Thoughts on how to save Japan/the World.
Japan needs more pride visa-vi the West and more humility visa-vi the East. Japan needs to assert itself against America and heed to the fears of China and Korea.
I was thinking about fat, ugly white guys dating sexy skinny Japanese girls. This is neo-colonialism. Literally, I swear down. Now, love is subjective, sure. But objectively, these girls are wrong. These guys might make lots of jokes, but they're not funny. They're only here because they can't get girls back home. Obviously, I'm really great, so this doesn't apply to me. But the fact is, as a westerner in Japan, one does, or can, feel like a big shot. People assume you're interesting, you can strike up a conversation with anyone and they'll appreciate it. One gets so much good attention as a white person in Japan. White people who say they experience racism are wrong: they are merely experiencing bad vibes brought about by being bad people.
Now the fact of the matter is that it is wrong to make assumptions about people based on their race or nationality and I fight for a society without the irrational and invented notion of what we call the 'nation state', but within existing perimeters, there is a truism in the fact that most of the white people in Japan think that the Japanese are cooler than them, and part of the reason is that the Japanese are indeed cooler than most of the white people in Japan.
The Japanese are too quick to heap praise on foreign actors, bands, films, whatever, without taking enough credit for or pride in her own cultural achievements (and this is not to talk simply ikebana and haiku, which do get a fair bit of attention, but rather Japan's modern literature, film, music, whatever - her culture which influenced by foreign culture and deserves to influence foreign culture).
But pretty Japanese girls dating fat white guys, cool Japanese kids listening to uncool British indie, these share common roots with the fact that Japanese foreign policy is merely a subsection of American foreign policy. Since Commodore Perry's arrival on big black ships in 1852, Japan has more often that not taken a highly subservient position to the West. This results in the world's second (but-soon-to-be-third-if-not-forth) largest economy having on the most cursory influence on world affairs.
This subservience to the West is closely related to Japan's chauvinism towards the East. Surely at least part of Japan's rough-handed attitude towards her weaker neighborhoods is due to her powerlessness within the old powers. At the turn of the century Japan was told to colonize or be colonized. She has been through periods of both and now enjoys the position of being emasculated from one side while making powerless imperial noises at the other.
Japan is at her worst when she is in this position. Her support for America leads her to aid the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her imperial pretensions lead her to deny or play down the horrendous war crimes she inflicted on the peoples of Asia. And these positions support each other in a vicious circle. People often talk about the "national conservatism" of the Japanese people. Japanese conservatism is not natural: it is socially and politically engineered. In the Pre-War period, the education system raised generations of soldiers willing to die for the Emperor. In the immediate Post-War period American policy killed the emerging, vibrant Japanese Left in it's cradle by funded the conservative Liberal Democratic Party who were in power (with less than one year's exception) from 1955 until this years election. The LDP consisted of many people in positions of power in the war years. Many of these people's sons and grandsons remain in the party. While LDP members public play around either side of the line of historic sensitivity, many implicitly or covertly support the actions of the out and out Far-Right.
Japan's tight relations with America have fostered a political climate that keeps Japan distant from Asia, while her distance from Asia keeps her dependent on America.
But with the election of a new government things look positive. Though there are many gaping faults in the new government's policies (like their plans to cut the number of seats rewarded by PR, which would certainly reduce the influence of the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democrats) and questions about their ability to enact even their best of policies (calls of change can ring hollow from a party packed with ex-members of their opposition) It seems things are on the right track. The new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times. Conservative commentators called crazy and a communist. He's neither. Within this promising article he asks the key question - "How can we put an end to unrestrained market fundamentalism and financial capitalism, that are void of morals or moderation, in order to protect the finances and livelihoods of our citizens?" - and makes a key, though blindingly obvious, observation - "I believe that the East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being". In fact, he's even been floating the idea of an EU-esq Asian Union. Though his plans of monetary union are highly unlikely, great Asian co-operation is clearly at the front of his thinking and, hopefully facilitated of a final exorcism of Japan's imperial ghosts, it is neigh on inevitable
A Japan based around Asia will be one with greater self-confidence and greater liberalism, less imperial hubris. But I also think this has progressive implications for the whole world. While on human rights, democratic rights, workers rights, America is clearly a better place than China, on they key moral, scientific, economic challenge of our lifetimes, China is now a more progressive force than America.
If North Korea is a failed state in feeding its own people, America is failed state in securing future provisions of food for the whole of humanity. America is failed state on climate change. With the vital Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change 58 days away, the chances to get a comprehensive global deal on climate change, one that will prevent run-away global warming and the immense /human/ suffering and death that this would cause, is getting smaller and smaller. (If you want to get involved, a good place to start would be here). America is playing petty politics with (literally!) hundreds of millions of people's lives. China is calling a spade a spade. America with her lopsided democracy gives god fearing climate deniers in Kansas and Wyoming, with their few millions citizens (but two senators each) a veto over the fate of the planet. China, with her dictatorship and reverence for science is ready to push through the necessary Carbon Cutting measures without having to worry about the public opinion of the stupid.
The world needs to start bullying America into doing her part to salvage a planet we can all live on from the wreack caused by her capitalism. Britain should jump ship to Europe. Japan should jump ship to Asia.
(Oh, I spent three days writing this. Which is definitely not an plea for you comment it or anything).
Friday, 9 October 2009
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Too school for cool
Why hello there, how are you doing? I know, right, it's been ages! But you're looking good, is that a new hair cut? But enough about you.
University! I am now in my second week of lessons at Doshisha, which means that 'learning' and 'thinking' are now both things I do, which as I mentioned in my last post, I have not done in a while. It's actually all going rather well.
I have made peace with Level IV. This is both because it has picked up in speed but also because of an important realization. I should be in Level V, if not VI. By this I mean that, considering the time I have spent learning and the lessons available to me, my Japanese should be at that level. But it is not. I have studied much of what is in Level IV at various times, but the truth is that I have not remembered enough of it. Even what I remember I can often not use it precisely enough to sound like a really natural, native speaker rather than the struggling foreigner I am. I have never been a good worker. I blagged a good set of GCSEs and A levels, a place at a top university and a near miss of a 2.1 in the first year of said university with - excepting a few honorable months here and there - little hard work. For this my Japanese is okay, in the way that words are only so much a part of communication and grammar only so important to words, I can communicate pretty decently in Japanese. But it's not really 'good', and it's certainly not as good as much English which is is the level I would one day like to reach. So while I would like to be in Level V, while a large part of me rebels against the idea of studying what I have studied so often before, I understand now the need to get, not so much the basics, as the intermediates really, really solid, before my Japanese can mature to a level I can be really proud of. I need to work.
And it seems that I'm able to! There are a lot of amazing cafes open until 24:00/25:00 (Yes, 25:00 is a time, as is 27:00 apparently...) and the combination of coffee + nice atmosphere + no internet seems to = 6 hours productive homework a day.
