Day 34 - The Kiri-Sute Gomen Tradition, The Japanese Class System, The Namamugi Incident, And From Kanagawa To Kawasaki To Heiwajima, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
Day 34 - The Kiri-Sute Gomen Tradition, The Japanese Class System, The Namamugi Incident, And From Kanagawa To Kawasaki To Heiwajima, Walking The Tokaido Road In Japan
The persistence of my cough is starting to worry me.
Tomorrow, we will be finishing our pilgrimage and I am still not well enough to go diving.
It is true that I have some extra time to heal before we go diving, but I am impatient to be well again.
Following the pilgrimage, we booked a few days’ stay in a hot springs resort in the mountains of Gunma, followed by a few more days in Tokyo, before we return to the Philippines for two weeks of diving.
But having achy lungs and mucous, and not being able to breathe well, is worrying me.
This morning, I texted Wendy and told her that I preferred to walk alone today, because I wanted to walk faster.
I explained that I was concerned about my persistent cough and that I might not be able to dive soon, if I don’t heal faster.
Walking faster means that I would finish the day’s walk quicker, and have more time to rest afterwards.
From Yokohama, we took a short train to Kanagawa station and then started walking along the Tokaido.
We passed by the site of the Namamugi incident, that ignited the bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the Anglo-Satsuma War.
This short, three-day war was fought between Britain and the Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima, from 15 to 17 August, 1863.
The Namamugi incident happened on 14 September 1862, during the Tokugawa Shogunate rule.
Charles Lennox Richardson, a British merchant, was killed by his armed Japanese entourage of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the regent of the Satsuma Domain, here in Namamugi, near Kawasaki.
Richardson's death sparked outrage among Europeans, who claimed that this killing violated their friendship and the trade agreement treaty.
The Japanese argued that Richardson had disrespected Shimazu and therefore was justifiably killed, under the Kiri-sute gomen tradition.
The Kiri-Sute Gomen tradition was a Japanese feudal era tradition of “the right to strike.”
The Samurai had a right to strike, and even to kill with their sword, any one of lower class who compromised their honor.
The system of dividing people into classes in Japan can be traced back to ancient times in China and the “Four Occupations” (also known as the "four categories of people").
It was an occupation-based classification of people, used in China since the Zhou dynasty in 1046 BC.
These four categories were:
The Shi- warrior, nobles, and scholars.
The Ning- peasants and farmers.
The Gong- artisans and craftsmen.
The Shang- merchants and traders.
Feudal Japan adopted the same four-tiered class system, with the samurai at the top, and merchants at the bottom.
Farmers were ranked above artisans and merchants, because they provided the essential food that everyone needed.
Confucian ideals emphasized the importance of productivity, so farmers and fishermen had higher status than shopkeepers in Japan.
The Samurai class, probably because it protected the royal rulers, had the most prestige of all.
Unlike European feudal society, in which the peasants (or serfs) were at the bottom, in Japan, the merchants were on the lowest rung.
Between the 12th and 19th centuries, feudal Japan kept this four-tiered class system.
Despite being considered low class, some merchants grew very wealthy and influential over time.
Royals, like feudal lords, shoguns and the emperor were above the class system.
Buddhist and Shinto priests and monks were above the four-tiered system as well.
Just after we passed through Namamugi, the Tokaido turned to the right and away from the main road, and I spotted Wendy and Joseph walking backwards.
They had started out earlier than us today, and they had walked quickly so far.
We got the impression that no matter how much they enjoyed being led around with no obligation to figure out the route for themselves, they actually walked better and faster on their own, than they did when they were walking with us.
We hugged and joked that apparently, the Universe had conspired for us to walk the Tokaido together today after all.
I asked why they were walking backwards, and they said that they thought they had made the wrong turn, because the locator dot on their Tokaido map, was showing that they were no longer on the Tokaido.
I assured them that we were on the correct route, but they were not convinced.
