The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 17 | Issue 6 | Number 1 | Article ID 5264 | Mar 15, 2019

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Contested Pilgrimage: Shikoku Henro and Dark Tourism

Sara Kang

1. Introduction

The origins of Japanese Buddhism can betraced back to the early sixth century, when theking of Paekche, occupying the southwesterntip of the Korean peninsula, sent a small bronzestatue and Buddhist texts as part of adiplomatic mission to the Japanese court. Thiscultural exchange marked the beginning of aleading religion that would continue to developover the following centuries in Japan.Approximately fourteen centuries later in 2013,Shikoku Henro, a famous pilgrimage circuitthat visits eighty-eight Buddhist templesaround the fourth largest island of Japan,became a site of national controversy when aracist organization posted signs along the routethat read, “Let us protect our preciouspilgrimage route from the hands of chōsenjin(Koreans).” A site with cultural and religiousbonds, forged in a historic diplomatic exchangebetween the two countries, has instead becomecelebrated as a “traditional” heritage site—onestructured around notions of chauvinism andcultural exclusion. Using the controversy at thislocation in 2013 as the starting point, my paperexamines the ways in which the Shikokupilgrimage route was presented to the public,and the ensuing claims on the emotionallandscape of this site by local, national andinternational bodies. More than a simple storyof Japanese national pride, the dark history ofShikoku Henro reveals compl icatedcircumstances that culminated in the 2013controversy involving a Korean pilgrim and herjourney.

Figure 1: Map of the Shikoku PilgrimageCircuit

Today, the Shikoku pilgrimage route isconnected by eighty-eight temples across thefour prefectures of Shikoku (Tokushima, Kōchi,Ehime and Kagawa)—although pilgrimscontinue to refer to them by their feudalprovince names (Awa, Tosa, Iyo and Sanuki).The spiritual journey crossing through the fourprefectures also represents the four stages toenlightenment (hosshin, shugyō, bodai andnehan). Pilgrims who choose to undertake thiseight hundred-mile route, however, do not walkalone on their path to enlightenment, but withthe spirit of the Buddhist monk Kōbō Daishi,the founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan. Thespiritual relationship between the pilgrim andthe saint is exemplified by the catchphrase ofthe pilgrimage route, dōgyō ninin (同行二人), or“one practice with two people,” which is alsoetched onto the pilgrim’s straw hat. For manypilgrims, the idea of walking with the spirit ofthe monk also serves as a means of payinghomage to the dead. Ian Reader, who hasextensively researched and participated in thispilgrimage, explained that many pilgrims carryphotographs, ashes, bone fragments, andvarious mementos of departed family

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members.1 Reader, during one of his journeysaround Shikoku, encountered a retiredJapanese Air Force worker who explained thathe was not walking the pilgrimage alone butwith his departed wife, whose ashes werepacked inside his rucksack. Reader recalledthat this exchange was, for him, the mostpoignant embodiment of the meaning “dōgyōninin.”2

For the same reason, Choi Sang Hee, a SouthKorean woman from Seoul, was drawn toShikoku Henro as she sought to cope with thedeath of her father. In 2010, Choi began herspiritual journey around the eight hundred-milepilgrimage circuit, and has since claimed thatthe treks were her only form of reprieve fromher arduous life back at home in South Korea.In 2013, she became the first non-Japanesewoman to qualify as an official guide (sendatsu)for the pilgrimage course after completing herfourth lap on foot. Touched by the kindness ofstrangers on the road, Choi was inspired tospread the local customs of osettai, or thehospitable act of giving assistance to pilgrims,to her own community, and thus began herproject to encourage other South Koreans toparticipate in the Shikoku pilgrimage.Accordingly, she designed and producedapproximately 4,000 stickers and posted themon public facilities along the route to help guideher fellow trekkers. The foreign nature of thesestickers, which were written in Korean, becamea source of harsh anti-Korean sentiment in themonths that followed.

Members of a group calling itself “TheAssociation for Protecting Japanese Pilgrimage”(日本の遍路を守ろう会) were irked by thestickers, and began posting their own flyersaround the sites where Choi’s stickers weredisplayed:

“Let us protect our precious pilgrimageroute from the hands of chōsenjin(Koreans). Recently, disrespectful chōsenpeople have begun posting disgusting

stickers all around Shikoku. In order toprotect Japan’s pilgrimage route, pleasetake them down as soon as you encounterone.” (my translation)

Figure 2: Flyer from the Association forProtecting Japanese Pilgrimage

According to local media sources, close to fiftyof these discriminatory flyers were found atover eighteen locations including Kagawa,Tokushima, and Ehime prefectures in April2014.3 A few weeks later, national mediaoutlets such as Mainichi, Asahi, Nikkei andYomiuri made a sensation out of this localdispute, bringing national and internationalattention to the pilgrimage controversy whenthe news was broadcast in South Korea and theUnited States. Asahi Shinbun, for instance,vividly described this controversy on April 10,2014 as “The Destruction of the Spirit ofMotenashi: Discriminatory Posters along thePilgrimage Road (もてなしの心破壊—遍路道に外国人差別の貼り紙).” Under the headlinesread: “Posters that encourage xenophobia havebeen found at the Shikoku Henro, a site knownfor its spirit of motenashi (hospitality) andwillingness to warmly welcome anybody.”4

To be sure, the organization’s actions were notrepresentative of the attitudes of all localresidents in Shikoku. Some residents, as

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reported by local media outlets, censured theactions of the organization, describing them as“xenophobic” and “not aligned with the spirit ofShikoku Henro.”5 The official Shikoku templeorganization also commented that such “acts ofdiscrimination were unforgivable.”6 At theother end of the spectrum, some residentsagreed with the spirit of the posters by arguingthat the stickers were indeed “spoiling theenvironment,” “destroying Japanese culture,”and therefore not “xenophobic,” as the stickerswere most likely part of efforts to “preserve theenvironment.”7 Other apologists began to callChoi’s actions illegal, claiming that she hadviolated municipal ordinances that regulatedoutdoor advertising in public locations—despitethe fact that Choi did indeed receive permitsfor private buildings and residences.

Media outlets like Asahi Shinbun described thisincident as a part of the intensifying anti-Korean sentiment in Japan at the time. On April24, a few weeks after their first reporting onthe incident, Asahi ran a second article after amore thorough investigation, and reported thatmunicipal offices in Shikoku had actually beenquite lax in their regulation of outdooradvertising before Choi’s stickers becamecontroversial—"there have been all sorts ofguiding posts along Shikoku Henro, but whyhas Choi's become the target of attack?"8 Theleft-leaning newspaper was firm in itsconclusion that these actions were xenophobic.The article concluded: “It is puzzling that suchan act has occurred at a site that is preparingto be registered as a World Heritage Site."9

Asahi’s critical reporting of the incident atShikoku’s famous pilgrimage route causedmuch anxiety for local governmental officials,who had struggled for many years to submitthe route as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Efforts to get Shikoku Henro nominated andsubsequently designated as a World HeritageSite failed for the third time in July 2016.10 Itsfirst nomination ten years earlier in 2006 hadbeen rejected by the Agency for Cultural

Affairs, when it was deemed that Shikoku’sconservation methods were “insufficient.” Theprocess of nominating the pilgrimage routecontinues to be a difficult journey for the localgovernment of the four prefectures in Shikoku,whose challenge at the time of the controversywas to define the “universal value” of thepilgrimage route as a “place of faith for thecommon people” (庶民信仰の場アピール).”11

