A terrifying temple that communicates in Kyoto style 😫

There is a terrifying temple called 毘沙門堂 Bishamondō in Kyoto. It has a special guest room called the Room of Toriawazu. It’s a room with sliding doors covered entirely with nice paintings of nature and birds.

Now, In Japanese paintings, you often see a bush warbler drawn with plum blossoms and sparrows drawn with bamboo. But on the sliding doors of this room, a pheasant is drawn with plum blossoms and bulbuls are drawn with bamboo.

So if you were a “cultured” guest, you would feel something awkward about the paintings, and think the birds don’t match. Now, the Japanese for “bird” is “とり Tori” and the Japanese for “don’t match” is “合わない Awanai.”

鳥合わないTori awanai is a homophone with 取り合わない Tori awanai which means “I’m not going to entertain you.”

So being shown to this room to wait is a Kyoto way to tell you you’re not a worthy guest AKA get the F outa here.

I am scared of opening my eyes in Kyoto 😫!

▶︎ Hi, I’m Kyota, the author of Amazon Best Sellers [Folk Tales of Japan], [Underdogs of Japanese History], and [Horror Tales of Japan].

Please check out my books on Amazon or from my profile page at ☺️: https://kyotako.myportfolio.com/

45 Comments

  1. Imaging being schizophrenic in Kyoto, where everything is made out of subtly coded signals to the effect of they don't like you.

  2. I think I'll stick with Tokyo. As much as I want to visit to Kyoto, im a very tall man of a darker skin complexion, I can only imagine. Every moment would be like visiting my family. 😅

  3. I went to Kyoto before the Olympic, it was very nice.

    Then, I was told by my Japanese friend that Kyoto people are abnormal and don’t like anyone, especially Osaka, and now tourist. 😂

  4. a very elegant way of saying "get the fuck out of here"

    now I know british people are literally everywhere, even in ancient japan lol

  5. Kyoto speedrunning the number of ways they can tell someone to f*ck off without telling them to f*ck off 😭😭😭

  6. As an American, I would ask for the pheasant. Bring the petty ness home and enjoy, that you are unbothered by one’s disrespect.😂

  7. I'm happy that this isn't even with foreigners, but it's a Kyoto vs EVERYONE thing. I'm pretty sure there is a xenophobic Japanese old man who lives in a farm who shakes hands with a foreigner to say "fuck Kyoto"

  8. So it's like someone politely telling you to sit in their waiting room. And then you look closely at the wall paper only to realize that the walls are covered in faint, but clear "you aren't welcome here"

  9. A whole room with beautiful artwork just to tell you to leave? Like, what happened in Kyoto that they had to invent so many ways of being politely rude?

  10. The more I learn the more I see in common between Kyoto and the Southern US lol. Passive aggressive manners at their peak

  11. That's nicely done. Imagine the stories of the people who don't even notice.

    "He didn't notice the birds…" Such a great insult. Not only is this person too uncouth to be welcome, they're too uncouth to understand when they're being told to leave. All at two or three degrees of abstraction.

  12. The more I hear about Kyoto’s convoluted passive aggressiveness, the more I’m reminded of this city’s Chinese influences. I can almost guarantee you that all of these practices originated from the writings of one Medieval Chinese envoy or another.

  13. I once watched an anime and one of the characters said that people in Kyoto are so rude. Now it makes sense.

  14. it’s funny, i really don’t remember Kyoto being as passive aggressive, but then again i was there so late in my trip i was struggling to remember to change from my broken Japanese back to English so i could talk to my grandma, lol

  15. Here I was being scared of war or being fired. But now I'm scared of waking up and realising I'm in Kyoto.

  16. Kyoto Residents are like the Olympic athletes of passive aggression. It's crazy how if you were truly unknowingly sent into that room without knowing. You'd be none the wiser. It's like the Drop Bears in Australia, that absolutely totally exists frfr

  17. Kyoto: the way this bar owner breathes now is a way to tell that your entire family lineage wasn't worth surviving.

  18. They are so high class and scared of being offed from the face the earth that they made their pettiness and passive aggressive conversation into art. Lowkey admirable at this point 😂

  19. I aspire to that level of petty. Having a whole room to make people feel unwelcome? Sign me up.

Write A Comment