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There is an old Chinese legend telling that the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (Qin Shihuangdi, 259-210 BCE) sent his court sorcerer, Xu Fu, with 3,000 virgin girls and boys overseas to find the elixer of eternal youth and eternal life. Supposedly, that elixer could be found on Penglai, a paradisical island-mountain in the Eastern Sea.

[Statue of Xu Fu, Shingu - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The Emperor, with all his power, could not stand that he was powerless in the face of death. But Xu Fu eventually never returned and Qin Shihuangdi could not avoid to undertake the journey to the Chinese Underworld, the Yellow Springs. He did not go alone: he was accompanied by a huge army of terracotta soldiers, now already for several decennia being unearthed near Xian…

More than a thousand years after the legendary Xu Fu set sail (or didn’t - it’s a legend after all…) a Chinese Buddhist monk suggested that Xu Fu might have ended up in Japan (equating Penglai with Mt Fuji). This idea gradually also became popular in Japan - where in the Edo-period the Chinese histories were avidly read - and so there are now several towns on Japan’s seashore claiming to be the place where Xu Fu landed or where his grave is supposed to be.

The most important of these is the town of Shingu in southern Wakayama. In contrast to the other towns, which have nothing but the Xu Fu legend, Shingu is rich in culture: it is the site of the Hayatama Shrine, one of the three historical Kumano Shrines (and now a Unesco World Heritage Site) and is also the birthplace of famous 20th c. writers as Sato Haruo and Nakagami Kenji.

The town has set up a nice little park to the memory of Xu Fu. You will find his gravestone there (but I doubt there is something inside), as well as a statue of the great traveler. The park is entered via an elaborate Chinese gate, which stands in marked and colorful contrast to the rather subdued streets of Shingu.

[Xu Fu monument, Shingu - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Those streets, I found when I visited last year September, look even rather sad: since the once important lumber industry has disappeared from Shingu, young people have left, and only the aged remain behind… Shingu’s large shotengai (arcaded shopping street) consists for the most part of closed shutters. Shingu could use an elixer of youth itself…

Note: There is also a Mt Penglai (called Horaizan in Japanese) in Aichi Prefecture - read here about my visit.