So I'll let you know how the language goes, but I feel like things are off to a good start.
But oh yeah, I met some students from Sheffield. All us Cambridge students were amazed to hear that they had to write at least one essay in Japanese every week, and that they got regular oral/conversation classes. But what's more amazing is that all the Cambridge students were amazed that language students at another university had to write essays and speak the language as part of there course. I learned a lot in my first year, especially regarding history and literature. Our language textbooks, written by university staff, are really good and explain grammar in a very intelligent way. But when it comes down to it, second year Japanese teaching at Cambridge is a fucking shambles, the compromise being less on the line of guided teaching/independent learning and more like independent learning/not providing an education. Having seen the language opportunities students at other unis have, I'm sure this class will have a lot of questions for our teachers upon our return.
THE WRATH OF THE JAPANOLOGISTS...
Oh yes, my dad was here! Which was really nice. I've got some amusing photos - he has been rated from "he looks so young and cool" from one girl to "he looks like an action film villain, in the best possible way" from one guy" - which I need to upload, so I'll make our 3 day adventure it's own post.
And as for my social life, the key word is 鴨飲み which is read かものみ which is read kamonomi which means to nomu by the Kamogawa, which means to drink by the Kamo River. That's a Doshisha student word. So now you know a Japanese word which only cool Japanese people know. Congratulations! OH AND I went to a vegetarian festival Where someone tried to send me energy from the common spirit. OH AND I went to a gig in Osaka at a British Pub and felt really cool for being British.
This post is lacking in links and pictures. It's because don't have the time to sort out links and pictures if I'm gonna sleep at a sensible time.
Which would be now, night night
xxxxxxx
University! I am now in my second week of lessons at Doshisha, which means that 'learning' and 'thinking' are now both things I do, which as I mentioned in my last post, I have not done in a while. It's actually all going rather well.
I have made peace with Level IV. This is both because it has picked up in speed but also because of an important realization. I should be in Level V, if not VI. By this I mean that, considering the time I have spent learning and the lessons available to me, my Japanese should be at that level. But it is not. I have studied much of what is in Level IV at various times, but the truth is that I have not remembered enough of it. Even what I remember I can often not use it precisely enough to sound like a really natural, native speaker rather than the struggling foreigner I am. I have never been a good worker. I blagged a good set of GCSEs and A levels, a place at a top university and a near miss of a 2.1 in the first year of said university with - excepting a few honorable months here and there - little hard work. For this my Japanese is okay, in the way that words are only so much a part of communication and grammar only so important to words, I can communicate pretty decently in Japanese. But it's not really 'good', and it's certainly not as good as much English which is is the level I would one day like to reach. So while I would like to be in Level V, while a large part of me rebels against the idea of studying what I have studied so often before, I understand now the need to get, not so much the basics, as the intermediates really, really solid, before my Japanese can mature to a level I can be really proud of. I need to work.
And it seems that I'm able to! There are a lot of amazing cafes open until 24:00/25:00 (Yes, 25:00 is a time, as is 27:00 apparently...) and the combination of coffee + nice atmosphere + no internet seems to = 6 hours productive homework a day.
So I'll let you know how the language goes, but I feel like things are off to a good start.
But oh yeah, I met some students from Sheffield. All us Cambridge students were amazed to hear that they had to write at least one essay in Japanese every week, and that they got regular oral/conversation classes. But what's more amazing is that all the Cambridge students were amazed that language students at another university had to write essays and speak the language as part of there course. I learned a lot in my first year, especially regarding history and literature. Our language textbooks, written by university staff, are really good and explain grammar in a very intelligent way. But when it comes down to it, second year Japanese teaching at Cambridge is a fucking shambles, the compromise being less on the line of guided teaching/independent learning and more like independent learning/not providing an education. Having seen the language opportunities students at other unis have, I'm sure this class will have a lot of questions for our teachers upon our return.
THE WRATH OF THE JAPANOLOGISTS...
Oh yes, my dad was here! Which was really nice. I've got some amusing photos - he has been rated from "he looks so young and cool" from one girl to "he looks like an action film villain, in the best possible way" from one guy" - which I need to upload, so I'll make our 3 day adventure it's own post.
And as for my social life, the key word is 鴨飲み which is read かものみ which is read kamonomi which means to nomu by the Kamogawa, which means to drink by the Kamo River. That's a Doshisha student word. So now you know a Japanese word which only cool Japanese people know. Congratulations! OH AND I went to a vegetarian festival Where someone tried to send me energy from the common spirit. OH AND I went to a gig in Osaka at a British Pub and felt really cool for being British.
This post is lacking in links and pictures. It's because don't have the time to sort out links and pictures if I'm gonna sleep at a sensible time.
Which would be now, night night
xxxxxxx
Sunday, 27 September 2009
The Recognition Scene
Hullo there.
Tomorrow is my first day of lectures. I have two language classes from 9AM to 12:15. It'll be nice having a bit more structure to my days, having to spend less time and money for the sake of spending time and money and I'm actually looking forward to getting back into active language learning. Of course I'm a little scared as I'm pretty rusty and I have no idea what to expect from it. But all of this is completely standard. What feels a lot more weighty, more significant, at least for now, is not that I my classes are starting but rather that my summer is ending. I have just scrolled through 16,310 words of facebook wall-posts to discover this:
"Dominic Morris Rum before my oral exam, yaaaargh :D (there was no whisky :/)
09 June at 18:57 via Mobile Web"
Meaning that my last day spent in the capacity of a student was 111 days - that is to say, 3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days, which is to say 9,590,400 seconds or 159,840 minutes or 2664 hours or 16 weeks - ago. Not to mention the fact that the that was coming in after 2 weeks of exams, preceded by a 2 week 'revision period'. I've not studied in a while.
But the point of this isn't that. In fact, I must apologize because the point is rather self-indulgent. I can offer this in repentance. The new year is a pointless marker of time. The parties are usually really disappointing as well. For me, the year as a unit of any meaning starts and ends during summer, it follows the academic year. This year has been incredibly significant. In it I have seen greater joys and harsher pains than any other time in my life. Looking back at myself at the end of last summer, I see only the shell of who I am today, a me devoid of some of the most important experiences that define what 'me' means. This summer especially has been one of the densest clusterfuck of experiences in my 19 years.
My time has been spread over 10 cities in 6 countries in 3 continents. The environmentalist in me cringes at saying that - My 10:10 pledge, Japan excluded, no more flights from now on! To paraphrase the baptists, I found Marx. I saw blur, my favorite band of all time, thrice, once in a room of 170 people. I've made friends, and made some friends closer. I... will not mention the fairer sex. Throughout an entire term at school, or period of time at work, you will be in one 'place', temporal mindset, there is one routine which, though flexible with weekends and the like, remains that one routine. I feel as though I've had 50 routines. It feels in these 3 and a bit months I have been in more 'places', more beginnings and more ends, more mindsets - some ecstatic, some depressed, and everything meandering in between - than some whole years.
