This house is on fire

castle-on-fire
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

Natural phenomena in Japan tend to be hyped like movie-stars, attracting feverish crowds in a way inconceivable in the States. I'm in Kyoto at the moment, ostensibly conducting my research, but serendipitously coinciding with the autumn colors season and the massive crowds that they bring. JR Kyoto station feels like rush-hour at all times of day, and riding the buses makes you feel like you're packt like sardines in a crushed tin box. All the same, incidental views of brilliantly yellow fluttering leaves on the way to the station, all the more striking for their suddenness, can shake you from everyday thoughts. A piercing light, a shiver, and you can momentarily forget where you were heading.
-> One hour north of Kyoto, far from the crowds, I found myself at Genkyu Garden within the walls of Hikone Castle. For 2 weeks in autumn they illuminate the garden grounds and permit visitors to enter as late as 8:00pm. Ineffable. Visitors whispered their way along the paths, a long collective sigh.

Why is this person standing over the tracks?

Why is this person standing over the tracks?
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

I'm currently away from Tokyo, where many things have been going awry. Still, meeting with some budding Buddhologists here in Kyoto has been somewhat calming. I've been reminded that the cosmos is far greater than any of my individual problems. And far more morbid it seems. Today while the rest of Japan was visiting Kyoto for its autumn colors, I took the train into Shiga Prefecture to gaze at the crumbling remains of Oda Nobunaga's erstwhile fortress-capital Azuchi Castle. Nothing remains save several orderly foundation stones. But the real story is elsewhere. While biking through dry-cut rice paddies a farmer stopped me, and asked if I could make out a figure in a red jacket standing over a train tunnel. Through my viewfinder, I couldn't make out the figure too clearly, but there was in fact someone standing above the train tracks. "I wonder if he's going to jump" he said in a thick guttural Kansai accent.
A train passed, Kyoto-bound. Another passed traveling the opposite direction toward Maibara. I doubled back on my bicycle to check on the figure in red and khaki. He or she was gone, but both trains seemed to have passed without incident.

Cemetry Gates

memorial to the dead
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

Standing in Zoshigaya Cemetery under the staccato rain, I couldn't help noticing the oddly tombstone-like shape of the Sunshine60 Building. Is it a memorial to the war criminals who were incarcerated at Sugamo Prison on that very site? And are the thousands of shoppers and office workers who pass through its vast halls and arcades paying tribute to their ghostly traces?

I shivered as a breeze brought a surge of water off the trees above me.

Big Fish

Tonight, there was an advance screening of Darwin's Nightmare, a documentary directed by Hubert Sauper, concerning the painful assimilation of Tanzania and the Lake Victoria region into the global economy. Haupert spent 4 years filming the devastating effect of the fishery industry in Lake Victoria; in his words:
"The logic of global capitalism is more visual where the capital is created." The implication is that where the capital is controlled (i.e. Wall Street) all you would be able to see are a bunch of computer screens. Indeed, his film captures the starkness of a society in crisis, under the roaring Illyusha cargo jets, and on the shore of a lake on the verge of ecological catastrophe. Hupert argues that this is not simply about Africa and its fish exports to Europe and Japan; this is a structural issue that can seen in a number of local situations: for Japan, perhaps the most pertinent example would be tuna and paper pulp imports from Indonesia, a place where the fishing communities are too poor to eat the tuna they catch.

On art: the work is not simply 'reality' though the audience seemed to respond to it in that way. They constantly thanked the director for showing the 'truth' about Tanzania and economic globalization. Yet, it's telling that Hupert himself prefers to discuss the film as 'art', and as nothing more than an expression of his limited subjective experiences in Tanzania. Perhaps overlooked is the intricate editing of the film, working Duchamp-like with found objects, catching serendipitous moments like a discussion of war in Africa interrupted by a sudden thunderous squall, to an air traffic controller in a cramped tower filled with broken radio equipment frantically swatting bees. There is a touching lyricism to the film's imagery, which is perhaps reason enough for the film's prize-winning entry at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.

But when the director talks of the political effectiveness of this 'art', I am immediately dubious. He wants to express the gap between our own societies and one where justice is conspicuously absent. He wants to generate anger, fear, indignation. And yet, when he criticizes the imagery in the news that has numbed us to the reality they represent, I cannot help feel that, while he has experienced Tanzania first-hand, his audience cannot help but appreciate his documentary in the same way as any other form of entertainment. Is this not, to borrow Guy Debord's terminology, merely spectacle? Can we not be satisfied with our artistic appreciation so that we forget our indignation? Can we fully believe the images we see without being directly implicated in their circumstances?

I am reminded immediately of a dramatic report commemorating the 20th anniversary of the crash of a JAL airliner this summer. While methodically providing evidence that the government and Boeing did not delve into the cause deeply enough, the bulk of the programming covered individuals and their families. And stepping from investigative reporting into the realm of melodrama, the programs included lachrymose reenactments of the victims, and how their families dealt with the disaster. While there is potential for serious public reevaluation of the case, and creation of political action to force a deeper investigation by the government, the Japanese friends I spoke to did not believe any of this would take place. (In fact, the issue quickly faded from the media after the commemoration.) Thus, what was the point? Emotional catharsis? And how different is this from Saupert's work? Is it merely full of sound and fury? And how do we develop from this medium a politically effective awareness?

And to take this thought experiment further, I can't help noticing the connections between these types of reenactments and the Japanese traditional theatrical form 'Noh'. In Noh, the actors are seen to channel the residual emotions of restless spirits, a practice derived from shamanistic Shinto rites like kagura. The actors 'become' the spirits, whose anger or grief is quieted by a priest on stage. Thus, the ultimate aim is neither change or political action, but exorcism. The melodrama of the reenactment on Japanese TV today seems to provide a similar outlet for the audience's emotion; we share in the grief, and are thus satisfying ourselves and our need to reassure ourselves that the dead have not been forgotten.

I believe in magic

A vastly capacious hotel room built on top of a pavillion in Yokohama's Chinatown is part of the Yokohama Trieniale contemporary art exhibition. Defiantly superfluous and flippant, it even comes with its own brochure full of marketing-speek. It's an extravagant bit of nonsense, but one illuminatingly in the wrong context; because of that minor distinction (the 'significant' world of contemporary art vs. the travel agent's brochure stand) it seems to draw our attention to the vast abundance of nonsense all around us. . .

The artist, Nishino Taro, describes his artistic mission as "creativity will save the world," arguing that artworks that scream out 'stop the war' in the end have the opposite effect because they deaden our creative sensibilities. But isn't saying that creativity is going to stop mankind from making war pretty much the same thing as saying you believe in magic?

