Celebrated photographer John Einarsen has a new book out, entitled This Very Moment. Below he describes the process by which the striking images are created. This week not only sees the 104th edition of the Kyoto Journal which he manages, but the opening of ‘Perception beyond Borders’, an exhibition of his photographs at Kunjyunkan gallery from 4/20-5/21.
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For as long as I can remember, I have been spellbound by the visual brilliance of our world, and always had the desire to share what I saw with others.
The kind of seeing I now practice is very deliberate. It works through a spaciousness of mind—a quiet, non-seeking openness. This state occurs naturally in the gaps that punctuate our streams of thought. Within this gap-mind we’re relaxed; our awareness is not focused on anything in particular, but we remain alert and in a receptive state. Present in the moment.
Recognizing and cultivating this spaciousness enables us to engage with our visual world more fully and directly without preconceived notions. It is always there and available. Yet it is hard to sustain. Our minds are easily distracted by a million different things. In addition, we have to work to dissolve all the ways we have been taught to see. We live in a described and categorized world, and most of the time that shorthand is what we experience. It’s a shame that we miss so much. When we stop trying to manage our experience and let go, the world comes to us in all its richness.
With spaciousness, a fresh perception can drop into our laps out of nowhere, anytime. It is delightfully disorienting. It fills our awareness as we concentrate to understand it. There is a feeling of elation and affirmation. We are fully connecting to what we see.
A genuine perception is pure—an unasked-for offering from the universe. For me, it is meant to be honored, expressed with fidelity, and then shared with others.
This special print issue of Kyoto Journal explores the ubiquitous role of flora as an essential subtheme in Kyoto’s timeless culture through essays, interviews, and poetry, illuminated by superb photography and artworks. The city is famously unique for its superb gardens, its rich heritage of tea ceremony and flower arrangement, its deeply-rooted culinary traditions based on heirloom vegetables, its longstanding literary appreciation of seasonal blossomings, and its impressive diversity of botanically-inspired decorative arts including the maiko’s monthly almanac of exquisite hair-ornaments, and the even more detailed 72-season Japanese calendar. The very names of flowers and plants have evoked codified associations since the Heian era, and in Noh plays the spirits of plants themselves speak. Family crests draw on minute botanical differentiations in their characterizations, and tiny indoor bonsai conjure visions of the vastness of nature. Includes insightful contributions by WIK members Mark Hovane, Peter Macintosh, Stephen Mansfield, Cody Poulton,and Robert Weis.
WiK member Milena Guziak is a leading trainer worldwide of guides for shinrin yoku (forest bathing). To understand more about the practice, please see her ‘Mindful tourist’ website here. Below is a selection of poems, written in Japanese and translated by herself, that have been inspired by the prolonged periods of immersion in nature involved in her practice.
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折れた心 優しくなおる 森の中
oreta kokoro yasashiku naoru mori no naka
a broken heart gently recovers in the forest
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新年祝え 見る四季の変化 人生なのさ
shinnen iwae miru shiki no henka jinsei na no sa
i greet the new year the changes of seasons i see this is how it goes
one rainy day, the mind asked itself “what are you searching for?” “stillness” – replied the mind “aren’t you losing your way?” – said the mind sorrowfully
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For collections of Milena’s poems, available on amazon, please click this link. For Milena’s training programme, see here; for her Facebook page click here; and for Instagram take a look here.
Mari nervously took a glimpse at her watch: it was 10:58, Two minutes left until her annual time travel. She already made it twice in the past, as obligatory part of her social studies class, first time when she just turned 13, and last year – at the age of 14.
Where is she travelling today? she closed her eyes and tried to hold her breath. 30 more seconds to go. Her first travel took her just a couple years back, to her first day of elementary school, second one was a little more exciting – from the glass hospital window she was able to witness her family just after her own birth. Mari softly smiled remembering her mom, looking exhausted but happy, and dad – pale and shaky, as if he just saw a ghost.
She felt a light wind breeze on her skin and almost instantly opened her eyes. She moved indeed and this time she also could easily recognize the area, as it hasn’t changed a bit in …how many years? Her watch gently vibrated and she saw white numbers appearing on the screen. Reiwa 5th year, February 25th.
– Reiwa… – Mari gasped trying to remember what year it was. 2022? 2023? History was not her strong point. Maybe somewhere around that time. Wow, more than 30 years ago!
