JAPAN: Ordinary Consciousness Fine
Some vignettes:
Roll into Takayama Bus Station at 6/30 pm. Ask young couple where the YH is and they say 'straight down the road, can't miss it'. Dump stuff, freshen up, go to look for something to eat. Soba Bar, Kirin biiru, soba noodles and prawn tempura. Brassy number in short black skirt and very high heels flounces in, so I ask her if she speaks Ingrish, which she does. So we do. Flounces out again with a smile and a wriggle. Older woman, well done up 'with an air' comes in, eyes me up, chats to the mama-san. I'm starting to get the picture: must be 'a certain part of town'. Uh huh. Any man that lot get their well manicured highly polished claws into wouldn't last 10 seconds. Sucked dry and spat out. Phut. Come to think of it, brassy number had a very deep voice for a woman, especially a Japanese woman...
Japanese maps and leaflets, tho' ostensibly full of information don't actually make much sense. The festival Information for the festival in Takayama said there would be a procession at 1 o'clock and had the route on the map marked out with little arrows. Fine. I position myself along marked route and wait. And wait. No procession. I go off to river bank and have a snooze. Learn later there was a procession, but it was a different route. The black arows were the night procession. In Kanazawa, where I am now, there are numerous maps in English. Trouble is, none of them relate to each other. In fact, some of them seem to be the mirror image of each other. In one the main rivers at top left, in others it's top right. The guide to Kenrokuen (marvellous garden) has pictures of the highlights along the edges ... but doesn't say where they are in the garden. I actually think it's because their 'frame' is different. They probably make perfect Japanese sense but not European sense. What is a map, anyway, if not a picture of the inside of someone's head? Even their hand gestures are confusing. At the Ninja Temple in Kanazawa, the guide signs to me with a hand gesture, but I don't know whether she's saying come over here, or go over there, so I join the group she's leading, then she tells me to join the other group, so she was saying 'please go over there kudasai'.
I'll 'report back' on the Hachiman Matsuri (The Autumn, or Harvest Festival) in Takayama later. They display, then push and pull house-high massively wheeled constructions (to call them 'festival floats' would give the wrong picture, they're much more than 'floats') through the streets for two days, thanking the god from the main shrine for his beneficience in the harvest, showing him the neighbourhood; the night procession with the floats lit up with Chinese Lanterns attracts around 1/2 million people, so you can imagine!
I do my washing at the YH, want to hang it out to dry upstairs but the warden scolds me. 'No, not there - outside!' I can't find outside so she sends her daughter to show me. Wander off to what the programme proclaims is a 'Marionette Performance'. The main piece has incredibly intricate puppets controlled by 6 puppeteers at the same time. But when I get there it's jam-packed, so I wander off and stumble across an unannounced processeion: the god's travelling around his domain in much smaller, blue-cloaked carts pulled each by one man. He's accompanied by his kamikose (guardians of the god) in traditional garb - sticky-out shoulder blades (not pads) and large, shallow straw hats; vestal virgins (literally - young girls done up to the absolute nines in long white flowing gowns with flowers in their hair...), loads of little boys in patchy coloured gowns banging gongs and drums, dignified older men in Edo-time dress (Edo - 1655), long swords scraping the pavement with an eerie zishing noise ... and lion dancers at the front. They obviously have a list of places which want to have their demons exorcised (ie they've paid the dancers to come and do it!), so they wend their way slowly around the neighbourhood, doing the lion dance at each of these places. They end up at a staged area alongside a small river, opposite a temple on the other bank and conduct a most beautiful, haunting and moving service. On the left the nusicians, with shaku-hachi (bamboo flutes), small drums, cymbals and gongs; in front of them right next to the altar, 4 specially chosen vestal virgins; on the right the older men and dignitaries, all in Edo-style costume. There are actually few onlookers today, and at one stage, we are allowed into the inner sanctum, nearly up to the stage. The service seems appropriate, fitting. it's not verbose and long, but graceful and flowing. The best bit is when the 4 vestal virgins (literally 'handmaids of the god') get up and dance for the god. Ineffably gracious and moving; fans in hand, intricate foot movements, now two to the left, two to the right, sway, form a different combination; intricate movements in perfect synchronity over a long period. That angle of the head, and a flowing line from inclned head (to the left), along white sammite-draped arm, to fan, flick of fan, shake of four fans, snap audibly shut, sinuous dip to the left, head upright, glide sideways and turn. I was crying - if I were a god I'd be saying "yes, that angle, yes, that movement, that ripple of movement!" The girls glide back to their place in front of the musicians and the head honcho comes to sentre stage, sits, bows deeply, and that's that. The little boys scamper off into the temple for some nosh, leaving their accoutrements haphazardly and beautifully draped across age-blackened cedar steps.
