Yo no naka wo
Nani ni tatoemu
Asaborake
Kogiyuku fune no
Ato no shiranami

To what shall I compare
This world?
To the white wake behind
A ship that has rowed away
At dawn!
-- The Priest Mansei (c.720)

Wasuraruru
Mi wo ba omowazu
Chikaiteshi
Hito no inochi no
Oshiku mo aru kana

It does not matter
That I am forgotten,
But I pity
His forsworn life.
-- Lady Ukon

These are from the Gosenshu, 951 AD (found in this anthology). In the first, I like the image of the ship that's departed. That one image carries in it a melancholy sense of life's passing, a reminder that the things of the earth are (like the waves) temporary, and a reminder that earthly life is just a shadow of something else of greater solidity. In the second I love that the speaker, in contrast to the usual poetic practice of bemoaning one's loss and pain, accepts it and sees clearly enough to have compassion for the restless casanova who betrayed her.

There are, of course, many haiku and waka with nature for their theme, and I have to admit I find most of them boring. Yes, an image of the moon reflecting in a pond, or an autumn leaf falling from a tree is pleasant, but it doesn't really reach any particular emotion in me. The ones that catch my attention are a brief glimpse of a person, or have some human element. I suppose I'd say the same about western poetry, and art in general. pictures (image-pictures or word-pictures) of nature are often nice and look/sound interesting, but they're just pictures. which I guess makes me wonder why I have been taking so many pictures of flowers and leaves and so few of people lately.

In the sea of Iwami
By the cape of Kara,
There amid the stones under sea
Grows the deep-sea miru weed;
There along the rocky strand
Grows the sleek sea tangle.

Like the swaying sea tangle,
Unresisting would she lie beside me--
My wife whom I love with a love
Deep as the miru-growing ocean.
But few are the nights
We two have lain together.

Away I have come, parting from her
Even as the creeping vines do part.
My heart aches within me;
I turn back to gaze--
But because of the yellow leaves
Of Watari Hill,
Flying and fluttering in the air,
I cannot see plainly
My wife waving her sleeve to me.
Now as the moon, sailing through the cloud-rift
Above the mountain of Yakami,
Disappears, leaving me full of regret,
So vanishes my love out of sight;
Now sinks at last the sun,
Coursing down the western sky.

I thought myself a strong man,
But the sleeves of my garment
Are wetted through with tears.

-- Kakinomoto Hitomaro (seventh century), from the Man'Yoshu

As I think I've mentioned, I've been seeking out Japanese literature lately and just picked up this anthology. Something about the imagery in the poem really caught my attention. I like the comparison of his wife to the "swaying sea tangle" -- there's something very feminine about the image of undersea plants swaying in the current that works perfectly.

I wish Akira Kurosawa had made a movie of Shipwrecks. The story is set in a remote medieval Japanese fishing village, where hardship and starvation are rarely more than a bad fishing season away, and the book has a sort of minimal beauty in its spare language and the rhythmic turn of the seasons and their associated activities -- fishing for squid, catching fish, the turning of the leaves and the autumn octopus-fishing, winter snow and salt-making, spring thaw, harvest, and back to the squid. This cycle is followed through three years through the eyes of Isaku, a nine-year-old boy in the process of becoming a man (it comes early in this village). I can picture it being rendered in film, particularly in Kurosawa's style, at an unhurried pace, but with the story unfolding gradually to deadly effect.

The villagers' only reprieve from their meager existence is the occasional bounty of O-fune-sama, when a ship wrecks on their shore and they collect the rice, oil, wine, and stores against future years. but the villagers don't just passively wait and hope for this bounty from the sea; during the rough winter weather, they light fires on the beach to lure ships onto the reefs, and kill any survivors. this is simply the way it's always been done, and while the villagers are aware that they could be punished for it, they have no sense of its being wrong. O-fune-sama is as necessary to their survival as their fishing and farming, and they pray for it and have elaborate rituals to bring it about. following through Isaku's eyes, it's hard not to hope for it along with him. and when fate brings retribution to the village for their practices, it's hard not to suffer with him, even while seeing the justice.

the book is beautiful in its minute and rhythmic description of Isaku's life. without the drama of O-fune-sama and retribution, perhaps it would just be a novelty, but the enormity of what they do, along with its moral ambiguity (at least when seen through Isaku's eyes) gives the book much greater impact and depth. the other Yoshimura book I read recently, One Man's Justice had a matter of moral crime and retribution at its center, and, like that book, this book approaches it neutrally in order to figure out what it means for those in the middle of it.

I've been sort of blindly making my way through Japanese literature (at least, the corner of it that you can find in English translation). one method is just to go to the bookstore and to poke around looking for Japanese names. That's how I found Akira Yoshimura's One Man's Justice.

