Sister cities offer dual perspectives on Asia
ALMOST 70 years after World War II ended, and with it Japan’s occupation of Korea, the two countries still eye each other suspiciously. In Tokyo, ultranationalists protest the very existence of Shin-Okubo, the city’s Koreatown.
In Seoul, demonstrators assail Japan for 20th-century war crimes and its more recent claim of a few Korean-controlled oceanic rocks that both sides optimistically call “islands.”
For all the ideological barriers, the two countries are culturally and geographically intimate. This is exemplified by the relationship between the sister cities of Fukuoka (in Japan) and Busan (in South Korea), which face each other across the Tsushima Strait. Visiting both on the same trip is easy — they’re linked by the Beetle, a two-decked hydrofoil — as well as enlightening. The abundant connections between Japan and Korea are particularly clear at ground, and sea, level.
Fukuoka (“lucky hill”) is the largest city on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands; Busan (“kettle mountain”) is South Korea’s second-biggest city, nearer to Japan than to Seoul. Since 1990, the jet-engined ships have linked the two cities, making the trip in two hours 55 minutes.
Although Busan has approximately three times the population of Fukuoka, the two have much in common. Both are port cities with bustling industrial harbours, and both have long been involved in the exchange of goods and ideas among Japan, Korea and China. Neither is considered a top tourist attraction, but each is dynamic and easily negotiated.
Coincidentally, both cities have dual downtowns. Central Busan includes office towers and fancy shops but is mostly roughedged and working-class. The city’s more glamorous precinct is Haeundae, which stretches along the coast to the east of downtown. It’s home to the upscale Centum City complex, with the Guinness-certified world’s largest department store, and the annual Busan International Film Festival, one of Asia’s most prestigious, which is held every October.
Fukuoka’s upscale office and shopping area is Tenjin, but the city also incorporates Hakata, separate until 1876 and a continuing source of confusion. Hakata station was for decades the southern terminus of Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen trains, which now continue southeast to Kagoshima. Anyone who travels by train to Fukuoka needs to know that its station is called Hakata. (So is the port where the Beetle docks.)
I arrived i n Fukuoka by air from Hong Kong, using a Cathay Pacific promotional
Although Busan has approximately three times the population of Fukuoka, the two have much in common. Both are port cities with bustling industrial harbours, and both have long been involved in the exchange of goods and ideas among Japan, Korea and China.
deal that bundled a free jaunt to Japan with a trip to the former British colony. The ease of getting around Fukuoka was immediately apparent: The airport’s domestic terminal is just two subway stops from central Hakata.
Also obvious was the importance of tourists from certain countries. Transit and i nformational signs i n Japan used to be in Japanese and English, but increasingly they’re also in Korean and Chinese. Every such sign I saw in Fukuoka offered all four languages; the same was true in Busan.
Both Japan and Korea encourage tourism, of course, but with some lingering ambivalence. Japan was tightly closed to outsiders from around 1600 until 1854, and Korea was known as the “hermit kingdom” during the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty, which lasted to 1897. (Japan annexed the country soon after, in 1910.) Mistrust of foreigners can be seen at both countries’s entrance points. Busan’s port, for example, is the only place in the world I’ve ever had my hand luggage X-rayed on both arrival and departure. Exchanging currency is also more involved in Japan and Korea than in, say, Hong Kong, where foreigners and their money are always welcome.
Acquiring yen at a Japanese bank is about as slow and complicated a ritual as a tea ceremony. Far simpler is Daikokuya, a chain that’s not designed for English speakers, but will swap anyone’s yen and dollars quickly, and at good rates. At one near Hakata station, I loaded up on yen. Then I put a few thousand of them on a Suica card — which works in most Japanese transit systems — and headed underground.
Although most small businesses in Japan don’t accept credit cards, chip-enabled transit cards such as Suica can be used at many newsstands, eateries and convenience stores (transliterated and abridged in “V”-less Japanese to “conbini.”) Deployed wisely, such a card can save visitors from accumulating a pocketful of small-value coins.
As an experiment, I decided to stay in a “cabin” hotel, a slightly roomier version of Japan’s hivelike capsule hotels. My room at First Cabin, in the Nakasu area, was essentially a bed inside a windowless storage container, with a light, a shelf, electrical outlets, a curtain at one end and a wall-mounted TV without a speaker. (Headphones were available.) Anyone who wanted to make noise was directed to a small lounge outside the sleeping area.
This clearly was no place to linger, but naturally I had livelier destinations. It was midSeptember, time for Hojoya, one of Fukuoka’s top three festivals. (Most of Japan’s attractions are ranked into top-threes.) Held at a Shinto shrine, Hakozaki, Hojoya combines Shinto and Buddhist traditions with an atmosphere reminiscent of an American county fair. The occasion serves to welcome autumn and as a sort of thanksgiving, but in gratitude simply for life itself.
Hakozaki is a few blocks from the closest subway station, but as soon as I reached ground level I was swept into the mass inching towards the shrine, identifiable by its large romon, a wing-roofed tower gate. In some places, such a throng might be intimidating, but not here. One of the many civic arts the Japanese have mastered is moving safely and graciously in crowds. The path was lined with yatai (stalls) that offered games and souvenirs, but mostly food, both traditional and imported. The lines were daunting, but I managed to purchase a few snacks, including a roasted ear of corn, a staple of Japanese street food.
Another subway ride returned me to the neighbourhood of my hotel, where art and commerce jumbled in the usual Japanese manner.
The complex layering of its culture — old and new, silly and profound, ugly and beautiful — is one of the things that draws me back to Japan. The other is that it works; what makes Japan feel futuristic is not robots or bullet trains, but the ease and efficiency of daily life.
Across the street from First Cabin, on the top two floors of an eight-story retail complex, is the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, which bills itself as the world’s only museum of contemporary Asian art. No woodblock prints or delicate teacups here.
Continuing through Nov 30 is the 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, featuring the work of 36 artists or teams from as far away as Pakistan, Nepal and Saudi Arabia. It’s interesting to see a survey of contemporary art that includes no Westerners, although the two Cambodian participants are both refugees who grew up in the United States before returning to their birthplace. One of them appears in a video, ranting in English.