A Japanese Developer Broke Ground at the British Library With a Shinto Ceremony, Led by a Dutch Priest

What's going on

Mitsui Fudosan, one of Japan's largest real estate developers, is redeveloping part of the British Library site in London. The plan is an 11-story complex on a corner of the grounds, with offices and research space on the upper floors, due for completion in 2032. It is the company's biggest project in the UK to date, and the groundbreaking was covered on Japanese TV news.

What caught viewers' eyes was the ceremony itself. In Japan, almost every construction project begins with a jichinsai, a Shinto groundbreaking rite. A priest purifies the site, greets the gods of the land and asks their permission to build, and prays for safety during construction. Even thoroughly secular companies hold one; for many people it is less about belief than about things feeling properly done.

So Mitsui held one in London. And the priest in white robes was not Japanese: he was Paul de Leeuw, who heads a Shinto shrine in the Netherlands and reportedly trained in Japan as the first European to become a chief priest. Here is how people reacted to the news.

Comments

Was watching the news like “wow, Mitsui Fudosan is redeveloping the British Library, that’s something,” and then noticed the priest doing the jichinsai was… not Japanese?! Looked it up and he’s Paul de Leeuw, the priest of a shrine in the Netherlands. You don’t see a jichinsai overseas very often, huh.

大英図書館の再開発を三井不動産が行うの凄いな〜ってニュース見てたら地鎮祭を執り行ってる神主さん、外国の方？！ってびっくりして調べたらポールドレオさんというオランダにある神社の神主さんでした。海外で地鎮祭って珍しいですよね。

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They’re doing a jichinsai in London lol

ロンドンで地鎮祭やってんのか笑

A jichinsai at the British Library and nobody gets told off for it. That’s a new kind of surprise

大英図書館地鎮祭、怒られが発生しないんだという新鮮な驚きがある

Wait, don’t you normally follow local protocol for this kind of thing?! is where my surprise is

こういうのって現地のプロトコルに従うんじゃないの！？という驚きがある

There’s so much going on in this image I don’t even know where to start.

画像の情報が多すぎてどこから突っ込んだらいいのか迷う。

If there are Japanese workers on site they’d do a jichinsai anyway, but a local priest has to be rare, no?

日本人の作業者がいるなら地鎮祭をするだろうけど、地元の神主は珍しいのでは？

There’s a Shinto shrine in the Netherlands? Wonder what they enshrine there

オランダに神道式の神社があるのか何祀ってるんだろ

Figured it had something to do with Leiden University, but turns out he’s the first European to train in Japan and become a chief priest (Leiden University in the Netherlands has one of Europe’s oldest Japanese studies programs.)

ライデン大学が関係あるのかなと思ったら日本で修業した初のヨーロッパ人宮司だった

And it’s Ko-Shinto, which is impressive. Leaving the details here (Ko-Shinto, “old Shinto,” refers to schools that claim to preserve Shinto practice from before Buddhist influence.)

古神道というのが凄い。詳細置いときます

Looked it up and there are actually four shrines in Europe⋯

調べてみたらヨーロッパに神社4社も有るんや⋯

Th-that’s a lot of information for one news story…😅

な、なんか情報量が多いニュースやな…😅

So Japanese companies do a jichinsai even when they build abroad lol

日本企業って、外国で開発するときも地鎮祭するのねｗ

When building plants they sometimes do it overseas too. But some countries don’t have any Shinto priests, so then an employee plays a stand-in, sort-of priest. You’d think, is that even allowed? But you really do want to pray for the staff’s safety and for the land…

プラント建設の時は海外でもやってる場合ありますよ。ただ、神主さんがいらっしゃらない国もあるのでそう言う時は社員さんがなんちゃって神主さんやります。そんなのいいのか？と思われるでしょうけどやはり社員とその土地での安全祈願はやりたいですからね。。。

Malaysia has a branch of Izumo Taisha, so they hold jichinsai for things like Japanese factories opening there (Izumo Taisha is one of Japan’s oldest and most important shrines.)

マレーシアだと出雲大社の分祀があるので、日系の工場設立とかで地鎮祭やりますよ

[HIRAIWA Vietnam] A groundbreaking ceremony in Vietnam | Hiraiwa Construction / Hiraiwa Group

A jichinsai held when a Japanese company’s Vietnamese subsidiary built a new factory for a Taiwanese company that set up in Vietnam. There’s the ceremonial first dig with a hoe, but the offering is a whole roast pig, and there’s a lion dance. Feels like the ritual and the party are rolled into one

【HIRAIWAベトナム】ベトナムの地鎮祭｜平岩建設／ヒライワグループ日本企業のベトナム現地法人が、ベトナムに進出した台湾企業の工場を新築するの際の地鎮祭鍬入れも有るけどお供えものが豚の丸焼きだったり獅子舞いがあったり式典と祝賀イベントが一体になってる感

So Japanese companies do jichinsai even on overseas jobs. Guess it depends on the religious situation in each country though.

