Autopilotting

I type this from a self contained booth at the internet café I frequented two years ago during my time in Osaka. Before returning to the UK, I have one day to revisit all old the places that I used to go to, that until now stood at the back of my mind like phantoms. So far I've wandered round Osaka castle park; which is a place I used to cycle around late at night. Often at top speed out of fear from the gunshots (later discovered to be kids with fireworks)… then I walked to my old house and stared at a lady and her son leaving for school. Then I walked past the hospital I worked at. Gosh, life was so lonely back then. That’s why I went mental on the weekends. Later I plan on going into town. There’s a café that I used to go to, where I’d always devour a gigantic hot cake and a mug of black coffee, which in between bean sprouts and 0kcal jelly pouches, would sometimes be the only thing consumed for days…being alone does things to my head. Whatever, I survived.

Yesterday was interesting too…here’s what happened (I was writing and walking, I mean, I’m a human geographer. It’s in my nature to be continuously observing and recording)

A trip to the bank.
I am still walking a bit funny, but this time it’s for a more physical reason: in my bag is 20 quid worth of 10yen coins. That’s 5000 brown coppers, all about the size of 2p. Also, there’s a pouch of 1 yen coins but these are so light they may as well be plastic. I’m surprised they haven’t yet floated away.
I wander with my booty (the money, not my arse, which is always with me regrettably), looking for a place to change it into real money. The first three places all turn me down: luckily the Clerk-sans use such polite language that I walk away smiling, half because their tone makes me feel warm inside and half because I want to burst into hysterics: I feel like a dodgy salesperson trying to flog my wares. Finally, I reach it. Ghetto bank. I walk in and it looks like any other bank- strange cube shaped sofas, ticket machines, staff in toy uniforms fussing over grumpy customers. However this bank has something else, something far more worrying. On the far side is a big yellow Mc Donalds sign. I’m not even joking. The bank isn’t even discreet about it; there aren’t doors to divide the two establishments. They’re conjoined twins. Mc. Bank. Unsurprisingly, staff here were more than happy to change my coins up.

ten nights of dream

I dreamed...

everyone was doing the washing up in the giant kitchen

somewhere I rode a toy train

why do people do that, I asked

you want to go to the shop that wasn't owned by the place we were in

elsewhere, a fight breaks out

I try desperately to remember everything I see. I hold two fingers to the glass tracing the path of the train tracks running side by side.

I gaze in the mirror at my face. My tongue has grown; it has purple psychedelic bits trailing underneath. On top, an open nerve sits 14cm long. Waiting to be cut so I can vomit and shit myself.

What it this place that I live in, with you? All these people here, they live together.

The kitchen is large and the people in it work together so that everyone can survive.

I stumble backwards from my spot on the platform, the spot where I gazed at you for the last time before you vanished. A strange, hexed spot. A spot that would make the whole world seem massive as soon as our fingers unlinked. Bittersweet, it would be ending right where it began.
A spot that would rob me of my ability to make sense of the world.
As I try and walk I hear the stupid, soothing train music playing. I wish it would stop because it is not okay. Things are not fine. I'm thinking these things as I lift each leg and chuck it somewhere in front of me, each step laboured because the distance is much further than perceived. My steps are heavy and my legs are forgetting how to walk: a symptom of the desperate attempt my body is making to block everything out.
As I slump myself behind a bright yellow sign, I look at Tokyo. Tokyo looks back at me, silently.

I feel as if I've worked something out. That to get through each day, you need to love someone. I don't know why it took me 21 years to work this out: I grew up surrounded by love.
Anyway, when someone comes along who makes you instantly feel like you've arrived home from a long and demanding trek through a blizzard, you'll want to hang onto them for ever and ever. You'll be able to do nothing other than love them completely and innocently. Anyone would.

Vanished

In the dark , We come out and play

We are its children, And we're here to stay

Running through , Hungry for strays

No invitation, take me away

I'm not cruel, But thats still what you see

Club to club, Come see this city with me

Hungry for life, Without your pity

I don't want it, But you give it

still cant say she wont start up

still cant say she wont start up a fight

you go city

cause in the city of life she cant she cant wait

In the darkness, A killer awaits

To kill a life, And the lies you make

You do another, So this death can live

Just keep on dancing, To the movie you're in

The smell of your sweat, Just lures me in

Your heartbeat, does things to me

running feet, Beats my blood

My ghost inside you, Soon will be

still cant say she wont start up

still cant say she wont start up a fight

you go city

cause in the city of life she cant she cant wait

Now its over, You've taken your life

The dark grows thin,

And I'm left to hide

I don't regret it, But its sad anyway

Now were both dead, And scared of the black

This life of games, And diligent trust

Its the things we do, Or the things we must

Im now tired of being cussed

So go sleep forever end to dust

November Rain, Part One

They say that to express oneself in Japanese the politest way to go about it is to be really really indirect. The English language too, is founded on beating around the bush. Take last night for example. I desperately wanted to say to someone 'I hate you,' but I didn't. Instead I opted to tell the person in question a hundred bits of information; each was a token piece of the jigsaw puzzle which they would rearrange by themselves. A game that would eventually reveal the truth. That I felt incredibly sour about almost every aspect of their sad little life. Hopefully when they realised this, I would be far away.

Said person is not a friend. Nor are they an enemy. Only a random human, met by chance through another human last night. And thankfully, I will never see them again. Let's set the record straight though – I don't think I'm being harsh. Everyone's the same: some personality traits make me shudder. And this blessed person managed to incorporate all of them into his being. I should congratulate him.

oh and one last thing...

