Not So Dasai

I was into Japan before it was cool

2012-01-17T06:14:00.005-06:00

From an interview with Murakami Takashi in today's Asahi Shimbun:

Asahi Shimbun: "Cool Japan" has quite the reputation overseas, and you've been seen as one of its standard bearers.
Murakami Takashi: No one talks about "Cool Japan" overseas. That's totally false: just a rumor. It's a term that Japanese people made to satisfy their own narcissism, little more than a catchphrase for advertisers trying to get public money.
. . .
AS: Nevertheless, the Japanese government is tyring to push anime, toys, and fashion as part of "Cool Japan" overseas.
MT: That's just money for people like advertisers. None of it comes back to the artists, and it's a waste of tax revenue. Even in the anime and game industries, the Japanese market share is being taken by foreign companies, and there's no end to the mergers and consolidation. It's really pitiful. Not only do the creators make a pittance, but they also subcontract to other countries so they can't develop their labor force. The ground is sinking beneath their feet.
. . .
[Murakami speaks of the poor state of the art universities]
AS: That being said, didn't Japan develop it's own unique culture? Manga and anime, for example?
MT: After America dropped the bomb and Japan lost the war, Japan didn't even have a definite state but was able to maintain peace by relying on the US. What was born out of that situation was "subculture" and the otaku culture. As culture, they were like a sterile flower.
To make a sterile flower bloom into something worthwhile you need some kind of mechanism, but no one is interested in putting in the effort. I'm concentrated on how I can get to the top on the global stage. Japanese people can't even be number one in golf or tennis. Why is that? Because they can get by pretty easily within the country, they get lazy. Because local governments want to put art all over their cities, artists can get by comfortably without looking abroad, and mere craftsmanship is highly overrated. They're too soft.

I, too, dislike it.

Force of arms

2012-01-11T00:17:00.001-06:00

It's been nearly a year since I last posted anything, even though I've slithered back into Japan. I don't even know if anyone still reads this. If you do, I'm sure you're just lazy with cleaning out your RSS subscriptions.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is I got bored at work today and translated the last few paragraphs of an essay from a magazine I've been reading. So:

Questioning War and Literature, SEKIYA Hiroshi

I’d like to touch on the continuity of the Edo and Meiji periods, but not on how high literacy rates or a developed commercial economy prepared Japan for modernization. Rather, I’d like to talk about the continuity of political culture.

Japanese society during the Edo period was marked by the expansion of military rule after Sekigahara, which gave way to a period of sustained peace under a national government. Taxation and compulsory government service were ultimately justified by being of “use to the country” [國の用 kuni no you]. People deemed not “of use” were labeled as such, and if even now, when a public figure is called “useless,” it is taken to mean not a specific deficiency in a certain area but a condemnation of their character as a whole, we are still living in the Edo period in at least that respect. [The literary scholar] Maeda Tsutomu calls the Tokugawa system a “garrison state”[兵営国家 heiei kokka] (Heigaku to shushigaku rangaku kokugaku, Heibonsha).

In a “garrison state,” the source of political legitimacy is neither a concept of “statehood” nor “virtue.” Political legitimacy comes from (post-Sekigahara) absolute military superiority, as represented by the concepts of “force of arms” [武威 bui] and “authority” [御威光 go-ikou]. The Tokugawa regime quickly collapsed when its “force of arms” was threatened by the landing of Western ships, and the Meiji government that arose in its place took the introduction of Western political systems as its mission, pressing slogans like “enrich the country, strengthen the military,” and “civilization and enlightenment.”

Yet, “enrich the country, strengthen the military” is necessarily little more than a modern attempt at acquiring “force of arms.” And what of “civilization and enlightenment?” Perhaps it was simply a declaration that until this point we as a country had been an uncivilized and barbarous. No, in actuality the substance of this “civilization” really didn’t matter. If we take it as instead saying that “for a long time China had been ‘of use,’ but from now on it’s the West, so let’s Westernize!’” then a clear continuity between Edo and Meiji political culture emerges. If that, then, is the case, how do we understand post-Meiji, particularly post-war concepts such as freedom and equality, that is, human rights?

War is a tired subject, but it is my opinion that this is the question that should really be asked of so-called "war literature."

Sekiya, Hiroshi/関谷博. "Sensou to bungaku wo tou shisen"/「戦争と文学を問う視線」. Kokoro/『こころ』 30 December 2011: 203

Speaking of the Post War

2011-02-20T18:45:00.000-06:00

The interplay between Japanese and French intellectual culture is a really interesting subject. The exchange of aesthetics went both ways (think japonisme) but in terms of philosophy and literature, it was mostly an F->J type of arrangement. French prose fiction (particularly Zola) was picked up by a lot of early twentieth-century writers as a model for imitation. Still, there are a few examples of it going the other way. The Tale of Genji (originally through French translations of Waley's beautifully rendered English translation produced from 1921 to 1923) was big in France. On the philosophical front Kuki Shuzo, who was ridiculous, actually introduced Heidegger's thought to Sartre. Which is ridiculous.

I know very little about this pre-war intellectual exchange. What you have up there is about the extent of it. I know even less about the relationship of Japanese and French thought in the post-war, but it's something I kind of want to look into.

Usually, when referring to the post-war period in Japanese, you use the pretty straightforward word 戦後 sengo, which means literally after the war. Apparently, however, this hasn't always been the most common word for it. Check out these screenshots from Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" 『野良犬』(1949):

The use of the word après-guerre to describe the Japanese post war period makes me think that at least for a time, many Japanese people thought of Japan's domestic wartime experience as being somehow similar to that of occupied France. I know that one of the anxieties of the post-war Japanese intellectual culture was that they didn't have any figures like Sartre that they could think of as having put on their beret and done their part for the resistance (whether this was true of France or not).

Again, it isn't really something I've done a lot of reading or thinking about, but it's something that I might pursue in the future.

「やれやれ」と彼女は言った

2011-01-30T12:40:00.000-06:00

So apparently Murakami Haruki's hometown of Ashiya in good old Hyogo prefecture is going to offer some kind of Murakami Certification. Link to the story here. Just ten questions (difficult questions, they say) and limited to 600 entrants, top scorers get a certificate and the top twenty get candy.

I was linked to a thread from 2ch in which they discuss the contest. It doesn't take them long at all to stop talking about it and start just making fun of Murakami. The first reply was "Man [やれやれ is one of his stylistic tropes], I ejaculated in my pasta."Another: "ejaculate while thinking about metaphysics."

A lot gets said about how much sex is in his books. One poster wrote "My older sister, who usually doesn't read much, picked up an interest in Murakami. When she asked me about what kind of stuff was in his novels, I couldn't answer with anything but 'well, just a lot of sex.'"

The best, though, is when they start making fun of Murakami's style. If you've never read him in Japanese, his prose is basically the same as it is in English. Which is weird. Oddly short sentences, endless "'...,' she said" which is redundant and unnatural in Japanese prose. The most succinct post in this vein (even if it doesn't really come across in English) was
「。が多くて読みやすいよ」と彼女は言った。僕は本を手に取った。読んでみると本当に読みやすい。
"'There are a lot of periods, so it's easy to read," she said. I picked up the book. I tried reading it and it really was easy."

Two posts take the cake (it seems like they were actually stolen from this blog).

Questions, supposedly from an English test, with simple instructions: Translate the following exchange into Murakami style.

They're pretty awesome.

問題１[Problem 1]

A: Is that a dog?
B: No. It is a horse.

訳
「アレって、結局のところ、犬みたいなものじゃないの？」
直美はわからない、という顔をして不機嫌そうにそうつぶやいた。
「いや、それはちがう。馬、そう、馬みたいなものさ。でもそれは僕らにとって問題じゃない。僕らは、今夜、四谷のラブホテルでセックスをした、それだけのこと―――」
僕が言い終わらないうちに、直美はベッドから起きあがり、言った。
「セックスについて、軽々しく語らないでよ」
今思い出しても恥ずかしくなるほど、僕は、未熟だった。

Translation
"That thing, when you get down to it, don't you think it looks like a dog?"
Naomi murmured sullenly and made a face like she didn't understand.
"No, that's not it. A horse, yeah, it looks like a horse. But that's not our problem. Tonight we had sex in a love hotel in Yotsuya, and that's the only---"
Before I could finish talking, Naomi got up from the bed and spoke.
"Don't talk so carelessly about sex."
Even now I get embarrassed every time I think about it. I was so inexperienced.

問題２ [Problem 2]

A: How lovely these fish are!
B: I agree.

訳
「おいしそう...」
水槽の中を見つめながら、ユキはそう呟いた。
「私って、食欲と可愛いの感情が区別つかないの」
そう言ってユキは笑った。
僕もいっしょになって笑った。

「あと、性欲と食欲の違いもわかんないの」
「それでか」
「それでか、って何よ？」

昨日の夜、ユキと僕は初めて知り合った。
そして一緒にスパゲッティを食べた。
その夜、僕らはセックスをした。

「じゃあね、私、北に向かうわ」　ユキは言った。
「北？なんのために？」
「理由なんてないわ。昨日私があなたにフェラチオをしてあげたことに理由がないのと同じよ」

バスは出発した。

やれやれ、僕はまたひとりになった。

今になって思い返してみると、
僕はあの時彼女と一緒に北へ行くべきだったのだ。

Translation
"They look delicious. . ."
Yuki spoke softly, gazing into the fish tank.
"I don't differentiate between hunger and thinking something's cute"
Yuki said this and laughed.
I laughed with her.

"I also don't get the difference between lust and hunger"
"So that's why"
"And just what do you mean by that?"

I met Yuki for the first time last night.
We ate spaghetti together.
That night, we had sex.

"See you. I'm going to head north," Yuki said.
"North? What for?"
"No real reason. Just like there's no real reason I gave you a blowjob last night."

The bus left.

Well, I was alone again.

Thinking back on it now, I should have gone north with her.

I like the second one better.

Can we talk about this?

2011-01-22T11:29:00.000-06:00

So I just found this HIPHOP用語集, a glossary of hip hip vocabulary. Just words used in or around hip hop (usually in phonetic katakana) with Japanese definitions.

Nothing seems egregiously wrong (though does anyone actually use the word 'overground'?) but there are some entries that I kind of like.

One of the definitions for ドープ (dope) is 奥深い, as in deep or profound.

"B-boy/b-girl" says that the "B" is from break, and it originally had to do with breakdancing. Recently, though, it indicates someone who lives by hip hop. Or so it says.

ビッチ is given as 尻軽女, which just means a loose woman.

My favorite, though, is

『バスタ』
悪ガキ。

yous a busta

There are Japanese poems other than haiku

2010-12-10T10:08:00.000-06:00

Sometimes they are about Hello Kitty.

This morning I was prompted to write a haiku about Hello Kitty due to circumstances. I tried to come up with something that seemed actually like haiku and not senryu, but couldn't quite make it work. Later, however, in the middle of class, I got the bright idea to try tanka instead, and the results speak for themselves:

Heian Kitty

ついに行く道は聞かずやキティちゃん若き見えども年取らざらむ

My classical Japanese is pretty bad so the grammar doesn't seem quite right, but I think that I get the point across. There is also jitarazu (hypometricity) in the third foot but don't talk to me about that.

In translation it would be roughly something like

Have you not heard of the road soon travelled, Kitty-chan? She looks young, but will she never age?

"ついに行く道," the road soon travelled, is a waka trope for death (like that one Narihira joint ついに行く道とはかねて聞きしかど昨日今日とは思はざりしを)

In other words, WILL HELLO KITTY NEVER DIE!? WHAT GOD WOULD NOW TAKE THAT EXECRABLE SOUL??

Better with breakfast than the New York Times

2010-12-02T11:45:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, I was trying to find out the reading of some kanji from a poem in the Man'yoshu. I wasn't trying to read it in man'yogana but still, some of the place names can get like woah, and I mean come on Hitomaro, himugashi?

But anyway, through my highly scientific process of google.jp-ing "万葉集" I came across this website.

It's called 本日の万葉集, or Today's Man'yoshu. All it does is drop a single poem from the Man'yoshu (of which there are nearly 5000) in your inbox every day. Gives you the author, the book/poem number, and the poem itself. That's it.

WHICH IS AWESOME

It doesn't discriminate by sending you only the waka. I've definitely gotten some choka (the choka are really good! I think!) though no out and out Chinese yet.

It recommends that you sign up using a Japanese cell-phone e-mail address, and I did have some trouble with my plain old computer email BUT it works fine now and every morning I get a fresh-brewed pot of classical Japanese (also coffee) before heading off to whatever class (French 101).

Ceci n'est pas un auteur

2010-11-27T18:04:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I noticed this in my queue just now, having apparently having thrown it together a while back and then leaving it to be finished another time. When I first wrote it, like a month and a half ago, I must have been going somewhere with it. Now, I have no idea where that might be. So, that being the case, I'll just throw it up here as is.

I've mentioned earlier that, often times, Murakami doesn't know where he's going when he starts. Now, I don't think that's a literary sin in and of itself. Check this out, from an interview here:

Your protagonist Kafka discovers a song, "Kafka on the Shore," and wonders if the woman who wrote it knew what the lyrics meant. Another character says, "Not necessarily. Symbolism and meaning are two separate things." Since your novel and the song share a title, how much does this statement say about the the novel itself? Do its symbols point to a larger meaning?

I don't know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes. I don't really know what the lyrics of the song mean, or whether they even have any meaning in the first place. It might be much easier to understand if someone set the lyrics to music and sang it.

What does Murakami mean? Is he getting at a sort of ceci n'est pas une pipe type of semiotic thing? If so, he's flying way over my head. What I think he's getting at, though, is that you can't just dissect his novels, you have to read them as a whole, that not any single part but the entirety of the novel is what he means, especially when he says, later in the same interview,

Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write.

The question that lingers in the back of my mind after reading this is whether or not this kind of idea can be applied to his body of work as a whole.

And that's a question to which I really have no answer.

Come on. Really?: A Not-So-Dasai Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T11:13:00.000-06:00

So, this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/arts/design/25murakami.html

Murakami (no the other one) is going to have floats of his two signature characters, Kaikai and Kiki in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. What surprises me most of all about this is that I was kind of under the impression that people were getting a little tired of Murakami. I'm not aware of any of his major pieces being reported as going for very much at auction since that lasso and jumprope set were on the block a few years ago. Hasn't superflat come and gone?

Of course, the majority of the viewers of the parade will not recognize the giant, inflatable incarnations of Murakami's creepy/cute mascots. However, Robin Hall, the producer of the parade, says the rule is "whether the kids understand it or not? Will the kids like it?" And who knows. With the stuff kids watch these days (I'm thinking specifically about Flapjack and Adventure Time) I don't think that superflat, especially in so mild an incarnation, will be as shocking to them as it would be to their parents' generation. The mixing of cute and grotesque is something that they see everyday. Even Spongebob pushes in that direction every once in a while.

A mild incarnation

Murakami himself will be accompanying the floats in a "flower costume of his own design."

"his own design"

So what is it to Murakami to appear in the parade? For a pop artist, is this the highest you can achieve? Should Warhol have had a giant floating soup can/Marilyn Monroe/Chairman Mao? Where does this put Murakami's work in relation to other characters appearing in the parade like, say, Spongebob or Snoopy? Consider: though Macy's sought to work with Murakami in 2005, it was he who initiated contact for this parade cycle. With collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Casio, maybe Murakami has become simply a brand. As a self-affirmed pop artist, there might be nothing wrong with that. Are parade floats the epitome of branding? (maybe?) Whether it is or not, it's "art" in one of the most public forums available.

Pop culture is doing weird things this week. Another artist that Murakami has done work for/with in the past, Kanye West, dropped his latest album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," on monday.

Kanye's 2007 "Graduation," with his (at the time) signature bear with Murakami's (still) signature aesthetic

Kanye's newest album. Note the difference.

Pitchfork gave it 10.0. The last album they gave a ten was, what, Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"? Pitchfork is the notoriously snobbish review house that the Onion lampooned as reviewing music as a whole, and giving it a 6.8. The album sounds very different from much of Kanye's earlier works. Whether it's worthy of a perfect 10 or not, it's a very good album and it's clear that he's come a long way in those three long years that separate it from "Graduation."

Kanye has moved. Has Murakami?

五百五十句 - Five Hundred Fifty Verses (5/5 apparently)

2010-11-20T22:47:00.000-06:00

十一月
November

これよりや時雨落葉と忙がしき
More even than this--
Like the autumn rain and falling leaves,
It will be busier still

焚火そだてながら心は人を追ふ
Tending the fire while
My heart is following
Others

十二月
December

襟巻に深く埋もれ帰去来
Buried deep
In my scarf;
I ought to go Home

Welcome to my fortess of solitude

2010-11-19T09:59:00.000-06:00

See if this describes you:
a) did you aimlessly wander into a website you read about in your school newspaper?
b) do you find haiku uninteresting/boring/confusing/terrifying?

If so, you're in luck! Because despite vicious rumors and substantial evidence to the contrary, this is not in fact a haiku blog!

You might want to check out these things that I wrote about Murakami Haruki (whom the bitches love)
here, and here, and here.

I said some things about Gary Snyder via Shimazaki Toson a long time ago.

And Tanizaki even longer ago.

And James Bond!

But since the internet isn't really about anything other than cats, here's this:

吾輩はねこである。名前はまだにゃい。

五百五十句 - Five Hundred Fifty Verses (4/??????)

2010-11-18T22:45:00.000-06:00

九月
September

紫蘇の実を鋏の鈴の鳴りて摘む
Gathering mint
To the sound of
The scissors' bell

秋風や心の中の幾山河
The autumn wind--
In my heart, how many mountains
How many rivers!

