Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Japanese Laundry

There is very little I don't like about Japan.  One thing I can add to that very short list is the Japanese laundromat.

I have never owned a washing machine.  I've never lived in a place large enough to accommodate one.  In New York, in Los Angeles, in Paris I would take my laundry to the laundromat.  In New York, if you are lucky, there are laundry facilities in your building.  But even if you aren't so fortunate, laundromats are everywhere.  You never have to go far with your bag of smelly clothes.

In Japan, it seems, everyone has a washing machine, even in a tiny 215 ft2 (20 m2) apartment like mine.  I don't mind sleeping with my refrigerator, but a washing machine is where I draw the line.  Because everyone has a washing machine, laundromats are pretty scarce.  The nearest one to my apartment is more than a 1/2 mile (1km) away.

The laundromat looks more or less like what you would expect: industrial-sized washing machines and dryers, linoleum floor, fluorescent lighting, a couple of tables for folding and some rolling baskets.  But you know you are not in the States, or even France, when you look at the machines: everything is in kanji.  Of course, you're in Japan!  So what does "cold wash" look like in kanji?  I look up these two words in my dictionary (I came prepared).  寒い - cold.  洗う - wash.  I figure out the wash part, but I have no idea how to select the temperature.


Okay, let's use our intuition.  There are four choices: two colored green, one colored blue, one colored yellow.  Blue is cold, yellow is warm?  No.  The blue selection indicates 12 kilos of laundry.  That sounds like more than I have so I rule that out.  The yellow selection is only ¥100.  That is too cheap for a load of laundry so I rule that out.  That leaves me with the green choices: 8 kg or 4 kg.  I go with 4 kg.

I notice a little sticker with what looks like a box of laundry detergent and a scoop and a red "X" through it.  Do not use soap.  Hmm.  Laundry without soap.  Interesting.  Frustrated and helpless I decide to ask a women that has come in, the only other person in Kyoto without a washing machine.  We fumble through our languages and I conclude that the soap is automatic.  What?!  What does it smell like, this automatic soap?  Do I like the fragrance?  Who decided on this national laundry detergent?  Was there a contest among soap manufacturers to see who would get this contract?

In goes the laundry, in goes the ¥1,000.  That's almost $10, by the way, for one load of laundry.  I noticed the machine was warm when I put my clothes in, but didn't think anything of it.  It goes through the actions a washing machine should, filling with water, draining, spinning, etc.  Except...when the washing ends, and I go to remove my clothes the door is still locked.  Then it begins to spin again.  I realize the machine has begun to dry my clothes.  Nooooo!  Anyone that has ever seen me do laundry knows that I line-dry most of my clothes.  Now I'm upset.  There is nothing I can do but watch.

Defeated, I stuff my clean (is it?) laundry into my bag and walk the long walk back to my apartment.  Naiveté can be a funny thing.


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Great Big Kiss

 


Rock-n-roll is an American invention.  Along with jazz it is one of our great cultural contributions to the world.  Sure, other nation-states have given us useful things like paper (China), democracy (Greece) and the calendar (Italy).  But the United States of America...rock-n-roll.  That is not to say, we do it the best (see Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, etc.)  But anyway this blog is not about the US.

Not long ago a friend of mine here invited me out to an event she was working.  It was in a dingy Kyoto nightclub called Metro that is literally in the subway.  There was a band playing that night called Great Big Kiss.  And they rocked.  The Japanese have a way of taking things that are not their own, things like rock-n-roll or whiskey and doing it so well you think they might have invented it.  It feels somehow more authentic than the original.  They study it, dismantle it, rebuild it and then give it back to you with a new intensity and cool.  You see it or hear it, taste it or feel it and think, wait a minute, I know this, but...  It is not just imitation because there is always something slightly different, something Japanese.

Great Big Kiss were a tough, four-piece Ramones-ey outfit with musical duties split evenly between the sexes.  They were tight, loud and all-out.  The leather-clad guitarist had his kicks and leaps and wide-legged Billy Zoom stance down; the singer, a little blonde firecracker had her punk strut, her girly pout and Roger Daltrey microphone grip down; the drummer and bass player held the unit together, banging out the mostly ferocious rhythms to their songs.

Besides all the rock-n-roll swagger, they played with heart, like it meant something.  And that is probably what I liked most about them.  I remember listening to Henry Rollins on the radio in Los Angeles talk about how he hated bands that played like they were bored, like they didn't care, like they were doing you a favor.  No.  F%@# that!  I paid money; I want to be entertained!  Smash your guitar!

It's been a while since I saw a live show.  And I'd been wanting to see some Japanese rock.  It's always a treat when you go to some venue without any expectations and are blown away.  Yeah, a Great Big Kiss indeed.




Saturday, October 18, 2014

米 Kome


For the Japanese, rice is not a side dish (okazu).  It is not a question of, should we have potatoes or rice with our fish?  It is really the other way around.  What will accompany the rice?  In fact it is something so important, so essential to the Japanese diet that the Kanji character for rice 御飯 (gohan) literally means "food" or "livelihood".