some advice:
if you wanna get enlightened
have breakfast first!
If you're not in possession of one vital piece of information, the whole system collapses - and especially if you haven't had any breakfast! I spent a very frustrating hour or so trying to get money at a post office ATM in Kanazawa. I wanted about 500 quid, and it would only give me 200. After loadsa mucking around between a very helpful PO guy, me, the ATM machine and two phone booths, I had to ring America. I was worried that the money I'd loaded onto the American Express travellers cheque card was wrong, and I wouldn't have enough dosh for the rest of the trip. America quickly told me that there was a limit of $440/day. Phew ... one vital piece of information I had not had ...
Desperate for coffee to soothe/drug my jangling nerves I barge into the oh-so-sophisticated Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art's minimal white restaurant. Greeted by Liquid-Eyed Beauty who bows to me. "Irashaimasu" "Kohi," I gasp, "kohi!" She picks up the menu and points to 'coffee'. "Ikura desu ka" I ask - I know if one has to ask the price of coffee in ueber-trendy pure white cubes then one is de-fi-ni-tely not trendy, but I'm past caring. Anyway, being a Great Hairy Northern Barbarian gives one certain privileges denied to the populace at large. "450 yen," she says (about 2.25). "Iie," I say, "too expensive! Anywhere cheaper?" She giggles. "Ah," she says, takes me by the hand, pulls me to one side and points over the road. "There!" she says. That's the 2nd Liquid-Eyed Beauty who's taken me by the hand! I LOVE being taken by the hand by Liquid-Eyed Beauties! I leave, with great regret, cross the road to a soothing, slightly-faded Establishment for the Untrendy. "Kohi?" I ask again. "Hai - 350 yen." Ah well, saved myself all of 50p - but at least I didn't have to pretend I was trendy. And I'd rather support little old ladies in slightly faded establishments that the 'arts as big business' elite in trendy white cubes ...
Can't get used to the idea that 'the wall' is 'the door' and 'the door' is 'the wall'. Japanese girl at youth hostel in Takayama gets up from breakfast and walks through the wall. "Uh???" 'Oh, the wall is the door is the wall, OK" All the Europeans at the hostel trooped in and out through what we'd conceptualised as 'the door', ie. the two more prominent panels at 'the front' of the dining 'room'. But 'wall' and 'door' and 'front' and 'back' and 'side' have no meaning in a space which you can treat any which way you want! Her geting up and walking through the wall gave me that instant jarring sense of dislocation, as if you're syddenly in another Univesrse where Time and Space have different - or no - coordinates. Reminds me of a play I saw long ago in Bristol. It was a good old English drawing-room farce a la Oscar Wilde. The inner walls of the house were deliniated by strips of tape on the stage. Throughout the whole play, the actors acted as if these were real walls. and we, the audience, accepted them as such. So, for example, if a conversation took place in one 'room' we accepted that the person in the next 'room' couldn't hear the conversation. Led, of course, to some interesting plot developments, because the audience knew what the person who couldn't hear in the 'other room' didn't know ... but anyway. In the final act of the play, the actors casually stepped THROUGH the 'walls' into the other rooms ie, over the strip of tape we'd accepted as 'walls'! Uhuhuhuh ... that whirring sense of Universes shifting
lack of sleep and breakfast
may lead to 'change of consciousness'
but ordinary consciousness fine
Roll into Takayama Bus Station at 6/30 pm. Ask young couple where the YH is and they say 'straight down the road, can't miss it'. Dump stuff, freshen up, go to look for something to eat. Soba Bar, Kirin biiru, soba noodles and prawn tempura. Brassy number in short black skirt and very high heels flounces in, so I ask her if she speaks Ingrish, which she does. So we do. Flounces out again with a smile and a wriggle. Older woman, well done up 'with an air' comes in, eyes me up, chats to the mama-san. I'm starting to get the picture: must be 'a certain part of town'. Uh huh. Any man that lot get their well manicured highly polished claws into wouldn't last 10 seconds. Sucked dry and spat out. Phut. Come to think of it, brassy number had a very deep voice for a woman, especially a Japanese woman...