十月
October

もの置けばそこに生れぬ秋の蔭
Setting something down,
There appears
Autumn's shadow

五百五十句 - Five Hundred Fifty Verses (3/??????)

2010-11-16T22:40:00.001-06:00

六月
June

鵜の森のあはれにも亦騒がしい
Even in the cormorant forest's sadness
Quite a commotion

己が羽の抜けしを銜へ羽抜鳥
Clutching its own feathers
In its beak
The molting bird

七月
July

雑踏の中に草市立つらしき
Amidst the hustle and bustle,
A flower market
I think

泣きじやくりして髪洗ふ娘かな
Hiccups mixed with sobs,
Washing her hair:
A young girl!

五百五十句 - Five Hundred Fifty Verses (2/??????)

2010-11-14T22:37:00.002-06:00

二月
February

旗のごとなびく冬日をふと見たり
Glancing up at
The winter sun,
Waving like a flag

病にも色あらば黄や春の風邪
If sickness had a color,
Surely yellow--
A spring cold

三月
March

橋に立てば春水我に向つて来
Standing on the bridge,
Spring melt
Flows towards me

五百五十句 - Five Hundred Fifty Verses (1/??????)

2010-11-12T22:31:00.003-06:00

This is the first post of one year of haiku from 高浜虚子 TAKAHAMA Kyoshi's "Gohyakugoju-ku," "Five Hundred Fifty Verses."

Kyoshi

昭和十三
1938

一月
January

焚火かなし消えんとすれば育てられ
If the fire, in despair
Tries to go out,
Add fuel

爛々と暁の朝星浮寝鳥
Blazing,
The morning star at dawn:
Sleeping waterfowl

Yet still I breath

2010-11-10T22:29:00.001-06:00

Ok so it has been so long since I posted anything.

Why?

Not so much worth posting about. My thesis is about half done, but still feels like it hasn't quite gotten off the ground. I've been approved by the department to continue through to completion, but I get the feeling that the finished project will look much different than what I have now.

Once the paper starts going in a more controlled direction, I might start writing something about it again.

In the meantime though--just to waste your precious time--I'm going to queue up a cycle of haiku translations that I whipped up a few weeks ago to submit to my college's lit mag. Expect the first post within the next couple of days, and then an agonizingly slow progression thenceforth.

Lastly, just something to contemplate, this kid is fundamentally dealing with the same thing that I am right now:

どこまで逃げても

Raining Blood

2010-10-14T17:25:00.001-05:00

So you know the whole crying tears of blood thing in traditional Japanese literature? Like how it means you're crying double hard? Well:

Having bloody tears is a rare medical condition, known as haemolacria. It is usually caused by severe conjunctivitis or inflammation of the conjunctivae of the eye, but it can also be caused by tumors, bleeding disorders, injuries to the tear duct area and tuberculosis, explained Dr. Rachel Vreeman of the Indiana University School of Medicine. . . . "Women can have small amounts of blood in their tears during menstruation and pregnancy," Vreeman told LiveScience.

original article here

続・村上論—Murakami and the Nobel

2010-10-11T18:09:00.001-05:00

Read 村上論 parts 1 and 2: here then here

So Murakami Haruki didn't win t he Nobel Prize in Literature this year. Raise your hand if you are surprised.

this may be hard for you to tell but I am not raising my hand

It seems that every year around this time, there's buzz on the "blogosphere" about Murakami winning the prize, that this year might be his year, and afterwards there are always articles and posts and what have you about how Murakami was passed over for the Nobel. Again. Every year there seems to be an implicit assumption that he's been shortlisted and genuine dismay and confusion when, come the day of the announcement, he isn't the one who'll be flying to Stockholm.

That's not me. It seems to me to be pretty clear that, at least with his body of work now, Murakami won't get winning the prize in the near future. And I have reasons! Listen to my reasons.

First, let's dispense of the whole "he is/isn't important enough" line of argument. Inherent in it are two big fallacies: first, plenty of authors who are now considered relatively minor or transitional have won the prize, so "importance," by whatever metric you want to judge it, isn't necessarily the best way to assess candidates. Of course, there are also quite a few (as in a lot) of authors widely regarded as "important" that never won the prize.

There is also the assumption that "importance" is what the Swedish Academy is looking for, but "importance" is such a vague and slippery term that it would be almost impossible to use as a criterion. Important to who? In what way? To me, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is Important. With a capital 'I'. But it's a qualitatively different kind of important. They usually cite the recipient has contributed to literature but stop short of declaring them to be universally Important.

The Swedish Academy has an article here about the history of the thought behind the prize, and it's an interesting if dry read. At it's inception, as per the thoughts of Alfred Nobel, the prize was to be awarded to those who had produced "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." 'Ideal' is another tricky word, and it was shortly interpreted to mean "a lofty and sound idealism," with the added caveat of having provided "the greatest benefit to mankind." A recent New Yorker article also points out that the literature prize was almost named not after Nobel himself but after his bro Victor Hugo who, as the article states, "was the big moral writer of his time."

None of this sounds very Murakami, does it? Of course, you might be sitting there thinking that it doesn't sound very much like any of the other prize winners either. Beckett a lofty idealist? Really? It's obvious that the prize has moved on in terms of criteria. Maybe invoking the original principles behind the prize doesn't makes sense?

But in a way, it actually does makes sense. Even if they aren't lofty idealists, they have ideals. Even looking just at the Japanese authors who have won the prize, Kawabata Yasunari and Ōe Kenzaburō, particularly Ōe, you get the sense that they think that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and by the state of Denmark I mean everywhere. There is a keen feeling that the world is not as it should be. This sense exists in Murakami as well, at least in my reading, but the key difference lies in the reaction to this sense. Ōe writes things like Seventeen セブンティーン and A Personal Matter 個人的な体験 that seem to be honestly panic stricken over the state of things, and Kawabata sees something in love and sexuality (I'm thinking particuarly of "A Dancing Girl of Izu" 伊豆の踊子) in a way that actually reminds me a bit of Nagai Kafū.

As I've argued before, however, Murakami reacts into apathy. In much of Murakami, rebellion comes in the form in inaction. Though this inaction may have a philosophical or ideological backing, in the end it offers nothing beyond a personal solution, no particular wish that the world should be put in a different way.

You may be thinking, what about things like Kafka on the Shore?, which I usually describe to people as: Johnnie Walker, the whiskey icon, is building a flute out of the souls of cats which when played will end the world. A fifteen year old boy reenacts Oedipus (though Murakami denies it) and Colonel Sanders comes out of the woods and says to a mentally handicapped man who can talk to cats, "Come on. We're going to save Japan." Sounds like something's going on! He's trying to save the world.

But is that really what it's about? I haven't read the book since high school, but it seems to me that at its core its actually quite nihilistic. Doesn't it have a lot to do with getting beyond morality, in a Nietzschean sense? Maybe I'm remembering that wrong, but either way, hardly a lofty idealism.

Wait, what?

2010-10-06T18:02:00.002-05:00

When did this become a haiku blog??
A: probably when I decided to write my graduation thesis about haiku.

BUT!!

I do not only write about haiku. Sometimes I wear clothes also! (sometimes I do both)
A friend, a Tokyo-based Italian person (soon to be have a blog on Vogue JP??????) wrote about me in reference to wearing clothes: HERE HeRe hErE here

All six people who read this, go read her blog forever

ps hi alice

Ars Summa

2010-10-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

There's a lot to criticize in Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, but that doesn't change its influence on perceptions of Japan from the West, particularly America, and even within Japan herself.

I think I've found what can safely be said to be the truest words in the entire book:

Sleeping is another favored indulgence. It is one of the most accomplished arts of the Japanese. They sleep with complete relaxation, in any position, and under circumstances we regard as sheer impossibilites (180).

Now that's just cheating

2010-09-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

秋風や眼中のもの皆俳句虚子
akikaze ya ganchuu no mono mina haiku

The autumn wind--
Everything within my sight
Is haiku

Takahama Kyoshi
Now before you're all like "awwwww" or whatever, this is about how aware as in あはれ as in poignant as in depressing everything is. That's the whole "autumn wind" thing. If you remember this post, and if you buy the argument, the sabi that just drips out of haiku like this also carries with it a somewhat otherworldly air, and in reading this one gets the sense that Kyoshi is trying to convey an uneasy, dreamlike state that turns everything he sees into poetic expressions of melancholy.

So there

ya god damn hippies

Remember me as I lived

2010-09-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

[明治初期は]新しい自覚も批判もなく芭蕉はただ神の如くに尊崇されて居つたのである。

[In the early Meiji Period,] without new awareness or criticism, Bashō was simply revered as if he were a god.

久松潜一　『日本文学評論史：近代近世篇』

And the truth comes out

2010-09-21T18:14:00.000-05:00

誹諧とはうそを上手につく事なり
松尾芭蕉

Haikai is nothing but lying proficiently.
Matsuo Basho

Call and response

2010-09-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a nice little free-verse haiku from Ogiwara Seisensui that captures the feeling of eastern Indiana at this time of year fairly well.

かなかな鳴きつぐかなかななくてふと暮るる

kanakana naki tsuku kanakana nakute futo kururu

The cicadas, with no others to cry back, suddenly fade.

I almost want to put the futo kururu as 'fade as if on a whim,' but that's overtranslation for sure. Though Ogiwara is using a summer season word (kanakana, another word for cicada), the theme of the haiku places it as early autumn. This sort of playing fast and loose with season--and in some cases abandoning it all together--is something that Blyth never really deals with. I like it though. It may not perfectly capture the feeling of kanakana as a more traditional haiku might strive to do, but I think it evokes the melancholy of the end of summer and beginning of autumn quite well. Ogiwara seems to me actually to have a lot of verses that either 'misuse' or ignore season words but nonetheless capture a seasonal scene with remarkable vividness.

Here's another Seisensui, this time one that illustrates how I'm feeling about senior year.

すべてを焼いた人達に空が青いばかり

subete wo yaita hitotachi ni sora ga aoi bakari

To those who have burned everything, the sky is pure blue

(via wallowing in sadness)

YEEEAAAAAAH

2010-09-16T21:14:00.002-05:00

The first point of Shiki's 誹諧大要 Haikai taiyō, An Outline of Haikai, 1895:

一、俳句は文学の一部なり。文学は美術の一部なり。故に美の標準は文学の標準なり。文学の標準は俳句の標準なり。即ち絵書も彫刻も音楽も演劇も詩歌小説も皆同一の標準を以て論評し得べし。

"Haiku is a part of literature. Literature is a part of art. Therefore, the standards of beauty are the standards of literature. The standards of literature are the standards of haiku. That is to say, painting, sculpture, music, drama, poetry, and prose can and must be considered by the same standards."

Goodnight, Sweet Goose

2010-09-15T22:44:00.000-05:00

The other day I ran across what seems to me to be a really strange haiku from Issa. The styling is very much him, but the imagery strikes me as being a bit off. Blyth's translation and commentary.

今日からは日本の雁ぞ楽に寝

Kyō kara wa nihon no kari zo raku ni ne

From today onwards

You are geese of Japan;

Sleep in peace.

Issa loves his country because he loves it, the blind prejudice for the place one is born in, but in addition he loves it because it loves the wild gees and will not harm them. We love God,

'We love him because he first loved us.'

Or, as Dante says,

'Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona';

this is the love which Issa feels for that which loves, for to love is everything, to be loved is nothing.

Statements like this (along with the untranslated Italian. Wikiquote provides 'Love, that releases no beloved from loving') are what make Blyth so fascinating to me. He unpacks so much from so little and more often than not overreaches, but at the same time he phrases it in such a way that it can be quite convincing and somewhat difficult to argue with him. As I stated earlier, though the phrasing is very Issa, the way 'Japan' is treated is odd and I find it odd in turn that Blyth doesn't comment on that aspect of it. It's another one of those things that I hesitate to say anything about without doing more reading, but it would be interesting to see if there are any kokugaku scholars that say anything about it. At the time of Blyth's writing, there would still be a lot of kokubungaku texts widely available, but a quick scan of his works consulted doesn't show any. Something to think about and maybe come back to.

Anyway, it's preceded with a Buson that I really like, which I'll throw out there just for the hell of it. Again, the translation is Blyth's.

雁行きて門田の遠く思はるゝ

kari yukite kadota no tōku omowaruru

The wild gees having gone,

The rice-field before the house

Seems far away.

Why doesn't Blyth like Buson? He seems to see virtue in individual verses, but as a poet he doesn't think highly of him at all.

I like Buson. . .

This is my final form

2010-09-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

The following comes from 日本文学評論史：近代近世篇 Nihon bungaku hyōron shi: kindai kinsei hen, or A History of Japanese Literary Criticism: Modern and Contemporary Section, by HISAMATSU Sen'ichi.

閑寂もしくは「寂び」は中世の幽玄と大体同一の基調にたつものであるが、幽玄の意義は流動して居るに対して、「寂び」は幽玄の最後の完成であり、かつ本質・表現に細い分析が見られる。かくて閑寂は力とか花やかといふ外に現れようとする感情を内に抑制して内部に於て活かせるのであると思ふ。即ち表面から見ると消極的な沈んだ無力であるやうに見えて、力強い内部生命が躍動する境地であると思ふ。この閑寂や寂びの境地は必ずしも自然の上のみならず人間生活そのものの上にも現れるのであり、芭蕉の「寂び」は自然と人生とを通じて流れる所に特徴があると思ふが、自然に対する眺め方の上に見るならば、雄大と優美とに対して閑寂があると思ふ。

Quietude or "sabi" is in a basic sense very similar to the medieval yūgen in that "sabi" is in fact the consummation of yūgen, the meaning of which is constantly was flux, and as such, subtle distinctions can be made in their essence and expression. It is my opinion thereby that quietude expresses power and gaiety by restraining them and allowing them to thrive within. While the outer surface appears to be reseved, powerless, and passive, the inner life is vigorous and the mind vibrant. The mind of this quietude or sabi is certainly not manifest only with regards to nature, but can also be seen in human affairs themselves, and while I think that Bashō's "sabi" has characteristics that run through both nature and human affairs, if one examines his way of looking at nature, I believe that one can find both grandeur and elegance in quietude.

You can probably tell by its awkwardness that the translation is my own. If you aren't already familiar with the term, yūgen is an aesthetic concept that flourished in the medieval period which, Paul Varley describes as "mystery and depth." It has a bit to do with otherworldliness or even the occult as well. If you think of the atmosphere of a Nō stage then you aren't far off at all.

Sabi and yūgen are concepts that a lot of people are casually familiar with, and lord knows I'm no expert myself. I really find it interesting, though, that this Hisamatsu says that sabi, which was as he points out a favorite concept of Bashō's, was actually the final accomplishment or perfection of yūgen. That Bashō had a decidedly medieval aesthetic about him is no secret. But to argue that yūgen and sabi are actually two manifestations of the same aesthetic principle is an interesting claim. I'm in no position to refute it, and indeed in some ways inclined to believe it. If we do accept that sabi and yūgen are of the same essence, what becomes a bit dubious is the claim that this proto-aesthetic didn't move anywhere beyond sabi, that sabi is the omega of this line of thought. It would take a lot more thinking and an even greater amount of reading on my part to be able to come up with a response to that.

In any case, isn't that neat?

Get money. Ignore meter.

2010-09-07T16:30:00.002-05:00

While on the subject, here are a few more hypermetric haiku by The Notorious B.A.S.H.O. himself. Traditional haiku, of course, follow the 5, 7, 5 form, and the meters of the following are noted after the poems. The translations are Blyth's.

芭蕉野分して盥に雨をきく夜かな
Bashou nowaki shite / tarai ni ame wo / kiku yo kana
The banana-plant in the autumn storm,
Rain dripping in the tub,--
Listening that night.
{8, 7, 5}

櫓の聲波をうつて腸氷る夜や涙
Ro no koe nami wo utte / harawata kooru / yo ya namida
A bowel-freezing night;
The sound of the oar striking the wave,--
Tears.
{10, 7, 5}

つゝじいけて其蔭に干鱈さく女
Tutsuji ikete / sono kage ni hidara / saku onna
Behind a pot of azaleas,
A woman tearing up
Dried codfish.
{6, 8, 5}

Haiku generally don't break grammatically on the 5, 7, 5, in fact the ones that do are kind of rhythmically boring, but it's nonetheless rare to see ones that stray so far from it until after Shiki.

The interesting thing, though, is that once you do get into 自由律 jiyuuritsu so-called free verse haiku in the '20s, they actually become much shorter and pared down, and move away from any kind of pattern at all. A very extreme example is Ogiwara Seisensui's

影も目高
kage mo medaka
The shadows too,
Killifish.

This is notable as being one of only two jiyuuritsu haiku I've seen in Blyth's four-volume Haiku

Blyth's translations are generally very good, but the 'bowel-freezing night' one confuses me a bit. He has inverted the first two images for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. In haiku translation, there is generally a desire to preserve the order of images, on the theory that the succession builds meaning. This is not universally held and it would be beyond foolish to insist that there was one good way to translate haiku. It's just that because I find Blyth's translations to be on the whole quite good that I wonder why he made that choice.

いとくちをし da yo

2010-09-05T23:11:00.001-05:00

Sei Shonagon obviously had a blog like this. Why else would she write in the Pillow Book,

見すべきことありて、呼びにやりたる人の来ぬ、いとくちをし。

Which I liberally translate as "It's lame as hell when you have something cool to show, but no one comes when you call."