As Andrew Gordon’s introduction mentions, the2015 controversy over the UNESCOdesignation of factories, shipyards and minesfounded in the Meiji era as heritage sitesengendered considerable dispute between theJapanese and South Korean governments onthe issue of wartime laborers. This controversybetween the two neighboring countriesreminded me of the 2013 incident in Shikoku,which received considerable media attentionwhile I was studying abroad there at EhimeUniversity. The similarities between the twocases provoked me to examine how UNESCOdesignation of World Heritage Sites continuesto spark disagreements about how sites arepublicly represented, and its implications fortransnational relations between Japan andSouth Korea. Upon closer examination of Choi’sstory, I also realized that the racist actions ofthe anonymous organization reveal a larger(and longer) story of cultural nationalism, darktourism and contested notions of “heritage”surrounding the pilgrimage route. Therefore,this paper will trace the contentious history ofShikoku Henro over three different eras ofmodern Japanese history, when globalprocesses incited feelings of anxiety andconcern among local actors surrounding thepopular representation of Shikoku Henro: first,state repression of Buddhism during the MeijiR e s t o r a t i o n ; s e c o n d , t h e r i s e o f“modern/secular tourism” in the 1930s; andfinally, the onset of the “globalization ofheritage tours” through UNESCO from the1970s to the present. As traveling to Shikokubecame more accessible over modern Japanesehistory, non-local pilgrims and foreign tourists

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began to flock to the island. Consequently,considerable debate was sparked by thequestion of whether the ways in whichseemingly “foreign” visitors—such asChoi—participate in the pilgrimage has abearing on their qualifications to be consideredtrue Japanese pilgrims.

Reader, in Making Pilgrimages, has describedthe long history of pilgrimage in Shikoku as a“moving text” in which its landscape is“constantly being made and remade through acontinuous interweaving of the physical and theemotional and of past and present.”12 Inaddition to Reader, Sarah Thal has also writtenon the subtle distinction between popularreligion and tourism in the context of anotherpilgrimage site in Shikoku. In Rearranging theLandscapes of the Gods, Thal traced the historyof a famous shrine at Konpira—a site, sheargues, that survived radical political changeunder the new Mei j i regime throughinstitutional adaptation. Particularly before andafter the Russo-Japanese War, this adaptationon the part of its priests required a “culture atKotohira that brought the god, the military andthe business of pilgrimage into a tighterembrace than before.”13 In tracing thesemodern influences, both scholars havehighlighted how various communities—“notonly priests, but also politicians, pilgrims,entrepreneurs and officials”—have redefinedthe structures of worship and ultimately themodern landscape of religion in Japan.14

Similarly, the delicate line between religion andcultural nationalism began to blur as ShikokuHenro became celebrated over time as ahistorical site of heritage exclusive to Japanesepeople in modern Japan.

Not many scholars have considered thetransformation of the pilgrimage through theanalytical lens of “dark tourism,” and itsintersection with public history in thecontemporary period. The role of UNESCOWorld Heritage in reinforcing culturalnationalism and redefining local heritage in

Shikoku has been largely neglected in the studyof folk and popular religion in Japan.15 Throughthis paper, I hope to highlight the paradox ofUNESCO nominated sites in Japan—that is, theobservation that the more sites acquire“universal value” or cultural values relevant toall mankind, the more they become anchored tothe identity of the single nation-state in whichthey reside. By tracing the transformation ofShikoku Henro from a site of religion to one ofcultural property, I also bring attention to the“dark,” “light,” and “gray” shades of the site’spublic history in order to better understandhow the act of “pilgrimage” (both domesticallyand globally) has changed over time, whypeople continue to be drawn to the site, andwhat kinds of historical meanings are beingdrawn from the activity today.

2. On Public History, Dark Tourism andSecular Pilgrimage

In their anthology on public history, James B.Gardner and Paula Hamilton have describedthe concept of “risk” in local communities as“an idea of cultural heritage as constantlyunder threat and needing to be saved fromoblivion.”16 In the case of Shikoku Henro, the“risks” were not so much about saving the sitefrom “oblivion,” but rather (re)inventingtraditions in order to legitimize the site’sauthenticity as perceived by the populace.Accordingly, the fear of “risks” underpinnedvarious grassroots movements to create theirown history of the site—either by bringing astronger focus to its religious and indigenoustraditions as seen during the 1930s, or byreaffirming the national identity of “Japanese”pilgrimage as seen in the 2014 incidentinvolving the Korean pilgrim, Choi. Asarchaeologist Rodney Harrison argued, whenconsidering narratives of heritage and theirrelevance in the contemporary world, one mustalso foreground the ways in which “heritage isconstantly produced and reproduced in the

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present.”17 Since the turn of the twentiethcentury, these sorts of tension betweenadvocates of local ownership and nationaloffices influenced the formation of “ShikokuHenro” as a contested public site, where“heritage” was being constantly reproduced bylocal and global communities.

Without a doubt, the commercial industries of“pilgrimage tourism” and “dark tourism” havealso been central to the development ofShikoku Henro as a heritage site since the turnof the twentieth century. Of course, theintimate intersections between the religious(“pilgrimage”) and the secular (“tourism”) isnot unique to the history of travelers toShikoku, as evidenced by, for example, sacredsites in China.18 According to scholars oftourism studies, “pilgrimage tourism” has longbeen defined as a touristic quest for an“authentic” sacred journey that allows touriststo achieve “self-transformation and theacquisition of knowledge and status throughcontact with the extraordinary or sacred.”19 Aswill be further elaborated in my paper, startingin the 1920s, people from all parts of Japanwere similarly eager to take part in pilgrimagetours around Shikoku Henro’s eighty-eight holyBuddhist temples, and the four prefecturalgovernments in Shikoku were equally willing totake advantage of the commercial boom.According to Reader, the increase in thenumber of tourists to Shikoku during this timewas largely due to the shift in the popularrepresentation of pilgrimages in the media,going from “symbols of a degraded past” to “asign of tradition that withstood the march ofmodernity.”20 The case of Shikoku Henroreveals that the number of pilgrimage touristsincreased due to anxiety or doubts regarding“modernity,” and the desire to find newmeaning in everyday life. In other words, whileFoley and Lennon suggest that sites of darktourism expose negative aspects of modernity,for pilgrimage tourists to Shikoku, uncertaintyabout modernity was a cause rather than aconsequence of tourism. Even today, media

reports and tourist pamphlets continue torepresent Shikoku Henro as a site that haspreserved traditions of Japan’s pre-modernity,and these nostalgic images of “tradition”continue to be juxtaposed against metropolitanTokyo, symbolizing modernity, anxiety andmechanization. Tourist pilgrims from all overJapan, as well as from abroad, have flocked toShikoku to escape their bustling “modern” lifein the city, and to fulfill a personal questthrough a quasi-religious experience that wouldbring enlightenment and improved spiritualwell-being.