Of course, Mari heard about adults traveling so far as to the dinosaurs era but for her 30 years felt almost the same. What happened that day that was so important? She slowly started walking towards the big torii in the background, shivering in her light sweater. Somehow it was much cooler than in February now. Kitano Tenmangu, she last came here with her mom just a couple months ago. Restaurants alongside the street haven’t changed a bit, the same long queues of people waiting there. What had definitely changed were the clothes. And those masks?
As Mari made her way through stalls with food, kimono, pottery and antics of the flea market, she couldn’t stop wondering why everyone were wearing masks. Was it that big covid pandemic? She couldn’t remember. But the thought of the flea market happening on 25th every month in those times too, suddenly made her feel some unexplainable warmth inside. Some things just don’t change! Too bad she can’t pay with her watch here.
Karaage from one of the stalls smelt delicious and Mari even considered for a moment asking one of the teenage boys to buy a pack for her. But talking would be considered a violation of time travel rules. Same as eating…
She reached the main part of the temple, after some hesitation threw a coin to a wooden box. No one used coins in her times anymore, but she always had some on her as her little talisman. She observed girls in pastel kimonos taking a million plum pictures with their smartphones. Mari wondered for a second how it feels to have a phone on you all the time. Must definitely be tiring.
She tried to observe as much as she could around, but nothing really happened. Snow started flying in the air and she was fascinated by this beautiful contrast of pink plum flowers and white snow. Was she here to see the snow? It hadn’t snowed for years in Kyoto, as it didn’t’t snow almost anywhere in Japan anymore. Was that the reason?
Her hour ended and she found herself sitting in her room again. Snow on her clothes melted, and made her sweater cold and heavy. Mari’s tablet screen changed and a new assignment appeared. ‘Write an essay in free form about your time travel titled “Day when my parents met”.’ Mari’s heart started racing. Did she miss them? Was her father one of those teenage boys? What should she even write about?
She kicked her chair with frustration. What even was she thinking? Dreaming about karaage! She gasped and tried to calm down. She needs to write something. But then the solution came. Mari almost instantly became calm again. Thank god she has better relations with her mom than other girls in her class. She dashed from her room and rapidly entered the kitchen.
– Mom! Mom! Can you tell me really quick about that day you met dad? Pleeease, it is for my school assignment.
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Tetiana Korchuk was the winner of the Unohana Prize in WiK’s Seventh Writing Competition
Report on a Lunchtime Talk by Cody Poulton, March 26, 2023 By Rebecca Otowa
Cody Poulton, middle right with arm on table, about to give his talk for WiK members. Opposite him is Rebeccca Otowa, whose report follows below. (Photo by Paul Carty)
Mark Cody Poulton (PhD, U of T) has been teaching Japanese language, literature and theatre in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies since 1988. His recent research has focused on Japanese theatre and drama, particularly of the modern period. He has also been active as a translator of kabuki and modern Japanese fiction and drama, for both publication and live stage productions in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan. In addition, he has been collaborating with Hiroko Noro on a number of projects using drama for Japanese language pedagogy. He is also interested in pilgrimage and the Kumano region of Japan, and in the culture of Japanese cuisine.
Twelve people gathered for lunch and a very interesting talk by Cody Poulton at Papa Jon’s at Rokkaku. Thanks to Charles Roche for making this very lovely venue (in food and atmosphere!) available to us. We were all very glad to see each other “in the flesh” again and hope these live meetings will continue.
Cody Poulton, a Canadian and longtime resident of Japan, expert on various Japanese theatrical forms including Noh and modern drama, gave a very interesting talk mostly about modern Japanese theatre. It felt to me like glimpsing another world, one which I myself knew nothing about, but that glimpse was fascinating. It’s always interesting to find out what keeps other people awake at night (or, conversely, helps them sleep soundly) — in other words, the biggest love of their life, and this was no exception.
The two “big names” I took from the talk were the Japanese Meiji-Taisho era novelist and recounter of the supernatural, Izumi Kyoka, and the 1960s avant-garde theatre producer, Kara Juro, whose “Red Tent” theatre still holds performances in Shinjuku. In the 1960s, a turbulent era for the whole world, dramatists were at the vanguard of change in Japan.
