Located near the Ryogoku Subway station (lines JR Sobu and Toei Oedo) we went at the right time because the museum is about to close for several months. An adult ticket is 600 Yen (£3.30), not including the special exhibitions. On entry to the museum, you cross over a large bridge which divides the cavernous hall. Most of the artefacts and exhibits are from ancient Tokyo (or Edo, as it was known until 1868).
As I hoped, in the style of East Asian museums, there were many scale models throughout the museum that were strewn with little characters going about their daily lives. We also saw several ‘light shows’ as we had seen in China, where the model has a film projected onto it in such a way that it looks like real people are walking around the scene. The Japanese visitors to the museum crowded round these as the curtains drew back, with much ooh-ing and ahh-ing as the show commenced.
One of the first replicas I saw was of a kago – a sort of Japanese sedan chair. Though saying that, a true kago litter was much more primitive – more like a hammock on a movable tree than the regal sedan chairs of Henry VIII’s England. The one in the Edo-Tokyo museum was laid on the floor for people to try out, and had a door on a shutter which slid back and forth. It was mainly children in the queue to have a go, but as I walked past there was a Grandma inside who was very much enjoying the experience.
My favourite artefact was an old lacquer writing table and an ink stone in a decorated lacquer box. I’m not a fan of the Chinese red lacquer, with its garish colouring and harsh smell that seems so much more prominent in the crimson dyed paint. However, the Japanese lacquer work was hugely tasteful, with details in gold on black. The ink stone case was embellished with an impression of Mt. Yoshino, and the writing table depicted a wiry river winding its way through a landscape of gnarled branches. Other relics included intricately painted folding screens, pottery, statues and an array of numismatic items.
The museum ranks highly with me because there were a number of ‘hands on’ opportunities, like the kago litter. There was a section in the museum dedicated to the history of the Edo fire brigade. Japan's first fire service was founded in 1629 during the Edo era, and was called Hikeshi. There was a standard of the brigade, less of a flag and more of an octopus-on-a-stick. The long tassels, when swung around, make the totem look like a flailing sea creature or furious dragon. There was an example of the standard suspended from the ceiling which you could try and lift – it was too heavy for me; I can’t imagine carrying that around when there’s a fire afoot. Sasha had a go, and also tried lifting the ‘night soil’ buckets suspended on a carrying pole, laden with… something… to the weight of 25kg.
Other sections of the museum I enjoyed were the section on child rearing (in ancient times, it was popular to give birth while seated rather than lying down), and the section on printing and publishing. There were a series of sheets showing how a picture was printed by doing the colours and details one layer at a time. While woodblock printing had been around in China since the early date of 764, it was not widely adopted in Japan until the 1600’s.
Another favourite piece of mine in the museum was the ‘sea clogs’ – basically stilts that you strapped to your feet for when you were ‘working in the sea’. The smaller pair were under a meter in height, but the taller ones were almost as tall as me.
At the end of the ancient section of the museum, there was a part on modern Japan, with a special exhibition on its technology. By this point in our tour we were quite tired and zipped around the exhibition without much interest (for me at least, not being fascinated by technology.) There was also a bit about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which I’m sure will be an exciting event. Actually, now is a great time to be an English teacher in Tokyo – the government is having a big drive to get people to learn English in time for the Olympics. Speaking of Olympics in Japan, do you know the origins of the male and female signs for public toilets? As part of the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Japan created over 40 different pictograms such as the internationally recognised pictograms for male and female toilets. They were not only used during the Olympics but became internationally adopted across the world. Fact of the day.
So that’s the Edo-Tokyo Museum. I’m glad we went before the museum closes for repair works, it would have been a shame to miss such an informative and fun outing. Other blogs to look forward to – our trip to the garden of the Imperial Palace, our sunny day trip to Edoshima island, the Kiku Festival, Japanese toilets and my working life. Yay!
Sayonara for now.
Oh, and to end it all off - a photo of an old telephone box from the museum, which shall henceforth be known as the Japanese Tardis.
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