I've just finished my last working day in Japan. I breezed through it on fuzzy autopilot.
Then, when my boss asked me for my key to the school it really hit me: I'm not going to be coming back here. This is it. I have voluntarily made myself unemployed. I had a nice, relaxing, low-stress job, the best boss I've ever known and great students... and I've given it all up. What am I thinking???
I walked to the station with a deep sinking feeling. The sort of feeling you get when you enter into the unknown and leave the comfortable and familiar behind.
But I'm trying to bing it all back to the positive now. I'm on the brink of a new, exciting phase in my life. I have chosen this course for a reason. Soon I'll be travelling to places I've never been before, and not long after I'll be embarking on studies that will help bring me close to my eventual life goals.
It's all good (said while rocking back and forth in the foetal position and thinking of loft insulation and incontinence - lil bro and big sis, do you get the ref?)
Thursday 31 May 2007
Friday 25 May 2007
On Poetry and Art (aka How up myself am I?)
I've been thinking a bit about art and poems recently, as you do!
So this is my take on the whole poetry deal. I think words have a beauty and power all their own, quite separate from their literal meaning: They have sound, tone, colour. They are made up of layers of images, often unique to the reader or writer.
When you read and, perhaps, write a poem, I think the idea is to try and switch off the left side of your brain. Rather than listening to the concrete, the grammatical, the analytical, I think the idea is to use your right brain and hear only the abstract, the intonation, the perception: Not so much what the poem means, but what you think it's trying to say.
I imagine this is true for all art.
One of my favourite artists is the Japanese-American sculptor and designer, Isamu Noguchi. I've put a picture of his onyx 'Mother and Child' at the top of this entry. In my opinion, it's his best work.
I went to see an exhibition of his here in Tokyo a couple of years ago. On entering the first room, you were met by a two-metre bamboo and Japanese paper lantern hanging from the ceiling. It was massive and filled the small entry hall. It was almost claustrophobic.
At first I was like, 'So what. It's just a big lantern. I have a smaller version hanging in my very own flat. You'd probably see almost the same in 1 out of every 3 Japanese living rooms.'
This was my left brain doing all the talking.
I stood there a while longer and gave the work a chance. I tried to silence all the over-analyzing.
In a Japanese home you eat from a low table while sitting on the floor. The paper lantern hangs low above. As a young child looking up from the floor, such a lamp must appear huge and close. This warm, glowing orb suddenly represented idyllic family dinners crouched around a table sharing food and laughter. My right brain had really kicked in and suddenly I was thinking of ideas like nostalgia, the rosiness of past memories, the purity and perversity of childhood perception. I had the strange feeling that I suddenly just got it.
Now of course, I may have gotten it completely wrong. Perhaps the artist wasn't trying to say anything like that at all. But does it really matter? Whatever the result, Noguchi's work certainly communicated something to me that day.
In defense of my ideas about his art, I went on to find out that Noguchi lived a very troubled childhood. The illegitimate son of a Japanese father and American mother, his father was largely absent from his life and he was sent abroad to boarding school at 14. Much of his work explores ideas of parental bonds, family life, and the idea of void or something lacking.
I highly recommend you check out http://www.noguchi.org/ to find out more about Isamu and his work.
So this is my take on the whole poetry deal. I think words have a beauty and power all their own, quite separate from their literal meaning: They have sound, tone, colour. They are made up of layers of images, often unique to the reader or writer.
When you read and, perhaps, write a poem, I think the idea is to try and switch off the left side of your brain. Rather than listening to the concrete, the grammatical, the analytical, I think the idea is to use your right brain and hear only the abstract, the intonation, the perception: Not so much what the poem means, but what you think it's trying to say.
I imagine this is true for all art.
One of my favourite artists is the Japanese-American sculptor and designer, Isamu Noguchi. I've put a picture of his onyx 'Mother and Child' at the top of this entry. In my opinion, it's his best work.
I went to see an exhibition of his here in Tokyo a couple of years ago. On entering the first room, you were met by a two-metre bamboo and Japanese paper lantern hanging from the ceiling. It was massive and filled the small entry hall. It was almost claustrophobic.
At first I was like, 'So what. It's just a big lantern. I have a smaller version hanging in my very own flat. You'd probably see almost the same in 1 out of every 3 Japanese living rooms.'
This was my left brain doing all the talking.
I stood there a while longer and gave the work a chance. I tried to silence all the over-analyzing.
In a Japanese home you eat from a low table while sitting on the floor. The paper lantern hangs low above. As a young child looking up from the floor, such a lamp must appear huge and close. This warm, glowing orb suddenly represented idyllic family dinners crouched around a table sharing food and laughter. My right brain had really kicked in and suddenly I was thinking of ideas like nostalgia, the rosiness of past memories, the purity and perversity of childhood perception. I had the strange feeling that I suddenly just got it.
Now of course, I may have gotten it completely wrong. Perhaps the artist wasn't trying to say anything like that at all. But does it really matter? Whatever the result, Noguchi's work certainly communicated something to me that day.
In defense of my ideas about his art, I went on to find out that Noguchi lived a very troubled childhood. The illegitimate son of a Japanese father and American mother, his father was largely absent from his life and he was sent abroad to boarding school at 14. Much of his work explores ideas of parental bonds, family life, and the idea of void or something lacking.
I highly recommend you check out http://www.noguchi.org/ to find out more about Isamu and his work.
Countdown to last commuter train
Tonight's train ride home was a bad one.
Usually on a Friday evening I have to take a fairly packed commuter train home. But today was worse than usual.
This morning there was some fault on the track, so the trains were all delayed by about three minutes. No big deal, you might think. But three minutes has a huge impact on a system that carries millions of passengers every evening.
The carriage was so crowded that, even though I had a terrible itchy nose, I couldn't raise my arm to scratch it. Can you imagine how awful that feels?
The other passeners were lucky I'm tall: I was a good head and shoulder's above everyone else. If I had been smaller, I would have found the nearest person's shoulder and rubbed my nose up and down on their shirt until the desire to itch had been sated.
Usually on a Friday evening I have to take a fairly packed commuter train home. But today was worse than usual.
This morning there was some fault on the track, so the trains were all delayed by about three minutes. No big deal, you might think. But three minutes has a huge impact on a system that carries millions of passengers every evening.
The carriage was so crowded that, even though I had a terrible itchy nose, I couldn't raise my arm to scratch it. Can you imagine how awful that feels?
The other passeners were lucky I'm tall: I was a good head and shoulder's above everyone else. If I had been smaller, I would have found the nearest person's shoulder and rubbed my nose up and down on their shirt until the desire to itch had been sated.
Wednesday 23 May 2007
Waste, waste, waste
Warning: RANT THREAT LEVEL ORANGE!!!
The preparations for the 'Big Move of Ought Seven' continue apace. And I'm fed up.
If I never hear the word ごみ (gomi - refuse, waste, garbage, rubbish, junk) again, it will be too soon.
I am now an expert on the intricate (and often contradictory) rules of my city's refuse management system:
Made of plastic with no metallic parts? 燃えるゴミ (moeru gomi - burnable rubbish).
Got some metal in there? 燃えないゴミ (moenai gomi - unburnable rubbish)
More than 50cm? 粗大ゴミ (sodai gomi - large refuse) - needs a special appointment for collection.
Fridge, TV, washing machine, PC? Tough cheese! The city won't take it.
Being the good citizen I am, I have been following the rules to the letter. Even to the point of wanting to bang my head against a wall. I mean, please explain to my why a big, clumsy two-ring gas cooker is unburnable and therefore collected without charge, whilst a little folding cushion chair (seriously like 52cm in length) must have a special collection date arranged and be paid for. Aaarrghh.
Anyway, those are the rules, so I stick by them.
So I had gone to great trouble itemising and paying for some large items to be collected. Today, the refuse truck called while I was out.
Now again, I stress that I want to try and be a good citizen. I put a small sofa out, laying it on its side so as to take up minimal room. Having the legs sticking out seemed a little dangerous to me. Thinking safety first, I unscrewed the legs, put them in a little bag, and laid them down beside the sofa.
