Hokkaido Highway Blues

sense. The usual plan was to build the tallest wooden structure possible on the highest hill you could find. And they wondered why lightning kept hitting them. That’s right, military strongholds built entirely of wood. They tended to catch fire, and any army close enough to pelt a castle with fireballs was close enough to burn the castle to the ground. In a hundred years of warring and fighting and dying, no one ever thought to build a single castle out of stone. The wonder is that any survived at all.
    The real strength was never the castle itself, but the labyrinth of walls and moats that surrounded it. The walls of the Japanese castle are majestic. They sweep up above you like a wave about to break, rough-hewn rock made supple in design. They confound you. They lead you into dead ends, they force you through bottlenecks, they make you backtrack and hesitate. (Much like the average Japanese neighborhood now that I think about it.)
    These walls within walls, ringed with corner watchtowers and sentry posts, helped keep the potential field of combat far away from the sequestered life of the courtiers and calligraphers inside. Once the walls were breached, however, the castle was practically defenseless. This is in stark contrast with the citadels of Europe, which are designed to be defended right to their very gates. Japan prefers to fight its wars at a distance, in outposts far beyond its walls, in Okinawa, Saipan, Midway. When the outer walls are taken, there is no Fortress Britain to fall back upon.
    Uwajima Castle was built by Lord Tōdō, who began construction in the year 1595, at about the same time that Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. Todo’s castle was later handed over to the powerful Daté clan, who began extensive renovations in 1664. Over the centuries, the castle’s guard towers fell into disuse and were eventually torn down. But the central keep remains. It has stood for four centuries. It has survived wars, uprisings, political intrigue, Tokugawa edicts, and American bombers—solely because it lacks any strategic importance.
    The irony is sweet. Consider Osaka’s castle: It was once the sprawling power base of Japan’s second -most powerful family. The most powerful family destroyed them and razed their castle, and today all that stands is a concrete reconstruction, while Uwajima’s castle, so tiny and so unimportant that no one ever bothered to siege or sack it, is now a protected cultural property. It stands just three stories high, with flying gables that are awkwardly large for its frame. Not so much a wedding-cake architecture as cupcake, it just may be the cutest little castle in Japan.
    High atop its tuft of forest, Uwajima Castle is above the flow of time and history. To reach it, you follow a winding footpath through an ancient forest. No tree has been cut on Castle Mountain for three hundred years; wild tanuki roam its underbrush and the entire hillside is now a national wildlife preserve, an ark for animals that fell back in retreat at the city’s encroachment, seeking high ground in a deluge. The forest rings with birdcalls.
    Crowds of children in bright costumes hurried past me as I clambered through the woods. With them came women in summer kimonos and men in traditional happi coats, kanji characters splashed across the backs. The nearer I got to the summit the thicker the crowds, until finally it became a single flow of bodies rushing in a current toward the top. I ran with the crowd up the last few steps and came out in front of the castle.
    A festival was waiting to begin. Dancers milled about impatiently, taiko drummers shuffled their ranks, and a jerry-rigged P.A. system announced times and protocol in a steady, static-ridden chatter.
    They were here to herald the spring. At Uwajima Castle the cherry blossoms hung heavy like grapes upon a vine. To entertain the gods and to honor these flowers, carnival revelers were mustering their forces. The scratchy voice on the P.A. kept countermanding previous instructions and the crowds rearranged themselves accordingly, amid grumbled complaints and scattered laughter.
    I wended my way through and the crowds parted like the sea before Moses. Women eyed me with intent indifference. Schoolchildren openly gawked, jaws gaping. Men watched my every move as though I might pull out a handgun and start shooting at any moment. Old women bowed with perfect precision, not a degree too low, not a degree too high. You could use the bows