Reflections on Japan
Master Sang made the comment that “Tokyo was comfortable as a big city.” This is something I have known since I first visited Japan in the 1990’s. Despite the fact that it is an enormous metropolis, it is clean, green and well maintained as a city. Walking through the streets in the early morning hours, trash collectors and maintenance people are hard at work removing the refuse from the previous evening. Even in some of the most crowded and seedier parts of Tokyo, the environment is kept up. The trees and the gardens are maintained and there is no “sha” to be found.
In a city such as Hong Kong, one has to search for a blade of grass. The parks are wonderful in Hong Kong, but feel artificial. Like a foreign landscape dropped into the city environment. However, in Tokyo, there is a real sense of the gardens and parks being an essential part of the urban environment.
Now the downside. Everywhere in Tokyo there are raised freeways and “flyovers” that cut across the buildings. The buildings are of various shapes and sizes with no uniformity. There are tall buildings standing alone and small buildings and homes surrounded by tall apartment blocks. As mentioned in a Feng Shui tip posting, Feng Shui avoids extremes. It is better to not be the smallest building or the tallest building in an environment. A tall building by itself is unsheltered and open to the strong qi. A small building amongst tall buildings creates a feeling of pressure on the occupants.
The Feng Shui class was held this past month and the students were eager. In the US, it is difficult to overcome the basic premise of “westernized fast food” Feng Shui. In Japan however, there is a lot of Chinese myth and specifics over generalized. One example is the Qi Mon, or Spirits Gate. The Northeast. In Tokyo bookstores there are entire books dedicated to this topic. However it is treated as a general topic, when in reality it is a very specific aspect of Feng Shui, used only at the higher levels.
The students were eager to learn and really wanted more and more. Japan is hungry for this knowledge and yearns to know the truth and the depth of authentic Chinese Feng Shui. It was very encouraging that so many people showed up for both the seminar and the classes. For the AFSI’s first time in Japan, we were well received. I look forward to many more classes and events in the land of the rising sun.
