We have an enormous variety of birds here in Japan. Not just homegrown types. Some very interesting breeds, for example, migrate from China and Siberia. Colorful, exotic, fascinating to watch. My house is on the edge of a forest, in a very quiet setting. I often just sit and view them from my rear window as they come and go.
There are two large, majestic birds that most definitely migrated here many decades ago but now are permanent residents. They can be seen everywhere, along the riverbanks, in the rice fields, soaring high overhead above our rustic town.
I’m referring to the great egrets and gray herons, which must number in the hundreds here in Sasayama.
They have a nesting tree — actually several in various locations in the region — very close to my home. I pass it everyday when I ride into town to buy groceries and other sundries.
Every spring the great egrets build nests, lay eggs, and give birth to their next generation. I’ve never seen any gray herons there. I’m not certain where their maternity ward is.
Anyway, here’s a short movie. Both Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis turned me down for the lead role. It is what it is.
This is a photograph of my wife, Masumi, at age 20 singing Il Bacio by Italian composer Luigi Arditi. She has been singing opera all her life, plays beautiful classical piano, and dances ballet as a pastime.
I find it a fascinating question why Japan is so enamored with Western art forms, not that I’ve made any progress coming close to a conclusive answer.
Of course, Japan has always been an eclectic culture. It has adopted much from the West, including English letters and words, integrated via Romanji, one of their alphabets. Entire English words were Japanized and have become a part of the ever-evolving vocabulary, e.g. resutoran レストラン (restaurant), aisukurimu アイスクリーム (ice cream). Going way back, certainly quite a bit has been “borrowed” from the Chinese, most notably, Kanji, another of the alphabets in everyday use. And in the 19th Century, Japan replaced its cumbersome numbering system with Western Arabic integers.
All of this is the normal cross-pollination of cultures, which occurs when borders become more permeable, trade encouraged and opportunities for tourism pervasive.
Yet, there are some things that either don’t translate well, resist integration, because they are simply entirely incompatible with established social traditions and cultural legacies.
Westerners are touchy-feely, given to open, sometimes histrionic expressions of emotion. Japan is entirely the opposite. I suspect it will always remain so. A respect for privacy in both directions, each individual’s large inviolable personal space, shyness and reserve, all are too thoroughly entrenched in the Japanese psyche. Yes, they may dress like Westerners here, but you’re not going to see chest-bumping or hugs and kisses at the mall, or simulated sex on the dance floor. It’s just not going to happen. Bowing is about as wildly intimate as it gets in public.
That, of course, is an example of steadfast social training.
But I would have suspected that another type of training would be just as determinant. I’m referring to ear training.
The Japanese scales — actually all Asian scales — are microtonal. When they don’t sound randomly annoying, they sound intentionally grating, at least to my Western ears. I’m just not used to hearing — literally not trained to hear — the two or three notes that purposely occur between C and C# or between E and F. I’ll admit that in my band days I was often accused of tuning my guitar microtonally but that was just a way of saying I had a really lousy sense of pitch.
Regardless of how much their melodies may torment us Westerners, Asians will swear by the beauty of the music they create and listen to. Their ears are trained to hear, accept, embrace what sounds cosmically wrong to us.
At the same time, Western music and the fundaments for making it have gripped Japan. And in every form: pop, rock, jazz, classical, blues, rap, hip hop.
Recognize that there are Western arts chauvinists who would say this is inevitable. They will make a very convincing argument that Western scales are fundamentally superior, more accessible and natural to the homo sapiens physiological mechanisms involved in processing music.
There is a veryappealing mathematicsto the Western scale. The 37th key on an 88-key piano is A. It vibrates at 220 cycles per second (Hz). The 49th key is also an A, but it’s one octave above, vibrating at 440 Hz. The 25th key is an A that’s one octave below, vibrating at 110 Hz. Nifty, eh? This suggests the mathematical foundation underlying the tonal relationships among the notes of the Western 12-tone scale. In fact, this holds together quite nicely until we get to the very bottom and top of the useful musical range. The math has to be adjusted a bit. Pianos tuned to mathematical perfection tend to sound sharp at the very top and bottom, requiring at the extremes that the scale be “stretched” to make the piano sound in tune to the human ear. This is not a flaw in the mathematics. It’s a consequence of the physical properties of the strings of the piano, a stiffness which causes inharmonicity at the extremes. Thus this need to “temper” the scale doesn’t diminish the essential elegance of the theory.