Japanese maps and leaflets, tho' ostensibly full of information don't actually make much sense. The festival Information for the festival in Takayama said there would be a procession at 1 o'clock and had the route on the map marked out with little arrows. Fine. I position myself along marked route and wait. And wait. No procession. I go off to river bank and have a snooze. Learn later there was a procession, but it was a different route. The black arows were the night procession. In Kanazawa, where I am now, there are numerous maps in English. Trouble is, none of them relate to each other. In fact, some of them seem to be the mirror image of each other. In one the main rivers at top left, in others it's top right. The guide to Kenrokuen (marvellous garden) has pictures of the highlights along the edges ... but doesn't say where they are in the garden. I actually think it's because their 'frame' is different. They probably make perfect Japanese sense but not European sense. What is a map, anyway, if not a picture of the inside of someone's head? Even their hand gestures are confusing. At the Ninja Temple in Kanazawa, the guide signs to me with a hand gesture, but I don't know whether she's saying come over here, or go over there, so I join the group she's leading, then she tells me to join the other group, so she was saying 'please go over there kudasai'.
I'll 'report back' on the Hachiman Matsuri (The Autumn, or Harvest Festival) in Takayama later. They display, then push and pull house-high massively wheeled constructions (to call them 'festival floats' would give the wrong picture, they're much more than 'floats') through the streets for two days, thanking the god from the main shrine for his beneficience in the harvest, showing him the neighbourhood; the night procession with the floats lit up with Chinese Lanterns attracts around 1/2 million people, so you can imagine!
I do my washing at the YH, want to hang it out to dry upstairs but the warden scolds me. 'No, not there - outside!' I can't find outside so she sends her daughter to show me. Wander off to what the programme proclaims is a 'Marionette Performance'. The main piece has incredibly intricate puppets controlled by 6 puppeteers at the same time. But when I get there it's jam-packed, so I wander off and stumble across an unannounced processeion: the god's travelling around his domain in much smaller, blue-cloaked carts pulled each by one man. He's accompanied by his kamikose (guardians of the god) in traditional garb - sticky-out shoulder blades (not pads) and large, shallow straw hats; vestal virgins (literally - young girls done up to the absolute nines in long white flowing gowns with flowers in their hair...), loads of little boys in patchy coloured gowns banging gongs and drums, dignified older men in Edo-time dress (Edo - 1655), long swords scraping the pavement with an eerie zishing noise ... and lion dancers at the front. They obviously have a list of places which want to have their demons exorcised (ie they've paid the dancers to come and do it!), so they wend their way slowly around the neighbourhood, doing the lion dance at each of these places. They end up at a staged area alongside a small river, opposite a temple on the other bank and conduct a most beautiful, haunting and moving service. On the left the nusicians, with shaku-hachi (bamboo flutes), small drums, cymbals and gongs; in front of them right next to the altar, 4 specially chosen vestal virgins; on the right the older men and dignitaries, all in Edo-style costume. There are actually few onlookers today, and at one stage, we are allowed into the inner sanctum, nearly up to the stage. The service seems appropriate, fitting. it's not verbose and long, but graceful and flowing. The best bit is when the 4 vestal virgins (literally 'handmaids of the god') get up and dance for the god. Ineffably gracious and moving; fans in hand, intricate foot movements, now two to the left, two to the right, sway, form a different combination; intricate movements in perfect synchronity over a long period. That angle of the head, and a flowing line from inclned head (to the left), along white sammite-draped arm, to fan, flick of fan, shake of four fans, snap audibly shut, sinuous dip to the left, head upright, glide sideways and turn. I was crying - if I were a god I'd be saying "yes, that angle, yes, that movement, that ripple of movement!" The girls glide back to their place in front of the musicians and the head honcho comes to sentre stage, sits, bows deeply, and that's that. The little boys scamper off into the temple for some nosh, leaving their accoutrements haphazardly and beautifully draped across age-blackened cedar steps.
