Wednesday, June 25
We arrive at Narita International Airport in the mid-afternoon. We shuffle over to immigration and place ourselves in the line for foreigners. A short and wide-faced older man walks to and fro reminding us to fill in the back of our entry card. In gestural English, he then animates the aliens into the available slots.
Blazer-less and theatrical, he is a beautiful complement to the clean, straight lines of the airport handrails and staff; my brother and I wonder if he does this all day, and whether this is the impression that the authorities want us to begin the city with.
Soon we get our first glimpses of the city through the glass of our Limousine Taxi – that is, the bus that will drop its passengers at their respective hotels. We see old houses and intermittent rice fields – how sustainable, we think. But we are still a good hour from our destination, and the rice fields soon turn into industries – the most unique of which is a blue-skinned factory with the word “Human” printed en face. We cross several bridges and the leftward landscape fills with crates and cranes of all colors. We are approaching the city proper; the houses become taller and our highway rises and dips as it must evade the thickening web of transit.
Blazer-less and theatrical, he is a beautiful complement to the clean, straight lines of the airport handrails and staff; my brother and I wonder if he does this all day, and whether this is the impression that the authorities want us to begin the city with.
Soon we get our first glimpses of the city through the glass of our Limousine Taxi – that is, the bus that will drop its passengers at their respective hotels. We see old houses and intermittent rice fields – how sustainable, we think. But we are still a good hour from our destination, and the rice fields soon turn into industries – the most unique of which is a blue-skinned factory with the word “Human” printed en face. We cross several bridges and the leftward landscape fills with crates and cranes of all colors. We are approaching the city proper; the houses become taller and our highway rises and dips as it must evade the thickening web of transit.
But we notice here how disappointingly bland the architecture looks. The apartment buildings differ in height, orientation and at times color, but they are ubiquitously concrete and the windows and balconies and stairwells feel as if belonging to the same family. Functional modernity had apparently filled the vacuum left by the devastating firebombing of World War II. Aside from that, the multiple layers of expressway and railway provide a futuristic vision of urban efficiency, where mass movements need not obstruct the open flow of the street network. But what kinds of aesthetics are implicated by additional levels of structure and also of view?
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It is night and my family and I stroll into a set of narrower streets within the Akasaka district where we are staying. The streets are busy with small noodle shops, the happy romantic music coming out of gambling machines, heels clicking, unbuttoned blazers, and now and then we might hear hints of a more familiar language. Pressed by indecision, we settle for an “American-style” menu underground. It is a very tight space and we get the only four-person table. Many men sit alone at the bar and some stay with a newspaper; we notice later that we were never invited to kneel in the back tatami room. In any case the waitress arrives. She appears South Asian and as such her effortless Japanese disorients me. What is she doing here? She is brown she should understand English! How do other Japanese see her?
Thursday, June 26
On our first whole day in Tokyo I decide to spend the morning in search of a library. Places that house unseen spaces – such as those more communicable by words than by physical sight – as in the case of bookstores and universities – appeal to me especially in a foreign sphere. They reassure me that there are others here who cherish an internal space, a space that by definition is hidden amidst the physical public (as far as I am concerned, at least).
I soon realize that it is not easy to find one’s way without the help of a Tokyoite. My internet searches reveal a nearby library and this information is even presented in English. But Google Maps is completely Japanese when one zooms into Japan. Not willing to sequentially compare symbols, I shortly find myself sitting across a thoroughly beautiful and helpful young lady at the Tourist Information desk. It is two subway stations from here, it is not the one I found, and I have a printed map in hand.
I stand near a column so as not to get into the other travelers’ way. But the ticket machines and signs are intuitive enough with a bit of observation. No one notices me; secretly I smile.