That last post was depressing. Life is good other than money. See photo evidence. Money isn't everything. Money isn't anything, I know it's true, but it's somewhat hard to belive while standing in Tokyo feeling as frail and windswept as an Autumn leaf!

a traumatic afternoon at the department store

2pm, Sunday, drifting time. Let's get lost. I’m laughing at a loaf of bread that costs 924 yen. That’s nearly £7. omg a free sample…I’ve just eaten £3 of free samples. Now, what’s that? nori seaweed sheets. Huh, 10,500 yen?!!! (£75). Isn’t it just a shitload of nori? Or does it hold magical powers? Who knows? Fake cake. Jaffa cake, fairy cake. I’m drifting around a mountain of salad.

There is nothing quite like the Japanese department store. It is something else. Maybe I just haven’t experienced such spaces back home…what about Harrods’ food hall? It isn’t quite like this though…I’m sure. England is just so crappy. England is a collection of half arsed attempts that never get completed. I really hate it.

Actually

This place (E.g. every department store in Japan, nay, the world) is hell. An anarchist’s nightmare. This space is meaningless. imagine centuries and aeons before when the department store didn’t exist, Shinjuku wasn’t anything. It didn’t have a name. Perhaps it was a glade. Or a beautiful windswept moor or rice paddies or a tiny, smoky village by a dewy forest or maybe Shinjuku was just a barren wilderness. If that’s the case, well then maybe nothing’s changed.

It is an impossible feeling to describe. Pain rushing through my fingers because if you weren’t there I would be completely stranded. Watching you spend £200 on biscuits and crackers. When I watch you doing that, I just want to disappear. I feel sad for you, that I haven’t yet disappeared. I know that you aren’t responsible for me: that nobody is responsible for me. But right now, I am completely dependent on you. And that when I go home I won’t be able to afford dinner. That the only reason I’ll get home is because you paid for my ticket. And I have to smother the little voice in my head that says ‘hungry’ or ‘want to go there’ or ‘need toothpaste.’ I can’t afford to listen to that little voice now. I soothe it by reminding myself that I haven't yet gone hungry and my teeth are all still intact.

It makes going to the department store easier, because when faced with infinite consumer choices remember that you only have one: take nothing. Oh, and feel sorry that you ever tried to imagine what it would be like otherwise.

I’ve never felt this disempowered and useless. I’ve never wanted to get the hell out of my own life more than I do right now.
It makes drinks hard to swallow, food hard to swallow. Tears are hard to control, when everything else is so brutally restrained. Fear is only half a heartbeat away; the fear that something might happen, and then I’d be completely fucked. I’m drifting through Tokyo knowing that there is no money and there is no backup and that I am completely alone in this barren wilderness.

i also stood in the rain that was trying to fall

The rain that didnt fall, it just drifted somewhere from the sky and landed somewhere near me. maybe on me but indefinitely so. i got home damp, in any case. and Family Mart didnt like my credit card. i scolded myself for spending my last note in the world on...on...on something useless, perhaps a bus ticket or a sandwich full of soggy noodles. rain doesnt fall on me. it fell around me. it fell inside me, but it never fell on me. my feet felt wet on the top from the steady moisture freeing itself slowly from the clouds. my feet felt wet on the bottom from the mucousy vomit i'd only five minutes ago stood in. The culprits, shouting at each other across the road, didnt know that the contents of one of their stomachs was all over the sole of my foot. later still, i would nearly fall on more vomit, smile broadly at more songs being sung, plan my secret escape once again. secret escapes are the best way of exiting any situation. when one becomes sick of themselves; of their responses, of their lack of ability to provide help. they can escape. also, when one becomes sick of the influence they have on a person, on a group, on a decision, they can choose to opt out by slipping slowly into the background and making like the rain and reversing themselves back somewhere secret where nobody knows they exist

kaleidoscope

I can see my feelings. They're dancing around before my eyes like flickering lights. Sometimes the feelings get so intense that the flickering lights splinter into patterns and kaleidoscopes. It's the warmest, safest, happiest sensation. I don't want it to leave my body. I can feel all my blood running up and down each limb. All of me is in the centre. I'm floating in this amazing pool of sensations.

I haven't written a 'proper' entry for a while. Tokyo distracted me. I've been learning to live without any financial security. mmm. It's been difficult, not knowing if i should spend money on this or that or take a bus or eat a meal. It was killing me, and then i came to a conclusion that made it a lot better-

I spoke to a friend back in England who told me that he never felt guilty for anything he did. When he said that, I thought it must be an amazing state to be in, especially since I blame myself for everything that goes wrong. But i'm realising now that feeling guilty won't solve anything; it's a negative veil that chokes the life out of me.

Besides, there are people out there who love to blame others for their misery. People who insist on judging are just killing themselves. They save up their pain, holding it tight, holding it close. Until a suitable opportunity arises and they throw it all into the fire and are 'purged' of their woes, feeling a dizzying sense of self righteousness from snapping their finger at him and her and them..if i lived my life blaming myself and feeling guilty, there'd be no one on my side. Iwouldn't stand a chance!
So i wont be feeling guilty from now on. Guilt and responsibility are two different things. I've got to have faith in myself..

The Game

Some time ago, someone proclaimed “let the game begin.”

Wait, when did the game begin?! Maybe when it was labelled a game. Maybe when the rules were laid out.

The Rules
1. Are completely made-up
2. You only have one chance *
3. You must give up ownership of yourself
4. Time and place regardless: this is the most important game you will ever play.
5. Personality regardless: you will never be trusted
6. The opposite team will dictate the rules
7. Again, regardless of time, place or personality.
8. If in doubt, please refer to Generic Love-Game Situation Handbook: Volume I: age 15-20
9. Love to hate!

