The last spot for this month of Funky Friday Finds in Kengun is JiccA, a small restaurant that serves southeast asian dishes, including Green curry, Pad Thai, Ka Pao rice and Nasi Goren. The shop is just a little ways down from the Kengunko tram stop and there is some parking behind the real estate agent a few doors down.

Their instagram page is here https://www.instagram.com/jicca0423/

And now, a little more detail about the area we have been talking about. If you are into history, Kengun jinja (previously knows as Takamiya shrine) is the oldest shrine in Kumamoto. It is said to have been built in 500 AD because the Emperor Kinmei couldn’t travel to Aso jinja because of heavy snow, hard as that weather may be to imagine. From this page https://www.kyushu-jinja.com/kumamoto/kengun-jinja/index.php

“Early in the morning, a child about three years old suddenly appeared on a stone and said, “You have come to this place out of respect for Aso no Mikami, and out of a sense of duality and out of a desire to avoid the bitter cold and snow. The Aso Palace is to the east for the protection of the imperial castle, and we are to the west for the repression of the barbarian invaders of Shilla. The local priest, astonished by what he saw and heard, immediately built a shrine, enshrined the spirit of the great god Aso, and named it Kengun Shrine…”

While you may want to take that story with a grain of salt, it does seem to underline the differences between the two shrines, with Aso representing a tradition that comes down from Honshu while Kengun shows influence from Korea/Shilla and also links to discussions of Japanese prehistory, with the Yayoi people entering from Korea and moving up and mixing with the Jomon people who living in Honshu.

You can also get a sense of the age of the area by the fact that the tram stop at where Higashi bypass and Densha dori intersect, (神水 or water offered to the gods), rather than being read Shinsui or Kamimizu, is read Kuwamizu, a little shibboleth for all of you.

The name Kengun is said to come from an alternate reading of the original name of the shrine, Takemiya, but I wonder if the reading became enshrined when the area served as an assembly point for ex-Kumamoto samurai coming to support Saigo Takemori’s siege of Kumamoto castle. This page (with an English translation link at the bottom) https://www.japanesewiki.com/jp/history/%E8%A5%BF%E5%8D%97%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89.html discusses some of the fighting that took place as the Satsuma army after failing to beseige Kumamoto castle, retreated towards Kagoshima. A lot of recognizable place names, so history buffs, take note!

As the sister shrine to Aso Jinja, one of the oldest in Japan (281 BC!), there were regular yabusame contests (archery on horseback) like the ones currently held at Aso Jinja in May. These contests which were run up what is now the street leading to the jinja and the tram stop Haccho Baba was originally a point to hitch horses which was set up by Kato Kiyomasa. That’s why, at the end of road, where it enters Densha dori, there is a massive concrete tori and just up the road where it crosses Higashi Bypass is a statue of Kato Kiyomasa.

There is always a huge crowd at New Year’s for hatsumode, but the rest of the year, it is pretty quiet. Wander around the grounds and in the back, there is a sumo doho where they have a kids sumo tournament each year. The area is a stone’s throw from the Kencho, an area which we will take up in later editions of FFF., but next month is Kami Ezuko!

The FFF google map is here https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing