Shibuya: At the Center of the World

Many times I have seen the pedestrian crossing, and felt its energy in movies and music videos. But it's like the rest of this city - being in the middle of Hachiko is like nothing else I have ever experienced. The hoards of people are inconceiveable, the density of the people traffic so inspiring that it felt like I had been on a lifelong pilgrimage to be there, only I didn't know it till I got there. After one week, I think I am getting used to being in Tokyo, but still, the same things never cease to amaze me. And in Hachiko I am still astounded by the ease and comfort of being in the midst of these teaming crowds as they pour onto the pedestrian crossing in front of Shibuya train station. No one pushes, no one is in such a hurry that they need to be frustrated by my pace. I am slowed down by awe at the magnificence of the neon clad buildings, deafened by the noise of nightclubs, some kind of political speeches over loudspeakers, and wanting to absorb the thrill of being at what feels like the center of the world. And the Japanese remain as courteous and pleasant as ever, minding their own business, but when asked, ever ready to assist with my most inane enquiries. It is really the greatest privilege to be immersed in this civilized world - sorry G.W. you have no idea what that word means.

Today, for the first time I got lost, though it is a wonder it hasn't happened earlier. I went to visit a friend of a friend who lives in a building by the tracks of Shinjuku station. Always eager to be above ground, I made the fatal mistake of leaving the train station a few exists too early. Naoko had given me a map and very clear directions on how to find her building, but I learnt today that this system of locating an address is still liable to baffle me. Nevertheless, I was only five minutes late because I asked at a store and with the courtesy and respect I have now come
to expect, the lady telephoned Naoko, got the directions, and escorted me to the end of the street and pointed in the right direction - and we wonder why the Japanese think the French are rude!

Fumbling with the street map, negotiating exits from a train station, looking for a building that sits next to a big hotel, making sure to keep the train tracks on the right (even though it is not always above ground), I realized that, once again, this is a culture in which images make more sense than words. Space, movement through space, conceptions of space, direction, physical orientation and location are all conceived visually - just like the language. See My Day in Asakusa. The experience of looking for a building that has a number, but a number not displayed, on a street with no name, in a neighborhood divided into 15 sections means that I am always looking at and for where I am going. In anticipation of my arrival, I envisage or imagine myself in that space, I don't see it as the goal at the end of a journey. And when I get there, I see it and am in the space, rather than thinking or knowing I have arrived.

This said, if I am honest, I am way too Western to believe that I have adapted to the Japanese experience of space and their city. Later this afternoon, as I sat, immersed in the enthrall of being in the futuristic bubble of Shibuya's dazzling facades, I felt as though I was at the center of the world. I had arrived. I was at a place that is an end of a journey, a place from where every other pedestrian crossing must now forever pale in comparison.

"What's she saying?" A day in Asakusa

Today my mother and I visited the oldest temple in Tokyo, Senso-ji. The neighborhood is meant to be old-world Tokyo, but as is often the case, that speaks only for the street between the subway station and the major tourist attraction. The rest is very like a regular neighborhood: as my friend Keisuke described it "where real Japanese people live." The shrine was wonderful - mostly because there were lots of fun activities: lighting votive incense and candles, drawing fortune sticks (mine was "no. 91 good fortune" and mother refused to play for fear of what she might draw), cleansing the hands and mouth, throwing money to Buddha. What struck me throughout the day was the fascination of the Japanese language, mostly because, despite my protestations, mother behaved as though I was fluent, could read all signs and understand every conversation in Japanese.


Every sign we saw, and every voice we heard, she turned to me and asked "what did she say?" As though I had acquired fluency in Japanese by osmosis. As we left the restaurant where we had sushi lunch, she instructed me to take the name of the restaurant (left) so she could note it in her diary - as though she was asking me to pass the soy sauce. And when the water bus didn't arrive, she asked me what time the next one was due (below). On it went.



