Fusions of old and new

Sir S and I - along with fellow Antipodean travellers Penny Dreadful and Mr Star - spent the weekend in Tokyo, and as is customary for travellers with a keen passion for fashion, we visited Harajuku on Sunday afternoon, with periscopes and binoculars finely polished, for a spot of indulgent people-watching and bizarre-outfit-spotting. Young Japanese folk gather on the bridge behind the station every Sunday, close to the looming stone torii gate of the Meiji Jingu Shrine. They are gaily decked out in an array of unconventional attire. Becoming somewhat of a tourist attraction, these bright young things cluster in groups along the bridge, chatting cheerfully with equally peculiarly-dressed types, posing for photographs with the tourists, or prancing and preening as if in a Madonna video, like the lovely ladies in this snap below. Most of the fancifully dressed have with them a small suitcase each, which one suspects contains their everyday garb (perhaps they sneak it out of their parents' house, cunningly hidden in an innocuous Mickey Mouse luggage set?).



This snap gives an idea of the atmos: crowded with tourists trying to take a peep at the costumed young 'uns, elbowing this way and that to get a better view.



Curiously, this same day also happened to be Japan's National Foundation Day. The bridge then, was not only abustle with young dandies and gals dressed in goth-kimonos, white spacesuits, fluffy bunny outfits and the best stock of clothes from the queerest fashion houses in Tokyo, but it was swarming with festival-goers and participants celebrating Japan's national holiday. Burly groups of men were kitted out in underpants and traditional shirts - rather drafty, I imagine, despite the sunshine! - and each group hoisted above them palaquins bearing a gold-leafed shrine in miniature. It blazed gloriously in the sun like the unearthed Ark of the Covenant, so that I half-expected Indiana Jones to come swooping out of the trees flourishing his whips willy-nilly!



The crowd was most gregarious and rowdy and, swept along with the flow of Chu-Hi that seemingly cascaded from the glowing shrines, the shrine-carriers wended their way through the great torii gate and under the canopy of trees towards the Meiji Jingu Shrine. A leader at the head of each group broadcast a bellowing chant on his megaphone, and the shrine-carriers (some of whom fell tipsily along the wayside and were replaced with more sobre young women) echoed it in a lively fashion.* Many of the bearers displayed magnificent tattoos** of entwined dragons and the like. The lanterns and banners glowed and the shrines glittered in the sunlight, creating quite a marvellous spectacle.



In that oft-said phrase of travellers in the Orient, the sight at Harajuku was a fusion of old and new, and it is an experience that I most relish here in Japan.

* The chant itself was reminiscent of that of the bouncing heads in the film Spirited Away, a deep, reverberating "oi...oi... oi!"
** In Japan, tattoos traditionally denote criminality, and especially association with the yakuza or Japanese mafia. If not properly concealed, tattoos can restrict one's entry to some gyms and hot springs.