* This is by far the most important rule, and will explain most/all of anyone's actions/paranoias during gameplay.


Gambatte ne.

Big doors divide everything. Big doors that stand from floor to ceiling
Partitioning corridors, these doors often stand quietly in the middle. Their capability to divide the entire lot isn’t lost by their status; looming at the side. They can break apart even the most spuriously arranged by just
shutting. They were all shut when we met.
Perhaps they’re meant for big robot machines, I joked. We opened one
And clung together
And thought the same
We should have thought the same.
It shouldn’t have been so fleeting
You look like a spider, you said
I have to weave webs, I said to your back. Everyone does what they can to feel at home.

We didn’t know how to stop the doors from shutting. You motion the shutting action with your hands. I look down at my spidery fingers. Clumsy, you once said.
Everyone does what they can to feel at home, I sigh.
Webs are so fragile. They break.
It’s fun to throw little things at spiders’ webs, you said. So we threw things at their webs, hoping to see them rush over and eat the trick flies. But the webs just broke, and the spiders disappeared.

I tried writing a blog entry in Japanese. But i wasnt sure if what id written was right, so i pasted it into an online language translator and this is what came out:

"Present class is difficult, was. The Japanese [be] it is we are unskillful today to do, but Japanese you speak we like. I become the Japanese rainbow [yo] thin. Much. Now apply to England you want, is. There is no money. It is there is no present [ku]. "

and this is what i originally wrote (to anyone who can read japanese..)

きょうのクラスはむずかしいでした。日本語べんきょうoするのはへたですが日本語o話すはすきです。私は日本語にじょうすになります。たぶん。
今イギリスにかえたいです。お金がない。たのしくない。

That online language translator is probably (definitely) not accurate. I wish it was though. I had no idea i sounded like such a nut..!

Dozo -continued from last post-

(By the way, this blog has turned into a rather abstract account of my time here in Tokyo. Apologies)

“Ahhh” he finally breathes. “You should go to the student affairs office and tell someone. Is there anything else?”

I lift my head. It’s all heavy. I gaze at him, willing the rest of the words to roam out like freed animals, but my mind has become blank and frozen.

“No, that's all." My smile is a little wonky. I reason that my askew smile is a direct reflection of the level of honesty in that statement. My eyes wander across the room again, picking out details in the clutter. There are so many books, flashcards, piles of corrected essays, little trinkets. Nothing interesting. I return to what’s important. The gentle man and I stare each other out once more, before I thank him, bowing my head slightly and making my excuse to leave.
Making an excuse is like moulding a ball of play dough. You just reshape the same lie to fit a different situation. Don’t mould it too much, it’s best left simple. I gather my belongings. Just a red and white striped shoulder bag that I stole from outside a charity shop. Stole. I glare at it for a split second, and smile warmly once more at the nice man.

It is quite clear that we both feel this has been an unsatisfactory meeting. But it’s too late; I’m already drifting towards the door, my legs creaking. The wooden door frame framing my body. Curving, fragile. A smile splinters across my face once more and I’m out. I’m running. My feet pound the concrete. Flip flops are disintegrating. They refuse to hold my feet, I think. They’re trying to escape.

“Dozo”

My fist floats at the slightly ajar door, about to knock. He’s sitting at his desk, peeping at me from behind a thermos coffee cup. “Dozo” he says, those peeping eyes blink once. I enter. I sit in the chair slightly to the right of him. His legs swivel round to face me. Among this room of stuff, somehow we manage to put me back together.

“You have to tell people when things go wrong” he says. I nod. Everyone says this to me. I don’t know what else to tell them; already I feel as if I’ve given nearly all my secrets to the world. The thought of any more exposure makes me exhausted, much like I’d just awoken from a night of lying upon a windswept hill.

Deja vu. I sigh and avoid eye contact with the gentle and charming man opposite me. I am a magician, a chavette. I have this hood that hides my expression. Even though I can’t wear it indoors, I feel like my expression is somewhat hidden by it anyway. All around me there are things and objects arranged into strange piles of tamed chaos. I think of the insides of my head, spilled across these piles. Seeping into the pages. I look up at the man and smile for a second. He remains pensive, polite. A smile won’t do, I think. He wants me to talk to him. Another long silence that probably didn’t last as long as I thought.

“I can’t afford this city” I finally say. As the words leave my mouth they suddenly sound much smaller than when they were in my head. I want to grab them and stuff them back into my mouth, but they’re too light; they float away. Angry, I remember why I never talk to anyone. The man’s expression doesn’t change either; we’re like a pair of parking meters or toasters or refrigerators. I wonder if he beeps when he gets hungry. I wonder if his eyes which peep are backlit with LED lights.

“Ahhh” he finally breathes “you should go to the student affairs office and tell someone. Is there anything else?”

I lift my head. Its all heavy. I gaze at him, willing the rest of the words to float out like freed animals, but my mind has become blank and frozen.

