Mexico City's Green Spaces | Parque Masayoshi Ohira

Today, we visit a park very near where we live in the Borough of Coyoacán. It is the Parque Masayoshi Ohira, a Japanese garden that was created, surprisingly, in 1942 as a symbol of Mexican-Japanese friendship. There have been Japanese living in Mexico since the Colonial Period, but most have immigrated since the late 19th century.

 
The park was originally known as "The Pagoda Park" because of its original, predominant pagoda, which, unfortunately, burned down in the 1970s. 

The original pagoda

In the 1980s, it was renamed after Masayoshi Ōhira, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Mexico, who came in 1980 and died shortly afterward. It has been renovated a number of times, most recently in 2014, with the financial support of the Mexican-Japanese Association.

Although we have wanted to visit the park for some time, because it is across the Calzada de Tlalpan, a major highway with few crossings, it seemed difficult to access. But now that we can go back out into the city again, at least to open spaces, we decide to take another look at the map. We find that a pedestrian bridge only two blocks from our apartment crosses the Calzada and from there it is only a four or five-block walk to the park, less than half a mile. So one fine autumn day, off we go. 

Arriving at the park, which fills less than a city block, we circle around until we find the main entrance. It is dramatically framed by a torii, a gateway of red posts and a black top. Such torii are the traditional entrance to every Shinto shrine, marking the threshold between secular, everyday space and sacred space.

Torii gate at the entrance to Parque Masayoshi Ohira

Entering through the huge torii gate, we can see a pond in the distance, with two bridges and another torii gate, this one standing in the water. A number of dirt pathways lined with stone lead from the gate in various directions.

For some intuitive reason, we take a path to the right, towards the north end of the park and the pond. The path wanders gently from right to left and back, creating the feeling of a relaxed amble, just the experience we seek!

Soon, we arrive beside a paved square at the side of an opening in the stones that line the path. Clearly, it designates a vantage point for viewing the pond and the park around it. In the foreground is a gently arching, green, iron bridge. Near the middle of the water of the pond is the second torii arch. Beyond it, crossing a narrow branch of the pond, is a classic Japanese, bright red, bow bridge.

The whole composition communicates the tranquility of the traditional Japanese garden. It is definitely a place to escape the city's noisy bustle, a place to rest, to feel in contact with a miniature representation of the natural world, a place to regain contact with the center of one's own self.

The pond with its bridges and torii,
the threshold between the mundane and the spiritual.

At this moment, two young women walk up onto the green bridge. They stop to soak up the tranquility in the cooling shade falling on the bridge.

Now, we walk down the western side of the pond and have a serene view of the green bridge at the north end.

As we near the southern end, we get a good view of the torii gate standing in the middle of the pond.

At the southern end, we get a full view of the pond, with its red bow bridge in the foreground, the torii in the middle of the water, and the gentle green bridge in the shade at the north end, where we began our walk.

In classic Japanese style, the park recreates an enclosed, miniature, natural world with the simple but central elements of water, stones, plants and trees. Also, today, above the circle of evergreen trees, the sky provides a pure, intense blue ceiling, which completes the feeling of being totally embraced by Mother Nature.

In our private center, we feel the tranquility that this exquisite, archetypical design induces. We do not want to leave, but the world's agenda awaits us. We turn towards an exit, pledging to ourselves that we will come back other times, especially when we need an infusion of nature's tranquility.