7 Things You May Not Know About Mt. Fuji
You may know a lot of things about Mt. Fuji, but here are some of them you may never heard before
Washingtonian Post | By Thawngno
Mt. Fuji (12,389 ft) is Japan’s highest peak, second highest volcano in Asia, and 7th highest volcano peak in the world. It was located about 60 miles south west of Tokyo, and can be seen clearly from Tokyo on a clear day. In winter, Mt. Fuji’s top is covered with snow, and it is a well-known symbol of Japan.
In English, the mountain is known as Mount Fuji. Some sources refer to it as “Fuji-san”, “Fujiyama” or, redundantly, “Mt. Fujiyama”. Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as “Fuji-san”. You may know a lot of things about Mt. Fuji, but here are some of them you may never heard before.
1. No girls allowed Mt. Fuji
Until 1868 women weren’t allowed to climb Mt. Fuji. According to legend, a jealous female goddess lived inside it… and if a woman ever attempted to climb the mountain, she would get jealous and erupt. To prevent eruptions, women were banned from climbing it.
2. The 1000 yen view in Fuji
Mt. Fuji, as it appears on Japan’s 1000 yen note, is a view from Lake Motosu and is based on a photograph taken by famed photographer Koyo Okada called the “Spring by the Lake” (湖畔の春). In the photo which he captured Mt. Fuji’s upside down reflection can be seen in the lake.
3. During WWII there was a plan to paint Mt. Fuji red
Although this is somewhat of a rumor, during WWII the CIA briefly considered dropping buckets of red paint on Mt. Fuji as a form of psychological warfare to degrade Japan’s morale. However, a more thorough analysis revealed that it would require 12 tons of paint and roughly 30,000 B29 planes to carry all the paint and the plan was quickly dropped.
4. Who is the owner of Mt. Fuji
You’d probably think it was a national park or some other piece of government land. But actually, the owner of Mt. Fuji is Sengen Grand Shrine, which is mostly located in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area belonging to the shrine is everything from the eighth stage of the mountain to the top, with everything from the eighth stage down technically public land.
If we went a few centuries back in time, it was owned by Ieyasu Tokugawa. In 1606, he donated the peak to the shrine, which held ownership until the Meiji Period. During this period, the Meiji government took control of the shrine on Mt Fuji and most other shrines, making it all public land. This lasted until 1949 when the new Japanese constitution was established and created a separation between church and state and all the land that had been taken by the Meiji government was returned to the shrines. Except Mt Fuji.
This prompted Sengen Grand Shrine to bring a lawsuit, insisting that land was an important spiritual place for the shrine. Even though they won the lawsuit in 1974, the peak wasn’t properly returned until 2004. But unfortunately, Sengen Grand Shrine could not registered the peak as its owner, because Mt Fuji sits on the boundary between Shizuoka Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture, and that boundary all but disappears as far as the mountain is concerned – there’s no official line drawing what is in Yamanashi and what is in Shizuoka. So, Sengen Grand Shrine now technically owns the peak of Mt Fuji, with little snag: It hasn’t been registered!
5. Mt. Fuji license plate
Mount Fuji doesn’t only appear on the thousand yen bill! Due to popular demand, and in an attempt to stimulate the local economy, Shizuoka prefecture created a Mt. Fuji license plate in 2008. It’s available in 6 different districts and has become a collectible for Mt. Fuji aficionados.
6. Forest of death at the base of Mt. Fuji
Seicho Matsumoto’s 1960 novel “Tower of Waves” (Nami no Tou 波の塔) detailed the love affair of a woman and prosecutor up until their untimely death at the end when they commit suicide in Aokigahara forest. The deep “sea of trees” had long been associated with spirits, but in 1974 a women hung herself with the book, kicking off a sad and terrible spree.
7 . To Mount Fuji and Back in 25 Minutes
In the 1960s Fuji Kyuko had plans to bore a tunnel through the south-west side of the mountain with a cable car that would take you to the summit in just under 13 minutes. Although the plan was shot down by conservationists, they did have a catchy slogan: to the summit of Mt. Fuji and back in heels. Little did they know that more than 50 years later Teva would release stiletto high heels for hiking.