Zeebra, a very popular hip hop artist here in Japan (Click on pic to see a video.)
So as I say, it’s easy for music experts in the West, the ones juxtaposing Fibonacci spiral graphs on the human cochlea, to posit the intrinsic superiority of a viola over a shamisen, an oboe over a hichiriki, or a flugel horn over a horagai, put in the service of playing the Sound of Music.
They may be right. But the bottom line is there’s really no way to objectively settle the matter. An anecdotal aside: I mentioned to my wife the other day that one of my English students sings Japanese folk songs to me. The lady is very proud of her voice and the songs she had spent her life mastering. My wife asked me if they were traditional or modern folk songs. I didn’t know there was a difference. Turns out that traditional folk songs are the original microtonal versions. Now there are modern versions of those folk songs which make the melodies fit the Western 12-note scale. Think about that! They take these amazing songs from time immemorial and update them — literally Westernize them musically — for the prevailing tastes of contemporary Japanese listeners.
This seems to suggest some greater inherent appeal in the mathematically-based music system of the West. But I say it’s just a sign of the times. We have Burger King in Beijing, KFC in Kuala Lumpur, McDonald’s in Moscow. There are rappers and hip hop artists in every country that has electricity, except maybe Bhutan.
My wife, Masumi, of course continues to teach Westernized music to elementary students in a nearby community here in Japan, as part of the official school curriculum. The kids play recorders, xylophones, accordions, keyboards, snares, bass drums, bongos, congas, and other percussion — all instruments from the West. And since she still loves singing, she even gives an occasional vocal performance under the auspices of the vocal teacher she’s studied with for three decades. Usually she sings opera, though she occasionally helps me out on my original songs, in my informal home recording studio.
Here she is earlier this year in concert at a gathering in Osaka.
This is not going to be a formal or particularly thorough discussion of Western art forms here in Japan. In fact, it’ll be largely anecdotal but nevertheless I believe an accurate portrayal of the odd juxtaposition of the unambiguously Western art forms and styles on a culture with its own unique rich heritage, which not in the least resembles or had been influenced by Euro-America until Japan finally was “opened” to the West 165 years ago. Significant Westernization occurred in two peak periods: From 1868-1900 during the Meiji restoration, and from 1945 until the present following the Allied victory over Japan ending World War II. This resulted in modern Japan, where Kibuki Theater and geishas co-exist with American-style pro wrestling and Japanese hip-hop.
My wife, Masumi, perfectly embodies the contradiction, though unlike most contradictions there are no discernible incompatibilities or anomalies. ‘Contradiction’ is really the wrong term. Because all that is contradicted are my expectations. I’ll get to Masumi in Part 2, as she deserves an entire article of her own.
Long before I ever knew I’d be coming to and then settling in Japan, I received some early inklings about Japan’s love affair with the West, meaning not just its superficial courtship of dress and hair styling, but its thorough embrace of both formal and pop arts.
I was taking jazz dance classes at Debbie Reynolds Studios — yes, that Debbie Reynolds — in Los Angeles, and one summer a plane load of young Japanese jazz dancers (late teens, early twenties) packed the classes. To put it mildly, I was amazed, stunned, awed! Not only were they physically perfect as dancers — slender; strong, sinewy muscles; elegant posture; each individually radiating grace and vigor, coupled with a charming shyness — they could really dance!
I also wistfully recall one of my favorite dance teachers mentioning that he loved taking on guest teaching positions in Japan, because the students were so fiercely dedicated and disciplined. When he’d return from such an assignment, he’d jokingly count off our dance routines in Japanese: ichi, ni, san, yon! While we thought that was pretty darn cute, I never gave it all that much thought. Japan just wasn’t on my radar screen back then.
At the same time, it was no secret that Western performers, in particular pop and rock acts — everyone from the Beatles, Cindi Lauper, Santana, Carpenters, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Rolling Stones, and Avril Lavigne, to Ozzy Osborne and Bob Dylan — loved playing Japan. All reported that Japanese audiences were enthusiastic and they felt truly appreciated.