some advice:
if you wanna get enlightened
have breakfast first!
If you're not in possession of one vital piece of information, the whole system collapses - and especially if you haven't had any breakfast! I spent a very frustrating hour or so trying to get money at a post office ATM in Kanazawa. I wanted about 500 quid, and it would only give me 200. After loadsa mucking around between a very helpful PO guy, me, the ATM machine and two phone booths, I had to ring America. I was worried that the money I'd loaded onto the American Express travellers cheque card was wrong, and I wouldn't have enough dosh for the rest of the trip. America quickly told me that there was a limit of $440/day. Phew ... one vital piece of information I had not had ...
Desperate for coffee to soothe/drug my jangling nerves I barge into the oh-so-sophisticated Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art's minimal white restaurant. Greeted by Liquid-Eyed Beauty who bows to me. "Irashaimasu" "Kohi," I gasp, "kohi!" She picks up the menu and points to 'coffee'. "Ikura desu ka" I ask - I know if one has to ask the price of coffee in ueber-trendy pure white cubes then one is de-fi-ni-tely not trendy, but I'm past caring. Anyway, being a Great Hairy Northern Barbarian gives one certain privileges denied to the populace at large. "450 yen," she says (about 2.25). "Iie," I say, "too expensive! Anywhere cheaper?" She giggles. "Ah," she says, takes me by the hand, pulls me to one side and points over the road. "There!" she says. That's the 2nd Liquid-Eyed Beauty who's taken me by the hand! I LOVE being taken by the hand by Liquid-Eyed Beauties! I leave, with great regret, cross the road to a soothing, slightly-faded Establishment for the Untrendy. "Kohi?" I ask again. "Hai - 350 yen." Ah well, saved myself all of 50p - but at least I didn't have to pretend I was trendy. And I'd rather support little old ladies in slightly faded establishments that the 'arts as big business' elite in trendy white cubes ...
Can't get used to the idea that 'the wall' is 'the door' and 'the door' is 'the wall'. Japanese girl at youth hostel in Takayama gets up from breakfast and walks through the wall. "Uh???" 'Oh, the wall is the door is the wall, OK" All the Europeans at the hostel trooped in and out through what we'd conceptualised as 'the door', ie. the two more prominent panels at 'the front' of the dining 'room'. But 'wall' and 'door' and 'front' and 'back' and 'side' have no meaning in a space which you can treat any which way you want! Her geting up and walking through the wall gave me that instant jarring sense of dislocation, as if you're syddenly in another Univesrse where Time and Space have different - or no - coordinates. Reminds me of a play I saw long ago in Bristol. It was a good old English drawing-room farce a la Oscar Wilde. The inner walls of the house were deliniated by strips of tape on the stage. Throughout the whole play, the actors acted as if these were real walls. and we, the audience, accepted them as such. So, for example, if a conversation took place in one 'room' we accepted that the person in the next 'room' couldn't hear the conversation. Led, of course, to some interesting plot developments, because the audience knew what the person who couldn't hear in the 'other room' didn't know ... but anyway. In the final act of the play, the actors casually stepped THROUGH the 'walls' into the other rooms ie, over the strip of tape we'd accepted as 'walls'! Uhuhuhuh ... that whirring sense of Universes shifting
lack of sleep and breakfast
may lead to 'change of consciousness'
but ordinary consciousness fine
posted by waveringbats at 10/15/2005 06:49:00 am
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