Drama itself is a “perishable” art form, in that no two performances are ever alike, and this gives a feeling of ichigo ichie (“making the most of every moment”) to it, which is a very Japanese concept spanning many different art forms.
Cody read some excerpts from synopses of a couple of modern Japanese plays, which contained a lot of what I would call surrealism. He introduced a book he had helped to edit, which was authored by the well-known Japanese playwright and producer, Okada Toshiki. At the end, he also passed around a calendar he had received from Joshua Breakstone, and since there were exactly twelve of us, we took turns reading the poem shown on each month, which caused much laughter. I for one would like to see such “audience participation” material in other talks by WiK. The mood as we broke up our meeting was excellent.
Perhaps one of the poems from this calendar, which was entitled (in English) “Clocks in Anamorphosis”, might sum up the atmosphere of this talk. Here is January: If Clocks go Back and Forth It’s Snowfall Upside Down When Anamorphosis in Recollection It’s Prosody Deepens.
********************** Cody Poulton also recently contributed an essay on plants in Japanese culture and particularly the Noh theatre to the latest Kyoto Journal (no. 104).
Cody Poulton in mid-talk (photo by Ken Rodgers)Audience participation: Rebecca Otowa shows the calendar with a verse for every monthRichard Holmes gets to display the calendar (photos by John Dougill)
Photo by Yuki Yamauchi of Millennium Actress from his film collection
Japan has produced a great number of anime film directors, notably Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hideaki Anno, Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai. Besides them, I would like to mention Satoshi Kon and write about him in detail, especially his connection with Kyoto.
Kon was born in Hokkaido in 1963. As a child, he was fascinated with the works of Osamu Tezuka and Leiji Matsumoto. Inspired by Katsuhiro Otomo’s pieces Domu and Akira, he aspired to create his own works, and his career as a manga artist started in the mid-1980s.
He made a foray into the anime industry in Japan in the early 1990s by assisting Otomo with the production of animated science fiction film Rojin Z. After taking part in several productions of animated works, Kon made a debut as an anime film director with the psychological thriller Perfect Blue in 1997. The film drew international attention, earning him awards at Fantasia Festival in Canada and Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal.
Kon’s director career went on with Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and Paprika (2006), each of which came close to winning an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. He had intended to create another feature film Dreaming Machine, but he died of pancreatic cancer in 2010 when he was only 46 years old.
Kon’s released works are still loved, as he depicted a world in which boundaries between reality and unreality become blurred in such an elaborate way that no one else could follow him.
Kyoto and Satoshi Kon
Kiyomizu without the crowds (photo by J. Dougill)
Speaking of Kyoto and Kon, one of the earliest links was his high school trip. The destinations included Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji, according to his blog post.
The same post also says that he went to Kyoto together with some of the staff engaged in Perfect Blue shortly after a special screening of the film in Osaka. In the drizzling rain, they visited Sanjusangen-do to see scores of Buddhist statues and then traveled to Kiyomizu-dera and Kinkaku-ji. In addition, they enjoyed a good experience just before going back to Tokyo: they were riveted by the building of Kyoto Station, which had been renovated only one year prior to the tour.
Film Millennium Actress
Kyoto certainly helped Kon channel creativity into his next film Millennium Actress, which shared with Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away the Grand Prize in the Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival. The outline of Kon’s second work goes as follows:
“When the legendary Ginei Studios shuts down, filmmaker Genya Tachibana and his assistant are tasked with interviewing its reclusive star, Chiyoko Fujiwara, who had retired from the spotlight 30 years prior. As she recounts her career, Genya and his crew are literally pulled into her memories where they witness her chance encounter with a mysterious man on the run from the police. Despite never knowing his name or his face, Chiyoko relentlessly pursues that man in a seamless blend of reality and memory that only Satoshi Kon could deliver.”
To explain the memories of the former actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, Kon realised that he should portray scenes of imaginary films that take place in different periods, including Meiji, Taisho and Showa. When he found it necessary to depict a jidaigeki scene set in the Warring States period, he went to Shochiku Studio in the Uzumasa area and got some hints about the atmosphere of the era.