Get this: Even jazz artists like Chick Corea, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Clark, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane had and often still have impressive fan bases in Japan.
Much more popular and widespread than jazz is classical music. During my first full year in Japan, I was invited to attend a piano recital. I don’t know what that sounds like to you but I assumed it would be a bunch of cute kids fumbling their way through simple songs, their adoring parents taking videos for the grandparents. Right. Try concert-level Chopin, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven. And these were just high school students! Turns out that studying piano from a very young age is pervasive here — piano lessons with a focus on eventually mastering the legends, for example, those just mentioned. Japan has, of course, already produced a number of widely-acclaimed, world-class musicians and composers, and believe it or not, Tokyo alone hosts “no fewer than eight full-size, full-time, fully professional orchestras, collectively providing more than 1,200 concerts a year.”
Getting back to dance . . .
I’ve been a longstanding fan. I saw my first ballet in high school. Not only did I take some jazz classes for ten years starting in 1985, I even dabbled in both modern and ballet over the years. The great ballet dancers like Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Fonteyn, Markova, have always fascinated me.
That being the case, about a year ago I became acquainted with a fellow who is not well known in the West, but in my opinion may be one of the best ballet dancers ever! His name is Kumakawa Tetsuya. Born in Hokkaido, Japan, he studied in England and became a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, before returning to Japan to form his own ballet company. Feast your eyes on a man who seems able to rewrite the laws of gravity . . .
. . . and make challenging moves breathtakingly beautiful and inhumanly effortless . . .
There are two Japanese ballerinas, who despite being in my opinion, among the best in the world, are not exactly household names in the West.
Kuranaga Misa . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gnEXTcBojk
. . . and Nakamura Shoko . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxiHzXM7yxQ
Pretty amazing, eh?
If there is an unspoken, but nonetheless dutifully-regarded and rigorously-observed rule in play governing just about every act, action, activity, ambition, and endeavor here, it’s this: Whatever the Japanese do, they do well. They are maddening perfectionists. Many would say this is why Japan was able to rebuild so quickly and totally after World War II, eventually becoming the world’s third largest economy. Others would attribute Japan’s high suicide rate to the extreme pressures of high performance and achievement.
Japan is a gift-giving culture. There are hardly any occasions for which it is not customary or at least acceptable to proffer a gift. A visit, a lunch at someone’s house, health issues, news of even the lightest import — new pet, new home, new car, new set of dentures, — knitting socks, harvesting soybeans, a near traffic accident. Yes, I had a lady almost hit me on my bicycle with her car — she slammed on her brakes and literally stopped with her bumper against my pant leg — track me down (not very hard since I’m the only elderly Westerner in the area with Rod Stewart hair), and leave a bag of eggplants on my porch. Add this abundance of uniquely Japanese magnanimity to the conventional observances which most modern developed economies share and have duly exploited to nauseating levels of melodrama and sentimentality — weddings, funerals, graduations, anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day — means hefty dividends for anyone heavily invested in industries making gift-wrapping, ribbons and bows.
Amplifying the initial impetus for graciousness and generosity driving the whole gifting frenzy — evidently hard-wired into Japanese people — the act of giving a gift triggers a immediate, requisite response, a reciprocation in kind, the product of heart-felt appreciation for the original gesture: The ‘thank-you-for-the gift’ gift.
“どうもありがとうございました！”(Thank you so very much!)
“どういたしまして！” (You are indeed very welcome!)
It is beyond any dispute: If gift-giving were for some mysterious reason to suddenly come to a halt here, the entire Japanese economy would collapse within hours.
One month after Valentines Day in Japan — meaning March 14th — we have White Day.
White Day is the occasion for the guys to give to the girls sweet treats and other simple gifts, payback for bestowing on them piles of chocolate and other heart-shaped confections on February 14th.
Is it tit-for-tat? Do guys at least for this simple, rather innocent holiday put their chauvinism on hold, do the expected thing by giving a thank-you-for-the gift’ gift?
Some do. Others ignore most of the girls who’ve been generous with them and just give a White Day treat to the one(s) they’re interested in, as in viewing with something remotely resembling romantic interest.