As argued by scholar of tourism studies NogaCollins-Kreiner, pilgrimage tourism and darktourism are similar in that both phenomenainvolve a “ritual process,” in which tourists“share the trait of searching for mystical,magical experiences which they describe astransformations, enlightenment and life-changing and conscious-altering events.”21 Thecurious pull of a spiritual quest and theexpectation of experiencing something outsidethe accustomed patterns of everydaylife—whether that explicitly involves death,intimations of darkness, or enlightenment—areundeniably what attracts most people to thesesites. In fact, scholar of thanatourism, AVSeaton argued that pilgrimages should beconsidered the forebear of “dark tourism.”22

Seaton argued that “death” itself is a form ofheritage, and this morbid element has longbeen the main attraction of pilgrimage beforebeing officially labeled as “dark tourism” byFoley and Lenon.23

Different cases of pilgrimage around the globeshow that forms of pilgrimage may be aresponse to death or other tragedies. Brieflyconsider the Anfield Pilgrimage in Liverpoolafter the tragedy at Hillsborough stadium onApril 15, 1989, when a huge crowd of soccerfans crushed and killed ninety-four Liverpoolsupporters. As a way of mourning andovercoming the tragic deaths of these youngpeople, the people of Liverpool, as well as non-

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locals, began a mass spiritual movement thatbecame known as the “Anfield Pilgrimage.” Anestimated one million people, twice thepopulation of the city, marched through thestadium and the cathedrals in Anfield in theweeks following the tragedy. This seeminglyspontaneous and communal movementastonished the world. Grace Davie inPilgrimage in Popular Culture wrote that theAnfield Pilgrimage of 1989 allowed the citizensof Liverpool to “break taboos about death,”which he argues has long been considered a“taboo subject in Western society.” Moreover,he concluded that this modern pilgrimage was“an explicit, conscious and collectiveacknowledgement of death.”24

Death, or the idea of death, often draws peopleseeking reprieve from their ordinary lives withacts of a religious or spiritual nature, as seen inthe case of the Korean pilgrim Choi, whoturned to the pilgrimage to mourn the death ofher father. To be sure, in the case ofcontemporary Shikoku Henro, most people donot visit in order to be explicitly conscious of orcollectively acknowledge death. Based on asurvey conducted by Takekawa Ikuo in 2013,only 13.6% of pilgrims surveyed responded thatthey joined the pilgrimage in order “to hold amemorial service for ancestors and the dead(先祖・死者の供養),” whereas the majoritychose the reason of “soul searching (自分の生き方と向き合うため).”25 Political forms ofpenance and “soul searching” also recentlycaught the attention of many in Japan whenformer Prime Minister Kan Naoto, five weeksafter stepping down from his position as theleader of the Democratic Party due to apolitical scandal in 2004, shaved his head,changed into traditional pilgrimage garb, andset off for Shikoku Henro. When asked abouthis motivations during his most recentpilgrimage, he replied: “For the restoration andrecovery from the Great East Japan Earthquakeand tsunami, prayers for the souls of thevictims, and recovery from the nuclear crisis —that’s all.”26 For many contemporary pilgrims,

and even for politicians, “soul-searching” (自分探し) more than “religious faith” (信仰心) hasbecome the driving motivation for thesepractices.

In this way, many structural changes havetaken place on the island since the turn of thetwentieth century, when notions of “death” and“illness” were explicitly tied to the identity ofpilgrims and the act of completing thepilgrimage route, as will be explored in thenext section of this paper. Later, withmodernization and the growing value ascribedto “heritage,” Shikoku Henro came to embody apristine site of Japanese cultural heritage andtradition—a comforting space that Japanesepeople could visit to reaffirm their culturalidentity. This shift in representation revealsthat the power to attract a large number ofpeople is not intrinsic to the site itself, butderived from new values and traditions that areconstantly being developed or invented overtime. It is equally important to recognize thatthese values are also ascribed by the decisionsof national governments, particularly throughglobal processes (seek ing UNESCOrecognition) that have determined whichheritage sites and national narratives shouldrepresent the nation over others.

Through the prism of broader concepts andtheories encompassing both “pilgrimagetourism” and “dark tourism,” the rest of thispaper surveys the historical shift andtransformation of Shikoku Henro from a site of“darkness” (for the dead and sick) to one that ismore comforting (for those seeking to reaffirmtheir cultural roots)—as well as the ways thesite continues to raise the question of what itmeans to be a part of this Japanese “tradition”and “heritage” in the twenty-first century.

3. On the Repression of Religion,Sanitization of Identity: The MeijiRestoration

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The management of religion was an integralpart of the Meiji state’s efforts to establish itslegitimacy in the wake of the Meiji Restoration.Shintoism was promoted, at the expense ofBuddhism, as the main religion of the stateunder a movement called haibutsu kishaku.Buddhist priests and their followers all over thenation faced harsh persecution in the state’sattempts to drive out Japanese Buddhism. By1871, the government designated Shintoshrines, including the predecessor to thepresent Yasukuni Shrine, as official institutionswhere national rites such as the worship ofJapan’s war dead would be observed.Moreover, the Separation Edict of 1868(shinbutsu bunri) enforced the separation ofShinto gods from Buddhist f igures ininstitutions that had formerly contained bothelements in their halls of worship. The edictalso banned Buddhist priests from holdingsimultaneous positions in shrines, and requiredevery Japanese citizen to register theirhouseholds at local Shinto shrines, replacingthe older tradition of registering at Buddhisttemples.

These bureaucratic steps that slowly purgedreligious institutions of “backwards” and“superstitious” Buddhist elements soonculminated in a wave of attacks on Buddhisttemples, which peaked in 1871, whennumerous statues, relics and temples weredestroyed all across Japan. In Shikoku,Buddhist temples along the pilgrimage routewere obvious targets of these attacks.According to Reader, seven of sixteen templesaround Shikoku Henro in Tosa were eithercompletely destroyed, badly damaged or closeddown.27 Additionally, in 1872, a nationwide lawbanned takuhatsu, or the act of begging foralms by Buddhist monks, and as a result, anumber of pilgrims were forced to leaveprovinces in some parts of Shikoku.28 Thesepo l i c i e s and l aws encourag ing themarginalization of pilgrims and the repressionof Buddhism took a heavy toll on ShikokuHenro, causing the numbers of pilgrims and

visitors to drop significantly.

Pilgrims were persecuted because of theirassociation with images of death and disease,which in the eyes of national officials,symbolized Japan’s “backward” and “degraded”past. These dark associations were undoubtedlyat odds with the Meiji state’s aspirations toportray Japan as a modern, rational, andhygienic society. A deeper examination of theearly modern history of the Shikoku Henroreveals that death and disease were quitecentral to the pilgrimage route and the act ofbecoming a pilgrim. Ill individuals, many ofwhom were driven from their villages,participated in pilgrimages around the island inthe hopes of being cured of their illness, butmany died along the way. The route itselfbecame marked by graves of deceasedpilgrims, and over time, these expeditionsbecame known as “kill or cure.”29

Mori Masato, a scholar of Japanese pilgrimage,used three words to describe Shikoku Henrobefore the onset of modernization in the Meijiera: “poverty,” “discrimination” and “ikidaore”(meaning lying dead along the road).30 Many ofthose who walked the pilgrimage were infectedwith serious diseases such as leprosy, and in atime without proper medical facilities to carefor the sick, many looked to religion and thesupernatural for a miraculous cure. In fact,death was so prevalent in premodern Shikokuthat the characters for “Shikoku” werepopularly rendered “death” (shi) and “country”(koku) to mean “country of death (死国)” ratherthan the official characters used to refer to theisland as the “four provinces (四国).”31 Thishomonym ideogram continues to have deepresonance in Japanese popular culture today.For example, the story of the 1999 horror film,Shikoku (死国), centers on a grieving mother,who walks the pilgrimage sixteen times tomourn the death of her daughter. At the end,she realizes that she had been walking thepilgrimage backwards, thus breaking the sealbetween the world of the living and the dead.

