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Place; Place, Japan
So, I'm currently planning a holiday in South Korea over the Christmas period, and when researching it's common to come across posts on social media asking whether SK or Japan is a better place to visit. The outcome is always the same: regardless of the comparison, Japan is virtually always touted as the best destination in East Asia. Note - I don't want this to be any kind of anti-Japanese post, since I actually quite enjoy Japanese food, culture, etc quite a bit, and see how it would be attractive to a tourist. However, I'm not quite certain why it is that Japan gets hyped up to this degree, compared to other Asian countries.
I am a very archaeology and history-focused person, so keep this in mind when reading this post.
The arguments many travellers make in favour of the pro-Japan position primarily rely on historical significance: there's the characterisation of Japan as being a uniquely cultural place, filled with ancient historical shrines, palaces and temples that can't be found elsewhere in East Asia - Korea in specific is considered to be generally devoid of meaningful culture as compared to Japan due to the history of destruction in the country from the Imjin War onwards. But once you've looked further into this Japan begins to look more and more like any other East Asian country: it certainly wasn't unscathed by wars and destruction, and because many of its buildings are wooden it's been repeatedly ravaged by fires, bombs and so on that have destroyed many of its cultural sites, most of which have been rebuilt repeatedly over time.
Here are a handful of examples:
Senso-ji. This is one of the most significant temples in Tokyo and a major tourist site. It was destroyed during the extensive WW2 firebombing in 1945, and the buildings still standing today are reconstructions dating to about 1951-1973. These buildings are undoubtedly beautiful, but certainly not old - the famous five-storied pagoda is younger than Nicholas Cage. Additionally, they're also made of concrete, unlike the original wooden structures, so as to prevent the thing from burning down again. Not very authentic.
Osaka Castle + Nagoya Castle + any number of other "historical" castles in Japan. These are probably some of the most egregious examples, considering that they're unashamed ferroconcrete pastiches of the original castles. Osaka Castle was destroyed in the Boshin War in 1868 and Nagoya Castle was destroyed in WW2 in 1945. The current reconstructions hail from 1931 - 1959, with the insides being tourist-trap museums complete with lifts and other modern amenities.
Kinkaku-ji. Probably the most obvious and recent example of a reconstruction in Kyoto - this reconstruction was built in 1955 after a schizophrenic, suicidal monk burned the original structure down, and now it draws so many tourists that it's definitely suffering from overtourism. You can hardly see the temple for the most part, because of the throngs of tourists lining up to get even the slightest glimpse of the (admittedly very beautiful) golden pavilion.
Nijo Castle. Let me be clear, this palace is incredible. The Ninomaru Palace is wonderful and truly historic. While I bet it's been thoroughly Ship-Of-Theseused over the years due to the need for constant renovations and upkeep, it is a structure that's persisted continuously over the years and its construction was fully completed in 1626. Many of the other structures in Nijo Castle, however, are not like this - the actual Honmaru Palace was burned to the ground in the 1700s, and the current structure standing there today is actually a completely separate building taken from the Kyoto Imperial Palace.
Kyoto. Yes, Kyoto. This is attacking a steelman, since Kyoto is the historic city of Japan, but even that's not an ancient city - 90% of the city was burned to the ground during the Great Fire of 1788, and as a result in the bounds of the old city there are not more than 10 to 12 buildings pre-dating 1788. Of course, this doesn't mean the city isn't historically or culturally significant - but most of Kyoto is not older than the Edo period.
There are many more examples I could offer - Kiyomizu-dera is a temple hailing from the late Nara period but which had to be rebuilt in 1633, To-ji Temple was rebuilt in 1644, and so on. I'm sure you can find some truly old structures in Japan - the opulent Golden Hall of Chuson-ji comes to mind, a structure that was built in the 11th century and remains extant up to this day. But as a general rule, most of the structures in Japan are generally not that old.
