There are lots of small temples or shrines around when you are walking on the streets and lanes of Tokyo. I am quite amazed by these cultural symbols as it means that traditions are still very important in this country. Especially these temples actually have a lot of common elements with temples in the Chinese regions while they surly have their own unique and charming Japanese essence too. In other words, they are familiar yet unfamiliar to me at the same time, making them irresistible for my cameras (I hope taking photos of these does not offend them as I would take a bow before I do XD).
Also, the other day I passed by a cemetery which allegedly is a very famous one for celebrities. I am also very intrigued by how death, something that every culture in the whole world has to deal with, plays its part in the Japanese culture. Based on my limited understanding of the Japanese culture (probably better than people from most places of the world as Taiwan is such a place that knows relatively a lot about Japan), death as a concept is deeply rooted in their culture. Even the activities like seeing the sakura blossoms falling have something to do with it. From my Chinese culture background, the tradition is to avoid talking about death, but I think in Japan it is less likely a taboo to talk about it. I actually like this kind of philosophy as obviously we cannot avoid death (at least not yet), so my own philosophy is always that your life won’t be peaceful if you don’t embrace the notion that death is coming and maybe coming any time.
So, anyway, religion and death, the eternal themes of human beings. Always so fascinating and so profound. So I am also thinking about it when we were strolling through the streets of Tokyo …
this Dean’s Tokyo Snapshots series ( #dean-tokyo as a specific tag) is my photographic diary for my family trip to Tokyo. Due to busy schedule and a naughty boy with us, I won’t be able to write much but I will make sure that every photo that I choose means something, at least to me… I hope you enjoy this photo series as well as me! Feel free to comment but I probably won’t have much time making replies often. Apologies first. :p
follow me @deanliu if you haven’t! or not, if this does not interest you…^^
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