Not that many people worry about the insulinary efficiency of their pancreas on either Valentines or White Day. That would probably be true just about anywhere in the world.
日本の女の子たちはとても素敵です！ 彼らは西洋で失われた無実を持っています。Japan, like most Eastern cultures is very patriarchal, bordering on officially sanctioned misogyny. I could go on and on about why this is so, despite the extreme Westernization and “modernization” of the country. But it would be pure speculation. Certainly, much of it is born out of deep and longstanding traditions generated during the tribalism of pre-history. But I suspect the modern manifestation of male dominance imbedded in male-female relations is now more a product of extreme insecurity and a sense of inadequacy by boys and men — collectively borne at a very sub-conscious level, of course — than it is a reflection of the inheritance of rigorous structural societal norms. This probably sounds like extremely superficial pop psychology, masking as a gracious critique. But I’m hardly apologizing for what I observe might be vagina envy or something even more ridiculously unflattering and ultimately embarrassing or pernicious.
Isn’t there a homily that goes like this?: We worship that which flatters us, love what we can dominate, ridicule what we find puzzling, lash out at what we don’t understand, enslave and torment that which reminds us how pitiful and primitive we ultimately are.
They celebrate Valentines Day here — it’s a distinctly Japanese version of the love holiday — which like everything else in the U.S. has been turned into just more marketing, churning out of kitsch, and indulging in commodified histrionics. Pumping up the GDP is the only reason for anything and everything, after all. They’ll be putting a meter on my love muscle and collecting a surtax any day now.
Right in line with everything that goes on here, especially involving human interaction, there’s a sweet innocence to Valentines Day, remindful of a time before my time and thus not something I can duly remember. But think of Frank Capra movies and extrapolate.
It’s innocent to be sure, but the guys are still in charge. Yes, on Valentines Day, the guys in Japan just sit back and the girls pile it on — chocolate, that is. From what I can tell, none of the giving is based on hot passion, hot sex, hot anticipation. Basically, the message is: “I’m a girl and you’re a boy and you’re not all that bad.” Or maybe: “I like you. I think. Call me maybe?”
As an English teacher, I got my share of Valentines chocolates from ladies of all ages. Yes, I mean ALL ages. From 7 years old to 60, 70, and beyond!
And all I was obligated to do was collect it, smile, say ありがとうございました (thank you so very much), then eat it at my convenience.
I almost felt guilty about all of the attention.
Then again . . .
There’s a payback. But it’s very asymmetrical. It happens exactly one month later.
As a novelist, satirist, essayist, political blogger, and someone who has not gotten beyond the I-want-my-oompa-loompa stage of human development, to say I crave attention is a vast understatement.
Of course I live in Japan, so while I continue my lifelong efforts to become a household name in America, I consider recognition here an important part of building my legend. Plus I’ve long been a believer that any press is good press, anywhere on the planet.
I can’t say I’m making much headway. I’ve tried countless ways to breach the media firewall that keeps me hidden from the Japanese public eye. A while ago I tried burning down the largest wooden Buddha in Japan. I couldn’t get the damn thing lit. Once I tried dressing up as a geisha. All that happened was I got a lot of very strange looks and one comment from a young school boy in a baseball uniform — その醜い女性を見てください。– which my wife, Masumi, said basically translates as: “Look at that ugly woman.”
I even entered an octopus eating contest and came in last! But not before I started to hallucinate giant sea cucumbers dancing across the stage like an entire chorus line of Rockettes had turned into wart-infested pickles.
Yes, I’ve tried everything except running through the center of town dressed as a samurai, carrying a bamboo pole wrapped with flaming kelp leaves, while yelling, ‘The Emperor has no oompa-loompa.’ I ruled that out when I found out he doesn’t.
My most recent humiliation occurred the other day, early one morning.
We still get a newspaper delivered to our house every day — can you believe it? made of paper no less? — which mentions one or two major news stories but mostly focuses on news from around our prefecture — which is the equivalent of a state in the U.S. Many human interest stories, local sports teams, city and school district events.
But . . .
There it was! A brief mention to be sure, but no less humbling.
My cat upstaged me by getting in the news!
