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Sunday, May 30
[Elicit]posted by peter at 19:21 .......Being somewhat of a backyard cultural theorist, I have, together with my esteemed yet nameless colleague, identified a rigorously verified set of cultural trends within the expat community.
1. Self projection. This trend is exhibited by those people who project their own insecurities onto those around them, whatever form those insecurities may take. By recognising their own faults in others, and subsequently picking them to bits, these people gain relief through their Pot Kettle Black festivals of criticism and denial.
2. Martyrdom. Why do people martyr themselves? Everyone deserves the odd moan every now and then, but these people bang on about how hard everything is, shouting toxic missives to any available ear from within their oft-exaggerated conflagrations. Look at me!! Over here! I'm burning at the stake!!! All ye come watch and acknowledge my suffering!!!
3. Mirroring. This is the least understood of the cultural trends, and generally takes the form of people gathering and reflecting the worst traits in others. But my definition is unsound and I may need to report back after further discussion with my nameless yet esteemed colleague.
* Indeed, we have discussed and expanded the definition to include those who replicate other people's emotions in order to gain attention, and also those who copy the choices and habits of others in order to gain acceptance – the latter includes behaviour such as pandering, affectation and sycophancy. *4. Burdening. Closely related to the martyrs yet distinctly unique, these are the folk who detain those around them in whatever way they can (physically or via mobile phone) and unleash a densely formed barrage of suffering and despair. But quickly impatient grows the jaded ear, and the listener tires of being lumped with yet another depressing saga of why life just ain't fair.
There we have it. Sociology 101 for today's world. I'm guilty of all of these things on this website, but hey, nobody has to read it.
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[Scuttle]posted by peter at 22:31 .......Burning a hole in the corner of my eye right now is a thoroughly repulsive cockroach. I am sitting in the downstairs part of my house at the moment, and my room is upstairs, but is a mere staircase enough to prevent a truly disgusting roach infestation?
I'm going to stop storing food in my room.
It is so humid now. Today our office was like a tropical conservatory, and in response I snapped and bought a collection of five new stripey short sleeved business shirts and several new white under-tees.
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Speaking of roach infestation, I booked accommodation for Kyoto and Osaka today. In Osaka we're hoping to stay in a capsule hotel but we've booked backup options just in case.
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When reflected streetlights and transmitted waves superimpose on the interior surfaces of Tokyo's train windows, the city really does look like the megapolis of the Manga world.
At other times it doesn't.
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For the first time in my life I...
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[On the fly]posted by peter at 23:07 .......Utsukushigaoka | Tama Plaza | Shibuya | Harajuku | Omotesando | Yoyogi Koen | Nishi Shinjuku | Shinjuku (2 and 3 chomes) | Mizonokuchi | Musashi Kosugi | Ginza | Tokyo | Aoyama | Shinagawa
I think that covers most of the places I've visited in the last two days.
A friend of a friend is in town and I played tour guide yesterday, and then today the illustrious sub-cousin Rozzy graced me with her presence for all of four and a half hours, but what we didn't half accomplish in that time, including a substantial meal at my very favourite organic vegetarian restaurant and numerous hearty outbursts of hilarity over some of this world's most amusing societal nuances.
Sadly I bought nothing tangible in that whole time, but I did manage to fit in an extra Japanese lesson which proved to be the most difficult I've experienced thus far.
I am exhausted and I have to work tomorrow.
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[Omoshiroi]posted by peter at 10:04 .......I neglected to mention another cause for anticipation, namely that sub-cousin Rozzy will be in Tokyo tomorrow! I still haven't decided exactly where to take her in the few short hours available, but we spoke on the phone last night and both decided that it doesn't matter if we don't get past the first shop, because (A) you can't see everything and (B) there's nothing wrong with that.
Having plans as unclear as this just opens up more opportunity for unexpected discoveries.
And so commences the month of visitors. Also, I'm going to Osaka on Wednesday, so that is yet another thing to be excited about.
[Iroiro]posted by peter at 00:37 .......No alarms and no surprises please.
Today I was shipped out to Sagamiono, in the outer reaches of Tokyo, but still they thought fit to install a 7-level shopping mall and numerous chain 'restaurants'. It was a busy day (peppered with mispronunciations of the city name), but my final student was truly interesting... she was a bioethicist at a university and we discussed the ins and outs of various bioethical concerns, which I don't want to enter into at this point because I have just consumed a large amount of shotchu (how 100% fashionable, you should have seen me, I'd talk about it but things would never be the same) and there is no chance of articulate discourse.
I really fucked up my trains on the way home though, what with missing my stop and all... that mixture of Kruder and Dorfmeister plus supertiredness.
Pippa is the best person in the world, it has to be said randomly like this. She sent me a beautiful parcel.