But while confronting this piece I had a sudden flash of empathy. Today Chinatown was overrun by ROC flags because of the National Day holiday (Oct. 10th). On the other hand, certain shops refused to fly the ROC flag, and the PRC-backed associations were shuttered, somber, silent while the firecrackers snapped and popped around town. In the midst of this I began to wonder if there is any hope in resolving the entangled dilemma of Yokohama Chinatown within the framework of PRC-ROC political identities. More broadly speaking, thinking about China and Japan, I have my doubts over the efficacy of treating national categories as natural descriptive words around which reality should conform. Certainly as political and legal boundaries, they have a certain inescapable influence on our reality. But what I wish we could share is the creativity to see that nations can be unnecessary for the compartmentalization of our cultural and social lives. If we could imagine our communities in a different way, couldn't we rearrange the game such that we could actually win? What type of magic would that take?

Goodbye Kyoto

at Kodaiji
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

It rained for most of the day, and I started seeing things in monochrome (with the help of a few smart setting on my Minolta S414).
I spent the last few hours in eFish Cafe gazing out at the Kamogawa (river) and dreading the overnight bus ride to come. I was thinking of the soft light of the setting sun screened by layer after layer of gossamer water vapor. I was going back to Tokyo, but I was wondering how much longer I would even stay there.

Who's your Danka?

danka-and-me
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

So, I was enjoying a Red Stripe beer at a reggae bar called 'Rub-a-Dub' in Kyoto (yes, there are bars for every persuasion here) when a woman walks in wearing a formal black kimono. This is very unusual for the t-shirt, Teva sandals expat crowd. But she's swaying to the dub, and sipping a cocktail now, with a client in tow.
Am I stupid? I'm striking up a conversation with her, even though her client is probably paying $250 an hour for her company. Her name is 'Danka' (nearly like 'thank you' in German) and her website is here. Apparently, she had just finished a shamisen performance.

Why reggae? She explained that 20 years ago, when she was still in highschool she used to frequent this bar. It was her decision to drag her client there, under the wan light and crude graffiti. Guess she had something of the bad girl in her back then. And even now, still?

Everything's changing

kobe-harbor
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

Early evening at Kobe's commercial port, and the wind is blowing cool down from the cloudless sky. I planted myself on a mooring post and started to sketch the harbor scene in front of me. This was not art for the sake of art; I was only doing it to train my eyes to see again. Sitting in one place for a long time teaches you to that you are not the only one in motion, that the world around you is actually subtlely evolving and shifting in aspect.

After about twenty minutes of painstaking visualization and sketching, an elderly lady in a white polka-dot purple blouse, somehow reminiscent of the Japanese farmland, approached and asked if I was drawing something. I looked into her sun-weathered face, no longer young and with wrinkles radiated outward from her puckered lips. She told me in a heavy kansai accent that she used to oil-paint when she was young. . . she used to love to paint. . . Now her son, who works in the harbor adminstration office, is too busy for such things, and so is she. She pointed to a broad white building, gleaming in the setting sunlight.
"I work there, at the Oriental Hotel, for 800 yen an hour. It's tough. I'm too busy to paint anymore. When we moved, we had to throw away all my painting supplies. . . "

The sky was turning from the color of faded jeans back to its original deep indigo hue.

"My husband's now retired, but he worked five years past the usual retirement age, and even now he still gets back in the truck to make deliveries a few times a week. It doesn't bring in much money, but we need it."

"I used to paint. I miss it." She's now back on topic. It's almost too dark to continue drawing.

"Let's meet again." She turned away as she finished her story. I imagine she must not have had anyone to listen to her all day, while she toiled for 800 yen an hour. She didn't care that I was a foreigner, that I spoke with an accent; she never made a single comment about that.

I looked down at my drawing. The scene in front of me was thoroughly transformed. The derricks were facing 180 degrees away, the lights were on and shadows were stretching over the contours I had already traced. Nothing matched.

Spider Fight

Hikone in the Dark
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

Hikone is a strange, quiet city along the shore of Lake Biwa. At night, reluctant to board the train directly, I turned back toward the castle and park. The sky was black as pitch, and the chilly breeze was full of the heavy silence of the Japanese countryside. Cars would intermittantly roar past, but the silence would remain. Students strolled by me in groups of three or four, wearing the unadorned and charmless uniforms of at least 30 years ago (for the boys, perhaps not 100 years ago). Nobody had dyed hair. I didn't notice a single pair of loose socks. Some were smiling as they strolled, chatting, joking. Others held their silence behind troubled frowns, the depths of which no one else would ever know. Theirs is an unassuming town, where the stores close at 6:00PM, and nights are most often spent in warmly lit homes. I was envious, nostalgic.

One lap around the park, and angry thoughts entered my head. Around and around they went, (as tends to happen these days). Then as I passed a lamp-post, I noticed a tangle of spiderwebs where two spindly spiders were frantically struggling under the wan light, stabbing each other with their needle-like legs. Faintly bouncing on sticky silken strands, theirs was surely a poisonous, victorless struggle. The perfect visual metaphor.

early morning light

early morning light
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

The light at 6:30AM is somehow different in quality than the hazy late-afternoon sun. At times like this, even the drab colors of Kyoto's plaster and wood homes seem to gleam with an unexpected richness.

Kyoto in the morning

Riding the overnight buses in Japan is an experience you would do well to avoid. I boarded the bus in a spacious underground parking lot in Shinjuku, and then floated off into the night city. It was like drifting above the city, because all the Tokyo-area expressways are elevated, and your line of sight weaves across the sea of lighted windows at somewhere near the 10th floor level. Our first stop: Tokyo Disneyland. That was where several more passengers were waiting for us at 11:30PM. I have no idea if they went all the way to Chiba Disneyland to wait for the bus, or if they just stayed inside the park until (well after) closing time.

It was crowded. I was wedged between the cabin wall and a sweaty fellow who never once opened his mouth. There was no room to stretch out my legs, and angular metal protrusions jabbed into my knees as they pressed into the seat in front. Then, we stopped every two hours between 11:30PM and 6:00AM. It was cold, but the air was clear and I could see Orion in the sky. People huddled together with lit cigarettes at each stop. I managed to finish Kafka on the Shore during these intervals. Even though it was cold, I was sweating.

It was slightly before 6:00AM when the bus slid into a very silent Kyoto station.

Changer

Been staying up to 3AM these days for no reason, other than insomnia tinged with a slight fever.
Been waiting for the big one to hit. I religiously check the US Gov's earthquake site. I keep imagining how that big tower in Komazawa Park is going to go all jenga when it comes. I sometimes wonder how I'll be able to escape the subway tunnels when they fill with seawater.

Been reading Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ) and it provides some slight succor. I'm no longer locked into the idea that literature can provide a 'message' or an 'answer'. Yet, I am still in some way inspired, consoled, and reassured by the litany of beautiful things that I've found in the book: libraries, solitude,meticulously sharpened pencils, gazing at the sea. It's a relief in a way because his world is removed from my own, which is inundated (mediated) by an opposite set of values: success, ambition, money, fame, power, pride.

