2026-07-10 Yamagata City Stroll: A Journey Through Time from Kajo Park to Bunshokan#

For Hong Kong tourists, Yamagata might not be the top choice for a trip to Japan. However, for people around my age, it is definitely not unfamiliar—in the classic Japanese drama Oshin, the protagonist Oshin’s hometown is exactly Yamagata. The story begins around 1907. At that time, Yamagata was depicted as a remote and poor countryside, and Oshin had to leave home at a young age to work as a servant due to poverty.

This trip to Yamagata allowed me to understand the local history from another perspective, which might also be an epitome of Japan’s development over the past few centuries. (A detailed historical discussion will be shared in a separate article.)

Today’s Yamagata gives me an impression of prosperity rather than poverty. This is not only reflected in its modern urban planning and architecture but also evident in the magnificent historical buildings from a century ago (such as the Bunshokan). This article first shares bits and pieces of the itinerary, leaving the history and culture parts for later.

Kajo Park#

If you visit in spring, Kajo Park is a famous cherry blossom viewing spot. Although we came in summer and missed the cherry blossoms, the park’s natural scenery is still very beautiful.

Expanded by the 11th lord of Yamagata Castle and Sengoku warlord Mogami Yoshiaki, this used to be a giant flatland castle featuring a Honmaru, Ninomaru, Sannomaru, and a triple moat. Its scale even surpassed the current World Heritage Himeji Castle, making it the largest castle in the Tohoku region at the time. Although the ancient castle’s main keep no longer exists and many facilities are under repair, we didn’t mind too much, as we have already visited many castle keeps in the past.

There are several art galleries and museums in the park. We were attracted by the “Hyakki Yagyo” (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) exhibition and thus chose to visit the Yamagata Museum of Art. Although photography was prohibited in most areas of the exhibition, and not knowing Japanese caused some obstacles in reading the text descriptions, just experiencing the atmosphere of the exhibition made the trip worthwhile.

Speaking of “Hyakki Yagyo”, neither my wife nor I are anime fans, so our knowledge of this is strictly superficial, but its cultural significance is extremely worth reflecting upon.

Shinto is the main religion in Japan, believing that all things have spirits—mountains have mountain gods, trees have tree gods, water has water gods… As mentioned in my travelogue last year, there are eight million deities in Japan. Mythological stories have become great subjects for literary creation through the ages.

China also has mythological stories, but relatively speaking, they appeared later. Taking the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing) as an example, it is a work from the Warring States to Qin and Han periods (approx. 4th century BC to 1st century BC). Compared to over five thousand years of history, this is quite late.

Another major difference is that Chinese mythology rarely has positive descriptions of demons (ghosts). Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai) is one of the few ghost stories, but the image of ghosts is quite singular, and the underlying theme is karmic retribution. It’s hard to find anything like “Hyakki Yagyo”, where the images of ghosts are so diverse.

Nanokamachi Shopping District#

This is a prosperous commercial street, and one of its greatest features is the “Nanokamachi Gotenseki”. “Seki” means water channel. About 400 years ago, the lord of Yamagata Castle built a series of water channels to secure water for living and agriculture, and “Gotenseki” is the section that flows through the city center.

Many time-honored brands and specialty shops line the shopping district. We chose to enter the famous soba noodle shop “Shojiya” for lunch. Their food was indeed of excellent standard.

The district enshrines the “Gotenseki Daikokuten”. This deity statue was personally designed by the internationally renowned industrial designer Ken Okuyama (who designed the Ferrari Enzo, Hokuriku Shinkansen, etc.), born in Yamagata City. Its shape is round and very modern. The physical statue was carefully crafted using “Yamagata Imono” (Yamagata casting), a traditional craft with over 900 years of history, perfectly matching the “blend of modern and traditional” temperament of the Gotenseki commercial space.

This is also one of the stops on the local “Jokamachi Yamagata Shichifukujin” (Seven Lucky Gods of Yamagata Castle Town) pilgrimage (known as the Daikokuten of Nanokamachi). Many people make a special trip here to collect goshuin (shrine stamps) and pray. My wife and I have long lost interest in collecting them, but just getting a glimpse was a pleasure.

Delving deeper, Daikokuten (Mahākāla) was originally a ferocious god of destruction in Hinduism (an avatar of Shiva) and later became a guardian deity in Buddhism. However, after being introduced to Japan, because the Japanese pronunciation of “Daikoku” is the same as “Okuninushi no Mikoto”, the god of nation-building in Japanese mythology, Japanese folklore perfectly merged the two.

Through this localized evolution, the originally fierce guardian deity transformed in Japan into a god of wealth and abundant harvests, with a kind and amiable face, wearing a black hood, holding a “magic mallet” in his right hand, carrying a lucky bag in his left hand, and stepping on rice bags. Because Daikokuten is in charge of wealth and agriculture, commercial streets and shops all over Japan are very fond of enshrining Him to pray for prosperous business (Shobai Hanjo) and wealth. In a commercial space composed of water channels and machiya like Nanokamachi Gotenseki, Daikokuten naturally became the most suitable deity to bless the local merchants.

Bunshokan#

After lunch, we walked for about ten minutes to Bunshokan. At first glance at its exterior, I mistakenly thought it was an embassy or office building built by foreigners. Upon careful understanding, I found that it was built in 1916 and was formerly the “Former Yamagata Prefectural Office and Prefectural Assembly Building”. This is quite fascinating: in Oshin, Yamagata during the same period was a remote and poor countryside, yet in reality, there existed such a magnificent British Renaissance-style building designed by local Japanese architects. The exhibits inside the hall and subsequent in-depth research reveal the historical development of Japan and even the world over the past century, which will be discussed in another article.

Dinner and Hotel Massage#

After visiting Bunshokan, both my wife and I started to feel exhausted. After returning to the hotel, we originally wanted to find a massage parlor nearby to relax, but it happened to be closed that day. The hotel also provided this service, so we booked a slot for past seven in the evening. We took the spare time to have dinner, returning to the small restaurant we visited last night which left a very good impression.

The standard of the massage this time was extremely high, allowing both my wife and me to get a deep sleep that night. However, this also triggered a “small problem” that happened the next morning. To be continued.