Huis Ten Bosch
Kyūshū / Fukuoka / Japan Nov-Dec 2023
I lived in Fukuoka for six weeks while attending language classes, bummed around Kyūshū via train on the weekends, and spent two weeks exploring Honshu.
Context: The Teddy Bear Kingdom at Huis Ten Bosch (and the American frontier myth in postwar Japanese pop culture)
Yes, I did apologize to the young family that came up the stairs right after me.
The Teddy Bear Kingdom is a charming continental red brick villa with teddy bear topiary; teddy bears greet you inside, flanking the stairs. Everything seems very charming and Victorian. The aesthetic is unified. You climb the stairs and
suddenly you see him
a life-sized wax Teddy Roosevelt, gesturing at a captive bear cub. As if to say “Look, I’m not going to shoot that.”
The story given for the origin of the term “Teddy bear” is the same one I heard as a kid — Roosevelt, ever the sportsman, refused to kill a trapped bear, as it would be unsporting. There is an English translation beneath the Japanese legend–I was curious to see what term was used in Japanese for “sportsmanship”. It’s the English word, trans-alliterated into Katakana.
(I went looking for a photo of the legend and I didn’t take one that’s legible; you’ll have to believe me here.)
I assume in Japanese スポーツマンシップ (supotsumanshippu) has the same ring of the exotic as “bushido” does to the Westerner, and that is in line with the feel of the park — the Western world is an exciting place filled with strange lore and architecture.
I was exited to see, specifically, the way the frontier era / Victorian American experience would be packaged, given the way the postwar occupation government pushed American frontier kitsch as a means of promoting thrift, grit, stoicism in deprivation, etc–which is exactly the same purpose a lot of that media like the Little House books served in the US during the depression–as well as presenting an endearing and valorizing history of the occupying power. The same message was presented to the dispossessed Japanese people as to generations of American kids — rely on nobody but yourself, you are entitled to nothing, there is honor is poverty and grit. (I recommend the book Prairie Fires for more on the Little House books, specifically, the social and political context surrounding them, some digging into the reality of what Laura’s family experienced, the way the memoirs were edited specifically to serve as libertarian propaganda.)
Smokey is also a popular bit of American teddy bear kitsch, apparently.
I don’t want to enjoy the back room.
Anyway Huis Ten Bosch was lovely, the weather was perfect as a Kyushu December, and the park done up in Christmas lights was charming. Maybe I’ll explore more of my photos later. I had the best whipped cream I have ever tasted on a hot chocolate and it was lovely to sip that and watch skating in the canal.
Freddie Mercury-ass Santa.
