'Candle Night'-Summer Solstice 2004 in Japan

Shinichi Takemura
Candle Night Committee
Anthropologist, Professor at Kyoto University of Art & Design

The trend in which people seek a new sense of values and
lifestyles beyond the civilization of mass production
and mass consumption in the 20th century have been gaining
momentum among Japanese citizens. One example that
symbolizes this trend is the Candle Night event.
http://www.candle-night.org/

Under the slogan of "Turn off your lights, and take it slow,"
for two hours on the summer solstice, the Candle Night event
started on June 22, 2003. This voluntary participatory
event was originally initiated by several Japan's
environmental non governmental organizations, or NGOs.

Responding to calls from the Candle Night committee, various
groups such as the Ministry of the Environment (MOE),
businesses, municipal governments and public facilities as well
as artists in a variety of fields across Japan showed support for
the event. Thus, the movement gained momentum and its popularity
among the citizens swelled. According to an estimate by the MOE,
a total of 5 million people nationwide participated in the event in
2003. Over 200 major landmark facilities, such as the Tokyo
Tower, Rainbow Bridge and Himeji Castle, turned their lights off.
The Candle Night became one of the major summer events.

NEC Corporation, one of the major manufactures of electrical
machinery in Japan, participated in the event on a company-wide
basis, with about ten million employees and their family members.
Iwate prefectural government also joined the event with all
of its prefectural citizens. In this way, large numbers of businesses
and local governments expressed their support for the events. It is
a clear example showing cooperation and collaboration among the
public sector, private businesses and citizens. This has become a
major trend and is now more common in Japan.

In this year's "Candle Night-Summer Solstice 2004" event, more
than 5,000 major facilities turned off their lights and convenience
stores across Japan voluntarily turned off their signs. During the
three day (Saturday-Monday) 2004 Candle Night, an estimated 6.5
million peopled joined the event.

Last year, many unique local candle events were also held across
the country. During their Candle Night event, some towns
established their own traditional "light"-scape, while others
decided to do a Candle Night every weekend to add to local charm.

Our Candle Night does not place any specific rules on participants.
It only encourages them to turn off the lights voluntarily and to
enjoy something different and unusual for two hours. The idea of
our initiative originated from the Voluntary Blackout movement
that started in the United States, but our approach is not limited
to energy saving nor power saving.

In fact, many people joined the Candle Night with strong hopes for
peace and a clean global environment. However this event is
symbolic. Rather than striving to attain a specific goal such as
reducing carbon dioxide emissions, it simply gives people an
opportunity to review and rethink their lifestyles and themselves
during these two hours.

The style of participating in this event, therefore, varies from
person to person. Some people focus on strengthening and
reconfirming their family bond by taking extra time to enjoy dinner
slowly, or taking a bath together. Others go to events such as the
Candle Concert, or find themselves re-appreciating the beauty of
stars alone in the darkness of downtown. On our website, a truck
driver announced his intention to turn off his engines while
parked.

The Candle Night event does not focus on attaining any specific
goals collectively. Rather, it tries to offer participants an
opportunity to discover a new sense of values, or offer an
alternative lifestyle for their future. The Candle Night Committee
hopes that the event can provide participants with a platform
where people can join it at their own will and way.

Sharing the concept without having any specific "rules" may be one
example of the Japanese way of thinking. We are sure that by
expanding the scope of potential participants, the event has gained
the popularity from people of all ranks, beyond regional borders
and generations. Another typically Japanese element is the use of
cell phones for joining and enjoying this event. This integrates the
cutting-edge IT based community with the slower-paced
environmentally aware movement.

The committee invited participants to send messages via the
internet several weeks before the event. The "Candlescape"
platform can monitor how the participants across Japan have
increased on a real-time basis. Participants visited the
Candlescape website
(http://www.candle-night.org/2004/jp/apply/index.html), and sent
their messages and their postal code. With the use of postal codes,
the system can identify the participant's location and can visualize
it on the map of Japan.

Through this map-typed message board, the participants can
realize the link with other numerous participants scattered all
over Japan. They can share a sense of unity with an invisible
community, a so-called a virtual community, where people are
linked to each other by a new sense of value.

This network-based participation was enhanced by another
web-based program, the "Candle Kaleidoscope," also available on
our website. "Candle Kaleidoscope" was a real-time online message
board for pictures. Participants sent photographs of their Candle
Night taken by mobile phone cameras via e -mail, and those photos
appeared on the board on a real time basis. The boards became a
mandala-like photo gallery of various images of the Candle Night
event. Please visit our website
http://www.candle-night.org/2004/index.html, click
"Kaleidoscope," and you can find the 2004 Kaleidoscope.

Some participants sent pictures of family and friends with a Haiku.
Haiku is a form of traditional Japanese poetry, a 17-syllable verse
form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. The
art of Haiku or traditional space of light and shadow generated by
candle light were revitalized through electrical network.

The next event is the "Candle Night"-Winter Solicits 2004. This is
not a large-scaled event like in the summer, but grass-root,
voluntary movement for the winter event has already started in
many places. In our next news letter, we will report the result of
the winter event.

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Slow Life-A Vow to "Diet of Light"

Kaoru Mende
Lighting designer, leader of the Transnational Lighting Detectives,
Professor at Musashino Art University

I am a lighting designer and have been working in the field of
urban environmental and architecture lighting. My job is to
propose designs for indoor or outdoor lighting to meet the clients'
expectations. Against the current trend in lighting design i.e.
adding up excessive light, I often focus on "shadow design" as a way
of lighting. That means that beautiful shadows or striking
darkness can be generated by reducing unnecessary light and using
minimum lighting only in necessary places. As a matter of fact,
lighting design is synonymous with shadow design. I believe an
important theme in lighting design is the careful use of shadows
and darkness. It's not just about filling a space with light.