Now I love Arthur to pieces. And I have no doubt he deserves any and all the great press he can get. But let’s be honest. He didn’t do a thing to deserve this. He’s just so cute, an old guy like me, regardless of how many books I write, web sites I put up, despite how funny I am, or “politically aware”, how can I compete? Let’s be blunt: I don’t stand a canary’s chance in a cat cafe.
Okay. Okay. I sound like I’m bitter. I’m not. I’m so proud of Arthur! If anything, I’m wondering why they didn’t put him on the front page and do an exclusive feature story on the little guy, including an interview and a link to video footage of him being so darn cute!
At the same time . . .
That still leaves me in a quandary. What do I have to do to get some press around here? Dress up like an American soldier and fly an Osprey into the Tokyo Tower?
Yes, they sell Schwinn, an “American” bicycle, manufactured of course in China. But there is quite a selection based on this standard model. They cost between $50 and $150. The pictured one is pretty fancy. Pink adds at least $50 to the sale price.
I’m going to talk about something which recently happened here, not that far from where I live, maybe within four hours driving. I seriously doubt if the bike involved was anywhere near as high-end as the pink beauty pictured. But it certainly looked something like this, being a basic boilerplate ride-to-school-and-back bike. They’re ubiquitous here.
It’s EXTREMELY rare. But a girl who lived in Shikoku had her bike stolen.
She reported it to the police. Seriously . . . she did! That’s what you do in Japan.
It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. All bikes must have a registration tag. A couple years back, I was riding my bike back from the grocery store and a young police officer on a motor scooter stopped me, looked at my tag, thanked me, and drove merrily away.
Anyway, a month later, the school girl got a call from a police department northeast of Osaka. They had found her bike, and wanted to get it back to her. The young lady was understandably very happy! She told the police that she had an aunt who lived in Akashi. If they could arrange to bring the bike there, she could pick it up.
The police welcomed the suggestion. They were much closer to Akashi than the little town the girl lived in on Shikoku Island.
Next day, they personally delivered the bike to the girl’s aunt in Akashi, a trip which took nearly two hours each way, a total of almost four hours of their valuable police time.
I want to put this in perspective, especially the distances involved. Here’s a map.
Mind you, while Shikoku is sparsely populated, the entire area around Osaka is quite congested. Two hours is not excessive, considering traffic, having to locate the aunt’s residence, etc. And to return it to the girl’s home town would have been close to four hours each way.
The most significant point is that the bike turned up 219 km (136 miles by car) from where it was stolen. The police officers at this distant location tracked down the owner via the ID tag, and personally made sure the bike got back to her.
I don’t know if this is blowing your mind or not. I’ve lived here on and off for over ten years and this type of thing still leaves me slack-jawed.
Granted, in a small town like Elizaville, Indiana or Wanblee, South Dakota, I can imagine someone telling the sheriff about a stolen bike. But for most Americans — over 80% live in urban areas — the thought of going to the police about a stolen bike seems absurd.
“You want to report a what? Listen, buster. While you’ve been standing here teary-eyed, telling me about your $50 bike, we’ve had two shootings, three car jackings, some bozo dressed like Michael Jackson jumped off a bridge singing ‘Beat It’, and there’s a 152-car traffic pile-up on the freeway because some idiot at the Department of Transportation posted a warning on all the traffic advisory signs that there was a missile carrying a hydrogen bomb incoming from North Korea. Get a job and buy a new bike, loser!”
It’s obvious, priorities are different here in Japan. We’re not in a constant frenzy, in a constant state of paranoia, convinced there are terrorists lurking in every doorway and child molesters hanging out by the monkey bars at every city park, suspicious of every individual who isn’t suspicious of everyone else because obviously this person is out of touch with reality and a clear danger to the community. People here aren’t armed to the teeth, such that everyone’s worried about a mass shooting, or that a minor disagreement about a parking space will result in the barrel of an AR-15 being shoved down our throat.
But it goes even deeper than that. There’s an innocence here, and a sense of honor and courtesy, a respect for the possessions of others. So much so that a bicycle theft is truly out-of-the-ordinary. And thus it warrants extraordinary response by the authorities.
No country is perfect. Japan has many issues as well. There is still a difficult struggle with its past, its military aggression and savagery. There is racism. There is a bit of arrogance, a condescending attitude toward other Asian countries. There is — in my opinion — a mindless, unnecessary obeisance to the U.S. in military and diplomatic matters, and a puzzling infatuation with Western culture, especially American pop culture.