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Also consider Haruki Murakami’s widelyacclaimed novel, Kafka on the Shore, which isabout the metaphysical journey of a young boyin Shikoku. Literary critics have noted thatMurakami chose the setting of Shikoku toillustrate a land in “limbo,” based on the folklegend that the souls of dead pilgrims continueto haunt the route.32

Not only was the act of participating inpilgrimage associated with journeying into therealm of death, but the pilgrim’s clothing alsocontinues to be symbolically tied to the idea ofdeath. The white robe or hakui—a color inJapan that represents purity and death—islayered in reverse with the right over the left,which is how corpses are commonly dressed forfunerals in Japan. A Buddhist poem aboutimpermanence, which is often inscribed oncoffins, is also carved on the bamboo hat of thepilgrim. The staff, tsue, also represents thepilgrim’s gravestone as it was customary for itto be buried with the ikidaore. Moreover, insome parts of Japan, including in Shikoku, thedeceased are dressed in pilgrim’s clothing andplaced in a casket with the pilgrim book,representing the “passport” into the next realmof death.33 As Reader has described, pilgrim’sclothing, often worn by tourists today, markthem as dressed and ready for death at anytime—“symbolically s/he is dead to themundane world.”34 While some contemporarypilgrim tourists in Shikoku may not be aware ofthese symbolic ties to the theme of death, theBuddhist symbols that are physically wovenonto the attire reflect the reality of the long,dark history of Shikoku Henro in early modernJapan.

A significant response to the state’s earlierreligious repression in Shikoku was thetransformation of all the shrines and templesalong the route into strictly Buddhist sites. Aspervasive anti-Buddhist sentiment simmereddown by the mid-1870s, and after the ban ontakuhatsu was lifted in 1881, shrines andshrine-temple complexes along the pilgrimage

route that had been identified either as Shintoor a mixture of Buddhist and Shinto, ended upbecoming Buddhist temples.35 In other words,the repressive policies of the Meiji state hadunintended consequences that permanentlytransformed Shikoku Henro’s religiousorientation. In its modern history, thistransformation of Shikoku Henro into anexplicitly Buddhist site appears to have beenthe first in a series of many local attempts byBuddhist priests to re-inscribe autonomy inresponse to external interests and threats.

4. On the Secularization of Religion,Modernization of Identity: The PilgrimTours of the 1930s

The tapering off of anti-Buddhist sentiments bythe late nineteenth century, however, did nots ignal an end to contestat ion o f thepilgrimage’s religious identity. Secularizationthrough modern tourism represented the nextform of anxiety which beset the proponents oftradition. Almost all Japanese scholars whohave written extensively on Shikoku Henroagree that the media (particularly newspapers)played a pioneering role in reforming Japanesesociety’s “traditional world view from the earlymodern period” to “modern logic and (national)ideology.”36 Through mass media and travelcampaigns, the idea of “tourism” and “moderntravel” significantly altered the ways in whichpeople engaged with the landscape of ShikokuHenro. External pressure and modern changeduring this time period also triggered a similarrevival in the religious convictions of localpilgrims in Shikoku.

By focus ing on the modern changessurrounding the Shikoku Henro, one can alsomake sense of the widespread changes thatwere simultaneously occurring throughout thearch ipe lago . Improved methods o ftransportation (trains, cars and bus services),newly paved roads, the increased wealth of themiddle class, and easy access to bank services

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helped propel the travel boom of the 1920s and30s. Scholars Kate McDonald and KennethRuoff have written about the expansion ofJapanese tourism and travel into Japan’scolonies with the expansion of the empire. InPlacing Empire, McDonald showed that tourismto Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan reshaped thesocial and spatial imaginary of the modernJapanese nation. In other words, imperialtourism helped consolidate national identity,and reinforced boundaries between themetropole and its colonial territories. KennethRuoff, in his article “Japanese Tourism toMukden, Nanjing, and Qufu, 1938–1943,” hassimilarly argued that mass tourism tobattlefields and memorial monuments in thecolonies, or what he has called “heritagelandscapes,” helped maintain and justify theempire by “providing patriotic citizenshiptraining” and “educating Japanese about theimperial projects.”37 While both scholars havelooked at gaichi tourism, meaning expeditionsto territories outside of Japan, to understandhow the Japanese populace made sense of theirnation as “modern,” I argue that domestictourism to sites such as Shikoku Henro (a siteof Japan’s primordial origins) also provided ameans of making sense of the rapidly changinghomeland.

Without a doubt, mass media played an integralrole in changing popular attitudes towardShikoku Henro. Only a few decades earlier, thepublic perception of Shikoku Henro had beengenerally negative and hostile due to anti-Buddhist sentiments, but by the 1920s,journalists and reporters began to depictShikoku Henro positively—not as a “symbol of adegraded past,” but as a “sign of tradition thatstood against the march of modernity thatthreatened Japan’s cultural heritage.”38 Forexample, the Osaka Mainichi Shinbunpublished a series of articles called “ShikokuReijo Shin Henro” (四国霊場新遍路) from March7 to March 30, 1934. These were written byfour journalists who toured different templesalong the pilgrimage route ,and reported back

on the overall quality of their spiritualexperience. Through these publications, thereporters jointly coined the term “New Henro”(新遍路), which was used to depict ShikokuHenro as “the new pilgrimage for city-dwellerswho have previously found it difficult to travelfor faith and hobby together” (信仰と趣味の旅を兼ねた都会人の新遍路) or as the “modernpilgrimage” (モダン遍路).39

Mori Masato has argued that starting in the1930s, “modernization” made the pilgrimageexperience more “rational (合理的),” “efficient(効率的),” and “comfortable (快適)” fortravelers. Lodges were being built along thetemples to provide shelter for pilgrimagetourists, compared to the past when pilgrimswere forced to find refuge in the precincts ofnearby temples. Bus, taxi and train servicesalso provided convenience and efficiency sothat the less physically and energeticallyinclined could choose the option of completingthe circuit by vehicles. Shimomura Kainan andIijima Hiroshi were two reporters dispatched toShikoku by the Asahi Shinbun at this time, tocomplete the pilgrimage route by using asmany modes of transportation as possible.40

Without a doubt, these technological advanceshelped increase the number of pilgrims andtourists to Shikoku and its pilgrimage route,but at the cost of much anxiety on the part ofthe locals, as well as religious people acrossJapan, who believed that comfort wasantithetical to the true nature of Buddhistpilgrimage. Naturally, many feared that thesemodern developments, which promoted comfortand efficiency at the expense of self-discipline,were contrary to the ascetic spirit of thepilgrimage. It was believed that pilgrimageroutes should be walked on foot, and that thetherapeutic and spiritual effects aftercompleting the circuit could only be attainedthrough hardship and endurance. In responseto these rapid changes, a Shingon priest namedTomita Gakujun established an associationcalled Henro Dōkōkai (遍路同行会) in 1928 to

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promote “true pilgrimage.” He also publishedhis own magazine, Henro, in which he wroteextensively on the ways in which he thoughtnew modes of transportation were destroyingthe tradition of pilgrimage in Japan.41

In the minds of most advocates of tradition,modern means of completing the pilgrimagesevered the “bodily experience (身体経験)”from one’s “sensibility (感覚性).”42 For peoplelike Tomita, the most important element of thepilgrimage was the sense of fulfillment derivedfrom having overcome feelings of fear anddread, while physically walking the perilousjourney of the pilgrimage. Modern technologydid not only make it easier to complete thejourney, but more importantly, it also detachedone’s sensory experience, including “sense ofhearing” and “sense of smell,” from thephysical experience of walking the circuit.Much to his dismay, Murakami Nagahito madean observation of a tour group in 1931: “...ithas become the state of condition that theautomobiles (full of tourists) will come to a stopand everyone simply looks out at the steppingstones leading to a dangerous journey...”43

