Memories of Gion Matsuri (祇園祭の 思い出)

mama!milk

I must admit that after five years in Japan my knowledge of Japanese music is woefully deficient.  It is not for lack of interest.  But thumbing through LPs in a record shop just leaves a giant question mark hanging over my head.  What am I looking at?  I know the sounds I like.  But who are the artists making those sounds?  I have no idea.  I'm not sure reading kanji would help because I can't connect the artist to a song.  These records were (and are) never exported, so there is simply no reference point.

That said, I have "discovered" a few artists, both new and old, by chance.  One of these is a group called mama!milk, which is actually a duo consisting of Yuko Ikoma on accordion and Kosuke Shimizu on contra bass. Not your typical Japanese instruments. And, well, not your typical Japanese music either. Since 1997 they've been making wonderfully cinematic music in a decidedly European vein. These Kyoto-jin have a penchant for recording and performing in unusual locations: derelict banks and factories, theatres, ships and temples.

To celebrate 20 years since their first album mama!milk joined forces with director/actor, Akira Shirai
 and composer Umitaro Abe for a one-off, site-specific concert in the Museum of Kyoto Annex, formerly the Kyoto branch of the Bank of Japan circa 1906.  This is a gorgeous example of Meiji Era (1868-1912) Western-style architecture.  The somber but airy Edwardian interior with its soaring white walls and dark wood details seemed a perfect space for mama!milk whose music harks back to an earlier time.

I was surprised by the very stylish audience waiting to get in.  I guess I shouldn't have been.  We were given a program entitled "Here & Away".  Evocative and fitting.  The stage, which was not a stage at all, was arranged with a grand piano, a contra bass, two accordions, a small hand cranked music box, bells and various other small percussion instruments.  More peculiar was the old office desk, lamp and bankers chair.   This was soon occupied by Akira Shirai.  He would sit there reading and writing through the first few numbers, as if he were a prop and not part of the ensemble.   He was followed on stage by Umitaro Abe and Kosuke Shimuzu.  Yuko Ikoma was the last to come out dressed in a sleek, black, backless gown and feathered hat.

They began almost in a whisper, Ikoma turning the handle of the music box.  Shimizu and Abe then slowly and thoughtfully contributed bass lines and piano.  This is not rock-n-roll, a boisterous assault on the senses.  This is barely even jazz.  It is theatre.  Art.  mama!milk want to take you places, places you've been and places you haven't.  These places are all cool, smoky, dark, wet from a recent rain shower.  Train stations, cafes, cobblestone alleyways, stone bridges over muddy rivers.  There are clandestine rendezvous here, torrid love affairs, heartbreaking farewells and murder plots.  Their music has been described as a soundtrack to a movie you haven't seen.  But it is also the score to a film you have seen, only you've forgotten the plot.

Shimizu and Ikoma really are virtuosos, their instruments almost appendages to their bodies.  You never doubt what they are doing.  Every note like some stroke in a sumi-e painting, a purposeful gesture.  I suppose 20+ years playing together will do that.  Abe gently pushed his piano into songs where needed; other times he seemed to be pursuing a sort of musical zazen.  Shirai meanwhile scratched out poems, essays, novellas (I'm not sure which) occasionally giving voice to his words, sometimes destroying them in a ferocious crumple.  

I can't remember how long mama!milk played because I disappeared into the beautiful fog they had woven in that space.  When it ended I expected to see an Immigration officer at the door asking for my passport and documents to reenter Japan.  

Broom (箒)

One of the books I came to Japan with was Old Kyoto by Diane Durston.  This was my bible in the early days, not only a guide, but a valuable reference.  In it she mentions a broom shop called Naito on Sanjo-dori near the bridge.  I remember thinking how charming but also how odd - a broom shop.  If there were ever broom shops in the States they went out of business long ago.

A broom is something I had never given much thought to before coming to Japan.  It was something you bought at a hardware store.  A banal, utilitarian implement, it lived in the garage next to the rake and the shovel.  In Japan a houki (broom) is something more mythical and sacred.  Brooms are mentioned in the "Kojiki" (Record of Ancient Matters) written in the early 8th century, and have long been associated with sweeping away bad luck.  Indeed, sweeping is a regular and also virtuous chore of Zen Buddhist monks and a frequent metaphor in parables.  

Brooms in Japan are traditionally made from great millet because the natural oils in this annual grass serve to polish tatami mat floors.  The weaving techniques of broom craftsmen are unchanged in a thousand years.  

When my cheap, made-in-China broom from the Hyaku En Shoppu (99-cent store) needed replacing I decided I would purchase a real broom.  Naito brooms, I discovered, are rather expensive, but I found an attractive, reasonably priced broom elsewhere made by a company called Azuma.

Azuma is not as old or as quaint as Naito (it is actually a large, not-so-interesting nationwide cleaning supply company) but it has been making handsome brooms since 1941.  Their brooms are all hand-made and the company has even launched a program to preserve the tradition of broom making by cultivating the grass themselves.

The Japanese have a way of making the most mundane objects beautiful, of elevating everything to an art form.  Even an ordinary broom becomes an object of great beauty here, something I would not be embarrassed to give or receive as a present.

