Shureimon Audio Guide

Shureimon: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Shureimon

   Welcome to Shureimon, written 守礼門 in Japanese, the vermilion gate that greets visitors at the edge of Shuri Castle in Naha, on the island of Okinawa. You are standing in the old royal town of Shuri, on a hilltop that once looked down over the harbor that made the Ryukyu Kingdom wealthy. This gate stands just outside Kankaimon, the castle's welcome gate, at the eastern end of a great avenue that runs east to west through Shuri. In Japanese castle terms, it plays the role of the main front gate. It is also the second of the castle's ceremonial gates, which is why older names call it the upper torii or the upper Ayajo gate. Over the next few minutes we will look at who built it, what its name and its famous sign really mean, how its design borrows from China, and how it came back after the war to become one of the best-known images of Okinawa.

2. 02

   Shureimon and the Second Gate of Shuri

   Shureimon is said to date from the reign of King Sho Sei, who ruled the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1527 to 1555. It is described as the second ceremonial gate of Shuri Castle. The first was Chuzan Gate, built back in 1428. Shureimon came about a hundred years later and was made the same shape and size as its older sibling. The gate has gone by several names. Besides upper torii and upper Ayajo, it has been called Taiken-mon and Shuri-mon. The first gate, Chuzan Gate, is no longer standing. It was removed in 1908, so Shureimon is the one gate of the pair you can actually see today. Picture the setting in the royal era. The broad avenue called Ayajo Ufumichi led up from the lower town, and the gate marked the point where the city's everyday world gave way to the royal castle. It was a threshold you were meant to feel.

3. 03

   A Kingdom That Honors Courtesy

   Look up at the plaque hanging at the center of the gate. It reads Shurei no Kuni, and the first two characters of that phrase give the gate its name. Shurei means to keep courtesy, or to uphold propriety, and the whole inscription means that Ryukyu is a country that values courtesy. It is a polite kingdom introducing itself at its own front door. That courtesy had a diplomatic edge. In the Second Sho dynasty era, the Ryukyu Kingdom stood within the Chinese tributary system. When an imperial envoy arrived from China to formally recognize a new king, the king and his high officials came out to meet the envoy at this gate. There they performed a ceremony of three kneelings and nine kowtows, a deeply humble greeting. The plaque is said to have been added after the gate was first built, and it is the part of the gate that explains the whole message. Courtesy, ritual and diplomacy were how a small island kingdom carried itself among larger neighbors.

4. 04

   Design, Destruction and Rebirth of Shureimon

   Take in the architecture. Four vermilion pillars hold up a double roof of red tile, in the hip-and-gable style called irimoya. The basic form comes from the Chinese three-bay pailou, a ceremonial gateway. Originally, though, the roof was not tile at all but wooden shingles. The gate has survived a turbulent century. It was designated a national treasure in 1933, and restoration work ran from 1936 into 1937. Then the Battle of Okinawa destroyed it completely. It did not stay lost for long. The gate was rebuilt in 1958, and on the twelfth of May 1972 it was designated a tangible cultural property of Okinawa Prefecture under the name Former Shuri Castle Shureimon. Its image is now widely known across Japan. It appeared on the 2000 yen commemorative banknote, which made this little gate a symbol of Okinawa far beyond Shuri.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on toward the castle, stand for a moment where the king's officials once stood and look back along the avenue. The gate was designed to be seen from the approach, framing the road and the town below as much as the castle above. If you are planning how to reach the area, Shuri Castle Park is a short walk from the bus stops named Shurijo-mae and Shurijo Koen Iriguchi. The Shuri and Gibo stations on the Okinawa Urban Monorail are about a fifteen-minute walk away. From here, keep going toward Kankaimon, the next gate on the way in. Notice how each threshold changes the mood of the climb, and ask yourself what a visiting envoy would have felt walking this same route.