Musing

Jazz and whiskey
        a Manhattan
                           in Kyoto
     understanding
              we understand
rhythms, tones
                       cadence
     shades of brown
                 of red
     autumn night
     autumn in Kyoto
            I'm in Kyo - to
                  in the jazz
                      the whiskey
     autumn colors
Listen

Ephemera

Chushoku

Lunch out is still usually a source of aggravation for me.  

First, there are the hours.  Many restaurants and cafes are open only for dinner.  You may see activity inside, but they are really just preparing for the dinner hours.  Those that are open for lunch typically have extremely limited hours: 11A - 2P.  A late lunch is pretty much out of the question.  Oftentimes you can only order the two or three items from the fixed "lunch set".  The rest of the multi-paged menu is available only after 2P and should thus be considered merely titillating diversions.

I get frustrated with myself because nine-times-out-of-ten I end up in a Western-style cafe because I know I can navigate the menu.  When you are hungry your primal, not cerebral instincts take over.  I will walk for hours looking for that perfect dining combination: friendly/inviting, cool or interesting design/ambiance, not too touristy, not too fancy, not too Japanese (language, not cuisine).  This usually adds up to Western.

I wish I could read a Japanese menu.  Even if I can sound out the Hiragana, I still don't know what I'm reading.  Think about the subtle, almost poetic, descriptions of food on an English menu.  You never see: beef and noodles.  It will read more like: lightly seared grass-fed Texas sirloin strips over tagliatelle in a crème fraîche sauce.  Nowhere in that description do you see the words beef or noodles.  So translate that into Japanese, throw in some Kanji characters….you see the trouble.

Sometimes I pick a proper Japanese restaurant and sit down knowing full well I won't be able to read the menu, there will be no pictures, and probably no English-speaking waiters.  This is simultaneously an act of defiance and punishment.  Basically I am saying to myself: Robert, you can do this, you f*%#ing idiot.

Maybe I ask the server (in Japanese) what he or she recommends.  Or.  Maybe I select something because it is printed in red, instead of black ink (hmm, must be a special).  Or.  If those methods fail, maybe I order by price.  The Robert Wallace Empirical System for ordering food in a foreign country.

It hasn't happened often, but occasionally I am reprimanded for approaching my meal in the wrong manner.  Sometimes it is a polite upturned hand gesturing how I should be doing things.  Sometimes it is put more strongly, "No, no" (in English).

A large Japanese beer is the recommended beverage when using the RWES.  Alcohol goes a long way to relieving dining stress.

Sentō-gosho (仙洞御所)

Sentō-gosho (Sentō Imperial Palace) was built for retired emperors in 1630, sort of an old folks home for royalty.  It burned down and was rebuilt several times and then more or less abandoned when the imperial court split for Tokyo in 1868.  Only two of the original structures remain, but the vast garden is magnificent.

It is not as meditative as some of the temple gardens, but it was designed for an emperor in his golden years to stroll and admire, not for a buddhist monk to contemplate.  Apparently it still hosts foreign dignitaries, which would account for the high security - tours are by reservation only and a valid passport must be presented.  There was also the Japanese equivalent of the secret service trailing our group to make sure no one wandered off.

I was not really prepared for the intense autumn hues I saw once inside the garden.  The trees all seem to be at the peak of their color, and the cool breeze was pulling a lot of the leaves down.  In another week or two perhaps most of them will be on the gravel paths or in the ponds.

The tour was conducted entirely in Japanese so those, like myself, who couldn't understand trailed behind taking unobstructed photos.  As the tour pressed on, the shutterbugs lingered to get the best shots, cameras clicking away like paparazzi trying to capture the Beckhams leaving their favorite restaurant in Hollywood.  I found myself strangely pressured to take more photos than I normally do because the others around me with their big, expensive cameras were shooting like mad.  It bordered on competitive sport, with the anglo-gaijin, of course, being the more aggressive photographers in the group of stragglers.  At one point I actually heard one guy say, "Oh, this is the money shot", which couldn't be a more vulgar way to describe such natural beauty.  I decided to rejoin the main tour group after that.

I went for a walk and...

You may be thinking these photos are manipulated or enhanced.  Uh-unh.  This is Kyoto in all its autumnal glory.

