I can’t remember not having known about Japan. I was pretty familiar
with it from a young age because of a VHS series my grandfather had called
wings over the pacific, or something like that. It was about the war, and was
produced from the perspective of Americans who by forty years after the fact,
had come to greatly respect their one time foes.
The first Japanese people I met were an elderly couple who
my grandfather had met golfing. He discovered that they had been adversaries in
a particular battle. They came over to stay at our house, and maintained a long
friendship. When my grandmother died, he lost touch with them. I spoke with him
on the phone before lzyk and I went to japan, but I don’t think he was totally
with it, since he asked me to look them up.
I started studying Japanese around the time I met them. At
the time, I thought it was the most foreign culture to my own. Later, I studied
Africa politics and security, and I couldn’t imagine that anywhere in Africa was
less weird than Japan. I went to Dar and Zanzibar. It is post-apocalypse there.
Americans are always dreaming about when the end of times comes, and writing
books about what it will be like. No need. Go to Goma. Go to Brazzaville. Go to
Kigani. Times have already ended there.
Now, I can die happily, because I’ve been to Africa and
Japan. Well, I haven’t lived happily, so I imagine my death won’t be very happy
either; at best, not very painful and a long time from now. Anyway, I watched
the world cup final on top of a skyscraper in Dar, and felt like 99.99999999%
of Africa was quite literally under me. In Japan, I was at the opposite end of
the ladder, so to speak. (although, I did climb up Osaka sky tower, in the
midst of a domestic dispute, which sort of ruined it all, but the view was the
most astounding thing I have ever seen, like a virtual reality postcard, 360
degrees, all around, buildings and lights as far as I could see).
Both japan and Tanzania as surprisingly friendly places. I
was told I would be robbed and murdered in the latter, and coldly stared down
in the former, and neither one was true (maybe, because Tanzania is a
relatively good place, and because Osaka-shi is a relatively good place). Here
is where I’ll have to leave the east African comparison aside, with the
exception of one last comment: until I went to Japan, I thought Africa was as
exotic and bizarre and un-understandable as any place can be (I cringe
everytime I write “Africa”; it’s a bit like lumping Europe, Australia, and the Americas
into one thing. It’s laziness, and because Tanzania wasn’t really going to be
my first choice for the continent, but I don’t like paying for tickets, so that
was the first time I went to Africa). Anyway anyway, Japan as retaken the lead
as the most foreign, inexplicable, and bizarre place in the world. Also, it has
melted my heart and made me fall deeply in love (sorry Taiwan. I am a
westerner, so I am consecutively monogamous. Can’t help it. I was born this
way. Read some dawkins).
The start of the trip was horrible. Most of the rest of it
was too, but japan being japan more than made up for it. A trip with this many
disasters would have been a disaster itself, in any other place. But Osaka persevered.
I should also clarify that while Dar does not represent Africa,
neither does Osaka represent japan, although the question of scale is
dissimilar. I went to Osaka with the impression that an anarchistic pleasure
metropolis, like a scaled up and watered down version of Taipei. I left with
the same impression.
Firstly, I had to write some adult homework until 6 am, the
morning we left. I did, but I passed out on the couch, with my computer in my
lap, depending on your point of view, either like the proverbial Spartan catching
arrows in his chest to save his brothers, or like an Italian falling asleep on
watch against the Americans. The following might skew your view: we missed the
fucking flight. Lzyk also didn’t set an alarm, but she was horribly sick.
Neither of us could be blamed, and to our credit, we didn’t do any blaming. I
blame her for going to the airport anyway. She suggested that we could make it,
if we got a good taxi, so we did, and wasted $1500nt and several hours on the
excursion. When we went to Dar, she misread the ticket and we arrive at Taoyuan
at 8 am instead of 8pm. We are improving, but it meant we lost a day in Osaka,
which is a tragedy.
My tactic, in a new place, is to book a cheap room in a
sleep neighborhood, then walk around. Later, I will realize what I wanted to
see, but that’s for the next trip. The first time, you can’t possibly know, and
if you spend your time shitting around the tourist sites, well, you might as
well have just read some retarded internet blog and not have gone. I almost
never end up wanting to see tourist ghettos, but Osaka sky tower was, I repeat,
abosolutely astounding.