Millennium Actress is Kon’s only film that depicts Kyoto. Toward the middle of the piece, you can see a street lined with traditional machiya houses nearby and a tall building like Yasaka Pagoda in the distance.* The city becomes a stage for a few of the imaginary jidaigeki films starring Chiyoko Fujiwara. In the first of them, she talks with several other actors in the Kyoto dialect.**
The film in Millennium Actress segues into another, in which Fujiwara acts as a common girl and happens to meet a man she eagerly hopes to see again. He leaves her right away because he is chased by three members of Shinsengumi. Then they threaten Fujiwara to get his whereabouts out of her, but she is narrowly saved by a man looking like Kurama Tengu, a live-action film character played by actor Kanjuro Arashi.
Afterwards, neither reality nor unreality in Millennium Actress shows Kyoto any longer. That said, the movie should be checked out. Many of the imaginary films are likely to look impressive as they were minutely made in homage to various masterpieces, which include Tokyo Story by Yasujiro Ozu, Twenty-Four Eyes by Keisuke Kinoshita and Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa.
Kyoto and Satoshi Kon after his death
When Kon died in 2010, not only the media in Japan but those overseas — Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Time magazine — reported the sorrowful occurrence. Many people and fans mourned his early passing. Among them was filmmaker Darren Aronofsky,*** who wrote to Kon’s right hand person Masao Maruyama. Part of Aronofsky’s eulogy goes as follows:
“It is a great loss for world cinema. A true artist has fallen and it saddens my heart.” (from The Art of Satoshi Kon)
Posthumously, his fame continued to rise. Fantasia International Film Festival renamed its best animation award Satoshi Kon Award in 2012, and the late director also received the Winsor McCay Award at the Annie Award in 2019.
With the year 2020 marking the 10th anniversary of Kon’s death, diverse media paid tribute to him. Just to name a few, writer Matt Schley contributed a feature story on the director to The Japan Times in January, and the August issue of Eureka magazine from Seidosha gave prominence to Kon with more than 30 articles. As a matter of fact, two cinema houses in Kyoto — Demachiza and Kyoto Minami Kaikan — joined the anniversary celebration with a screening event featuring his films and his anime television series Paranoia Agent.
October 12th will mark what would be his 60th birthday. Until now, there has been no news yet about any events, apart from the announcement from Kyoto Minami Kaikan that it will screen, from March 31st to April 6th, Kon’s final work Paprika. It is one of the animated films that became an inspiration for the seven-Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once by the two Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). However, it is highly probable that Kon’s ingenious works will be revived at theaters all over Japan, I hope, including those in Kyoto so that his genius can be recognised by wider generations.
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Notes
*Art director Nobutaka Ike recalls that Kyoto was selected because the city could show the audience the most picturesque part of the Edo period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK6zHMpNPqI
** The film within the film of Millennium Actress is titled Shimabara Junjo (島原純情). According to Satoshi Kon, it is loosely based on Kenji Mizoguchi’s A Geisha. Regarding the Kyoto dialect, voice actor Fumiko Orikasa recalls that the cast were taught how to speak with the accent by a Kyoto-born voice actor. https://animation-nerima.jp/topics/topic-news/1706/
*** Darren Aronofsky was much inspired by Satoshi Kon. Here is a YouTube video that helps you grasp Kon’s debut work Perfect Blue’s influence on Requiem for a Dream. https://youtu.be/9GzZuRMwbW4?t=1011
There once was a beautiful geiko Famous from Kyoto to Edo But if clients tried holding hands She would whack them with her fan Because that was the way she said “No No”
There once was this cheeky young geisha So cheeky she’d even surprise ya She would look here and there When she was pouring your beer And “accidentally” spill it all over ya
There once was a geiko so old 100 years old, I was told But when she arrived The parties came alive So, the customers thought she was gold
There once was a geiko from Hokkaido There wasn’t anyone she didn’t know You could be poor or be rich She was never a bitch And would always wave and say hello
There once was geiko thought to be crazy But writing her off would be lazy Because when she drank with the men Being drunk, she would pretend Good enough to be hired by Scorsese
There once was a geiko, so pretty Not just good looks but also quite witty She told lots of great jokes Much funnier than the blokes So, they voted her mayor of the city
There once was a geiko so tall When she walked, we were all scared she’d fall One night after beers She fell down the stairs And of her dancing career, that was all.
