S P O T ／ SPOT-355

Koyama Shoryu Dai-Kannon (Koyama Ascending-Dragon Great Kannon)

香山昇龍大観音こうやましょうりゅうだいかんのん

On a hilltop above Haki in Asakura, Fukuoka, a 28-meter goddess of mercy rises from the back of a coiling dragon — and the whole improbable thing exists because of a dream. Hayashi Hifumi ran the inn Taisenkaku at Harazuru hot spring and served four terms as mayor of Haki town, and he credited his fortune in business and politics to a Kannon who appeared to him in his sleep and told him what to do. In thanks, at the age of 75, he spent his own money to raise this colossus, completed in August 1987. It claims to be the largest 'ascending-dragon Kannon' in Japan: the bodhisattva standing serene atop a dragon spiraling toward heaven, verdigris-green against the sky. People come to pray for money and prosperity, and the statue is marketed locally as 'Asakura's power spot.' But strip away the brochure language and what you have is purer and stranger — a single man's gratitude and success, cast in concrete at monumental scale and parked on a mountain, the kind of place where one photograph tells the whole story.