"No, that's all," I smile.

coral

I am running. My chest aches quickly; I have a smoking habit which stops me from running as fast as you. And my legs are short, I think. Whatever. We keep running. You reach back and grasp my hand, dragging me, begging me to go faster. You throw your head back and say something but it is inaudible and lost to the wind. Your grin tells me it was something nice. Hand in hand, we keep running. Earlier you grinned the same grin while you ate a jam sandwich. Why get a jam sandwich in the middle of Shinjuku, I thought. Because it’s cheap, you said. I look down at my coffee cake, which I could only afford on the negotiation that today I won’t eat lunch. Jam sandwiches are children’s foods, I think. I light a cigarette and glare at the girl sitting at the table next to us. You capture my glare on camera.
Later, we emerge from the basement coffee shop onto a wet and luminous pavement. In Japanese, ‘coffee shop’ is ‘kisaten.’ Because you get ten kisses, you say. It’s raining. The air is moist and saturated and the neon lights appear to have become more than colours because their night-time quivering gives them a mysterious organic quality. Like we’re walking around a coral reef. The buildings are coral, and all around us there are fish darting into coral nooks and crannies and corners.
If we got married, you say, the only witnesses would be the ominous dark waves from Ponyo (an anime). Their salty spray groans would send the news home via the sea, I say. And the sea would handle the information like a message in a bottle: pushing it gently towards its destination. Eventually the news would get home; ominous dark waves crawling through the front door. Whispering fragile salty messages to our parents while they sleep, dreaming of sons and daughters on pastures unknown.

Later still, we watch two foreign fishes fall out of a tree. A troop of photographers capture the moment. Silly fish, I think. They come all the way to Japan only to hide in the trees. Better to sprawl on the grass, I think. We sprawl a little. Infringing on each others’ 20 metre radius. Tomorrow, we’ll be on the news: students arrested for naïve aspirations after declaring autonomy and freedom at the park.

Eventually the coral calls, the coral glimmers and glistens and tells us to retreat to it after a long day out at sea. The waves are harsh. We rush. It’s good to get out of the storm.

Picking it all to pieces

I was once described as volatile by somebody’s mother. The person who informed me of this was amused by my surprise at such a description. They teased me about it a bit, and then assured me that it was completely accurate.
I’m sure the word ‘volatile’ has cropped up in many people’s thoughts when they’ve spoken to me. As they’ve stood there, slouching. Hearing me say all these words that just seem to fall from my mouth like apples. They ponder for a moment…What is this girl..? Suddenly another word attacks them. Volatile. The word greets them out of nowhere with the same force as the wind from a speeding train punching a newspaper on a soaking platform or a barber with a fine pair of scissors, chopping away. They snap back to the conversation, and suddenly I’ve warped into the most fluid and unreliable being they’ve ever laid eyes upon. Perhaps they grimace slightly.

The Unalchemist

The unalchemists
Turn wine into water
Every single day.
They don’t like gold
Instead
They prefer to cast spells and transform
The gilded into coal.

Some say the unalchemists are
Not of this world
Due to their manners:

They are completely spaced out.

And the only way to understand them
Is to liken them to
Other unworldly things:

A tiny monster.
A ragdoll, rolling down the hill.

Hell Scrolls, Hiroshima and the Cultural Revolution

I went to the Tokyo National Museum. It's Japans’ oldest and largest. We only had time to look in the main hall (Honkan). It contains exhibits chronologically arranged from 10,000BC-late 19th century. I thought the arrangement was of particular interest. The second floor was ‘highlights of Japanese Art: Jomon-Edo’ and the first floor was Sculpture, Metal art, Lacquer ware, Swords, Modern art…Swords and modern art?! I found this juxtaposition strange and thought-provoking.

The military attire on display was actually very old, dating from the Heian to Edo period (12-19C). Every piece was beautifully adorned and embellished. I am pretty sure that functional Army clothing in the UK has never been so heavily decorated. But the Heian period was a time of individualisation: Japan was creating its own identity away from China and therefore areas such as military prestige were of the utmost importance. This Cultural Revolution is apparent in every aspect dating from this time. Japanese Kana script was developed, which meant the beginning of literature. For example the Genji Monogatari, which is widely considered to be the first novel ever, is an account of court life written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian Period.

Other markers of change in the Heian period include the Jigoku Zoshi, or Scroll of Hell (declared a national treasure in 1956). This animated and horrific piece was created in the 12-13th Century (late Heian-Kamakura period) and depicts the six realms in which damned souls reside, according to Buddhist beliefs. Each realm has a different title, including Hell of Excrement, Hell of the Flaming Cock (!) and Hell of Pus and Blood. Like many popular religions the idea behind the scroll was to induce fear into the innocent and therefore attract more believers to the movement of Buddhism. The actual scrolls are beautiful and awe inspiring. They look convincingly like complete other-worlds and are rather scary to look at.
I was struck by the similarities between the Scroll of Hell and the Hiroshima Mural, created by Maruki Iri and Toshi in response to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, a full 7 centuries later. I personally find their murals more explicit and heart-wrenching because the hell which they depict is a hell which happened; a hell closer to home and a hell which to me feels more real than the realms of Buddhist hell.

The final theme of the day was modern art. In particular, the changing style of painting during the westernisation of Japan. In any culture, I believe art to be a response to the happenings in society at the time. These ‘modern’ pieces were created in the Meiji-Taisho period, 1868-1926. This was a time of modernisation (westernisation). I do not believe that to be modern one has to be western, but this is the path which Japan was led down. The importance of this time of change can be seen in paintings such as Portrait of Reiko by Kishida Ryusei and Night at the Railway Station by Takamura Shinpu. These paintings wouldn’t look out of place in the European Renaissance, but here they are sitting in the Taisho period. Japan had to prove its worthiness to the rest of the world, regrettably altering its traditional style and adopting another. However this sense of regret lasts only a moment…I feel that Japan may honour/respect its traditional past more so than the west.

typhoon

It’s been raining for 4 days straight. On the weekend the weather was somewhat indifferent. Like when you see a friend after ages and the anticipation of seeing them completely tips the actual experience overboard and you land with a splash inside a cold pool of de motivation, acted out in the form of a tiresome afternoon of ‘aahs’ and ‘hmms.’