I get home tonight. All the big stuff is gone but Mr / Mrs Refuse Collector has left the legs behind. I'm assuming this is because taking them would have meant exceeding the 5-item-a-day limit. Oh I'll tell ya, I would have gladly screwed the chair legs into the dustman's coal black heart then and there.
The upshot is that I am going to flout the rules. Those legs will be going out with the regular trash. And if anyone gives me hassle about it let them feel my wrath.
End of rant.
The preparations for the 'Big Move of Ought Seven' continue apace. And I'm fed up.
If I never hear the word ごみ (gomi - refuse, waste, garbage, rubbish, junk) again, it will be too soon.
I am now an expert on the intricate (and often contradictory) rules of my city's refuse management system:
Made of plastic with no metallic parts? 燃えるゴミ (moeru gomi - burnable rubbish).
Got some metal in there? 燃えないゴミ (moenai gomi - unburnable rubbish)
More than 50cm? 粗大ゴミ (sodai gomi - large refuse) - needs a special appointment for collection.
Fridge, TV, washing machine, PC? Tough cheese! The city won't take it.
Being the good citizen I am, I have been following the rules to the letter. Even to the point of wanting to bang my head against a wall. I mean, please explain to my why a big, clumsy two-ring gas cooker is unburnable and therefore collected without charge, whilst a little folding cushion chair (seriously like 52cm in length) must have a special collection date arranged and be paid for. Aaarrghh.
Anyway, those are the rules, so I stick by them.
So I had gone to great trouble itemising and paying for some large items to be collected. Today, the refuse truck called while I was out.
Now again, I stress that I want to try and be a good citizen. I put a small sofa out, laying it on its side so as to take up minimal room. Having the legs sticking out seemed a little dangerous to me. Thinking safety first, I unscrewed the legs, put them in a little bag, and laid them down beside the sofa.
I get home tonight. All the big stuff is gone but Mr / Mrs Refuse Collector has left the legs behind. I'm assuming this is because taking them would have meant exceeding the 5-item-a-day limit. Oh I'll tell ya, I would have gladly screwed the chair legs into the dustman's coal black heart then and there.
The upshot is that I am going to flout the rules. Those legs will be going out with the regular trash. And if anyone gives me hassle about it let them feel my wrath.
End of rant.
Wednesday 16 May 2007
Return to Monkey Bridge
Those of you who know me well know that I love yoga. My favourite pose is probably ‘Bridge’ pose. A close second would be ‘Freestanding Handstand.’ I love these because they really give you a different perspective. Upside down, you see the oh-so-familiar in a totally new way.
I think it’s the same reason I like reading blogs. When I find a new blog I like, I devour the writer’s archives. Reading through all their past entries I get to see what it’s like to think like them, live like them, even be like them. Voyeuristic and creepy? Maybe. A way to broaden your perspective and open yourself to the idea that, regardless of how different we seem, we’re all the same deep down? Definitely.
Another reason I love the ‘Bridge’ is that when I do it I feel like I’m recapturing something from childhood. Such a bendy, fun pose is something we could all do naturally when we were kids. As we age, we lose that natural flexibility. By the time we’re teenagers it seems like something relegated to the past, something we’ve lost forever.
It took me two years. Two years of hard work and many failed attempts. I worried sometimes I was going to snap in two. But finally I was able to make that rounded arch in my spine. Once again I knew the joy of having your body do pretty much what you want it to do. Once again I felt the thrill of reconnecting with my inner monkey.
We humans have such great capacity for change. We just need to believe that one day we will get there, focus ourselves and keep on plugging away.
Another case in point: A few years ago I used to sleep with no pillow, flat on my belly, my neck scrunched up to the side. It was the only way I could get comfortable and drift off to sleep. Then, in Australia, I hurt my back. As part of the therapy, the chiropractor said I could only sleep on my side.
I was sure I would never do it. I felt my sleeping style was something inherent that had been ingrained in me over the years. But I gave it my best shot. After a few uncomfortable nights with my arm hanging out the side of the bed, like a barrier perpendicular to my body, I got the hang of it. The habit was broken. And now I can’t think of falling asleep any way but on my side!