LAME
AS
HELL

リービ君、自分で決めなさい: Mr. Levy, decide for yourself

2010-09-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

A sempai of mine recently linked me to this talk by the scholar and Japanese-language novelist Ian/Hideo Levy. The first 3/4 or so I actually find quite interesting, long and awkward though the lecture may be. The degree of his sensitivity to the poetics of the Man'youshuu 万葉集, the oldest extant collection of classical Japanese poetry (though not the oldest imperially commissioned collection, which of course is the Kokinwakashuu 古今和歌集, and this leads to an interesting debate over which is more important) is both astounding and enviable, though I'm not sure that I'd like to invite him to a party.

Still, one of the most interesting sections for me is one in which he talks about the difficulty of pluralization when translating Japanese, or even when thinking about Japanese literature. Watch the video below, from where it starts to somewhere around the 14:00 mark. It's all queued up and a bit over four minutes.

While it may not be the most profound or even the most interesting--nor certainly the most awkward--part of Levy's talk, it reminds me of an anecdote.

Once in a class I took at Waseda University, we were discussing one of Basho's most famous haiku,

枯れ枝に烏のとまりけり秋の暮れ

kareeda ni karasu no tomarikeri aki no kure

which Keene translates as

On the withered branch

A crow has alighted--

Nightfall in autumn.

I've seen at least six or seven translations, and with the notable exception of SATO Hiroaki's rather awkward

On dead branches crows remain perched at autumn's end.

they all say explicitly 'a', that is, a single crow. Sato's translation seems to be crafted specifically to point out all the ways in which the Japanese is ambiguous and could be different than more common English translations, which also all seem to agree that aki no kure refers to an autumn evening rather than the end of autumn, which indeed it could potentially signify. In reality it probably means both. But that's beside the point.

The professor asked the class, which was about half native Japanese speakers and half foreign students with varying levels of Japanese proficiency, "How many crows are there?" The non-natives seemed never to have thought that there were more than one, but the Japanese students weren't sure. "Two, maybe three" was the common answer, but no one could articulate what kind of strange arithmetic they had used in their calculation.

In the end, there is no way of knowing definitively how many crows Basho imagined when he wrote the verse. Yet, he did write it, or a variant of it, on three paintings that we still have today. In two of them, a single crow is perched on the branch of a bare tree, as per the translations of Keene and others. One, however, looks like this:

in which I count seven in the tree and a full twenty more in the air. The poem on this painting is slightly different, reading とまりたるや tomaritaru ya instead of とまりけり tomarikeri, which both mean more or less the same thing. It's hypermetric either way.

So there's that.

So sayeth Blyth

2010-08-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

"Burns was a poet. By this we mean that above other men he saw the Life of life. He was also a poet in that he wrote poetry."

--R.H. Blyth

Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics p. 26

Haha right

2010-08-27T22:47:00.000-05:00

I'm back at school this semester and that means, Japanese Studies student that I am, I'm going to be doing a lot of required thinking about Japan again. And, especially considering that I have my graduation thesis to contend with, I figure, "Why not post that jibber-jabber on the interweb, like we used to do in the old times."

This means that essentially the last post, in which I said that I was just going to switch to tumblr (and post lots of pictures of robots) was a lie. Well, a half lie. I'm still going to throw a lot of pictures of robots onto tumblr. Like, a lot.

But I think that I'm also going to keep writing a thing or two about Japan and the like here. It will probably be mostly concerning my thesis research, meaning about haiku and their interpretation inside and outside of Japan, but if you bear with it, you just might learn somet-

Let's not kid ourselves. I just want graduate schools to see this.

Having left Japan

2010-07-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

Having left Japan, maintaining this blog really doesn't make much sense.

For a while it was in a quantum super-state in which it could collapse into either twitter or tumblr, and at last it has finally happened.

http://notsodasai.tumblr.com/

End

2010-07-26T02:50:00.001-05:00

脱亜論

Words to remember Japan by {part 5}

2010-07-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

"The first novel I read in Japanese was ノルウェイの森 [Norwegian Wood] and I didn't come across a single kanji that I didn't know, so of course I felt contempt for the author."
--Adrian Pinnington, professor of Japanese literature and intellectual history

Nerrrrd

2010-07-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

For one of my Japanese electives, I end up having to write a lot of poetry, mostly tanka. Recently, we've been doing selecting a topic each week, and at least one of the submitted poems has to be on said topic. A few weeks ago, the topic was space. Space, of course means Gundam. I don't think it actually turned out especially well, but here it is nonetheless

我が心重力井戸に巻き込みぬ輝いて去れ赤い彗星
(waga koroko / juuryoku-ido ni /makikominu / kagayaite sare / akai suisei)

I can't really translate it well as poetry, but it means something like, "My soul is bound up in the gravity-well; Shine and then fade away, oh Red Comet"

村上論: Addendum

2010-07-16T23:11:00.002-05:00

I hesitated to add this earlier because it's something that came out of class discussion and putting it up here seemed almost like cheating, but what the hell. The boku of South of the Border, West of the Sun's--who is incidentally named Hajime--ignoring of the student movements during his college years reminds me a bit of the situation around Nagai Kafu's writing of A Strange Tale from East of the River 濹東綺譚. Kafu wrote this novella in 1937. You don't have to know a lot about Japanese history to know that a lot of shit was going down in 1937, both at home and abroad. Riots, attempted coups, and that whole Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere thing. Yet, there isn't even a hint of that in the story, which is essentially about an old writer bro-ing out with a prostitute named Oyuki in the unlicensed prostitution district Tamanoi, east of the Sumida River. There is a whole lot going on in the story that would require it's own post to really explore, but by not mentioning the war or any other unpleasant disturbance other than the Great Kanto Earthquake which happened in 1923 Kafu makes a powerful aesthetic statement about what is ultimately important. The more Kafu I read, the more convinced I become that aesthetic was the absolute most important thing to him not only in his writing but also in his private life.

The kaisetu at the back (解説 kaisetsu is a sort of explanatory commentary that's put at the end of a lot of reprinted novels by famous authors) is written by a guy named 秋庭太郎, which I think is read Akiba Taro, points out that his works written after the war are much more decadent, much less acute, and again, don't deal with the war at all. Clearly the war took a lot out of him. To his credit, he was one of the very few Japanese writers that didn't colab or put out any mix-tapes with the government during the war. Tanizaki is the other big name that comes to mind. To be fair, though, both Kafu and Tanizaki were rich enough by the time of the war that they didn't have to write to support themselves. One of the biggest black spots on the entire field of Japanese Literature is the fact that virtually every author who wished to keep writing through the war collaborated in at least some way. Kurosawa Akira, though a director and not a writer, was asked once in an interview what he did during the war. His response was something like, "I did shit. Don't ask me that. I did everything to make sure I could direct movies after the war."

Some writers were obviously conscious of the fact that this sort of cooperation was kind of unchill, and Edogawa Rampo, for example, published everything he wrote to support--what was it--government sponsored youth groups(?) under a different pen name. The writer Hayashi Fumiko is infamous for being on a government sponsored survey of China during the war as a sort of journalist, and in this capacity she was the first Japanese woman to enter Nanjing after the "incident" as it is called in Japanese. Despite the absolutely grotesque scenes she must have been witness too, she wrote nothing of them. Here again silence is extremely powerful, though in a very different and much darker way.

According to the kaisetsu, Kafu did in fact continue writing through the war without publishing anything, and when the whole affair was over everything he had written was published in rapid succession, creating a sort of "Kafu Boom" even though, as mentioned earlier, he obviously started running out of steam. Anyway, this sort of got away from me, but I think what I'm getting at is that especially in Japanese literature, the decision to write or not to write about something is often just as if not more powerful than what is actually written about it.

村上論

2010-07-14T09:40:00.004-05:00

Because I'm a Japanese Studies major with a literature (!) focus, when I talk about my major to others, particularly people my age, Murakami Haruki is one of the few topics on which we can relate given his popularity amongst The Youth in both Japan and America. I myself, when in high school, liked Murakami a lot and read most of what was available in English. These are just one or two thoughts I've been kicking around recently. A word of caution: for the most part, I'm writing from memory about novels that I haven't read since high school.

Before I start, I should clarify: I still like Murakami. Don't misunderstand me. But the more of him I read--particularly in Japanese--the more valid I see the criticisms of him as being, and it weighs upon me more and more that most of what there is in his works he didn't put there. That is, he writes scenes and configurations of characters that look like they ought to be very meaningful or symbolic, but that's because they're meant to. When Murakami is cobbling together his own brand of magical realism, it seems as if even he doesn't quite know what it is he's getting at. This statement may seem a bit provocative, but he's more or less said as much himself in interviews. One particular example that comes to mind is the reoccurring motif in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle of crawling down or falling into wells. The main character--who's name now escapes me--makes something of a habit of it. Some people read this as a kind of infantilization, a returning to the whom and subsequent rebirth, which given the context of the novel, seems to make some sense though it's difficult to say. In a way, reading it that way simply resonates. However, there are also a not insignificant number of people who read it as Freudian anal regression, which though quite clever rings a bit false. The fact of the matter, though, is that the textual evidence for either is a bit on the weak side, though you could make decent cases if you set your mind to it.

In my opinion, what is of more value that any symbolism that may be found, or even than his love-loss themes--which have always struck me as a bit ham-fisted--is the feeling of resigned apathy that he conveys so well. It is difficult to describe in so few words, but it isn't a negative apathy, like a melancholy paralysis, nor could it be called a positive apathy, which would be more or less a contradiction in terms. Calling it disillusionment doesn't seem quite right either. Rather, his narratives flow in subdued turns and in the end are more affected by the individual characters' mindsets rather than their actions. This, to my mind, is what makes his novels successful or unsuccessful.

By these standards, my favorites are often not the most popular. Take, for example, Norwegian Wood ノルウェイの森, wildly popular in both Japan and America and in many respects responsible for his current level of fame. It has many compelling aspects, many of which are themes throughout his works. These are themes such a sexual awakening, loss, and apathy towards the student movement that forms the backdrop for the young adulthood of many of his protagonists. Indeed, the various movements of the 1960s and what they did or did not accomplish is quite a prevalent theme in Japanese popular media produced by people of a certain age. the movie version of "Akira," for example--much less the original comic--has a lot to do with the writer's disillusionment with the Communist movement of his youth. However, the focus of Norwegian Wood is a love story that, while sad enough, is a bit uninteresting to me. It isn't that it's not well done, but that one get's the feeling that one's read it before. I agree with Murakami scholar (!?) Jay Rubin that it's more than just a love story. I just don't like it that much.

What I consider to be a much better Murakami romance, and what might indeed be my favorite Murakami novel, is Sputnik Sweetheart スプートニクの恋人. I won't gloss the plot--that's what Wikipedia is for--but one one the aspects of the novel that I find very appealing is that it's difficult to decide who the main character is: Sumire, or "K," the narrator. In most Murakami, the protagonist is simply the narrating boku, but in Sputnik Sweetheart, the narrator is so weak and non-committal that he seems to almost be a non-character. He is in love with Sumire who is in turn in love of the older woman Miu, meaning that on several levels romance between "K" and Sumire cannot even begin. This does not, however, send "K" into a depression or throw him into sexual confusion as it might a character in a novel by any other writer--or a real person. Indeed, it seems to be one of the things that keeps him attracted to Sumire, and when she "disappears," it affects Miu much more than "K." The emotions it evokes in both him and the reader are much more subtle than that. Of course, I'm not talking about your friend and mine mono-no-aware. Even bringing that up may seem silly, but I've seen it done, believe you me. It seems like when talking about Japanese novels people like to throw out whatever Japanese terms they may know, and most English majors who dabble in Japanese literature seem to have picked this one up. The apathy revealed here is more like taking no action because no action seems necessary, or that not doing simply seems more correct--I hesitate to say more beautiful, though it might be appropriate--than doing. Perhaps Beckett's "nothing to be done" captures it most succinctly, but even that seems off. Again it's difficult for me to put into words, but that is what makes me like it in Murakami so much.

Another good example comes from South of the Border, West of the Sun 国境の南、太陽の西. This one I've never actually read in English, but I've read it recently in Japanese so it's somewhat fresher in my mind. Two things strike me. First, this boku's love interest is a woman named Shimamoto--I don't believe a first name is ever given--and throughout the novel she serves less as a character in herself than as a representation of the main character's preoccupation with the past and the difficulty of moving on. This preoccupation, however, has at its root the fact that when they first knew each other during childhood, they were the closest thing eight-year-olds can be to in love with each other, but nothing ever came of it, and are only reconnected later when there is nothing left to do but think endlessly of "what ifs." That is, the whole point is that they didn't do anything, now they can't do anything, and what that means and the feelings it evokes. As for the protagonist himself, one of his most striking features is how little actually happens in his life before he reaches middle age. This boku too is in college during the days of the students movement and participates in a rally here or there, but more than anything else, rather than reacting for or against it, he ignores it. Indeed, he spends the majority of his twenties, called "the prime of one's life" to the point of facetiousness, doing almost nothing. He spends most of that decade of his life in a trance-like haze, and years are glossed over in a matter of pages. The degree of inaction is, again, almost Beckett-worthy.

Reading a recent article on "The New York Review of Books" website (I don't think that it will appear in the print edition) by Tony Judt, about Czeslaw Milosz's The Captive Minds--which I will confess I have not read--and his experience teaching it, I got to thinking. Even though Japan and Eastern Europe under the Soviets are very different in so very many different ways, through reading the article it nonetheless struck me that in reading Murakami today, it is difficult for just how big a statement and how important his and his characters' apathy was to come across to the reader. Judt writes the following, and when I read it, I think a few things fell into place. I'll give the quote, then leave it at that.

But I began to notice that whereas the novels of Kundera and Andric’, or the memoirs of Kovaly or Yevgenia Ginsburg, remain accessible to American students notwithstanding the alien material, The Captive Mind often encountered incomprehension. Milosz takes for granted his readers’ intuitive grasp of the believer’s state of mind: the man or woman who has identified with History and enthusiastically aligned themselves with a system that denies them freedom of expression. In 1951 he could reasonably assume that this phenomenon—whether associated with communism, fascism, or indeed any other form of political repression—would be familiar.

And indeed, when I first taught the book in the 1970s, I spent most of my time explaining to would-be radical students just why a “captive mind” was not a good thing. Thirty years on, my young audience is simply mystified: why would someone sell his soul to any idea, much less a repressive one? By the turn of the twenty-first century, few of my North American students had ever met a Marxist. A self-abnegating commitment to a secular faith was beyond their imaginative reach. When I started out my challenge was to explain why people became disillusioned with Marxism; today, the insuperable hurdle one faces is explaining the illusion itself.

Contemporary students do not see the point of the book: the whole exercise seems futile. Repression, suffering, irony, and even religious belief: these they can grasp. But ideological self-delusion?

[EDIT 6/17: Proofreading (why were there so many commas?) and addendum. Addendum?]

Addendum

Words to remember Japan by {part 4}

2010-07-11T05:28:00.000-05:00

"ミキ先輩：最近、彼女できたんですよ。"
"薫大：へえ、写真あるの？見せて。"
"ミキ先輩：あっ、今日DS持ってないんだ。"
"薫大：ラブプラスか、、、"

Summer in the city

2010-07-10T00:09:00.000-05:00

Japan in summer has a smell about it. Maybe smell is too strong a word. Fragrance isn't quite it either; it's entirely too suggestive. Scent, then? Perhaps it's best to just say that through the nose you become aware of a certain density in the air, and buildings and hills recede into the distance and a heat thick with the sound of insects settles just above the concrete.

In a small way it reminds me of summer in the mid-west, where red brick buildings with crumbling mortar have a way of just setting, there on the corner.

You get used to it, in the end--kind of like Stockholm syndrome--and the rain that falls less often than predicted helps to cool the air, but until that release. . .

The first two times I came to Japan were in the summer. The experience was bit like the study of Venus from the Earth. It seems so lovely from all those miles away, and if all you have is a brass-and-mirror telescope you wouldn't think it at all odd that the softly shaded sphere was named after Aphrodite, while in reality there is no other place in the solar system that is a better approximation of the Christian vision of hell.

In Japan, there is a tradition of telling ghost stories in the summer. It's supposed to give you chills: cool you down. This has always struck me as a bit odd, but more than anything else that's probably because of my growing up Anglophone, where horror is associated so strongly with fall and winter--the cold. I was reminded of the existence Japanese horror by this article. Has it really been ten years since Ju-On (The Grudge to you, sir) hit screens? Man. Remember when Japanese horror movies were, like, a thing? Before people realized that, at least on a thematic level, they're basically all the same?

But I digress.

I've realized that I actually have a practice that falls along somewhat the same lines as the Japanese summer-horror axis. During the summer, I tend to listen to a lot of black and doom metal. This is as true for me in America as it is in Japan. It just seems to fit the atmosphere, the oppressive heat, in ways that are difficult to express. I don't know if it makes me feel physically cooler or not, but summer is the time for spooky music.

Summer is also the time when blogs, regardless of content, put out mix-tapes because, well, all the cool kids are doing it. I kind of want to be cool too so without further ado, have a gander at

Ross Henderson's Not So Dasai 'It's Summer Yeaaaaaah' Mix-tape

with all the face-melting tunes you need to keep your cool in the face-melting heat.
1. Huge - Boris
2. Southenders - Teen Cthulhu
3. The Rite of Infernal Invocation - Gorgoroth
4. Jesu død - Burzum
5. Tibetan Quaaludes - Earth
6. Speed of Blood - Gallhammer
7. 앞풀이 - 폐허
8. Bedouin's Vigil - OM
9. Sweetheart - Zeni Geva
10. Ea, Lord Of The Depths - Burzum
11. They Will Surface - Hyatari
Download: mediafire

Like I said earlier, it's mostly black and doom metal, so if that isn't your cup of tea--which would be the case for most people--then it's probably best not to even bother with it. Otherwise, have at it.