So when I wonder why it still feels like I am having trouble adjusting to Japan, to my life out here, to homesickness, there is perhaps a simple answer. It is not Japan, as a cultural entity, there is no culture shock. It is the adjustment to a new year. My homesickness is also a nostalgia for the distant and near past, it is the sadness at saying goodbye, amplified by just how much there is to say goodbye to.
So again, I apologize, perhaps this would be better for a diary or something, I'm not (just ;D) writing to say what an eventful summer I've had ("For my summer holidays I went to the zoo and saw elephants and they were grey and had they long trunks and then I saw the monkeys and then I...") but I feel the need to do justice, to pay tribute to the fact that this particular change of seasons, this particular landmark means a lot to me. In the interest of facing the new year with motivation and excitement, I must say goodbye to the old.
Summer 2009, thanks a lot, it was... great? Melancholic? Hyperactive? Everything.
Tomorrow is my first day of lectures. I have two language classes from 9AM to 12:15. It'll be nice having a bit more structure to my days, having to spend less time and money for the sake of spending time and money and I'm actually looking forward to getting back into active language learning. Of course I'm a little scared as I'm pretty rusty and I have no idea what to expect from it. But all of this is completely standard. What feels a lot more weighty, more significant, at least for now, is not that I my classes are starting but rather that my summer is ending. I have just scrolled through 16,310 words of facebook wall-posts to discover this:
"Dominic Morris Rum before my oral exam, yaaaargh :D (there was no whisky :/)
09 June at 18:57 via Mobile Web"
Meaning that my last day spent in the capacity of a student was 111 days - that is to say, 3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days, which is to say 9,590,400 seconds or 159,840 minutes or 2664 hours or 16 weeks - ago. Not to mention the fact that the that was coming in after 2 weeks of exams, preceded by a 2 week 'revision period'. I've not studied in a while.
But the point of this isn't that. In fact, I must apologize because the point is rather self-indulgent. I can offer this in repentance. The new year is a pointless marker of time. The parties are usually really disappointing as well. For me, the year as a unit of any meaning starts and ends during summer, it follows the academic year. This year has been incredibly significant. In it I have seen greater joys and harsher pains than any other time in my life. Looking back at myself at the end of last summer, I see only the shell of who I am today, a me devoid of some of the most important experiences that define what 'me' means. This summer especially has been one of the densest clusterfuck of experiences in my 19 years.
My time has been spread over 10 cities in 6 countries in 3 continents. The environmentalist in me cringes at saying that - My 10:10 pledge, Japan excluded, no more flights from now on! To paraphrase the baptists, I found Marx. I saw blur, my favorite band of all time, thrice, once in a room of 170 people. I've made friends, and made some friends closer. I... will not mention the fairer sex. Throughout an entire term at school, or period of time at work, you will be in one 'place', temporal mindset, there is one routine which, though flexible with weekends and the like, remains that one routine. I feel as though I've had 50 routines. It feels in these 3 and a bit months I have been in more 'places', more beginnings and more ends, more mindsets - some ecstatic, some depressed, and everything meandering in between - than some whole years.
So when I wonder why it still feels like I am having trouble adjusting to Japan, to my life out here, to homesickness, there is perhaps a simple answer. It is not Japan, as a cultural entity, there is no culture shock. It is the adjustment to a new year. My homesickness is also a nostalgia for the distant and near past, it is the sadness at saying goodbye, amplified by just how much there is to say goodbye to.
So again, I apologize, perhaps this would be better for a diary or something, I'm not (just ;D) writing to say what an eventful summer I've had ("For my summer holidays I went to the zoo and saw elephants and they were grey and had they long trunks and then I saw the monkeys and then I...") but I feel the need to do justice, to pay tribute to the fact that this particular change of seasons, this particular landmark means a lot to me. In the interest of facing the new year with motivation and excitement, I must say goodbye to the old.
Summer 2009, thanks a lot, it was... great? Melancholic? Hyperactive? Everything.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
You know what they say about Kyoto
Yo. Sorry for the wait, it's been a busy week.
I'm trying to think of how to break the last week or so down. What's my essay structure? Got it.
General happenings:
If I was a terrible person I would describe this last week as "work hard, play hard". But I won't. In the days I've mostly been doing orientation stuff. In the nights I've mostly been doing drinking stuff.
Orientation consists in large parts of the international faculty packing into a lecture hall, being handed fliers and sheets, and then having the fliers and sheets read out to us for the next hour or so. So amongst such thrills as these, if I were forced to choose the keepiest of keepers the best of Orientation Week might include:
The religious matriculation ceremony in the College Chapel where we were reminded that Doshisha stands for CHRISTIANITY, LIBERALISM, INTERNATIONALISM, where a Japanese man who looked like a Bond villain joked that the only way to cure homesickness is to diligently study and we were assured how proud our parents are of us for being at Doshisha.
Going to get my 'Alien registration card', being told I could get a receipt for it, but because they were changing design I will have to wait a week to get it. They needed this at the phone shop to allow me to get a mobile - which, I will have to pay a cancellation fee at the end of the year if I choose not to get a prepay, but which will allow me cheap emails to non Softbank customers than the prepay option, though both include free emails to other Softbank customers - but obviously that does not include the fact that I am 19, hence legally a child in Japan, and therefore obviously requiring my Japanese student volunteer to adopt me. Long story short, I get my phone sometime next week and I am currently operating at 13% of maximum social capability.
On a slightly less sarcastic note, I didn't do brilliant on my placement test. I'm in group IV with a few other kids from Cambridge among others, some of my friends are in group V and VI. Group V would be a lot more preferable. Group IV expects us to know 800 kanji - the Chinese characters you need to know around 2000 of to read a newspaper - by the end of the year. It is intermediate, if not the beginning stages of intermediate Japanese. I've been at this level since halfway through my A2 year. I've improved only incrementally in the entire year I was studying at one of the best universities in the world. Incidentally, everyone from SOAS at Doshisha is in group VI or above. It's partly because I didn't revise at all for the placement test. It's partly because I'm rusty. It's partly because Cambridge provides no structure whatsoever for systematically learning vocabulary and characters and provides no tests until the end of the year. But frustratingly it is because I have not worked hard enough on my language skills and have been distracted by other interests, both academic and otherwise. This year I need to stop mixing metaphors and take the dictionary by its horns and take the last train to Studiesville.