One begins to notice that they are in an extended metropolis when they burrow out after a period of rapid transit in a cueless passage. And they see that the buildings are still tall and glassy and the streets are wide with trucks and taxis. But now I notice a few more details. There is scarcely a car parked in sight; this is because the side lanes must move. And roads carry more public and freight transportation than personal vehicles. In other words, it is the realization of the vision implied in Montreal’s 2004 Plan with its policies minimizing certain highway infrastructure while at the same time privileging bus and freight movement.
Curiously, there were rarely any large trucks to be seen on Tokyo roads; this was as peculiar as the survival of smaller-scale industries and grocery shops. Do the particular institutional and cultural factors mediate a ‘cutthroat’ global capitalism, or is it more accurate that these elements take part to create a system of transaction? Land values play a part too; would it be naïve to point out how elegant it is that the ecology of urban density here coincides with the survival of the little[1]?
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In the afternoon my mother, my grandmother, my brother and I meet up with a business friend of my father’s[2]. Although he possesses four personal vehicles, he arrives by metro. We follow him to his Tokyo showroom. His main office is in Yokohama, where he lives, but his internet wholesaling was suffering because buyers wanted to see and touch what they were ordering.
The showroom is a small and extremely expensive space located on the second floor of a four-story building. Clustered around are other businesses in the design field. The locational advantage is evident, though I wondered why these low-rise units would persist.
Nearby is a glossy shopping district and we walk through it to the rail station. One stop later, we begin our promenade through Harajuku, the famous “youth district” of Tokyo. This alternate space is reinforced by formal and symbolic differentiations from nearby Shibuya, another highly consumerist and youthful landscape that will be our next destination. In Harajuku, the green and white and yellow flower-arches demarcating Takeshita Street protect a busy otherworldly space in the way that Disneyland gates might mean for children stepping through. The street is narrow and stone-paved; no cars are allowed to come through. The shops vary in their form and are about three stories high – high enough to give the coziness of cover but not so high as to be imposing or independent. Indeed, Takeshita may strike a stroller as an old town – but except for its built form, there is something very un-old and at the same time very un-youthful about it. For I think that to be old or adolescent means to be marginal and, despite fashions that astonish, allude and hybridize, this place is playful without being subversive. For sure, it challenges the dress codes of Japan’s assembly line human capital, but one cannot get around the fact that this is a safe, consumerist space. You dye your hair in fluorescent hues and purchase Victorian-hemmed miniskirts; you highlight the visual exchange of postmodern capitalism[3].
In Shibuya we stop at Tokyu Hands, a perpetually crowded department store with an emphasis on do-it-yourself items such as hobby tools and stationery of the most subtle discriminations. Bewildered, I split with my family and debark into the streets. The streets are refreshingly do-it-yourself; it is still a very commercial landscape but there are no signs holding a linear passage. Paved and narrow cobbled roads wind through a hilly topography; underground venues flank vivacious shortcut descents. I stumble into what appears through the tinted glass to be a cyber spa. I walk past a posh counter and brush through rows of black cubicles. Some of the cubicles are unoccupied, and inside one is a computer, a flatscreen TV, and either an office chair or a tatami mat on an elevated floor. A couple walks past me; they hold a bento box and a bowl; they take off their shoes and shuffle inside. Further, there are “relaxation lounges”, showers, and places to buy food and rent media. I want to stay in a box for a few hours. The tinted glass also silences the noise, the din of too much music and screens and conversations and taxis and pamphlets. Some, I learn later, will stay much longer than that.
Friday, June 27
In the morning we join a half-day tour. The tour guide points out the men in suits outside the bus: they are the salarymen, she says. They are tired, she says, because they must squeeze themselves for an average commuting time of between 60 and 90 minutes[4]. They are tired, I think to myself, because they were out drinking the night before. Because the many dining and beverage spaces in the narrow-laned Akasaka entertainment district were still lively with loose-tied salarymen and their colleagues even after the last midnight metros. It was on such a train too that I lived the sardine shove of the Tokyo subway experience. Of course, these night owls represent a minority – a metropolitan area of 35 million can spare a few hundred thousand partying suits – but maybe these suits express something, some dreariness the body needs to party out.