We landed in a strong cross wind, my first. I admire the
pilot, it was bumpy, but we landed at such an angle, and rotated beautifully
into line… other people acted relieved, and so did i. We deplaned and were
suddenly outside in the sunshine. The first Japanese face I saw instantly me
think of sailors on Japanese ships in “war in the pacific” or whatever it’s
called. He was a large man, not at all fat, but instead fit and square jawed. He
was seated, but obviously taller, and tougher than me. He wasn’t pleased to see
me, but I was happy that his uniform was so perfect, and even though he wasn’t
firnedly, he was immaculately polite. We solved the “first time on a train in
this country” dilemma and went east. The suburbs were charming, from the
speeding window. The houses are adorable and small, but not tiny. They are noticeably
clean and well built, compared to England and Taiwan. Local achitechure is
immediately apparent in many but not most roofs, it’s a sort of a golden ratio
spiral arc across four axis. There were solar panel arrays on many of them, and
while I am trying to avoid the cliché of old noting contraditions in foreign
places, I can’t help but mention this one. However, maybe this roof angle isn’t
old there. Maybe it’s just how they build roofs. As we rode east, the day passed into a lazy Sunday
afternoon, and in japan, well, Osaka at least, in the fall at least, this means
baseball. I saw many more teams then you would see in America. Somehow, this
was heartwarming, even though I never played it myself. I took it as a sign of
strong communities.
I noticed that laundry is dried outside, especially in osaka’s
highrise housing estates, which reminded me distinctly of middle UK, only clean
and not terrifying. On the the train,
the sunshine was so shockingly bright that I had to hide my eyes. Eventually, I
realized that it was because there was virtually no airpollution in japan, at
least not in Osaka, and not on this day. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist.
The city has something like 20 million people, and great Taipei has maybe half
that, but difference in air quality um, astounded me. Sorry for not looking up
a new word in the thesaurus, but this one keeps coming to mind. The air is
crystal clear there. It smells clean. Upon returning to America, I realized it
has a smell too, which is mostly a clean one. Japan’s smell isn’t as vegetably,
but like America, doesn’t smell dirty. It just smells clean, like laundry. Not the
same smell at all, just a smell that registers as, ‘ah, this is clean, this is
good and wholesome.’ We went to dogeza neighborhood, to stay at an airbnb that lzyk
picked. She hated my totally reasonable other plans, and insisted on spending
six hours to pick a new place. She was furious that I watched skate videos
throughout the investigation, but it turned out to be a good house, despite my
inattention. I was oldschool in the 1970s US way, or maye 1960s or 1950s, I
couldn’t place it. It had tatami floors and scalloped glass windows and a
downstairs subteraeanean shower and bathroom, but with awesome water pressure. It
had a lady outside who was meditaing loudly at 8 am and 8 pm. I didn’t go out
or get home between those hours, so I think maybe she was doing it all day.
Also, there was a yowling cat.
The most striking thing about Osaka wasn’t the lack of air pollution.
After a minute, you don’t even notice that you breathe normally. Instead, the
lack of litter, and the lack of noise and light pollution. The quality of life
in Osaka is so much better than in tiawan because there are almost no scooters,
spewing unregulated filthy and cacophony into people’s homes, and also because
somehow, I suppose through ingenious engineering, there isn’t any light
pollution to speak of, although all the roads are perfectly lit and all the
sidewalks are totally safe, even late at night (and I mean by my standard of
late at night, not the Japanese standard of 8:35). As a functioning society,
japan has to be the best. I haven’t traveled everywhere, but I just cant
imagine that anything comes close. Maybe korea. I will have to go soon. But I think
I’ll come back to Osaka on the way home, because Osaka is in the triad of
awesome cities (with my home, Tiapei, and Montreal).