Jess is also the best person in the world because she is listening to Joni Mitchell.
Oh I really must go to sleep.
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[The smaller streets]posted by peter at 11:28 .......I'm not sure who invited 20-odd spam messages into my inbox every day, but it is starting to thoroughly irritate me, especially since I have to dispose of them with this dreadfully lame computer that crashes almost every time it encounters even a fragment of JavaScript.
Sorry, why did I do a computer science degree?
Yesterday morning I went to Roppongi, which is another, much nicer world during the day, and I also strolled on down to Azabu Juban which seems like a nice, laid-back space in the middle of Tokyo. I saw an American girl with big sunglasses sitting on a bike barking valleygirl into her 'cellphone'.
And then I went to work.
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[Take the weather with you]posted by peter at 18:50 .......To think that up until this point I still hadn't mentioned my variegated geranium, with leaves the colour of dried blood (but bright green edges) and vivid red flowers. The mind simply boggles!
Today in Nakameguro Genta and I found one of those cafes that the world needs more of – the ones that are a casual jumble of old but well-selected furniture with nicely divided dining spaces including an alfresco area, an on-site bakery in a separate building and an upstairs room for coffee and cake with a bit of 1950s retrofuturism going on, all overlooking a lovely semi-artificial river. Good food too, and the staff were accommodating to difficult foreign tastes.
I left my umbrella there.
Not really sure what happened to the typhoon; I awoke to the most glorious spring day imagineable, and naturally wore my new ghost shirt.
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[Yes Yoko Ono]posted by peter at 22:27 .......Who could have predicted that today could turn out so wonderfully?
I think what started the metaphorical ball rolling was my ebullient purchase of a pink Snoopy Joe Cool tshirt AND a gun metal green (is that an actual colour?) tshirt with a ghost on the front and weird English phrases like "where are the children?" or something similar.
In a post-cash-dispensing daze I swept through Shibuya, gathering Kanako en route, and we hit the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art for the Yes Yoko Ono exhibition.
And can I just say how absolutely in awe I am of Ono's work? The three of us (we were joined by another friend later) wandered, as though in a stupor, through the ranks of modified readymades, films, interactive exhibits and monumental installation pieces.
The most memorable works included:
- a film of Ono sitting on a stage in formal Japanese pose while members of the audience successively approached and cut pieces off her clothing with a pair of metal scissors. I found the images harrowing and distressing, as they rather powerfully represented themes such as humiliation and violation. Other films included close-up vision of a fly crawling all over Ono's naked body, and a series of bottoms filmed while their owners were presumably walking on a treadmill, the camera focused squarely on the junction of bum crack, buttock base and upper thigh, which entirely filled the field of vision.
- a maze with walls of perspex or similar medium, at the centre of which was a room with a toilet. Walking the passageways was disorientating and difficult, and I had to keep one hand stretched in front of me at all times.
- The one way telephone, which was simply a telephone on a shelf to which Ono herself might place a call at any time (there was a sign in Japanese instructing viewers to pick up if it rang), but no outgoing calls could be made. Who wouldn't get a bizarre thrill from the mere possibility of a mysterious phonecall?
- The living tree on which visitors to the exhibition were invited to hang their wishes, scrawled on small tags of uniform size. Apparently at the end of the exhibition the tree will go to Ono's home. I left a tag but what I wrote will forever remain a secret.
- The enormous installation with white strands emanating from a single point on the high ceiling, fanning out and anchored to white boards below, which also happened to be contiguous to a trail of rocks.
- the exhibit where she sold 'mornings' to eager customers for anywhere between 10 and 1,000 yen... and on the specific date which they purchased, they were encouraged to view the morning through a shard of broken glass.
- the beautifully poetic titles of the pieces, which were almost as engaging as the works themselves.
I found the thematically diverse (and generally uplifting) exhibition so completely engrossing. Anyone who happens to find themselves in Tokyo should probably go, although it is a bit of a trek and one wonders why such a magnificent museum was built in the middle of nowhere, but that's Tokyo really.
We finished with coffee at Starbucks. Could anybody ask for more?
[Darker with the hour]posted by peter at 12:42 .......What with a typhoon hovering in the vicinity, we had little choice but to cancel our planned trip to Nikko today. This whole weekend is quickly becoming anticlimactic. For example, why am I still here in this vile house at 12:44 in the afternoon? The main reason is that I've been studying Japanese all morning, but damn it, I want to be out in the streets.
Last night I watched Cold Mountain on a ripped DVD, and like The English Patient it was a depressing and unrewarding slog peppered with a few interesting stories that need not have been padded out to however long the film ran. Renee was great in it, and I must confess to being a bit of a Nicole fan, but the film left me feeling decidedly lacklustre but at the same time gave me little to think about. A depressing film is OK if it stirs up your world for a while; numerous Lars Von Trier films spring to mind.
