[Newsletter] Creepy or amusing? The rakan statues of Otagi

▶︎ Watch the new video → https://youtu.be/kZfiu_dW6Hw

This week's video is a bit shorter than usual. But it's about a subject that's especially unique and, well, weird.

First of all, a couple unrelated notes

1. The Japan Series (baseball finale) has ended. My team, the Hanshin Tigers, lost in a cruel and heartbreaking way. Sympathy please.

2. You may have noticed several raw footage videos of me playing vintage arcade games. These are related to next week's video, the extended version of which has already been sent to Travel Lovers, Partners, and Masters. Travel Fans (at the defunct $1/month tier) can also watch them. Take a look if you want; it will all make sense when you see the actual video I made about that day. (Full story in next week's newsletter.)

So, the weird heads 🗿🗿🗿

This week's video is a visit to a temple in Kyōto, Japan called Otagi-Nenbutsu Temple. In many ways it's a typical small mountainside temple – wooden main hall building, golden statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas and trickling water and quiet mossy stone paths under big, leafy trees – but there's one very unusual aspect.

Covering the grounds and hillsides of Otagi are hundreds of "rakan" statues. These are stone figures representing followers of Buddha.

In the 1980s, the temple's main priest, who also happened to be a sculptor, began inviting pilgrims to visit, and teaching them how to carve their own rakan figures out of large blocks of stone about two feet high.

The priest, a Mr. Nishimura, encouraged the people to make their rakan figures lively, personable, individual. He didn't want rows of identical solemn figures, but a motley crew of figures all being themselves, but all together.

Many of the beings are actually behaving solemnly – holding their little stone hands in prayer with their eyes closed. Others are doing other things. I saw ones related to baseball and to tennis, others with a pet cat or holding their children. Some are making funny faces, or holding objects important to the carver. One is lifting up its dress to show the big knobby knees and socks.

Wandering the temple grounds is endlessly fun because of all the rows of strange figures and their varied poses and facial expressions. There are about 1,200 statues, and many are covered in green moss, and/or are crumbling or damaged.

The overall effect is pretty strange. Somehow funny and creepy. Or neither; reactions to them are as varied as the rakan figures themselves.

The crowds

When I visited Otagi-Nenbutsu Temple, I was under the impression that, although it's located in the busy tourist area of Arashiyama, that I might have it pretty much to myself. That's because it's a little out of the way, and you have to take a local bus to get there. (Some take taxis, and others hike.) And it's not one of the marquee draws of the area.

Plus, I went on a Tuesday morning, taking the first bus that arrives just after the temple opens. I thought I'd get a jump on any crowds.

Well, maybe I did, but the bus and the temple were still more crowded than I thought. I usually stay away from more popular places – I figure that there are probably plenty of videos and photos of such places online, and it makes it harder to film there. (I try to blur out clearly-visible faces, which adds quite a bit of time to the task of editing a video.)

So, I was getting in people's way, and they in mine, for the hour or so I was there. But everyone was nice and we all got our images.

So, not only is this an unusual type of video for my channel, but the temple and its bizarre, comical statues are just as odd. And I'm overstating the crowd aspect – as a video-maker it was a bit of a hassle, but as a visitor, it was fine.

I recommend this temple if you are visiting Kyōto. Just the right amounts of historical, cultural, unique, weird, and photogenic.

Note: The extended version is nearly the same length as the regular version. But it is ad-free.

▶ TRAVEL LOVERS, PARTNERS, AND MASTERS: Watch the extended 12-minute ad-free version, including the bus ride through Arashiyama to the temple → https://patreon.com/posts/142002675

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Everywhere is worth exploring!

–Jeremy