Words to remember Japan by {parts 2 and 3}

2010-06-30T05:41:00.000-05:00

"It must be hard to be a chair"
--Sakakibara Richi, professor of Japanese Literature

"中国ね、、、"
--Shinozaki Asako, host-mother

Jet Rock n Roll

2010-06-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

There is one band that is Best for Japan in summer and it is Guitar Wolf

Words to remember Japan by {part 1}

2010-06-23T07:48:00.001-05:00

" I can't relate to dubstep in Tokyo "

--Robert Edward Florance

Aokigahara

2010-06-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

more words that I DID NOT WRITE.
This is a poem by Richard Lawson that I found at The Awl, HERE: Wiki

The pictures are mine though

Wiki

Too late at night, when I should have been sleeping,
I stumbled upon the suicide woods of Mt. Fuji,
the dark and quiet Aokigahara,
a place they once thought goblins lived.
Where they find dozens of lonely bodies
every year,
crumpled under signs reading
"Please call the police before you decide to end your life!"
"Please reconsider."
Please don't do this, unknown people yell,
trying to fight the hush of the woods,
the watchful white cone of the mountain
pointing a cold path to the sky.

Aokigahara, as seen from Mt. Fuji

There are other places like this,
chalk cliffs in England,
a twined metal bridge hanging over the Bosphorus,
the Golden Gate and Niagara Falls.
But those are places where we can disappear
into gravity,
throw ourselves out without implement,
without pill or sharp edge or loud booming fire.

In those woods, though, you are rooted and heavy.
I could not find any mention of how they actually do it,
as if they all just stood motionless for a moment
and let the trees and brown forest mat
slowly empty them out.
Maybe the stillness eventually stops their hearts,
a rare wind steals their breath,
and they simply fade and collapse,
the black bead of their pain
dislodging, rolling free.
They do not wash away,
they do not sink into nothing.
They stay.

Small town on the edge of the forest

That there is a forest like this,
a suicide woods,
is that strange kind of sadness
that tires your insides,
puts you to bed glad that
despite the rigor and boredom,
confusion and ache,
there are still faraway places
to which you would never travel.
Because they are cursed,
because they have been given too much
already.

They say that under the dirt
there are deposits of iron
that make compasses twirl.
They think that some people who die there
simply get lost.
They intended to walk back out,
to get in their cars,
to feel once again the tin hum in their bones
of Tokyo breathing.
But the woods held them back,
sent them in circles.

As I went to sleep, I imagined a few rueful ghosts
watching these turned-around people,
trying to guide them out with feathery hands.
Please, reconsider. Don't go that way.
That is where they found me months later,
curled up and silent,
buried in snow.

Girlbands

2010-06-10T07:31:00.000-05:00

So there's this Japanese cartoon show currently airing that seems to be pretty popular amongst a certain set (like my host brother). It's called "K-On," and it's about a group of Japanese high school girls who have a band!!. It has no plot but not in a good way.

After a quick google image search, I think that this might be the most representative image -->
(from a TOTALLY NON-AFFILIATED WEBSITE CALLED therossman.com)

But that's not really important. What's important is that the music is awful. Or worse than awful: it's mind-numbingly generic.

You might argue that the show could inspires girls to get into the male-dominated field of rock music, but besides the fact that the music that it promulgates is, frankly, bad, I have strong doubts said young girls are actually the target audience.

The thing is, though, Japan is actually pretty good as far as girls in the music biz goes! As in there as some fairly prominent and {really good} all-girl bands out there doing their all-girl band thing.

So, without further ado, here are

Three All-Girl Bands Way Better Than That Stupid Show Christ

1. Afrirampo
A duo from Osaka! They've had collaborations with the likes of Acid Mothers Temple (awesome in its own rite) and I think went to Africa for a while to be more awesome. LIKE SO

2. OOIOO
Pronounced "oh oh eye oh oh" (maybe?) this is the band of the (former?) drummer for the wicked-cool band Boredoms, Yoshimi P-we. The Flaming Lips song 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' is actually totally and really about her! supposedly. OOIOO is kind of hard to pin down stylistically BUT WHATEVER 'CUZ:

3. Gallhammer
Vicious all-girl black metal/crust punk. You might recall I saw them live back in December. Not really famous I guess, but what ever. How can you argue with

more like LAME-on

Things you should read instead of this

2010-06-07T23:28:00.000-05:00

Other people have blogs too and occasionally post on them.

Two recent things of note:

What We Read When We Don't Read The Internet PRESENTS! How Sei Shonagon Invented Your Tumblr

If you don't already read Sady Doyle either at her own Tiger Beatdown (where the above was posted) or in her intermittent submissions to The Awl, well, get on it. The above is basically what it says. Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but I don't think that Sady has any specialty or training in classical Japanese literature, but she's still basically spot on!!(!) So read it and then keep reading Tiger Beatdown because!!!

A Vicious Spiral: Enchanted Commodities and Cultural Narcissism in Junji Ito's Uzumaki

My broheem and compatriot Michael just threw a paper he wrote a few years ago up on his blog. Again, like Sady, Michael is an {ENGLISH} major, but knows his stuff and hits the marks and &c. Well worth all of your ungrateful attentions if you read horror comics or even if not because it's cool and informative and other adjectives as well and HOORAY MICHAEL

Anabasis

2010-06-06T22:03:00.001-05:00

Every day, I make the trek {A STAR TREK!!!???} into the Tokyo Metropolis (which is the actual real official translation of 東京都 Tōkyō-to. real talk.) from my lair-den in Kawaguchi city, Saitama prefecture (if those words sound like the incoherent ravings of a half mad vagrant, look at posts tagged '（ﾟ∀ﾟ）＜　さいたまさいたまさいたま！' to see just what the heck is up!).

My commute isn't that long compared to some, but it's pretty substantial! I transfer three times and go through not a small number of stops. To be perfectly honest, I haven't gotten off at every single one, but I can say that every station has a different feel. In the vein of the only post that anyone has ever read on this blog, I present a photo-descriptive journey from my home-stay to Waseda University.

Last time, as you may recall, I used screenshots from 'The Simpsons'. My artistic focus has shifted a bit. Photography is still out, of course. For this project my choice instruments of creative expression are screenshots from Go Nagai's classic 'Mazinger Z.' Subtitles from a Hong Kong translation are still affixed. As before, some references might be a bit obtuse or obscure, but if you bear with it I think you'll really get a taste of my daily life.

And!

Warabi 蕨

Keihin-Tohoku Line 京浜東北線

Nishi-Kawaguchi　西川口

Kawaguchi 川口

Akabane 赤羽

Saikyo Line 埼京線

Jujo 十条

Itabashi 板橋

Ikebukuro 池袋

Yamanote Line 山手線

Mejiro 目白

Takadanobaba 高田馬場

Tokyo Metro Tozai Line 東京メトロ東西線

Waseda 早稲田

MoMA retrospective here I come

True Crime

2010-05-31T03:37:00.000-05:00

So this is, like, old. Kind of.

But I was going through Kate Beaton's archives and found this comic.

I'm putting it here because it could totally happen in Japan.

Japanese guys have a tendency to carry some pretty feminine bags. Like borderline purses. Or actual purses.

it is not a man's purse

Kissing the Mask

2010-05-24T17:00:00.001-05:00

As you might have inferred, I'm boring enough to read The New York Review of Books. In the May 27 issue there appears an interesting review of the new William Vollmann book, viscously if confusingly titled Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, Kabuki Goddesses, Porn Queens, Poets, Housewives, Makeup Artists, Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines, which I have not read. I have read the review, though (it's up on the NYR site).

I think I might pick up the book sometime. It looks as if it's written from a very different point of view on Japan than you are encouraged to take in academics, and certainly from the one prominent in the broader culture. Vollmann's peculiar observations place him somewhere between writers with aesthetic romance like (though perhaps not to the extent of) the strange Greco-Irishman Lafcadio Hearn a.k.a. KOIZUMI Yakumo and those with a romance of grime like Tokyo Damage Report's Steven Shultz.

As the NYR piece implies, now days we are more often than not charged with the task of demystifying Japan, whether it be court romance or modern pop-culture. In other words, taking the exact opposite of Vollmann's view: de-romanticizing Japan.

This shouldn't sound like anything unfamiliar. Doing anything else would be to commit the supreme crime of essentialization and opens up channels of criticism like subtle, perhaps even subconscious neo-colonialism.

Vollmann quotes Ivan Morris saying something about wanting to do away with false exoticism, and says that he could not disagree more. This is interesting to me not because--or at least not entirely because--of this position, but rather because of Morris's life.

Ivan Morris was born in England but grew up in America, attending both Andover and Harvard. Though he was an American by socialization, he wanted desperately to be seen as an Englishman (LIKE SOMEONE ELSE I KNOW), or even beyond that, to cultivate a continental air. He was friends with Mishima and all which that entails, even going so far as to write a book intended to explain the extraordinary nature of the author's death to Western readers. (This is quite different from one of Mishama's other American friends and early translators, John Nathan, who, after a while, seemed to pick up on the fact that in a lot of ways, Mishima was kind of crazy and distanced himself from the author.) Eventually, Morris married an Italian countess and when he died--of cancer, according to Wikipedia--in 1976, there was wild speculation that he had in fact been poisoned by his wife, whose personal finances did not match her pedigree.

In short, if Ivan Morris attempted to demystify or de-romanticize Japan, he sought just the opposite in his own life. One might even go so far to say (and if this sounds like a wild, unfounded statement, that's because it is) that the reason he was so keen on doing this was to realize his own image of the model scholar, to cultivate his personal aesthetic.

ALL IS VANITY

For those who did not get it

2010-05-24T04:02:00.001-05:00

One of the most famous lines in classical Japanese runs something like this:

春はあけぼの。やうやう白くなりゆく山ぎは、すこし明かりて、紫だちたる雲のほそくたなびきたる。

This is the first little bite of 清少納言 SEI Shonagon's 『枕草子』 The Pillow Book, written sometime around the year 1001. This chunk is given in Australian National University professor Meredith McKinney's 2006 Penguin Classics translation as

In spring, the dawn - when the slowly paling mountain rim is tinged with red, and wisps of faintly crimson-purple cloud float in the sky. (3)

Phonetically, the very beginning goes "haru wa akebono". It's probably my own peculiarity, but when I hear akebono, the first thing I think of isn't the ephemeral beauty of daybreak in spring, but rather a big, fat, sweaty Hawaiian man.

On a tangentially related note, is there some sort of arcane connection between ANU and Penguin? The most recent complete English translation of The Tale of Genji was also done by a (former) ANU professor, one Royall Tyler, and published by Penguin Classics.

witchcraft afoot

春は、、、

2010-05-17T07:59:00.000-05:00

getitgetitgetitgetit

Shameless repost

2010-05-10T05:14:00.000-05:00

I really hate to repost things from blogs that aren't written by Paul Krugman, but this is too baller not to.

Japanese steamship travel posters from late Meiji and Taisho via Pink Tentacle

The rest here:
Japanese steamship travel posters

Two bands that I saw

2010-05-08T22:39:00.002-05:00

BUILDING (名古屋)

The photos can't capture how unfathomable this guy's full-body multi-layer sequin suit was.

MELT-BANANA

Preface

One Party System

2010-04-24T20:28:00.003-05:00

So I kind of have a fetish for Japanese political campaign posters. I don't know why. Maybe it's because they're so straight forward. Here's our candidate. Ain't he (or on rare occasions she) look electable? Why bother confusing the voter with issues? Maybe a handy slogan or two, but nothing more. The applicability of this rule is directly proportional to how main-stream your party is.

Note that this isn't a good representation of the actual distribution of posters by party. It's mostly ones that seem interesting (read: CPJ and SDJP) and what's around my neighborhood (read: CPJ).

First a stand-alone. I haven't seen this anywhere but my own little neighborhood, but to be fair I'm not looking that hard.

You read that right (if you can read it). Josei-to, Women's Party {GIRL PARTY!?}. Clearly not mainstream because they have politics on their political poster, they line up their agenda so:

1. Balance in government!
   Let's have a few more female Diet members
2. Diet members get too much
   We must problematize the disconnect with the public in the Diet member's fiscal sense
3. Make economic recovery priority number one!
   So that those who want to work are able to

You may look at this and think, 'Except for that first one, I really don't see what makes this the Women's Party.' But you see, what makes it truly and essentially so is, as it says in the top right corner, that they're doing it for the children. Plus the poster is hot pink.

Then there's the Komei-to, which is more or less the political wing of Soka Gakkai, which is kind of a Buddhist organization, and kind of also a cult. They look pretty normal though!

That last one is a two-fer, which transitions us into you're favorite and mine, well, my favorite, Kyosan-to, the CPJ: Communist Party of Japan. Now let me qualify this by saying that I AM NOT NOW NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY. Especially not the Japanese Communist Party. But the CPJ isn't really Communist. They're mostly just pro-labor and anti-military. Which I can dig! The one the left above, for example, is about protecting Article Nine, the part of the Japanese constitution that basically disallows Japan the right to wage aggressive war. It says 'We won't let ourselves become a country that engages foreign wars.' Keen!

That last set of two is a poster for Akahata, or Red Flag, the Communist newspaper, and a poster advocating free health care for children. The one in the middle in the very top picture says that we must stop this health care system that discriminates against the elderly. Baller. I think this is what I really like about CPJ. They actually get these issues out there and on the sides of buildings, whereas Komei-to says things like 'Japan to the front. Reformation to the front.' To which you say 'Oh.'

Moving on, Shamin-to, the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ), which is what the Socialist Party is called now.

Peace, job security, etc. Basically what I gather from these posters is that in Japan, Socialism is Communism for girls. I'm not going to lie though. I like the top poster. Its pastel colors capture how I feel about socialism fairly accurately.

And the big boys.

Jimin-to, the LDP. They held power from something like 1953[???] until literally last year. They're neither liberal nor democratic, {BUT THEY SURE ARE A PARTY} and their posters are kind of boring so I only have a few shots. I kind of like these two, though. The top one is the LDP's logo, which has the appeal of looking like it was drawn by a six-year-old. The bottom just has the candidates name spelled out phonetically, like the alpha male he clearly is.

AND

DPJ, Democratic Party of Japan, featuring Yukio Hatoyama, current Grand Poobah [I just high-fived anyone who realized HOW MUCH SENSE THAT MAKES because it is a reference to 'The Mikado' ]. The top one, which is from Okayama, is unequivocally the best. It proclaims 'the power of youth' and informs you that the candidate is -only- thirty-seven. Plus, it is actually two posters to accommodate his commanding and majestic fist. Clearly he is a born winner and deserves my trust and confidence.

BONUS ROUND

Kofuku Jitsugen-to, the Happiness Realization Party (which sounds like a college house party that would be really cool).

It's the political arm of the Kofuku Kagaku or Happy Science movement. It's sort of like Japan's answer to Scientology, in that it is cultish and doesn't make sense. The posters don't say anything profound (the bottom one just says 'protect the future' which is about the safest thing you could ever say in any situation) but what appeals to me about the middle one is that it utilizes the current star power of Sakamoto Ryoma. Sakamoto was a Meiji-era politician etc. and all-around coolguy. BUT the point is that he is the subject of an extremely popular drama currently airing on TV. And that is why he has anything to do with Happy Science.

So here are these. I think they're fun. Some areas have heavier saturations of certain parties, like CPJ and Komei-to in my neighborhood, but in the end all the parties seem to coexist in relative peace, at least at the poster level. OBSERVE:

The wall above has posters from the LDP, CPJ, SDPJ, Komei-to, and even a couple of ads cleverly disguised to look like campaign posters. Neat.

And, of course, in conclusion,

Japanese Politics, 1945-1992

2010-04-23T20:18:00.001-05:00

Warnings and Admonitions

2010-04-13T06:58:00.006-05:00

From Okayama, two warnings about fire:

From Sogenji:

From the Arakawa:

From Waseda:

Warning:Cult Groups and Multilevel Marketing Systems Operating on Campus

There have been many reports recently of Waseda University students being targeted by cult groups and multilevel marketing systems (network businesses, MLMs, etc.) that pretend to have a genuine Waseda connection even though they do not.
The cult groups are often difficult to distinguish at first glance from regular circles and student groups. They invite students to join them as if they were a normal students' circle or group. In some cases, they ask in a friendly manner where such-and-such a place is and if the student could show them the way. Then they ask for the student’s telephone number or email address, and later try to hassle the student into joining their cult organization. The area around the Shigenobu Okuma Statue and Okuma Auditorium are a particularly common place for such incidents to occur. Students joining these cult organizations often find themselves being mind-controlled by subtle tricks and subsequently find themselves in a very difficult situation, unable to enjoy an ordinary and healthy student life.
In the case of invitations to join a multilevel marketing system, the organizers first chat in a friendly manner about general topics. When they think you are feeling comfortable with them, they try to lure you into their business with persuasive arguments. Once involved, students often find themselves suffering extensive economic and social damage, losing not only large amounts of money but also the valuable friendship of those they invited to join them.
Some people think that this is nothing to do with them, or that they would never fall for such tricks, but it is all too easy to become a victim of such schemes. At least be aware that there has been a rise in the number of such incidents, and if you are approached by strangers in and around campus, please deal the situation carefully. Above all, be careful about divulging your private information to others.
In the event of becoming involved in such a situation, DO NOT try to solve it by yourself. Ask for advice from your parents or your friends, and feel free at any time to contact the offices listed below.

[redacted]

だそうです。

[EDIT 4/24] more

So I went to a temple

2010-04-12T00:24:00.003-05:00

Here is something I wrote because I had to. It's more or less stream of consciousness (because I kind of think in poorly organized paragraphs) and isn't proofread.