I should get this day underway I suppose, at least before this ridiculous computer crashes for the millionth time.
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[The typhoon is coming]posted by peter at 12:07 .......Well, lesson learned about thongs in public (and by 'thongs' I mean 'flip flops') after waiting nonchalantly at a pedestrian crossing only to look down and discover a crouching spider perched on my toe. The almost involuntary movements that followed this discovery were not the sort of thing I usually like to do in the street, like, who's the maniac flailing about by the traffic light?
I was enjoying the neo-hippie look that day, until the malevolent black spider brought its dark veil to my world.
After a whirl of social engagements I'm having a quiet time now, although in reality it is the calm before the storm, because evidently a typhoon has hit Okinawa and will arrive in Tokyo tomorrow, bringing a fresh batch of torrential rain for me to enjoy on my days off. Figuratively speaking, I also have visitors coming my way and travel plans entering my life, so I'm bracing myself for a busy couple of months.
I like being busy. It keeps me positive.
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[Local trains fuck the world]posted by peter at 00:56 .......What hasn't happened over the last few days? Answer me that. Actually, don't.
I got my hair cut and it doesn't resemble the picture I showed them, but that is probably as much to do with my ineffectual Japanese as the zealousness of the decidedly unchatty hairdresser. You know the world's going to hell when your hairdresser won't talk, even with a language barrier that I am bridging more and more every day.
Last night some friends and I went to a performance of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik (if I've misspelt that I don't care right now) and Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ in Yoyogi. The string quartet was simply wonderful – I love the first piece – but the second choral work failed to engage and I am dreadfully embarrassed to admit that I nodded off at one point, how uncouth. Also, nobody knew when they were supposed to clap, which added to the feeling of unculturedness.
Then I somehow ended up paying for the taxi from Yoyogi to Shibuya... admittedly not very much (in the order of 750 yen) but I'm not sure how it got communicated that I would be shouting everyone, because nobody thought to consult me on the matter, and instead just offered thankyous.
Never mind, we went back to Tama Plaza and I drank strong Mojitos.
Work is killing me but I am embracing a new approach which the company wouldn't exactly endorse, but honestly, what do I care when students are clearly having a good time and learning things?
Tonight Harajuku was the obvious destination for dinner and drinks with Pete and his sister and other folk... the restaurant even had dishes marked with a great big fuck off 'V' for anything vegetarian, oh my spirit soared and those around me understood it emotionally.
Then I drank a whole carafe of sangria before losing part of my life on a local train.
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[Gasping for]posted by peter at 10:13 .......Seems the computer is fixed.
Today's big dilemma is whether or not I should get my hair cut. I'm sort of liking the current length (top-heavy though it may be) but we all know the effects of humidity and I just don't know if I need that in my life.
As for today, it's hot but there's a high likelihood of rain. I'm still seeing people wearing reasonably thick jackets and numerous layers and it puzzles me no end. I accidentally boarded a 'soft air conditioning' carriage yesterday and instantly almost passed out in the tepid, wet air. I'm surprised my nose didn't immediately start bleeding. And still people were wearing jackets.
I know my family lineage is from the cold depths of Eastern Europe (precisely half way between Berlin and Warsaw, in fact), but what is wrong with everyone? Don't they realise it's hot?
Anyway, I got paid last night and today I want to spend me some money.
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[Quick update]posted by peter at 18:46 .......I have a cold, but today has been rather busy nonetheless. Jordy and I went to Shin Yurigaoka, Shinjuku, the sumo wrestling (I forget the station name) and Asakusa. Now I am in Shibuya, feeling tired and hungry.
The sumo was strangely compelling. We sat on B reserve seats (having only paid for general admission) and watched large men engage in slap fights. It is actually quite violent.
Lots of other stuff has happened but my mind is blank. I have recommenced Japanese lessons, and they are completely immersive now. No English is spoken other than our confused pleas for clarification. It's a good learning environment.
Not sure what else. The computer at my guest house isn't working at the moment so posting may be somewhat sporadic until normal operation is restored.
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[Ever said this would make sense]posted by peter at 01:17 .......This world of transient friends encourages two interesting emotional responses: (A) hyperstimulated get-to-know-you question formation and (B) activation of self-defense mechanisms such as guardedness and standoffishness.
I hate both.
It seems that everyone is leaving in the next couple of months, and who can blame them? Indeed, who can blame them, but from a totally selfish perspective it sucks. Having invested energy into building relationships only to have them imminently wrenched away by a sudden departure to another x,y,z coordinate unsettles me somewhat. But, as I said, who can blame them? Nobody owes me their presence, but that doesn't ease the emotional trauma.
Transient worlds are not fun. They are not exciting. They are not fulfilling. Wonderful people sail in and out – not without influence – and the whole social phenomenon leaves me unsure whether I've been enriched or sapped.
