Kanazawa III · The old

This is part three of a four-part series about our family trip to Kanazawa.

Like I mentioned in the last essay, the Maeda clan focused not on military might, but on culture. The motivations behind and the results of that strategy are quite interesting — and they answer the question I posed at the end of my last essay, “Why did this mid-sized city become a place where contemporary culture could flourish alongside five centuries of tradition?”.

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After the Battle of Sekigahara, when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan, he and his successors prevented competition for power through the sankin-kōtai system. The daimyō, regional military leaders of each domain, spent every other year in the capital city Edo. That requirement weakened them financially, since maintaining two residences and traveling to and from the capital was expensive. And the shogun and his people could keep a watch on the daimyō. Furthermore, the daimyō’s families were forced to live in the capital city of Edo, essentially as hostages.

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The Maeda clan of Kanazawa, who came out of Sekigahara the most powerful clan aside from the Tokugawas, took a different approach than others who continued to maintain large standing armies. Instead, they poured excess money into culture — tea ceremony, noh drama, calligraphy, lacquerware, poetry and scholarship. Even as their economic power grew, they never threatened the shogun militarily.

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This focus on culture made Kanazawa a formidable center of commerce and creativity. This trend continued through to the Meiji Restoration and into today. Kanazawa has both preserved its traditional culture while continuously keeping up with contemporary movements. The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Taniguchi’s contemplation spaces, the artisan shops we discovered — all of these are inheritors of a tradition the Maeda clan set in motion centuries ago.

Oyama Shrine

One place that symbolizes this combination of old and new is the Oyama Shrine. Its main gate is a fusion of Japanese, Chinese and Western architecture. The stained glass windows at the top once helped it function as a lighthouse for ships on the nearby Sai River.

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The serene garden within features the usual elements — stone lanterns and bridges across water features — with Western-style bronze statues mixed in.

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Kenroku-en

Among all the things in Kanazawa, the one thing I’ve wanted to see for years is this garden. It’s one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan and has held a prominent place in Japanese culture for centuries.

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Its most iconic view is the Kotoji-tōrō, a two-legged stone lantern from the 18th century that has one leg in the water and another on land. I had the fortune of seeing its sister lantern in Portland’s Japanese Garden years ago.

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We visited early in the morning before sunrise, even before the park had officially opened. During these hours, only a few of the entrances are open, with a bonus of free admission.

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Even though the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, the early hour and slightly rainy conditions meant that we almost had the park to ourselves. The only others we saw were elderly walkers, who were ecstatic to see our small children running through the park.

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Words cannot describe the serenity and beauty of this place. One must be there in the flesh to truly experience and understand it.

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On our way out, the businesses around the park began to open up. We sat outside Sway Coffee Roasters on a sloped road leading up to the park entrance watching other tourists slowly trickling in.

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Kanazawa Castle Park

Adjacent to Kenroku-en is the site of Kanazawa Castle. This was the seat of the Maeda clan. Its original tenshu (castle keep) and many other buildings were destroyed by fires in the 17th and 18th centuries. Much of what is visible today are modern reconstructions that began in the early 2000s.

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One of the more unusual aesthetic aspects of the castle buildings are their roofs. They are made from an alloy of lead and copper; oxidation gives them an unusual white color.

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We again visited this site quite early in the morning when only a select few gates were open and admission was free. Again, we saw mostly the elderly as we strolled the castle grounds.

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Kazuemachi

Aside from the gardens, shrines, temples and castle, Kanazawa has entire feudal-era neighborhoods that have been preserved to this day. The riverside Kazuemachi district consists of rows of wooden machiya buildings and tea houses where geisha played music and served traditional meals.

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As we walked down the stone-paved street, sunlight filtered in through the sakura blossoms, painting the wooden houses with shadows.

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Higashi Chaya

This is another district where geisha entertained the nobility and rich merchants. It, alongside Kazuemachi, is one of only three of these districts that have been designated as cultural assets by Japan. The third is Kyoto’s Gion, which has recently been experiencing an influx of tourism.

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The narrow streets of Higashi Chaya are mostly closed off to vehicle traffic, making it the perfect place to take a walk, camera in hand.

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Dotted among the wooden houses are coffee shops, gift shops, and an old art museum displaying artifacts from the life of the geisha.

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Nagamachi

Another old district with a feeling far different from the two geisha districts is Nagamachi. This part of town was reserved for the middle to high-ranking samurai that defended the castle and the rest of Kanazawa. The striking architectural feature of the buildings here are the dobei — tile-topped walls made of earth.

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Instead of the sometimes imposing and closed-off feeling of the wooden machiya that we saw in the previous two districts, these houses have lower walls that allow us to peek into the elaborate gardens surrounding them.

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One of these houses was owned by the Nomura family, who served the Maeda clan. The multilevel house and gardens have been preserved to give visitors an idea of how the samurai lived long ago.

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I was surprised by the intimacy — in a classic Japanese way, bits of the garden progressively revealed themselves as we slowly walked through.

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Living traditions

As much as these preserved historical places can sometimes feel like living museums, in Kanazawa I was always reminded that their spiritual underpinnings still continue on in today’s culture.

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The samurai are long gone and the geisha are slowly disappearing as well, but the centuries-long traditions of craft, music, theater and artistry continue on. The Maeda clan’s bet on culture created something that outlasted their rule, outlasted the shogunate, and outlasted the empire.

Thanks to Q for reading drafts of this.