There once was a maiko so shy When she saw men, she would cry The house mother got madder And she got even sadder So, she left without saying goodbye
There once was a geiko who smoked She smoked so much she would choke When others told her to quit She’d have quite a fit And one day, she suddenly croaked
The once was a geisha not so pretty Her face was tad bit zitty And without her white face She’d scare the whole place So, she moved to a faraway city
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Geisha expert Peter MacIntosh runs tours and organises special occasions. See his website Kyoto Sights and Nights and Facebook page. To watch his documentary Real Geisha Real Women, click here. For a short story see here, and for a short short see here. His PR page can be accessed here.
Below is an excerpt from Chapter Two of The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, a modern Gothic retelling of The Secret Garden. Here is a synopsis:
Still grieving her mother’s death, American photographer Mari Lennox is sent to document Yanagi Inn, an old, dilapidated ryokan outside Kyoto. By day, Mari explores the inn and its grounds, taking striking photographs and uncovering layers of mystery shrouding the old resort—including an overgrown, secret garden on a forbidden island. At night, eerie weeping (which no one else seems to hear) keeps her awake.
Despite the warnings of the staff, Mari searches for the source of the ghostly sound—and discovers a devastating secret tying her family’s history to the inn, and its mysterious, forlorn garden.
(Photos courtesy Amber Logan)
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The dimmed cabin lights brightened to a rosy glow, mimicking a sunrise though it was late evening in Kyoto. I wiped the drool off my lip with the back of my hand, glanced at the passengers on either side of me. The elderly woman to my right was awake, watching Roman Holiday on her seatback screen—Mom’s favorite movie, one I’d watched with her three times in the hospital alone.
The smartly dressed blond woman on my left had her laptop out on her tray table. Her stockinged feet rested on carry-on luggage with the same floral print as the weekender bag Mom had picked up in England years ago.
An optimistically small bag for her hospital stay.
The woman was probably working. Her nails on the keys tick-tick-ticked away, knocking on the door to my brain, reminding me I should check my work email. I reached for the bag between my feet. And Risa would need to be reminded of where I’d left Ginkgo’s pills. She needed to know he wouldn’t take them without sticking the pills inside butter. She needed to know—
STOP IT, Mari. I pictured my little sister smirking at me, arms crossed, standing next to my white puffball of a dog. Relax—I’ve got this.
I leaned back in my seat, rhythmically twisting the too-loose ring on my middle finger.
The flight attendant pushed a drink cart down the aisle. She wore a fitted top and pencil skirt, a jaunty kerchief with the Japan Airlines red crane logo tied around her neck. “Green tea, coffee?” Her voice was quiet, soothing.
I raised my hand. “Coffee would be amazing, thank you.”
She smiled a practiced smile, set a small cup on her metal tray, and poured the coffee from a carafe. The two women on either side of me asked for green tea.
Even over the aroma of my coffee, I could smell their tea. I’d missed it, the slightly bitter scent, the warmth of it. A scent from my childhood.
Japan. I’m really going back. This is real. This is NOW.
I took a sip of the coffee, hissing as it stung my tongue. A sharp, cheap flavor like the instant crap Thad used to buy when he’d finished off my good stuff.
I should’ve asked for tea.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing at Kansai International Airport in approximately half an hour. We anticipate a slightly early arrival. Local time is 7:14 p.m.”
My cardigan was damp with sleep sweat. I’d take it off, but I was afraid of elbowing the ladies next to me, so I made do with pulling my hair back into a ponytail and hitting the button for my personal fan. It whirred to life, but the clicking annoyed me, and I turned it back off. In the row behind me, someone sneezed.
What the hell was I doing running away like this—abandoning my sister, my now ex-boyfriend, maybe even my job? Tears welled in my eyes and I fought them back, staring at the screen in front of me, at the image of the tiny airplane and the dashed-line trek it’d made across the Pacific Ocean. Even if Risa had made all the arrangements and basically shoved me out the door, it felt wrong to just leave.
Even if it was for only four weeks.
Deep breaths, Mari, deep breaths.
At first the timing of the grant had seemed fortuitous, if a bit rushed. But the closer I got to Japan, the more reality set in and the vague details of the NASJ grant paperwork felt more and more inadequate. Photograph an old isolated Japanese inn “for posterity’s sake”? It wasn’t much to go on.
Had I brought the right camera lenses? Would four weeks be enough time? It seemed an eternity to me right now, but I’d never been asked to document an entire estate, never even received a grant before. I was an artist, not a documentarian.
