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Mount Fuji: Symbol of beauty; mountain of shame

Hachiko

後輩
17 Jan 2004
1,380
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How Fuji-sama loses its splendour through trashing is beyond me. I pity those who ruin Fuji's mojo. :( :eek:

Thinking "green" may seem to be a modern notion, but in Japan it's as old as the hills -- at least those ones climbed by innumerable yamabushi ascetics on grueling mountain pilgrimages in search of enlightenment.

Through all the centuries they have been hiking up divine slopes, yamabushi -- the guys shown in tourist guides wearing baggy white knickerbockers and flowing sleeves -- have minimized their impact on the environment by carrying only the bare essentials and living off the land. (When answering their calls of nature, too, they are said to have once adopted a similarly thoughtful approach -- by spreading paper on the ground to shield the local mountain god from impurity, and, it is thought, burying the whole shebang in the ground.)

But today, with yamabushi infinitely outnumbered by tourists and trekkers discharging all manner of refuse willy-nilly as they go, the average mountain deity must be feeling, well, dumped on.

Japan Times
 
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