We've got your gods right here

Turns out that when you’re heading somewhere for a year, everyone and their brother wants to recommend books for, about, from, and only loosely inspired by that place. Such was the case with Japan, and I have been hard pressed to stay on top of the flood of book titles that have been thrown at me over the last few months.

Luckily, one of the recommendations stuck out. The book was Hitching Rides with Buddha, and it was recommended by the president of the company I used to work for. When I looked into the book, I discovered that it had been written by Canadian humourist Will Ferguson, who had traveled to Japan to teach English in his youth. Will used his hitchhiking trek from the southern Cape of Sata to the Cape of Sooya at the far northern tip of Hokkaido as a framing device for the book. Under the guise of chronicling his pursuit of the Sakura Zensen (Cherry Blossom Front) as the trees flowered from south to north, he presents a good humoured portrait of Japanese culture.

That being said, this isn’t meant to be a book review. I’m only about 50 pages in thus far, but Will just blew me away with his explanation/depiction of the indigenous Japanese Shinto religion, so I thought I’d share an excerpt from the book for anyone who has ever wondered about Shinto. Will’s description may just have nailed me because I tend to go in for that kind of world-worship, nature-hippy, odenic-pagan stuff, but I think there’s something pure and organic about the animate nature of Shinto beliefs that will appeal to people tired of theistic belief systems.

The following italicized passages are in no part my own and belong entirely to Will Ferguson, his publisher, blah blah blah etc. If you think you like his writing, well then help a Canadian brother out, and buy his book.

Of Shinto

…As a faith, it grew from the natural awe, the fear and trembling, that humans have for the world around them: the fertility of womb and earth, the natural forces and the mysteries of life.

In Japan, the world is filled with primordial spirits. The kami are everywhere. The unseen world is pregnant with them, rich in life and charged with energy. Historical figures have been elevated to kami, and so have abstract nouns and animals.

Deeper still, Shinto is about being Japanese. One is not converted to Shinto. One is born into it. One simply is Shinto in the same way that one simply is—or isn’t—Japanese. The idea of Shinto proselytizing is absurd. During World War II, the Japanese Empire built massive Shinto shrines in the countries it occupied: Singapore, Korea, Taiwan. But, removed from its Japanese soil, Shinto withers and dies. It is perhaps the only religion in the world that failed to convert the people it conquered.

Although it was used as a propaganda tool during World War II, and still contains heavy imperial connections, Shinto has largely returned to the more earthly, joyous roots from which it sprang. Shinto celebrates life. It is optimistic. Buddhism [the other widespread religion in Japan], in contrast, is gloomy. Shinto is for weddings; Buddhism is for funerals. Buddhist festivals are somber. Shinto festivals are freewheeling, drunken affairs, intent on entertaining the gods. Buddhism worries about the afterlife. Shinto is concerned with the everyday and the here-and-now.

Now that’s a religion I can get behind. “…It grew from the natural awe, the fear and trembling, that humans have for the world around them” sounds just about perfect.