¡°The mystery of the Orient is legendary . . . it was in the air the moment we stepped ashore in Kyoto, and now in Tokyo it began to envelop us.¡± That¡¯s how Charlie Chaplin described his arrival in Japan. I¡¯m not sure if the ¡°Little Tramp¡± ever visited the island of Miyajima on any of his four trips to Japan, but if so, I¡¯m sure the sense of mystery would have positively engulfed him there, too.

My wife, Angeles, and I first set foot on Miyajima in the twilight days of the last millennium, when we¡¯d been in Japan less than a week. The mystery started before we¡¯d even reached the island. Outside the ferry terminal in Miyajima Guchi in Hiroshima, an intimidatingly large statue glowered down at us. Its robes were a splendid green and gold, but its mask was a nightmarish grimace: demonic, bulging eyes, vicious teeth, fox-like ears and a mythological bird of gold perched on its head. For sheer otherness, I had never seen anything like it. To borrow from another Japan Times column, it was my ¡°What the heck is that?¡± moment. I later learned that this startling creature was a character from a traditional ritual called bugaku. I was instinctively drawn to it, like a tortoise to a bed of begonias.

The following winter I got a chance to see what it was all about. Mind you, my first attempt at seeing bugaku was a failure on a par with Eric Newby¡¯s exploits in his book ¡°A Short Walk Through The Hindu Kush.¡± I¡¯d seen a flier stating that the performance started at ¡°5:30¡± on Jan. 5. What a perfect hour ¡ª I envisaged the scene: night falling over the primeval forest of Miyajima¡¯s Mount Misen, Itsukushima Shrine lit up, shimmering on the crow-black waves.