OPPOSITION

Japan is well-known for being a society in which social harmony is highly valued, to the point where ‘the nail which sticks up will be hammered down.’ However, amid all the stringent repression and resulting tedious social generics, there are a few who dare to resist beyond the confines of their own private thoughts.

Recently my attention has been drawn to the poet Kaneko Mitsuharu (金子光晴, 1895-1975) a free spirit and bohemian who was perhaps the only poet to write anti-war material during the dark years of the 1930′s and into World War II.

The following example of his work is shocking to anyone familiar with the faux niceties of Japanese society: needless to say he his not well-known among the current, politically rather spineless, generation.

The Japanese original follows the English translation.

OPPOSITION

In my youth
I was opposed to school.
And now, again,
I’m opposed to work.

Above all it is health
And righteousness that I hate the most.
There’s nothing so cruel to man
As health and honesty.

Of course I’m opposed to the Japanese spirit
And duty and human feeling make me vomit.
I’m against any government anywhere
And show my bum to authors and artists circles.

When I’m asked for what I was born,
Without scruple, Ill reply, To oppose.
When I’m in the east
I want to go to the west.

I fasten my coat at the left, my shoes right and left.
My hakama I wear back to front and I ride a horse facing its buttocks.
What everyone else hates I like
And my greatest hate of all is people feeling the same.

This I believe: to oppose
Is the only fine thing in life.
To oppose is to live.
To oppose is to get a grip on the very self.

(Translated by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)

金 子光晴　「反対」

僕は少年の頃
学校に反対だった
僕は、いままた
働くことに反対だ。

僕は第一、健康とか
正義とかが大きらひなのだ。
健康で正しいほど
人間を無情にするものはない。

むろん、やまと魂は反対だ。
義理人情もへどが出る。
いつの政府にも反対であり、
文壇画壇にも尻を向けている。

何しに生まれてきたと問はれれば、
躊躇なく答えよう。反対しにと。
僕は東にいるときは、
西にゆきたいと思ひ、
きものは左前、靴は右左、
袴はうしろ前、馬には尻をむいて乗る。
人のいやがるものこそ、僕の好物。
とりわけ嫌ひは、気の揃むといふことだ。

僕は信じる。反対こそ、人生で
唯一立派なことだと。
反対こそ、生きてることだ。
反対こそ、じぶんをつかむことだ。

SPANISH CASTLE MAGIC #1

Preamble:

Spain at one time did not even register in my mind as a travel destination due to a long-held prejudice in which I believed it to be nothing but a haven for the lager louts of Europe on their beach package holidays (see Eric Idle‘s superb monologue on this subject from nearly forty years ago in a Monty Python travel agent sketch,  or watch the current British comedy ‘Benidorm‘ which, perversely, I love).

For many people, this is Spain...

Anyway, by accident I found myself stranded on the Iberian peninsular one day in October 1989 with a fistful of dollars and unlimited time, due to circumstances too complicated to recount here. I ended up discovering that Spain‘s interior was in fact replete with treasures on a par with any other European nation, even surpassing most, visiting Madrid, Seville and Granada.

Fast forward to 1997 and I returned, this time for a week-long stay in Barcelona as part of my honeymoon, no less, and once again I loved the place, made all the better by having a bird on me arm, a Cuban cigar in me gob, and finally enough dosh to stay in a plush pad and be able to afford to eat in restaurants.

Your humble author drops in on Salvador Dali, Figueres, Spain, 1997

I’d always wanted to return, knowing that there were plenty more delights to behold, and so it was that I returned this month to the Castillian heartlands for an all too brief jaunt , revisiting Madrid and acquainting myself for the first time with a trio of World Heritage listed towns in the shape of Toledo, Segovia and Salamanca.

September 5th – 6th

Friday night, in a psychosomatic high fever with snot flying out of my snout in buckets, I hastily book rail tickets on the web, negotiating labyrinthine Spanish sites and nearly coming to grief due to a crashing Firefox (thanks, Mr.Snow Leopard!).

Late Saturday, bullet train to Osaka, and overnight it on Turkish Airlines to Istanbul. Questions: how can a two-engined Airbus possibly carry enough fuel for the fourteen-hour flight? Why are the Turkish stewardesses so unfriendly?

Clandestine iPhone snap of approaching grumpy stewardess on Turkish Airlines

My strategy of showing up early at check-in pays off, and I am able to avoid deep vein thrombosis in the emergency exit seats. I contemplate donning a mask, either to stop me spreading my lurgee (kept in check my massive doses of Contac 500 which makes me feel like I’m floating two feet above the ground) or to prevent the egress of the lumps of H1N1 which must surely be floating around the cabin. However, I soon dispense with the idea and indeed the further from Japan we travel the fewer masks are in evidence, until in Europe they are nowhere to be seen. They may be effective in preventing sickos from flecking their sputum around, but apparently they don’t do jack to stop the incoming viruses who can just as easily crawl up your hand or form a chain and bungee jump down your earhole.

Istanbul airport – sadly no views of Hagia Sofia on the way in, we kill time buying huge boxes of Turkish Delight whilst observing the numerous pale Russian young men who are everywhere, interspersed among the throngs of Arabs. Honestly, dropping all notions of PC, is there an uglier language than Arabic anywhere on this planet? I doubt it. Those harsh gutterals make it hard to determine if they are trying to communicate or just coughing up phlegm.

Next flight to Madrid, and I try to watch a Turkish documentary about Gallipoli. It is atrociously subtitled, and soon debilitates into an exercise in nationalism and militaristic propaganda, not to mention a deification of Attaturk. And that’s why they can’t join the EU, along with a little matter of 1.5 million dead Armenian civilians.

At last, Madrid! Stinking, red-eyed and blotchy-skinned, my first sight of Spain is not auspicious: a shitty looking half-built airport terminal. While waiting at the baggage claim a drunken Russian does a projectile vomit all over his fellow travellers while a man with either burnt hands or leprosy asks my companion to light his cigarette in the smoking area.

Soon we are on the metro, tired and bewildered, expecting to be assaulted by gangs of Roma children at any minute (more non-PC – chill, it’s humour), but instead get treated to the sight of a sexy young South American lady pull out her large tit in full view of everyone and proffer it to her progeny. Japan this is not, and it takes some adjusting to get into the European way of things.

The Suites Viena Hotel near the Plaza de España is wonderful. Warm friendly receptionists give us an enormous modern room complete with its own kitchen and microwave oven. This is quite possibly the largest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in, and the price is good too.

Hotel Suites Viena, Madrid

By now it is late afternoon, and though tired, we feel duty-bound to go out for an exploratory stroll. We head down to the nearby Palacio Real and its attendant Sabatini gardens, all bobbly trees, hedges and fountains, very nice indeed. However, the heat is astonishing in its ferocity – at 6pm it is still scorching hot, in the upper 30′s C, and we are shamefacedly forced to seek out giant buckets of liquid refreshment in that traditionally Spanish hostelry known as Burger King.

Next we climp up to Plaza del Sol, a transport hub and centre of old Bourbon Madrid, which leads us to the Plaza Mayor, an ornate square formerly the site of bullfights, executions and the odd bit of inquisition torture.

Madrid's Plaza Mayor

None of these sights are overwhelming in their beauty, and I reassure my companion that while Madrid is no Paris, the surrounding towns of old Castille and the city’s art treasures will more than make up for the Spanish capital’s slightly worn appearance.

(The full set of photos from this trip can be found here).

LAZY BASTARDS

The Japanese have done a fantastic PR job on themselves over the last half a century, haven’t they? They’ve got us all believing that they are industrious hard-working ants selflessly grinding themselves down for the good of the nation. There’s even a new syndrome been coined for those who apparently croak due to overwork. Yes, those sons and daughters of Nippon are stoic, uncomplaining slaves to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Well, that’s what they’d like you to believe. I am here now to tell that it’s all a complete load of bollocks, and far from being hard-working, the citizens of these here islands are in fact some of the laziest motherlovers on the face of the planet.