It rained a little last week. However there is a major difference between last weeks’ rain and this weeks’ rain. This week Japan is anticipating a typhoon. I’ve been keeping up with the weather; we all have. In the morning while chewing on a perfectly formed piece of toast. While trying to recite my dreams to myself, while trying to regurgitate vocabulary for the daily test and simultaneously trying to swallow that perfect lump of unspoilt bread. Gazing through my thoughts, past my lashes, and over the raven dark heads of other weary college girls chewing on their flawless toast, an image cascades across the television. It’s been crawling towards that digital representation of Japan for a while now. The typhoon has been getting closer, and this morning it arrived.

The approaching mess of chaotic unknown which so objectively goes against everything Japan as a nation stands for, has been chartered and labelled. The winds are growing stronger and stronger (in fact as I write this I have just noticed my cherished yet somewhat dead potted plant has been blown into oblivion) however, I attend a hardworking university, and no amount of blustering gales and precipitation will stop classes from running, so I must brave the wind and rains (admittedly, it is sunny right now. But that wont last) and drag myself through the park which may or may not be flooded. I am somewhat nervous and expectant of great things happening in this gale, but part of me is also ready to be let down by its lack of force. They said we might get a day off! It was all lies! Already, I can feel myself diving into that pool of indifference and de motivation.

vice magazine!

You know Vice, that vulgar yet strangely wonderful magazine? Take a look at this! http://typepad.viceland.com/vice_magazine/2009/09/japan-homeless-hopeless-people-at-dawn.html

I both love and loathe vice. Its free, so i scramble to get it when i see one in a shop. But it sickens me somewhat. You can decide for yourself. Here's the main site:

http://www.viceland.com/index_uk.php

record of a living thing

I wrote a poem while daydreaming in my culture lesson yesterday. We were watching a film called 'I live in Fear' and although the film was hard to follow (i fell asleep twice), i liked the title and general idea. However, after the film ended we found out that 'I live in Fear' is a regrettably inaccurate name and that the closest translation of 'Ikimono no Kiroku' is more like 'Record of a Living Thing.' I had already written the poem by then. So i hope you enjoy its cheesy emo undertones and lack of motive for existing other than being words on a page.

i live in fear / record of a living thing

My organs have migrated
And there’s a baby on the way
It’s a monkey, growing on my back.

My lungs are merging with my brain.
Soon I’ll have a head full of air and a chest heavy with knowledge.
My heart just had to escape.

It’s perched on my shoulder,
It’s meandering its way towards my sleeve.
My organs have migrated.

I have a tongue flick flicking
At the back of my throat, and I feel as if
my eyes have teeth, devouring all they see.

Perhaps if my mouth had eyes
It would think before it spoke.

Ikimono no kiroku
Uterus full of sweat
Ikimono no kiroku
Veins full of tears
Ikimono no kiroku
Heart full of bile
Ikimono no kiroku
Stomach full of blood.

I didn’t write this with any serious thoughts it my head, I’m feeling rather happy, Probably the opposite of someone with a heart full of bile. So don’t take it literally, and *please* don’t take it seriously...E.g. there is not a baby on the way!

Kidulthood

1. My dormitory has a curfew of 11pm. Every time I go out I have to rush to get home by the prescribed time, or else the dorm mother and father will worry. Actually, in the guide book it said they'd phone our parents. But I don't believe it somehow. As in, I just don't think they'd make a long distance phone call to speak to my mother, who doesn't speak a word of Japanese (the dorm mother and father function exclusively in Japanese). Anyway, the rules are there. I’m a prisoner after 11pm. The only way round it is to submit a form explaining where i’ll be (holiday, friends house etc. I don’t think there was a box for nightclub). I can do this. I’m gona do this, it makes sense. It’s just a rather peculiar sensation, having a curfew. Having to tell people where you are. Having to plan things.

2. Also, my Japanese lessons are pretty much identical to primary school, when I was learning to read and write in English. It’s the same stuff but a different language. My reading was excellent when I was 5. My writing was not so good; actually it was terrible. I remember learning to write. All the letters had to look the same on the sheet. I wanted to write imaginative stories but my spelling too bad so I could only manage a string of consonants and random vowels. Today, it’s exactly the same but in a different language. My spelling is terrible but I want to know how to write this and that. It’s frustrating.

These two things, juxtaposed, are having a strange effect. I feel like a little girl learning to do things and living by certain rules, but also having to pay rent and look after myself. Its really weird.

Inokashira Koen

I live near a park called Inokashira Koen.
Before I came to Japan I google-earthed Inokashira Koen. It revealed photographs of a lake, cherry blossom and maple trees at various stages of shedding their fiery leaves. I liked what I saw but didn’t really think about it. Great, I thought, I get to live by a park. Quite an unusual thing for someone living in Tokyo. On moving in day, when I arrived at Inokashira station, the first thing I saw was the park. The first thing I heard was the screams of cicadas (it really is the most excellent background music) which were coming straight out of the park. I couldn’t find my halls for ages; I dragged my suitcase through the 31 degree blazing heat, purely because I was (am) too stubborn to have accepted the offer of help from a student guide. I don’t need a guide, I thought, I’ve been to Japan before. All the while, Inokashira park stood silently in the background, a green blur fenced off in the periphery. Later, once I had moved into my halls and ‘settled’ (learnt how to recycle/ paid attention to and immediately broken the showering rules/ located which cupboard I should keep my shoes in/ how much space I could use in the fridge), I discovered that I would be walking through Inokashira park every day to get to uni.
Route: down the road (10 minutes), turn into the park and walk over the bridge to the train station (10 minutes), catch a train which goes two stops down. The station platform has speakers which play a cheerful tune every time a train arrives (don’t kill yourself today salaryman!), giving me something to focus on as I try and walk in a way that says ‘I am blending in.’

