24 August, maybe I change religion

        Reading guides, searching in internet, and especially after a conversation with two guys at a bar of restaurant in Hiroshima I convinced myself that Tsuwano was a great choice to find some prove about the samurai.

I didn't find any. In fact I had that suspicion after the conversation with the two boys. 

        I was waiting for my order, and one of those two guys made a sign to me.

'That's good.' He said, pointing to half of something on his plate. 

'Yes, that's what I ordered.' Hoping that something wasn't like his.

Next to him there was another guy, who was between me and the other, focused on eating his something.

'Where do you come from.' He continued as he took a piece of food with his chopsticks.

'Italy.' And I remembered the last conversation with a stranger and I immediately added. 'Europe'.

He nodded. The friend ate.  

'And you're from Hiroshima, aren't you? 

'No, from another city.' Said the 'talkative'.   

'You too? I pointed to the other.

'Hai,' said the 'big eater'. 

I understood that his English was not the best. Then back to the 'talkative guy'.

'Where are you from?'

'Talkative guy'said an unpronounceable city with 'M' as initial. I pretended to understand.

'Him too?'

'Hai.' Said 'the big eater' with a full mouth. 

My plate came, and it was like an other something. A doubt veiled my face.

'Are you here for work?' Asked the "talkative guy." 

'No, on holiday. And you, are you here for holiday?'

'Iie,' they both said. And "talkative guy" wanted to explain to me what he was doing in Hiroshima. It began with 'I...' then he changed 'We...' and other verbs followed.

'Study?' I tried to guess.

'Iie'. It wasn't that. 

Then the two talked each other in Japanese. I was waiting for an attempt for the explanation. I ended up eating.

Observed at some point "talkative guy" passed me a sauce to put on.

I thanked him.

'It's good,' I said. And it really was. Then not knowing what to add I talked about sports.

'Do you like baseball?' And I didn't ask that question because I was inspired by the old woman who asked me about tennis. Hiroshima has a very famous baseball team in Japan, the "Carp" 

"Talkative" lit up. 

'We.' Pointing also to "big eater". 'We're on the baseball team.'

'What?' I asked.

'We play baseball. Then he began to add Japanese to his explanation. I only caught 'Carp', 'baseball', 'play'. He realized I was lost. He asked to "big eater" for a translation of few words. "Big eater" had laid down the chopsticks for a moment and thought about it. He said something to his friend. He laughed at what he had said and took up the chopsticks. His mouth was full again. "Big eater" was thin anyway. 

At the end I could catch from all their communication that the two guys on my side were on the B team of Carp, or their youth team. Who will ever know. "Talkative guy" had also given me his name, which I forgot straight away. 

Among other things, among many Japanese words, there was the moment when they told me about Tsuwano.

'Tsuwano is good.' "Talkative guy" had confirmed.

'Hai.' "Big eater" had nodded with his empty plate, his gleaming chopsticks and the napkin intact.

They both had an amused expression.

        As soon as I went out from the station, I realized that the two promises of Japanese baseball had no idea how Tsuwano was made. And most likely they just confirmed me a choice I already wanted to make. 

I walked through the four streets of the center. No sign of anything that could remember samurai. No sign of being like me. 

         On the other hand, there were carps that looked like sharks. They were big and ravenous. They swam in artificial canals created along the city. They were put in those conditions in the event of a siege on the city, so the inhabitants would have had something to eat. 

As you approach, the 'carp sharks' see you and begin to gather in your direction. They poked one and another as if they were in a black metal concert for the best position. They come up on the surface with their moustached snout and gasped as if they were missing air. Instead, they are just ravenous mouths aimed at feeding from tourists. 

I experimented. I moved along the edge of the canal and 'the carp sharks' followed diligently; always that open mouth that seemed desperately looking for a word to express something but it was just a mute need to fill the stomach. 

I had read that there were more carp in Tsuwano than inhabitants. True!

       What to do then? I had totally discarded the option to go at my Ryokan. I already knew it was going to be difficult to contact them. 

A few days earlier I had asked if I could leave my bags before the official check-in time, here is the answer:

        “わかりました。お荷物は何時でもお預かりいたします。到着時間がわかれば津和野駅までお荷物を受け取りに行く事も出来ます。若さぎの宿”

       Of course I used google translator :

"I get it. We will keep our luggage at any time. Once you know the arrival time, you can go to Tsuwano station to pick up your luggage. Youth Inn"

There was no hope.