The other frustrating thing about being in Group IV is that it really limits my choice of non-language papers I can sit. I thought I was going to be stuck doing Ikebana and British Popular Culture since the 70s. Fortunately, this is not the case, and here is where I get less stroppy. As part of the deal Cambridge has with Doshisha, that sees us getting significantly reduced tuition fees, we also get less credits to take classes with. In fact, once a specially negotiated dissertation workshop in the Spring term and extra language seminars are factored in, we only get three free non-language classes for the whole year. There are no classes I want to take that I can take as a level IV student. But at the start of the Spring term there will be another placement test where one can potentially move up to a higher group. This term I am taking no non-language classes at all. I can focus on getting good at Japanese and I will also have a lot of free time in which to read, write, explore Kyoto and campaign politically (Mr. Tadatoshi, the Deputy Director of the International Bureau of the JCP - is asking around the Kyoto office for someone to introduce me to, my friend in Tokyo has already given me the contact details of a Kyoto Komrade). Then next term, when I am to Japanese what Joseph Conrade was to English, I will be able to take Modern Japanese Literature, Japanese Dialects, and Japanese Politics, all taught in Japanese. So actually, as a great master of the Tea Ceremony once said "It's all Gravy".
As for drinking, it was often. That's what Japanese sentences are like. I'm always surprised by how much better Japan is than everywhere else. I kind of mean that quite specifically but also kind of generally. Kyoto is not meant to be cool. AH KYOTO'S SO PRETTY SO TRADITIONAL TEMPLES GEISHA SAMURAI WABI SABI わね！ That sort of thing. Osaka is cool. Osaka is where people drink and dance and dress well. But then you're reminded that the standards in Japan are just higher. Kyoto is comparatively not cool. But for that, it is absolutely packed with tiny hole-in-the-wall bars with loads of character, chatty barkeepers, good music and decently prices drinks. The average young person on a street in central Kyoto would be noticeably "fashionable" even by London standards. Japan, you're meant to be going through the worst recession of the last 50 years, you're meant to be stilted and repressed. You're doing it wrong! But yes, I've not been not drunk for quite a while. I'll keep you posted on how that's going. As for drinking, this it looks like.
Interlude - Between whisky and academic bureaucracy I have found Philip Larkin. That book has nearly all his poems at little over 200 pages. Which is nice. I really like it. Which worries me a bit. It's all very conservative. Both the poetry and its form - what's all the rhyming malarky! Away with your established metre! And the author and his politics - he's grumpy, perpetually old, his dad was a Nazi and his letters show him to be a wee bit reactionary. And I am worried because I hope I'm not a closet traditionalist. Like, alright, I love T.S. Elliot (fuck, he's a righty too!), but I prefer the comparatively normal The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to The Waste Land, and it's shamefully appealing reading Larkin and easily understanding, you know, what he means. I'll have to get my weird fix when I'm done with a bit of e.e. cummings. The first poem of his I really dug was this rather lovely number:
The horns of the morning
Are blowing, are shining,
The meadows are bright
With the coldest dew;
The dawn reassembles.
Like the clash of gold cymbals
The sky spreads its vans out
The sun hands in view.
Here, where no love is,
All that was hopeless
And kept me from sleeping
Is frail and unsure;
For never so brilliant.
Neither so silent
Nor so unearthly, has
Earth grown before.
-------------
I might get sued, because I had to type that out because it's nowhere good on the internet. But yeah, it turns out this is a particularly chirpy piece for him, as by and large, he's a miserable bastard. But I rate him for his ability to create morbid beauty in mundane events. And I pity him, because he wrote extraordinary poetry and lived a tiny, tiny life.
Back to out main feature:
I've been missing certain people at home a lot. Though I've been having lots of fun and I've been very busy, my emotional baseline is still very up-and-down shaky. There's concrete stuff about wanting to see certain people at home, then lots of vague abstract stuff about where I even consider my home, not being settled, etc etc. So I've been doing lots of thinking about that. But it is, slowly dawning on me, that whatever I may feel about it, I am here for a year. I miss London and Cambridge, I miss people in London and Cambridge, but the only thing to do about it is to make Kyoto better than London and Cambridge, more of a home than home, to be move active and productive here than I am there, to make this year amazing. I must find a new ICA and Indego Cafe, and while not forgetting about those I care about at home, I must develop real, close relationships out here. To this end, well, for one I need to get a phone. But otherwise, I've been researching and seeing what Kyoto has to offer. Fortunately, it has a lot. I have found two art-house cinemas, over 10 art galleries, including a Kaleidoscope Museum (with a 'make your own kaleidoscope class, of course) and a gallery in a forest in the montains, infinite small cafes and bars, 4 hot springs, 1 local Communist Party Office, 3 local vegetarian restaurants including a "Felafal Garden", a few live houses with local acts and I live next door to the Imperial Palace with pleanty of grass and trees to lean against and read and write, and by the Kamo river with big grassy banks packed with people picnicking, studying, and playing live jazz.
On the agenda coming up I have two elections, one for the Kyoto Prefectur Governor, one for the Upper House in the Diet.
A bit nearer - and here I'm partially doing this to have it all written up for nice, easy reference - I have
22.09.09 - Welcome to Doshisha Party
29.09.09 - Mama!milk, A great Kyoto band (check out 'Kujaku') who do atmospheric accordion jazz - at Urbanguild.
04.10.09 - Japan's largest vegetarian festival at Okazaki Park - it's bring your own cutlery.
24.10-09-23.12.09 - Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele and Viennese Art at the turn of the century exhibition at the Suntory Museum in Osaka. What! Having first become aware of their existence a few months ago, slightly lamenting not being able to go to Vienna before I left for Japan, it's now down the road. Marvelous.
That and looking for a job. So yes, I am going to intensely enjoyable activity myself out of the blues.
And then here are some pictures, for good measure.
Pretty river views.
A good sign.
Looking like American college students.
Take care, I'll maybe write more frequently now. But Oh My Days, I swear down, you have to comment this. This took me three hours to write.
Night night
xxx
I'm trying to think of how to break the last week or so down. What's my essay structure? Got it.
General happenings:
If I was a terrible person I would describe this last week as "work hard, play hard". But I won't. In the days I've mostly been doing orientation stuff. In the nights I've mostly been doing drinking stuff.
Orientation consists in large parts of the international faculty packing into a lecture hall, being handed fliers and sheets, and then having the fliers and sheets read out to us for the next hour or so. So amongst such thrills as these, if I were forced to choose the keepiest of keepers the best of Orientation Week might include:
The religious matriculation ceremony in the College Chapel where we were reminded that Doshisha stands for CHRISTIANITY, LIBERALISM, INTERNATIONALISM, where a Japanese man who looked like a Bond villain joked that the only way to cure homesickness is to diligently study and we were assured how proud our parents are of us for being at Doshisha.