I decided to revisit the Amagase Forest along the banks of the Uji River.  This is almost my backyard, one stop from Obaku on the train.  I had been here in September shortly after I arrived when it still felt like summer.  It was beautiful then, a warm green beauty.  I was hoping for, but not expecting this kind of rich color.

After crossing the Amagase Suspension Bridge, I happened upon a trail leading into the forest of Shirakawa.  I heard a waterfall and saw a mysterious path and headed in.  I can't quite describe what it was like to leave the main road and enter this almost otherworldly environment, dense, lush, alive.  Suddenly there was no noise except for the rushing water of a brook and the air passing my eardrum.  The temperature dropped as the sun was almost blotted out by the thick canopy of trees.  I was completely alone.

There was something eerie and at the same time thrilling about it.  It was like stepping through a portal to another planet or dimension in time.  The call of the loon was co-opted by Hollywood long ago as a background sound for spooky forests.  This migratory aquatic bird likes the forests around Kyoto; I've heard it on more than one occasion.  It too was part of the soundtrack as I walked along the narrow leaf-covered path damp with rain.

The deeper I went into the forest the more I felt I had left the world in a real metaphysical sense.  It's one thing to wander a city without knowing where you're going.  It is quite another to do the same in a forest.  But something compelled me to keep going.  If I was going to end up in China or heaven or Detroit, I wanted to go.  It's always funny when you reach that no-turning-back point.  "Okay, if I turn back now…"  It's more funny when you don't know if that point is midway to your destination or if you've only just begun your journey, or indeed if you even have a destination.

The path twisted along the bank of the creek, climbed the hillside, crossed over tributary streams, passed around fallen trees cum bridges.  Eventually I came to daylight.  An exit.  And I was in another world.  The trail ended in the countryside somewhere.  There were farms and the air smelt of fresh vegetables and hay.  Where the hell am I?  I wandered down a little lane and passed through what appeared to be a sōmon, the wooden gate at the entrance of a temple.  I arrived at an intersection.  I looked one way, then the other.  I had no idea which way to go, no idea if either direction would take me back to Uji.  I decided to re-enter the magic forest and travel back the way I'd come.

It was dusk when I arrived back at the Uji River.  The old-fashioned street lamps were just coming on and their reflection trembled in the water of the river.  I had to smile.  Where am I indeed.

The traveler versus the tourist

I've never been fond of the word tourist.  For me it conjures images of overweight Americans in shorts, big, white, Seinfeld-style sneakers and fanny-packs, eating in the local McDonalds.  I prefer the term traveler.  This word has romance and adventure.  A traveler is someone more deeply committed to the journey.  It is someone that injects themselves into the bloodstream of another nation-state, its traditions, its routines, from the extraordinary to the mundane, and loses themselves there.  Traveling really is an exchange where a piece of the traveler is left in a country, and that gap is filled with something taken away from that land.  The tourist simply brings themselves and their habits to a new place, seeks out the familiar and returns to their homeland unchanged.

I realized that after more than two months in Japan I am neither traveler nor tourist.  I live here.  And if I am successful in changing my visa status I will continue to live here.  The difference between my sojourn in Kyoto and your average tourist is not the length of stay, it is the responsibilities that come with residency, even a three-month stay like mine.  A tourist is most likely staying in a hotel.  They do not have to make the bed in the morning.  They do not have to make coffee and breakfast.  They do not have to do the dishes or laundry.  They do not have to go to the market to buy onions and milk, udon and eggs.  They have no housekeeping responsibilities.  They are not studying Japanese.  They are not looking for a job.  They are not researching visas and Japanese immigration.  They are not creating a new body of work in an upstairs atelier and hustling their art at galleries.  They are not planning exhibitions for the New Year.  They are not applying to foundations for grants.  They are not going to acupuncture for a sore neck.  They are not getting their hair cut.  They might be meeting new people, but there probably aren't any subsequent render-vous with these new acquaintances.

I enjoy all of this (well, maybe not Japanese immigration law) because it is part of the experience.  It means I'm here, living in Japan not just visiting.  I like knowing which streets connect, and when the last train is (23:58).  I like having a local cafe where they know me, if not by name, at least by face.  I like saying "Ohayo gozaimas" to the neighbors in the morning instead of a hotel staff.   It's cool.  