For many, efficiency and convenience alsomeant secularization of the religion associatedwith Shikoku Henro. In his article, “Modernityand Materiality of the Henro Pilgrimage inJapan,” Mori argued that there was growth inthe movement to emphasize the “originalreligiosity (本来の宗教性)” of Shikoku Henro inresponse to threats of “secularization (世俗的な実象). He described these reactionary forces asa “re-examination” (再帰性) of local tradition.Mori raised the example of a new movementcalled “Daishi Henro Gyouretsu (大師遍路行列),” which was initiated by Henro Dōkōkai.Every month starting in 1933, this associationheld events to train and discipline itsparticipants to cultivate “true” Buddhistconduct, such as wearing the proper pilgrimageattire and walking the pilgrimage route on foot.The first meeting, which was held in 1931,attracted a little less than two hundred people,

but the following year saw a rise to about sixhundred participants, and by the mid 1930s,over a thousand people were attending theselessons.44

While it has been popularly believed that theShikoku Henro pilgrimage was based on theteachings of the Buddhist monk Kūkai of theShingon Buddhism sect, Mori raised doubtsabout the extent to which this was accurate.After examining all the academic journals ofMikkyo Research (密教研究) (the study ofrelated practices that make up ShingonBuddhism) published up until the mid-1930s,Mori concluded that there was not a singlemention of Shikoku Henro in any of itspublications, and that the sect itself did notconsider it to be a serious subject of study norofficially associated with its denomination.45

Instead, according to Mori, Shikoku Henrostood at the “periphery of religion (周縁的な地位)” and fit more under the category of “folkreligion (民間信仰).” Mori concluded thatpeople began to give more weight to theperceived “traditional religious nature ofShikoku Henro (四国遍路本来の宗教性)” inresponse to the growing encroachment ofsecular phenomena influenced by “tourism”and concepts of “national identity.”46

For example, starting in the 1930s, theinfluential organization, Dōkōkai, publicized theimportance of upholding religious values byrefraining from using motor vehicles toexpedite the passage. “Walking pilgrimages”(徒歩巡礼) became considered the only“traditional” and “religious” method ofcompleting the pilgrimage. However, accordingto Mori, not only was the routine of walking amodern construct of “tradition,” but it alsointersected with the national ideologybroadcast by the Ministry of Health andWelfare (厚生運動) as Japan began to expand itsempire abroad. With the establishment of the“Japan Welfare Association (日本厚生協会)” in1938 (an affiliated organization of the Ministryof Health and Welfare), the government began

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to insist that their citizens walk as a way of“building physical endurance for the nation,”and for the purposes of “praying for goodfortune in battles (武運長久の祈願).”4 7

Therefore, Dōkōkai began to align the role ofShikoku Henro with the national ideology ofbuilding endurance for the emperor, asobserved by the inauguration of the “All-JapanWalking Travel Alliance (全日本徒歩旅行連盟)”in 1938. Consider the following words byFukuda, the chairman of Henro Dokokai in1940, who associated the idea of walking thepilgrimage with the goals of the nation:

“In a time in society that screams ‘walk,walk, walk,’ if people along the ShikokuPilgrimage do not walk, it is not onlyinexcusable as an ascetic. It is alsounforgivable to our society (...) We mustcarry out the pilgrimage without a doubtby walking.”

By the summer of 1940, Prince KonoeFumimaro became prime minister for thesecond time, and under his “new ordermovement (新体制運動)” for a short period oftime, it became compulsory for pilgrims to walkthe Shikoku pilgrimage route.48

The tightening embrace between religion andmilitarism at Shikoku’s sacred sites in themidst of a militarizing economy was not new tothis period of time. As Thal has observed in herstudy on Konpira Shrine in Shikoku at the turnof the twentieth century, priests of the shrinefound themselves supporting an image of a godthat embraced Japan’s military and imperialculture soon after Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War. These developments encouragedpriests as well as entrepreneurs in Kotohira tocapitalize on the popularity of the soldiers andgrowing national pride as a way of bringingeconomic benefits to their local community.Moreover, educators in nearby elementaryschools in Kotohira also began to link theshrine with images of imperial prestige byconducting field trip tours to pray at the shrine,

and then tour the Marugame army base, wherestudents could watch soldiers’ drills andexercises.49 In this way, praying at KonpiraShrine was no longer a private act, but becamea public spectacle as government bureaucratsas well as local nativists began to support asystem of rites that praised the deity as “anexpression of morality and respect for thepublic order.”50 Similarly, at the height of warmobilization in the 1930s, every small detail ofthe Shikoku pilgrimage route—including thevery act of walking—became closely tied tonational interests and the glorification ofJapan’s formal empire.

As Japan became deeply embroiled in waroverseas, the numbers of pilgrims to Shikokunaturally fell as poverty and devastation spreadacross the nation. Only from the mid-1950sonward, when the economic situation inShikoku (as well as the rest of the nation)slowly started improving, was there arevitalization in the tourism industry thatbegan to attract pilgrims to the site again. Thepostwar era—a time when new questions aboutcultural identity, heritage and discourses onthe distinctiveness of Japanese-ness orNihonjinron began to appear—marked the finalshift of Shikoku Henro from a quasi-religioussite for the local community to a nationalsymbol of cultural heritage. The postwartransformation of Shikoku Henro in popularrepresentation was tied to Japan’s rise as aneconomic power and technologically advancedsociety. The tourism industry in Shikoku beganto expand as bus companies, such as the IyoTetsu Company in Matsuyama established in1953, began to take advantage of the influx oftourists from across Japan. Local authorities,regional tourist companies, and small businessowners in Shikoku all welcomed the economicgrowth that accompanied these tourists,especially as these areas began to struggleafter the decline of former mainstays of thelocal economy, such as agriculture andshipbuilding.

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5. Globalization: 1970 to the Present

The notion of “heritage” has in many waysbecome the “light” or the positive face ofShikoku’s pilgrimage route. A site traditionallyassociated with symbols of death, sickness andhomelessness in the early modern period,Shikoku Henro has now become characterizedas a tourist site where visitors can exploretraditional art, local cuisine, and visual cultureas a way of reconnecting with Japan’s past. AsReader lamented, the pilgrimage in publicrepresentations has moved away from beingdescribed as “an ascetic endeavor associatedwith miracle tales and the presence of awandering Buddhist holy man,” towards “afashionable and consumer item [...] in whichfaith, miracle and the like take a backseat.”51

Since the 1970s, “heritage tourism” in Japanhas become the mechanism through whichideas of national belonging and communitywere reconstructed with substantial emphasison a reimagined collective past. “Nosutarujii”was a term prevalent in mainstream popularculture in the 1970s, promoted by majoradvertising companies like Dentsu, whose goalwas to use perceived “traditional culture” as acommodity which could be used to assuagepublic uncertainties in a period of rapid socialchange.52 For example, with the help of Dentsu,Japan National Railways launched its “DiscoverJapan” campaign in October 1970, whichencouraged consumers to travel out into therural periphery of Japan— presented as aforgotten site of pre-modernity and nativepurity.53

Accordingly, there was a growing interest indomestic travel to sites in Japan where touristscould seek a reaffirmation of their lost“traditional” identity. As sociologist MillieCreighton has argued, this nostalgia-driven“retro boom” since the 1970s functioned toaddress “fears of a vanishing cultural identity,

by asserting a unique Japanese heritage in theface of an increasingly Westernized life, and bypromising an affirmation of belongingness toJapan’s urban dwellers.”54 Nostalgic images ofJapan’s preindustrial past were successfullypackaged by the travel industry, and alsoeagerly consumed by members of Japanesesociety. Inherent in the notion of nationalheritage was also the idea of community andbelongingness. According to anthropologistTheodore Bestor, these symbols provided“cultural legitimacy” in neighborhoods andcommunities by representing “a history ofcultural continuity with the pre-industrialpast.”55 Similarly in the case of Shikoku, theidea of “heritage” played a fundamental role inreaffirming Japanese identity, but at the cost ofsecularization and the complete revamping ofthe religious and spiritual nature of thepilgrimage route.