These are powerful things, and are certainly external engines of influence and change (but they don't make the world go round. the world just conserves its angular momentum). What I sense in Murakami's writing is a concern instead for internal transformation, ephiphany, growth (whichever term works for you).

And his faith in transformation and change despite our quotidien and bureaucratized lives is one spiritual conviction I can share. My logic is strong, but I know that I am not strong enough to plot my escape from my own frame of mind. After all, can you choose to forget something, someone? In that sense, perhaps it should be reassuring to know that nothing can remain the same, just like that tower can not remain standing forever.

Ok. Stole this one from BurnedOutEyes

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility. Existentialist 75% Modernist 69% Postmodernist 69% Materialist 69% Idealist 56% Cultural Creative 56% Romanticist 38% Fundamentalist 0% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Jiyugaoka wildlife

gecko-s
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

This is something that crawled into my life yesterday afternoon. I believe it's a gecko, though I have no idea how it made its way through all the screen windows.

In other news, I just finished watching Kore'eda Hirokazu's haunting Nobody Knows, as well as the cloying Korean drama-turned-movie Windstruck. Consumed together, they're quite a contrast. I would recommend watching them in the above order, to save your sanity.

Devilman reflection

Just finished watching the wonkily earnest DevilMan, and am still trying to digest its complex melange of poor-acting/melodrama and its half-revealed social concerns. It's a story (based on a comic by Nagai Go) about a war between humans and 'demons' which turns the world into a barren, blasted wasteland. The protagonists are highschool friends who straddle the boundary between human and non-human, and must choose between sides. . . as the movie site queries: "Is this the existence necessary to save humanity"?

But behind the standard genre devices like highschool friendships, male-male bonding, childhood flashbacks, there is something dark and unnerving straining for expression. The violence begins with school bullying and domestic abuse ("barbarism begins at home") and the more bizarre elements almost appear to be metaphorical manifestations of this fundamental cruelty. Then when humans turn on one another, with lynch mobs and fascistic police squads summarily executing humans suspected of being/becoming demons, the story moves into more universalistic territory by dismantling the intial dualism of the conflict. It's quite a cliche actually, but somehow representative of an earlier era of idealism. There's no simple enemy, and there's no simple hero. . . simple judgments are disrupted by the presence of a third term. The interstitial role of the human-demon hybrids shows the cruelty of humanity, layered on top of the more obvious villainous role played by the demons.

And in a sense, my own research is a never-ending search for such third terms, a position to judge the limitations of comparisons. A position that allows me to criticize both America and Japan; rather than being trapped in "you can't say that, your country did worse". What I'm trying to say is that most of our judgements are constructed on the assumption of a simple linguistic comparative: "it's small" = "it's smaller than this (presumed?) standard". Zhuangzi (of the famous butterfly dream) made the same argument. If you define "big" from the perspective of something very very small, then of the myriad things, there is none that is not 'big".

Another example, given to me with far too much vitriol by someone I know:
"American men can cook"
"I see. I don't think most American women think so, because mac-and-cheese don't count."
"No, what I meant was that compared to Japanese men, American men can cook."

The addition of the third term of "American women" immediately changes the equation. The complex positionality of the speakers is revealed, and the processes whereby we make judgements is rendered transparent.

Breathing the air of tomorrow

September 7th 2005 10:00PM

Breathing the air of tomorrow:
Typhoon 14 made landfall over Hokkaido a few hours ago
and like a giant pinwheel twisting the atmosphere
pushes autumn air down to Tokyo
like twirling the hand of a giant clock forward
and I breathe the air of tomorrow
gurgling like rivers of ink through the trees of Komazawa Park.

Inhaling the scent of yesterday:
Enveloping myself in a jacket (pulled from deep inside my closet)
against the unexpected chill I smell the fragrance
of a fabric softener I used up long ago.
I transect the jogging course from south to north
and sit by a silent fountain in the dark.
Anytime but now.
Please let it be.

Summer Comic Market, 2005

helpme!-s
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

On this sweltering day, I squeezed into Tokyo Big Sight with a multitude of other sweaty people to. . . mingle through warehouse-sized rooms of dojinshi (fan-drawn comic books) booths. What can I say? I got to rub shoulders with real-live cosplayers, including (unfortunately unphotographed) Queen Amidala of Naboo and her entourage.
But it's been years since I've tried to follow this particular subculture, and I didn't recognize most of the characters being so lovingly reproduced by the fans. Four hours was enough, but click on the photo to see more pics.

By the way, the sign was a 'Comikke' exclusive for the first-aid station, offering the kind-hearted advice to get enough sleep, and try not to collapse (from the heat?).

Otaku, sweaty but always polite.

On another less humorous note, I just finished watching a documentary on Yasukuni Shrine on NHK. It's fascinating that the 'problem' of the shrine developed smoothly out of a post-war contradiction about two things:
1. state intervention in 'religion'
2. the state's official stance on the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.

I divide the issue into two frames: 1) the specific problems of the Yasukuni Shrine, including its enshrinement of 'class-A war criminals'. 2) the general problem of war commemoration, and state responsibility. The documentary lays out details for the first issue very clearly; three days after sovereignty returned to Japan (the end of the US-led occupation, 1952), the government determined that all war criminals would not be considered criminals under domestic law, and their families should be compensated with state money. In the international arena, however, they would accept the legitimacy of the court's judgement. From this legal basis, (and the Japanese government is a very legal-minded entity) developed the argument that they should thus be enshrined as national heroes just like all others who have died at war. Or at least, there should be no legal reason to block their enshrinement, since they are not considered criminals under domestic law.
The second, wider issue of a government's responsibility for its past, and how it commemorates its military. I have little to add to this discussion (as an American, we've done plenty of celebrating our military history), except to mention that Japan's post-war constitution maintains a separation of religion and state. So why the official visits to a Shinto shrine where Buddhists and Christians object to being enshrined?

Let's do this, like Buddhists

. . .

OMG! 60 year anniversary

This is so 1337 it's st00pid. But since it's the 60th anniversary of the ending of WWII, and I'm a historian (well, almost), I couldn't help giggling. Yes. I go giggle at times. ROFL.

Stinky fish

Just got back home from Ueno, where I spent the evening sitting at a grimy stall, barely sheltered from the rain by a leaking roof, eating the most revolting food imaginable. . . over beer. I finally had a taste of horse (smoked like ham, though deep red, almost purple even), and it was quite good. At least in comparison to what should best be known as rotten, dried fish (called kusayahoshimono or くさや干物). It smells almost like that rotten tofu the Taiwanese adore. But it's fish, and it's revolting. It smells like sh*t (all the other customers tried to shuffle away as far as possible when they brought out the dish), and as you chew it up in your mouth, it in fact feels, tastes, smells, like you have a mouth full of it. Worst 400 yen I've ever spent. I tried to get the taste out of my mouth with the stewed organ meats that we also ordered. The two tastes rather complemented, to my chagrin.

