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SCENTS AND THE CITY1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Itinerary | Home
Among the so-called Three Sisters of Japanese culture, kodo is the homely stepchild to the glamorous chanoyu (tea ceremony) and ikebana (flower arranging). The reason, our facilitator Eriyo Watanabe says, traces back to kodo’s arrival, via China, with Buddhism. The worshippers I’d seen bathing their faces and hands in fragrant smoke at the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa now make sense. During a long period when Japan closed itself to foreign imports, only the richest could afford precious Southeast Asian aloeswood and Indian sandalwood incense, and kodo fell from its one-time popularity, when hundreds of “incense games” were played like so many common drinking games. We’re given cups of white ash to sculpt with our tools. The sleeves of Watanabe’s gossamer blouse sparkle as she forms a deft peak with hers. Mine is an unwieldy Close Encounters-style mound. “We Japanese are perfectionists, you know, otaku culture,” she giggles, using a word often translated as geek or nerd. In the peak we each bury a heated disc of charcoal; on top of that she places a glass square and a single wood chip, producing ethereal, smokeless incense. As instructed, I hold the cup near my nose and inhale three times. “Incense is very subtle. If you struggle to catch the scent, it can go away,” Watanabe warns. Wafts of exquisite delicacy float up my nostrils. The incense called Tao evokes warm memories of honey, molasses, cardamom and “the young energy of sunshine,” as Watanabe describes it. Flute music flutters in the background as Watanabe explains that kodo is “a powerful form of stress reduction and non-verbal communication. It’s good for anti-aging as well; it stimulates your mind, like a brain massage.” Later, in a display case at the traditional Japanese arts store Kyukyodo, I recognize the same kind of hollow gourds she showed us, filled with a fine peppery incense called zuko that’s used for protection from evil spirits at cemeteries or for purification before entering a Buddhist temple. But the practice of scenting the body in Japan is actually uncommon. I once read that Cellophane-wrapped boxes of American and European perfume are popular hostess gifts in Japan, to be displayed unopened, never worn. My smell vocabulary gets twisted further while shopping in the sleek Roppongi Hills complex. At a bath boutique called Touch that turns out to be largely about smell, I browse its bespoke line of essential oils (my favourite is called Hale: In and Ex); a ninja mask-looking Face Compress Steaming Towel (to be impregnated with scent); even an Air Aroma Drive Time fragrance diffuser (for your car lighter). |