It's just copied-pasted, which saves me the time and effort of writing anything original. Maybe later I will post some pictures.

so.
Have fun

For my month of practicum I chose a month of practice. That is to say, my practicum was Sogenji, the monastery. Before summarizing, reflecting, philosophizing, or utilizing any of the various other forms of sophistry available to me on any sort of religious experience, I think that it would be best to at the very least gloss my own religious background and upbringing. In my childhood, there were two closely related but nonetheless separate branches of religious indoctrination: domestic and institutional.

Perhaps indoctrination is not the proper word. Indeed, I’m sure that it’s not. ‘Exposure’ would be much more apt, as will surely be clear by the end of this short auto-religio-biography. As far as Church with a capital ‘C’ is concerned, I was raised in the Unitarian Universalist faith, which is, in essence, institutionalized agnosticism. Not in the Baha’i sense that there is a God or higher presence with many paths leading to its realization, but rather that anyone has every right to believe whatever they feel is correct, provided it falls within the precepts of the Church, which in truth find closer analog in the Hippocratic Oath than any religious dogma.

At home we were not particularly involved with the church in a transcendent sense, treating it more as a social club. The majority of the congregation seemed to view it this way, with the aging spiritualist—who were quite certain that they believed something but were not exactly sure what—forming a small but firm and affable contingent. Within the home, my father might well have in his younger days found himself amongst this crowd, having attended a private East-coast university during the late 1960s, where I have been lead to believe this sort of thing was in vogue. What remained of this in my own younger days was a sizable collection of books regarding Eastern religion and philosophy. Indeed, because of this collection, my first exposures to Zen came, as for many Americans of my father’s generation, from the writings of those such as Alan Watts and R.H. Blyth. It is with this upbringing and the mindset resulting from it that I entered my month of training at the Sogenji Rinzai-sect Zen monastery in Okayama.

I should also confess that I had decided to take the monastery as my practicum almost as soon as I heard that it was an option. The idea of monasticism, of removing oneself from the world with eyes set towards the attainment of something higher, be it Buddhist or Christian truth, has always held a certain romance for me. The temple also had the mystique of being advertised as a ‘life changing experience.’ Reflections from previous students referred to it as such, as did one temple alumnus from my own college. I had never had a life changing experience. I wanted one. Really, whether or not an experience is ‘life changing’ cannot be judged until years down the road, and going into the temple with such expectations almost guarantees muted results. What both this and what I had previously read mean is that I did not go to the temple as an empty vessel. Arguably, I went too full. My mind was primed to scrutinize everything, to either confirm or deny what I already thought to be true.

But, coming with that, I was able to make some good observations, and noticed some things about Zen that I hadn’t before. For example, it struck me heavily how thoroughly Chinese the practice of Zen is. Not only was the root school, as were all major sects, founded in China, but many of the physical trappings also bear touches of a more continental aesthetic than one might find in more modern or natively Japanese sects. Further, in one of the collections of writings of Harada Roshi, the abbot of Sogenji, I found a passage in which he speaks of the importance of aligning the body during meditation. For, if the body is aligned, naturally one will one to put the mind in line as well, and once both body and mind are held together in some linear fashion, it is only natural that one will want to align the whole universe. Thus all things come to be in their proper order. This, to me, seems to carry a strong flavor of Confucianism.

I learned a lot at the temple. That is to say, I acquired a lot of knowledge. A lot about the history of Zen, particularly Zen in America, and also quite a bit about Zen’s more ancient, more thoroughly Chinese past. I read a lot. I spent most of my free time reading. Yet, while to the eager student this might seem noble, it was this very pursuit of information that was my greatest obstacle. For at least the first two weeks, I spent my time filling my mind rather than emptying it. It was only after these first weeks that my mind began to settle. It was at this point that I finally began to let go

You have to, really. With such a daily regimen as strict as the one we followed, getting up at half past three in the morning, working for hours a day, sitting for even longer, by not letting go of yourself, you only push against the rhythm and flow of the temple. It doesn’t create friction, exactly, but until you give at least part of yourself over to the temple, nothing quite takes. I’ve always, for the most part, had a clear self-image. A strong sense of self. And, for the most part, I’ve always seen this as a good thing. I’ve never had any of those personal crises of image that seem to afflict impressionable youth, never felt lost in my own body, and I’ve always been fairly certain of who I am. At the temple, the goal is to erode that certainty in the constructed self to realize the true self-nature, which, according to the poem we would chant each night before the evening session of zazen, is in fact no-nature.

When you enter the temple normally, you’re asked for a commitment of at least a year. As one monk explained it to me, the reason isn’t only to demonstrate sufficient dedication, but because your mind is like a block of clay, and the Roshi needs time to kneed and soften it before he can begin to mold it. Conceptually, this sounds a bit like basic training in the army: they break you down so they can build you up. Where as Soto Zen, the school most common in America, is likened to a parent and child, each helping the other compassionately towards enlightenment. Rinzai Zen, the school more common in Japan and ubiquitous in China, and the school of Sogenji, is called the General’s style, to perhaps the comparison to training for the armed forces isn’t altogether inappropriate, as counterintuitive as it may seem at first blush

It’s been now a few weeks since leaving the temple to come back to Tokyo. I’ve thought back on my time there, and one overriding question persists: What can I have accomplished in just one month? This is a question that dogged me while still at the monastery as well. One month of sitting zazen for hours a day may seem like something substantial, but nearly everyone I talked to at the temple said that zazen takes about a year of practice before you’re form is correct. An additional two is required for it to really take affect. Only after ten years can you claim any significant progress. In Mahayana Buddhism, under whose umbrella Zen falls, the purpose is practice in daily life, as opposed to Theravada, which concentrates on monastic living. The Roshi emphasized this in a lecture one day, but when discussing this point with a senior monk later, the monk said that what the Roshi really means is that you should stay twenty years in the temple, then release yourself to the outside world. Further, what sets Rinzai apart from Soto is the focus on Roshi-directed practice with koans and question-and-answer at the center. At Sogenji, you aren’t permitted these until you’ve stayed two months at the temple, meaning that the closest our group could get to this experience was tea with the Roshi, or perhaps the lectures he delivered. After one monk told me that these meetings with the Roshi were the only reason he was at the temple at all, I asked him if he thought that we could really make worthwhile progress or were wasting our time, being there only one month. He said no, we weren't wasting our time and seemed sincere, but I’m still making up my mind as to whether or not I really believe him. Of course, I think staying that month at the temple was a good experience, I’m happy I did it and would make the same choice again. Yet in terms of realizing Zen, as opposed to understanding Zen, I went to the monastery with a handful of preconceptions and left it with a handful of observations, and I’m left wondering: what can I have done?

Art, in brief

2010-03-28T22:19:00.005-05:00

I saw an exhibit of contemporary Japanese art the other day, at the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi.

The exhibition is titled "芸術は可能か" or, "Is Art Possible?" The pieces themselves were fairly interesting though not overwhelmingly so, and mostly installations as what's labelled cutting-edge art these days tends to be. My favorite piece was a photographic collection from 米田知子 Tomoko Yoneda. I like photography a lot, but my knowledge of photographic art history peters out about 1965, so I don't really understand a lot of contemporary photography that I see. There was something about the Yoneda pieces that made sense though. Very straightforward, pared down, almost minimalistic composition. I'm trying to think of someone I know to compare it to. Kind of like Walker Evan's non-portrait work, with most attention being paid to line, but with less going on. I don't know. Not a very good comparison, but I'm working with what I've got. So that was that.

Honestly, the title of the exhibition is what interests me most. More than anything else, it seems like a koan.

One of the best known koans from the Mumonkan runs like this in Chinese:

如何是祖師西来意

And is sort of forced into Japanese like this:

如何ナル是レ祖師西来ノ意
ikanaru kore soshi sei rai no i

In English it's usually translated as something like, "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?"

There have been several pretty famous answers, but the most common is probably

庭前柏樹子
庭前ノ柏樹子
teizen no hakuju [last character unpronounced in Japanese]
The [cypress? juniper? some kind of tree] in the garden

In Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, when Japhy Ryder (read: Gary Snyder) asks this of a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, the waiter answers "I don't care" which fully satisfies ~~Ryder~~ Snyder.

Where I'm going with this, is that I take the title of the exhibit like this:
Q: Is art possible????
A:

All that renminbusiness

2010-03-16T17:47:00.005-05:00

I just spent a month in a Rinzai Zen monastery. Shaved my head. Shit was absolutely bazonkers.

But I'll get to that later.

Now, just something I noticed on Paul Krugman's blog at the Times.

It's a good read, I think, if you're concerned as everyone else seems to be about China's ~~supposed~~ currency manipulation. If you read down to the last section, the one titled Political Economy, Krugman makes his arguments about why it doesn't really matter if China refuses to cooperate if the American government outright accuses them of the currency manipulation that ~~they might be~~ everybody knows they're doing. Take a look at this paragraph:

Here’s how the initial phases of a confrontation would play out – this is actually Fred Bergsten’s scenario, and I think he’s right. First, the United States declares that China is a currency manipulator, and demands that China stop its massive intervention. If China refuses, the United States imposes a countervailing duty on Chinese exports, say 25 percent. The EU quickly follows suit, arguing that if it doesn’t, China’s surplus will be diverted to Europe. I don’t know what Japan does.

[Italics my own]

The Hatoyama government is in something of a predicament if Washington and Beijing start butting heads. Soon after they were elected they seemed to be pursuing a policy of having their cake and eating it to, trying to be close politically to both Japan and China.

It isn't difficult to understand why they should try to do this. Not only is China a giant economy right next door, but a Japanese friend and aspiring political extremist once broke down Japanese politics like this for me: There are basically three political factions in Japan, as far as foreign policy is concerned. There are the liberals who love China, but hate Japan and the US. Second, there are conservatives who love Japan and the US, but hate China. Third, there are the conservatives who love Japan, but hate both the US and China. The rest of the world is negligible.

So the Hatoyama government comes in on an ostensibly liberal platform. They'll want to get closer to China, because that's more or less what their constituents want (never mind the fact that the 2009 election was more a rejection of the LDP than a selection of the DPJ).

At the same time, the LDP spent almost the entire post-war period getting close to America, and except for a few hiccups like the infamous trade friction of the '80s, close indeed they have become. Japan still needs America as an ally in a lot of ways, both for security and economic stability, though it is difficult to say that without qualifying that this is less true now than it has been. Further, especially with an ascendent China, it is in America's interest to keep Japan as a close ally, so America will push hard to keep ties warm. So they can't simply reject America.

This is why I think the bases (as in bases in Okinawa, mainly) issue has been so hot-button over the last few months. A lot of people in Japan really want those bases off the island, for a lot of very legitimate reasons. Not only do they use an incredible swath of land, and participate in extremely disruptive drills, but the military men stationed there aren't exactly always, well, let's just say there have been incidences of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. There are more reasons, I'm absolutely sure, but I'm really not the person to ask.

One get's the sense, however, that the Obama administration really doesn't care about those bases. In fact, it has been basically ignoring the issue one way or the other. To be fair, the administration does have a lot on its plate right now. Regardless, the issue has become something that Hatoyama can go on about and that "Look here, we're standing up to America, holding their feet to the fire" without any risk of actually standing up to America.

Yet still, the Japanese government is undeniably in a foreign policy rock-and-hard-place situation, which is what makes knowing what they would do in a situation like that which Krugman described very difficult to predict. My guess is that the futility of trying to be buddy-buddy with China will become apparent and the relations will lapse back into a variant of that which dominated during the duration of the 1955 system, albeit with slightly more cordial glances towards China.

And that's how it looks from someone who knows nothing about politics, nothing about China, and very little about Japan.

Word is bond

Kawagucci 2: Electric Boogaloo

2010-02-09T01:39:00.004-06:00

More pictures in and around Kawaguchi city in Saitama prefecture.

nothin but.

When I was little I wanted to be a firetruck

Fence

It says exactly what you think it does

Yeaaaah

This is a place where people put their things and also live

No-one uses land lines anymore

Ibid.

I think Kawaguchi may secretly be Tennessee

I cannot put into words how grotesque this is up close

SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSN

OWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW

Tiger style.

Observations on the Japanese parliamentary system as it functions

2010-02-06T00:31:00.008-06:00

So first, let's take a look at this graph, which I STOLE FROM PAUL KRUGMAN AND DID NOT MAKE MYSELF.

The graph shows national debt as a percentage of GDP of EU countries, plus the US, Canada, and Japan, with the debt level of ten years earlier superimposed. Note that these numbers are pre-crisis (2007 and 1997) so they aren't 100% relevant, but are nonetheless a good starting point. It doesn't take much to realize that the Japanese debt is kind of hilarious. Like a one man comedy act. And not even a bad one. We aren't talking Bill Hicks, but definitely not Dane Cook either.

But the point is, With debt like that and hahahahacrisis, why has the firmament that is Japan not committed itself once more to the boiling sea?

Let's take a look at Parliament. Like, physically, the Japanese Diet building. Here we are.

Notice anything? Maybe not.
Take a look at this building.

I know it says Church of Scientology, but you can tell from the architecture that it was originally built as a Masonic temple. Many similarities are obvious at first glance, such as the ziggurat-inspired design, but how about a more detailed look at the Diet:

I've highlighted certain points in the geometricity of the building, key in some of the more ancient schools of Masonic construction. What these particular points align to may not be immediately apparent, but look closely. Eventually, a pattern reveals itself.

And now the way that the Japanese economy is staying (just barely) afloat despite the circumstances becomes abundantly clear.

Huh!

Yamanote - A picture essay

2010-01-27T04:53:00.014-06:00

Tokyo's loop-line is called the Yamanote line 山手線. I have composed a sort of essay about the experience of riding the Yamanote, with one picture for every stop on the loop, moving counter-clockwise from Tokyo station. Some of the correlations are clear, though most are a bit more obtuse. I think, however, that the feeling comes across.

Normally, one would say a 'photo essay', but in lieu of photography I have elected to use a medium in which I am more comfortable: screenshots from The Simpsons.

Away we go!

Tokyo 東京

Kanda 神田

Akihabara 秋葉原

Okachimachi 御徒町

Ueno 上野

Uguisudani 鶯谷

Nippori 日暮里

Nishi Nippori 西日暮里

Tabata 田端

Komagome 駒込

Sugamo 巣鴨

Otsuka 大塚

Ikebukuro 池袋

Mejiro 目白

Takadanobaba 高田馬場

Shin Okubo 新大久保

Shinjuku 新宿

Yoyogi 代々木

Harajuku 原宿

Shibuya 渋谷

Ebisu 恵比寿

Meguro 目黒

Gotanda 五反田

Osaki 大崎

Shinagawa 品川

Tamachi 田町

Hamamatsucho 浜松町

Shinbashi 新橋

Yurakucho 有楽町

2kool4skool

2010-01-20T07:30:00.004-06:00

I spoke at my youngest host brother's elementary school earlier. I'm not going to say anything here about the Japanese school system, other than that my opinions on the success of Japanese education are reasonably well reflected in Christopher Hood's Japanese Education Reform: Nakasone's Legacy (Routledge 2001).
Instead, three things that happened:

+One girl asked if America had any special culture. My gut reaction was to answer, "we have big vocabularies and get fresh with the fine ladies" but the facilitating teacher said that the question was too broad.

+More than one girl 'confessed' to me, and I don't know how to feel about that. Actually I do and it is uneasy.

+A teacher showed me a book that had stories in standard Japanese, followed by how they would be said in various regional dialects (方言). The 'translations' into the dialects were written in katakana, and, even though I know that it's reading far too much into it, you could say that it carries that implication that the dialects aren't Japanese.

These are things that happened.

Top ten least favorite things about Tokyo

2010-01-12T07:48:00.010-06:00

I've wanted to write about a few of these for a while, but didn't think I had quite enough to make a full post. Eventually I had the idea to put together a Top Ten! list because those are totally original and interesting, and throw them all up at once. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it a bottom ten. It is what it is, and what it is is

ROSS HENDERSON's NOT-SO-DASAI TOP TEN LEAST FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT TOKYO

10. Not all McDonald's are 24-hour/Breakfast menu doesn't start until 5:00 a.m.

This keeps McDonald's from being the greatest thing, relegating it to the lower rank of great thing. I can't (or rather can, but won't) count the times I've been out late at night, spotted a McDonald's on the horizon, and seized with the joy of prospective refuge only to be plunged into the depths of deep and inescapable existential despair by a gated storefront. Also, trains start at like 4:30. I want a god damn McMuffin and coffee in my gullet before going home. Get with the program.

9. Venomous rats

The rats that infest the Tokyo undercity have developed a gland that produce a mild neurotoxin, causing temporary paralysis in humans. This would be much higher on the list if I spent more time around them, but as it is I'm rarely in a position to get bitten.

8. Vibrations

Buildings in and around Tokyo get vibrations running through them every once in a while, for various reasons that I won't go into because (1) I don't really know and (2) I actually do know a few but it's boring. My room at my host family's house get's them especially badly, to the point that there have been a few times that I've thought there was a minor earthquake going down. You get used to them--or at least I have--but they're still a bit disconcerting.

7. Lack of insulation/poorly heated buildings

It's kind trite to say this, but I really find it true. Traditionally, Japanese buildings were built for the Summer, and it some ways that continues to be the case. What this translates to in terms of real architecture is poor insulation. I've heard it said that people from Hokkaido come down to Tokyo during the Winter and complain about the cold, because up north they insulate properly. Also, no central heating. You can make pretty good energy-conservation arguments against this point, but hell with it, I like warm houses.