That sh*t better not make me sick.

Sky-high in Shibuya

I can fly. . .


Zooming out of a mid-day DJ event near Yoyogi Park. No wires, and no post-production.

Surgery in Japan

A few days ago, I went into the hospital here for a pre-surgery meeting with the anaesthesia department. There were about 15 of us, in a posh lounge/waiting area outside of the doctor's office. They told us to wait until 9:30am, whereupon someone dimmed the lights and started the powerpoint presentation. It was on anaesthesia and what to expect surgery to be like in their hospital (rather like the explanatory video in Battle Royale). Far too much information. I suppose the purpose is to generate a sense of participation, of being in control, for the patient. But I also felt a weird stress and sense of responsibility, lest I get some of the details wrong.

I mean, I don't even remember which of the white and blue cannisters is the oxygen, and which is the general anaesthetic. . . and then somehow, sometime they're supposed to administer a general anaesthetic via intravenous drip. I just don't remember how all that's going to take place, but I feel as if I should.

My trip, in five points

1. Aggression (J train) and Zen (A train) on the NY subway
a. New York is a strange place, and nowhere is it stranger than in the subway where bizarre extremes coexist in the dank smelly tunnels. One day I was witness to a screaminng confrontation in front of the ticket booth of the J train East Broadway station. A Chinese guy was screaming "come out! motherf****r!" To which the ticket attendant, wielding a metal pole, would go sQUaWKsqUAWkSquAWk! from inside the booth. Since the thin spectacled hispanic ticket attendant wouldn't leave the booth, they remained at a high-pitched impasse. Even as I passed through the turnstile, I could hear them echoing down to the platform. (come to think of it, I saw many many fights/arguments when I was in NYC)
b. With all my bags, on my way to JFK on the A train, a middle-aged white guy plops down next to me; he immediately begins talking to me about Japan, how he's 48 years old, how his adopted father was a 'teacher' at the University of Tokyo, and about how he was taught to respect peace and his elders. He mutters on and on about how he learned martial arts early on because his father was a monk (is there a direct link between these two matters?), and about how much mental discipline he has. Next he relates how he stopped a thug from harassing a Japanese woman on the subway once. Leaving the train, he tells me to think of him if I visit the 'temple of the cat', raising his left hand in cat-like paw. I suppose he means maneki neko, but I'm not sure exactly what temple he's talking about since most restaurants feature such a cat. There's plenty about his story that sounds dubious, especially since he didn't actually say anything about Japan, or Zen that was not common knowledge ('what is the sound of one hand clapping'), and his weird confusion over the naming of the Japanese isles. Then there's the deeper question of whether one really needs to tell someone about their inner peace. What is there to tell, if your soul is completely tranquil? Is there any more need to assert your ego, or rather, is there not instead just enduring silence?

2. Little Boy at Japan Society
Murakami Takashi has 'curated' (more like assembled) an exhibition at the Japan Society entitled 'Little Boy - the exploding arts of Japan's subculture' (featuring a floating image of a Ikari Shinji on the cover of the exhibition catalogue). I find the production of the exhibition interesting, because its contents are for the most part things that are commonplace elements of daily life in Japan, and not per se art. But when you pull together 60 or so local government mascots and line them all up, it's hard not to consider them a social phenomenon. The same goes for the hello kitty display. And the room-sized Zaku head that greets you when you enter.
Another thing about the exhibition is Murakami's deliberately political take on Japanese subculture, at once as infantile, as dominated by American cultural/political/economic imperialism, as subversive, as a response to capitalism. One section of the exhibition featured a wall-sized reproduction of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, where Japan (is forced by the Americans??) to renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation. Next to it is a set of Godzilla dolls. . .

3. Mexican food shack
There was this old worn-down shack along Route 1 near my house when I was growing up. Apparently, they sold Mexican food in there, and my father would often, jokingly, say he wanted to eat there. Well, I finally went there, after learning that it's still open after these 20 something years. Inside, the floor is covered by worn orange carpeting. The seating area, nothing but several picnic tables and benches. The food arrives on styrofoam plates, but it wasn't bad at all . . .

4. Skullsplitter. . . in NYC!
Ah, I never thought I'd see this stuff stateside, but this was the thickest, murkiest beer I've ever had. Here is a link to the export label. Notice the placid demeanor of ol' Thorfinn the Mighty, AKA 'skullsplitter'. On the domestic (orkneys) label, Thorfinn is swinging his axe straight at your face, for even daring to open the bottle.

5. Smells of NYC
(my narrating ability is breaking down. this post is getting too long)
Sharp, but at times musty, as opposed to the heaviness of Tokyo air. Blue skies above NYC, bracing winds and clean air. But inside the deep brown buildings,scratched paint, creaking elevators and the dust of ages.

pensive jetlag

I can't help feeling a warm glow in my heart when I see a New York coffee stand advertising: "bagel with egg and cheese - $1.50". So tasty. So cheap.

But that's what jetlag does to you; it drags you out of bed early, throws you out into the street with the early dawn, and nourishes you with a moment of morning calm while the rest of the city struggles to revive itself. And it makes you pensive at a time of day when you normally have neither time nor energy for thinking.

Being back is wonderful.

All is full of love

Or so I would like to think. Robots making love could teach us a thing or two.

But the truth is that I'm deeply troubled these days, and find my own thoughts obscuring the real world around me. It's like a thick veil between the world and my consciousness. I may have to change my research topic.

The past few weeks have been pretty traumatic for people caught in-between the China-Japan historical/diplomatic/macho battle. Watching both sides is enough to destroy my confidence that history or ethics can ever be rescued and respected again. Friends in China tell me how disgusted they are with the dogmatism there. I also feel ready to retch whenever I see the Japanese scandal sheets threatening military retribution against 'Japan-hating-countries' (from Japan's Weekly Playboy), to a rumor that the Chinese are circulating an 'assassination list' of Japanese politicians and citizens. This is pride, but only the blindly macho type.

[the truth is, the Japanese media is as much a 'national' institution as the Chinese state-run media. their give-and-take relationship with their audience may be different, but they each have a role in whipping up nationalist fury, and assuaging national pride. the media here made a big deal about the 'results' of a DNA test done on the 'remains' of a Japanese abducted by North Korea. they said that the remains came from several different people, none of whom were her. however, an article in the British nature magazine Nature cast doubt on the result claimed by the government. Read about it at a Korean site, because no Japanese media outlets are covering the story. they just shut up about the whole issue, and instead are focusing on China. There is a good, though lengthy writeup of the article by an Australian scholar here.]

