Gion Odori

Each of the five hanamachi (geisha district) in Kyoto holds an annual odori (dance performance).  The first such performance happened in 1872 as part of a civic effort aimed at showcasing the art and culture of Kyoto after the capital was moved to Tokyo.  Most of the odori take place in the spring around the time of the cherry blossom.  Because the world of the geisha is rather secretive and the geisha houses are essentially private clubs (you need an introduction from an existing client to gain admittance), this is an opportunity for the general public to see them do what they do.

Gion Odori, performed by the Gion Higashi Kabukai (Gion-East Song & Dance Society), is relatively new (1950s) and the only odori that happens in the autumn.  Following on my chance encounter with a maiko, I decided to go.

The Gion Kaikan Theatre has seen better days.  It is not shabby in a quaint eccentric kind of way.  Rather, it appears to have had a poorly executed renovation in the 80s and has not been updated since.  Despite the drab setting the performance was brilliant - graceful, beautiful and perfectly Japanese.

The event began with the optional tea ceremony.  As an absolute beginner eager to understand this mysterious ritual that is so deeply embedded in the Japanese culture, I paid the extra ¥500.  This performance seemed to be a take-out version of what I imagine a real tea ceremony is.  The maiko were immaculate in appearance and gesture, but the attendants were lacking the same charm.  It was a hurry-up experience like eating at a diner where the waitress is trying to turn covers.  This I could have skipped.

I was happy to see the audience was for the most part dressed very smartly, men in jackets and quite a few women in kimonos.  It felt like the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  Also, like the opera, the odori crowd was mostly gray-haired.  I was an outsider by not only my nationality, but also my age.

I didn't know what to expect really.  I read a brief synopsis in English beforehand that said the theme of this year's odori was inspired by the paintings found on fusuma (sliding doors) in Kyoto's most famous temples.  There was to be a prologue and six scenes.

The curtain rose on a side stage revealing the musicians and chorus.  I was a little surprised to see that there were no men and no one under 50.  The main curtain rose and four maiko were posing as if in a still-life painting.  Soon they were floating around the stage, their movement fluid, like a leaf caught in a gentle breeze or the current of a stream.  I imagine their training is not only dance, but also perhaps t'ai chi and zazen.

The music and singing are rhythmic and hypnotic.  I can only compare it to Gregorian chant heard in a traditional Catholic mass where the listener is lulled into a spiritual trance.  There is a narrative which is sung both as a chorus and solo, though my extremely limited Japanese means I have to rely on the movement of the dancers to tell the story.  The wonderfully simple background paintings also help, placing the action in each of the four seasons.

The last scene and finale is interesting because there are geiko (the preferred term for Kyoto geisha) that appear that were not in the previous scenes.  Like the grande dames of Broadway, beneath the makeup and elaborate kimonos, one can see their age and somewhat fading beauty.

After the performance I stopped by the cafe Rinken for a drink.  As I sat there reflecting on the evening the maiko from the odori pass by still in costume.  They bow slightly acknowledging the barman.  Yeah...a very special evening in Gion.

On the menu...

Working in the smallest kitchen ever - one burner, no oven and a counter top that measures 27 X 45 cm (a little smaller than a folded newspaper) - somehow I'm still able to eat pretty well.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

ロバートの 内 (Robert's home)

The new digs in Katsura...