Love Japan

My sister and I went to see 'Eros + Massacre' on Wednesday as part of MIFF, and the movie really was a perfect facsimile of my love/hate relationship with Japan.

They say a poor craftsmen blames his tools, and a poor speaker perhaps blames his audience (it's certainly true, I just don't know if "they" say it). Then perhaps a poor foreigner blames the local culture. But the intractable point I seem to have with Japan is nihonjinron which loosely translates into 'the unique mystical specialness of Japan' that Japanese themselves are in love with.

Specifically, because of the strength of nihonjinron (think of the bullshit ACA and Today Tonight stories that precede Australia Day each year x 10,000) on the subject of Japan people are 'Japan bashers' or 'Japan lovers'. There's no wiggle room. Japan is prime, divisible only by itself and one, it isn't a supermarket aisle I'm simply not allowed to say 'I love Musashi Miyamoto and Cherry Blossoms, but I hate the lack of seperation of powers in the administrative and legislative wings and the non-representational government'

As Catch-22 put it, nihonjinron serves largely to create for the government a 'You are either with us, or against them.' Something employed by bad governments the world over to keep in power, non-more obvious than China vis-a-vis the torch relay protests.

I just personally find it really underhanded. But I do love Japan, in a mature adult sense. And by that I don't mean pornography but more, instead of the over romanticized, fantastical fixation of a child, I love Japan warts and all. I care about it, thus it has aspects that prompt me to frustration and indignation that I put up with because I actually value the great stuff Japan has to offer enough to suffer it. But not suffer it silently.

Eros + Massacre was like this because it was a many faceted movie that ultimately failed. The dialogue, I am sorry, was pure garbage. There was plenty of salvagable promise in the movie, dealing with feminism, anarchism and cross generational debts/burdens/reputation. Likewise there were some brilliantly composed cinematography. 'Arthouse' applied in the sense that some sequences where more art painted on the medium of film, than a movie with a plot, story line etc.

Except it had some kind of plot/storyline that was so abused and mistreated by the directors vision and crappy dialogue, that the medium was ruined. And at 202 minutes the movie provided ample time for the directors, writers and cinematographer to ejaculate all over eachother.

But my sister and I walked out primarily because it didn't deliver on our expectation of 'erotica' or the bonus 'massacre' as hinted by the title. Secondly, it just dismally failed to be anything more than a movie trying to be far more than what it was. It was almost a parody of itself, it was that fucking bad, and anyone who loves this film, would be unquestionably bad at making films.

But I did have a fascination with for example, the scenery in the film. Having been to Japan it was a pleasant throwback to a more in-balance mix of old vs new. They had for example, highways, freeways and electric trains, but people lived in beautiful wooden houses not concrete boxes.

I actually would have been happier to have the soundtrack turned off, and just watched the movie oblivious to the pretentious attempts to be sophisticated.

And in that it becomes the facsimile of my relationship with Japan itself. I love Japan, but I hate the constant cringing attempts by the culture to be more than itself, to impress people that just plain don't care. It's attempts to modernize/internationalize that are dismal, dismal failures.

When I go to Japan, here is what I love:

I love the soft voices of the airline staff announcing in gentle Japanese the standard arrival information. The no fuss, no hassle shuffle of the disembarking Japanese as they move in a silent almost mechanical motion through the complex terminals of Kansai International Airport.

I love how when you make an enquiry, the customer service is taken to a level incomprehensible in Australia. A young girl of 19 working at a service desk, rather than resenting the fact that she has to work this job to afford to go to the Big Day Out, genuinely feels that something is at stake. I love that they call the hotel, get directions, circle maps, explain tickets and then, when you get to your Hotel, suddenly they are expecting you, even though it's just a capsule hotel.

I love sitting on worn leather chairs in the pit of my capsule hotel, with old weary looking businessmen, smoking and eating out of vending machines while watching the baseball or some comedy show.

I love the shared bath option in hotels, the liberating feeling of stripping off naked in front of some elderly laundry women, and washing yourself and shaving on a stool in front of a steamy mirror, then relaxing in a sauna, hotbath or whatever takes your fancy, liek some throwback to ancient greek or roman times.

I love the food, the food, the food and more food. I love takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakitori, yakiniku, korean bbq, ramen, gyoza, tenmpura, tendon, oyokudon, shabu-shabu, kare rice, kare udon, miso-udon, miso-shiro, katsudon, tonkatsu, ebi-fry, taiyaki, mochi, soba, gyudon, gyu on a stick all of it pretty much except nato. I also don't like the raw egg dipping sauce.

I love how you can actually get a good feed in a tray for 4-6 dollars in a convenience store. You can buy icecream - in a bag. You can get chocolate peanut buttens for $1 and by the time you have finished them you can buy another bag from the next convenience store - no matter what city you are in! That's right, everywhere is melbourne in Japan, everywhere has 7-Elevens a plenty, I love how I even have my favorite convenience store Heirarchy which goes Lawsons, Circle K, 7-Eleven.