But back to my project; at one point I wanted to look at the birth of a multi-ethnic identity in Yokohama, and its manifold possibilities as 'Chinese' and 'Japanese' refashioned a social network that was local as well as global. It seemed to me that the categories imposed on human interaction by nationalism were being undermined, and that flexible identities were emerging that would bridge people living in Japan and China by ironically, not engaging national institutions at all.

My counterpoint would be Yokohama in the 1920s-1940s, where national categories were enforced through police surveillance of 'enemy nationals', and the activities of Chinese government-sponsored associations. My idea was to sketch out the constraints imposed by these institutions on individuals in Yokohama at the time, and how they were be absorbed, inevitably, irrevocably into national bodies.

Well, the contrast just fell apart. The more I look into the historical documents, the closer the present seems to recapitulate the past. The same language 'han'nichi' (anti-Japanese) was used back in the 1930s to describe the textbooks and leaflets published by Chinese nationalists all over the world. The description today of the May 4th (1919) movement as simply 'anti-Japanese' is interesting as well because it seems to follow the same thinking that dominated Japan at the time. While to the Chinese, May 4th was a cultural and literary movement to reinvent the Chinese nation (the boycotts of Japanese goods began much earlier), to the Japanese it was merely resistance to their imperial designs.

Context. Does anyone even remember that May 4th was supposed to start on May 7th? That was the date on which Japan delivered the '21 demands' to China back in 1915. However, to avoid suppression by Chinese authorities, the students had to spring the movement a few days early. But today, the Japanese press just labels it an 'anti-Japanese' movement, without any explanation of its context. Similarly, Chinese nationalist activities in the 1930s were also labeled 'anti-Japanese' sentiment (and regarding Chinese in America, the added comment that they should have been helping their fellow Asians rather than criticizing them), without even an explanation that the Kwantung Army had just seized Manchuria. So little context, then or now.

Ok, but that's jumping ahead a little bit. Evaluating the situation, I'd have to say that we're not quite back in the 1930s yet, but more like the 1920s. So, I guess that means less than 20 more years before another major world war.

When you ASSUME

. . . you make an ass out of David Hume, who as we all know, thoroughly attacked the common-sense understanding of cause and effect. Ok, enough (pseudo)philosophy.

A few comments on life over the past few days.
1. Demonstrations in China: I still don't have a clear opinion on this, and the obvious reason is my ambiguous position here in Japan as an ethnic Chinese (who has been in China for less than a year total). But that statement's a deadend, because I don't claim to represent people in my position, or even know of any others like me. So, you'll have to take my opinion (and ambiguity) as the statement of an individual. Much as people absolutely hate to do that.
A proposition: the protests are emotionally and morally justified, but simultaneously a disturbing expression of conformity and narrow-minded thinking among the Chinese public.
What I'm getting at here is that I emotionally agree with the desire to give voice to anger over war and massacre, and the circumstances under which the Japanese Government has not had to take full responsbility for its actions. This is especially the case here, where the Cold War (I'm talking about you, America) has made it so difficult to bring any sense of closure, and where the Japanese (do I have to remind you, the aggressors) also bear a strong victim consciousness. Nevertheless, the mob thinking that prevails in these demonstrations is a disturbing indication of a certain failure to democratize the historical consciousness of the Chinese people, and an environment where a diversity of opinion is not accepted. Here, I am foremost concerned with the direction China's society seems to be taking.

Another proposition: should we not compare Chinese 'demonstrations' with the nearly constant (over the past few decades) loud-speaker activities of Japan's right-wing? A friend mentioned that they're parked out in front of Japanese government buildings nearly every day, blasting war marches and haranguing the public. Another friend mentioned that they also come by dormitories primarily occupied by visiting Chinese dignitaries and give speeches in (poorly pronounced) Chinese, criticizing Mao Zedong, etc. She and the other Chinese exchange students would gather to hear the right-wingers whenever they came by. Apparently, they found them quite amusing.

ODA?

Japan's ODA to 'developing countries' can now be parsed as 'Overseas Distribution of Anime'. According to an Asahi article, ODA money can now be disbursed to buy airtime for Japanese anime such as Pokemon. As if consumerism weren't a strong enough engine pushing for it as well. In fact, after an exhaustive (and no doubt expensive) study, they conclude that a large percentage of foreign students of Japanese first developed their interest in Japan through anime. Well, duh, I could have told them that, and provided numbers to back it up too (from a study I conducted on my 2 classes at Illinois. . . )

Big boom in jobs for anime subtitlers/translators in the works?

(note: the article does note that Spanish and French-speaking areas of Latin America and Africa will be the primary targets of this 'anime foreign policy'. The US does not receive any ODA from Japan. It stands for 'Overseas Development Assistance'.)
(update: oh, there's an English version of the article as well.

Ride into the Sun

I actually have a spare moment tonight, since 1. it's Sunday, and 2. I actually accomplished everything I intended to do today. The former condition occurs far more frequently than the latter. Last week was an especially bad case, but that leads to the main story of this blog entry.

I lost two days last week to doctor visits, and while I am continually impressed with the economy and efficiency of the Japanese healthcare system (no need for appointments! never wait more than 10 minutes! two weeks of medicine for under $20!), I also lamented my inability to get any work done. But making the most of a bad situation, I decided to tour around Western Tokyo on my bike since the clinic was in an unfamiliar corner of my district.
Here we have a classic case of an accident waiting to happen. I first headed south toward Tamagawa (the river dividing Tokyo from Kanagawa Prefecture), and was treated to this spectacle in the lee side of a tree-covered hill.

Looks like someone lost at Tetris. I guess this is supposed to stop erosion, but at what cost. This is the above-mentioned Tamagawa, home also to a bunch of squatters who probably do Bo and Luke Duke proud by straddling the prefectural line to avoid prosecution. Note: squatters not pictured.

Getting tired. Rode up the slope to Asama-jinja near Tamagawa Station, and took a breather to watch the commuters on the Toyoko Line. In a way I was glad not to be crowded in there with them. But then again, they didn't have to bike 6 more kilometers back home.

Substance (abuse)

The weather is warm again, and though I'm pretty much living in a basement (where temperatures still linger in February), the dusty wind outside announces that spring is here. Yesterday was a blizzard of activity, in my otherwise quiet existence, and I managed a hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) party out in Komazawa Olympic Park (commonly filmed in dramas and music videos, including Shiina Ringo's 'kofuku ron') . Here are two pictures to show you what it was like:

blue tarp on hard ground
no respite for acheing legs
hanami season

a swarm of petals
lands quietly in my beer
color but no taste

Unknown Pleasures

One thing I've come to truly enjoy, and perhaps this is my childish, sneaky side showing through, is discovering documents marked 'secret'. Especially if they date from 1944. . .