On November 16, 1972, UNESCO establishedthe World Heritage program at the ConventionConcerning the Protection of the WorldCultural and Natural Heritage. In the name of“preserving the cultural and natural heritage ofthe world,” this new comprehensive systemsought to designate certain sites around theglobe with “outstanding universal value” asofficial UNESCO heritage sites. In doing so, ithas successfully brought prestige, economicbenefits and widespread recognition to someparts of the world.56 The official designation byUNESCO became a well-known brand, andconsequently, there has been an increasedg loba l en thus iasm among na t iona lgovernments, and among prefectural and localgovernments in Japan, for nominating sites as away to bring economic growth to their locality.In the 1970s, Japan was among ten countrieschosen to help implement the World Heritageproject, although it was not until 1992 that itsuccessfully submitted Mt. Fuji as its firstnominated site. UNESCO continues to exertmuch influence in Japan by nominating orrejecting which sites should be consideredrepresentative of the nation—particularly at the

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cost of appropriating as well as abstracting thelocal history of those sites.

It may be no coincidence that the “retroboom”—or "the renewed interest in Japanesetraditions and nostalgia for the past”—alsooccurred during this time, and the keywords“furusato” (one’s hometown), “nihonjinron”(theories of Japaneseness) and “kokusaika”(internationalization) started becomingextensively used by the media and tourismindustry into the 1980s.57 Similarly, in theprocess of its UNESCO nomination, ShikokuHenro has become “nationalized” in the sensethat its “cultural” values have becomepreferred over its “religious” values as thesymbolic embodiment of a collective, nationalpast. In the recent nomination of the ShikokuHenro to UNESCO, Reader argues that thecampaign was bereft of descriptions oftenhistorically associated with pilgrimage, such as“religion, faith, practice, sacred icons,apparitions or miracles.” Instead, the site wasidentified by the national government as a“cultural treasure” with the main focus on itsnatural and traditional surroundings:

“...the document thereafter avoids talkingabout Kōbō Daishi and eschews any use ofterms such as shūkyō (religion) or shinkō(faith). Words such as reigen and kiseki(both of which are commonly used inJapanese to refer to miracles) do notfeature at all. Instead, the applicationemphasizes the pilgrimage’s location inthe natural surroundings of Shikoku [...].The pilgrimage is described as a ‘livingcultural property’ (ikita bunkashisan p. 9),whereas references are made repeatedlyto the ‘pilgrimage culture’ (henro nobunka, henro bunka) of Shikoku (e.g., p.40) and of the need to conserve thisheritage for future generations.”58

Moreover, in their recent publication, SekaiIsan UNESCO Seishin: Hiraizumi, Kamakura,Shikoku Henro, Japanese scholars Igarashi

Takashi and Sato Hiroshi have suggested thatShikoku Henro had to “overcome religion toembrace culture” in order to be considered asite of “outstanding universal value” forUNESCO.59 While the pilgrimage’s associationwith spirituality and religion has been a centralelement of its history, the onset of globalizationand Japanese prefectural governments’ keeninterest in the World Heritage program havebrought new forms of anxiety to members oflocal communities in Shikoku, many of whomcontinue to be wary of the secularizingconsequences of Shikoku Henro’s possibleinclusion in the World Heritage List. Igarashiand Sato have also looked into other nominatedsites in Japan that have been successfullyrecognized by UNESCO, such as Hiraizumi, aswell as those that have failed. such asKamakura. These examples reveal that heatedcontestation of local identity due to globalprocesses is not unique to Shikoku Henro, andcertainly not unique to Japan.

Scholar Michael Herzfeld, who has taken acritical view of UNESCO’s influence in Greeceand Thailand, stated in an interview that theUNESCO Heritage project does not promote“internationalization,” but rather “reinforcesnational narratives because it works withnational offices.”60 Certainly, as we have seenin the case of Japan, UNESCO-nominated siteshave incited much international controversy onthe topic of national narratives, particularlywith South Korea on the historical issue offorced laborers at the “Sites of Japan’s MeijiIndustrial Revolution.” Moreover, UNESCO’s“memory of the world” program has alsobrought much attention to the controversy overthe historical documents related to the“comfort women” issue and the history ofkamikaze pilots. These recent conflicts betweenJapan and South Korea reveal that historicalsites become contested when certain historicalnarratives are nationally and globally endorsedover others. In response to the South Koreangovernment’s objection to the nomination, theJapanese government dodged the issues of

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forced labor, and instead explained that thes i t e s r e f l e c t e d o n l y t h e h i s t o r y o findustrialization from 1850 to 1900, therebyexcluding the legacy of the sites thatcontributed to the death and suffering of manyKorean, Chinese and Japanese laborers.Similarly, as scholar Kimura Shisei has writtenon the failed nomination of the Chikuhōcoalfield, many accidents and explosions thatoccurred after the 1900s at these coalfieldshave not been recognized in the nationalnarrative submitted to UNESCO, andconsequently, the stories of local regionsoutside that framework have becomeobscured.

Not just nations, however, but also regionaloffices and local businesses have benefitedfrom the economic impact of nominations, andin working with national offices to nominatelocal sites, they have also played an importantrole in reinforcing national narratives. Forexample, local prefectures in Shikoku havebeen concerned that the concrete paths pavedfor motor vehicles in the early twentiethcentury may not meet the standards ofUNESCO that prefer sites with elements of“authenticity.” As the “original” tradition of thepilgrimage is to “walk” the natural path, theprefectural governments have looked toemulate the UNESCO-nominated Kumano Road(熊野古道), a site that replaced their concreteroads with dirt roads in order to meet therequirements of “authenticity.” As Igarashi andSato have noted, Shikoku’s new project of“restoring authenticity,” modeled afterKumano, will foreseeably place an economicburden on regions already facing issues ofdepopulation and aging, as the costs ofmaintaining these sites may outweigh thebenefits.61

Moreover, based on many of his field researchtrips to Shikoku, Reader has described the slowsecularization of the physical landscape of theShikoku Henro, citing examples such as thedisappearance of visual reminders of the

historical “miracle tales” from the site. In 2005,when Reader asked a temple official why theyhad taken down signs that described themiraculous recoveries of sick pilgrims atcertain sites along the route, the official repliedthat these changes were a permanent part ofthe movement to “eradicate items associatedwith premodern superstitions and to develop amore modern orientation to the pilgrimage.”62

These attempts to remove signs associated withreligious belief were part of the localgovernments’ strategies to make their sitesmore amenable, and to attract as many touristsas possible interested in “comfort andheritage.”