For example, at Hiroshima station there is an escalator to take you up to the walkways connecting the various platforms. Nowt wrong with that, but then there is also an escalator going down too, and rather than walk down about 20 steps assisted nicely by gravity, the masses crowd onto it as if their very lives depended on it. Lazy bastards!

Similarly there is an extended walkway linking Shin-Inokuchi station and the Alpark shopping centre out in the east of the city. Now, rather than actually walk along a perfectly flat surface for 2 minutes, they’ve installed a series of three people movers to assist in this terribly difficult undertaking, and of course, the natives flock to it in droves.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I thought that perhaps the main point of a people mover was to get you somewhere quicker, in other words, you continue walking once you have embarked upon’t. Not so the Japanese. Once on, perambulation ceases, mobile phones come out, and companions conspire to block anyone who might want to get past. Honestly, walking next to the people mover in the barren deserted walkway is by far the speedier option.

Then take the case of a certain University where I allegedly teach. Here we have not old crusty octogenarians who at least have some kind of excuse for their sloth, but a bunch of lithe 18-22 year olds. And here’s what happens: rather than walk up a flight of stairs, these thrusting energetic youths crowd into the lift to save them the tremendous effort. Need to go from floor 4 up to another classroom on floor 5? Let’s take the elevator, even if there are 27 of us and we have to wait ten minutes -anything rather than actually put one foot in front of the other!

Now perhaps you’re thinking it’s OK to take the lift up, but these same loping, shuffling, sniffing and skulking hominids once again queue up to take it down after class – even if it’s just one floor!! Lazy arseholes!

Broadening our view out to the world of work, we find again the myth and the reality not matching up. Everywhere you look there is overemployment – one sales clerk deals with you while two look on and simper. Teams of uniformed cretins wave glowing rods to assist you in the complex task of getting across the road when the red man turns green.

In companies the long hours do not equate with actual work – in a recent study the Japanese ranked bottom among developed nations in terms of worker efficiency. How come? Turns out that social etiquette means that the lowly drones cannot be seen to leave before the big boss, and will hang about pretending to work, even when there’s bugger all to do. Appearance is everything in the Japanese work environment, it seems.

So, to summarize, here’s a typical day in the life of Tanaka-san, our imaginary 30 year-old Japanese bloke/bird.

Crawl out of bed at 6.30am as the mobile phone, which has been sending carcinogenic radiation into the  cranium all night, blasts out some horrific J-Pop musical monstrosity. Without any noticeable washing, our hero slurps down a bowl of slop and is out of the door, thence to the train station, where every possible lift and escalator will be utilised to avoid any unnecessary walking. If seated, s/he will instantly fall asleep, mouth wide open, slumping over onto some other drooler’s shoulder until reaching their destination. More lifts and escalators.

The work day will consist of ten hours of meaningless bowing, scraping and exchanging of social niceties whilst occasionally doing some anal task exactly according to the rules, despite any real life factors indicating its inappropriateness or futility, in tandem with other superfluous automatons.

The office environment will be stuffy and overheated, and everyone will be snuffly. The state of the weather will be mentioned many times.

Work ends, and it’s another train ride, which means another snooze, before our hero returns to his/her abode, shovels some more slop into their cakehole, then indulges in the ubiquitous Japanese hobby of ‘sleeping‘, which will take place on the sofa or under the kotatsu, a low heated table with a Hello Kitty futon shoved over the top.

Then comes bathtime, which induces more sleepiness and lethargy, and so Tanaka collapses into an overly warm futon in a stuffy overheated bedroom at about 10.30pm, all ready for another day’s exciting adventure in drone-land.

Boy, you should see what kind of wild activities these folk get up to at weekends – prolonged bouts of that ol’ hobby sleeping interspersed with trawling around generic shopping malls, making full use of any available lifts, escalators or people movers, of course…