Small pleasures make academics bearable, somehow.

New New Order

Strange, I thought as I was browsing through various skin-care products at a local drug store. The store was broadcasting a poppy guitar track which included a very familiar sounding bass line. But not too familiar, and I was sure I had never heard it before. Then it hit me; was there a new New Order single?

Sure enough, they have a new album out, called 'Waiting for the Siren's Call', and you can watch a dizzying video from it here. See if you can't identify Peter Hook's bass-work, in an otherwise rather plain song.

first-sakura

first-sakura
Originally uploaded by benkei242.

It's cherry blossom season again. . . sort of. I caught this lone tree on the way to the station a few days ago. It jumped the gun apparently, since none of its compatriots were in bloom yet.
This year the cherry blossoms are late. People who made early plans for cherry-blossom-viewing parties are stuck sitting under nude trees, forlornly drinking their beer.
By the way, I got a Flickr account, so I'll be posting pictures from there. There's an iPhoto plug-in that makes it ridiculously convenient to upload photos (and comments intact), so you'll probably see more of these in the future. . .

[A]

I haven't exactly been feeling well these past few weeks (weaks!), so most of my time has been spent visiting doctors and pharmacies in search of that magic pill that'll make everything better. But all this down-time has offered me an opportunity to catch up on some Japanese cinema:

1. First, the insignificant: Samurai Champloo is an exercise in gleeful anachronism. Where it pretends to be an Edo-period genre piece (specifically, 'chambara'), it's determining leitmotiv is urban hip-hop flavor. That's pretty far-fetched, but it carries it off with suitably self-referential goofiness all the same, freely adapting plotlines from all over (Zatoichi, Yakuza movies, etc.) This one is ridiculous, but amusing in its playful misuse of historical locale, event, and personae (and for the disciminating eye, there is plenty in there for parody). Now shut up and enjoy the show.

2. Second most insignificant: Shimotsuma Monogatari. In case you're wondering, Shimotsuma is a little town out in Ibaraki Prefecture, and the story naturally is about this town, and how it's not Daikanyama, Tokyo. Actually, it's about two girls who live in that town and how their styles and identities are produced by the media images they consume. Sort of. One embodies the 'white lolita' style only purchasable in Tokyo, while the other brandishes the country-side biker gang trappings readily available at Jusco (similar to Walmart). The movie itself is cut to pieces in a gaudy version of Tarantino's backwards-first method, and just as easily jumps from genre to genre (including anime segments, ala Kill Bill). But the intent is to merely tickle the audience, and not necessary to skewer them; the jolting shifts and odd twists are comic suggestions of our own media-saturated lives.

3. Last, and speaking of media, I rented Mori Tatsuya's documentary on Aum/Aleph/(or just as appropriately, Araki Hiroshi, the embattled young spokesman for the cult) entitled simply 'A'. Mori is ultimately fairly sympathetic to the cult (which was named Aum when it's members released the nerve toxin Sarin in Tokyo's subway network), and it is amazing to see how much access he has to its inner workings. The documentary picks up after the atrocity with the newly appointed spokesman Araki Hiroshi, boyish and bewildered, and tasked with explaining his faith to a shocked and hostile Japan. The documentary doesn't dwell on the details of the gas attack, or the trial of it perpetrators. That element definitely needs to be kept in mind however, since the context for the widespread social abuse of the cult cannot be understood without it. For audiences in Japan, overwrought news reporting has already brought the message home, but people outside will need to refresh their memories.

What is most powerful about this piece however is its depiction of the extreme, vindictive, and narrow-minded response by the media, the police, and average citizens to the cult. I don't believe it can really apologize for what Aum has done, nor does it really lead to a conclusive judgement of the cult as evil or not, since even its spokesman can not reconcile his own simple faith in Aum and the blatant deeds of its leaders. Cornered by journalists over the issue of whether the 'new' Aum would adopt new teachings, seeming to simultaneously claim both that the teachings were not wrong, and that there were some misunderstandings under the old leaders, Araki testily remarks that 'you don't seem to understand how religions work'. And he might be right. After all, all the denunciations and arguments against Aum seem ex post facto; the public has already judged it an evil cult, so people don't feel the need to be careful in their arguments, especially whether their criticisms can also be applied to other mainstream religions as well. Witnessing the police bullying of average cult members demonstrates an extension of this logic; since nobody is going to sympathize with them (they're guilty of being a cult member), does it really matter how far you mistreat them? Does atrocity make us less willing as a society to demand justice over vengeance?

But that's probably an overreading of the movie, according to my own perspective as an American. Mori's point might be simpler: looking at how Japanese society treats Aum cult members (who were not involved in the attack) only shows us why cults like Aum arise in the first place. People feel a need to escape. . .

Asian, American?

It's a question, if properly punctuated.

People do ask whether it's liberal to push for an 'Asian-American' identity; whether it makes historical sense to group together Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos etc; whether it's any better (or different) than white chauvinism; whether it's not in fact harmful to the cohesiveness of us 'Americans' as a people (and a democratic constituency).

At the risk of being annoyingly academic, I consider 'Asian-American' a set of issues, a set of questions, rather than simply an identity. And I argue that people have the freedom, in fact should have the freedom, to interpret their own identity as they see fit. That's not a terribly unreasonable position to take, especially since 'assimilation' itself is not inherently good or bad. Two-direction cultural assimilation in the United States is one version, forced one-way 'assimilation' of Koreans into the Japanese Empire (1910-1945), quite a different one. The degree of forcefulness, and the power dynamic is more related to whether or not it's a progressive or oppressive practice.

Recently, I've heard the ostensibly reasonable argument that we're all 'Americans' and we shouldn't have 'Asian-Americans' 'African-Americans' 'Hispanic-Americans' etc. I can't help thinking there's something odd about this argument because it's always directed at these minorities. What that suggests to me is a certain logical blindspot despite the apparent airtightness of the argument. What I want to contribute here is not an outright denial of the validity of this concept of Americanness. Specifically, it's necessary to understand that 'American' is a specific political, but vague cultural category. Furthermore, it's precisely the regressive form of assimilation that only calls upon the minority to become similar to the majority. Hence, before we can dissolve 'Asian-American' into just 'American', we need to also broaden the definition of what it means to be an 'American' in the first place. And that requires educating everyone, not just minorities, to accept a wider range of cultural practices as part of an inclusive 'Americanness'.

End of diatribe.

This is a hijacking

This was going to be a post about Asian-America. But screw that. I just finished watching Casshern(2004), and it's hijacking this blog space. By force.

But speaking of hijacking, Casshern does just that as well, taking a generic '70s superhero anime and compression molding it into a visually composited moral collage on the universalism of hatred and war. Plus a theme song by the director's wife (Utada Hikaru).

