Archive for April 2018

 
 

Japan is in the details

Those who have already been here will want to skip over this post for something more informative—for example Noah Smith.  But I thought I’d make a few comments about my first trip to Japan, which is 60% over.  Consider these to be non-authoritative impressions.

1.  Just say Noh:  After arriving at 4am very jet-lagged, I stayed up all day and attended a performance of Noh theatre at the Yasukuni Shrine.  (Yes, that Yasukuni Shrine.)  Despite the jet lag and the tiny uncomfortable chairs, I sort of enjoyed the event.  Perhaps it helped that I had previously read William Vollmann’s Kissing the Mask, although it had been awhile and I still didn’t really understand what I was watching. In any case, I recommend a performance of Noh, at least for those with patience. (I’d like to thank my friend and his wife for bringing me to this show, and helping my wife and I adjust to Japan.)

2.  The “wouldn’t it be neat if” country: Japan seems like a land of contrasts (how’s that for a cliche!)  From the understated subtlety of Noh we transitioned to the sensory bombardment of Robot Restaurant, which makes Las Vegas seem refined and tasteful by comparison.  If you like young Japanese ladies in skimpy comic book outfits using whips to mercilessly attack men dressed up as awful monsters, all to the sound of deafening rock music (and who doesn’t?) then be sure not to miss this show.  I saw roughly zero Japanese there, which must mean something.  Later that day we saw a group of western tourists driving go-carts through Shibuya, all dressed up in bizarre costumes.  I like the fact that the Japanese seem rather uninhibited in terms of coming up with offbeat ways of having fun.  In many cases, it’s just a matter of tweaking some familiar product to make it more convenient.  Which brings me to my next observation:

3.  Japan is in the details:

One of the pleasures of traveling in Japan is that you notice all sorts of interesting little details.  The Japanese are good at perfecting products or processes that are widely used elsewhere.  In the basement of a Tokyo department store I saw the most astounding collection of baked goods that I’ve ever come across.  This place is paradise for people with a sweet tooth. There are lots of innovations in travel, such as taxi doors that open automatically, and a train system that runs with such perfect precision that you’ll almost burst out laughing.  When I watched thousands of commuters pour through a Tokyo train station in the morning their movements were so precise and efficient and synchronized that it almost seemed staged, like as scene in a Hollywood film.  I dared not cross this river of people, fearing it would throw the clockwork precision out of whack.

Detail of a door in Nara:

Screen Shot 2018-04-12 at 10.31.53 PM

4.  Libertarian Japan:

I read that the drinking and smoking age in Japan is 20, but the age limits are not enforced.  There are lots of vending machines selling cigarettes, and I’m told there are also a few machines selling alcohol.  In an Osaka restaurant I saw an ash tray with a couple cigarette butts.  What a thrill that was!  To paraphrase Colonel Kilgore, cigarette smoke smells like . . . freedom.  Japan still has phone booths, so you can get by without a cell phone.  (My model 6s iPhone broke on the first day of my trip; I borrowed my wife’s for the Nara picture.)  Most businesses I’ve frequented don’t take credit cards—another big plus in my view.

5.  Visual Japan

I’m a very visually oriented person, so it’s visual images, not food, that motivates me to travel.  Japan has the sort of visual aesthetic that I like best, especially in art, film, architecture and design.  And yet much (perhaps most) of the architecture is pretty bland, even ugly–especially buildings from 20 to 60 years old.  Lots of mediocre stuff was thrown up during the post-war boom.  I’m interested in the very old and very new stuff.  Newer Japanese houses are often very attractive, as are some of the modernist commercial buildings or museums.

The older temples and gardens in places like Kyoto are even better than I imagined.  If you are in one of the better Kyoto gardens on a nice spring day, you’d see some of the most astoundingly beautiful scenery that you’ll ever experience.  At a smaller scale, they are very good at things like pottery design, and also the presentation of food items, in stores or restaurants.  BTW, I’m not a foodie, but the food here seems excellent, and relatively inexpensive.  I recall one lunch in Tokyo that was 700 yen (includes tax and there is no tipping), which is $6.50.  The meal would have easily been over $10 in the US, especially including tax and tip.

Japanese cities often look better at night, with parts of Osaka looking like Times Square.

6.  The barbarians are coming

When you see a mix of foreign tourists and locals in a place like Tokyo, the locals look better.  The tourists (mostly Westerners and East/Southeast Asians) seem louder, less well-mannered, less attractively dressed, fatter, etc.  In affluent parts of Tokyo the men wear suits and the women dress more elegantly than in the West.  The younger women often look very  . . .  demure, if that’s the right word.  Unless they look totally crazy.  Whatever the look, there are no halfway measures in Japan.

