Japan, the people, the culture and the sights: Japanease.: Zen Garden Supplementary

Friday, 29 June 2012

Zen Garden Supplementary

I have just returned home from the hospital visit, more on that later, and managed to capture a couple of shots of another local garden. As I had mentioned that Japanese gardening is actually mostly restricted to "service space" or "utility areas" I thought it best to try and illustrate the point for you.

This picture is of one of our immediate neighbours. As you can clearly see the garden space potential is spartan but more than well utilised.

What particularly impressed me was the fact that the senior lady living here is growing flowers and vegetables. This is not at all uncommon and walking around the immediate area you often see fruit and vegetables growing in abundance at the street side of homes.

As you can clearly see, this cucumber plant is already producing its fruit. Another eight weeks and there will be a nice crop of cucumbers gracing the evening meals of this Tokyo home.

A shot from our balcony shows the "garden" in greater context and if you note the gap between the houses then you will realise just how tightly Tokyo is "built up".

Whilst we may have a right to light provision in the UK, in Tokyo you are lucky if you get a right to breath. Houses go up literally millimetres from each other. One moment you can be looking out at an empty lot and the next your view can be the concrete wall of a block of flats.

A detailed study of this photograph will reveal one of the consequences of this premium space. Maybe not obvious to the casual glance but when you start to study you are able to see how roof space is utilised in a way we are not used to in the UK.

I am hoping that the Zen Consumer Poll [Swift 2012] will yield some results on the need for further anthropological studies. I am preparing a very serious work on the fashions of Tokyo and managed to observe two more candidates earlier today.