For a clear exposition of the plot, see this review from Midnight Eye. Also be aware that sometime in 2005, the studios are planning on unleashing this monstrosity of a movie on American (and other) audiences. Don't say you weren't warned. Why monstrous? Too much Beethoven in the soundtrack. Too many layers and filters to abstract the footage. Garish theatrical sets employing heavy-handed historical symbolism. Too little irony, and too many overwrought soliloquies. And . . . the cliche'd use of retro-future aesthetics (but it's still kinda cool to see people dialing from antique rotary phones and connecting to sleek 3G-style clamshell phones).

I'm being obscure here, of course, but what makes this movie so hard to ignore and write-off, despite being an unmitigated mess, is the fact that it is entirely serious when it visually links THE WAR ON TERROR(sic) and the JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF CHINA. Battle Royale II tried to do something similar, but only ended up jumping on the Anti-American bandwagon and focusing on Japanese historical victimhood. Both films do in fact inject real-world footage of war and death into their fantasy milieus, but while BR2 has the propagandist tendency to eliminate any ambiguity in the roles of 'victim' and 'oppressor', Casshern boomerangs right back onto itself. Not surprisingly, its ending also discards all the technological explanations and moral arguments that come before it. It's simply not possible to guess how it'll end from only the clues in the plot. And much as the movie cannot propose any solution to the cycle of war and vengeance, it dispenses with explanation and ends on an elegy.

But as I just mentioned, the most powerful aspect of this movie is its historical consciousness. Now, there have been plenty of movies positing a different post-war for Japan. This one begins with the assumption that Japan has conquered 'Eurasia' and become a superstate filled with Cyrillic and Chinese iconography. But even with victory, they face an unending insurgency on a continent filled with 'terrorists', especially 'Zone 7' which appears to be the Chinese countryside. The dingy concrete tanks from which the 'neo-sapiens' arise look eerily similar to the photographs of Unit 731's research facilities in Northern China. The grainy black-and-white segments showing the systematic slaughter of civilians focus on women dressed in what appear to be Chinese traditional gowns. Add elements of medical horror, soldiers in gasmasks, and a brief flash of a mushroom cloud, and the film's imagery is surprisingly complete in terms of war in the 20th century.

But objectively speaking, this movie is ponderous. The dialogue is stifling. The female characters spend most of the movie looking begrieved, but saying little. Character development is on the level of a paper puppet play. The plot is equally incredulous, having to make compromises to fit the original plot of the anime series. Example: the 'villains' need an army of robots to threaten humankind. So, they find them.

However, as other reviewers have written, what makes the movie difficult to simply laugh off is it's intermittent flashes of brilliance. As a 2+ hour long aesthetic enterprise it is incomparable. As a definitive statement on ‘war = human nature’, it is foolhardy and over-ambitious. What makes it worthwhile is its intricately constructed and self-reflexive question to the Japanese: Would the world be a better place if Japan had won the war? And to the Americans: What are you going to do now that you've 'won'?

Preoccupied with Occupation

It's been a while since I updated this blog, so rough as it is, I'm giving it the old college try.

For those of you who have seen 'Love Hina' (bareta!) the scene on campus today would have been deja vu. But not quite. Today after all was the day entrance exams are conducted for the incoming 2005 class, and for that very important reason, campus was locked down pretty securely. The big red gate 'Aka-mon' was shut, except for a slim little door to the left, where staff with official armbands checked IDs. So much to be won or lost on this day . . . But oddly enough the students (some still in their highschool uniforms) I came across seemed in rather high spirits, chatting and flirting.

Also kind of reminds me of Maison Ikkoku, which by the way is being resurrected from its original 1980s run by its publisher for one more reprint. Just in time, I'd say, for the 'PURE LOVE' boom. That term, jun'ai, has achieved vortextual status now on the heels of such sentimental dramas as 'Winter Sonata', 'Sekai no chushin de ai wo sakebu' and 'Ai ni Yukimasu'. Does the term denote a new aspect of Japanese society, or just a new way to talk about Japanese society? Here, I defer to Kaori Shoji of the Japan Times who does a remarkable job explaining the 'phenomenon' with a straight face. And yet, through her obsessive use of quotation marks for all the 'so-called' 'phrases' 'Japanese' people employ, I can't help detecting an ironic smirk behind the earnestness. Surely she must think it's silly; the quotation marks seem to put plenty of distance between what she herself thinks, and 'what people say'.

So 'pure' love is back. And so are the 1980s. Though they gave love. . . a bad name (bad name).

In other news, I'm doing some heavy-duty translating for my advisor here, who has somehow amassed a large cache of WWII Japanese propaganda. It's rather sad, and unnerving work, but at times hilarious. Makes you wonder if our own occupation of Iraq is really drawing on the correct historical metaphors. Instead of the 'successful' occupations of Germany and Japan, maybe we should contemplate the short-lived Japanese occupations of Manchuria and China as well. By the way, I've been helped a great deal by a new dictionary on the palmpilot: Plecodict. It's the only portable solution I've found that lets you enter traditional hanzi (characters) by the pen/stylus, and get pinyin romanizations (and definitions) out of it. Needless to say, that thoroughly streamlines using my big fat Xian dai han yu ci dian paper dictionary. Finally, the tools that I need. . .

You’re asking for it. . .

In the information age, you can not only give someone a knuckle sandwich [the old stand-by], you can also give’em a spam sandwich.

So, you better shut up now, or you're really asking for it. Right where it counts.

It was a '3' here

There was just an earthquake here. The floor started to jerkily shift around on me, the foundations started creaking, dogs started barking. . . and it was only a '3', though it lasted for more than 10 seconds. Apparently, someplace up north in Ibaraki experienced a 5.4, which should be more than 100 times worse than what I experienced. That's insane. And when the big one hits (on the order of 7 or so, as they predict), 30,000 people are forecasted to die in Tokyo. This is the second earthquake I've felt here in 2 weeks. I hope that's not a sign of things to come.

I want my stone back.

I just registered my first shareware since 1997. Seriously, I just paid for some software that nobody would think of paying for. That's the thing with shareware; nobody seems to pay for it. If you just distribute your software, no matter how much you limit it's functionality, people rarely bother to pay you for it. This time, I just had to do it. I registered an Apple II emulator called 'Virtual ]['. It cost me $19, but the feature that pushed me over the top (into becoming a paying customer) was the emulated disk drive noises he put into it. It just didn't feel like a real Apple ][ until then. Now, I can play Infocom's Wishbringer again, and relive those magical moments I spent with that game in the chilly basement of my home (before my parents moved. now there's no basement). But the best part of that game was the packaging; it came with a white glow-in-the-dark molded plastic trinket, the 'Wishbringer' stone from the game itself. Now, that was classy.