6. Dream monitors

While I know that they aren't the "Thought Police" (that phrase gets thrown around too much these days) the fact that dreams are monitored at all in the Kanto region still gets to me a bit sometimes. It's only for marketing research, or so I understand, but sometimes I think Panasonic is given a bit too much leeway by the Japanese government. When you think about it, it's actually pretty similar to they way that google searches or other internet browsing habits are collected and used. Still, it makes me a little bit uncomfortable.

5. Shops don't open early enough

Most shops that aren't geared towards selling consumables don't open until ten, eleven, or sometimes as late as noon. This is really annoying if you want to buy anything, say, before class, and if you have something planned later in the day, it can be a major inconvenience. I guess there's really no reason that I absolutely have to buy that electronic dictionary or what have you at nine in the morning. But I'd like to.

4. The hate beast

Similar to the rats, but of a bit more pressing of a concern. It seems like the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 opened a chasm in the undercity, which at that time had just been excavated, and from this chasm came the hate beast. I don't actually know what it's called in Japanese, because none of the Japanese people I've talked to seem to want to say anything about it. I myself have only seen it once, and I'm not really even sure that I did. It was late at night, and I was walking from Sendagaya to Shinjuku, by the Shinjuku Gyoen. I've since heard that there is actually an entrance to the undercity in the Gyoen itself. Anyway, the Gyoen was closed, but I looked in through one of the locked gates and I swear that I saw it eating what looked like a horse's leg. When I stopped, it suddenly wasn't there anymore and my ears started ringing, but it looked like there was a big pool of something where it had been. I'll be honest, I was really drunk at the time, so it was probably nothing, just my mind trying to make sense of, I don't know, a hobo or something. Gave me a start though. Took me a lot longer than it should have to find my way to Shinjuku, too. Below is the only photo I was able to find on the internet, although what I saw looked a little bit different. This looks like a newspaper photo from just after the quake, so I guess it wouldn't be surprising if it had grown. The point is, I haven't been by the Gyoen at night since.

The hate beast?

3. Commuter trains during rush hour

This doesn't really need an explanation, but it definitely sucks! I'm in the middle of the morning rush twice a week, and the evening, there are two rushes: one at the normal time, and then another from about 10:00 p.m. until the last train. This second one isn't nearly as bad, but it's still a pain. There have been times where I was seriously afraid that I physically wouldn't be able to fit on the last train. Nothing too catastrophic yet, though

2. 定休日 (teikyuubi)

This gets me. Lots of Japanese stores have a thing called a teikyuubi, which is something like a scheduled holiday. There will be one day in the middle of the week where the shop will just be closed. It's always the same day for the shop, so it can be planned for, especially for things like department stores where that sort of thing is well known and well publicized. For smaller business though, unless you really look into it, it's sort of a gamble, and one at which I seem to have particularly bad luck. It's so frustrating that I could eat two McDonald's breakfasts. It would take more fingers and toes than I have to count the number of times I've heard about a place, gotten all excited, and gone all the way there to check it out, only to find a big fat 定休日 sign on the door. What a bummer and totally lame.

1. Panopticons

Ok. Here, unlike the dream thing, I take serious issue. You hear a lot about Japan being a particularly safe country, low crime, particularly violent crime and all that. Tokyo isn't necessarily even the best example of it, but most people agree that compared to cities of similar size in other countries, it's pretty damn safe to be out at night. The undercity is a different story of course, what with the rat dens, the Beast, and what's left of Prime Minister Nakasone after the incident, but all that goes without saying. However, what you don't hear about in America is that the reason Tokyo is such a safe place is because strict order is maintained through the use of a sort of panopticon system. You can see these throughout the city.

Ikebukuro cityscape, with the area panopticon clearly visible

One of slightly different design, lit up at night

At first I thought they were smoke stacks, but after I never saw, well, smoke coming out of any of them, I asked my host mother and found out what might dramatically be called the truth. I've never seen anyone actually arrested as a result of actions observed by the panopticon, but everyone I've talked to seems to have a story or some friend or cousin who took their bike out of a bike garage without paying, or tried to shake something out of a vending machine when they thought no-one was looking, and ended up spending a year or two in jail. There isn't one near the Waseda campus, and I'm fairly convinced that it's because the government is ok with turning a blind eye to misbehaving rich kids, because hell, that's who ends up in government.
Of course I'm not saying that people should be free to commit crimes or anything like that, or even that law should be loosely applied. It all comes down to one of those 'but at what cost' questions, and I'm firmly convinced that this goes too far.

If you're wondering where those other posts I talked about writing are, they are nowhere. I haven't written them.

Things heard today

2010-01-10T08:12:00.002-06:00

Today I heard many things.

{From Okamoto-sensei, New Year's Party at my kendo dojo}
"In kendo, you have to think of the shinai as a real sword. When you hit, you kill, and likewise when you receive a blow, you die. Thinking like this, when struck, you must acknowledge that you have lost, that you have died. However, during practice, once you have admitted defeat, you should properly resume your guard, and graciously ask for another round. You must come back to life. Just like Jesus."

{From my host mother, over dinner}
"This may sound bad, but some black people are kind of scary. I mean, I think it comes from their history of poverty, but I don't think that I could ever be afraid of a Japanese person the way I'm afraid of black people."

{Again from my host mother, some time later, smiling}
"This was in the news a few years ago. A mother, with a child of about six, divorced her husband and found a new boyfriend. The couple got tired of the kid, so they took him up to Hokkaido, stripped him naked, and left him in the snow. Needless to say, he died. But the crazy part is, foxes came and ate all of his internal organs. Even his eyes. It was wild. The world sure is an interesting place."

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked

2010-01-02T21:09:00.005-06:00

This article was in the New York Times today:

Paris, Milan, Tokyo. Tokyo?

It's about fashion, or more specifically the business of a globalized couture. The author makes the observation that one of the biggest obstacles to Japan's success in markets overseas is that the Japanese fashion industry is very 'inward looking'. Incestuous is the word I would use, but I think that we're basically on the same page there.

There is another stumbling block, however, that the article neglects entirely: though Japanese fashion (often qualified with 'street' prefixed) surely has numerous devotees in foreign scenes, the foreign market in general wouldn't be entirely receptive to many relatively common Japanese styles. Put another way, a lot of Japanese fashion looks kind of stupid.

I won't talk about women's fashion; I have no interest and less knowledge about women's haute couture, let alone Japanese women's fashion. Even so, as a man, and one who wears clothes on a regular basis, I feel in some small way qualified to comment on Japanese men's fashion.

I'll first temper this by saying that on the whole, Japanese men dress rather well. Young people actually seem to think about what they're putting on their bodies. Even business people in their twenties and thirties get the suit down pretty well. Again, the majority of Japanese men that I see are put together in entirely acceptable and even at times admirable ways.

My opinion of trends in men's fashion in Japan is not as high. So as to not risk overextending my weak knowledge and paltry observations, I'm just going to focus on one trend that I've seen going around.

This trend, while certainly not 'high fashion', seems practiced by people who are one step more concerned about their clothes than those who dress just well enough not to stand out. The trend has you looking like someone out of an ad for The Gap from 1994, and more than anything else, it's boring. The most common element seems to be wearing somewhat loose (though not quite baggy) jeans of light (but not acid) wash with boots that aren't quite hiking boots. The cuffs are tucked into the boot at least at the back so that everyone can see how boot-like your boots are. On top, flannel isn't quite as common as you might think (though it's become fairly popular amongst the general crowd) but things like shearling or leather jackets wouldn't look out of place. I have difficulty bringing to mind just what they wear on top because it's so plain.

I grew up in Seattle, and I remember teenagers dressing something like this when I was in elementary school. It seems sort of demi-grunge to me. Though, like I said, less flannel.
In one of the WHAT'S THE NEXT DECADE GOING TO BE LIKE???? articles that I've read recently (I can't say exactly which one because they all seem to blend [bland?] together) the author stated that the inevitable 90s revival won't be as annoying as the 80s revival was. That may be true. But it will be a lot more boring.

Now I'm going to kill a bear with my teeth and drink whisky from its hollowed skull.

A New Year's Proclamation

2009-12-31T09:32:00.002-06:00

Oh! fearful Urizen! Hateful demiurge! Know that I am Los; I am that was Luvah: I am that is Orc!

SOLEMN HEAVE THE PACIFIC WAVES BETWEEN THE GLOOMY NATIONS,
SWELLING, BELCHING FROM ITS DEEPS RED CLOUDS AND RAGING FIRES.

I have seen the Dragon-Prince. Albion is sick; and America faints!
Enraged the zenith grows!

Sound! Sound! my loud war-trumpets, and alarm my thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal wolf! The eternal lion lashes his tail!

[edit]: My new-year's resolution is neither to drink less (pish) nor to read less Blake but to read less Blake while drinking,
[edit]: Or rather drink less while reading Blake.

Ticktockticktockticktock

2009-12-28T05:40:00.006-06:00

I'm on my winter break now, and you might be surprised to learn that there are occasionally days in which I have nothing to do. I could just go out without definite plans, and sometimes I do. Sometimes, however, I read children's books.

My room used to be shared by my two younger host brothers (now sleeping in the same room as the mother and father), and a lot of their stuff is still in it, including a lot of children's reading material. Every once in a while, I take something off of the shelf.

Most of the books are vaguely educational in nature, and can at times be quite interesting. Today I pulled 学習漫画よくわかる俳句 (Gakushuu manga yoku wakaru haiku, which would be put as Learning Through Manga: Understand Haiku in more natural English).

I came across one haiku that I particularly liked.

It struck me initially for two reasons: first, it's hypermetric (字余り jiamari), which is rather uncommon. Second, it reminds me of a haiku about Bioshock that my friend Michael wrote a while back. I can't remember exactly how it goes, but Michael will I think see what I mean.

Anyway, it's by a person named Mori Sumio, from a collection called Kagan, and runs like this

雪国やはつはつはつはつ時計生き　（『花眼』1969年）
Yukiguni ya, hatsu hatsu hatsu hatsu, tokei iki

I hate translating poetry, but if I had do, I would put it something like this:

In a snow country tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock a clock is living

I would actually prefer to begin it with simply 'a snow country' and end it with 'a clock lives' but what is above preserves the meter.

I don't think I can really say anything about it that isn't immediately apparent, but for the sake of padding I'll point out the obvious. The hypermetric middle line (eight rather than seven morae) elaborates an image of a place so still and so deeply buried in snow that all that can be heard is the sound of this single ticking clock. The ticking might as well continue forever. It also might hint at something akin to cabin fever, but I could also be reading too much into it. The point is, though, that it's simple, but I like it.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T16:51:00.006-06:00

Tokyo: 25 December 2009
7:30 a.m. Wake up
7:34 a.m. Open presents sent from family
8:00 a.m. Eat breakfast, prepared by hostmother, alone
8:30 a.m. Read news
9:00 a.m. Leave house, take train to Takadanobaba
9:50 a.m. Arrive at Takadanobaba; drink coffee
10:00 a.m. Meet friends from circle
10:20 a.m. Leave Takadanobaba
11:20 a.m. Arrive Terekomucenter (Odaiba)
11:45 a.m. Enter Oedo hot spring (technically, 大江戸温泉物語)
4:00 p.m. Leave hot spring
4:20 p.m. Go to Venus Fort (more or less an outlet mall) at the behest of the gender-stereotyped female majority
5:00 p.m Leave Venus Fort, no-one feeling quite satisfied, save my own sense of vindication
5:30 p.m. Buy dinner from convenience store
6:00 p.m. Arrive at obscenely luxurious apartment owned by family of one of the participants
6:02 p.m. Proceed to bar/lounge on 33rd floor. View of Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Tower, various Odaiba landmarks, Tokyo cityscape
6:15 p.m. Drink beer with a mixed sense of awe and disgust
9:00 p.m. Leave apartment; leave Odaiba alone, headed for Shibuya
9:30 p.m. Arrive at Shibuya
9:33 p.m. Meet Robert and Orion
9:50 p.m. Drinks at bar on the way to electro show
10:15 p.m. Enter Seco for show
10:30 p.m. Unimpressed by mediocre DJ and what may or may not have been a Björk cover band
10:43 p.m. Fellow American (henceforth 'Homeboy') approaches our booth to try to make conversation
10:50 p.m. Homeboy is awkward, more or less ignored
11:13 p.m. Feel pity for Homeboy
11:34 p.m. More drinks, no longer feeling pity for Homeboy
11:52 p.m. Homeboys leaves abruptly
Tokyo: 26 December 2009
12:17 a.m. Send hostmother email informing her that I missed the last train; become committed to all-night
12:30 a.m. Band does strange and almost offensive techno cover of Clash song. Lead singer looks like Japanese Thom Yorke. Unimpressed.
1:10 a.m. Chiptunes DJ comes on. Impressed.
1:50 a.m. Live 8bit band. Highlight of the venue.
2:27 a.m. Chat up 8bit band.
2:44 a.m. Unenthused about remaining lineup
3:10 a.m. Leave club
3:14 a.m. Nigirizushi at 7-11
3:26 a.m. Enter Lush for noise/electronic show
3:30 a.m. Impressed
3:45 a.m. One of the better Shoegaze bands I've seen
3:50 a.m. Best noise band I've ever seen. No idea what they were called.
4:15 a.m. Good but not noteworthy
4:30 a.m. Leave Lush to find 24-hour McDonald's
4:43 a.m. Find 24-hour McDonald's
4:44 a.m. Informed by the cashier that the breakfast menu doesn't start until 5:00 a.m.
4:47 a.m. Wait for breakfast menu
5:03 a.m. Sausage Egg McMuffin, hashbrown, coffee
5:15 a.m. Existentially satisfied
5:20 a.m. Board Yamanote-sen at Shibuya
5:34 a.m. Fall asleep, ride full rotation
6:53 a.m. Disembark at Tabata; transfer
7:14 a.m. Disembark at Warabi
7:36 a.m. In bed

<.end.christmas.>

Carthago Delenda Est

2009-12-22T05:04:00.007-06:00

Another quick note

I took one year of Latin my freshman year of college, and whatever skill I had is now hopelessly rusty, even just two years later. That's why the cryptic phrase above the entrance to Waseda's Central Library has taken me this long to make sense of.

In gold capitals, above an unassuming doorway, are chiseled the words, "QUAE SIT SAPIENTIA DISCE LEGENDO".

As I was heading in to study for a test (on the Tale of Genji no less), it finally struck me all at once, like a lightning bolt (cast by a mighty and vengeful Jupiter), that it must mean something like "Learn What Wisdom Is By Reading". I'm about 70% sure that's what it means. I'm 30% sure that I'm totally wrong.

A quick google search of the phrase points to it coming from the Catonis Disticha, commonly referred to simply as Cato, a Latin proverb collection used through the 18th century as something of a textbook, being particularly popular during the medieval period.

Though the name might lead you to believe so, as might the tone of the phrase, the Distichs were not written by Cato the Elder (though he is the source of the quote found at the bottom of this page. Hell with Carthage), nor even Cato the Younger, but by an otherwise unknown Dionysius Cato, of the third or fourth century AD.

Another quick search took me to the Waseda library homepage, which displays the quote prominently. What I saw there filled me with joy and a dangerous sense of superiority. Not only do they give an English rendition so similar to my own I might fear accusations of plagiarism, they also attribute it falselyPublish Post (falsely) to Marcus Porcius Cato, a.k.a. Cato the Elder.

Ross 2; Waseda 0

EDIT HELL: In case you were wondering, Sins of Japanese Librarianship will be a post unto itself.

Kawagucci

2009-12-19T03:34:00.015-06:00

The place I live in Saitama is called Kawaguchi. It's fairly close to Tokyo, and a decent sized city with a population of about 600,000; roughly the same as Seattle. It used to have a really big broadcasting tower. Like, really big. Like it was the tallest structure in Japan big. It doesn't have that anymore. But hey.

It also seems to be a stronghold for the Communist Party, at least judging from the density of posters I see on my walk to and from the station.

Anyway, as promised, this is going to be mostly pictures. A disclaimer. The pictures I take in Kawaguchi are the, naturally, only the ones that interest me. What this means is that, with little doubt, the present a distorted picture of the city. It isn't half as rundown as these photos make it seem. I just seem to have developed a small obsession with the shabbier houses in the neighborhood. Anyway, HERE. WE. GO.

The road I walk to the Warabi JR station

A house

Several houses

A business

Pattern

The 'park' by my house c. November 1, 5:00 a.m.
I think it can be scientifically proven to be the saddest park in the word.

Recently, they trimmed the trees.
I think Charles Adams might have been the operating tree-surgeon.

That van has never moved.
The door has never been open.
This place says that it is a camera repair shop.
I do not think that it is a camera repair shop.

RED MENACE
Political posters for the 日本共産党 (Nihon kyousan-tou Japanese Communist Party)

That's all for now.

Within the next week: 'Japanese judicial reform. What's up with that?'

This will be on the test

2009-12-16T06:37:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note.

Before dinner, I was flipping through an English conversation practice book lying around my host family's house. Most of it was how to ask various questions, followed by two possible responses, given in both English and Japanese, with little usage guides here and there. Two things of note.
First, at least a quarter of the questions listed either 'Um. . .' or 'Well. . .' as one of the possible responses.
Second, for the question, 'What do you think of the Japanese Emperor?' the possible answers suggested were 'That's difficult,' and 'I don't have an opinion one way or the other.'

How about that.

だって埼玉だもん

2009-12-16T02:34:00.005-06:00

While going to Waseda, I stay in Saitama, which is the prefecture just north west of Tokyo. I live in a city called Kawaguchi, but I'm planning on addressing that in another post sometime later. For now, I just want to talk about Saitama.