Going to get my 'Alien registration card', being told I could get a receipt for it, but because they were changing design I will have to wait a week to get it. They needed this at the phone shop to allow me to get a mobile - which, I will have to pay a cancellation fee at the end of the year if I choose not to get a prepay, but which will allow me cheap emails to non Softbank customers than the prepay option, though both include free emails to other Softbank customers - but obviously that does not include the fact that I am 19, hence legally a child in Japan, and therefore obviously requiring my Japanese student volunteer to adopt me. Long story short, I get my phone sometime next week and I am currently operating at 13% of maximum social capability.
On a slightly less sarcastic note, I didn't do brilliant on my placement test. I'm in group IV with a few other kids from Cambridge among others, some of my friends are in group V and VI. Group V would be a lot more preferable. Group IV expects us to know 800 kanji - the Chinese characters you need to know around 2000 of to read a newspaper - by the end of the year. It is intermediate, if not the beginning stages of intermediate Japanese. I've been at this level since halfway through my A2 year. I've improved only incrementally in the entire year I was studying at one of the best universities in the world. Incidentally, everyone from SOAS at Doshisha is in group VI or above. It's partly because I didn't revise at all for the placement test. It's partly because I'm rusty. It's partly because Cambridge provides no structure whatsoever for systematically learning vocabulary and characters and provides no tests until the end of the year. But frustratingly it is because I have not worked hard enough on my language skills and have been distracted by other interests, both academic and otherwise. This year I need to stop mixing metaphors and take the dictionary by its horns and take the last train to Studiesville.
The other frustrating thing about being in Group IV is that it really limits my choice of non-language papers I can sit. I thought I was going to be stuck doing Ikebana and British Popular Culture since the 70s. Fortunately, this is not the case, and here is where I get less stroppy. As part of the deal Cambridge has with Doshisha, that sees us getting significantly reduced tuition fees, we also get less credits to take classes with. In fact, once a specially negotiated dissertation workshop in the Spring term and extra language seminars are factored in, we only get three free non-language classes for the whole year. There are no classes I want to take that I can take as a level IV student. But at the start of the Spring term there will be another placement test where one can potentially move up to a higher group. This term I am taking no non-language classes at all. I can focus on getting good at Japanese and I will also have a lot of free time in which to read, write, explore Kyoto and campaign politically (Mr. Tadatoshi, the Deputy Director of the International Bureau of the JCP - is asking around the Kyoto office for someone to introduce me to, my friend in Tokyo has already given me the contact details of a Kyoto Komrade). Then next term, when I am to Japanese what Joseph Conrade was to English, I will be able to take Modern Japanese Literature, Japanese Dialects, and Japanese Politics, all taught in Japanese. So actually, as a great master of the Tea Ceremony once said "It's all Gravy".
As for drinking, it was often. That's what Japanese sentences are like. I'm always surprised by how much better Japan is than everywhere else. I kind of mean that quite specifically but also kind of generally. Kyoto is not meant to be cool. AH KYOTO'S SO PRETTY SO TRADITIONAL TEMPLES GEISHA SAMURAI WABI SABI わね！ That sort of thing. Osaka is cool. Osaka is where people drink and dance and dress well. But then you're reminded that the standards in Japan are just higher. Kyoto is comparatively not cool. But for that, it is absolutely packed with tiny hole-in-the-wall bars with loads of character, chatty barkeepers, good music and decently prices drinks. The average young person on a street in central Kyoto would be noticeably "fashionable" even by London standards. Japan, you're meant to be going through the worst recession of the last 50 years, you're meant to be stilted and repressed. You're doing it wrong! But yes, I've not been not drunk for quite a while. I'll keep you posted on how that's going. As for drinking, this it looks like.
Interlude - Between whisky and academic bureaucracy I have found Philip Larkin. That book has nearly all his poems at little over 200 pages. Which is nice. I really like it. Which worries me a bit. It's all very conservative. Both the poetry and its form - what's all the rhyming malarky! Away with your established metre! And the author and his politics - he's grumpy, perpetually old, his dad was a Nazi and his letters show him to be a wee bit reactionary. And I am worried because I hope I'm not a closet traditionalist. Like, alright, I love T.S. Elliot (fuck, he's a righty too!), but I prefer the comparatively normal The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to The Waste Land, and it's shamefully appealing reading Larkin and easily understanding, you know, what he means. I'll have to get my weird fix when I'm done with a bit of e.e. cummings. The first poem of his I really dug was this rather lovely number:
The horns of the morning
Are blowing, are shining,
The meadows are bright
With the coldest dew;
The dawn reassembles.
Like the clash of gold cymbals
The sky spreads its vans out
The sun hands in view.
Here, where no love is,
All that was hopeless
And kept me from sleeping
Is frail and unsure;
For never so brilliant.
Neither so silent
Nor so unearthly, has
Earth grown before.
-------------
I might get sued, because I had to type that out because it's nowhere good on the internet. But yeah, it turns out this is a particularly chirpy piece for him, as by and large, he's a miserable bastard. But I rate him for his ability to create morbid beauty in mundane events. And I pity him, because he wrote extraordinary poetry and lived a tiny, tiny life.
Back to out main feature:
I've been missing certain people at home a lot. Though I've been having lots of fun and I've been very busy, my emotional baseline is still very up-and-down shaky. There's concrete stuff about wanting to see certain people at home, then lots of vague abstract stuff about where I even consider my home, not being settled, etc etc. So I've been doing lots of thinking about that. But it is, slowly dawning on me, that whatever I may feel about it, I am here for a year. I miss London and Cambridge, I miss people in London and Cambridge, but the only thing to do about it is to make Kyoto better than London and Cambridge, more of a home than home, to be move active and productive here than I am there, to make this year amazing. I must find a new ICA and Indego Cafe, and while not forgetting about those I care about at home, I must develop real, close relationships out here. To this end, well, for one I need to get a phone. But otherwise, I've been researching and seeing what Kyoto has to offer. Fortunately, it has a lot. I have found two art-house cinemas, over 10 art galleries, including a Kaleidoscope Museum (with a 'make your own kaleidoscope class, of course) and a gallery in a forest in the montains, infinite small cafes and bars, 4 hot springs, 1 local Communist Party Office, 3 local vegetarian restaurants including a "Felafal Garden", a few live houses with local acts and I live next door to the Imperial Palace with pleanty of grass and trees to lean against and read and write, and by the Kamo river with big grassy banks packed with people picnicking, studying, and playing live jazz.
On the agenda coming up I have two elections, one for the Kyoto Prefectur Governor, one for the Upper House in the Diet.
A bit nearer - and here I'm partially doing this to have it all written up for nice, easy reference - I have
22.09.09 - Welcome to Doshisha Party
29.09.09 - Mama!milk, A great Kyoto band (check out 'Kujaku') who do atmospheric accordion jazz - at Urbanguild.
04.10.09 - Japan's largest vegetarian festival at Okazaki Park - it's bring your own cutlery.