6. Conclusion: Reflecting on Choi SangHee and the Controversy of 2013

In the postwar era, there was a growingdisconnect between the national and regionalgovernments’ attempts to designate ShikokuHenro as a site with “universal values,” and itsconsequences of engendering forms ofparticularistic cultural nationalism. The anti-Korean controversy of 2013 in Shikoku makessense in this framework of a historical shift ofShikoku Henro from a Buddhist faith-centeredsite into one of exclusive, Japanese culturalheritage. Perhaps, the symbolic linkages of thepilgrimage with images of Japanese identityand cultural tradition was successful, despiteattempts to promote the site as one of universalsignificance.

Needless to say, the hostile political climate ofhate speech and xenophobia in Japan at thetime were not conducive to the hopes of theShikoku prefectural organization to register thepilgrimage route as a UNESCO World Heritagesite. At the time of the controversy, theZaitokukai, an ultra-nationalist and right-wingpolitical organization, was very active inleading anti-Korean demonstrations,particularly in Osaka and Tokyo. In early 2014,there were several violent attacks on Korean

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schools and schoolchildren in areas such asKobe and Osaka.

As the local heritage site in Shikoku wasbecoming associated with the larger nationaltrend of escalating anti-Korea sentiment andhate speech in Japan, Tokushima localauthorities grew anxious that these negativepress reports might spoil their chances ofdesignating the Shikoku pilgrimage route as acultural site that reflected UNESCO values,such as the ability to “exhibit an importantinterchange of human values.”63 In a newsreport, the prefectural office expressed concernthat “the absence of a formal standardization(of signs) might reflect negatively on theirregistration to UNESCO.” By April 17, only aweek after the Asahi’s first report on thecontroversy, the World Heritage RegistrationCouncil of Shikoku Eighty-Eight SacredTemples and Pilgrim Road released an officialstatement, calling on all affiliated organizationsto be attentive to the matter of preventing suchdiscriminatory actions from recurring.64

By exploring the history of this single localdispute, we can observe how Shikoku Henrobecame a site of competing visions amongvarious levels of society (the local, prefectural,national and global). A conflict between aKorean ind iv idua l and a pre jud icedorganization attracted national mass mediaattention, which, in turn, forced the prefecturalWorld Heritage Registration Council to salvagetheir site’s reputation for the sake of theirglobal audience. This controversy is also anexample of the ways in which the growingemphasis on tourism and cultural heritage notonly diluted the religious history of this localsite, but also possibly provided the nationalisticgrounds on which the anonymous racist groupcould justify their actions.

This case study of Shikoku’s pilgrimage routealso reveals an important issue for the age of“UNESCO her i tage” f rom the 1970sonwards—that is, the reality that the perceived

heritage values of certain nominated sites arenot “authentic” or intrinsic to the site. Rather,value may be the product of current socialnorms or external authorities such as UNESCO.The power of a heritage site is not derived fromits value as a local or regional historical site,but instead, those values are ascribed torepresent what contemporary societyunderstands to be of “outstanding universalvalue.” Through the case of Shikoku Henro, wecan understand how the good intentions ofUNESCO to introduce universalism as a way ofpreserving sites of cultural heritage around theworld have instead caused a surge innationalistic responses within what Herzfeldhas called “the global hierarchy of value”:

“Nation-states [...] have a deep investmentin protecting what I call their culturalintimacy, [and] are not going to present, aspart of their national traditions, dirtyjokes, obscene songs, stories that arefavorable to their enemies, [...]. What waspreviously listed as folklore or traditiontherefore gets driven even furtherunderground; it becomes, if you will, evenmore intangible, while the officiallyacceptable gets reified.”65

As Herzfeld has astutely observed, certainelements of history, which may include symbolsof death and sickness in the case of pilgrimage,have been driven “underground” in pursuit ofthe nation-state’s goals to maintain a certainimage of their “cultural intimacy.” In the sameinterview, Herzfeld insisted that UNESCOdesignation represents a “condescending viewon the part of an elite that they, and only they,understand what culture really is.”66

To be sure, Herzfeld argues convincingly thatUNESCO “reinforce[s] national narratives.” Buthe overestimates the reach of the nation-statein dictating cultural identities and alsooverlooks the role of non-state actors instressing an argument most fundamentallycritical of the state. As seen in the countless

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historical examples of local organizations thathave formed in response to “threats” to theirperceived traditions, heritage is not and hasnot been exclusively under the control of thestate. It is also crafted, or at times initiated,from below through regional movements asseen in the actions of Buddhist priests,associations to promote “walking” thepilgrimage route, and the anonymous racistorganization in 2013. Additionally, although itis unclear the extent to which the backlashagainst Choi was locally driven or a part of thenationwide network organized by Zaitokukai,actions at the local level nevertheless suggestthat popular support for Shikoku Henro’sUNESCO nomination was unevenly distributedand contested.

The racist posters and the organization’sattempts to maintain exclusivity can beunderstood as one method of the historicalconservation of “tradition.” On the other hand,there are more encouraging, bottom-up effortsto counter xenophobia also taking place on theisland. In the spring after the 2014 controversyin Shikoku, Choi and others in Japan started ajoint project called “Japan-Korea FriendshipHenro Cabins (日韓友情ヘンロ小屋),” throughwhich volunteers in Shikoku began to buildcabins and rest stops for all pilgrims regardlessof nationality along the pilgrimage route.According to the Kagawa local newspaper,members of the project hoped that this jointcollaboration would become “a symbol ofJapanese-Korean friendship.”67 Choi herself alsocommented that she hoped this endeavor wouldbecome “the bridge connecting the twocountries from the bottom-up.” Choi continuesto uphold her duties as an official sendatsu,guiding people around the pilgrimage, and hasalso recently published a book in Korea called,The Girl Who Walks Shikoku (Sik'ok'u rulkonnun yoja), chronicling her journey andfriendly encounters along the route.

Moreover, local governments in Shikokucontinue to encourage pilgrims to abide by

“traditional” modes of completing thepilgrimage. In 2018, Niantic Lab’s gameIngress included Shikoku Henro in their gameportal, called “Capture 88 in Tokushima,”which encouraged its users to physically walkthe pilgrimage and interact with theirsurroundings, while virtually navigating thesites through their smartphones. Thisseemingly counter-intuitive method of usingtechnology to embolden pilgrims to rely on“traditional” modes of conducting thepilgrimage (walking) is a poignant example ofthe ways in which many layers of tradition andmodern innovations are grafted onto oneanother, continuing to play an integral role inshaping the contemporary identity of the site.Moreover, this new technology that seeks todraw touristic interest to Shikoku Henro,perhaps specifically targeting members of theyounger generation, is also an element of post-modern “dark tourism” as identified by Lennonand Foley.

All in all, religious themes that were, for muchof their history, fundamental to pilgrimage lifeare slowly fading away, and the “dark” historyof death, illness and homelessness has becomedrowned out by the “light” of a vibrant,national culture packaged for globalconsumption. Shikoku Henro reveals that thelandscape of dark tourism is not static, butconstantly in conversation with the culturalpolitics of the time. From the Meiji period tothe present, there has been a clear movementaway from a type of pilgrimage that wascentered on mourning and salvation forindividuals, to one constructed by notions ofnational exclusivity and cultural identity. TheBuddhist origins of the temples and shrinesaround the pilgrimage circuit suggest an era inthe world when “authenticity” was notpresented in national terms. Several centurieslater, the multiple contentions among localactors reveal the power and hegemony ofnational thinking that continues to deeplyinfluence the celebration of heritage value inJapan. In this narrative of global and state

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intervention, it is equally important to realizethat the shift in the portrayal of Shikoku Henrocannot be attributed solely to the nation-state,but must be contextualized within the stories oflocal movements, where acts of racism havebeen managed and justified in the name of localheritage, as well as in the framework ofnational thinking,

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Japanese Culture,” PhD diss. University ofNorth Carolina at Greensboro, 2009.

