Grand. Yes its grand to be back in Tokyo. Riding down now along Platinum Street,
late, as always for a meeting over in Harajuku. Trying to quietly slow my heart down. Joe Henderson, 1964 with Horace Silver,
on “Tokyo Blues.” Slow down. Revel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb-a6eRiI_0
Last night sat down for the long overdue, obligatory Japan
visit sushi meal. All the salty
fish that you can not get anywhere else in the world in a restaurant claiming
to have sushi. Kohada, Aji, Saba, Buri, Kampachi, and then the big piece
of O-toro at the end.
My stepson who lives here, and who grew up in Weifang,
Shandong, speaks excellent Japanese.
A friend who is also in town from Beijing and I asked him about Japanese
perceptions for China. He shook
his head and said that China is widely seen, among young people as a boorish
joke, and not a menacing, viably threatening neighbor. He mentioned that there is a term,
“TIC”, which in typical Japanese fashion, is an English appropriation, short
for, “that is China” which is employed with a role of the eyes and a giggle every
time China does something gruff and disruptive. This surprised me, worried me, reassured me.
The cherry blossoms have just passed. Riding along the main boulevard from
Ebisu over to Shibuya the few pink petals that remain on the trees have been
overwhelmed now with the profusion of green. Pink slowly submits to the inevitable waxing of the
leaves. I am so glad to have a
physical newspaper in my hands to look and read through. Stories appear and are impossible to bypass, as one might
reading on line.
Now I recall the heavy turbulence on the flight
over. The pilot seemed to have to
lower the altitude of the plane considerably, in order to find a more stable
patch. Presume Chuck Hagel ran
into the same symbolic choppy air flying in the opposite direction that
day. Now he’s over in
Beijing. And where as the
headlines had suggested he had “reassured” the Japanese, with whom we have a
defence treaty, Hagel “spars with Chinese over islands and security.”
During the meeting
he “appeared impatient, wagging his finger,” to remind the Chinese of
our defence treaties with Japan and the Philippines. The stern hegemon,
reminding the rising upstart of the rules of decorum. China’s general Chang Wanquan needing to assert, rather than
politely intimate that: “The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned,
fight any battle and win.” On
cyber security the U.S. forced boorish as well, through disclosures to ask for
decorum in how we spy and steal secrets, electronically. Easy to dismiss as “TIC” or
“TIA”, perhaps for Japanese youth.
They don’t seem to understand that the status quo of their parents lives
is truly unsustainable.
Now I am sitting in a sterile, granite Sumitomo building
lobby. Two paintings of waterfalls
are up behind me. Oddly, they resemble North Korean paintings I’ve seen. People are entering, at 10:00 AM. There is still a queue to the right, over at the
elevator. “Ding,” it files down,
people enter, then “ding,” the doors try to close and newly arrived people dash
across the floor in their work clothes, hands extended to catch the final "ding."
The eighteenth floor.
One more odd view down on to this remarkable urban expanse. The meeting, largely in Japanese. Five male contemporaries across from
me. I notice that there are at
least two, who like me, chose not to wear a tie. And I relax into the calm predictability of this formal
business ritual. Now, as with every
meeting, a woman must bring us beverages and we all laugh, for she has a tray
of coffees. But when asked before
we had suggested water. I can’t help but say, I’d be happy to have one, as long
as it was here. The gent with the
glasses, who’d stewarded us in rises to join the lady, as she exits.
In Japan now, I unwittingly 入乡随俗[1].
My movements are slowing down, becoming more deliberate. I automatically pay more
attention to my dress: you see,
his collar isn’t frayed the way mine is from too many times in the
laundry. Sit up straight. I have schmutz on my computer case that
is now facing them as I type. I
have schmutz on my screen that I try to remove. My movements become more deliberate, and delicate,
diminutive as I try to fit in across a different expanse of otherness.
[1] rùxiāngsuísú: When you enter a village, follow the
local customs (idiom); do as the natives do / When in Rome, do as the Romans do
No comments:
Post a Comment