My first walk through Inokashira park was bracing. Morning. Smart clothes, combed hair. Hollow breakfast. half -no wait- a full cup of instant coffee, three bites of a roll, no fish, no rice, no salad.. maybe a bit of salad.. rush, rush, rush. Don’t want to be late, oh god my new housemates are waiting I’ve got to go. Quick, smoke a cigarette. Oh look, there’s that park. Slow down, stop. Photo. Photo. Photo. Oh no, keep walking! There’s the station, off we go! The park becomes a blurry green thing buzzing in the background once again, twinkling on the periphery.

Even though I’ve only been in Japan three weeks (!!) it feels as if I’ve been here forever, and certain aspects have been on triple fast forward: spaces have changed their meaning quickly. Usually I feel like it takes a while for a new space to develop an identity/meaning. When the space has a budding personality you will inevitably smash it and rebuild it as something completely different: people interact with spaces as if they were people.

At first, the park was just green fuzz. But now it’s coming more into focus, the more time I spend there. On Sunday night we went to the park on a whim, after a couple of drinks. It was so much fun, it was exhilarating! How can a park be so lively after dark? I mean, we weren’t doing much- chatting, playing on the swings, dancing to the local busker’s abominable croon. But everything just felt so charged and vibrant. I suppose that’s one of the main things that I’ve missed about Japan. But there is something special about this park. A couple of nights later, I went back for a thoroughly different but equally wonderful night. This time we had the guitar. As the light faded the sky looked redder and redder against the silhouette of trees which were gently creeping in the wind. I like it when its getting late and you feel somewhat protected by your surroundings. It’s reassuring. I also like feeling protected by the strangers around me while they’re going about their daily activities. Although this is a fairly dumb feeling to have as you aren’t supposed to feel comforted by strangers. Stranger danger, remember? I just like the buzz/collision/symbiosis of many different heads dipping all over the place. Sometimes it’s nice to feel like a very minor and unimportant part of something way bigger. I suppose that’s why I like Inokashira Park. It's wild and comforting, it's filled with interesting people.

Millennium Actress.

Saturday morning, 9.14am. I am sitting in my wonderful air-conditioned room, scratching mosquito bites, listening to Battles and trying to learn about 35 new Kanji for Monday. Kanji are the Chinese characters which absolutely have to be learned if I am to progress into the higher (and much more interesting) Japanese class. About 2000 Kanji are used in Japan and each one usually has more than one reading, depending on its context. Difficult, no? I actually already learnt 100 back home, which is a good start. But I need to revise a lot.
My first week of college is over. It’s been good! I want to write about everything, but I can’t. So here’s a round up:

- Japanese level one (easiest): consisted of learning how to say ummm and errr in Japanese (ehhhto, annno), knowledge which has provided me with no end of entertainment.
- The university made us all do a health examination the other day. I had my height, weight, eyesight, blood pressure, heart and lungs measured. And then they took my urine. And my blood. It was an afternoon of awkwardly avoiding the gaze of the person whose urine you just saw, and then out of boredom trying to make lighthearted-but-not-too-deep conversation with them.
- The AU phone company have devoted an entire building in Harajuku to promoting its new phone with in-built pedometer. At the top of the building (after walking round and round and pretending to be mildly interested in the products on offer) there was a free Purikura!! (プリクラ) this is a machine which takes a photo of you, and you decorate with cute stamps and then print out as little stickers which are really sweet! It has the strange effect of making everyone in the photo look really young, like super young. Maybe even under 18. I doubt I ever actually look as wide-eyed and fresh faced as I do in Purikura photos.

The other day I watched an animated film called Millennium Actress/Sennen Joyu (千年女優), as part of my Contemporary Culture course. This course feels more like some kind of fun after-school club. The assessment is any creative project of my choice. Why am I studying Geography again?! The freedom here is really inspiring. I need freedom to feel relaxed and happy and able to achieve things. Part of me doesn’t want to go back to stupid England. Maybe that’s what I was scared of before I came here...that I would like it too much.
Anyway. This film was about a young girl who helps an artist fleeing from the fascist government, who want him to join the army. As the artist runs away, he forgets the key to his art supplies. The young girl is in-awe of the man, and she promises to return the key no matter what. At about the same time she gets spotted by a scout to become an actress. These two moves shape her life forever. Her desire to find the mysterious artist spurs her on and her emerging life as an actress takes her all over Asia.
The film proceeds to mix reality with her film work as a way of telling the epic and lifelong journey she takes to return this key to its owner. What makes it magical and heart wrenching is that wherever she is; whatever role she is playing, her heart and mind are focussed on one thing: finding this man and returning the key.
The story exposes her naïve and optimistic personality, which doesn’t ever change, even when she is retired. She catches glimpses of the man throughout her life but instead of dampening the ache they only spur her on. In the end she dies having never found him, and the viewer learns that the artist had actually died too, many years before in a concentration camp. I found the film really difficult to watch in front of 60 other people. I wanted to curl up and sob! I suppose it struck a chord with me.
I’d forgotten how good Anime is at creating a sense of pure emotion. Since I watched that film I’ve been pretty dry in my thoughts. It’s a kind of dry and parched feeling you get when feelings have been exposed. When there isn’t anything left to fall back on, except harsh reality. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It’s not like I feel unmotivated or depressed, just a bit closer to the truth. Which can only be a good thing.

