Coming face to face with the old Japan
It’s the ‘Jewel of Japan’ but Kanazawa, one of the top destinations for Japanese tourists, is barely known outside the country. Tucked between the Sea of Japan and the Japan Alps, peaks etched on the horizon like a backdrop to a stage, Kanazawa is rather off the beaten track.
That could all change when the shinkansen, Japan’s famous bullet train, arrives next year at an appropriately gleaming station, rebuilt in 2005 under a dome of glass and steel fretwork and fronted by a wooden gate shaped like a drum, with a digital clock marked out in tiny bubbling fountains. It’s a tourist attraction in its own right.
Often likened to Kyoto, Japan’s former capital, for its wealth of old buildings (escaping earthquakes and war damage alike – though not always the careless redevelopment of post-war years), Kanazawa was once the fourth biggest city and flourished in feudal times.
For nearly 300 years the town was under the control of one clan, the Maeda family and, in places, you can still imagine being back a couple of centuries. For example, the Higashi Pleasure District is the only place outside Kyoto with geishas.
The traditional architecture – low roofs of glistening curved black tiles, finely latticed frontages (easy to see out, but not in) – is unchanged. Geishas in elaborate kimonos and ghost-white faces can be seen, or heard practising their songs and instruments: the drum or the three-stringed shamisen.
At the shop where the Fukushima family has made shamisen for 130 years, visitors are allowed to practise too. In response to our summons by xylophone (serving as a bell), we were led upstairs for the obligatory green tea, before being let loose on the shamisen with instructions on how to play Sakura, Sakura (Cherry Blossom, Cherry Blossom), a simple folk song.
The Samurai (warrior) district of Nagamachi is likewise perfectly preserved. Paved lanes, surprisingly free of the usual spaghetti tangle of overhead cables, wind between ochre mud walls. By the 400-year-old canal is the Nomura family house: deludingly calm for the residence of a warrior, with its uncluttered interiors, tatami straw mats, sliding paper doors and meditatively peaceful garden with the inevitable carp swimming in gently trickling waters. On display is a scroll – a thank-you letter, dated October 9, 1566, to Nomura for killing a high-ranking soldier: ‘We are very happy that you brought us his head,’ it says.
Across the iron bridge spanning one of Kanazawa’s two rivers is Teramachi (‘temple town’), a quiet enclave of temples and shrines, and gatherings of statues with red bibs, memorials to children. But the biggest tourist attraction is Kenrokuen, once part of the 18th Century castle, and now one of the top three gar
dens of Japan. Visiting is not a peaceful experience, as large groups are led around by megaphone-wielding guides,
Rather more tranquil is the smaller family-owned Gyokusenen Garden, where there are moss-covered stone lanterns, winding paths under trees, streams and waterfalls. This was the perfect setting to learn about the tea ceremony, gravely explained by Mrs Nishida in the tea house. Japan’s tea ceremony involves confectionery, and that is entirely appropriate in Kanazawa, which is renowned for its sweets.
Kanazawa also has a reputation for more wholesome fare – especially seafood. The stalls at Ohmicho market are laden with baby aubergines, long-stalked slender mushrooms and huge melons, but mainly tuna, crabs, squid, oysters – and eels. Eel Day was coming up (the nutrients are supposed to help you survive the heat of the summer), and long queues were kept in check by cordons. We lunched there, at Conveyor Belt Sushi where saucers of salmon, prawn, tuna and pickled plums were ferried along the counter to us.
It was an easier meal than the feast we had another day at a traditional restaurant, which involved sitting for an hour on our folded knees on the floor.
At the other extreme, we were taken by a resident into a basement, past the customary models of different dishes (how else would we know what to eat?) to booths supplied with a computer tablet for ordering our food, which arrived promptly and without ceremony. When the message ‘We are close time at soon’ flashed up, we consulted the tablet (no need to call for the bill), paid up and left.
By this time we’d moved from the Kanazawa Grand Hotel, which more or less lived up to its name (women bowing to residents as they entered the lifts), to Ryokan Murataya, with its rows of slippers at the door and ofuro (communal bath), and a larger ‘eight-tatami room’ with futons.
It was an oasis of tranquillity, though situated – in something of a culture clash – just one block from a shopping street where the stores included Zara and Subway. The juxtaposition made Kanazawa UNESCO-designated Craft City status seem rather surreal, though Kutani porcelain and lacquer work have been made here since Maeda days.
Visitors are encouraged to participate in the local crafts. I learned how to decorate chopsticks using gossamer-thin squares of gold leaf.
Amid all the tradition, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (opened in 2004) comes as a great surprise across the road from the sculptured landscapes of Kenrokuen.
The glass walls encircling the galleries provide insight into the free public spaces that include a library, playroom and cafe with gleaming white banquettes.
There is no front or back to the museum, and with four entrances it encourages approach from all sides. It’s a bold and brilliant attempt to assert Kanazawa as a modern town of culture as well as a venerated historic one. And it works splendidly.