for a woman, because most of the time the women were not warriors, but it could have been somewhere else.
In addition to the artifacts of warfare that were in this museum, there were other things. This is a standing curtain that is also a map of somewhere. These kinds of artifacts really pique my curiousity. I want to know more. I don't actually want to learn more about them, because I'm lazy and that would take time and effort, but also because I enjoy the feeling of the possibilities bouncing around my head. What would the misty mountains of Japan have looked like back in ancient times when traveling by horseback from town to town. The answer is, of course, much like they do today, as the mountains and green areas are remarkably well preserved, and traveling by horse is infinitely worse than by train, and I've never ridden a horse, but I still know this to be true. But looking at a map like this gives me a sense of wonder, and I like that.
I'm a nerd, so any time I see a game, I want to take a picture of it. I took a picture of the war gaming display at the Naval War College in New Port Rhode Island for the same reason. I have no idea how to play this game, and no particular interest in learning, but any game that I see, I want to take a picture of.
What would a samurai museum be without a collection of samurai swords? I don't have much to say, so I'll just change topics: I don't take many pictures unless I know that I'm going to share them. My wife has the same tendency, so we don't have that many pictures of us together. Even when I do take pictures, what should I do with them? People post them online, but I don't use mass market social media. I try to make blog posts here, but not everything I could take pictures of is appropriate for this medium. Do people ever go back through pictures that they took in the past and look at them? I remember doing that a couple of times when I was on Facebook, but I remember it being really depressing. Or is that like a sad movie, where you watch it because you like feeling sad? I never understood that impulse.
More swords. That's all I have from the museum. I would recommend it, if you are ever in the area. I'll probably go back at some point.
At this time, SarisonZero lives and works in Japan. He just finished the second season of The Unsleeping City and is thinking about ways to get away from the commercial leeches of society and build and improve communities that he wants to be a part of.