The only thing which limits us from developing is our motivation, our will to change.
I know I’m straying into creepy, motivational speaker territory here: A little bit too ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’ Don’t worry – I’m not trying to sell you my course on three CDs for only $29.99.
I just really believe that to change, first we have to want it badly enough.
I think it’s the same reason I like reading blogs. When I find a new blog I like, I devour the writer’s archives. Reading through all their past entries I get to see what it’s like to think like them, live like them, even be like them. Voyeuristic and creepy? Maybe. A way to broaden your perspective and open yourself to the idea that, regardless of how different we seem, we’re all the same deep down? Definitely.
Another reason I love the ‘Bridge’ is that when I do it I feel like I’m recapturing something from childhood. Such a bendy, fun pose is something we could all do naturally when we were kids. As we age, we lose that natural flexibility. By the time we’re teenagers it seems like something relegated to the past, something we’ve lost forever.
It took me two years. Two years of hard work and many failed attempts. I worried sometimes I was going to snap in two. But finally I was able to make that rounded arch in my spine. Once again I knew the joy of having your body do pretty much what you want it to do. Once again I felt the thrill of reconnecting with my inner monkey.
We humans have such great capacity for change. We just need to believe that one day we will get there, focus ourselves and keep on plugging away.
Another case in point: A few years ago I used to sleep with no pillow, flat on my belly, my neck scrunched up to the side. It was the only way I could get comfortable and drift off to sleep. Then, in Australia, I hurt my back. As part of the therapy, the chiropractor said I could only sleep on my side.
I was sure I would never do it. I felt my sleeping style was something inherent that had been ingrained in me over the years. But I gave it my best shot. After a few uncomfortable nights with my arm hanging out the side of the bed, like a barrier perpendicular to my body, I got the hang of it. The habit was broken. And now I can’t think of falling asleep any way but on my side!
The only thing which limits us from developing is our motivation, our will to change.
I know I’m straying into creepy, motivational speaker territory here: A little bit too ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’ Don’t worry – I’m not trying to sell you my course on three CDs for only $29.99.
I just really believe that to change, first we have to want it badly enough.
For my Mam and Big Sis (Talking Dogs)
Next time I see them I fully expect Bendy and the Blob to be sitting on the sofa saying 'I love My Mama,' if they can't do it already. At first, I thought the third clip might have been of my sis in her living room.
P.S. A quick apology - I've just realised that the title I chose for this post implies my mother and sister are dogs who can talk! This was completely unintentional. I'm not taking it down, though. I think the world should see what a good decision I made in never pursuing a career in the United Nations. Chronic Foot-In-Mouth disease. But isn't the video just too cute - it's the last little guy that slays me.
Wednesday 9 May 2007
Multimedia madness
Nothing new to report. Still waiting to hear back from my universities. Still cleaning out my apartment and recycling like a madman. Still absorbed in the ever-goring to-do list of holiday preparation. Blah, blah and so very blah.
A cruelly ironic aside: my little blog got the most hits EVER last week. You might remember, that was the week I didn't write anything and just posted some photos. One can't help but be a little offended.
So in that mulitmedia vein, I'm just going to upload two videos I hope you'll enjoy.
The first is a music video riding high in the charts here. It's called 蕾 (tsubomi) by コブクロ (kobukuro). It's a pleasant enough song - a fairly generic J-Pop (Japanese Pops) ballad. I love the video because it makes masterful use of the ancient art of hand shadow puppetry. It reminded me of me grandmother. She was an expert at the shadow rabbit.
For those of you in a rush, start the video about 1.45 minutes in to get to the good stuff. It has a parent and child theme. Very sweet. Warning to the people watching who have a delicate disposition: At about 4.15 it ends badly for one mother squirrel. An unexpected 'snuff' tiwst in the tale. I tell ya, ya never know what's coming next here in Japan.
