tera

March 1, 2005 in diary by mika | 4 comments

I feel like Japanese monks are pyromania. They love setting big things like temples and mountains on fire on festival occasions.

http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0301/034.html

This should come with a headline “a 1000 year old temple caught on fire and burnt to ash” but instead, they talk about this spectacular spring festival.

  1. paul’s avatar

    paul on March 1, 2005 at 3:31 pm

    Seeing your link to a Japanese news service reminded me of my own experience with Japanese news.

    As for setting temples on fire, that’s the theme of one of my favorite Mishima novels called The Temple of the Golden Pavillion. It’s about a young monk who may or may not be paranoid schizophrenic, who decides this beautiful Buddhist temple is oppressing him, and consequently burns it to the ground.

    I like fire as a sort of cleaning device (clean burns in forests, etc.), but these monks are truly something else.

  2. paul’s avatar

    paul on March 1, 2005 at 3:32 pm

    It got rid of my links, so here they are:
    my own experience with Japanese news : http://nk-money.topica.ne.jp/ryugaku/ryugaku21.html

    and those monks are truly something else :
    http://www.geocities.com/cornelius_ape/BurnBud.jpg

  3. mika’s avatar

    mika on March 1, 2005 at 6:57 pm

    Wait..you took these photos that are used in the japanese newspaper?

    As for the monk, I wonder if anybody who was there at the time tried to save his life. I’m not saying that they should have or they shouldn’t have but I just wonder. It would be extremely difficult for me to just stand and watch a person burnt to death even if I knew that’s what he wanted.

  4. paul’s avatar

    paul on March 2, 2005 at 11:36 pm

    I met a girl named Miho who interns for that newspaper– she was in town for the DNC and I showed her my pictures and she wanted them. I’m a superstar Japanese photojournalist.

    As for the monk, I don’t know what I’d do. I’ve seen pictures where he’s surrounded by young girls in the background and they are staring.

    I think I would be so moved (up or down, I do not know) that I would freeze in place and stare in horror and wonderment.

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