Japan does Burning Man: what are a couple hundred Japanese professionals doing in the middle of the Nevada desert? Having the time of their lives - Upfront

Japan, Inc., Dec, 2002 by Debbi Gardiner

Burning Man is also a creative hub. Its organizers are known as some of the country's most generous donors to artists. This year 200 works of art, all with a nautical theme, are on display. I see exquisite sea horses, wooden lotus flowers and wind chimes. And much of the art is Japan-esque. For instance, the Temple of Joy, a 78-foot-high artwork by San Francisco artist David Best, looks like a cross between a Japanese pagoda and a Thai temple. Best also joined with San Francisco architects to build a stunning Japanese teahouse. Every year Best's temples are burned down for the finale. This year the pagoda is swamped with visitors marveling at the architecture or leaving messages to loved ones and messages of hope for the next year.

But beyond that, Burning Man is all about the feeling. There's something serene amidst the chaos, the cramped tents, gritty food, blaring loudspeakers and ravers. The 2000 census says that 22 percent of Burning Man revelers are agnostic or atheist, compared with 0.9 percent of Americans who say they are, implying that Burning Man for many fills a spiritual gap. On the first day posters on cars speeding up the highway to Black Rock City read "Welcome Home."

"I feel at home here," says Hirose, the seminar writer. We meet at the Temple of Joy on Day Three. She looks spring-fresh in her Indian white cottons and a straw hat with dangly bits representing tentacles of a sea anemone. Hirose stayed in Tokyo during the Obon summer holidays so she could attend Burning Man in late-August. She freelances for banks and IT companies and says in spite of the physical challenges out here she can unwind. "People are free here so I can he as uninhibited as I like," she says.

Huang, the Tokyo-based photographer whose book came out last spring, has been to Burning Man every year since 1997. He says he was inspired to make a book about the event because he's fed up with people thinking Burning Man is only about drugs, sex and music. "The spirit of the event is so much more than that," he says. Evidently, a growing group of Japanese workers agree.

Debbi Gardiner is a regular contributor to J@pan Inc. Her last story, Women's Business. appeared in the November issue.