It's necessary to note that Japan has a different viewpoint surrounding "authenticity" than the West does. As Douglas Adams notes on his visit to Kinkaku-ji: “I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. “So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide. “But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question. “But it’s burnt down?” “Yes.” “Twice.” “Many times.” “And rebuilt.” “Of course. It is an important and historic building.” “With completely new materials.” “But of course. It was burnt down.” “So how can it be the same building?” “It is always the same building.” I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.”
It is a not-uncommon East Asian view that buildings can be demolished and rebuilt and still be the same structure, just as long as it sits on the same site and serves the same purpose. Many believe that changes to the structure are another step in its evolution, and this is perfectly okay - the Japanese answer to the Ship of Theseus is in fact "yes, it's the same ship". Ise Shrine, in fact, gets ceremoniously demolished and rebuilt every 20 years in an event called Shikinen Sengu. But this results in weird, unintentionally misleading marketing, where buildings that are barely older than the 20th century get marketed as "ancient", which leads a Westerner to think that the actual extant building in fact does date back to the 5th century or something when in fact it's newer than some New York buildings.
The historicity of South Korean buildings, in this light, seems not that different to that of Japanese ones. Here are a couple of notable examples:
Changdeokgung. This incredible Joseon palace was finished in 1412, but multiple wars and fires have resulted in a wildly differing age distribution among the structures of the palace. All of it was destroyed during the Imjin War in 1592, except Geumcheongyo Bridge which dates back to 1411. The palace was restored in 1609, and the oldest proper building (the Donhwamun Gate) can be traced back to this date. Other structures date from the 18th to the 20th century, though the reconstruction generally seems to have been fairly authentic. The secret garden, located north of the palace complex itself, is generally quite authentic - the buildings and gardens there have sustained their original forms from around the end of the Joseon Dynasty.
Jongmyo Shrine. This is a Joseon-era Confucian shrine housing the spirit tablets of Joseon monarchs, initially built in 1394 but (unfortunately) burned down during the Imjin War. The spirit tablets were saved by hiding them in a commoner's house, and the current reconstruction dates all the way back to 1601. Note: This shrine is old enough that its reconstruction is as old as the aforementioned Ninomaru Palace in Japan.
Haeinsa Temple. This remarkable place houses the Tripitaka Koreana, a series of 81,258 wooden printing blocks with over 50 million Hanja characters inscribed on them - they constitute one of the most complete Buddhist canons ever, one that's 750 years old. The buildings themselves were first established in 802 AD, but most of it was destroyed by fire in 1818 and rebuilt shortly after. The Janggyeong-panjeon (the storage hall housing the Koreana), however, is very old, and while it's not known exactly how ancient it is it's probably original, having survived both the fire and the highly destructive Imjin War.
Seokguram Grotto. This is an artificial grotto facing the East Sea with a truly monumental statue of Seokgamoni-bul (the Historical Buddha) inside it. Its construction dates all the way back to 742, at the height of the Unified Silla kingdom. The structure fell into ruin over the years, and while there were some repairs over the Joseon period, disrepair continued because of their suppression of Buddhism. During the Japanese colonial period, there were attempts to repair the Buddhist sites around Gyeongju (including Seokguram) as an attempt to establish a sort of pan-Asian buddhism to unite their colonies and distinguish themselves from the Joseon Dynasty, and their photos here from 1922 suggest that the statue of Seokgamoni-bul is ancient.
I could go into more, but this post is already long enough with the histories of random East Asian buildings and artefacts, so I'll move on. Maybe it's the amount of historical sites in each country that are informing people's evaluations. But I don't see South Korea as having less in this regard either, at least not if you conduct any amount of cursory research. There are historic tombs and burial mounds all over the country, including in Seoul, Gyeongju and so on. The Namsan mountain south of Gyeongju alone boasts over 100 Silla buddhist sites, many of which are spectacular like the Chilburam buddha sculptures (8th century) or the Sambulsa statue triad (7th century). There is just so much to find once you dig a bit deeper beyond the Instagram-friendly sites.