At least, I used to be an artist.
Maybe I should’ve splurged for the upgraded camera bag with better padding. I pictured the Roman Holiday woman next to me opening the overhead compartment and my camera bag tumbling out onto the floor. Contents may have shifted during flight.
Could she even reach the overhead compartment?
She was a tiny Japanese woman—probably in her seventies. I snuck a glance at her.
But Mom was sitting next to me.
I froze, my entire body turning numb.
Mom, leaning back in her seat, was watching the movie with a slight smile on her lips. Her platinum blond hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, but tufts had fallen out and were dusting her shoulders, her blouse, like dead leaves. She sipped her green tea.
I struggled for air. The sweat dotting my skin turned cold, clammy.
No, no, no. I’m just tired, didn’t get enough sleep. I closed my eyes, inhaled deep, gasping breaths. Mandarins, I smelled freshly peeled mandarins.
“Are you all right, honey?”
My eyes flew open. CEO woman on my left, with her slim laptop and flowered bag, stared at me. Her eyes were wide with concern.
I shot a glance to my right. The little grandmother had returned and was happily watching her movie, oblivious to my distress.
Am I all right? The dreaded question.
Did she mean “do I need medical attention?” Or was it more of the existential “all right” we all seem to strive for but never quite manage?
I smiled at the woman, responded with the only reasonable lie one can give to that question: “I’m fine.”
Deep breaths, Mari. Deep breaths.
The flight attendant in her perfect pillbox hat and red bandana came by again, this time with white gloves and a plastic trash bag. I handed her my half-empty cup of coffee with an apologetic smile.
I should’ve asked for tea.
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Amber is an author, freelance editor, and university instructor. To learn more about her, please click here.
Amber’s family pose in front of a Japanese garden bridge
spider walks the air unspooling from his being lifelines of silver
where the wind takes it how light a life that’s floating shadow on the sand
Santoka* walking – nothing between him and death haiku and sake
gift of his whole life Santoka into the wind ragged spirit free
reeds flailed by the wind cry of the crow through torn cloud sun smashed on the waves
crows hang the branches with cacophony of sound raggedly flapping
now and then a bird sends out its notes across the sky carol to no one
bird song floats into the mists of meditation perches in the mind
blessing of the lake – ducks given all this mirror to float nothing on
ripples at the shore pebbles underwater clarity surreal
autumn still as glass all the silence of the sky all the lakelong blue
it’s all so clear now! dust of a thousand days wiped from the I-phone
lake instrumental – sun sparkles random notes jazzing the surface
yellow butterfly leaves off writing its sky dance to settle, a leaf
trail of ivy leaves scarlet in the autumn sun necklace for the rocks
the wind passing through nowhere no one no body only where it goes
the cat stops mid-scratch leg still raised eyes caught by the air’s movement
the cat unmoving eyes slowly closing feeling all that there is there
at the end of day slowly flapping from the reeds herohero** heron
hardly a ripple the lake gunmetal grey duck glides the silence
rain gentles the mind giving it a space of grey letting the thoughts drop
the rain relentless a liquid blind of sound drowning vision
wings soaked in sunlight dragonflies under silver cloud zipping the day up
the waves loquacious liquid song unending search for melody
Notes
*Santoka Taneda (1882 -1940). Free-form haiku poet, inveterate drinker, and lover of the open road, he walked the length and breadth of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, an estimated distance of about 45,000 kilometres.
For previous contributions by James Woodham, please see the striking poems and stunning photography here. Or here. Or here. Or here. For his most recent postings, see A Single Thread here, or The Wind’s Word here, and for Vagabond Song click here.
The City Fathers call Omoide Yokocho by its official name—Memory Lane. Locals prefer ‘Piss Alley’. For me it’s a little of both: a place to sip cheap beer on a hot evening, to reminisce of my wayward youth, and maybe shoot the breeze with another seasoned drinker. Because that’s all you’ll meet down this crooked alley crammed full of bars and izakaya which have survived the fire bombings of World War II, the wrecking balls, and the foolish whims of our city planners.
Make no mistake, an Omoide Yokocho drinkerie is little more than a two-storied wooden box with a ground-floor bar and a faded noren curtain to hide the afternoon barflies. Knots of cables and disused telephone lines hang crazily overhead. At night, sodium lamps push back the shadows just enough to offer safe passage between the red lanterns.