This weekend I’m hoping to enjoy a bit of rain and maybe even a night out. Ok one last thing:

What to do when one foreigner encounters another foreigner in Japan

1. Ignore them. They get stared at by everyone else, so it’s actually kinder to pretend they don’t exist
2. Ignore them. Stupid gaijin (foreigner) looks like they don’t know a word of Japanese. To associate with them would be so degrading.
3. Ignore them. This person looks/sounds like they speak fluent Japanese. To associate with them would be too exposing.
4. Smile and wave. Hey! Foreigner, look! We’re in Japan!

These are the basic options. You never know how one will react! I usually go with the first option: dragging oneself through a severely busy street can be exhausting purely due to having ones every move chartered. I always secretly want to choose option four And I think everyone secretly wants to choose option four.

Ja mata ne! Until next time!

Sunday morning

Looking closely at my disgusting-but-healing-well index finger, I notice the scab is beginning to look quite scenic. There are follies, and crevices, and a piece of glitter which has somehow attached itself to a bit in the middle that could easily be a tiny replication of Ayres rock. I’ve become so reflective recently. Japan is really different, I’m still being reminded of all the small things that I’d forgotten about this country since going off to Uni. Some things back home are really grey. There are things which make me confused and depressed, and when I’m home in England I don’t understand why. But now I’m back in Japan, I do.

I’ve wanted to be here ever since I was 5, when I was made an honorary member of the Japanese children’s friendship group at primary school, and I went to their birthday parties and ate chips shaped like alphabet numbers and sticks of strawberry pocky and played mini tenpin bowling and dressed up like Sailor Moon characters. And ached desperately for hello kitty. I’d beg my mum to find me tiny packets of scented tissues with characters printed on them. I’d save cute Japanese sweets until they were too old to eat.

We’d look at each other with keen interest, me and the Japanese children. I liked their straight black hair and peeping dark eyes with the soft brush of lashes. They liked my white blonde hair and big blue eyes. To me they looked perfect, and I was the deviant. Now I live in Japan and people still have that keen interest in me, and I in them. But it’s grown up somewhat. I mostly feel the gap between us, and am aware that something as stupid and shallow as my appearance will forever hold me in the position of outsider, no matter how long I live here, no matter how much Japanese I know. I am a foreigner. Even if I gave birth to half-Japanese children, they wouldn’t be considered pure. This is an impossible concept for a girl who grew up in multicultural London. I am held strangely at the centre of attention, yet also completely on the periphery. My personal tutor said it was a good position to be in because this juxtaposition of placements means that I can get away with less than is expected.
I suppose he is right, every position has its good qualities. And I think life is very hard for those who are born here. The pace, the environment. Sometimes the word human doesn’t describe those who I meet…they are more machine than organic. They work very hard, and they live a life of colour and plastic. But who am I to say?! I really don’t know! It’s infuriating but amazing.

Yesterday was a good day. I went into the city with new friends, nice friends. I’d forgotten that excited feeling you get when you meet new people.
The heat was baking and all the more intense with skyscrapers glaring down from all angles, with straight-faced serious city people trying to get places while you gawp and stare and stand. I felt like every step I took was a mistake. Just like learning to dance, one must learn how to walk through a new metropolis. I’ve got the dance perfected in London: if you’re rushing and there are tourists on the tube, you’re patience is allowed to run out quickly. You can scuttle past feeling important and put-out by the stupid foreigners. Now I am that stupid foreigner, figuring out the steps to a whole new movement. It is almost pointless. David is thoughtful and mischievous- he dares me to ask a pair of pretty young women where the nearest Mc Donald’s is. I try and portray a sense of urgency when I ask. They seem unfazed and point me back down the street. I am expected to ask such questions. Nevermind. Next time I might ask in loud American English, while on the train, perhaps while talking loudly into a cell phone and chewing gum. I want a reaction. Come on people! I’m a disgusting foreigner! It’s going to be an interesting few months.

The walk around Shibuya was fun. We ate a strange but cheap and convenient lunch, and wandered around gormlessly gazing at everything. Erica, Gwyneth and Maud are my housemates. Eva and David live with families. Eva’s family won’t give her a key and kicked her out for the day. Davids’ takes him to karaoke and overfeeds him (he rings home and unashamedly asks to talk to Mum). My halls are nice, strange. The Japanese residents don’t even seem to talk to each other but maybe that’s because everyone goes to different universities. Gwyneth, Erica and I cling onto each other somewhat. Maud’s Japanese is better than her English, so she can cope. I can cope. I keep reminding myself of the wild and unprotected lifestyle I lived here in Japan before. It was the purest kind of happy, when I realised that I could cope on my own. It was like watching the end of an intense film and relaxing because you finally knew what happened. I used to live differently in Osaka. I’d spend hours working out how to get to obscure parties in tiny warehouses, and huge raves up mountains. Things are different now but it’s good to be studying again. It’s a slower lifestyle, money is tighter, but its nice finding my feet again.

Finally, here is an image which i stole a shot of the other morning. It is a visual aid to my previous post about the Salaryman, enjoy.

Matriculation

I made it to Tokyo in one piece! Albeit rather scabby and gross; I’m covered in mosquito bites which perhaps I indulged in scratching a few too many times…

The transition from ultimate-relaxation Kyoto to kill-me-now Tokyo was extreme but very cool and exciting. Yu and I spent our last few minutes together observing Kyoto station, which presents itself like some sort of Mecca due to its size and architecture. I love buildings that give that kind of atmosphere. It was very much like the Westin Bonadventure hotel in Los Angeles, which I had to study as part of my Geography degree earlier this year. The sensations achieved are simply extreme; time is frozen because the space forces it to take a side-step. In these time-less places I find my usual desires suppressed or warped. No matter how busy they get, everything is always still. It’s a kind of beauty and I don’t know how one goes about trying to achieve such a high impact just from space, or even if anyone else picks up on it (I certainly do). There is nothing more amazing than feeling your body surrender/feeling yourself lose control, in the most warming and comforting way. I find it hard to explain.
Anyway, Kyoto station is an experience. I wouldn’t spend any large amount of time there and I’m not even sure if I particularly liked the design. But the impact was immense.