Locals in Kyoto are a bit dismayed by the sudden influx of tourists.  I read that tourism in Japan has soared from 5 million in 2005 to 24 million in 2016, and is expected to soon reach 40 million.  Tourists don’t know all the complicated rules that make Japanese society work well despite the high population density.  (The alt-right would have a much stronger argument against immigration in Japan than in the (mongrel) US.)  I feel oversized and clumsy here, always bumping my head on something, or my knees against a table.

Before the trip I read The Three Body Problem trilogy.  In the future, the people were more attractive, softer, less rugged.  The cities were full of video screens.  Tokyo sort of reminds me of that imagined future society.

BTW, it’s hard to tell Chinese and Japanese apart at the individual level (until they speak), but easy at the group level.  Sort of like Germans and Italians.  That reminds me of the “race is a social construct . . . no it’s not” debate. To my eye, the Japanese look slightly more Western.

7.  Surprises

I recall reading about an island off the north coast of Australia where the natives have no concept of left and right.  Everything is described in terms of compass directions, such as north or east.  They’d say “John was sitting to the west of Max.”  Tokyo seems the opposite.  When I spoke of a neighborhood lying to the north of where we were staying, my host said that almost nobody in Tokyo thinks in terms of compass directions.  The numerous maps on the street confused me at first, as they are often upside down, with south pointing up.

There is often surprisingly light traffic in Tokyo–it’s not hard to get around.  I’m told that’s because there are few places to park, so people take public transport.

Subway cars are sometimes “women only”, I believe to prevent groping.  So the “Me too” movement is also making some progress in Japan.

Why are the Japanese so slim and healthy?  The secret seems to be a diet rich in sugar, carbs and fat, and light on fruits and vegetables.  Oh, and lots of smoking.  Try finding a Diet Coke, or sugar-free sweetener for your coffee.

When I watched animated films by Miyazaki I used to think the trees were drawn in a very interesting way.  Now I know why.  Many Japanese trees actually do look like large green cumulus clouds of foliage.

At dinner last night, in a traditional Japanese onsen near Mt. Fuji (recommended), the clams served were still moving around quite vigorously, right at our table. Memories of Oldboy. Many Americans would be disturbed by this sight.

Many of the waitresses speak with a soft child-like voice.  (Maybe they are children, I’m not good at judging ages.)

Mt. Fuji is more impressive than I imagined.

8. The economy:

It’s really hard to compare Japan to the US, because the countries are so different.  I visited the home of a professional couple in Kyoto, and the living standards seemed closer to what you’s see in a lower middle class house in America.  I suspect that Japanese consumption is more equal than in the US, and that the upper 50% of Americans consume at far higher levels than in Japan, while the bottom 50% are closer to Japanese levels.  Japan does have some advantages, like excellent services and low crime rates. The high level of service is labor intensive, and may reduce measured labor productivity.  Productivity is probably hurt someone what by the high population density (it’s hard to find room to build Walmarts) as well as burdensome regulations, which partly reflect a culture with strict rules.  But this is just guesswork on my part.  There seems to be a tight labor market, with many foreigners brought in to do routine work.

9. Random impressions:

I recall Donald Richie saying that Japan was a great place to live, as long as you were not Japanese.  A Westerner visiting Japan benefits from all the attractive aspects of Japanese society, without being expected to adhere to all the rules, which can seem stultifying to an outsider.  I very much enjoy being here as an outsider, and wish I could live a year in Kyoto, as Pico Iyer did.

When I lived in London back in 1986, I wanted to blot out all of modern London, and imagine I was in the city described by Stevenson and Chesterton.  That’s less true of Tokyo, for which futurism is part of the appeal.  Even so, the Japan described in earlier accounts has some appealing features that have been lost.  On the plus side, Japan seems less influenced by the world’s major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) than most other places.

Japan gives me a powerful sense of nostalgia, for reasons that are not entirely clear.  I don’t believe in reincarnation, but even the red and white electrical pylons and the trains running on elevated tracks seem oddly familiar.  Perhaps the sense of deja-vu comes from seeing so many Japanese films, and having the images burrow deeply into my subconscious.  (BTW, when you come here it’s immediately clear that Ozu and Naruse are more “Japanese” directors than Kurosawa.)  Or maybe it has to do with spending so many hours looking at woodblock prints, and then finally seeing the actual places they depicted.  Or maybe my personality is more Japanese than American.  I like polite people. (Don’t judge me by my nasty internet persona.)

When you are young you should visit China and SE Asia, and then late in life come to Japan, to rediscover your (imagined) past.

PS.  Because of my injured foot, and because I’ve had a bad cold for the past 11 days, and because I’m twice as old as when I lived in London, I saw much less than I hoped to (and much less than my (younger) wife saw.)  The fact that I’m nonetheless enjoying the trip speaks volumes about Japan.  My only recommendation for Kyoto is to see the popular places in the early morning or near closing time, and the quieter places at midday.  If you go to Arashiyama, don’t miss this house:

Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 10.52.47 PMPPS.  I positively HATE the way email and Facetime are destroying the romance of travel.