It's cool living in Japan.

Kamogawa Haiku

Sitting in the river

Not getting wet

The world drifts by quietly

Errant paths

Rule no. 1
Do not set out to find something on an empty stomach.  Your patience will be greatly diminished, and your frustration significantly amplified.

Rule no. 2
Know the distance between your point of origin and your destination.  Failure to obtain this information in advance may result in extreme fatigue.

There was a gallery on my list of important/interesting Kyoto art spaces that I had yet to visit - Foil.  Strangely, it was at the top of that list, and almost 8 weeks had slipped by without attempting to locate it.

I began my journey to Foil at Karasuma-Shijo.  I headed in a north-west direction, passing Nijo Castle.  I was fairly certain the gallery lay in the neighborhood bound by Sanjo to the south, Oike to the north, Horikawa to the east and Senbon to the west.  I had an address; I even had cross streets.  The only problem (it's really always the same problem) is that the streets in my notebook were written by me in Romaji and the street signs are of course written in Kanji.  I wandered up and down the streets believing not only that I was in the right area, but that the gallery would simply show itself, like a pervert in a trench coat flashing his privates.  Well, I was not in the right neighborhood.  That was never going to happen.  I inquired at another gallery I chanced on, "Foil Gallery wa doko desu ka?" 

They showed me on a map.  It was far.  I didn't want to trek back to the subway, and I'm still a little uncertain about bus routes so I walked.  And walked.  The gallery was off Imadegawa Dori between Horikawa and Senbon.  I had the east-west part of the grid correct, but the north-south coordinates were way off.  It was about 3 miles I walked from point A to point B, not including the errant search.  That is a lot of burnt shoe leather.

So what I discovered from this navigational error is this:  I still don't know where I am or where I am going in Kyoto.  Omit the word Kyoto and that statement may also apply to my life.

生け花 (Ikebana)

Flower arrangement (Ikebana), as with most everything in Japan it seems, is a disciplined art form.  And like so many art forms here its roots (no pun intended) can be traced back hundreds of years to a buddhist priest.  In Kyoto, of course.  

FTD this is not.  Stuffing a vase full of posies is not ikebana.  In fact, there are actually very few flowers in ikebana.  There are plenty of branches and twigs and stems and leaves and roots, but flowers…no.  Styles have changed and evolved over the centuries and different schools have come into and fallen out of fashion, but what defines ikebana really is elegant minimalist compositions.

I was given a ticket by Ito-san to an ikebana exhibition at the Takashimaya department store.  To be honest, I had no idea it was a floral design exhibition.  I don't remember her explaining anything.  She simply gave me the ticket and told me it was at Takashimaya.  So I went.  And I was rather impressed.  I've never seen anything like it.  (I've said that a lot since I arrived in Kyoto, haven't I?)

My list of things I'd like to learn more about seems to grow every week I'm here.  I can add ikebana to that list.

A big commercial racket

"Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know."

- Lucy Van Pelt (1965)

As a child, growing up in the 70s, the Christmas season was something that happened in December.  In our home there was a German Adventskalender with little chocolates behind the paper doors to help you count down to December 25th.  Sometime in the 90s it got moved forward to the last week of November.  But even in 1995, my first year dressing windows at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, the spectacular Christmas window displays did not go in until the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Nowadays Christmas is a two month long retail extravaganza beginning the day after Halloween.  Even in Japan.

I was surprised to see Christmas decorations up in Kyoto on the 1st of November.  It's odd for many reasons, first being that Japan is not a Christian nation.  But like Lucy says in the quote from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" above, Christmas in America is a "big commercial racket".  It has almost nothing to do with religion.  But what makes it even more odd is that it is Christmas that is being sold to the Japanese.  There is no religiously neutral "Happy Holidays" sloganeering, which would sort of make sense in a society where about 70% of the population claim no religious affiliation.  The funniest part, from what I understand, is that there is no actual Christmas celebration.  December 25th comes and goes like any other day in Japan.  No Santa Claus, no Jesus, no eggnog.  So it really is just a "big commercial racket", a way for retailers to try and sell extra stuff.  Or not.