And then the second clip is hilarious. It's Ellen Degeneres talking to Gladys Hardy, an 88-year old Texan grandmother who called her talkshow. Watch out especially for about 3.53. I nearly died. I already know my Sis will love this and my Dad absolutely hate it.
Saturday 5 May 2007
I went walking in my neighbourhood to clock up my 10,000-steps-a-day quota. While I was out I came across these carp kites flying outside a neighbour's home. It reminded me that today (May 5th) is こどもの日 (kodomo no hi - Children's day, or more traditionally Boy's Day).Around this time of year people raise flagpoles and decorate them with these colourful flying fish. The custom is called 鯉幟 (koi nobori - carp-shaped streamers). Not only are they a pretty sight to brighten up the garden, they are also supposed to remind us to treasure our children and remember the childish character, the joy and wonder at life, we all have somewhere in us.
I sometimes feel a bit jaded, a bit worn by the life I've had. I feel pessimistic and old and full of grouchy cynicism. But on a sunny day like today, watching the multicoloured kites turning and jumping about in the breeze like fish swimming upstream, I did feel a sense of wonder. I felt that a piece of cloth flapping in the air still has the power to fascinate and entertain, just like the cardboard box we all had as kids which gave us hours of amusement.
So embrace your inner child today. Think of something you used to enjoy doing as a kid, playing hopscotch, spinning until you fall to the ground, making daisy chains, and give it another go.
Big sis, seeing as you used to enjoy skewering slugs with a stick and flinging them over the back wall into the school behind our house, I suggest you find an alternative activity to revisit. Just kidding - she did it like once, twice tops!
P.S. On this day we're also supposed to eat 粽 (chimaki) and 柏餅 (kashiwamochi), two types of glutinous rice cakes. I wasn't in the mood though. Maybe I got cultured out on my recent trip.
Tuesday 1 May 2007
Closing the circle
This has been my second time living in Japan. The first time, all I did was work and drink. I didn't explore. I didn't integrate myself into the culture. I didn't even really speak the language.
So when I came back three years ago, I wanted to do things differently. And I have. I have really gotten in touch with what it means to live a 'Japanese' life - some would say more so than many natives!
Second time round I wandered off, tried new things, pushed away some of the boundaries a foreigner can feel living in a strange land.
In doing so, I have come to see Japan with new eyes. Especially, I have found Tokyo to be a greener and more beautiful city than anyone gives it credit for.
Granted, if you stay at the train stations, around which everything is centred, you could easily imagine it's just a city of cement boxes. But five or ten minutes away from any major station, you will usually find an oasis of natural calm, of minus ions, of understated elegance.
The picture above is of Shinjuku gyoen. It's a five minute walk from the busiest train station in Japan, if not the world. But you wouldn't think to look at it, would you?
Japanese people study the changing of the seasons carefully. The differing weather conditions bring new blossoms.
Here in early May it's the turn of the ツツジ (tsutsuji - azalea). Look carefully at the picture and you might also see the ハス(hasu - lotus) sitting in the pond. The rainy season will come and wash the azalea petals away, but that water will spur the lotus flower to open and it will be their turn to shine. And so it goes on. It's all a great circle of death and rebirth.
And speaking of circles, I really feel like I have been closing up the circle of my time here lately. With only 6 weeks to go before I leave, I have been trying to do things I won't have a chance to do once I get back to Europe.
Yesterday, instead of my usual course, I took a jog through the rice paddies and bamboo forests in the valley not far from my house. You can't get much more Asian than that.
My little bro will remember this place well. He took some happy walks there on his first visit to me. The place has a real significance for me too: it was a place my great friends from Australia took me to walk and shoot the breeze. These would be the friends who would bring me back to Japan and the chance of a new beginning.
Anyway, running there yesterday I felt very satisfied with the way my life over the last five years has panned out. I'm leaving here a better, more knowledgeable person. I'm a happier, more grounded person. Most importantly, I'm a person who finally feels he has some clear direction in life.
If you're out there going through troubles at the moment, stay strong. It's never too late for your life to take off in unexpected but exciting directions. Just be open to the universe around you. When you really stop and listen, as I did, you get the guidance you need.
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