Choosing SK as a point of comparison is also making it harder for me than it really needs to be. Comparing Japan with the big granddaddy of East Asia, China, makes proving my point that Japan isn't the be-all-end-all of East Asia trivially easy: there's the ancient walled city of Pingyao that looks like something out of a fantasy movie, the Mogao cave temples, etc, there's so many truly epic sites there it's really hard to know where to start. The Cultural Revolution, try as it might, couldn't erase everything; China was a huge stable empire for most of its history and its historical sites are appropriately spectacular.
Note I'm not bashing Japan, again I quite like it and think it's a very nice place to visit. It's just always baffled me to see the amount of esteem it receives over... well, pretty much any other travel destination. Perhaps the explanation is just that it was a big cultural and tech exporter during the 20th century, and that's kind of rippled through our cultural consciousness and resulted in Japan being The Place To Be.
EDIT: accuracy
In addition to what @bonsaii observed about being first—it was also the most accessible to the U.S. following the war. While we were bombing Korea and refusing to talk to China, we were actively occupying Japan. While we were bombing Vietnam and trying to get an in with China, we were still using and trading with Japan. By the time we had regular relations with the majority of East Asia, Japan was coming into its own electronics and heavy industry, securing its position in the West-dominated economy. That’s when tourism really started to take off.
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Japan had a 20 year modernization head-start over South Korea, which in turn had a 20 year head-start over mainland China. Korea only very recently entered mainstream Western consciousness (only 2 decades ago Hank Hill's "so are you Chinese or Japanese?" was a pretty accurate depiction of the median American conception of East Asia) and mainland China is widely considered an authoritarian enemy-state.
Japan's hold is largely a function of it having been the first, and for a long period of time only, "developed" but "non-Western" place in the world. So it planted its flag as the premiere "exotic" destination that still had all of the first world comforts.
I'd agree that today Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and certain parts of mainland China all have comparable tourist options to offer Western visitors with incredible safety, transportation, and other conveniences to boot. I often work with videos like this in the background on a second screen and it makes me want to quit my job and spend a year or two just traveling China in particular. But the power of having been the first is a lot to overcome, so I doubt we'll see a "place, China" effect take anywhere as deep of a root.
I pretty much agree with this. In the specific case of South Korea, I also think people come away with bad impressions of SK as a worse Japan because they approach it wrong - they typically weight their trip in favour of large metropolitan sprawls such as Seoul and Busan and expect it to feel polished and put-together and historic in the same way that they would expect from Kyoto and Tokyo. This, I think, is the wrong way to structure one's trip there. Korea was downright catapulted into modernity after a long period of poverty, destruction and war during the 20th century, and the modernisation effort under Park Chung-Hee was haphazard and quick - the sole aim was accelerated industrialisation at all costs, without too much regard about how the cities would turn out. SK's metropolises reflect this - many buildings were cheap and utilitarian constructions, and they certainly look it. This was a good move that made Seoul into the "miracle on the Han River", but the result of this is that their large cities have less of a glossy feel than that of Japan's. Outside of the Joseon palace complexes in Seoul, there just aren't too many truly historic things to see within the metropolis proper (though there are a handful of very pretty historic-looking neighbourhoods, such as Bukchon Hanok Village).
This isn't to say that SK doesn't have a historic feel! But you have to look elsewhere outside of the megacities to find that old South Korea. Old villages and temples are everywhere, but they're typically located deep in the countryside, such as the UNESCO-listed Hahoe and Yangdong folk villages which still preserve that old Korean spirit; down to retaining their clan-based social structure. There's pavilions, study halls, traditional Confucian academies for learning and so on, and they often run traditional folk festivals out of these villages. They're not tourist traps or outdoor museums, these are actual places that people have lived in ever since the days of the Joseon Dynasty. These aren't the only ones either, though they're certainly the best known - Naganeupseong, Oeam, Hangae, Goesi-ri and so on are other living folk towns which are lesser known. Stationing yourself in some smaller towns in the countryside and using them as a base to explore a certain area, such as Gyeongju, is also a good idea if you want to see a lot of historic stuff. As noted, the mountain just south of Gyeongju was sacred to the Silla Dynasty and has over a hundred Buddhist sites that can be found just by walking aimlessly through its trails. Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto, located on Mount Tohamsan, can also be accessed from there via a short bus ride. I've located so many spectacular historical sites in easy distance of that town in my research (much of which is poorly marked and practically hidden within the mountains). Suncheon and Gwangju are also good jumping off points, I've heard.