24.10-09-23.12.09 - Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele and Viennese Art at the turn of the century exhibition at the Suntory Museum in Osaka. What! Having first become aware of their existence a few months ago, slightly lamenting not being able to go to Vienna before I left for Japan, it's now down the road. Marvelous.
That and looking for a job. So yes, I am going to intensely enjoyable activity myself out of the blues.
And then here are some pictures, for good measure.
Pretty river views.
A good sign.
Looking like American college students.
Take care, I'll maybe write more frequently now. But Oh My Days, I swear down, you have to comment this. This took me three hours to write.
Night night
xxx
Monday, 14 September 2009
My endz
Just a quicky. Yesterday I wandered around my local area getting a feel for it. I bought some food and did a bit more room prettyfying. And by pretty I mean something totally manly, my room's now straight dope, yo.
These are the results.
Nice buildings and things in my general vicinity:
All the major food groups - Bread
Coffee
Alcohol
My room are nice
I'll have something with more substance up later.
Love and peace
xxx
These are the results.
Nice buildings and things in my general vicinity:
All the major food groups - Bread
Coffee
Alcohol
My room are nice
I'll have something with more substance up later.
Love and peace
xxx
Saturday, 12 September 2009
The Old Capital
Kawabata's following me. It's definitely not coming from my side, the winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize, slightly dead in 1972, has been writing books about places I'm going. Creepy.
First there's the The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, about where I stayed in Tokyo, then there's The Old Capital about my new city. It's uncanny. Anway, read them both because one's a jazzy romp and the other's a moving ode to a fading era and city as it stood before.
I am going to be studying at Doshisha University for the next year. I am staying at Hawaii House. The University is to the north of Kyoto's Imperial Palace, and my accommodation is too the East.
I felt I needed some sort of "I'm here!" post, but need to combine that with impressions and my doings of the last few days. I might as well start with smiley pictures.
I suppose I'll have a lot of time to get into my impressions of Kyoto. For now I'll just say that I had always thought that Kawabata was right to fear Kyoto's fading. I've always chided those who say Kyoto's a beautiful city. The city once spared the wrath of the atomic bomb because an American General had been there for his honey moon and thought it too beautiful, too precious an example of a nation's culture to atomise it, is by and large not a beautiful city. It is an ugly city. It is a typical Japanese city with many beautiful temples within it quite separate from the concrete that surrounds them. Or so I thought. My University is a beautiful Meiji period red-brick affair that would not be out of place in Cambridge. My area generally is lovely, and thought concrete blocks are ubiquitous, there are dozens of old Japanese wooden buildings, quirky western style buildings from the 1900s, temples, shrines and trees. Pleanty to keep the eyes happy. On top of that I'm right near a street selling cheap fresh vegetables, a 100 yen shop (in Japan such place actually sell really nice stuff!), cafes and restaurants abound. Pleanty to keep the stomach happy. And by and large there seems to be a lot going on in a really nice atmosphere, and all of this 20 minutes from downtown. I've lucked out.
My room's huge too! I had been fairly sensibly fearing living in a 3 mat room in a tower block a 3 hour commute away from the university. It's happened to more than a few foreign students in Japan, and it's how the majority of Japanese people live their lives. My room is 21 sq metres a 15 minute walk away from the campus.
Admittedly last night wasn't so comfortable.
Do you see the bed? That is the state in which I slept on it. I decided I'd get my own bedding rather than the rental one the uni gives you. But it felt nice and studenty sleeping in my clothes with a bath-mat to keep my feet warm.
But my room has been partially pimped.
There's still a fair way to go, I'd like so more decorations and a couple of practical bits and bobs, but through a combination of stuff from the box where last year's students left their unwanted cups and washing up liquid etc, the 100 yen shop and a bit of a (practical) splurge at Loft (it's kind of Japan's Ikea, but a bit more interesting and with more panda related what nots) it's all very livable. It's actually bloody nice.
So it's all good if not a bit weird. Their are a lot of factors at play to put me a bit off balance. There's the move from England to Japan. There's the move from Tokyo to Kyoto. There's the transition from holiday to school. That's the transition from sheltered university life to a more independent one. I miss friends. Partly those I got to spend a bit of time with in Tokyo, largely those in England. I'm kind of broke. All of this is totally bearable, I just feel like an octopus with many feet to find.
Ah, it feels good to be up to date. I don't start lessons for quite a while yet, but I've got lots of orientation stuff going on over the next week or so. So I'll keep you up to date on that and my general explorings of the city. Big love, from Kyoto!
xxx
First there's the The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, about where I stayed in Tokyo, then there's The Old Capital about my new city. It's uncanny. Anway, read them both because one's a jazzy romp and the other's a moving ode to a fading era and city as it stood before.
I am going to be studying at Doshisha University for the next year. I am staying at Hawaii House. The University is to the north of Kyoto's Imperial Palace, and my accommodation is too the East.
I felt I needed some sort of "I'm here!" post, but need to combine that with impressions and my doings of the last few days. I might as well start with smiley pictures.
I suppose I'll have a lot of time to get into my impressions of Kyoto. For now I'll just say that I had always thought that Kawabata was right to fear Kyoto's fading. I've always chided those who say Kyoto's a beautiful city. The city once spared the wrath of the atomic bomb because an American General had been there for his honey moon and thought it too beautiful, too precious an example of a nation's culture to atomise it, is by and large not a beautiful city. It is an ugly city. It is a typical Japanese city with many beautiful temples within it quite separate from the concrete that surrounds them. Or so I thought. My University is a beautiful Meiji period red-brick affair that would not be out of place in Cambridge. My area generally is lovely, and thought concrete blocks are ubiquitous, there are dozens of old Japanese wooden buildings, quirky western style buildings from the 1900s, temples, shrines and trees. Pleanty to keep the eyes happy. On top of that I'm right near a street selling cheap fresh vegetables, a 100 yen shop (in Japan such place actually sell really nice stuff!), cafes and restaurants abound. Pleanty to keep the stomach happy. And by and large there seems to be a lot going on in a really nice atmosphere, and all of this 20 minutes from downtown. I've lucked out.
My room's huge too! I had been fairly sensibly fearing living in a 3 mat room in a tower block a 3 hour commute away from the university. It's happened to more than a few foreign students in Japan, and it's how the majority of Japanese people live their lives. My room is 21 sq metres a 15 minute walk away from the campus.
Admittedly last night wasn't so comfortable.
Do you see the bed? That is the state in which I slept on it. I decided I'd get my own bedding rather than the rental one the uni gives you. But it felt nice and studenty sleeping in my clothes with a bath-mat to keep my feet warm.
But my room has been partially pimped.
