Japan Navigator

The Kobe City Government has been active in providing some pleasant diversion for its citizens when they walk the streets of this port city. In other words, it has done what so many other Japanese cities do: placed a number of statues along its streets. And as usual in Japan, when selecting these works of art, the gaze of the (probably mostly male) city council proved not indifferent to the female form.

Take this statue, sitting on a busy crossing near the southern exit of Sannomiya Station, on Flower Road. Although she needs a shower to wash away the soot from exhaust gases, this curvy lady is certainly not unpleasant to look at. On the contrary, she is decidedly voluptuous, with her leg stretched out in a most provoking way. I wonder what official message the City Council wants to impart to its citizens here… that Kobe is a sort of Garden of Eden, full of paradisical pleasures?

This is a much more serious statue, standing on one of the corners of Flower Road with Naka-Yamatedori. When you still remember the discussion (and outcry) about women as “birth-giving machines” you will have no problem deciphering the statement behind it. With the strong and sturdy hips and the squarish body, this sculpture can indeed represent nothing else but such a birthing device - with the glorious result of her productive activities on her head and the male whose role is finished insignificantly at her back. If there would be more women like this, Japan could even overcome the dramatic fall in population, seems to be the optimistic message of Kobe’s council.

And now we come to the strangest statue I have ever seen - this one stands in the small square in front of the north exit of Sannomiya (Hankyu) Station, also on Flower Road. It is decidely a most frank and open statement about the imaginative faculties of the male half of the population. When (some?) men think about women, they mostly think about certain parts and of these they never can get enough. The artist, understanding their predicament, has fashioned a statue from only the most crucial female body parts, repeating them over and over - a beacon of enlightenment to welcome travelers to this beautiful city…