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SPECIAL FEATURE

Dark Tourism and the History of Imperial and Contemporary Japan

Andrew Gordon, Introduction (https://apjjf.org/2019/06/Gordon.html)

Bohao Wu, Memorializing Wartime Emigration from Japan to China: Local Narratives andState Power in Two Countries (https://apjjf.org/2019/06/Wu.html)

Jesús Solís, From “Convict” to “Victim”: Commemorating Laborers on Hokkaido’s CentralRoad (https://apjjf.org/2019/06/Solis.html)

Sara Kang is currently a graduate student in the History Department at Harvard University.She is interested in discovering ways history-writing can help reappraise ethnic divisionsamong East Asian women, and hopes to focus her doctoral project more broadly on thehistory of transnational feminism, gender-based sexual violence, and militarism in East Asia.

Notes1 Reader, Ian, Pilgrimage in the Marketplace (New York: Routledge, 2014), 112.2 Ibid.3 J-Cast News, “Ohenro ni tsugitsugi ‘gaikokujin haijo’ no harigami hanguru annaishiru he nokōgi data (https://www.j-cast.com/2014/04/10201844.html?p=all),” April 10, 2014.4 Asahi Shinbun, “The Destruction of the Spirit of Motenashi: Discriminatory Posters along thePilgrimage Road,” April 10, 2014. (my translation)5 Ibid.6 Ibid.7 Ibid.8 “Henrodo doko he,” Asahi Shinbun, April 24, 2014. (my translation)9 Ibid.10 See here (http://www.topics.or.jp/articles/-/10916).11 Asahi Shinbun, “Ohenro Sekai Isan no Yume: San do me no Shojiki naru ka?” December 24,2016.

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12 Reader, Making Pilgrimages, 74.13 Sarah Thal, Rearranging the Landscapes of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site inJapan, 1573-1912 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 260.14 Ibid, 9.15 However, there has been much discussion on the series of controversies regarding the roleof the UNESCO World Heritage, and controversies surrounding the history of slave labor andthe ‘comfort women’ issue between Japan, Korea and China.16 James B. Gardner and Paula Hamilton, “Introduction” in The Oxford Handbook of PublicHistory, ed. Gardner and Hamilton, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 9.17 Rodney Harrison, "Forgetting to remember, remembering to forget: late modern heritagepractices, sustainability and the ‘crisis’ of accumulation of the past," International Journal ofHeritage Studies 19, no. 6 (2013): 581.18 For example, as described in Pei-Yi Wu’s article in the book Pilgrims and Sacred Sites inChina, the behavior of seventeenth century Chinese pilgrims to Mt. Tai was very similar tothat of modern tourists, in that ritualized ablutions and donations to the gods wereencouraged as part of package tours.19 Noga Collins-Kreiner, “The lifecycle of concepts: The case of ‘Pilgrimage Tourism’," TourismGeographies 18, no. 3 (2016): 324.20 Ian Reader, Making Pilgrimages: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku (University of HawaiiPress, 2005), 144.21 Noga Collins-Kreiner, “Dark tourism as/is pilgrimage," Current Issues in Tourism 19, no. 12(2016): 1187.22 Anthony V. Seaton, "Guided by the dark: From thanatopsis to thanatourism," InternationalJournal of Heritage Studies 2, no. 4 (1996): 234.23 Ibid.24 Grace Davie, "You’ll Never Walk Alone," in Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, ed. Ian Reader,(Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1993), 217.25 Iku Takekawa, “What Sorts of People Make the Shikoku Pilgrimage? From InterviewsConducted in 2011(http://henro.ll.ehime-u.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/a6dda776a18124a8c662939af6950c8d.pdf),” Research Center for the Shikoku Henro and Pilgrimages of the World, (DateUnknown), pp 20.26 “Naoto Kan, The Pilgrim(https://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10/03/naoto-kan-the-pilgrim/),” The WallstreetJournal, October 3, 2011.27 Reader, Making Pilgrimages, 139.28 Ibid, 143.29 Reader, 133.30 Mori Masato, Shikoku Henro: hachijūhakkasho junrei no rekishi to bunka, (Tōkyō: ChūōKōron Shinsha, 2014).31 Reader, 64.32 Chiaki Takagi, “From Postmodern to Post Bildungsroman from the Ashes: An AlternativeReading of Murakami Haruki and Postwar Japanese Culture,” PhD diss. (University of NorthCarolina at Greensboro, 2009), 199.

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33 Reader, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, 63.34 Ibid, 112.35 Igarashi, Igarashi, Takayoshi, & Satō, Hiroya, Sekai isan Yunesuko seishin : Hiraizumi,Kamakura, Shikoku henro (Tōkyō: Kōjin no Tomosha 2017), 276.36 Hoshino, E., & Asakawa, Yasuhiro, Shikoku henro: Samazama na inori no sekai (Rekishibunka raiburarī) (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2011), 118.37 Kenneth Ruoff, "Japanese Tourism to Mukden, Nanjing, and Qufu, 1938—1943," JapanReview (2014): 194.38 Reader, Making Pilgrimages, 144.39 Masato Mori, “Modernity and Materiality of the Henro Pilgrimage in Japan,” ResearchCenter for the Shikoku Henro and Pilgrimages of the World (Date Unknown), 152.40 Reader, 144.41 Reader, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, 146.42 Mori, “Modernity and Materiality of the Henro Pilgrimage in Japan,” 152.43 Reader, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, 146.44 Mori, “Modernity and Materiality of the Henro Pilgrimage in Japan,” 33.45 Ibid.46 Ibid.47 Ibid, 18.48 Ibid, 19.49 Thal, Rearranging the Landscapes of the God, 261.50 Ibid, 276.51 Reader, Pilgrimage in the Marketplace, x.52 Sandra Buckley, The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture (Routledge, 2006),365.53 Joshua S. Mostow, “Museum as Hometown: What is ‘Japanese Beauty’?” in Japan at theMillennium: Joining Past and Future, ed David W. Edgington, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003),222.54 Ibid.55 Theodore Bestor, Neighborhood Tokyo (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 265.56 UNESCO, “Basic Texts of the 1972 World Heritage Convention(http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/activities/documents/activity-562-4.pdf),” 2005 Edition.57 Millie Creighton, “Consuming rural Japan: The marketing of tradition and nostalgia in theJapanese travel industry,” Ethnology (1997): 241.58 Reader, Pilgrimage in the Marketplace, 179.59 Igarashi and Satō, Sekai isan Yunesuko seishin, 279.60 Byrne, Denis. "Archaeological heritage and cultural intimacy: An interview with MichaelHerzfeld." Journal of Social Archaeology 11, no. 2 (2011): 148.61 Igarashi and Sato, Sekai isan Yunesuko seishin, 277.62 Reader, Pilgrimage in the Marketplace, 169.63 For more information on UNESCO’s criteria for selection, see here(http://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/).64 Asahi Shinbun, “Prevention of Recurrence of Pilgrimage Posters,” April, 17 2014.65 Byrne, Denis. "Archaeological heritage and cultural intimacy: An interview with Michael

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Herzfeld." Journal of Social Archaeology 11, no. 2 (2011): 148.66 Ibid.67 Shikoku News, “Nikkan yūjō no shinboru ni: henrodo ni koya kensetu he(http://www.shikoku-np.co.jp/kagawa_news/culture/20140618000183),” June 18, 2014.