Aoyama Cemetery Audio Guide

Aoyama Cemetery: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura)

   Welcome to Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura), known in Japanese as 青山霊園, Aoyama Reien. You are in Minami-Aoyama, in Minato Ward, right in the middle of one of Tokyo's most polished districts. Glass towers and fashionable streets surround you. Yet inside these grounds, trees close over the paths and the city seems to take a step back. This is a Tokyo Metropolitan cemetery covering about 26 hectares. It is a working place of remembrance, but it is also one of the capital's most atmospheric places to walk. Its paths are lined with cherry trees and its quiet corners hold the graves of statesmen, writers, scholars and actors. The land still keeps something of the wooded Musashino landscape that once stretched across this part of Tokyo. Over the next few minutes we will look at how a feudal lord's estate became a cemetery, who rests here, and why the cherry trees have made it a spring landmark. Please keep your voice low and your steps respectful as you wander. Families still come here to visit their ancestors.

2. 02

   From Lord's Estate to Public Ground: Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura)

   The name of the district gives away the story. Before the cemetery, this land belonged to the Aoyama family, the lords of the Gujo domain in Mino, in what is now Gifu Prefecture. Their holdings once covered much of today's South Aoyama and North Aoyama, and parts of Akasaka as well. When the old order fell, the site of the family's lower residence was given a new purpose. In 1872, the eighth year of Meiji's era name count reached only its fifth, and the cemetery opened here. At first it was a burial ground for Shinto funerals. Then on the first of September, 1874, it became a public cemetery for the citizens of Tokyo, a landmark moment for the city. In 1889 control passed from Tokyo Prefecture to Tokyo City. The next milestone came in 1926. The funeral hall buildings were donated to Tokyo City, and Aoyama became Japan's first municipally run cemetery. Today it is overseen by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. So when you walk these grounds, you are tracing the moment when burial in Japan's capital began to be a public matter, not only a private or religious one.

3. 03

   Famous Names Beneath the Trees at Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura)

   Many figures who shaped modern Japan rest in this ground. Among the statesmen is Toshimichi Okubo, one of the architects of the Meiji Restoration. Tsuyoshi Inukai, the prime minister remembered in connection with the May 15 Incident, is here too. So are Hayato Ikeda, who led Japan through its postwar high growth, and the diplomat Jutaro Komura. The list reaches well beyond politics. The novelist Naoya Shiga and the writer Koyo Ozaki are buried here. So is Shibasaburo Kitasato, the scientist famed for his tetanus research. The line of kabuki actors named Danjuro Ichikawa rests here as well, a family name that echoes across centuries of Japanese theater. And then there is Hachiko, the loyal dog who waited for his master. Most people know him as the meeting-point statue at a station, but he is also counted among those who rest at Aoyama. There is also a foreign cemetery section within the grounds, a reminder that this place has always held more than one story. If you would like a guide to follow, the cemetery management office hands out a free walking leaflet, the Aoyama Cemetery History Walk Map, showing where notable graves are located.

4. 04

   The Cherry Blossom Tunnel of Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura)

   Now to the reason this place carries the word Sakura in its name. The cemetery is one of Tokyo's best-known spots for cherry blossom viewing. Around 500 Yoshino cherry trees grow here, and cherry-lined avenues run through the grounds in several directions. The central avenue stretches about 1.7 kilometers, and in blossom season its branches meet overhead to form a pink tunnel. The contrast is striking. On one side are the stone markers of people who made history. On the other are petals that last only days, a very Japanese pairing of permanence and passing beauty. Hanami, the custom of gathering to admire the blossoms, has a particular feel in a cemetery. Visitors come to stroll and look rather than to picnic. The grounds have also been changing quietly in recent decades. Under a long-running renewal plan, graves without anyone to tend them have been relocated, some areas have been turned into park space, and some plots have been offered for lease again. The foreign cemetery section was left out of this work. Near the management office you will also see small tea houses, flower shops and stonemasons, where families buy flowers and arrange for graves to be cleaned.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Aoyama Cemetery(Sakura)

   As you wander on, notice how the mood shifts from path to path. One avenue may feel like a tunnel of trees, while another opens onto rows of weathered stones that date to the earliest years of this public ground. Behind the surrounding skyline, the land still remembers the feudal estate it once was. Try picking one name from the leaflet and finding the grave, whether it belongs to a statesman, a novelist, a scientist or an actor. Each stone offers a doorway into a different chapter of modern Japan. And if you can, think about returning in another season. The trees and the light here change the character of the place completely, and there is always another corner you have not yet seen.