There's still a fair way to go, I'd like so more decorations and a couple of practical bits and bobs, but through a combination of stuff from the box where last year's students left their unwanted cups and washing up liquid etc, the 100 yen shop and a bit of a (practical) splurge at Loft (it's kind of Japan's Ikea, but a bit more interesting and with more panda related what nots) it's all very livable. It's actually bloody nice.
So it's all good if not a bit weird. Their are a lot of factors at play to put me a bit off balance. There's the move from England to Japan. There's the move from Tokyo to Kyoto. There's the transition from holiday to school. That's the transition from sheltered university life to a more independent one. I miss friends. Partly those I got to spend a bit of time with in Tokyo, largely those in England. I'm kind of broke. All of this is totally bearable, I just feel like an octopus with many feet to find.
Ah, it feels good to be up to date. I don't start lessons for quite a while yet, but I've got lots of orientation stuff going on over the next week or so. So I'll keep you up to date on that and my general explorings of the city. Big love, from Kyoto!
xxx
Our glorious leaders
I am now living in Kyoto.
I will write about this in depth in a little bit, but first I just wanted to write up my last few days in Tokyo.
Just to remind myself - communsists, kareoke, lost in translation
Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged, I have to think back to the 9th to recap.
My comrades invited me to the Japanese Communist Party's magnanimous 87th anniversary meeting. They also asked if I wanted to take part in a "Lifestyle, labour discussion". I thought that was going to be some kind of protest/march/rally. It wasn't quite.
A lifestyle, labour discussion (生活労働相談, for the initiated) is when the JCP go to the streets and interview people about their life and work. They either get people to fill in forms or hold more in-depth discussions with a few They talk about the details of their welfare, give them information about union membership and social security. They have a form of petition when you add your sticker to a list of woes you'd like the government to sort out, and more generally the JCP gather real people's opinions about what political and economic changes they'd like to see. This information is then delivered to the social security offices and hopefully informs policy making. A lot of their efforts is spent talking to the homeless, a group that sadly is rapidly growing in Japan.
It is too easily for even the most concerned person to dehumanise the homeless. Though we might strive against these sorts of prejudices on a rational level, when we see a drunken homeless person, someone raving, or even just begging, I fear a part of all of us feels they might deserve to be where they are, might question what benefit they are to society. Now, this is of course wrong. And in Japan just how wrong this is is brought home by meeting some of the homeless. Japanese society (I suppose like all societies actually, though maybe in a more defined sense over here) often works by sorting people into us and them, self and other, "in group" and "out group". When you are in group you are looked after. Japanese businesses have traditionally rewarded their worker's loyalty with very generous health, security and pension schemes. However, once you are in the out-group, outside the mainstream of white collar salary man work or unionised blue-collar work, you are fucked. There is little in the way of a social safety net. Speak to a Japanese homeless person and you may well find that they are fluent in English, once worked in middle management for a multi-national corporation and used to have a very nice (if Japanese sized) house indeed. People who bemoan the British welfare system need only look across the Eurasian landmass to see people of very similar backgrounds to themselves sleeping on the street.
Ah, a good polemic. The real point is, the JCP are the only party in Japan who partake in this very special, very democratic consultation process with the people. It's this attitude that makes me respect them so much. Oh yeah, I did the flyering, and pointed people towards JCP members they could talk to.
As for the anniversary meeting, it was pretty interesting. The first thing that struck me was what a huge building they were able to fill up.
The main speaker was Shii Kazuo, leader of the JCP.
I could understand about 25% maximum of his speach, though I caught that there was a lot about the other Japanese parties, a lot about the Japanese-American relationship and a fair amount comparing statistics about Japan with those from the rest of the world. I could also tell that, though not quite of Obama standards, he was an engaging and lively orator, something very rare in Japanese politics. He punned, and played on the JCP's outsider status (there was a big laugh when he told some joke about "being out of the loop") and he's respected by the rank and file. Perhaps by the time of the 88th I'll actually be able to understand what he's saying...
Other than that, me and the student volunteers talked about the state of the Left in Britain. I was asked whether most students had an interest in politics. I told them that the average student is indifferent, but a lot of students are pretty concerned about the environment, gay rights and racism. Do you think this is accurate?
I asked about getting involved in student politics at Doshisha and was told to be careful. Kyoto is Japan's most left leaning city ("But I thought Kyoto was very traditional?" "They're left wing because they want to protect those traditions") and Kyoto University in particular has a history of violent student activism. When one talks of Trotskites in Japan, it calls to mind this sort of thing and there are a few of those sorts lingering at Doshisha. If I open up to easily about my orientation, I might be recruited by some unsavory sorts in helmets. Fuckin' 'ell. Well, the JCP reject violence and for them political activism is about the democratic processes I described above. Basically I just need to pop down to my local friend Communist Branch Office and ask if there's a student group I can join, being sure not to forget to mention my volunteering in Tokyo. And one of my friends in Tokyo has promised me a shoukai, an introduction - something that oils the cogs of Japanese society and has a lot of etiquette surrounding it - to a JCP friend in Kyoto. Plus, it turns out that Tadatoshi Tasiro-san, the one I met down at the Main Office who helped me campaign in the first place is a bigshot within the party and could definitely help me get some connections. Result. I had a lot of fun with the Tokyo students, and I hope to meet them again, my experiences thus far with the JCP have been really special, and I'm looking forward to continuing with them this year.
These are some people who were outside the anniversary meeting.
But to move from the workers to the bourgeous, on the 10th me and my friends from Cambridge had a few drinks at the New York Grill in the Tokyo Park Hyatt. (Being a champagne socialist is better than being a champagne Tory, and I prefer whisky anyway.) You have to dress to the nines to get in. That sentence is there purely because I love the phrase 'dressed to the nines'. It was very nice, but ULTRA expensive, and weirdly enough they were pretty stingy with the drink servings. But we all managed to milk 2 and a half hours out of a couple of drinks each.
BONUS PICTURE
Then moving from bling-swank to indie-chic, I left the Cambridge crew (sorry guys), and met up with my Tokyoite friends in Shimokita-zawa, the Brick Lane of Tokyo.
We had some drinks in a nice small bar.
When we were suitably inebriated around 2:30 we hit the kareoke box and covered everything from The Blue Hearts - Linda Linda, the only Japanese song I know the words for, to Britney Spears - Toxic, and all sorts of 80s hits/pop punk classics in between. At 5 we were kicked out, the girls having had a bit much to drink and stumbling home in a cab, me with 6 and a half hours to kill before my train to Kyoto and with no accommodation because I thought I might as well save the money and stay up. Obviously I find the nearest Manga-kissa, Internet Cafe and settle down there. Most manga-kissa are nice, large darkened rooms with secure cubicles and reclining seats. This was a smaller room, brightly lit with flimsy cubicles and curtains for privacy and office chairs. Following an hour messing around on the internet, it was in these conditions I managed to get 2ish hours of low quality sleep. God Bless Japan o/ But I woke up at 9 and caught my train, and now I'm in Kyoto.
