Sayonara TOKYO
Here are the people I'll miss most in this living theater of a place some call TOKYO.
BLUNT, TSUKI, YAMA
NANAE
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Here are the people I'll miss most in this living theater of a place some call TOKYO.
Here is my take on my city, Tosu. I took these with photographer Todd Hido's style in mind (see other posts for his photos).
John Szarkowski, MOMA chief for decades, dead at 81. The NY Times obit.
I won't highlight Szarkowski's career. He was a curator many say directed photography as it's addressed and studied today. Instead, I'll give four pictures from four photographers who have Szarkowski to thank for introducing their work to the public.
1. Diane Arbus
Photo by Raymond Depardon (magnum).
Do yourself a favor and read this New Yorker article on opium eradication in Afghanistan. They're just in it for the money.
Scary shit on Cheney. The guy is taking us down dark, dark alleys.
It's somewhere that way, says my friend with semi-exposed ass. On Sunday a few of us drove to Kumamoto, the neighboring prefecture. The place is known for horse meat (sashimi, of course), and Mt. Aso, the world's largest caldera.
The volcanic opening itself was the most impressive sight. Surrounding the opening are jagged canyons, their violently-cut edges revealing distinct colors and layers of rock. A giant mass of blueish steam wafts near the opening, and when the wind blows strongly, you can catch a glimpse of the bubbling volcanic stew. It's not orange, but blue. It looked perfectly suitable for a afternoon bath.
On the descent I saw Japanese cows for the first time. They were getting fat on these luscious green acres. They had so much room for grazing. The beautiful bucolic farm setting came as a direct contrast to the farms I'm used to seeing in Texas. It reminded me of the book I'm currently reading, Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. He would approve of the farms in Japan, no doubt. And now we know why beef cost so much here.
Now that I've been in Japan for nearly a year, I should be used to the cost of traveling. But I'm still shocked: to go 40km on a highway it cost us $20.
A few months ago, we said bad boy! to Japan for the comfort women issue. More. The news told us that Abe, while visiting Washington, apologized to Bush (!!?!!) for ladies who were forced to work in brothels during WWII. Yes, that's Bush, who wasn't alive when the events took place. Now that journalists checked the facts and saw the Japanese government had apologized previously in 1994–and had been providing the women with finance reparations since then–the women are long forgotten.
Now the Western media, ever zealous to retard Japan, has started up the J-bashing engine once again. Next up: Japan, quit eating so much Tuna!
See the NY Times and IHT editorial here.
Japan's tuna crisis is grave for sushi chefs across Japan. They've been experimenting with alternative ingredients as tuna has become too expensive. But, as the edit. says, "we're not sympathetic." Japan's "rapacious overfishing" and "greedy fleets" are to blame of the downfall in Tuna.
Japan eats more fish than anyone else. The message is clear: put a cap on it. Never mind that fish is as essential to Japanese culture as shoes. Or that Japanese are historically pescatarians (it wasn't until the West came knocking over a century ago that beef entered the scene). Gloss over the fact that the true culprit for depleted stocks isn't Japan, but new entrants into the sushi craze like Russia and China.
This environmentally edged stance–tuna rationing to prevent extinction–comes ironically when paired next to the other issue currently rankling US-Japan relations. Toyota is on top, and the big three are livid. More. The cheap yen has contributed to Toyota's climb to the top in the American auto market. Or has it? Couldn't people could be turning to the Prius and other high m.p.g vehicles (which Toyota dominates) for the savings on gas? No, blame it on the yen.
3 days is too short for Hong Kong. Especially since the oppressive heat plus humidity requires half the day spent cooling down indoors. A friend had warned me about the heat. I wasn't ready. Upon finally finding my hotel, I was drenched in sweat. It was so humid that my camera lens would fog up each time I walked outside. On my last day there, I read an article in the South China Morning Post about billboards causing air pollution. The large ads that canvass many HK streets block air circulation, which suffocates the street with exhaust from street level restaurants. Walking down those stuffy streets on a Sunday afternoon––10 million HK-ers sweating it out with me––I had to duck into a 7/11 to escape the blasts of hot air. It was an outdoor sauna, with every smell and color in the spectrum assaulting all senses.
A few weeks ago, I set out to find the best Udon in Tosu, the rural town in Japan where I live. There are 5 or so such shops in the Tosu area, not counting the chain franchises. Along the way, I made friends, heard stories of youth and travel, and found culture in the most unlikely places. Inside these shops–especially the older ones like Men Kichi and Kobai–an old piece of Japan has been preserved. Even the customers follow suit–guys with slicked-back gray hair, donning polyester sweaters, who drive up in full-bodied cruisers and slurp their way through a bowl of udon in a few minutes. A trip to Men Kichi for lunch sometimes feels like a step back to the 1970s, complete with small town mobsters and savvy salesmen.
I'll have more photos and reviews as soon as I make it to the 2 shops I haven't been to yet.
I just finished The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima by Henry Scott Stokes. Here's what I think about it:
Having read about Mishima previously, what piqued my interest was his supremely un-Japanese character. A romantic imperialist, extremely well-versed in the Western thought from the Greeks to Goethe, who dreamed of the perfect death and ultimately killed himself. All because of an obsession with death and outdated samurai ethics. As Stokes tells it, there's much more to the story.
Mishima was an intrepid writer, spilling volumes upon volumes over his short life. He had a magnetic personality. Stokes says that Mishima captured a room's attention with cocksure charisma and endless anecdotes. In private, he passed around cigars like a money-drenched tycoon.
Before his adult years as an inexhaustible novelist cum robust body builder, Mishima was a precocious student. A prodigious author as a teenager, Mishima in his twenties seemed to be on track to win the first Nobel prize for Japan. At around 40 years, in the mid-60s, he took a strange political turn to the right, devoting his efforts to training a private army and lobbying for the revision of Japan's pacifist constitution.
In 1970, he took over the army headquarters in Tokyo and attempted what turned out to be a horribly unsuccessful coup. What followed was his infamous suicide by hara-kiri–a samurai-style of suicide in which a small knife is thrust into the abdomen, twice. Sadly, this single event is for what he's most memorable.
As an influence for his radical change, he often alluded to the Shinpuren Incident of 1877. The event has been interpreted as a show of Japanese fanaticism and irrationality. Many Japanese see it as a shaming incident. As Mishisma wrote, "It was a revolt led by stubborn, conservative, and chauvinistic former samurai. They hated all things Western, and regarded the new Meiji Government with hostility as an example of the Westernization of Japan. They even held white fans over their heads when they had to pass beneath electric lines, saying that the magic of the West was soiling them."
Stokes' words on Mishima:
"He was an imperialist, of course, but he was also a great deal more than that–a cold, self-obsessed creature given to fist of passion, a novelist, a playwright, a sportsman. He was a man with many sides to his character, and his imperialism cannot be regarded as central; Emperor-worship was only one facet of Yukio Mashima."
I live in Japan, but only for another week or so. Soon I'm off to New York, by way of Dallas, TX, a place I call home, but this time only for a week. I play by the rules of the movies and I'm visually greedy.