Katsura, where I am living, in the southwest corner of Kyoto is dotted with rice paddies and little farms.  It is an interesting patchwork of rural and suburban living.  When I arrived in the middle of September the perfect rows of rice waving in the late summer sun were a brilliant yellow-green.


A couple of weeks later I noticed a farmer with a short curved machete cutting the stalks.  I thought, ah-ha, the harvest has begun.  But no.  He cut just nine plants, tied them neatly in bundles and hung them upside down on the rail encircling the farm.  A few days passed.  Still just this one corner of the farm cut down and these lonely bundles hanging like hula skirts without a dancer.  What is happening?  What's wrong?  Is it bad?  Is he praying for guidance at a local shrine?  Has he gone on vacation?


Then it began.  The farmer mowed it all down by hand in a day.  He erected a series of bamboo trestles running the length of the farm.  The fresh-cut rice bundles were slung over these.  I have to admit, this was an impressive display and made me think of some ancient agrarian custom somewhere like Hawaii.


On another day he took a small mechanical thresher and separated the rice from the stalk leaving the paddy littered with rice hay.  That was later removed and all that remained were thousands of sad little tufts in a barren field.  Just like that it was over.


In the spring, I imagine, it will all begin again.


Monday, October 13, 2014

運 (Luck)


I always feel lucky when I'm in Japan (or Kyoto).  Things happen to me here that don't happen to me elsewhere.  There is a different energy in Japan.  Or perhaps I have a different energy.  I'm not sure.

For Westerners, for the world really, the geisha is an iconic image of Japan.  We are drawn to their beauty, their grace and their mystery.  Like a rare bird, you don't see them very often.  The uninformed tourist often mistakes any women dressed in a kimono for a geisha.  The geisha live and work in specific districts called hanamachi and it is unlikely you will see them outside of these areas.  Kyoto has five such districts.  I happened to stop for lunch in one - Gion-Higashi.

There is an odd little cafe there called Rinken with as many doors as seats.  The place is so small that passage behind the barstools is impossible.  Their rather clever solution to this problem is to have a separate door for each of the six seats.  There is something kind of regal about Rinken, like it's from another era, another place, maybe London in the early 20th Century - the royal blue lacquer doors, the cherry red upholstery and curtains, the gold patterned wallpaper, the delicate hanging milk-glass lamps.  They have a fine selection of beers and coffee here is a wondrous, almost scientific performance involving a bulbous glass apparatus and Bunsen burner.

I knew it was a class joint because the only two other customers were women dressed in gorgeous kimonos.  The younger of the two I learned from the barman was a maiko, a geisha apprentice.  Without the white makeup I wondered how one could tell.  Apparently there are many tell-tale signs including their kimono sleeve length, the knot and position of their obi, their application of lipstick and color of eyeliner.

I was fascinated by this lovely creature sitting at the opposite end of the counter.  I had struck up a conversation with the charming barmaid, who as it turned out was also a painter.  I was showing her photos of my work when the maiko left her seat and joined us.  This was a thrill.  Tourists or gaijin do not meet maiko or geisha.  They foolishly insist on taking photos with them on the street, but they do not sit in cafes and have conversations about art.  She looked through the photos and told me she liked my paintings.

She left a little while later.  I finished my beer.  Before I settled my bill the barman told me he had a present for me.  Huh?  The maiko had left for me a personalized uchiwa, a hand-made flat fan.  There is a tradition in the hanamachi where special patrons as well as shops and restaurants frequented by maiko are given these fans with the crest of the geisha house on one side and their name on the back.

This is my luck in Kyoto.  

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Part III



Part III begins.  I've circled back.  Same country, same city.  But everything is somehow different.  I'm official now.  I have a proper visa.  I have a "resident card".  I have a bank account.  I even have health insurance.  The lease on my new apartment in Katsura as well as the utilities are all in my name.  I am in the Japanese system.  I exist here.  I'm no longer a tourist stretching the limits of my stay.  Strange.

I hesitated for some time to restart the blog (I've been back in Japan 3 weeks already).  I feared (and still do fear) it might be vapid and humdrum.  I have responsibilities now, like work.  With work comes fatigue, and diminished inspiration often follows that.  The days of la dérive and tyro zazen in temple gardens, the source for so many posts here, are over.  Or are they?


To be honest, I still don't quite believe this is happening.  Am I really back in Kyoto?  Despite the great effort I put into finding a way back and the tremendous luck (aka help) I've had, I don't trust that this won't evaporate like rain on the sidewalk after a storm.  It would follow then that blogging about something that is so illusory is pointless.


Still, all that aside, I feel there is something yet to be said, there are photos yet to be taken.  But I warn you, dear reader, the frequency and quality of the new posts cannot be guaranteed (Hmm, I think I've said this before).  When the lustre has completely disappeared and the mundane takes over I promise you I will bow gracefully out.  Until then...watch this space.