I had a really good time in Tokyo. It's become my second city, there's nowhere in the world outside London I feel more comfortable in. Cambridge doesn't count, it's just London guys. Important environmental considerations, finance, friends and family notwithstanding, I could easily see myself dividing my life between the two great metropolises. But now I'm gone, and here starts a new chapter. I am now living in Kyoto.
<3<3<3
I will write about this in depth in a little bit, but first I just wanted to write up my last few days in Tokyo.
Just to remind myself - communsists, kareoke, lost in translation
Wow, it's been a while since I've blogged, I have to think back to the 9th to recap.
My comrades invited me to the Japanese Communist Party's magnanimous 87th anniversary meeting. They also asked if I wanted to take part in a "Lifestyle, labour discussion". I thought that was going to be some kind of protest/march/rally. It wasn't quite.
A lifestyle, labour discussion (生活労働相談, for the initiated) is when the JCP go to the streets and interview people about their life and work. They either get people to fill in forms or hold more in-depth discussions with a few They talk about the details of their welfare, give them information about union membership and social security. They have a form of petition when you add your sticker to a list of woes you'd like the government to sort out, and more generally the JCP gather real people's opinions about what political and economic changes they'd like to see. This information is then delivered to the social security offices and hopefully informs policy making. A lot of their efforts is spent talking to the homeless, a group that sadly is rapidly growing in Japan.
It is too easily for even the most concerned person to dehumanise the homeless. Though we might strive against these sorts of prejudices on a rational level, when we see a drunken homeless person, someone raving, or even just begging, I fear a part of all of us feels they might deserve to be where they are, might question what benefit they are to society. Now, this is of course wrong. And in Japan just how wrong this is is brought home by meeting some of the homeless. Japanese society (I suppose like all societies actually, though maybe in a more defined sense over here) often works by sorting people into us and them, self and other, "in group" and "out group". When you are in group you are looked after. Japanese businesses have traditionally rewarded their worker's loyalty with very generous health, security and pension schemes. However, once you are in the out-group, outside the mainstream of white collar salary man work or unionised blue-collar work, you are fucked. There is little in the way of a social safety net. Speak to a Japanese homeless person and you may well find that they are fluent in English, once worked in middle management for a multi-national corporation and used to have a very nice (if Japanese sized) house indeed. People who bemoan the British welfare system need only look across the Eurasian landmass to see people of very similar backgrounds to themselves sleeping on the street.
Ah, a good polemic. The real point is, the JCP are the only party in Japan who partake in this very special, very democratic consultation process with the people. It's this attitude that makes me respect them so much. Oh yeah, I did the flyering, and pointed people towards JCP members they could talk to.
As for the anniversary meeting, it was pretty interesting. The first thing that struck me was what a huge building they were able to fill up.
The main speaker was Shii Kazuo, leader of the JCP.
I could understand about 25% maximum of his speach, though I caught that there was a lot about the other Japanese parties, a lot about the Japanese-American relationship and a fair amount comparing statistics about Japan with those from the rest of the world. I could also tell that, though not quite of Obama standards, he was an engaging and lively orator, something very rare in Japanese politics. He punned, and played on the JCP's outsider status (there was a big laugh when he told some joke about "being out of the loop") and he's respected by the rank and file. Perhaps by the time of the 88th I'll actually be able to understand what he's saying...
Other than that, me and the student volunteers talked about the state of the Left in Britain. I was asked whether most students had an interest in politics. I told them that the average student is indifferent, but a lot of students are pretty concerned about the environment, gay rights and racism. Do you think this is accurate?
I asked about getting involved in student politics at Doshisha and was told to be careful. Kyoto is Japan's most left leaning city ("But I thought Kyoto was very traditional?" "They're left wing because they want to protect those traditions") and Kyoto University in particular has a history of violent student activism. When one talks of Trotskites in Japan, it calls to mind this sort of thing and there are a few of those sorts lingering at Doshisha. If I open up to easily about my orientation, I might be recruited by some unsavory sorts in helmets. Fuckin' 'ell. Well, the JCP reject violence and for them political activism is about the democratic processes I described above. Basically I just need to pop down to my local friend Communist Branch Office and ask if there's a student group I can join, being sure not to forget to mention my volunteering in Tokyo. And one of my friends in Tokyo has promised me a shoukai, an introduction - something that oils the cogs of Japanese society and has a lot of etiquette surrounding it - to a JCP friend in Kyoto. Plus, it turns out that Tadatoshi Tasiro-san, the one I met down at the Main Office who helped me campaign in the first place is a bigshot within the party and could definitely help me get some connections. Result. I had a lot of fun with the Tokyo students, and I hope to meet them again, my experiences thus far with the JCP have been really special, and I'm looking forward to continuing with them this year.
These are some people who were outside the anniversary meeting.
But to move from the workers to the bourgeous, on the 10th me and my friends from Cambridge had a few drinks at the New York Grill in the Tokyo Park Hyatt. (Being a champagne socialist is better than being a champagne Tory, and I prefer whisky anyway.) You have to dress to the nines to get in. That sentence is there purely because I love the phrase 'dressed to the nines'. It was very nice, but ULTRA expensive, and weirdly enough they were pretty stingy with the drink servings. But we all managed to milk 2 and a half hours out of a couple of drinks each.
BONUS PICTURE
Then moving from bling-swank to indie-chic, I left the Cambridge crew (sorry guys), and met up with my Tokyoite friends in Shimokita-zawa, the Brick Lane of Tokyo.
We had some drinks in a nice small bar.
When we were suitably inebriated around 2:30 we hit the kareoke box and covered everything from The Blue Hearts - Linda Linda, the only Japanese song I know the words for, to Britney Spears - Toxic, and all sorts of 80s hits/pop punk classics in between. At 5 we were kicked out, the girls having had a bit much to drink and stumbling home in a cab, me with 6 and a half hours to kill before my train to Kyoto and with no accommodation because I thought I might as well save the money and stay up. Obviously I find the nearest Manga-kissa, Internet Cafe and settle down there. Most manga-kissa are nice, large darkened rooms with secure cubicles and reclining seats. This was a smaller room, brightly lit with flimsy cubicles and curtains for privacy and office chairs. Following an hour messing around on the internet, it was in these conditions I managed to get 2ish hours of low quality sleep. God Bless Japan o/ But I woke up at 9 and caught my train, and now I'm in Kyoto.
I had a really good time in Tokyo. It's become my second city, there's nowhere in the world outside London I feel more comfortable in. Cambridge doesn't count, it's just London guys. Important environmental considerations, finance, friends and family notwithstanding, I could easily see myself dividing my life between the two great metropolises. But now I'm gone, and here starts a new chapter. I am now living in Kyoto.
<3<3<3
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