So I spent a lot of time looking at the langauge even though I don't read it. I can nevertheless appreciate its aesthetic. It is a beautiful language to look at, and delightful to listen to. It is indeed a visual language, not a semiotic language. It is conceptual and abstract, vertical in its presentation - though not always I realized when dutifully attending to my mother's needs this afternoon - and vertical in its logic, moving from one layer to the next, not along a horizontal axis. Like the series of images that it is, Japanese doesn't have a cause and effect narrative logic, it doesn't have a compositional telos, sentence structure or forward motion. More like an experimental film, it is a series of image grabs that, taken together, communicate concepts and ideas.


And all over the temple are written characters, symbolizing something important, ancient, divine. Perhaps the banners that decorate buildings and walls, the streets, the subway cars are also decoration? Where in the West we might fight images, in Japan, the language seems to function as both image and text. Given how language dictates our identities, our culture, our beliefs, our prejudices, even our desires, I wonder if the "real Japanese people" - as opposed to those masquerading in Shinjuku and Harajuku! - live their lives in imitation of their language? And what then does this life look like? A life in which the on going search for identity is given an image, not a narrative, in which notions of ambition, success, and the relations between people are not overtaken by accummulation (of wealth), a rise to the top of a corporate ladder, and the desperate need to be better than the neighbors?

All this would be to assume that, in spite of the characters, that is, the visualization of the Japanese langauge, there has been no impact of the West's overblown (super) ego on Japan. And judging by the number of men in the "women only" subway car (left) and the hoards of Japanese people with dyed hair and makeup (below), we have indeed managed to taint the images with our words.

What to believe: the spread of H1N1 .... or empty hysteria?

My friend Keisuke reassured me tonight that most Japanese people share my frustration at the inability to grasp Tokyo. The longer I stay here, the more daunting and mesmerizing it becomes as each day offers insights and information that I have no idea of how to process. It's the ultimate postmodernist conglomeration of surfaces reflecting off surfaces, no matter how contradictory, or incompatibile.

The daily irreconcilabilities are everywhere: take the baffling hysteria around Swine Flu. The conference I was scheduled to attend in Tokyo was cancelled due to Swine Flu. Daily, schools and universities are closing across the country. The government continues to issue warnings as the pandemic supposedly spreads. And yet, there is not a single sign of this panic in the streets. True, there are people with masks - but aren't there always? I watched one of the sushi chefs sneeze tonight, and though he did it away from the counter, he turned right back round and continued making maki. Someone coughed irregularly on the subway this morning and no one around him batted an eye. Clearly no one on that train was concerned about catching swine flu, and neither were the other diners in the restuarant. As a result, I remain suspicious of the government's assiduous effort to deter movement and tourissm. Perhaps it's the people on the street who I should treat with suspicion? The dilemna of who and what to believe.

Then again, maybe I need to take what I see and hear at face value instead of diving into suspicion. Tonight, my mother and I ended up in a restaurant on the basis of the design of the calligraphic sign out the front. I asked the woman at the door if she had a menu, to which her reply was a simple "we serve chicken." Of course, I immediately assumed that her English was poor and she didn't know any other words. Afterall, what restaurant serves just chicken? That would be absurd. So mother and I propped ourselves at the bar, were lavished with pickles and some kind of radish mash with a raw egg in the middle, water, tea, empty bowls and plates. The glass counter in front of us was filled with rows and rows of skewers each with different meats (or so we thought). Dutifully, feeling like locals, but definitely not looking like them, we pointed to the safest option - chicken. I got adventurous and pointed to another with what looked like meat balls - it was chicken. When the man next to me had what I thought was shrimp, I asked for one of those - it was chicken. Mother joined in the adventure and pointed to what looked like lamb - it was chicken. We ordered soup - chicken, and by the time I glanced down to the other end of the counter to see eggs, I knew who had produced them. Why did I not believe the woman in the first place? Because like the swine flu, something about it didn't gel with my cultural conditioning.

However, given my mother's reaction when I suggested we ask the couple next to us if they could tell us what they were eating, as they were obviously not Japanese, I can't even be certain it's cultural conditioning - I certainly don't get my healthy dose of suspicion from her. She looked at me in horror - as though I had suggested she walk to the top of Mt Fuji: "hell no, they might be Mexican!"