But there are lessons in everything, and as lame as it sounds there is an element of growth that this overseas experience is bringing.
But I hate the fact that everything comes in waves. What I would give for a bit of certainty and accurate prophecy.
I plan to spend a lot of time at the beach this summer.
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[Circles]posted by peter at 19:32 .......Thanks for all the birthday wishes :)
Having hit 24, it comes as no real surprise that I am increasingly being told that I look tired. If it's not 'gentle', it's 'tired'. Sometimes I want to snarl back something about teaching 8 classes per day to the likes of you, but then I remember that I work far fewer hours per week than the average Japanese, and am in fact looking into reducing my schedule even further, and thus my complaint kind of dies away to nothingness.
And then they go on to tell me how many times I've been sighted in Shibuya. Place, time, accomplices, CIA accuracy.
Yesterday was so beautiful. I went to the beach at Hayama. A Canadian friend of mine lives there in a wonderful old Japanese house and we just hung out drinking organic tea and listening to Indian music. It's such a cliche, but was so satisfying to be part of. Then another fine person arrived and the three of us hit the beach for sunset. I was actually going to head back there tonight for a full moon party but my tiredness and a lack of organisation kind of put an end to that, so maybe next time. It annoys me that I am not right there right now participating in the festivities, and thoughts of letting life pass me by inevitably grace my mind, but then I remember my most valuable Tokyo lesson, namely that it is OK to say "no".
Even if it does confine you to a dull guest house on a Saturday night, rather than a lovely (albeit polluted) beach.
Whatever. I got myself out of the city for the day which was nothing if not restorative. I am finding that I care less and less and less and less about work.
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[To the list]posted by peter at 00:30 .......And today? Oh today I received a pair of Burberry socks and a tray of exquisite miniature cakes from the Takashimaya food court as a belated birthday present from the aforementioned Banana Republic student. The whole situation is a bit uncomfortable, but I have to admit it was rather fun carrying the branded plastic bags home.
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[Aftermath]posted by peter at 09:57 .......Thoughts of doing anything too young and interesting last night were kind of curtailed by (A) intense tiredness and (B) the fact that this is Golden Week in Japan and as such my bank is closed and indeed has chosen to go offline on the ATM network as well and therefore I can't access any money until tomorrow.
Thank goodness for cashed-up friends.
Is that not the lamest, most inconvenient notion in this, supposedly one of the most convenient countries in the world? Hmm, not too sure about that sentence structure, but I'm gonna run with it. Anyway, I was going to take the day off today but it is raining torrentially and I can't spend freely so there isn't much point really.
Oh, the birthday. It was good. Work was really quiet so I hardly did anything at all and then I went out for dinner with two of my most wonderful friends.
Mum sent me a large block of Haigh's chocolate, which I have already eaten, and various phonecalls and emails more than made up for the fact that I was half-way round the world in a very large city where barely anyone speaks English and 90% of those who do aren't worth knowing (massively judgemental call on my part, but I have very little tolerance these days – it's a survival reflex I think – and I'm saving these ideas for a later post).
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[24]posted by peter at 11:51 .......Going quite well so far :)
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[This fine mansion]posted by peter at 11:03 .......It probably comes as no real revelation to discover that quasi-communal living attracts its fair share of weird and wonderful types. Take the former landlady for example: she was fired for senility only days before I moved in, but is yet to psychologically relinquish her former post. Thus, on two occasions she has turned the lights off on me in the shower room, and barked "Late! Noise!", despite the fact that contractually I was well within the allocated bathroom times.
Being plunged into pitch blackness in a potentially cholera-ridden communal bathroom is no fun at all, and on the first occasion it became a bit of a wrestling match, in that I got out of the shower and turned the lights back on, then she turned them off again, and I turned them back on and so on and so on. On the second occasion she stood outside the bathroom door, waiting for me to emerge with the finger of blame extended adamantly towards the clock, which displayed a perfectly valid bathroom time.
She is a little odd.
More bathroom antics: last night one of the other residents seemed to be vomiting profusely in one of the shower cubicles. Imagine loud hacking, coughing and retching interspersed with slurred Japanese. The noises were all rather offputting.
I don't know how long I'll last here.
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And might I just add that my commenting system really is a great big pile of shit...
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[The other evening]posted by peter at 09:03 .......I recall saying something about having a kitchen blowtorch lodged in my eye, which at the time was the most hilarious thing in the world, but now seems only remotely amusing in a 'sorry about my weird friend' kind of way...
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[Whentime]posted by peter at 08:59 .......One very sick and disgusting thought entered my mind on the way home last night, namely that as of next Tuesday I am officially mid-20's. I was perfectly happy with early-20's. I don't need this 'mid' business.
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