Dolls

Rather than hang out in the AKP lounge after my Japanese class on Friday, a couple of friends and I decided to check out the Kyoto Costume Museum, which is near to Nishi Hongan-ji Temple and in the area of the Gojo subway stop. It was a little hard to find, mainly because we were expecting some sort of building devoted to costumes, but we eventually realized that it was on the 5th floor of a building that, on the main level, sold supplies for Buddhist temples, including ceremonial robes and large altar implements. When I realized how small it had to be, I was a little disappointed, but I quickly recovered. The first thing in the place is a scale model of the Rokujo Mansion from The Tale of Genji, which was in incredible detail and gave a very good idea of what life was actually like for nobility at the time. Because the conventions of architecture were incredibly different way back in 11th century Japan, it was a little hard for me to envision most of the rooms when I was actually reading the novel, which made this model especially interesting to me. The first half was devoted to various scenes of the normal activities of Heian noble women, represented by perfectly dressed dolls in 12-layered silk gowns with tiny books, go-boards and mirrors. The second half of the mansion was devoted to portraying two major scenes from Genji itself, the first being ‘Marriage vows of the third night’, where Genji makes the lady Murasaki his official wife. The second scene, however, is from the ‘Aoi’ chapter, where Genji’s first wife is giving birth. They show all of the ladies in waiting getting everything ready for when the baby comes, dressed in white to drive away evil spirits, with priests reciting prayers for health, and mediums being possessed with any malignant spirits in the area. The centre of the scene, of course, is the Lady Aoi herself, laying on her sickbed with Genji attending her, but over her prostrate form, carefully positioned is a doll of the Lady Rokujo, Genji’s spurned mistress whose living spirit is attacking Aoi and making her ill. It was very effective. The other half of the exhibit was devoted to a life-sized mock-up of a Heian room, with two fully dressed figures. In this room, however, they also had an assortment of robes that could be donned by any visitor for free. They weren’t complete 12-robe sets or anything, but they were enough to give a good idea about what it was supposed to look like, and only took a second to put on instead of over an hour. Thoroughly thrilled with our find, we returned to the lounge to head out with everyone for a dinner arranged by one of the other students to thank the women who work at the office keeping everything running smoothly. We ended up at an Italian restaurant near sanjo, easy walking distance from the Karasumaoike subway stop. Our reservations had been made beforehand, and the dishes going to be served were also decided in advance. We got a LOT of food for not a whole lot of money, and it was really tasty too. I wouldn’t recommend going there with only a few people though, because the portions are famously large. As it was, no table finished everything given to them. Several people went out for drinks afterward, but since I was going to have to wake up early the next morning I declined.
-It seems that ‘pumpkin pie’ is a bit hit-or-miss here. The slice on the dessert tray at the restaurant seemed to be literally pureed pumpkin on a crust topped with whipped cream.
-A story told by a friend of mine bears repeating: She was going to stay the night at one of the other students’ host family’s house, and thus needed to buy a gift for them as a ‘thank you.’ She decided on flowers, and was looking at all of the expensive single stems of chrysanthemums and the like, when she saw a group of little bouquets to the side. She picked one of them up and asked the store owner to wrap it up nicely, which he did after giving her a strange look. When she arrived at the house, the host mother thankfully accepted the flowers, but a couple days afterward, her friend (whose house she had stayed at) pulled her aside and said ‘my host mother just wanted me to tell you that the flowers that you bought, while nice, are actually only meant for offering to graves and the like, so..’. So, the small pre-prepared bouquets should not be used as gifts to living people.