What’s not to like? On warm evenings, when the braziers fill the lane with their greasy smoke, you’ll know the soul of this city by its laughter and shouts, and calls for more chicken wings, hearts, and liver, and through this symphony of the working class, you might even hear the wail of some sodden soul singing enka—the Piss Alley blues.
Yarikuri has always been my haunt (the bar’s name means ‘to make ends meet’), but on account of losing my job, and my bill being unpaid since April, I’ve given it a wide berth. Still, I can’t keep away from Omoide Yokocho. It’s the drinkers and their stories that draw me back every time.
Take last night, for instance: I stepped into Yamamoto Sake-ten, a liquor store standing bar at the end of the alley. No sooner had I taken my place at the counter than the man beside me declared, ‘This summer heat is cooking my eggs.’
I threw him a sideways glance. He was somewhere north of seventy and wore a yellow-green Hawaiian shirt covered in red ukuleles. There was a straw Trilby perched on his head, and beneath it, eyebrows which bristled like the antennae on a night moth.
‘Pardon me?’ I replied. ‘I said, it’s hot!’
I nodded, and to the elderly woman behind the counter, said, ‘Mama, biru chodai.’ A frosted bottle and glass soon stood before me, and as I drank, the man lifted his own glass and swallowed in rapid gulps, like a mudskipper at low tide.
‘Who can stand such heat?’ he said, turning to me. ‘I’ll tell you who. See that guy in the corner? That’s Aoki-san. He was a UN peacekeeper in Africa, drove an armoured car all over the Namib desert chasing rebels. Forty degrees was a warm day! Then he came home and drove a bullet-proof limousine all over Tokyo for hotshots and VIPs. You know Whitney Houston?
I nodded. ‘Well, he even drove her.’
I drained my glass and poured it full.
‘And you think that’s something? His eyes widened. ‘Well, let me tell you that man beside the door drinking red wine, see? That’s Bono-sensei, a retired doctor. He delivered a baby on the Yamanote line once.’
I said, ‘Mama, mo ippon chodai.’ When my second bottle arrived, he leaned in closer and whispered, ‘But not everyone’s that clever, you know. See that guy in the blue linen jacket behind me? That’s Tanaka-san. He owned the Maharaja Disco in Kabukicho in the Bubble era, but couldn’t pay his gambling debts so the yakuza bought him out for a pittance. Now it’s a UNIQLO megastore!’
I took a dish of chilled tofu and shallots from the small refrigerator beside the counter.
‘Nakano-san,’ he murmured, watching me drizzle the tofu with soy sauce. ‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘Nakano-san loves tofu. He’s not here tonight, mind you. He used to captain a skipjack boat in the Indian Ocean. Out for months at a time. He’d sell his catch at Tsukiji and drink his profits here. He loved cold tofu. Shipwrecked twice he was—once in the Maldives, another time, the Andamans.’ He turned to me. ‘What do you do?’ ‘I’m between jobs.’
He drained his glass and slapped the counter. ‘Mama, okanjo kudasai!’ The elderly woman flicked her abacus beads, then scribbled something on a scrap of paper. He paid, said something to her I couldn’t catch, and with the tip of his Trilby, disappeared into the heat of the alley.
The old woman cleared away his bottles and said, ‘I’m sorry. He does that sometimes.’ ‘Does what?’ ‘Introduces customers to his friends.’
I glanced around at the empty shop.
‘He’s the last of the old timers.’ She wiped off the counter and rearranged the soy sauce bottles.
I drained my bottle, thought about a third, but asked for the bill instead.
‘It’s been paid,’ she said without looking up.
Bar bill from the very first standing bar that Simon visited in Himeji
******************
‘Otomodachi’ (Honorable friend) was a finalist in the Globe Soup 2021 Travel Writing Competition.
Simon Rowe is an Australian writer based in Himeji, Japan and is a 2021 International Rubery Book Award nominee, winner of the 2021 Best Indie Book Award and the 2013 Asian Short Screenplay Contest. His nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review, the New York Times, TIME (Asia), the South China Morning Post, and The Australian. Website: https://www.mightytales.net/
For his previous contributions to WiK, see here, or here, or here, or here, or here.
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