Finally I showed them signs along the way that indicated that we were on the Tokaido.
Those GPS navigation dots are notoriously wrong, especially in dense urban areas, where satellite readings are patchy.
It reminded me of the many times during our journey when Joseph insisted that we had missed a milestone marker.
I told him that they were still ahead of us, but he insisted that I was wrong.
Later, he realized that he had been holding his phone upside down and we all had a heartily laugh.
We walked by the house where Kurokawa Shirozaemon lived.
He was a famous pharmacist who once lived on the Tokaido.
Kurokawa Shirozaemon ran “Tsuruido” - a pharmacy known along the Tokaido highway for its cough remedy called "Kurakumaru" (also Kurakugan).
The name Tsuruido came from the fact that one day, four red-crowned cranes landed in the garden of his house.
The pharmacy is said to have disappeared towards the end of the Meiji period, but the Pharmacy building, stood until the early 1940s.
His famous cough medicine was very popular because the Tokaido road was busy with walking people all year round, and people who walked mountains in the snow or who got wet from crossing many rivers, often caught a cold.
I wished so much that I could have tried his cough medicine today…
I tried everything, from making my own cough medicine by combining honey with essential mint oil and eucalyptus oil mixed with castor oil and lots of grated ginger root, to eating lots of vitamin C.
We crossed the Tsurumi River on a small bridge.
The Tsurumi River Bridge is said to have been built around 1601 when Tokugawa leyasu developed the Tokaido, and it has almost the same history as the Tokaido.
It was the first long bridge on the Tokaido road that travelers crossed after leaving Nihonbashi.
The area around the bridge had open views and was a beautiful, scenic spot where you could see Mt. Daisen and the Hakone mountain range.
The Tsurumi River was known as a violent river, which flooded many times, causing bridges to be washed away, but they always rebuilt this bridge.
The local market and the Tsurumi area was mentioned in travel writings, songs, haiku poems, and paintings that described the scenic view from the Tsurumi Bridge.
“Far to the right, the views of Mount Fuji and the Hakone mountains stretch out in the distance, towering over the rice fields.
On the left, if it is a clear day, you can see the blue sea with beautiful sailboats.”
The area was lined with pear trees, and tea shops along the road sold a Tsurumi specialty called "Yonemanju."
Tsurumi's "Yone-manju" was a favorite snack food made of steamed beans seasoned with salt and used as a filling inside a mochi rice cake.
Yonemanju was cheaper than soba noodles, and was appreciated by travelers and palanquin carriers, because it was a filling snack or meal.
Also, Yone-manju stuffed inside hollowed-out bamboo, was a favorite souvenir for travelers who wanted to bring a taste of the Tokaido home.
Soon we arrived in Kawasaki Juku.
Lots of remains from the Edo period are still standing around town, although not all were located near the Tokaido.
We separated from Wendy and Joseph and we went to eat lunch of a small, plant-based burger.
We also passed by a bustling little place that made onigiri rice balls, and we bought two to eat later.
On the outskirts of Kawasaki-juku, the Tokaido was a straight road surrounded by rice fields which continued all the way to the neighboring village of Ichiba.
There used to be 28 pine trees, 249 cedar trees, and 7 zelkova trees lining both sides of the road.
Tokugawa leyasu established the post stations system on the Tokaido in 1601.
Kawasaki’s post station was established 22 years later, in 1623, in order to reduce the burden of horse-drawn carriages on the post stations of Shinagawa and Kanagawa.
In Kawasaki, the Tokaido stretched straight through the fields (called Dan), and reached the border with Ichiba Village (present-day Yokohama City).
A landmark signpost stood here on the border with Ichiba Village.
The wooden signpost no longer remains, but old drawings show that it was very impressive, and that it was a major public structure on the Tokaido.
When Kawasaki-juku welcomed government officials or local lords, the headman of Kawasaki-juku and the wholesale officials, would come to this signpost to welcome them into town and to see them off.
