Fuji-san

In an earlier post, I wrote that Fuji dominates eastern Japan, and pervades the Japanese psyche. I'll take a moment to explain what I meant by this.



From a physical viewpoint, Mount Fuji is a dormant volcano, 12,388 feet tall, and one of the tallest mountains in the country. It last erupted in 1707, and was first climbed by a monk in 663 AD. On a clear day, it can be seen from Tokyo, about 70 miles away. Prior to the construction of the modern-day skyscrapers, it could have been visible from anywhere in the city. It's located in a plains area, not too far from the western mountain ridge that runs up the middle of the island, so it's visibility is within a half-circle arc with a 80+ mile radius. So, as far as dominating the region goes, it's like the mountain is watching you from anywhere within this arc.

Japan is the home of the Shinto religion, which essentially holds that places have power, and such places are marked with a shrine for worshiping the local gods there. Fuji, being so big and in the middle of an open plain, naturally was recognized as a particularly powerful place. Japanese men were expected to climb to the top at least once in their lives (the saying goes "a wise man climbs Fuji-san once; a foolish man climbs it again", meaning that it's good for your soul to make the pilgrimage to the top, but since there's nothing up there, it's silly to do it more than once). But, the mountain was closed to women until after 1860. A number of woodblock print artists in the 1800's, most notably Hiroshige, featured various views of Fuji in their prints, which brought the mountain to those people living more than 200 miles away from it.

Fuji is one of the "Sanreizan", Japan's "three holy mountains" (along with Tate and Haku). It's a symbol of the country, along with Tokyo Tower, and the hinamaru flag (white flag with red rising sun). But, in a way, it's "just kind of there". The Japanese natives that I've talked to have no strong feeling one way or the other regarding Fuji now. If they've grown up in Tokyo, then Fuji is just a mountain that they can get to in a couple of hours by train or bus. It's so deeply ingrained in their culture and surroundings that they've stopped noticing it. But, it's a symbol of stability that's occasionally invoked by politicians and the like to show that the country will last a long time.