We are all suffering from "bulimia of light." In fact, there are many
people who have never been moved to tears by watching the sky full
of stars, or those who have stepped on shadows under the bright
moon light. They have been forced to live watching bright TV and
computer screens since they were born. Some children are not able
to sleep in the darkness. This is especially true for Japanese
people, who like to use extremely bright fluorescent lamps even for
residential use. Due to limited sources of illumination in the past,
the Japanese have come to associate bright lights with wealth and
abundance. They have come to have an unusual sense of brightness.
The Japanese are not proud of their insensitivity to light. The
reason behind this insensitivity is that Japanese people have never
experienced an eye-friendly, comfortably lit environment. The
Japanese have worked hard to light brightly and evenly but now
realize that it's the quality of the light matters, not the quantity.

Excessively high luminance levels at convenience stores and drug
stores create a living environment where day and night are
reversed. Nobody would be troubled, nor would anything happen if
all the convenience stores across Japan turned off the ceiling
lights by half and lowered the light level to 500 to 700 lux at night.
Customers may be stunned at first, but they would get used to it
comfortably in a week or so. Another change could be made to
vending machines, which are lit up all day. The lights could be
turned off during daylight hours, probably without any notice or
reaction.

To reduce the excessive lighting, what we call "Diet of Light," is
one of the central issues in the 21st century. How can we abandon
the vested interest of using abundant lighting we have created
since the last century, and how can we get away from "light
bulimia?" Lighting habits can be compared to eating habits. This
means that using a small amount of light wisely could be compared
to enjoying a small amount of healthy food. Japanese people have
been enjoying one of the healthiest and the most traditional diets
in the world. Why can't we also enjoy "healthy" amount of lights,
similar to the healthy traditional low-calorie, low-fat
vegetarian-like diet? Should we go to a fasting center to do that?
One of the important goals in living a so-called "slow life," a
relaxed, simplified life, is how to use lighting effectively. We need
to experience the utter darkness and its beauty to find a better way
of using minimum lighting in the so-called "slow life". We need to
reduce the volume of light in life. We need to start by enjoying the
darkness and the night. It is important for us to turn off lights and
get back to darkness because real darkness can make people realize
their fears. It can also make people reflect on their inner self, give
them time to think of their loved ones and of their past.
Furthermore, when in complete darkness people can then
appreciate and be fascinated by even small amounts of light. The
Candle Night movement offers us an opportunity to share the value
of a "Diet of Light" with people all over the world. The experience
of darkness, even for a brief moment, is important.

Notes from the Candlelight Committee: In the Candle
Night-Summer Solstice 2004 event, Japan's major convenience
stores such as Seven-Eleven and Lawson cooperated to turn off
their signs altogether. On Omotesando Street in Harajuku, Tokyo,
one of the trendiest fashion streets in Japan, fancy boutiques such
as Channel and other stores turned off the lights during the Candle
Night event. This means that people's sense of value seems to be
changing.

Kaoru Mende is one of the leading figures of the event in
Omotesando.

--------------------------------------------------
In Japan, there remain many folk tales, stories and local practices
associated with candles. Today, we introduce you to one of those
stories, "The Red Candles and the Mermaid," written by Mimei
Ogawa.

Once, there lived a mermaid in the northern sea .in Japan. The
mermaid, wishing for her daughters happiness, decided to let her
new-born live in human society. The daughter was brought up by an
old couple who made and sold candles. She grew up to be a gentle
girl. She started drawing beautiful pictures on the candles to repay
the old couple for their favor. The candles became very popular as
the rumor spread that if they were offered on the shrine, ships
wouldn't be wrecked. Despite growing very rich, the couple was
enticed by a merchant into selling the girl. The merchant had heard
about the mermaid, wanted her for his freak show. The girl didn't
stop drawing pictures on the candles until the last minute. When
she left the house, she colored some candles all in red. On the night
she was sold, a woman came to the candle shop and bought the red
candle. That night, a big storm broke and the boat the mermaid girl
was onboard sunk. Since then, the superstition has persisted that
if red candles were lit at the mountain shrine, a big storm would
come and the person who saw the flame of the candle light would die
in the ocean. The town was ruined in the end.

Interestingly, other candle-related practices are still observed in
Hokkaido, a northern island of Japan.

On August 7th, the night of Tanabata, the Star Festival according
to lunar calendar, groups of children walk around neighborhoods
knocking at each door singing "Ro-so-ku da-se-yo" meaning "give us
candles," or we will scratch you. (The phrases vary from region to
region.) Then residents give them some sweets. This practice
originated from an old tradition of visiting neighbors to ask for
candles during Obon, the period that ancestor's souls are said to
come home. Recently most residents serve children sweets instead
of candles. This is similar to "Trick or Treat" in the Halloween of
Western countries, isn't it? Although there are only a few towns in
Hokkaido who still observe this annual event, children in those
areas look forward to the local event and enjoy it every year.

Are there any "candle stories" in your country? If you have unique
stories, practices or festivals associated with candles or light and
shadows in your country, please let us know. We would like to
introduce them to our world readers, too.

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We are looking forward to your feedbacks from this newsletter.

We hope you enjoyed this issue of the Candle Night Newsletter. We
will be back next issue with more information and stories.

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