Soon we are on the observation deck of Tokyo Tower, a TV and radio tower and Japan’s tallest artificial structure. I ask the tour guide why, as one gazes in all directions, there are only clusters of skyscrapers. This is planned; like several largest cities in China it is a preference to create several downtowns rather than one. Perhaps there is a planning graph that will show the parabolic arc of agglomeration benefits? Perhaps this explains why the design district we visited yesterday was highly valued yet only lightly built up. In any case, I should not think of transiting from Shibuya to Shinjuku as taking a train from one borough of Montreal to another; it is better to think of it as riding from downtown Toronto to downtown Vancouver, only that they are a few stops apart. Indeed the tour terminates at Ginza – the “5th Avenue of Tokyo” – except that I saw Gucci-s and the Prada-s yesterday in Shinagawa, near where the little design companies were.
By this point the consumerism is starting to get to me. In each direction an air-conditioned space solely to sell. High-heeled eyes scanning for the next accessory. You want to shout for it all to come down, to talk, and touch.
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It is a few hours later. My brother and I come out of the Edo-Tokyo Museum. We are in a neighborhood called Ryogoku which is a good distance to the northeast of where our travels have taken us thus far. Daniel (my brother) goes back to the hotel, leaving me to ambulate at my leisure. I take many photos because there is something of beauty here. I photograph the museum, an architectural trophy. Nearby is a tall school with open windows – one hears the children making contact in a gym or two inside. Along the sidewalk there are delicate white guardrails on one side and stone edges on the other. Beyond the stonework is meticulous landscaping with trees and bushes that fill and humble the space. Here is a tall office complex and a few workers walk out along the brick path. Here is an old, traditional house – you know with the corrugated black shingles and the sliding paper doors – that now acts as a fish market. A woman picks out the weeds that stick out between the bricks. Circling around I see that some of the school play-sounds have been coming from outside. It is true that this is a special place, but when I cross a main road the atmosphere remains.
I take more pictures.
But I cannot capture the feeling –
Is it the neighborhood shops in the old buildings. Potted plants are left in front. A bike too. Is it how the old is mixed with more recent, taller buildings, some of which echo a brick theme. Is it the rail line that cuts through, the intermittent strollers and bicycles in no rush and peaceful looking. Is it the overhead power lines and tree branches and clotheslines and multiple levels of public space – that provide a canopy reminiscent of a friendly concrete jungle I knew long ago. In Hong Kong – I was very young and the buildings and squares and parks and people and old open windows are what the meadow or the river or the barn must be for someone else. I decide that if I ever move to Tokyo, I would move here. Strange – to feel a sense of home so quickly – to imagine an alternate childhood and commuting back here – to know the feeling I would get living here, returning here after a day of work.
--
It is slightly past midnight and Shibuya is emptying itself of young people. This is discouraging; is the party someplace else? But Daniel and I spot two foreigners; following them the tide turns. We are led to a club district; a later crowd is streaming here.
My brother taxis home and I walk up and down wide and narrow lanes looking for a specific venue. A metal door opens to my side. It is not it, but I descend.
The venue is ginormous: cells on top of one another looking into a humungous central atrium. This, in combination with the collective dancing oriented towards the video jockeys, is exhilarating. But then I notice a significant number of single Caucasian males. The way they approach the situation is no different than in North America, but I do not like it here. Why is that?
Saturday, June 28
The next morning we are at the Tsukiji fish market. Once again, I bask in the courtesy all round me. It is strange, but I am beginning to smile – first. I become wanting to be polite, to re-give the gift, to uphold this unique civilization. I have been cleaning slight spills, and I did not appropriate the magazines from the Limousine Taxi that first day. You sense how much attention is put into the environment, and you do not wish to cause these workers pain.
