Friends ask me why I like living in Japan and why I find it a good place to write. I suppose because when here I am out-of-the-world in the sense that it is not familiar. It is a world that I do not fully understand. I am apart from rather than immersed in the world. Apart not a part. I have to question everything I do. I am not absorbed in but rather absorbing the world around me. There is no "disclosedness" for me, no "being-in" but an attempt to transform the "being-out" to a "being-in". Familiar things become unfamiliar. The everyday presence of objects - the paraphernalia of human life - transform into subjects - I have to interact with "Pocari Sweat" with "Man Smell" gum, with beer for kids, & salt & white chocolate KitKat. So, this unfamiliarity means I am not completely being-in-the-world. So, my daily anxiety - what's the Japanese for "large beer"? Should I cross the road when nothing's coming even though everyone else is waiting for the light to change to blue? Should I use my elbows against the old women in the market as much as they use theirs against me? - manifests itself in a raw full-on face-to-faceness with who I am. It's all to do with a realization of "being possible". Or it could be I just like to look at the women.
Walked the city. On Monday, V & I walked from Shinjuku to Harajuku to Omotesdando, through Shiba Park to Shiba Daimon. Tuesday, afer having lunch in the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, I walked from Yurakocho, past the Imperial Palace, up through Kanda (via the amazing Kitazawa bookshop), past the Tokyo Dome (stopped for a beer in The Hub there and finished China Miéville's excellent Perdido Street Station), & back to Komagome. Today, I walked from Komagome to Shinjuku. Apart from the walk from Shiba Daimon to Shimbashi - not far - I've circumnavigated inner Tokyo.
On Monday, I found three Bernard Stiegler books in Kinokuniya. Foyles didn't have them, nor did Gower Street Waterstones - what's occurring? Also bought The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa by Yasunari Kawabata which leads me nicely to...
Moving tomorrow to our new apartment in Asakusa - can't wait - just north of "Rokku" the old theatre district. This was/is a "burakumin" area - if you want to find out more about this minority group, go here, or better still read whatever books you can find by Kenji Nakagami. Probably not the best day to move to Asakusa as it's the start of the Sanja Matsuri festival - two million people...
2 comments:
Interesting the mentions you do to every-day things as KitKat chocolate...because we got it here in Chile too! It has been in the market for ages, and is one of the cheapest products in its kind.
Thanks for the link, I don't really think a lot of your readers will manage with spanish...but you never know.
Japan have to be a trip. We have this anecdote of a lower class woman here who married a japanese bussiness man. This man made some scam and passed his money to this woman. Then she returned to Chile as a millionaire. Built a mansion, gave a lot of interviews. She's really hot, and due to indian blood, resembles s bit of a jap. So, the media called her "The chilean Geisha". I think she's quite intelligent, and again hot...in a kinky way. Made a sexy calendar.
She was a kind of prostitute.
Ask for her there: Anita Alvarado.
And I think you have to wait the green light as anybody else, Hombre!
I don't even know how I came across your blog, but it's rather... fascinating to say the least. You are an interesting writer.
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