I feel like when planning holidays, most people don't really care to do this work. They typically want to situate themselves in a really big and famous city and walk around and explore neighbourhoods without having to research too much, and in South Korea this approach just doesn't work quite as well as it does in Japan since most of its attractions are in the countryside. It also doesn't help that SK seems to want to make everything as hard as possible - in order to navigate and find out bus timetables and train routes you can't use Google Maps, you have to use Naver Maps, which has an awful UI and is in Korean. The only way you can use Naver Maps in English is on the fucking mobile app, and even then using it is still a pain. Granted, they're doing this out of security concerns, but it makes it more difficult to plan one's trip. Many sights are just missing from tourism sites, such as the Buddha sculptures at Gunwi Grotto and Sanginam Grotto or the pagoda stonework and statuaries at Unjusa Temple or the views of Boriam Hermitage or complete oddities like the placenta chambers of King Sejong's sons (you heard me). I think SK gets shafted relative to Japan despite having an equally large heritage to boast about (relative to land area, at least; SK is a quarter of the size of Japan) partially because of these factors.
With regards to the character of its cities, this seems to perhaps be changing. In 2000 the Korean government began to subsidise hanok projects, and more and more traditional hanok villages have been built in the surrounding areas of Seoul and other big cities (Eunpyeong Hanok Village, for example, was built in 2017). Lots of new traditional architecture is appearing all the time in Korea. A law involving a restoration project for the core historical relics of the Silla Dynasty, named the "Special Act on the Restoration and Maintenance of Core Ruins of the Silla Royal Capital", was passed in 2019, and this will probably make the city of Gyeongju proper have even more of a historical feel. In this sense, it's not too different to Japan, where most of their historical buildings are not, in fact, historical but regardless help contribute to the feel of the city. I guess we'll see how this all turns out.
EDIT: a word
I agree with all of this. I would add that, in my experience, Korea is not very good at advertising its more interesting places to foreign places. It just sort of shunts us all to the same basic places ("here, look at some kimchi being made. Here, rent a hanbok and walk around an empty palace ground"), while you have to really do research and plan a bus trip to the countryside to see the more interesting places.
That said, there are some fascinating neighborhoods in Seoul. Not really "historic," but you can really see how some places were just build up crazy fast in the 80s and 90s, with some incredibly weird (and sometimes dangerous) choices of how to fit them in to the hilly terrain.
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Sure, I agree. If you want ancient go to China.
But in defense of Japan, they view time differently. This is damn hard to explain if you're not really familiar with Asian cultures, but imagine a piece of taffy stretched out to infinity, and then suppose this taffy is infinitely divisible, and that you live on a random notch somewhere on this taffy, and that's how Japanese view time. There is a natural sense of eternity there, as if you're just a little ink blot on the letter of some word of a grand page in a grand book you know nothing about, and can never read or decipher. But you don't care, because things are safe and cozy and beautiful, and if there's anything you like it'll be around a long time. Driving to work, warm coffee, pleasant tunes. All of it will last.
AFAIK, caring about quantitative time is a Westerner thing. Even the ancient Greeks had a very different conception of it, where the past is like infinitely far away even for events that occurred 10 years ago, and you have dudes getting labeled demigods while their grandkids still walk around town.
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With regards to Ship of Theseusing buildings, I'm definitely on team Japan. Who cares if the actual wood is new? Fetishising the materials themselves leads to craziness like this.