      Then I wandered around the city looking for something. And the more I was touring, the more I was seeing just by myself with nobody around, the more I appreciated the situation I was in. 

I discovered a Catholic church in the middle of a forest.

I walked undisturbed through the sliding walls of an old, dripping Buddhist temple.

I visited up hill walls of a castle perched on one of the peaks. It was a huge castle. It was completely abandoned. And in that now unstoppable decadence with victorious trees on its architecture, of very autumnal metal stairs, you still could feel the majesty of the place. And it wasn't that what almost converted me to. 

In yet another climb to see a Shinto temple, because most Shinto temples always stand in elevation. So another sweat hike. Arrived on the top it welcomed me a small difference. It was not the two typical Korean dogs who stand on guard (for a picture them, see the first Ghostbusters movie) but two foxes.

That wasn't enough for a conversion yet.

        There were small benches in the temple, where I sat. I looked at the altar with no god images, around there were a very abundant decoration, and on one side a series of gifts offered to God. Rectangular shape looks like sake packs.

Someone touched my shoulder and stretched out a white vest. The guy dressed all in white with a blue cotton belt holding a 'yukata' (the summer kimono) for me, telling me something in Japanese. I' doubted. I should have to take the 'yukata' or not. Given my hesitation, the priest, who will later be turned out to be the priest's assistant, realized what I was.

'This is prayer area now. If you want to visit the temple, you can stand on the edge outside the altar zone.' He said with a funny English.

I obeyed and went to the edge to put on my shoes and leave. Instead I saw an old man with his daughter. He was walking really badly. He made a huge effort to climb the stairs in front of the altar. And with all the pain in the world, without even a complain, he managed to sit in bench  and slowly dressed the 'yukata' given by the funny assistant. The daughter wore the same 'yukata' as well.

My curiosity grows and I waited.

At beginning the drum started to rumble. The funny assistant was playing the flute and two minutes later the priest of the altar showed up. Dressed all in white, he entered with a light and silk step. 

He proceeded in short steps, then almost at the center of the altar he took two long steps to return at short steps again. He knelt by touching his buttocks on the heels. He bowed a couple of times to a stick covered with a kind of necklaces that threaded folded papers. On those little pieces there were prayers, words of the gods, good wishes for the believers. 

The priest after prayer began to sing. And the singing was 'cappella' style in Japanese and reminded me of Gregorian singing for the same intonations. Meanwhile, the daughter and old man are bent down in silence. They didn't look at all the priest and his doing.

After singing, the immaculate priest waited a few seconds. Then he got up and took the stick with the pieces of papers. He said something, he made a short song. And he waved it in front of the only believers in the hall, like a blessing.

He put it back. He knelt and started another song. 

In the meantime, you could hear the 'gong' loudly fading away from time to time. It meant that some believer was asking God for a wish. You also could hear the coins falling into the box in exchange for a wish. A few laughs or comments. Everything was happening while there was a ceremony going on in front of the altar. And all was incredibly normal. 

The undaunted priest passed by the altar once more. This time there were other sticks, four to be precise. On each stick,on the sides, were attached two pieces of metal in the shape of a descending lightning bolt. The priest took one after singing again. He made it vibrate in front of the old man who waited with his eyes closed. More than a blessing, it seemed like a warning. The vibration of the two metal lightning had a shocking effect. The priest stopped the vibration and the old man answered with a short prayer. Always with his eyes closed. The daughter, on the other hand, had not moved since the beginning of the ceremony.

The priest then put the stick back in place with the lightning bolts not before to show off again his singing skills. He took the usual long and then short steps and thus ended the ceremony.

Before leaving the room, he chatted with the old man. The latter seemed to agree. The priest went away.

     I was putting on my shoes and a post-credit scene appeared, typical of superhero movies.

The funny assistant arrived with a hull consisting of two shelving. The one at the top held a white, immaculate small barrel. It was sake. It was offered to the old man.

Of course, sake as extreme last anointing would not be bad. I could convert to that, I thought ironically.

Instead, I went down the stairs. And at their end I felt the real reason why I could let myself go into that religion. It was not the exchange of a few coins for someone's private wish, it was not a glass of sake at every ceremony, but a more than hundred-year-old tree that stood before me. On the descent from the temple of the fox I found an old tree, 'who' rose several times, surrounded and decorated with all the elements proper of a Shinto temple. There was also a wooden box where you could offer coins.

  Shin, (divinity), to (way), the 'way to divinity', what is the closest way to divinity than the beauty and the strength of centenary tree that crosses time in changing and at the same time being himself all the same?