Yanaka Cemetery Audio Guide

Yanaka Cemetery: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Yanaka Cemetery

   Welcome to Yanaka Cemetery, a large and surprisingly gentle corner of Tokyo. It lies just north of Ueno, in Yanaka seventh district in Taito ward, and it is one of the few places in the city where the old Shitamachi, or downtown, atmosphere can still be felt. The cemetery covers more than 100 thousand square meters, roughly 10 hectares, and holds about 7,000 graves. Yet it does not feel like a grim place. Paths wind between tombstones, small shrines and leafy trees, and local families come to pray at their own plots while strangers wander through. Occasional signboards in Japanese and English tell the stories of particular graves. The only sounds are likely to be footsteps and the occasional crow. Over the next few stops, we will look at how a temple's burial ground became a public cemetery, a pagoda that burned, and the avenue that makes spring here so famous.

2. 02

   From Temple Grounds to Public Cemetery

   Everything you see here began as part of a Buddhist temple called Tenno-ji. The cemetery's central street was once the road, the sando, that led visitors up to the temple, and the land around it served as the temple's burial ground. Then came the Meiji era. After the Meiji Restoration, Tokyo needed new burial grounds, and the authorities answered by opening public cemeteries. In 1872, they took a portion of Tenno-ji's land and declared it a public Tokyo cemetery, the largest in the country at the time. The move also fit the government's drive to separate Buddhism from Shinto. You will also see 1874 given as the date, and in particular September the first of that year, for the cemetery's establishment. The two dates may well mark different steps in the same story. The name tells its own tale. It was long called Yanaka Bochi, meaning Yanaka Graveyard. In 1935 it was officially renamed Yanaka Reien, which can be read as Yanaka Spirit Park. The new name caught the place's park-like character, though many Tokyoites still use the old one. The cemetery is now a public space managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

3. 03

   The Pagoda That Burned

   Walk to about the middle of the central street and you reach one of the most haunting spots in the cemetery: the ruins of a five-storied pagoda. Tenno-ji itself donated this pagoda in 1908, and it became the model for Koda Rohan's novel, The Five-Storied Pagoda, a story about a carpenter obsessed with building such a tower. The pagoda's own end was dramatic. On a summer night in 1957 it burned down in what is remembered as the Yanaka Five-Storied Pagoda Double-Suicide Arson Case. The tower was gone, but the site did not vanish from memory. City authorities later declared the ruins a historical landmark. So as you stand here, you are looking at a place where literature, a temple's gift and a night of tragedy all meet. It is a good reminder that a cemetery is not only a place for the dead. It also holds the stories of the neighborhood around it.

4. 04

   Cherry Blossom Avenue and Famous Residents

   If you come in spring, you will understand why this cemetery is so loved. The central street is lined with cherry trees, and when they bloom, from late March into April depending on the weather, petals blanket the paths. That is why the avenue is often called Cherry-blossom Avenue. It is among the best places in Tokyo to see sakura, and yet it feels far quieter than the city's famous blossom parks. Autumn colors make it worth a visit then as well. The cemetery is also the final resting place of many historic and public figures from Japan's modern era. Among them is Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty. Imagine it: the ruler who closed the long chapter of shogun rule now rests in the middle of the downtown neighborhood that grew up beside the old capital. Take your time. Read the signboards where you find them, and notice how the graves, shrines and greenery blend into the surrounding streets. Here the cemetery seems less like a separate world and more like a natural extension of Yanaka itself, with its temples and old-fashioned lanes.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you wander on, keep an eye out for the details that make this place feel alive: the mix of old stones and fresh flowers, the shade of the trees, and the sense that the neighborhood and the cemetery are woven together. You might look back along the central street and picture it as the temple approach it once was, or find the pagoda ruins again and think of the novel it inspired. You might also wonder what the Yanaka around you looked like when Tokyo was only beginning to build its first public cemeteries. The lanes of Yanaka continue beyond the cemetery's edge, with temples, small shops and old houses that hold the downtown atmosphere. Let your feet decide which way to go. There is always one more path here that you have not yet taken.