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

My place

There are places in your guidebook, and there are places recommended by reliable sources.  Then there are the places that you find on your own, or that are introduced to you by strangers that will probably become your friends by the end of the night: "we're going to this cafe, you should come along."  There is something special about these kinds of places.  It is not just the pride of finding some place cool without any guidance.  It is that these are your places.  You didn't just find them; they were calling you.  There are literally thousands of cafes and bars you could have walked into down hundreds of different streets.  But you made a left, when you could have made a right, and you went up three blocks, when you could have stopped at the first.  And what's funny is these special places are everywhere.  No matter where you go - Berlin, São Paulo, Shanghai - you're going to find your places.  They are already there, waiting for you to open the door.

Park Cafe

Ruin