Location
Monserrat
Start Date
25-6-2026 11:30 AM
End Date
25-6-2026 1:00 PM
Description
This work is part of an ongoing study of how pilgrimage experience is translated as published story; the experience of pilgrimage may be global, but the act of writing and marketing that journey is characteristic of ongoing perceptions of "west" and "east." In relation to Japan, a country in which travel writer Pico Iyer describes himself as "always a foreigner," the indescribable the space between words is challenged in contemporary popular pilgrimage narratives. My focus here is on Canadian writer, Will Ferguson's, narrative subtitled "Journey Across Japan" to follow the Cherry Blossom Front. Ferguson’s attempt to hitchhike the length of Japan in sync with the northward sweep begins as a linear, goal-oriented quest but gradually participates in a circular logic of movement. His eventual realization that “there are no straight journeys in life…all journeys are essentially circles” connects his trip to traditions such as the Shikoku henro, where pilgrimage has “no beginning and no end”; as Alan Booth has noted, Japan ends not with an ellipsis. Ferguson has written several travel narratives, including Beyond Belfast and Road Trip Rwanda, but his tracking of the Sakura Zensen is particularly fraught. His position as a long-term foreigner who “lovehates” Japan underscores the complexity of belonging and exclusion.
Ultimately, the text offers a model of modern pilgrimage that is open ended and reflective, insisting that Japan’s “end” remains unreachable. Ferguson's book follows many of the standard conventions of Western pilgrimage narratives but adopts a self-effacing and apparently irreverent perspective as he visits Shodo Island and Kyoto by "hitching rides with Buddha," as his title suggests. Like Australian writer Peter Carey's "Wrong About Japan" and Iyer's own "Beginner's Guide," the narrative suggests a respect for the path he takes that resists the packaged pilgrimage. This paper addresses the overarching purpose of pilgrimage in distinct traditions and suggests how Japan’s geography and character resist the appropriations describe in narratives focusing on other continents.
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Included in
D3) “No Straight Journeys”: Tracing the “Twisted Rope” of Japan in Will Ferguson’s Hitching Rides with Buddha
Monserrat
This work is part of an ongoing study of how pilgrimage experience is translated as published story; the experience of pilgrimage may be global, but the act of writing and marketing that journey is characteristic of ongoing perceptions of "west" and "east." In relation to Japan, a country in which travel writer Pico Iyer describes himself as "always a foreigner," the indescribable the space between words is challenged in contemporary popular pilgrimage narratives. My focus here is on Canadian writer, Will Ferguson's, narrative subtitled "Journey Across Japan" to follow the Cherry Blossom Front. Ferguson’s attempt to hitchhike the length of Japan in sync with the northward sweep begins as a linear, goal-oriented quest but gradually participates in a circular logic of movement. His eventual realization that “there are no straight journeys in life…all journeys are essentially circles” connects his trip to traditions such as the Shikoku henro, where pilgrimage has “no beginning and no end”; as Alan Booth has noted, Japan ends not with an ellipsis. Ferguson has written several travel narratives, including Beyond Belfast and Road Trip Rwanda, but his tracking of the Sakura Zensen is particularly fraught. His position as a long-term foreigner who “lovehates” Japan underscores the complexity of belonging and exclusion.
Ultimately, the text offers a model of modern pilgrimage that is open ended and reflective, insisting that Japan’s “end” remains unreachable. Ferguson's book follows many of the standard conventions of Western pilgrimage narratives but adopts a self-effacing and apparently irreverent perspective as he visits Shodo Island and Kyoto by "hitching rides with Buddha," as his title suggests. Like Australian writer Peter Carey's "Wrong About Japan" and Iyer's own "Beginner's Guide," the narrative suggests a respect for the path he takes that resists the packaged pilgrimage. This paper addresses the overarching purpose of pilgrimage in distinct traditions and suggests how Japan’s geography and character resist the appropriations describe in narratives focusing on other continents.