Saitama is Tokyo's Jersey. Here are my reasons

Virtually all cities in the prefecture function as either residential suburbs or auxiliary commercial areas (with room for things like malls, both regular and strip) for Tokyo, and it seems to me that the majority of people who actually stay in Saitama for work are working-class.

Waterways also play in. Like New Jersey and New York, Saitama and Tokyo are separated by rivers. Several rivers actually make up the Tokyo-Saitama border, but the one I personally cross in the morning is the Arakawa. The most polluted river in Japan, the Ayasegawa, is also located in good old Saitama. So there's that.

One of the main Saitama to Tokyo railway lines (and one that I ride almost every day), the Saikyo-sen (埼京線 basically an abreviation of 埼玉東京線, or Saitama-Tokyo Line) is also notorious for being not so fun. It's well known for being overcrowded during rush-hour, even by Japanese commuting standards. The overcrowding has led to two further problems: the first is frequent delays, simply because it takes so much time to move passengers in and out of the train at stations. The second is groping. The Saikyo-sen is possibly the most infamous train line in Japan when it comes to the molestation problem, which is only compounded by the fact that the frequent delays often mean that the time it takes to get from station to station is unusually long. Suicides (half-euphemized as 人身事故 jinshin jiko accident involving a human body) are also perhaps higher than average, causing yet more delay, but the Saikyo-sen isn't quite as well known for that as the Chuo-sen, which is so frequently stopped by 'human bodies' that the word 'Chuicide' has entered the ex-pat English lexicon.

Yet perhaps the most convincing (or damning) piece of evidence is the word I took for the name of the blog, dasai (ださい, frequently ダサい). Like I wrote in the first post, dasai means unfashionable, uncool, or tacky. I like to think of it as 'lame' in the way a grade-schooler would use the word. The origins are not entirely clear. I personally favor the theory that it comes from a misreading (intentional or not) of the word 田舎 inaka, meaning countryside. It could conceivably be read dasha, which could then corrupt to dasa, with i added to make it an adjective. In this case, it would more or less mean 'provincial'. However, the theory of most Japanese people I've asked (corroborated by that Holy-of-Holies the internet) is that it comes from a phrase something like だって、埼玉だもん datte, Saitama da mon which would translate some something close to 'cause it's Saitama'. My feeling is that this was applied after the invention of the word, but the fact that the theory exists at all and is so widely believed says a lot about this place called Saitama. It seems that this idea was popularized by variety talk shows in the 70s or 80s. And you know what I think about Japanese variety talk shows. Well, maybe you don't. I don't like them.

Still, in a sense, I like Saitama. I spend most of my time in Tokyo, and it's nice to be able to get out of the whole bright-lights-big-city feel and come home to my more working-class neighborhood in Kawaguchi. Like I said, sometime in the near future, I'm going to put up something about Kawaguchi specifically, but because I honestly don't have much to say about the city, it will be mostly pictures.

In conclusion,

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　＼　│　／
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　／￣＼　　 ／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　─（ ﾟ ∀ ﾟ ）＜　さいたまさいたま！
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　＼＿／　　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　／　│　＼
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ∩ ∧　∧　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣＼∩ ∧　∧　＼（ ﾟ∀ﾟ）＜　さいたまさいたまさいたま！
さいたま～～～！ 　 ＞（ ﾟ∀ﾟ ）/ ｜　　　　/　＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿／ ｜　　　 〈　｜　　　｜
　　　　　　　　　　　　　 /　／＼_」　/　／＼」
　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ￣　　　　 / ／
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　￣
Edit 12/22: Not Japan, but this was on nytimes.com today

Agh Burzum-Ishi Krimpatul

2009-12-04T20:58:00.013-06:00

This is sort of a multi-part, but here we go.

Friday, 4 December:
Show at EARTHDOM in Shinokubo.

Four bands:
FROM HELL
Japanese band I had never heard of before. Good old-fashioned aggressive Black Metal-ish music.

PIGMEN
Honestely, I didn't hear much of them. We ducked out of the club to down some sweet, sweet, conbini chu-hi during their set. I've heard decent things about them, and what little I did see was pretty good. I'll check them out if I hear of another show. NO PICTURES THIS TIME.

GALLHAMMER
All-female Japanese "extreme metal" ~~trio~~ duo. Their first album 'Gloomy Lights' sounds like pretty standard black metal to me, while their more recent stuff is like if a doom metal band listened to a lot of Pavement. The set sounded mostly like their earlier music, which was totally fine by me. Even though one of the band members quit earlier that week (???) they still pulled off a pretty impressive sound.

ZENI GEVA
Super awesome fantastic noisemetalexperimentalwhathaveyou group. KK. Null fronts it and the drummer is Tatsuya Yoshida, also of Ruins (which is bitchin rad in its own right). Honestly, my favorite set of the night.

At the show, I also ran into a guy I've been a fan of for a long time, Steven. He writes the blog Tokyo Damage Report. It turns out he's roughly the nicest guy in the world, and invited my friends and I to his bounenkai (忘年会, a sort of year-end party) the next weekend. More on that later.

That's me, with a certain someone

Bitchin'-est jacket

Saturday, 12 December:
Last Saturday I saw Boris at Daikanyama Unit. To be honest, I thought it was only o.k. They played pretty much exclusively their newer stuff, which is good enough, but I'm a much bigger fan of them around the time they put out 'Amplifier Worship'. The last few albums, like 'Pink' and 'Smile', just haven't been quite as good to me. Of course, one of Boris' "things" is that they have a constantly changing style, so maybe it's a bit silly of me to get stuck on a certain era. I'm just not a fan of all this Takeshi crooning into the mic. But, of course, the stage show was well put together. The lighting was kinetic, and, coupled with liberal application of fog-machines, honestly pretty cool to look at. Unfortunately photography seems to have been a no-no, so all I have are my honeyed memories, fading even now. Also, the crowd was filled with fat and uninteresting foreigners. I guess that's the crowd Boris attracts these days.

Sunday, 13 December:
I went to Steven's bounenkai, along with my friends who were at the same concert where I met him (and thus met him too). Totally chill and a lot of fun, though I feel like we stayed a bit longer than we should have. He has a wicked awesome little kid who definitely had a bedtime. I'm not really going to put up any details or pictures, because I get some kind of invasion-of-privacy vibe from putting pictures of other people's homes on the internet. The point is, thank you so much Steven, for inviting us over and being such a cool guy. I hope I get a chance to see you again sometime in the future.

In Which I Pretend to Know About Poetry

2009-11-03T19:23:00.003-06:00

Most of the English books that I took to Japan with me are books of poetry, my reason being that when I need to just inject some English into my brain, it's much easier to read a few stanzas of Burns than it is to keep up with a novel (particularly when you consider that the only novel I brought with me is Gravity's Rainbow). One of the books of poetry that I brought from home is an anthology called The Voice that is Great Within Us, a collection of American poetry of the twentieth century. Published in 1970 and focusing mostly on the 50s and 60s, there are of course some sins of omission, but by and large it is a good survey.

I have a habit of picking this book up, opening it to a random page, and reading two or three poems from whoever happens to be represented there. A few weeks ago, I happened to open to Gary Snyder. Snyder was tangentially associated with the Beats, though not a Beat himself per se. He was (is?) a graduate of Reed and studied what was then called Oriental Literature at Berkeley. He traveled extensively in Asia and was deeply involved in Buddhism for a time. He has published several volumes of poetry and essays, and won the 1975 Pulitzer for Poetry. He's (was?) a bright guy, well read and well spoken. I'm going to make fun of one of his poems.

"A Spring Night in Shokoku-ji"

Eight years ago this May
We walked under cherry blossoms
At night in an orchard in Oregon.
All that I wanted then
Is forgotten now, but you.
Here in the night
In a Garden of the old capital
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao
I remember your cool body
Naked under a summer cotton dress.

The first thing I noticed when reading this poem was the reference to the Tale of Genji (that bit about the trembling ghost). I simply cannot figure out the what function this reference is supposed to serve. Yugao is the first of Genji's lovers to die--by no means the last--and though the scene of her death is certainly dramatic and memorable, it really isn't all that important of one. She is a character in all of one chapter, dying within the chapter she first appears (even if she is parenthetically referenced a few chapters earlier), and further, one of the most important aspects of her death is that it is not in the capital. It looked like nothing more than a preening name-drop. This is the way I first read the poem (in the meter of Sylvia Plath):

"I Still Want to Do You"

I remember that night
A few years ago.
We totally had sex but--

Now I'm in Japan and you
Should know that I
Read the Tale of Genji and I think

I still want to do you
Even though I'm kickin it
In Japan.

I've read the poem a few times since, and the Yugao thing still seems a little blunt and perhaps even detrimental to the poem as a whole.. But, a few days ago, I was in a used bookstore near the Waseda campus, and I pulled from the shelf 若菜集 Wakanashu "A Collection of Young Herbs", which is the fist poetry collection of the late-Meiji writer Shimazaki Toson (島崎藤村). Now days, Toson is much better known as a novelist (for things such as 破壊 Hakai "The Broken Commandment"), but he actually got his start as a poet. This poetry collection has some of his most famous poems in it, none of which I had read before. One of the best known from the collection is called "初恋" Hatsukoi "First Love", and runs like this:

初恋

まだあげ初めし前髪の
林檎のもとに見えしとき
前にさしたる花櫛の
花ある君と思ひけり

やさしく白き手をのべて
林檎をわれにあたへしは
薄紅の秋の実に
人こひ初めしはじめなり

わがこゝろなきためいきの
その髪の毛にかゝるとき
たのしき恋の盃を
君が情に酌みしかな

林檎畑の樹の下に
おのづからなる細道は
誰が踏みそめしかたみぞと
問ひたまふこそこひしけれ

After reading this a few times through, it hit me: "Could this be what Snyder's really referencing? Is Yugao some kind of strange red herring, to keep me from looking at what he's doing with his left hand?" If so, the poem is much more subtle, and Snyder much more clever than I had been giving him credit for. It's not even so much a reference as that they remind me so much of each other that it feels like there must be some sort of connection, even if I can't immediately see it. If that's the case, well done Snyder. You really have it together. If not, well, I guess you can go polish your Pulitzer.

Search and Ye Shall Find

2009-10-13T08:57:00.006-05:00

I've noticed that in a lot of advertisements, particularly those on the commuter trains, instead of listing a website for the company or product or whatever it happens to be that they're shilling, do the equivalent of just telling you to google it. They show a little search bar with the product's name entered, and a mouse pointer hovering over the 'search' button. You can see it in the bottom right of this ad:

Cell-phone bar-codes don't even seem to be that common anymore. It could actually be a pretty savvy move by advertisers, as entering whatever keywords they can remember into a search engine is probably how most people get from an ad to a website anyway.

Or it could be something completely different.

P.L.U.R.

2009-10-06T08:20:00.003-05:00

Every now and then, on the days when my commute to school puts me right in the middle of the morning rush, I'll throw on a playlist on my iPod that consists of mostly early 90s electronic-ish stuff because a rave is the only circumstance I can think of in which fully clothed people can be that close to each-other and having a good time. I just stare at the ads on the train and pretend that it's 1992.

UPDATE [11/4]: According to the news (or at least the talk shows) a variant of extacy is taking off amongst Japanese college students. As far as I'm concerned, foreigners doing drugs in Japan is a mondo bad call, but I'm just waiting for it to cause the spontaneouse creation of a wicked rave scene.

Come in under the shadow of this red blog

2009-10-01T06:45:00.004-05:00

and I will show you fear in a handful of words. . .

Or something like that. I read through "The Wasteland" a few times over the summer and, frankly, can't say I understand it very well.

The reason that I bring up "The Wasteland", though, is that in a class I'm taking about Japanese intellectual history, the professor put two seemingly opposed T.S. Eliot quotes on the board, and said that to understand the interplay of Japanese and Western thought in the post-Meiji era, both can be, maybe even must be true.

The first quote is something like "We can choose our religion but we cannot choose our ancestors."
This comes from the time in Eliots life after he had toyed with but eventually given up the idea of converting to Buddhism. It's loaded with implications, some of which boarder dangerously on racism. Simply put in a safe way, however, it means that we are always informed by our past, and cannot usurp the past of another.

The second quote is this: "Every new book changes all previous books."
It takes a second of thought before you realize the way in which it is opposed to the above quote. All new information we digest changes and colors our perception of all previous information, our perception of the past. As my professor said, when you really sit down and think about it, it makes you feel a bid giddy. Therefore, the past, our 'ancestors', are constantly changing, and while we still may not be able to specifically choose our ancestors, it provides an enormous margin for what can be considered to be an 'ancestor'.

So, next time you contemplate the Meiji Restoration, or really Japanese thought and literature post, say, 1840, exercise a little double-think, and hold one quote in your left brain, the other in your right. It's an interesting experiment.

What's up with that?

2009-09-24T20:34:00.004-05:00

Just a quick observation. If you're a believer in a Japanese national 内/外 (uchi/soto, something like in-group/out-group) mentality, this is one of the clearest examples I've seen.

In Narita Airport, the international airport outside of Tokyo that handles flights to and from, among other places, America, there is a sign you see just before going through immigration. Text only, and quite large. Very difficult to miss. It has two written lines, one in English, and one in Japanese.

In English, it says, 'Welcome to Japan.'

In Japanese, it says, 「おかえり」okaeri, 'Welcome Home.'

来日

2009-09-21T08:11:00.004-05:00

Though nothing, per se, has happened that I think is really worth putting on the internet, I've been in Japan for a little over a week now and I figure I should at least jot something down.

The first week here was spent in a hostel in Asakusa, in Tokyo. Even if you haven't heard of Asakusa, you've probably seen pictures of Asakusa's landmark the Kaminari-mon, which, if you know Japanese, is exactly what it sounds like: a gate with a huge lantern with 雷 kaminari 'thunder' 門 mon 'gate' written on it.

Taken in 2006. Hasn't changed much.

The Kaminari-mon is actually the outer gate of the Buddhist temple Sensou-ji, which I believe is dedicated to Kannon, but don't hold me to that.

The hostel itself was nice and tidy and relatively new seeming. Not exactly what I was expecting from such an establishment. It was right next to an amusement park called the Hanayashiki, which would translate to something like The Flower Manor. Didn't go. There were also some pretty swanky murals just outside the hostel entrance. The following photos are, in order, the hostel itself, a sign for the Hanayashiki (with some kind of ride in the background), and one of the murals.

During this past week, we've had orientations and the like during the day, which I may at some point write about. But not now. Once I have something interesting to say about it.

I moved in with my host family yesterday. We live in Saitama prefecture, but I actually have a shorter commute to school than some people who live in Tokyo. If you count transfers and walking time, it takes about an hour for me to get from my host family's front door to the Waseda campus. Again, I don't want to write too much about my family until I have something a little more concrete to say. I've been with them just twenty-four hours yet. I'll give it some time.

Today was the Opening Ceremony for by department within Waseda (早稲田大学国際教養学部の入学式), and though it seemed like a big deal, it was a bit unimpressive. We gathered at the famous Okuma Auditorium, heard a few interesting anecdotes (Dean Snowden's speech was particularly good) and then went our separate ways. Beforehand I had lunch with my cousin Edward, which was very nice, though I understand he'll actually be leaving Japan at the end of October. The point, though, is that here is a picture of me just before the ceremony.

Ain't I sharp?

That about wraps it up for now, I think. I really don't have much to talk about right now, so later this week I'll probably throw something a little more substantial together.

EDIT[9/25]

For clarity, the other guy in the picture is my colleague Dash Robb, not my cousin Edward.
This is my cousin Edward: BEHOLD

Optic Blast

Novus Ordo Seclorum

2009-08-31T00:09:00.001-05:00

Only two-ish weeks to go before I board the plane. Christ Almighty.

My visa came through at the consulate about a day after I complained about it on a blog next to no one reads. The system works.

But enough about me.

Anyone reading this blog probably already knows about the recent Japanese election, so I'll just throw up a couple of links. For those who don't, the short story is that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP, 自由民主党), which is neither liberal nor democratic, has been in power virtually without break since about 1955. Yesterday, however, they were defeated in a landslide by the relatively new Democratic Party (DPJ, 民主党).

I have just a few things to say about it. Most commentators acknowledge that the Democratic victory is due just as much if not more to disgust with the LDP than it is to the merits of the DPJ, so it will be very interesting to see how the new ruling party interacts with the Japanese populace that voted them in. Some say that this is the end of the post-war era, but I would warn two things. First, it really has yet to be seen whether or not the Democratic party will really change things much at all in a political system often and easily called stagnant. There have been promises of bureaucratic reform before. Second, saying that this election ends the post-war era implies that the post-war era continued through 2009, which is its own rather complex issue.

Further, one of the stated goals of the Democratic Party during the campaign was developing closer ties with Asia, which is more or less code for China. The LDP is known for being very close to the United States, perhaps much closer than is really proper (see the Lockheed scandal). While relations with China and relations with the United States are not necessarily mutually exclusive, particularly when modern China policy in the U.S. is considered, it does denote a shift in focus. Nonetheless, the Obama administration was very quick to say that it hopes to build a strong connection with the new Japanese regime. Indeed, Press Secretary Gibbs is quoted by the BBC as saying, "We are confident that the strong US-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will continue to flourish under the leadership of the next government."

EDIT[9/2]: This article from the New York Times said everything I did and more, plus it is better written and quotes more experts.

