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Tour Visit to Musashi Kokubunji Temple
Kokubunji Temple Visit
In the morning on 21st October, 2015 all STEP students, who take Japanese Culture course, were assigned to visit Musashi Kokubunji Temple located near Kokubunji Station or less than 15 minutes by bike from TUAT Fuchu Campus. Kokubunji Temple is one of the very historical sites which was established centuries ago in the period of Emperor Shomu in Tokyo, Japan. Currently, Kokubunji Temple becomes a museum where we can see many tourists come for culture learning and visiting purpose. Spending few hours visiting the temple, I have learned and gained a lot of knowledge, especially about culture and religion in japan.
My Observation
In the temple, I observed many interesting things; however, there were three of them that stood out to me and caught my whole interests, and therefore I will describe one by one as the following.
The first thing I observed is exactly Torii, which is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine. Before I laid my foots on Japanese mainland, I always saw this stuff in the books, magazines, especially advertisements on TV. Nonetheless, this month is quite different because I have a great chance to see not only Torii but also other amazing things in reality in Tokyo.
The second one is the pagoda in Kokubunji Temple. In Cambodia, Pagoda is a big place where the monks live and pray in Buddhism, and also where Buddhist Holy Books are kept. By the way, Pagoda in Japan refers to a very small building where only Holy Books are kept, and the monks stay in ordinary house nearby.
And last but definitely not least, there was a shrine I have seen during visiting. It was noticeably the strangest one among others since there was a God with many hands holding different types of tools similar to the gods in Hinduism. As I guess it clearly shows that there were distinction and diversity of culture and religion in ancient Japan.
Visiting this temple, I am not merely enjoy sightseeing the temple-scape but also learning new things; for example, Torri, Japanese Pagoda, and especially the strangest shrine. If I have more chances, I will try to learn more Japanese culture as much as possible.
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