It's about Takuya, a Japanese soldier in WWII who is involved in the execution of American prisoners. When he hears that soldiers are being prosecuted for war crimes by the American Occupation authority, he runs, trying to hide himself from investigators. I was intrigued by the book but was afraid that it drift too far in one political direction (justifying Japanese war actions and demonizing Americans) or the other (making the character a scapegoat for Japanese imperial actions) and get annoying. but the book is more restrained than that, and really it's more interested in exploring how Takuya changes as a person and, in parallel, how Japan changes after the war. all that character-development and metaphor-for-a-nation stuff aside, it just held my attention and was well-written, with an unembellished style that suited Takuya's character and story.

Lucky for me, Yoshimura has written lots of books, though only three have been translated into English so far.

According to this Detroit News article (tip: Autoblog), Honda (they're Japanese, remember) are turning to Gwen Stefani (not Japanese) for advice on how to make their cars more "J-cool" to young people. I guess it makes sense -- no one would argue that Honda knows more about style than Gwen Stefani -- but it's kind of weird on its face. Does Honda really want Gwen's cheesy Americanized version of Harajuku cool to be the face of Honda in America? And is this going to result in an Acura that looks like little Bo Peep? On the other hand, Honda could use a little flash lately.

Inspired by a monochrome woodcut my Mother gave me, I've been working on some monochrome woodcut-style images. Maybe part of an eventual ukiyo-e style series "37 views of modern Japan" (with robots!) or something.

On our last full day in Japan, Sami and I met up with Raymond and Koto (from the Mifune Productions outing) for lunch with Raymond's brothers-in-law and some of their friends, all of whom work at the Tsukiji fish market. They usually work from about 2am until 11am, and afterwards they get together at this little restaurant to eat sushi and drink for a few hours. Pictures. Unbelievable amounts of fish and shochu were consumed. Some of the guys had known each other since they were kids, and the dynamic among them was remarkably like between our gang; in fact, after watching a couple of guys affectionately dissing each other (in Japanese of course), I had to teach them the phrase "talk shit". This lunch and the sushi we'd had on Monday morning after our visit to the market were some of the best sushi I've ever had, no question. I also got some more pictures as we walked around the neighborhood, and that night at dinner.

On Thursday, I made a day trip on my own to Kamakura -- the others had either already been or didn't feel like going. I'd heard about the giant Buddha and interesting temples from them and from my parents (who went in 2003 after I flew home) and was also planning on tracking down Akira Kurosawa's grave.

Unfortunately, it was a gray, drizzly day. Though it didn't rain too much, it was sort of depressing and not very good for photos. Anyway, I started off by walking up to the Hachiman Shrine, a large, much-visited shrine pretty much in the middle of the city. It's perched dramatically on a hill, with a great view of Kamakura. What really caught my eye though was a bunch of flags on a little island by the side of the main path.

Next I wandered around a bit, bought some ceramics, and eventually stumbled into a more out-of-the-way temple with a beautiful cemetary. Where I also petted a cat.

After that I went looking for the obscure little temple that holds Kurosawa's grave. I had a few wrong turns and mistakes (amazing how many cemetaries you can stumble across in parts of Kamakura), but I eventually found it. I asked a temple worker where the grave was (actually, I said "Kurosawa Akira?" and she said some stuff in Japanese, and then drew me a map and wrote out the Kanji so I could find it). I eventually found it (or hope so) and left an offering.

Finally, I hopped a bus and went and saw the big Buddha who, it turns out, is really big.

Only one more set of photos to go!

Swag photos. Compared to previous visits, this one trip was less about pottery and more about cute toys. It would seem.

On Wednesday the 5th, Rob and I visited the offices of Mifune Productions, which is Toshiro Mifune's old production company. It's now run by his daughter Koto, and she manages the worldwide rights to his image (and, I think, to some of his movies, though the rights to many are owned by studios like Toho).

We got to meet Koto Mifune and her friend/assistant Raymond (here holding up the chair Mifune always sat in on
the set; we got to try it too). The offices were amazing. Mifune's old study is preserved as he left it. There are piles of production stills and posters for all his films. And a cabinet containing lots of his old scripts, with his notes in them. Their hospitality was amazing. Rob and I, big Mifune fans, were overwhelmed to be able to look at all those stills and awards and to just be where he used to work.

More photos.

Wednesday night, Tom, Rob and I (Sami had a hot date, and Peter and Chinatsu were off on a family trip to Nikko) went out for dinner and a night of drinking, dancing, and hitting on the ladies (Tom only) in Roppongi. We started at a Shinjuku restaurant called Shousuke, where it was rumored we could get Yakitori and other meats on sticks. I'd been trying to get the gang to go to a Yakitori place the whole trip (after a great dinner in 2003 with my parents, where people just kept bringing us different things on sticks and we ate it all). We'd been turned away from one the night before but finally ended up at this one. We did get Yakitori (a selection of various kinds of various chicken parts on sticks, and also some tasty vegetables), as well as lots of other good stuff. A successful restaurant outing left us ready for the ladies (Tom only).