Okurimono desu

So just when I thought I was getting too familiar, too comfortable in Kyoto and my funny adventures had come to an end…

I decided to go to my local sushi joint down the road.  The Itos introduced me to it maybe a month ago and I have been several times since.  The chef tries to speak English and I try to speak Japanese.  Normally when I go I am the only one at the sushi counter.  Tonight there was another older gentleman.  As often happens, especially when I'm in my neighborhood, people become curious about the gaijin.  I'm always the only one.  This is Uji-City, not Shijo Dori in Gion; there are no gaijin in Uji-City.

I explained to the chef on a prior visit that I was an artist.  The very little Japanese I know is good enough to know when people are talking about me.  I heard "atisuto" and knew I was the subject of conversation.  I happened to have my "artist statement" translated by my friend Emiko.  So I pull it out and hand it to the chef, mid-meal.  He in turn shows it  to the other gentleman at the counter.  "Ahhh, so desu."

I was invited to join the gentleman at his end of the sushi counter.  He asked me if I like fish.
"Hai."
"I give you fish.  My present."
"Um…hai…??"
He points to a fish in the aquarium.  I was confused.  I was also worried.  This is Japan.  I had a bad feeling this fish happily swimming around in this tank was going to end up on my plate.

I've learned that when people in Japan ask if you like something it really means do you want it.  
"You like shochu?"
"Um…hai."
A very large glass of shochu arrives.

This gentleman has had a couple of beers already and he wants to talk.  Luckily the questions he is asking are things I remember from class.  "Where are you from?"  "How old are you?"  "Do you have brothers or sisters?"  Etc.  A friend arrives with better English skills so the conversation becomes more lively.  Meishis (business cards) are exchanged.  

Soon the fish I had see in the tank arrives cut into pieces in a cast iron pot.  It is now swimming in a broth with cabbage and some glass noodles over a low flame.  I am shown how to eat this.  It is good.  Mind you, I've already eaten a full order of sashimi.  I'm not hungry.

A beer arrives.  Then an order of special nigiri sushi.  Then a whole crab.  I can see where this evening is going.  I am fast becoming the gentleman's best friend.  Via the rough translations of his friend who joined us he talks about peace after the War and friendship.  He talks about how foreigners are welcome in Japan.  He invites me to  a bath.  Now in America, if a man invites another man to a bath it is something funny, probably gay.  In Japan it is perfectly normal and a sign of friendship.  I laugh and ask politely, "When?  Now?"  "Ashita.  I call."  "Um…okay…??"  I hope that he is maybe too drunk to remember.

A couple more beers arrive.  He sings his favorite Japanese pop song from another era a cappella: "I'm happy…"  When the people next to us get up to leave he introduces me to them as if we are old friends.  They speak very good English having spent some time in America.  I explain what I am doing in Japan and give them my meishi.  (Advice to anyone coming to Japan for more than a few days: bring a lot of business cards.)

Eventually my new best friend decides he has had enough and must go.  I thank him and say goodnight.  I haven't yet learned the phrase for "Get home safe".

Am I going to a bathhouse tomorrow?

Viva l'Indépendants

I like the places that look like maybe they shouldn't be there, that they are operating just under the radar of the law.  Café Indépendants.  Even the name suggests a sort of lawlessness.  Located in the basement of what was once the offices of a newspaper company (though the tiled floor suggests a bathhouse) it looks like the sort of place where revolutionaries would meet to hatch plans for a coup d'état.

The only natural light is filtered through two deep set hopper windows where unruly plants grow in pots.  There is a tangle of plumbing pipes and electrical wires criss-crossing the ceiling, and the plastered walls are beautifully scarred with decades of neglect.

I'm not sure what happens at Café Indépendants in the evening but the lunch crowd is quiet (and attractive).  This is a place I could descend into, read, write and drink - for hours.  The only drawback is it appears to be in a lot of tourist guide books.

Ephemera

Colors

Today I had a plan.  I don't most days.  After Japanese class I was going to see Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion).  This is in northeast Kyoto on the edge of the Higashiyama Mountains, a good distance from Kyoto Station.