A long time ago, I think it was 1989, I gave that glow-in-the-dark stone, plus my signature, to a friend named Sue. I'm not in touch with her, but I hear she's a successful lawyer now. I guess the stone paid off, but hell, that also means she doesn't really need it anymore. So, Sue, if you're listening, I want my stone back.

Japan as a metaphor

I'm starting to grapple with my own (previous) fixation with Japan, and as I look out the window of the Tokyu express train to Shibuya, considering the grey sky and tightly packed buildings, I realize that I have always looked at Japan as a particularly vivid expression of human dignity/desperation. These moments come to me especially when I've got my music with me, when the shifting cityscape in front of me serendipitously harmonizes with the beat. Those are special moments to me . . . :P

At a risk of sounding obscure, I worry if I am somehow decorporealizing my Japan to a set of hazy metaphors. But at the same time, I also realize that Japan can not possibly be 'meaningful' without some romantic notions on my part. Japan used to be a fantasy-land for me, but now less and less so. And in the process, the metaphor loses meaning as well.

Vehicular Destruction/Vehicular Construction

Vehicles; they transport us, they kill us.

Last week, I noticed that my train was late twice. When that happens, and normally it isn't a common occurrence at all, the conductor announces his apologies and gives some official excuse. Both times last week (two different lines), the cause was a 'jinshin jiko'. Translated literally, the term denotes an 'accident involving a human body'. What it suggests is suicide. When people here think of trains and suicides, they immediately think of the Chuo-line, the 'suicide train', apparently because its express trains rush right up against the platform at a sufficient speed to make things quick.

But vehicles here are also a source of fanciful expression. The 'new' way to get to Odaiba is aboard the 'suijo basu' (water bus) Himiko. I took two photos of it: one two. Himiko (named after the mythical female ruler of the ancient 'Wa' kingdom, apparently one of the early civilizations in the Japanese archipelago) was designed by none other than Matsumoto Reiji, famed animator of Galaxy Express 999, and more recently, Interstella5555. By the way, you can buy figurines of the Interstella crew for a mere 55.55 euros. Anyway, suijo basu Himiko runs from Asakusa to Odaiba for double the normal price of a ferry, around 1,700 yen.

In other news, I went all the way to the top of Mori Tower, in Roppongi Hills. That thing casts a loooong shadow.

Someone asked me to post some pictures of fruit, and well, I don't have much, but this should show you what an Okayama pear is like. The large wrapped thing on the right is the pear, while on the left is a largish Okayama apple.

The saddest little song in the world

Done dropping LL off at Narita Airport, I am a loss for what to do next. I choose the Keisei line to go home, which is the absolute cheapest option (@ 1,300 yen compared to 3,000 yen for the Narita Express), and because I am in absolutely no hurry. In any case, I have Michael Chabon's 636 page The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with me.
At the bottom of the escalator, sliding into the subterranean cavern that is the train platform, dimly lit and all dingy tiles and chrome, I find, improbably and inexplicably, synthesized bird songs chirping from a miniature speaker mounted on the wall.
I wonder how it's supposed to make travelers feel. Is it intended to remind people of how far removed they are from nature? From their childhood? From sunlight? The Keisei limited express pulls in, all sweaty with its windows steamed over, and I can't help feeling its sadness.

Great Big Fruit of Okayama - redux

We finally ate the last of the Okayama fruit, and it was delicious. Last to go was a giant shiny red apple that somehow lingered on for weeks and weeks after we had devoured all the mandarin oranges, pears, and persimmons.
For some reason, I hesitated to touch that last apple, sitting so sweetly in it's Okayama-labeled carton, as if eating it (without my roommate's permission) might somehow lead to my being cast out of this luxurious apartment. But I gave into temptation.

'69'

'69' Anybody else seen the film adaptation of Murakami Ryu's novel '69'? I had no idea that the Kyushu dialect played such a large part in both the atmosphere and plot of the work, since I read it translation. In the movie, the protagonist's friends constantly comment on how he reverts to 'textbook Japanese' whenever he starts getting serious about some topic. I also seem to have forgotten how much humor there was in it. Then again, the fact that Murakami Haruki (no relation) seems to have a fairly low opinion of such levity in the student movement has left a much deeper impression on me. In short, I understood about 45.7% of the movie because of the dialect, but I was (ambivalently to be sure) swept up in the exuberance of (Japan's) 1960's nostalgia.

Ame Agaru This was another film I saw recently, and despite the fact that it was full of Edo period dialogue, I still managed to catch more of it than that pesky Kyushu dialect. As a 'humanist' period piece, its lineage as an unfinished Kurosawa Akira project is fairly obvious. It does seem to be from a different era. Compared to the irony and (strangely defensive) emphasis on heroism in recent period works, this one focuses on the nobility of the common people and the moral bankruptcy of the elites. Very post-war. Quite heart-warming.

Ghost Squad Um. This one isn't a movie, but a video game. LL and I spent some time and money on this one today in Shibuya, and our wrists are still quivering from the experience. It features two full-size sub-machines with which to smack-down the baddies. We were terrible at rescuing hostages. Much more effective in shredding up the scenery. I might have to go back and play some more soon.
On a side-note: we spent more money on that game than one and a half hours (plus two drinks) at Karaoke.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, Karaoke is cheap during the day. The above cost only 800 yen for both of us.

Hatsuyuki, Hatsumode

It's 2005 in Japan.
Otaku: I've been called an Akiba-kei [Akihabara-type] otaku before , but I was still stunned into silence at the Christmas Eve Maywa Denki show [buy their stuff here!]. A quorum of Tokyo otaku (mostly female even!) were there, and they made me feel decidedly 'normal'. Who are Maywa Denki? Well, their X'mas eve performance theme was 'folk', and they had their robotic musicians behind them strumming acoustic guitars. But this was Maywa Denki, akiba-kei folk, with songs about Tsukuba engineers, remote controls, and Rubik's cubes . . . (refrain: shikakuii~~, shikakuii~~ = 'it's square, square, with an audience member standing in front, doing the 'air rubik's cube' )
wow. out-otaku'ed.
(n.b. the usage of the Japanese term 'otaku' is not the same as stateside, where it 'simply' denotes an anime fan/freak. In Japan, otaku refers to anyone who obsesses over something, cars, computers, even anime, to an anti-social level.)

Benkei in the House: The new NHK 'Taiga' drama series for 2005 is going to based on Yoshitsune. Yes, the same Yoshitsune from Heike Monogatari. And that of course means that his trusty sidekick Benkei [acted by Matsudaira Ken] will be on TV's all over Japan in the coming months. I full expect to see hundreds of Benkei imposters online when the Benkei-boom sweeps Japan.

Also, I can link to pictures now that I have massive storage on YahooBB.

First snow in Jiyugaoka. Someone forgot to take in their laundry.

Hatsumode at a nearby shrine. The buddhist temple next door.