After this near-epiphany I hopped onto a nightbus bound for Tokyo which had individual seats and a ceiling strip of nightlights of purple fish and whatnot. Essentially a giant buggy, we rocked our way through the night. At various points we stopped and the driver would turn all the lights on and rasp something down the microphone. It was quite irritating but also so exciting. I do love travelling.
Coach arrived at Tokyo Eki just before 7am. I hurried to get to the Underground before the Salarymen; which is the collective name given to career-driven men who work horrifically long hours and scurry around looking haggard and drained by capitalism. They all wear nice suits and work for various companies, who expect employees to socialise with each other outside of office hours as a way of creating harmony in the workplace. Except it’s fake. No one wants to spend long nights drinking with their boss only to be expected bright and early at work the next day, but for poor Salarymen this is necessary if they are to gain any respect.
I actually don’t know if the above description is accurate, it is more a detailed stereotype. But from my observations it seems pretty close.

So now I’m in my new halls, which took far too long to get to. Worth it though. The halls are similar to the old communist building in Berlin which I had the pleasure of staying at in June. Long corridors lined with identical doors, two floors. Rooms are functional. Downstairs there is a small and clean dining room. Upstairs there is a smaller and less functional ‘kitchen’ (a microwave, a fridge and a kettle). Luckily meals are provided, and they’re healthy and Japanese style (dinner always always comes with a separate bowl of rice and miso soup) it’s nice.

University campus is very impressive. All the buildings are treasures hidden between clusters of trees, and the wide roads are lined with bigger trees, which makes for a beautiful autumn.

I can’t be bothered to go into detail about today’s ceremony- basically it was 3 hours long and involved singing a few hymns and signing a human rights declaration, plus standing up and saying ‘hai/yes’ individually (sounds like I got married!).

The afternoon was 3 more hours of form-filling at the local municipal building, making an application to receive an Alien Registration card. Oh I am so very eager to prove my status as an Alien…

Then tomorrow I have a 3 hour Japanese exam!

To quote The Strokes (sorry):

“And now my fears
They come to me in threes
So, I
Sometimes
Say, "Fate my friend,
You say the strangest things
I find, sometimes"

Friday 28th August

It is 11.25am. I have just woken up to fresh coffee, a banana, a peach and celtic music. Could life get any better?! Last night was exhausting, I spent hours and hours trying to get to where I am now. The journey from the airport to Osaka station took ages(1.5 hours including hilarious encounters with unimpressed salarymen), and I suppose having travelled for 27 hours non stop (on Valium) didn’t help my understanding of new but familiar Japan. I had to get to Kyoto, and then to Yu’s house. It was all seeming a bit impossible but I got saved by a lovely lady in Kyoto, who took me to the right station, phoned Yu and then packed me off in a Taxi! I must have looked quite a sorry state with my vacant gaze and masssiiiive suitcase.
Yu’s house is so lovely. It is a 6-tatami mat room with a cute little kitchen at the front and a cute little bathroom at the back. The main room changes its function constantly; it is a dining room, a living room, a bedroom. The atmosphere changes with the time of day. Right now it is a room which smells of fresh coffee and incense and sounds like Lou Reed and cicadas humming gently outside. Sometimes they scream. The atmosphere was very different a few hours ago- I had a really strange experience when I woke up briefly at 8am. I had awful dreams where I couldn’t move at all and I wanted to move while dreaming lucidly about moving and trying to scream. I can’t actually tell what happened but I’m pretty sure I didn’t wake up sleeping on the wall or staring at a 5 foot spider, like I originally thought. Yu said that many times I cried out in my sleep, I know I was scared. It’s alright now.
Today everything seems normal again, it’s really nice. Normal meaning this- everything is all so familiar and charming. The one thing which has struck me more than anything about ‘wrapped Japan’ is the significance of the unwrap; the way a peach is wrapped in polystyrene mesh and cling film and then ceremoniously removed from these artificial wrappers, and also removed from its skin…all the soft fuzz cut off painstakingly with a sharp knife until the vulnerable and fragrant flesh is exposed, and then cut up to serve and consume. This was my job this morning, while Yu emptied fresh coffee beans into a hand grinder. Beauty lies in the care and attention in the process of doing things, an act which does not seem to exist in England. Yu was surprised to hear that in England peaches come in packs of 6 for about £2 (450 yen). We also savour the soft fuzzy skin.

Later…
Today was hot; overcast and shady and humid. We took bikes into Kyoto and had a look at some temples. It was so very relaxing. I’ve felt full of peace all day long, apologies for sounding so vomity! There’s no other way to describe it. Everything is just wonderful. I feel at home here, even though Japan definitely isn’t my home. This is my theory: I can’t understand what’s going on because my Japanese is more like Crapanese. Being unable to pick up on advertisements and media messages must be quite positive because it means I rely solely on my own ideas and experiences about the immediate environment. Even though I do not exist entirely on assumption, it is still nice not to feel the pressure of needing to own or give or take or desire. For now.
Now we are cooking some delicious dinner. Again, consuming the meal is only half the experience- the rest is made up of chopping carefully and putting items in special bowls waiting to be cooked. And then cooking them. Ja, mata ne!

post number one

Contemplation of one's navel as part of a mystical exercise.
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