I didn’t bring my skateboard because it would cost extra, and
we had time constraints, like shopping for $8000 hair dryers, and because I’ve
heard that it’s basically impossible to skate in japan. This perplexes me,
because Japanese skaters’ style is generally better than anyone else on earth,
but they seem to only have helmeted parks to skate in. Osaka was full of
anti-skate pro-fascist nazi signs, forbidding nuisances like fireworks and
kickflips. In Taipei, this argument doesn’t work, because scooters and cars are
a far bigger nuisance than skateboards, but in Osaka, I have to say that
skateboards would actually constitute a relative nuisance. For Japan’s ‘red
light city’, Osaka was pretty damn sterile. But then, I live in japanes Tijuana.
[edited for deletion]
This has all been written with increasingly blood etoh as I
finished my grownup homework at 4 am, first at home, then on the roof,then at
seven, and then on the roof for a second, but it rained, so inside a new room I
found up the e and then at seven again, where I thought I lost my wallet for the
second time today, but whjich turned up at home.
Looking over my notes, I forgot the mention that the first night,
a motorcycle gang came screaming through our hood at 4 am, reviving their
motors in neutral like sawties in the hood. In silent dagewa, it ws liket angouels
had scome town, or at least kahn’s horsemen. It was seriously shocking, way
more than a nuisance. At first, I thought chinese soliders were invading on Harleys.
And I have to say that japan is a bike culture. I immediately notived the lack
of super cars compared to Taipei. In three days, I only saw a handful of them,
about the same as I would see in a 2 hour session as the bridge in Taipei. Maybe
this is because the Japanese are more sensible with their money. Im not sure. Maybe
it’s because anyone who is addicted to the rush can buy a fucking awesome bike
there. Japan is the king country of motorcycles. Nothing else can compare. I
saw so amny superb bikes there, from collection crotch rockets to actual real
choppers (not that American tv bullshit) and everything in between. Japan is
the greatest motorcycle country. Which automatically puts it in the running for
greastest country, even no considinerg the rest.
Also I forgot to say that even minor stations in a pint
sized city like Osaka are as crowded as Taipei at 8 am or 5 pm. The human
contact annoyed me like a nightmarket, only there was nothing fun to do, just
touch other people with parts of my torso that I would prefer don’t touch other
people.
We found a spray that allegedly prevents virsus from
infecting you, if you spray it on your face. I happen to sort of work in the area,
and I have to say that they will probably make a lot of yen from idiots when
the big one comes. Japan is in that sense a deeply primitive place.
We saw a beautiful native bowing ritual outside of a store. They
were dressed in western clothes, actually, much better than wersterners would
have been. They left the restaurant and did this triple series of bows, lowe
and lower, and said arigato gozaimasu many times. This didn’t seem soooo
bizare. but we checked our gps and in this time, they walked down the block. At
the other end, they repeat the ceremony, bowing many times, deeper and deepr,
from many meters away, shouting arigmto gozaimasu back and forth, like animals,
or aliens. I don’t mean to be insulting in anyway at all, I just mean to say that
this behavior is as foreign and alien to me as giving tips to waitors probably
is to more advanced socieites. It was like watchin parrots or dolphins doing something
smarter than I can understand. This sounds profoundly racist, so I went to
emphasis the part about which I cannot understand. I just mean to say, it was
as alien as anything I have ever seen the human spoecies do, as a ritual.
Later, I saw two skaters in the canal, under the no nuisance
signs. I saw two police officers the entire time I was in japan. This speaks
the superiority of the society. Japan isn’t safe because theyir police are so
good, they are safe because their people are so good. Fuck, I can’t say how
much I love japan. I teared up when I left (this sounds like bullshit too, but
it isn’t).
From my notes, I was going to start this with ‘japan is a
serious place, with serious people, doing serious things.’ I don’t disagree
now. The downside was the lifelessness of it all. It’s
Great to live ina sterile place, if you’re a sterile man,
working til death. It’s a lot less great if you don’t fit in. and I don’t. so I
was glad to come home to the best city in the world, Taipei. I had one final
moment of pure transecental extasy alone at a yakitori in north Osaka, but I ll
have to leave that for later, or never. It was the best neighborhood dive I’ve
ever been to. If I srurvive long enough to go back to Osaka, it will be my
first stop ther.e
I skated at the bridge andit was good. I worked and iddnt
skate tonight. It’s been rainaing.
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