There are degrees of "Ship of Theseus-ing".
The original version: Hundreds of pieces are replaced one by one over many years, with physical continuity above 99 percent at each replacement
The grandfather's-ax version: Just two or three pieces are replaced one at a time, with physical continuity of only one-half or two-thirds at each replacement
This Japanese version: The entire edifice is destroyed and remade all at once, with no physical continuity at all
Or the Spanish version, where decayed parts are replaced by jarringly ugly alternatives, because this is somehow more 'authentic' or 'honest'.
From the perspective of the tourist or resident, the first three options are basically the same, right? The building looks traditional and beautiful, and is built with new materials. The only way options 1 or 2 are superior to 3 would be if the old materials pass on some ineffible essence to the new materials.
Except that in the case of OP's castles, the new construction is made with reinforced concrete rather than wood, which, despite maybe looking the same, must feel rather different.
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FWIW, the last 1-2 years has been a nightmare of overtourism. I've been living and traveling here for over a decade and it's never been this bad in Tokyo. So maybe visit somewhere else and come back after the boom is over. Don't worry, the yen is probably permanently ruined so it'll stay cheap.
It's probably never getting better. Global airline passengers per year has increased at a rate of roughly 5% per year since WWII. And of course China is on Japan's doorstep and is just discovering international travel. God help us if Indians ever start traveling in mass.
That said, I've really enjoyed traveling in Europe by visiting second-tier cities which get many fewer tourists.
Are there equivalent places in Japan which are fun to visit that actually might benefit from some American tourist buxx?
I believe the answer to this is basically anywhere other than Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa.
If you can deal with cold, I had friends recently visit Hokkaido (Sapporo for sure, think other places as well) and they reported it was comparatively bereft of tourists.
For warmer climes, I've generally heard that Kyushu isn't as flooded with foreign tourists as Honshu while still having plenty of impressive natural and historical sites.
Shikoku in particular should also satisfy @jeroboam. I'd hazard a guess that it's probably the main Japanese island that sees least tourists. In terms of places to see, there's quite a bit; perhaps visiting a handful out of the 88 temples on the Shikoku pilgrimage route might appeal. There's also Dogo Onsen, the oldest operating onsen in Japan, and Kochi Castle, an actually non-tourist-trap Japanese castle - many of the extant structures were rebuilt last in the 1700s and it is considered one of the last twelve original castles in Japan with an intact main keep. Much more authentic than the ever-so-famous Osaka Castle, I'd say.
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I do genuinely feel bad for the people who have to live close to the over-touristed sites in Japan. A lot of the temples and neighbourhoods that get traffic are places where people actually live and work, and I can't imagine living in, say, Kyoto and getting exposed to this absolute bullshit. Even as a tourist I hate it, I wouldn't be able to handle it in my day-to-day.
If I'm ever going to Japan, I'm almost certainly picking somewhere out of the way, like Koyasan and their Shingon Buddhist temples. Too much of Japan suffers issues with overtourism, and it just kills the vibe of these places which are ostensibly supposed to feel quiet and calm.
I remember the same feeling walking through the alleys and courtyards of Venice. Couldn't imagine what it would be like to step outside your door every day and have someone speak indecipherable gibberish to you while waving a camera.
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My siblings have been insisting on a Japan trip and I've been reluctant because of this
I think the risk/concern here is that it eventually enters an inflationary spiral like Argentina/Turkey. It doesn't seem likely, but if people on the inside don't trust the currency...
I think the BOJ has been far more concerned with deflation than inflation over the last several decades. And it's not that people don't trust the currency, it's that the BOJ prefers a gradual, managed decline that preserves pensions and lifelong employment to any sort of economic dynamism, so a weak yen is fine to them as long as the largest voting blocs ("old people" and "very old people") can still push paper around for a mediocre wage/receive their pensions and can afford to buy rice, tofu, vegetables, and cigarettes.
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