We first went to Heartland, this sort of obvious, well-known Gaijin hangout in Roppongi (recommended by our new Tokyo friend Raymond). It turned out to be a very cool bar, small but well-designed. There was a band playing, which consisted of two Japanese girls singing, one of them occasionally banging on a synth, a guy playing sax, and, I think, a DJ providing the beats. One of the girls talked to and flirted with just about everyone around, and they were fun to watch and listen to (and be flirted with by). But the place was a bit overrun with what looked more or less like American frat boys, in their oxfords and chinos and their swarming in packs around hot girls. One pair of hot (seemingly American) girls was being so swarmed and I kept urging Tom, with his obviously superior style and conversational qualities, to go rescue them. He eventually chatted up one of them (cute, a fellow Texan, and 18 years old, it turned out), but then the girls disappeared when Tom was off getting a drink, and after that the balance seemed to shift way too much away from cute girls and towards dudes in chinos, so we left.

Next stop was the legendary club Yellow (legendary to everyone who has a certain Frankie Bones mix CD, anyway). We had the address and my trusty map, but ended up all kinds of lost and wandering around. We made the mistake of asking for directions, which just confused things. (Why a mistake? Japanese people appear to be too polite to tell you they don't know what they hell you're talking about. So if you ask them a question they can't answer, they'll make up something instead, which is very unhelpful if you actually heed their advice. This is how it was explained to us anyway.)

Eventually we stumbled into a bar near where I swore, supported by my map, the place should be, and the nice people there told us, yes, Yellow was ordinarily just across the street, but it was closed on Wednesdays. Well hell. So after that, we started looking for another place on a flyer we'd picked up, made the mistake of asking for directions a couple more times, and finally stumbled, beaten, into another bar. Where I declared that I wasn't going anywhere and settled down with a drink, some (more or less) potato chips, and a view of some Soccer on the tv. While Tom chatted up the friendly and attractive Mexican barmaid (he sure has game with non-Japanese Japanese girls), Rob and I zoned out with our drinks. Eventually we declared ourselves ready to go home, though willing to leave Tom with his barmaid. But he came with us, though complaining loudly the entire cab ride back (a surprisingly long cab ride to have someone complaining loudly in your ear) about the bad luck of the evening.

Here is Tom reacting to me getting somewhat cranky at walking around and around in the rain with no girls to flirt with (Tom only).

Here are more pictures from the night.

Never mind what I said about putting all our photos from the trip on Flickr. Flickr has a pretty tight upload limit if you're not paying, and the UI is lousy for looking at hundreds of photos anyway (apparently, you can either view your pictures by the order they were uploaded, or you can sort them all by hand; how about sorting by the date in the photo metadata, flickr? or alphabetically? I'm not paying for that). So anyway, I have a few on Flickr, but most of the rest will be on perkowitz.net and linked here, as usual. I guess the other guys' stuff will be on Flickr or here, here, or here.

On Sunday 10/02, we split up. Sami and Tom met some pretty Japanese girls in Kamakura for a day of sightseeing, and Rob and I went to Harajuku, to catch the weekly parade of freaks. It was a shame to miss the trip to Kamakura, but supposedly Sunday is the day for Harajuku, and we didn't want to miss it.

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Trying to keep track of what we ate and drank...

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I think it was about time the guy came out and did the magic flaming dessert thing that Rob leaned over to me and said "best wedding ever". And with all due respect to the many lovely weddings that we've both been to (his included), it was impressive stuff. The ceremony itself was in a beautiful chapel, all wood and flowers and light streaming in from behind the altar. I won't try to do justice to the vows, but it was very moving. The bride was beautiful as she came down the aisle, and the kiss was storybook.



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We're all putting our photos on Flickr with the tag ch78tokyo. I'll also be posting them here, but Flickr will let you see all of ours together.

Back from Tokyo, and totally wiped out. Lots of updating to do... soon.

We were sort of hoping for lots of weird and crazy TV, but most of what we've seen has been disappointingly normal. However, one night we did hit the jackpot. The highlight was a game show which, if I were producing it in the US, I'd call "Don't Push Your Luck". The show has four guys competing for points in each of four rounds, each of which has the same general structure. For example, the first round involved a tire hooked up to an air pump with a switch. The guys took turns standing in the tire and filling it with air, and the guy standing in the tire when it burst lost, and the guy before him got points.

It was the second round though that was really eye-catching. One at a time, girls would come out on stage, each one with a slightly larger bust size than the previous girl (starting at 88cm and reaching about 105cm before the round ended). They would banter with the girls, ask them questions, occasionally ask them to jump up and down, and then have to decide whether the boobs were real or balloons. Once they'd made their guesses, the host would yell "BUSTU OPEN!" and the girl would take off her top to reveal her bra and her real 96cm breasts or whatever. Then they'd flash the next bust size on the screen accompanied by that YEAH! sample you hear in a lot of cheezy early 90s techno and it was on to the next girl. Eventually, when told to BUSTU OPEN, one girl pulled out a pin and popped the balloons and the round was over.

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For your amusement, here is some guy going off randomly about some quirky aspects of Japanese culture.

I haven't written about it yet, so I'll just link to Tom's post about the Park Hyatt (you know, that bar from "Lost in Translation").