What is the smell of your Japanese landscape?
Feb 15th, 2008 by Ad Blankestijn
Are you fond of smells? I remember how in Proust certain smells evoke long-forgotten memories, and indeed, the smell of freshly mown grass or hay reminds me of the long and lazy summers of youth.
Although I did not live in Japan as a child, I find that certain Japanese fragrances evoke atavistic memories which are sort of comforting, such as the pervasive fragrance of incense, the smell of old wood in ancient temples, the scent of fresh cedar wood in new shrines (or of bath tubs in inns), or the aroma of charcoal fires on a wintry morning in the Yoshida area of Kyoto.
[The smell of wintersweet (robai)]
Smells are apparently important to the Japanese as well. What is more, the Japanese government treats fragrances almost with the same special attention as it does national treasures. After all, the Minstry of the Environment has compiled an official list of “Top 100 Aromascapes of Japan.” Yes, the government advises us about the best-smelling places in the country – something I have never seen elsewhere!
Here are a few lines from the press release published at the time the list was compiled, already in 2001:
The Ministry of the Environment has selected one hundred places with landscapes that evoke the sense of pleasant aromas. Many places around us remind us of the unique fragrances that are connected with local natural environment, culture and living. The selection was based on the new concept of “aromatic environments,” with the aim of supporting local efforts to conserve and create pleasant aromas…
What smells do the Japanese like? Here are a few examples of “natural aromas”:
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the tang of sea air in Miyako (Iwate)
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the smell of deep grass in Hoei (Niigata)
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the fragrances of beech and dogtooth violet flowers in Shinjo (Okayama)
Another type are aromas caused by people, for example by local industry:
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the aroma of soy sauce of soka senbei (rice crackers) in Soka (Saitama)
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the aromas of Japanese and Chinese traditional medicines in Toyama (Toyama)
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the scent of clay and fire in the ceramics town of Imari (Saga).
Some of my favorites from the list are:
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the scent of old books in the booksellers’ quarter of Kanda (Tokyo) – although I am a 100% digital citizen, I like the smell of ink and paper and am always sniffing my books
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the smell of fresh moss and cedars in the Southern Valley on Mt Haguro (Yamagata Pref.) – yes, not only this one, but all cedar woods, for example on Mt. Koya with its huge graveyard in the forest, or along the ancient path leading to the Kumano Shrines in southern Wakayama…
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the smell of plum blossoms in Kairakuen, Mito. – again, also all other plum groves. My strongest memory is of the yellow “wintersweet” in a temple garden near Taimadera, Nara; or of the private gardens in Kamakura, where you can catch a whiff of plum scent when walking down the narrow alleys.
Indeed, there is something magic about smells…
What is the smell of your favorite Japanese landscape?
Here is the whole list of aromascapes in Japanese.
Dear Ad,
it is no surprise to hear about Japanese government selecting 100 landscapes with pleasant aromas, when one knows the emphasis on National treasures. Nevertheless, I didn’t know. Thank you for writing about this particular attention of Japan Ministry of environment to smells and aromas.
I haven’t lived long enough in Japan to be able to evoke special scents, so precisely associated with a landscape.
But I can evoke three captured aromas I like to smell to remember this country :
- refined incenses, of course,
- green tea
- and o-furo.
[...] Grâce à JapanNavigator, j’ai appris que le Ministère japonais de l’environnement avait établi en 2001 la [...]