In this area, they found many human bones dating to the Edo period.
According to records from the Edo period, Kawasaki-juku was hit by earthquakes, and many people lost their lives in frequent natural disasters such as fires, floods, famines, and epidemics.
It is likely that the unidentified bones of people who had died in these disasters, were buried together under the rows of pine and zelkova trees on the outskirts of Kawasaki-juku.
In order to commemorate the souls of those who had
died in those incidents, the local people and the city of
Kawasaki built a memorial tower here in 1934.
This place is called Muenzuka, and the local people continue to hold memorial services there.
There were three Honjin inns in Kawasaki Station in 1628.
The Tanaka Honjin was the oldest one and it was a lodging exclusively for the samurai class, the feudal lords, the shogunate officials, and the imperial envoys.
The structure of the lodging had two levels.
The first floor had a gate, an entrance hall, and living and gathering area that was used for entertaining guests.
The upper level, was something that was not permitted to have in ordinary private homes at that time.
This second floor was built in order to accommodate the samurai class, and to provide a living space for the family of the honjin's owner.
The Honjin owners were usually a wealthy and trustworthy noble family, selected by the shogunate within each post town.
The Tanaka Honjin in Kawasaki flourished as many feudal lords began traveling along the highways.
But in the late Edo period, it began to decline noticeably, due to the financial difficulties faced by the feudal lords.
In 1857 the American Consul General Harris, saw the state of disrepair at the Tanaka Honjin and transformed it into a restaurant called Mannen-ya.
There is a record that in 1868, Emperor Meiji had lunch and rested at Tanaka Honjin during his visit to the east.
In 1870, the new government acted in response to a smallpox epidemic, to carry out vaccinations in various locations.
In Kawasaki, an announcement was issued stating that vaccinations would be carried out six times at Tanaka Honjin between November and December.
We walked through the lively and busy downtown of Kawasaki. There was a very attractive layout to this juku, with lots of street paintings of the old Tokaido, posted around.
We met Joseph and Wendy at a small cafe called the Cross Bagel Cafe, which had surprisingly tasty bagels.
We saw a sign saying that we had only 15 km left to walk to get to Nihonbashi, and got very excited that this pilgrimage was going to end tomorrow.
After returning to Yokohama we went to the happy PanCake cafe, which offered delicious savory fluffy pancakes with smoked salmon avocado and cream cheese.
Later in the evening, after our showers, I remembered that we still had the rice balls we had bought earlier.
I took a bite of my rice ball and my zirconia rear bridge, fell out.
My teeth were not broken and neither was the bridge, but somehow the permanent glue had failed.
I felt frightened and desperate.
I have been suffering since my teenage years from bad dentistry.
I have many crowns and two bridges in my mouth.
A few years ago, I replaced all my gold and ceramic crowns with metal-free zirconia crowns.
It was astronomically expensive and now I was frightened that I would be facing another serious dental problem.
I started looking online for a dentist who would accept me as an emergency patient.
I found an English-speaking dentist in Nihonbashi, and in desperation I sent him an email explaining my emergency.
It was already 10 pm, and I was tired and sleepy.
Miraculously, the doctor replied to my email and said that he would take me tomorrow afternoon.
I immediately sent a message to Wendy explaining what had happened, and that I planned to start walking tomorrow at 7:00 in the morning, in order to complete the pilgrimage and arrive in Nihonbashi by 2 pm for my dental appointment.
Wendy responded that they would be ready at 7:00 AM to check out of the hotel and start walking.
I felt happy that we would be finishing our pilgrimage together.
We walked longer today in order to walk less tomorrow.
We had started walking this pilgrimage together, and I was happy that we would finish the journey together.
With friendship and love,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 31,321
km walked - 21.5 km
Total walked: 633.50 km
Old Post Towns Visited:
Kawasaki Juku #2
