Long Live the King

I have a graphic design degree, which is most of the reason I stopped walking. Every barrel on that wall is a separate packaging problem solved by a different brewery, and no two of them agree on anything — type, colour, illustration, even the weight of the rope. As a photographer it’s repetition and texture. As a designer it’s a catalogue.

They’re offerings. A placard nearby explains that they come from breweries around the country for the late Emperor, and Meiji Jingu is one of only two shrines — Ise is the other — that accept donations from every sake maker in Japan.

What the placard didn’t say, and I only found out later, is that they’re empty. The filled ones have a different name, komodaru; these are kazaridaru, decoration barrels. The breweries send far more than any shrine could ritually use, and sending it in earnest would be wasteful, so the barrels arrive empty and the gesture stands in for the sake. Even the rope-work I liked so much turns out to be structural — at Meiji Jingu the empty barrels are stacked, bound together and lashed to a frame so the wall doesn’t come down.

We went early, before the crowds, which is when the place does what it was built to do. Only a scattering of people, well spread out, and groundskeepers working the gravel paths with branch brooms.

The title is a toast to the man. He steered the country through a transition, and those are hard on whoever has to do the steering. Across from this wall stands a matching stack of Burgundy wine barrels, there for the same reason — Meiji turned Japan outward. I admired them and didn’t photograph them; they aren’t nearly as photogenic. One day I might find a way to make the two walls work as a single composition, or as a diptych.