More Foreigners Join Japan's Shikoku Pilgrimage

In December last year a TV documentary was shown in the United States featuring the world's pilgrimages. The first in the 6-instalment documentary was Japan's Shikoku Pilgrimage. Foreigners come pilgrimaging in Shikoku for answers to their problems - the more you walk, the further you are lost in its charms, commented the producer.

Shikoku Pilgrimage is no walk from A to B, but the whole walk is a package of 88 individual self-conclusive walks from one temple to another, the like of which is rather hard to find elsewhere in the world. The 1,400m route was first walked by Kukai, the founder of Shingon Sect of Buddhism 1,200 years ago.

Some 150 thousand people walk Shikoku Pilgrimage every year and lately more foreigners are joining the tour.

Melissa Bishop from California, U.S.A. had her problems in human relations in her office and came to walk Shikoku Pilgrimage to find an answer. She met people along the way, invited to tea and baked a sweet potato and even offered to stay overnight.

Local people are traditionally kind to those on pilgrimage and offer help. Melissa was helped out that way on many occasions and "that taught me what it is to associate with people", she said. "I learned how essential it is to be considerate to others and to offer help to others. You can not live alone, never", told Melissa. Shikoku Pilgrimage affords many foreigners a chance to reflect on themselves by pilgrimaging.
Kenichiro Kitagawa, a public servant of the Kagawa prefectural government, is leading a local drive to have Shikoku Pilgrimage registered as a world heritage and has twice applied for national candidacy and failed each time.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs pointed out the need for lodging facilities to accommodate the increasing number of foreign tourists, says Kitagawa.