Pigeons fill the sky above Senso-ji Temple.
A resident keeps an eye on his Yanaka neighborhood
A geisha slips out of a backstreet residence in Asakusa.
Contrasted to this would be that of the people of the Low City. These would have been the artisans (and, increasingly, the merchant class), since peasants by definition are not credited with having much culture at all.
Low City culture was also traditional to the extent that here were created many of the objects of daily use: tools, utensils, pottery, lacquer work, fabrics, etc. At the same time, however, since these were all for sale, there was a cultural current visible in the Low City, a continual infusion of the new—including new money—which was perhaps lacking in High City culture.
From our point of view, most “samurai” culture is now stationary, petrified, though often very beautiful. Low City culture, however, was initially the home of change, and remains so, even now, despite the fact that the Shitamachi itself appears old-fashioned.
The reason for the contemporary continuation of Low City vitality is that it now informs the whole of the city, indeed, the whole of the country. Though its most famous early products— the kabuki, the wood-block print, the various folk festivals— now seem just as traditional as anything that the aristocratic High City culture produced, there is a difference.
To understand this one might look at the evolution of Low City culture. It is a continuing process. New and hopefully “improved” models constantly appear, distribution outlets are arranged, advertising is addressed, fashions push the product, and profits can be made.
A yakatabune ex-cursion houseboat slips down the Kanda River.
Young majorettes await their cue at the Asakusa Samba Festival.
Vendors hawk their wares in the narrow Ameyoko market street, Tokyo’s last surviving public market, located alongside the train tracks near Ueno Station.
At the same time, the popular arts exhibit no conservative urge to retain the time-honored or to respect any perceived integrity in the original. Here is an aesthetic example: The rules for fine calligraphy (much esteemed in High City Edo) were not relaxed and, indeed, still aren’t. In the “better” parts of Tokyo, a fine calligraphic hand is still considered an indication of a sterling character. In Low City Edo, an accommodation of standards was the rule. When color-saturated if oily aniline paints were imported from abroad, most ukiyo-e printmakers adopted them without a qualm, even though this meant dropping the time-honored vegetable-based colors.
Change is always with us. The popular arts are always vital and it is this vitality that keeps them popular. There is thus a continual tide of the new that, frivolous as it often is, agitates the culture that produces it because it is this that is salable.
The vermilion-colored Tsutenkyo Bridge arches gracefully over a small tributary inside Koishikawa Korakuen, an Edo-era garden.
An elegant visitor admires the cherry blossoms at Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens.
A lotus blossom is sprinkled with raindrops from a summer shower at Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park.
There is another factor also to be considered when contemplating Low City Edo culture. When something is forbidden an appetite for it is created. In the military atmosphere of Edo—one we might now consider, with its various sumptuary laws, a near police-state—citizens were attracted to such alternatives.
Edo scholar Nishiyama Matsunosuke has indicated how the principles of warrior rule governed the rank or status of individuals and families in the feudal hierarchy. His examples are all from the daimyo level. “Social rank determined the shape and size of the Edo residence, the kind of vehicles, furnishing, and clothing he was allowed. Distinctions included the colors and designs of clothing … even the borders of the tatami in Edo castle varied according to the rank of the officials who sat on them.”
If proscriptions were this severe at the top of the social pyramid, one may imagine what it was like for those at the bottom. Everything was to be indicative of ranking: hair styles, length of kimono sleeves, the colors permitted, the right to two swords, to one sword, to none. And not only was the recommended enforced, but innovations were forbidden.
One result was that Edo popular culture (as distinguished from official culture) based itself firmly upon the proscribed. The new product, the latest import, was searched out. Fashion was based on what was worn in the licensed quarters of the city: a certain color worn by a courtesan, a new way of tying one’s sash by an actor; woodblock prints made the likenesses of geisha and sumo athletes alike known to all and eligible for imitation; the outlawed and otherwise proscribed were often the heroes of the kabuki.
Another result was the inordinate attraction of the shin hatsubai, the “new product.” It still demands much attention in the media—and the parade of popular enthusiasms which stretch all the way from the Edo period until now: beige-striped kimono material, the craze for ornamental rabbits, the yo-yo, the hula-hoop, the tamagochi simulated pet, and on to the latest in smartphones and anime characters.
Nishiyama goes on to tell us that the strength of this Low City culture lay “in its spectacular breadth and diversity.” Even the general public took part in leisure pursuits as best it could and played an active role in the creation of new cultural forms.
This public formed the bulk of the population of Edo (by 1780 estimated at one million at a time when London held only two-thirds of that) and formed a new category, the chonin, a term often translated as townspeople. They were initially there to serve the needs of the samurai, but in time developed needs of their own. There were certainly more of them. Over half of this million living in Edo were some kind of chonin. Many were poor, but many were getting richer. This included the growing merchant class.
In fact the term chonindo (“the way of the merchants”) was heard as frequently as bushido (“the way of the warrior.”) Tales were told of rich but socially inferior merchants who lined their kimono with precious brocade, though outwardly exhibiting only the prescribed colors they were traditionally obliged to wear.
Sumida River fireworks glimpsed from Kaminarimon Gate in Asakusa.
The Goju-no-to Pagoda at Senso-ji Temple is a marvel of traditional architecture and sublime expression.
A statue of Matsuo Basho (Japan’s most esteemed haiku poet) overlooks the Sumida River and Kiyosubashi Bridge from the Basho-An Garden.
Though what we would now call their lifestyle was regulated by various sumptuary laws, and conspicuous extravagance was supposed to bring summary punishment, wealthy chonin lived in a way unthinkable for not only the average citizen but for most samurai as well. At the same time, this Low City culture presumed an ideal much at odds