I think back on the night before. Of the young Japanese in the club. Yes, the young women smoked and some had mean eyes; the young men were dressed typically cool, tattered with wild long hair. But when spoken to, the concern for social kindness would return; the security guard even apologized when asked for a hand stamp! Is this why I did not like the brash Americans, notwithstanding the history? Is this why it is so difficult for a foreigner to become accepted as a Tokyoite?
But this social system may also be why the Tokyo girls responded to the Western advances. Think of the beautiful young women standing in department stores, smiling and bowing like status curtains. The courtesy is mutual, but the hierarchy is evident. Often in the movies, the female lead is heroic for her undying love for a wayward lover; the husband neglects or cheats or abuses but may ultimately repent. The noble woman is to suffer silently as the wild man comes to his senses. I do not appreciate this – I do not like it in the hotel in the restaurant in the airport when the male client speaks curtly and the hostess the waitress the attendant must apologize and work efficiently head low. I do not like it that they must smile and say subordinating formalities when the person to whom they speak does not listen or respond with any positive acknowledgment. A Japanese woman may seek a Western partner for his enlightened principles, but women’s rights in the West exist because of strong, free-thinking women. It makes no difference if your man is Canadian if he is looking for a submissive Japanese and you continue to play that part. I do like a society where others are placed first, but such a society will be precarious in the company of nations that do not share that ideal[5].
Sunday, June 29
I am on the plane to Hong Kong. I awoke at five thirty in the morning, a good hour before the wake-up call. Having not been to Shinjuku I hurried down to the subway. There was not much time so I alighted off at the first Shinjuku station. But there were few souls on the streets at six. Far from the downtown I could only savor some old shops and a few taller offices. I would have to come back another time.
On the train back there were a few more people. They were trying to steal a few more minutes of sleep before their Sunday workday.
I select a movie to watch. It is about a young, debt-ridden gambler, a falling J-Pop idol and her fans, a businessman who hits the streets, and a failed comic. The first character evinces the immense pressure to succeed and the perpetuating guilt when one fails. The businessman, in a similar feeling, abandons society. What the film then portrays is the longing for acceptance and intimacy in each of the characters, who are willing to confer this to one another. But this willingness is not communicated; one’s love for another’s flourishing is rather understood as a judgement of who they should be.
The movie is called Flowers in the Mire, or something to that effect. I think of the numerous gardens and public parks in the city of the film, Tokyo. The architecture of this city may be somewhat dull and grey, but it is the unimposing backdrop for much valued greenery. I also think of the contemporary art spaces I visited in Ginza. Like the straight lines of the airport handrails and staff, the orderliness here is exciting in its potential for creative juxtaposition. While I often find (North American) contemporary art to be a nonsensical play of referential wit, here the photos and drawings felt beautiful. The photos illuminated shadow-spaces and with its theme drew together spaces of similar light. The drawings of so many flowers on a white sheet brought out the contemporaneous existence of ignored landscapes of minutiae. Carefully depicted flowers in a studio in Ginza, like a blazer-less customs official dancing about in Narita. The authorities were right; they had given us the right impression.
[1] Perhaps. Further discussion has made me less idealistic about the above points. Part of the reason why few people drive is that traffic can be very congested. Also, the scarcity of large trucks may be due to better planning – where large freight is unloaded at the edge of cities and then distributed in smaller parcels to central parts – rather than a case of a radically different economy. Still, commuters are able to leave their cars at home because of a highly developed public transit system, and little shops and eateries persist.
[2] My father was in Hong Kong during our Tokyo trip.
[3] This is not to write off postmodern culture and for instance the musical recontextualizations that will be heard in Harajuku’s backstreets; it is only that I was finding the visual commodity focus of Takeshita Street to be excessive.
[4] Actually, a recent article in Asahi Shinbun presented the average commuting time for Tokyo workers to be only 67 minutes.
[5] Nations have ideals but it is the individuals that must live or not live them out. Anything I write about a society is true only insofar as its individuals conform to it. There will be many exceptions.
