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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kaidou wo yuku Volume 36 Kanda kaiwai
In the previous article, I described a trip to the islands of Hizen in Kyushu (Karatsu, Hirado, Sasebo, and Nagasaki) to visit the remains of the Nanban trade with the Netherland, United Kingdom, and Portuguese during the Age of Discovery. In this article, we will visit Nikolaido, Kanda Myojin, and the Kanda Jimbocho antiquarian bookstore district, and walk in the footsteps of Mori Ogai, Natsume Soseki, and others who lived and worked in this town.
The route of the trip starts near the intersection of Kyoritsu Women’s University auditorium. This area was called Gojiin Kehara from the Edo period to the end of the Edo period, and the story jumps from Tokugawa Ieyasu‘s castle town construction work at the time of his arrival in Kanto to an anecdote by Fukuzawa Yukichi and a novel by Mori Ogai. Eventually, the journey moves on to the Kanda area, “one of the world’s leading cities for learning things”. At the site of Kanda Otamagaike Pond, visitors will come into contact with the Chiba Dojo of the Hokushin Itto school of swordsmanship, and then they will experience Edo learning at the Yushima Seido Temple. Next, the journey ends with a stop at Nikolai-do and Kanda Myojin, and a visit to the antiquarian bookstore district of Jimbocho, where the topic of publishers and booksellers’ masters is discussed.
The Kanda neighborhood is an area in Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, with historic buildings, bookstores, antiquarian bookstores, and an electronics district. One of the historical buildings in Kanda is Kanda Shrine, which faces the back of JR Ochanomizu Station and has been dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the god of learning, since the Edo period.
The approach to the shrine is lined with many food stalls, creating a fair-like atmosphere.
Kanda Shrine is probably also famous for Heiji Zenigata, who was set up to live under Kanda Myojin. Heiji Zenigata was the main character in the Edo period detective stories written by Nomura Kodo. Incidentally, since the copyright of “Heiji Zenigata” has expired more than 50 years after his death, all 88 episodes can be viewed on Kindle at a low price.
The TV drama that aired for nearly 20 years from 1966 to 1984 (888 episodes in total, which is also recognized as a world record by the Guinness Book of Records), starring Okawa Hashizo, will also be nostalgic for people of a certain age group.
Also, Inspector Zenigata (Koichi Zenigata), who appeared in Lupin III, a Monkey Punch original and Hayao Miyazaki’s movie, and who was obsessed with arresting Lupin, was set to be the sixth generation (a descendant) counting from this Heiji Zenigata.
Descending southwest from Kanda Shrine is Jimbocho. Jimbocho is famous as an antiquarian bookstore district, and will be a place where many bookstores and antiquarian bookshops gather from all over Japan. Here one can find old books, magazines, manga, movies, and many other types of books.
Kanda is also a fierce battleground for curry rice, with a wide variety of curry available and the Kanda Curry Grand Prix held annually.
These curries are also mentioned in Yoshio Kataoka‘s “Curry Rice Drifting” introduced in “Surfers’ Island.
In Kaido no Yuku, the topic of Iwanami Shoten, founded by Shigeo Iwanami, is discussed. Iwanami Shoten was initially established as a used bookstore in Jimbocho and later became a publishing company, known for its editorial policy based on high academic standards and for publishing books on culture, social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities of high quality.
In addition to Iwanami Shoten, there were many other book publishers and printing-related stores. In Kaido Yuku, Seikosha, a long-established printing house that was also responsible for Iwanami Shoten‘s printing, is introduced, and letterpress printing, in which a craftsman picks up type while looking at a manuscript and arranges it to print, is described.
When I was a child, there was a printing press in my neighborhood, and I used to watch from outside as they laid out the typefaces.
The Kanda neighborhood has highs and lows in terms of natural geography. Surugadai, where Meiji University and Nicolai Hall are located, is a hill, while the area around Hitotsubashi Auditorium, Kyoritsu Women’s University, and Gakushi Kaikan at the southern end is a low area.
It is said that this low-lying area was reclaimed from a swamp in the Edo period (1603-1867). Since the area was in the direction of the “devil’s gate” as seen from Edo Castle, a monk named Takamitsu built a temple called “Gojiin” at the order of Tsunayoshi Tokugawa. During the reign of the 8th Shogun Yoshimune (1717), Gojiin was destroyed by the Great Fire of Edo (Kyoho 2), which burned all the samurai residences and other buildings in the area, leaving the temple as it was before. After the fire, Gojiin was moved to Otsuka, and the site was left vacant to protect it from the fire.
This state of affairs continued until the end of the Edo period, around the time of Perry’s arrival and the conclusion of the Treaty of Friendship between Japan and the United States in 1854 (Ansei 1), when the shogunate established the Kaiseisho, which was a government-run Western-style school. This was because Japan had no European studies other than Dutch studies, and after the signing of the treaty, it was difficult to handle the affairs of international relations. The Bansho Shosho is considered by some sources at the University of Tokyo to be the origin of the University of Tokyo.
The name of this institution changed frequently, from Bansho Chosho to Kaiseisho. The location was also moved from Kanda Oka Sagaecho to Kanda Hitotsubashimon Gai.
Foreign languages taught at the school were initially Dutch, but English, French, and German were eventually added. Although Kaiseijo was originally a science school, it did not have a department of science, but taught chemistry, geography, mathematics, and painting. Painting belonged to the field of science and technology, not art, at that time.
A short distance east of Kanda Shrine is Akihabara, a famous electric town.
It is also known as the center of otaku culture, with numerous stores specializing in idols, anime, manga, games, and cosplay costumes. Akihabara is also known for its numerous maid cafes and cosplay cafes, where customers are served by staff dressed in anime and video game costumes, making it a unique experience.
In the next artilce, the journey takes us to the northeastern seashore of Hokkaido to inquire about the mysterious “Okhotskers,” a tribe of marine fishermen.
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