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Offerings at stones
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Littlestone
Littlestone
5386 posts

Re: Offerings at stones
May 11, 2006, 22:06
Call me the Devil's Advocate but there's something about this, don't-leave-things-here-because-they'll-offend argument that's a bit worrying (but I can't quite pin down what it is). On the one hand I agree with everyone who says it's tacky but then feel a bit guilty about that because it seems elitist - and I can see BuckyE's point about tourists who complain about having to endure tourists - it all seems a bit snobby... no, that's not quite right either.

I think what bothers me is the appropriation of a place (or thing) by one group over another. Sure, if things left at sites are causing damage they should never be condoned but if something is left there with sincerity (even if offends our 'megalithic' eye) do we really have any right to object? What makes our claim to a site any more important than someone else's? You know, I've been to places for a bit of peace only to have that peace interrupted by someone mooching about with a camera ;-) Or some other place 'invaded' by people chattering and sharing their excitement with their partners or their children. Does my wish for solitude override their wish to explore? Does our wish for an uncluttered site override someone else's wish to leave an offering?

Last month I took the number 59 bus out from the centre of Kyoto city to Ryoan-ji - the famous Zen Buddhist rock garden in the western mountains. It's a bus I've taken many times as I use to live out there as a student back in the 60's. The Ryoan-ji rock garden is world famous and always teaming with tourists who arrive, literally, by the coach load. I still go there though, sit on the ancient wooden porch of the temple for a while looking out on those few rocks set in an eternal sea of raked sand. The tourists come and go, hoards of high-school kids chattering excitedly and camera clicking at the speed of light. We're all there because we need, want or have to be, all taking in what makes sense to us at the time. This time carpenters were fitting a new cyprus-bark roof to the wall (a national treasure) that surrounds the rock garden. The smells, sounds and clippings of new bark, the lake with its still-closed lotus flowers, cherry blossoms in full bloom, an old gentleman sitting on a wooden bench puffing contentedly away on a cigarette, terrapins sunning themselves - tourists? What tourists?
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Re: Offerings at stones (FourWinds)		 Replies:
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