I love the trains, they are clean, warm, on time, and actually so frequent that it wouldn't even matter if they were late or early. ou can get around Tokyo for $2, and it's roughly by my estimate 64 times the size of Melbourne.

I love the laneways, a vending machine can conceal a 200 year old traditional restaurant that serves the tastiest sets you ever tried, and old men sit in their WWII American bomber jackets drinking beer and eating peanuts behind you.

I love the temples with playgrounds in the middle of suburban blocks, I love the unrefurbished, un-renovated castles and temples of the Edo and earlier periods that have been preserved. I lvoe the non-disabled friendly historical tourist attractions, where nobody has bothered with safety railings, and thus you can walk into the literal inconvenience of another era.

I love the street life, the teenagers - mid 20 year olds all out, any night of the week, clogging the streets with bicycles equipped to carry umbrella's. I love the random peletons of people commuting to and from work on bicycles, in high heel knee high leather boots and grey woolen suits. I love the mobility of the elderly in Japanese society, peddling around vending machines at the age of 80 selling dim-sum type objects and live fish in water tanks.

I love the long opening hours of everything, everywhere. That you can uy a jumper from a boutique store at 11 at night on a wednesday. You can catch a train from Tokyo to Nagoya at midnight. You can go out for dinner at 1am.

I love the net cafe's where you can purchase a booth with a bed for 8 hours and sleep there, with free drink dispenser and instant cup-noodle on hand. You can go and take a shower in a net cafe in a city like Takamatsu with population 100,000.

I love the ritualistic exchange of greetings, when arriving home, departing, going to sleep, eating a meal, finishing a meal etc. in all the formality that serves to punctuate your day and existence in japan, arresting you from ever feeling lost, alone or adrift.

I love the way Japanese notice anything wrong or out of place, and immediately and genuinely endeavor to help you. Whether it's scratching a head because you can't find the station you are supposed to get to on the map, to having an emotional breakdown because the only light you've experienced in the winter months is flourescent.

I love the Edo renaissance heritage, the body of art as rich as the renaissance Italy and the body of craftsmenship as rich as German antiquity. I love the zen philosophers, the sword saints, the martial heritage. The lack of fear of death inherant in fine Japanese art and philosophy, the quaint superstitions, the sophisticated treatises on almost anything ever undertaken by a Japanese ancestor.

I love the literacy of Japanese youth, the respect they are treated with by writers, the lack of downtalking and condescending 'Youf' branding. I like that girls can enjoy comic books with equal fervour to boys, I like the graffiti of Japan, the op-shops, the second hand book stores.

Relative to all the things I love about Japan, my list of grievencase is relatively small:

I hate the emphasis placed on modernisation at the expense of classical Japanese architecture.

I hate the Japanese education systems fiercely nationalistic bent.

I hate the proscriptiveness of Manga, Anime, J-pop etc.

I hate groupism, and the tribal fashion offshoots.

I hate foreigners, that have more in common with the peadophillic salary-man in their love of Japanese 'culture' than the artists and teenagers they claim to admire.

I hate english-teachers in Japan, that can't speak much Japanese and do nothing but have sex with their students while living in the suburbs and consigning themself to unemployment should they ever return home.

I hate the Minestry of Finance, Ministry of Construction and the Police Pension fund, that collectively in self serving interest are concreting over everything I love and replacing it with Pachinko parlours.

I hate the sexual politics, being so Stepford-wives-esque. I hate the girls who doll up and exchange sex for accessories. I hate the boys the exchange meals and transport for sex, that want a wife to replace their mother, destroy their parents traditional home and build a new house with seperate rooms for mum and dad, then go to pantsless shabu-shabu restaurants to look at young girls vagina's while eating bad food with their work buddies. Girls are much more attractive and endearing in their tracksuits they wear around the house, guys are much better off learning to cook and clean for themselves.

I hate the cultural imperitive to gloss over or ignore unpleasent truths. There is no George Orwell in Japanese history or society. Most exposes are read by the scant foreigners actually interested in what's there rather than glossing over the ugliness to concentrate on ikebana, tea ceremony and harajuku fashions. (which let's face it, are crap.)

That's it. I feel I should be allowed to suffer 9 hates for 16-ish loves. Of course the complexity is always in what aspects we hate actually being responsible for the aspects we love. Like for example, the Japanese habit of overlooking bad stuff that I hate is probably intimately tied with their ability to deliver superb customer service.

It may be that the 'culture' whatever it is can never be better than it is now, but I think everyone should try to be more than they are.

Lastly, I was telling my sister as we ate lunch, that ironically, I'm the kind of person that enjoys not enjoying a film like Eros + Massacre. I get as much out of picking the shit out of a crappy film as I do out of experiencing a brilliant film.

I love being presented with complex foreign cultures like Japan, not just to be wowed but to pick it apart, read up and look for explanations as to why one society executed as such as opposed to others. Being critical is if you can buy it, often an expression of my love and appreciation.

It's part of who I am.