I'd read about a cafe not far from Ginkakuji that sounded cool, so I thought I'd start with lunch there.  It is called Gospel and is perfectly un-Japanese.  The architecture is English, as is the eclectic mix of antique tables and chairs, lamps, tea service and imperial pints of beer.  Every city of any size is going to have an entrepreneur who has an idea to do something different.  It is always interesting to see an interpretation of something you know well.  Often it is better than the original, especially if it is done by the Japanese.  The music comes from an amazing vintage stereo system and an impressive collection of early jazz LPs.  I am transported to England between the Wars.  After my lunch of meatballs in gravy with rice I was ready for an afternoon constitutional along Tetsugaku-no Michi (The Philosopher's Path).  But first Ginkakuji.

It may say something about me, or my personality, but Ginkakuji is infinitely more beautiful and interesting than it's more famous sister pavilion Kinkakuji (see my post "Missing Something" from October 24).  I knew I was going to like this temple even before I entered the main gate when I read on the World Cultural Heritage Site sign outside that it was an "elegant artistic salon, thronged with artists and cognoscenti" when it was built in 1482.  But never mind its reputation, the actual building is so simple and unassuming.  It doesn't need 50kg of gold leaf, or silver leaf for that matter (it's not actually silver despite the name).  It relies on the gorgeous patina of wood that has aged for centuries and a thatched roof of Japanese cypress.

Then there are the gardens.  Autumn has finally begun coloring the trees of Kyoto and the reds and oranges of the maples were brilliantly contrasted against the white of the Ginshaden (Sea of Silver Sand) and the green moss covering most of the ground.

I made a note a couple of weeks ago that there is a point when you simply have to stop taking photos.  You will never capture it all, not what you are seeing and definitely not what you are feeling.  The best camera is always inferior to the human eye.  You have to take a mental and emotional photograph and hope it doesn't fade from your memory.

Tetsugaku-no Michi is the path along the Shishigatani Canal that connects Ginkakuji with neighboring temple Nanzen-ji where philosopher Kitaro Nishida walked and meditated.  Apparently it can be a nightmare during peak tourist season.  At dusk on this Monday it was wonderfully quiet.  There was a moment when a few scattered raindrops from the gathering (or departing?) storm clouds shone like gold in the dwindling daylight.  A little further down the path was a cat perched in a tree like the Cheshire in Alice in Wonderland.  I thought, come on, where is the film crew?  No.  No film crew.  This is Kyoto.

Horticultural awakening

The last semi-regular employment I had was as a gardener in New York last autumn.  I worked for an upscale gardening and landscaping company with ridiculously wealthy Manhattan clients.  It was interesting, but more for the access we were granted into these spectacular private homes, than the actual labor.  It was physical, as one might expect, but somehow more brutal because it was New York City.

When I arrived at "my" house in Uji-City in September I was excited to see a garden.  I have never lived anywhere with a garden bigger than a window box.  After settling in I surveyed the space.  It needed some work.  That was apparent.  (See my post "The Japanese Garden" from September 28).

Some of you may ask, why?  Why spend your time in Kyoto in a garden when there is so much to see and do?  Well...I don't know.  But I have to say working in this garden has been supremely satisfying, more than any of the swanky Manhattan gardens I tended.

One of the things I love about Kyoto is how brilliantly and seamlessly nature is integrated into the city.  It is not like New York with its great parks, or Los Angeles with its lovely beaches.  Kyoto lies in a valley, so you can look in pretty much any direction and see mountains, and in 20 minutes you're in those mountains.

I've lived in big cities for most of my adult life and never felt a great need to be in nature.  I spend very little time there except for the odd skiing or beach excursions.  But my favorite thing here, in Kyoto is being in the gardens, the wonderful way they bring you into nature without requiring a backpack, boots or tent.  It is a horticultural mystery, really the way the gardeners here can tame the wild without making it staid and insipid.

So after seven weeks I think my garden renovation here at 12-19 Shinkai Gokanosho is complete.  Mind you that is not seven weeks of daily gardening; it is more like 7 days of gardening spread over 7 weeks.  It is no Ryoanji, but it is definitely an improvement over the neglected wilderness it was in September.  And it makes me happy.  I think the bugs dig it too.

View from my bedroom