海外工事でも、日本企業って地鎮祭やるんや。まあその国の宗教事情によるんだろうけど。

If a Japanese company’s doing the redevelopment, skipping the jichinsai would feel itchy, but I can’t help wondering, is Britain actually okay with this?

日本の企業が再開発を行うなら、地鎮祭は無いとムズムズするけど、英国的にはエエんか？と思ってしまいます。

The norito probably includes a greeting to the native gods of Britain asking for their permission, so I don’t think it’s rude. Same way the British royals wouldn’t be offended if you greeted them with the most formal Japanese courtesy (A norito is the prayer a Shinto priest recites during a ritual.)

恐らく英国土着の神様に、ご挨拶とお伺いをたてる旨の祝詞が入っていると思うので、失礼には当たらないと思います英国王室の方に、日本式の最上級の礼を尽くした挨拶をしても、不快にはならないでしょうし

Lovely. A Shinto jichinsai is a greeting to the gods of the land, so as long as you can picture the land having gods, you can do it anywhere. In Britain it’d probably be fairies or something. Hope the gods of London’s soil watch over the new British Library.

素敵ですね。神道の地鎮祭は土地の神々へのご挨拶なので、まあ土地に神がいるというイメージさえ持てれば、どこでも可能ですよね。イギリスだと妖精とかになりそうですが。ロンドンの土地の神様が、新しい大英図書館を見守って下さるといいですね。

Well, apparently in Britain they survey whether fairies live on a site before putting up a building, so a jichinsai doesn’t feel that out of place

まあ、イギリスって、建物建てるときにその土地に妖精が住んでいないか確認調査があるらしいから、地鎮祭してもあんまり違和感ないな

I’d only seen that online so I checked quickly in case it was wrong, and it seems the fairy-survey country is Ireland rather than Britain?

ネットで見かけただけだから、違うかもなと思って簡単に調べたらイギリスよりはアイルランド？みたいですね、妖精調査する国は

British Library people probably enjoyed the jichinsai as a rare experience

大英図書館の人なら地鎮祭を貴重な経験として楽しんでそう

On the local attendees at the jichinsai. I suspect plenty of them were academics who came on purpose, treating it as a rare chance to observe a Japanese Shinto rite through the lens of cultural anthropology or Eastern philosophy.

地鎮祭への現地からの参列者について。文化人類学や東洋哲学の観点から日本の神道の祭礼を拝観する貴重な体験と心得て目的意識的に参列した学術関係者も多かったのではないか。

For Japanese people it feels wrong not to do it, and with construction safety in mind, yeah… but what kind of land god are we dealing with here 🤣 Woken up for the first time in ages and some spell is being chanted in a foreign style… can they even understand each other?😂 Then again they’re being treated with great reverence, so maybe they don’t mind?? lol

日本人としてはやらんと気持ち悪いって感じするし、建設中の安全を考えると、やっぱり…って気持ちはあるけど、この場合の土地神様はどんな方なのかな🤣 久々に呼び起こされたと思ったら、異国の作法で呪文が聴こえてくるし…てか意思疎通は出来るやろか？😂 でも恭しく奉ってるわけだから悪い気はしない？？ww

Gotta do the jichinsai, otherwise it just doesn’t sit right, you know

地鎮祭やっとかんとね、なんか座りが悪いですからね

Doing mochi-maki at the roof-raising too? Londoners are gonna show up in hoodies (Mochi-maki is a custom where rice cakes are tossed from the frame of a new building to the crowd below.)

棟上げで餅撒きもする？ロンドンっ子がパーカー着て集まるぞ

Somehow it makes sense, like “for a historic British building, better safe than sorry with a jichinsai”……… There’s gotta be old fairies or ghosts in there from before Christianity showed up

なんとなく「イギリスの由緒ある建物なら地鎮祭やっとくに越したことはないな」みたいな納得がある……… キリスト教伝来以前の古い妖精とか幽霊おるやろ

My take

Less a religious rite than a folk custom, really. As long as it doesn't clash with the beliefs and customs of the people who live there, it's one of those things Japanese people just can't feel settled without doing.

#Surprising #Culture

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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