The Gibbs quote comes from this article:
Japan's Hatoyama Sweeps to Power

A super brief overview of the election (complete with pictures) can be found here:
Opposition Party Sweeps Japan Elections

Last, an every so slightly more in-depth look at what the underlying issues were is here:
Japan Election: Key Issues

No Deals, Mr. Bond

2009-08-16T03:07:00.000-05:00

Just for good form, a small update. Applied for my visa at the Japanese consulate. They said it would take a week. It’s been a week and a half. This isn’t unexpected though. Just before I left the window, the employee at the station next to mine (I was being served by a nice young woman) leaned over, looked at my application, and, apparently seeing my expected departure date, told me not to worry, I had plenty of time. I suspect trickery is afoot. Either that or bureaucracy. Hopefully just the former.

That’s not what I really want to talk about, though. I want to talk about James Bond. Every summer I to gravitate towards my dad’s old paperbacks for reading material, and why not? They’re quick, portable, and hey, school’s out (for summer). In amongst the collection the are original Ian Fleming James Bond novels. I had read a few in the past, and this summer I grabbed From Russia With Love for no particular reason, and You Only Live Twice, for quite obvious reasons. For those unfamiliar with the Bond mythos, it’s the one where he goes to Japan.

First I must note that the plot of the novel differs wildly from the movie (screenplay by Roald Dahl I kid you not). I think it might be the first movie that went in so different a direction. The movie version “Goldfinger” was so different that they actually issued a novelization of it, which might even be more widely available than the original. But that’s neither here nor there.

The plot of the book is that Ernst Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE, a generic evil organization, has purchased a castle in southern Japan and turned it into some sort of suicide park by filling it with poisonous plants and dangerous animals (oleander and piranhas and what have you). I think the castle was already on top of a volcano. Or something like that. People are drawn from all over the country to come to this “garden of death”--as it is called ad nauseum--to end their own lives. This, of course, is unacceptable. Bond agrees to shut the place down if the Japanese share their intelligence on Russia, which the CIA had been bogarting.

It goes almost without saying that there are the expected oversimplifications, such as Japanese people being absolutely unable to keep themselves away from a good spot to commit suicide, and plain inaccuracies, the listing of which would be not only tedious but largely pointless.

The thing that really interests me about the book is that while it has all of the racism through backhanded compliments and rooted in simple ignorance, every so often Fleming writes something that seems to be right on the mark. Take the example of Richard “Dikko” Lovelace Henderson (that’s right, Henderson), Bond’s Australian contact in Japan. At one point, when explaining to Bond what daily life in Japan is like for him, he says “Underneath the stiff collars and striped pants in the government departments, there’s still plenty of old samurai tucked away” (32). And later, along the same lines but even more severe, “For God’s sake, get it into your head that the Japanese are a separate human species. They’ve only been operating as a civilized people, in the debased sense we talk about it in the West, for fifty, at the most a hundred years. Scratch a Russian and you’ll find a Tartar. Scratch a Japanese and you’ll find a samurai” (36). Yet this same man, not a page later, says with insight surprising if not quite astonishing for Fleming, “Most of the samurai stuff is a myth, like the Wild West bunk the Americans are brought up on, or your knights in shining armour at King Arthur’s court” (36).

Another little gem comes from a monologue in the mouth of Tiger Tanaka, head of the Japanese secret service. As far as I can tell, Tiger is supposed to be his real name, not a nickname.

Ever since the beginning of the era of Meiji, who you will know was the emperor who fathered the modernization and Westernization of Japan from the beginning of his reign nearly a hundred years ago, there have from time to time been foreigners who have come to this country and settled here. They have for the most part been cranks and scholars, and the European-born American Lafcadio Hearn, who became a Japanese citizen, is a very typical example. In general, they have been tolerated, usually with some amusement. So, perhaps, would a Japanese who bought a castle in the Highlands of Scotland, and who learned and spoke Gaelic with his neighbors and expressed unusual and often impertinent interest in Scottish folkways. If he went about his researches politely and peaceably, he would be dubbed an amiable eccentric. And so it has been with the Westerners who have settles and spent their lives in Japan, though occasionally, in time of war, as would no doubt be the case with our mythical Japanese in Scotland, they have been regarded as spies and suffered internment and hardship. Now, since the occupation, there have been many such settlers, the great majority of whom, as you can imagine, have been American. The Oriental way of life is particularly attractive to the American who wishes to escape from a culture which, I am sure you will agree, has become, to say the least of it, more and more unattractive except to the lower grades of the human species to whom bad but plentiful food, shiny toys such as the automobiles and the television, and the ‘quick buck,’ often dishonestly earned, or earned in exchange for minimal labour or skills, are the summum bonum, if you will allow the sentimental echo from my Oxford education. (49-50)

About a page later he glorifies wartime fascism. It’s this back and forth between the typical views of the 1960s and surprising though perhaps not deep insight that I find interesting. Fleming seems to me to have some sort of doublethink about Japan. He simultaneously understands and misunderstands. Perhaps it's a bit zen.

There really isn’t, I suppose, all that much I wanted to say about the novel. More than anything I just wanted to but those quotes up. They really don’t need all that much explanation. I suppose I’ll leave you with one more.

“Bond had become enamoured of the civilized, vaguely Roman bathing habits of the Japanese. Was it because of these, because they washed outside the bath instead of wallowing in their own effluvia, that they all smelled so clean? Tiger said bluntly that, at the very best, Westerners smelled of sweet pork” (89).

Fleming, Ian. You Only Live Twice. New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1964.

E Luce Ad Tenebras

2009-06-02T01:52:00.000-05:00

I recently read the essay 'In Praise of Shadows' (陰翳礼讃 In'ei Raisan) by the Japanese novelist Tanizaki Jun'ichiro. To my personal shame I read it in translation, though Edward Seidensticker's widely available rendition is quite adequate. Written in 1933, it is a musing on Japanese aesthetics and their awkward juxtaposition with contemporary Western imports and stylings. I understand American architecture students are often made to read it.

I won't mention any details because though it is often published in its own volume, the essay itself is barely sixty pages and well worth your own time. It can be gleaned from the title, though, that the thrust of the essay is an appreciation for the aesthetic virtue of penumbral lighting, which the author thinks was well understood by the traditional Japanese. What particularly struck me--and when compounded with the boredom of early summer prompted this--was something from the afterword, a story from Tanizaki's wife. More than once it seems, when Tanizaki was planning to build a new house for himself, the architect would say that he had read this essay and knew exactly what Tanizaki was looking for. "Oh no," he would reply. "I could never actually live in a house like that."

In the small handful of Japanese homes I have been in, I have not seen anything quite like the admiration of darkness described in the essay. Indeed, it is often quite the opposite. Even in the Japanese-style rooms often present even in modern houses, painfully bright overhead florescents dispel whatever shadows might have hoped to claw their way into the room.

I have a few anecdotes.

Several months ago, I saw an alumnus of my college speak. He is now living in Chiba, near Tokyo, working as a lawyer dealing with international environmental law while residing in and working on an experimental model farm in the countryside. He described his efforts to renovate that dilapidated farmhouse on the property, and while discussing recent renovations, he condemned the practice of many modern Japanese people to sit under these harsh lights until very late in the evening. He mentioned something about it disrupting the internal clock, and I seem to recall reading something to the same effect in another place.
Some time later, I was sitting in a classroom in one of the academic buildings on campus, alone as by some slip of scheduling I had arrived nearly fifteen minutes early to class. The next person to come in was a the TA, the young assistant Japanese language teacher. This classroom had windows on two sides, and finding the natural light ample, I had neglected to turn on the room lights. The TA scolded me for sitting alone in the dark, flipping the switch herself. As she did this, she told me that it is known in Japan and she has often found it odd, that Americans have a penchant for sitting in dark rooms with no complaint. A sort of national bad habit.

Completely unrelated. I just found a post-it worth of notes I took about a month ago to write a sort of response to some interview recorded by W. David Marx with Patrick Macias (an internationally recognized Japanese pop culture expert, according to his website), posted on Marx's blog. In the fury of finals, I never got around to writing anything and by now I've completely forgotten just what it was I wanted to say. There are four things written on the post-it, three of which look like quotes from the interview I had intended to use, and the last being some kind of comment:

"Real deep . . . ASIAN kind of thing"
"JEANesis"
"All pop culture is consumer culture"
Dollfie is a hateful nightmare

Alumnus' farm: Laughterhill Farm
W. David Marx's blog: Néojaponisme
Patric Macias' blog: An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

...And you will know us by the trail of business literature

2009-03-31T19:37:00.011-05:00

There was another orientation for the other group today. This time, only two of us from the Japan Study program ended up actually showing up. The topic was host families. The first half involved a sort of question-and-answer that was more like an answer-and-answer in which a student who had participated in the program the previous semester talked about how staying with a host family is the greatest and best and it will make you bleed diamonds and turn your bones to rainbows. He did say, though, not to worry about everything they tell you to worry about. Interesting counterpoint.

Between this and the next major segment there were several pages of handouts passed around, apparently copied from some University of Minnesota guidebook. Mostly things regarding expectations of and strategies for coping with a home stay. One sheet had a brief paragraph about responsibilities a student might have during a home stay, followed by a bulleted list of questions you should ask yourself. The last one on the list gave everyone a little pause: "Will I be encouraged to treat any household staff with respect and distance?" Giggles all around. One of the staff at the orientation, who is also an associate for the Japan Study program, said that for the students on the semester long program in northern Japan it would be highly unlikely to find staff in the homes. For the students in Tokyo, however, it was a possibility, albeit a small one. She herself, when abroad in Tokyo during college, was placed with the president of the Japanese division of a major American clothing label. Indeed.

The next section was a video, another HERE ARE WAYS YOU CAN AND WILL HUMILIATE YOURSELF reel. Meant to illustrate ways in which cultural misunderstandings can occur. Almost painful to watch. Very eighties.

It reminded me, though, of the videos on a website we were recommended to read about the potential to be culturally isolated when staying with a host family. They too had that vague and uncomfortable feel of the mid- to late-eighties. For me eighties fashion sits in a sort of uncanny valley, where in a lot of ways it's very similar to modern trends and in a lot of ways very different, but it's those few places that are close, but off just so in a way that isn't easy to define that throw me off. But that's really neither here nor there. The point is that a lot of the information for students trying to acclimatize themselves to Japan came at the tail end of a period of intense trade friction.

In my mind, the 1980s were the golden age of modern Orientalism of Japan. The so-called 'economic miracle' was widely recognized. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the party that, except for one brief period, has held power since the Occupation, was under the leadership of the charismatic Yasuhiro Nakasone (Nakasone was leader of his own minority faction within the LDP, considered somewhat outside of the party mainstream). And, of course, America was trying to figure out just what it was they were doing right. You had an explosion of books on Japanese business models, my favorite being the ones applying things like "The Book of Five Rings" to corporate policy. There was also a massive surge of interest in the Japanese school system, only exacerbated by education reform being one of Nakasone's hardest fought battles. This had been building since the sixties and gained much more momentum in the seventies, and by the eighties it had trickled down to college campuses. However, it is important to distinguish this academic interest generated by economic importance and the much earlier crop of Japanese Studies programs which were encouraged by the government in the post-war years in an effort to make Japan a regional ally and bulwark, both physically and economically, against the Soviets and Chinese.

What I'm getting at is that a lot of the information about Japan that seems to still be in the popular consciousness was seeded in the eighties, and even if it was true then (which considering that it came out of an era that actively sought essentialization is at the very least suspect), they are not necessarily true now. Just off the top of my head, regarding the perception of an ethnically homogeneous Japan. By statistics from the mid-nineties (I can't remember what year), Japan was in the same tier of minority population as countries like Germany and the Netherlands. This issue may not be the best example however, because it is a bit contentious even in Japan. Though beginning in the nineties there was a push towards the idea of a more heterogeneous Japan, themes seen in the movie "Princess Mononoke" being a perfect example, just a decade before you had the PM, the aforementioned Nakasone, calling Japan the world's only ethnic nation-state, or minzoku kokka (民族国家).

But I digress.

Severely.

When I started writing this I was intending to briefly mention how eighties the video was and leapfrog into something about the nineties and the lost decade based on something that was posted on Paul Krugman's blog earlier today. Maybe I'll write about that later.

Actually probably not. The lost decade and comparisons to the current economic situation come up so often I'm bound to talk about it at some point. Here are links to the two articles I was planning on citing. Maybe you can intuit what I was going to say.

Paul Krugman: Geithner-san
USA Today: Japan offers a lifetime job, if hired right out of school

Außenpolitik

2009-03-25T19:27:00.007-05:00

Another set of forms turned in today. Mostly personal things. Contact and health information. A survey to aid in placing with a host family. Three copies of each. More than before. Strikes me as odd.

Last night there was something of an orientation. Designed for the students attending a different program next year, theirs only for the first semester. "Nearly four months" or so they say. Maybe twenty students. The few of us who will be at Waseda next year came half an hour late and sat on the periphery. Don't know what the topic of the first section was. Second section was about coping with stress and depression. Short presentation from a couple of Health Services counseling staff. At one point they asked if anyone was thinking of carrying on a long distance relation ship. Silence. A few students exchanged awkward glaces. I laughed.

Third section was about "Culture Shock". Began with reading some common sayings of both English and Japanese. Talking about what those phrases said about their contextual society. Next, reading aloud some notions certain students from Australia, Japan, and perhaps also Germany had about Americans abroad to demonstrate that the Japanese too would have preconceptions of us. The Australian was particularly cold. The rest was a slide show of ways you would probably behave inappropriately and why that was OK but not really.

What the Australian said, though, about Americans being distant and insular even when abroad reminded me tangentially of something I came across when doing research for a paper recently. A quote from Japanese Anthropologist Nakane Chie:

The Japanese way of thinking depends on the situation rather than the principle--while with the Chinese it is the other way around. . . . We Japanese have no principles. Some people think we hide our intentions, but we have no intentions to hide. Except for a few leftists or rightists, we have no dogma and don't ourselves know where we are going. This is a risky situation, for if someone is able to mobilize this population in a certain direction, we have no checking mechanism. . . . If we establish any goal we will proceed to attain it without considering any other factors. It is better for us to remain as we are. For if we are set in motion toward any direction, we have just too much energy to check its direction. (Quoted in Kenneth Pyle, Japan Rising (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 48)

Pyle in turn quotes from a Foreign Policy article from the mid-seventies, which presumably quotes her directly. Difficult to know when she said it. I think the context is critical to understanding it. Any time from the mid-sixties to the early- to mid-seventies sounds right. Pyle calls it "a startlingly brutal characterization of Japanese motivation" (Ibid.).

No more forms due until Visa application.

I=Σmr²

2009-03-02T17:59:00.004-06:00

The first set of forms were due today. I turned them in.
Uncertainty remains. One form, contingent upon both my own and my parents' completion of tax documents not required by the state for another month was particularly bothersome.
As were the number of photographs required.
As is the suspicion that they will find some problem with them, requiring me to have another set produced. -I have been told by a former participant in the program that the photographs I turned in will be on every official document given to me. That I will grow to hate the picture. Perhaps this student underestimates my narcissism.
The next set is due in twenty-three days. The Wednesday after we return from Spring Break. It will be a challenge, I think. Organizationally speaking.
A Japan-side representative of the program will be on campus at the end of the week.
Maybe I will say something about it.

And so I begin my terrible work

2009-02-13T13:23:00.007-06:00

So. I suppose, if nothing else, and introduction is in order. My name is Ross Henderson, and I am going to Japan. Already I hear the groans of "Ross, is another blog about Japan really what the world needs, times such as they are?"
I do not respond.
I'm a student at a liberal arts college in the Midwest, and next year I'll be studying at the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS; 国際教養学術院) at Waseda University. "But Ross," you may implore. "You won't actually be in Japan for another six months! Are you so vain that you think your life before you even get to Tokyo is worth telling ThE iNtErNeT about?" To which I answer, "Yes."

The point, really, is that though I won't actually be getting on the plane until mid-September, the whole thing is being set in motion now. You could argue that I might have begun as soon as I started working on my application in November. You can argue that. I won't. There is yet a series of hoops through which I must jump, from visa applications to further essays, all perfunctory but necessary nonetheless.

"But Ross," you say again, though my growing impatience is plain. "Why keep a blog at all? Aren't they a little passe? Hasn't the user-generated battle cry of 'WEB 2.0' long since faded from this series of tubes?" Again, I whisper firmly, "Yes." But I was already planning on having one anyway, because it just seems the thing to do for a student in Japan these days. And, as I was perusing the Student Handbook for the program, I came across a paragraph titled succinctly Blogs. It stated that we are encouraged to write about our experience in "whatever medium you feel comfortable" (28). That is the end of sentence two. The remainder of the paragraph, however, warns of we should be aware of who might view our blogs, and that we are representing Waseda, the Japan Study program, our home college or university, and ourselves. "Oh," I thought. It further cautions that compromising photographs and unseemly entries have "been known to follow people beyond their college educations," and that it is within the rights of employers to learn about you through the Internet (Ibid.). "Oh," I thought. I just had to have one.

As to the proposed content of this blog, my goal is the avoid at all costs the creating of yet another JAPAN IS WACKY DID YOU KNOW symposium. Granted, some blogs that fall under that category are honestly entertaining and even on occasion informative, but there is such a glut of them that yet another would be neither necessary nor interesting. Instead, I plan to take the revolutionary view that Japanese pop culture isn't really all that interesting. Frankly, more often than not it's just ださい (dasai). Dasai is a word that usually translated as "tacky," which isn't altogether inappropriate, but I think "lame" in the way an adolescent uses it carries more of the correct connotations. Hence the title I have given this, "Not So Dasai." That's the side of Japan I want to write about. Some median between Hearn-esque Orientalism and this more modern but just as Orientalist LOL JAPAN style blogging. I don't want it to be too academic, just interesting. I suppose we'll see.

I also plan on populating this with a little more content before I let anyone know it exists, just for good form, but I think what I have written above is more than sufficient for now.