Quiet (平静)

Sound is measured in decibels (dB).  Rustling leaves measure around 20 decibels.  Normal human conversation is between 50 and 65 dB.  New York City street noise averages 73.4 dB.  120 dB is the threshold for discomfort, and 130 dB is actually painful.

Kyoto is a comparatively quiet city.  But, even here, it can be difficult to find real peace, especially during peak tourist seasons.  The most serene locale is frequently interrupted by the banal chatter of people, a distant car motor, an unexpected helicopter or even your own stupid thoughts. 

After the Golden Week commotion, I decided to go looking for quiet.  Actually, I knew exactly where I was going: Daihikaku Senkoji (大悲閣千光寺).  It had been some time since I visited this little temple high above the Oi River (aka Hozu River) in Arashiyama.  

It was, as I had hoped, completely empty.  Just me and the lone attendant monk.  There is a narrow veranda that encircles the main hall like a halo some 15 meters (49 feet) off the ground.  Here I sat enjoying the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and the city far in the distance.  But more than the view, I was enjoying the absolute quiet.  The most deafening sound came from the bamboo water spout dribbling into a tsukubai (washbasin), and the the Goshikimaku (Buddhist flag) twirling in the gentle breeze.

My meditative stupor was broken sometime later by a trio of young tourists.  5 minutes was their limit.  Smartphones came out and mindless chitchat molested the tranquility of the afternoon.

An hour of noiseless bliss was all I was afforded, but for this I was grateful.  It seemed a long time since Kyoto was so wonderfully quiet.

Osaka Blues

Nishinari Ward in Osaka is widely considered the most dodgy district in all of Japan.  This 4.5 square kilometre (2.8 square mile) ward is populated by yakuza, prostitutes, drug dealers, transients and homeless.  It is famous for its doyas (cheap rooming houses), its red-light district, illegal gambling dens, frequent riots and the highest rate of tuberculosis in Japan.  Oh, and there is a zoo too.

So why, you might ask, would I go to such a place?  Well, amid all this shady activity are some respectable music venues, and my friend Madoka Kimura was performing at one called Nanbaya.

The temporary home of Nanbaya is in a long, dim shotengai (shopping arcade), the faded remnants of another era.  Like most of these covered shopping streets in Japan the majority of the shops are shuttered.  There are however dozens of barber shops, kissaten (coffee shops), and karaoke bars open for business, as well as a few suspect jewellers.  The customers are mostly old men.  There is no indication of an imminent hipster revolution here, of slow-cooking gentrification or any sort of redevelopment.  It is alive, just barely, but with a future as dim as the lighting.

Nanbaya is not gritty or beat as one would expect of a blues club.  There is nothing cool or even kitsch about the space.  It is over-lit with harsh fluorescents and smells of grease.  Were it not for the musical instruments and flyers for upcoming shows taped to the wall I would never guess this was a music venue.  The staff are curiously unfriendly.  I listen to them explain to another patron unapologetically that there is very little to eat.

Madoka-san brightens things up when she takes the stage, wearing a midnight blue swing dress, evening gloves, rhinestone mules and hair in an up-do.  She has the voice and swagger of a blues singer, her style both sultry and buoyant.  She and guitarist Haruyuki Tanaka work there way through a list of blues standards for the small but appreciative crowd.  The music invites some passersby over for a peek.

The blues is a music born of struggle.  It has always lived on the fringes.  It's no surprise really that I would find it in a place like Nishinari-ku.

five years on (5年後)

It's five years now that I've lived in Japan.  In a flash the time has passed.  I never expected to spend more than three months here.  An experiment, a personal challenge turned into a lasting love affair.  

My first year or two here I tried hard not to be a tourist, a gaijin.  Then one day, suddenly, I realized I wasn't.  That is not to say I'm Japanese.  I'm not.  I don't slurp my noodles, I don't wear a germ mask, and I tie and untie my shoes when I put them on and take them off.  But I don't feel quite American anymore.  I'm somehow different from the thousands of tourists that flood the city everyday.  I'm different even from the other expatriates in Kyoto who tend to group together, form communities.

I went to the American Embassy a month back to renew my passport.  It felt a little like visiting another country.  I answered questions with "hai" and "iie".  I bowed slightly when thanking the staff.  These are habits now, second nature.

It was strange to write "Kyoto" as my "permanent address" on the application form, to pay the fee in yen, not dollars.

In 10 years when this new passport expires who knows where I'll be.  I hope I'll still be an expat.  I like being quasi-American.

Hanami (花見)

A chill in the air, winter's grip still tangible.  I set out for the river.  Katsuragawa, I knew, would be quiet.  My friend had packed me a lovely bento lunch, including a little bottle of sake and ochoko (cup) .

There are a couple of magnificent old sakura near Katsura Rikyu, signposts of another era.  Here I made my picnic on the slope.

The sun darted in and out of the clouds, the crisp afternoon radiant and golden one minute, muted and flat the next.  The long sakura branches bobbed in the breeze, white blossoms trembling.

The river, stretched from the recent rain. glided by noiselessly, past the Imperial Villa, past these old sakura, past my petite hanami.

a great island of clouds

a blue sky

the sakura dance

on this stage