No country is perfect. But some are certainly far superior than others.
I take great comfort in knowing . . . I don’t have to worry about my bike.
Of course I remember the typical New Years holiday celebrations in the U.S.!
The shots of Buttery Nipples, Afterburners, and White Gummy Bears, the beer chugging contests, DUIs, the streaking of police patrol cars, mooning at McDonald’s drive-thru, the totaled rental cars, 72-hour hangovers, the arrest warrants, getting herpes from kissing some stranger at midnight, the Rose Parade, lying in the den in a puke-soaked Kurt Cobain sweat shirt through 12 hours of football — Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Toilet Bowl, Oxycontin Bowl.
It’s impossible to overstate how different New Years is for me here in Japan.
Granted, there might be some revelry in the big cities like Osaka and Tokyo. Compared to what typically goes on in America, even these are more like Thursday afternoon bingo in Butte, Montana or octogenarian shuffleboard in Sun City, Florida.
Fasten your seat belts, people, to keep from falling off your chair when you nod off reading this. A pot of hearty espresso is recommended if you’re serious about making it to the end.
New Years Eve day, Masumi, her daughter Azusa, and I, climbed a mountain I’ve written abouttwicebefore. It looks like a mountain but it’s really not that high. It has steps and trails, so we left the GPS, emergency flares, ropes, and rappelling gear at home. What I like about it, besides offering a decent work out, a couple hours in nature, and splendid views of the valley which contains most of my home town,Sasayama, is that by bike it’s only about five minutes from my house. It couldn’t be more convenient.
This time, we also brought Azusa’s Black Labrador puppy too. We all headed over — Azusa on foot, Masumi and I on our bikes — to the trail head, which is situated right in front of a small shrine. Of course! Shrines are as ubiquitous here as fire hydrants are in the States. Anyway, about 45 minutes later, we were on top the small mountain, had a picnic lunch, then returned via the same trail.
It was cool but comfortable, perfect for this relatively easy hike. However, as we made our way back down, the temperature started quickly dropping. And continued dropping right into the evening.
Masumi and I had the option of visiting the grounds of a local temple to “ring in the New Year”. They have a No Theater performance, a bonfire, and serve free non-alcoholic sake. This is a real family affair for all ages.
But we decided it was just too damn cold!
So we stayed home, falling asleep before midnight. We missed the tofu cannons, whale juggling, sky diving ninjas, and laser holograms of Godzilla eating the Moon. This was prudent. We needed to rest up for the next wild and dazzling phase of our extended weekend, Land of the Rising Sun New Years extravaganza, set for next morning.
That would be at べんてん神社 (Benten Shrine), the Shinto shrine which belongs to our village. We live on the very east end of Sasayama proper, in a village called Noma. Each village of several in our city of 50,000 or so typically has its own shrine and community center. Living in Japan is about community life and getting to know your neighbors.
The motif at the shrine was similar to what we missed at the big temple downtown the previous evening. There was a small bonfire, free kelp and squid snacks, and sake. This sake was the real stuff but only dispensed in thimblefuls, so no one exactly got rowdy.
This being a shrine and to the rather meager extent that Japanese indulge in religious services, there was singing. Mind you, this bore no resemblance to Handel’s Hallelujah chorus or a medley of tent revival spirituals. In fact, what we apparently were singing was the national anthem, which is why my lovely, principled wife was not singing along. She is categorically and staunchly opposed to nationalism, even superficial celebrations of what has not served humankind very well over its blood-soaked history. Which explains why I had to burn all of my American flag Hanes boxer shorts right after we got married.
Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I am joking. All of my American flag undies were long gone decades ago. I believe they were used as rags to stuff Molotov cocktails at some street protests in Berkeley back in the late 60s. I can’t say for sure. It’s difficult to track where things end up after you drop them in a Salvation Army collection box.
Let me add that Masumi thought the idea of singing the national anthem on this special occasion was very strange, a total anomaly. Somebody certainly made a very odd choice. Personally, I found it to be a rather doleful affair, not the stuff of conquest and plunder.
Anyway, here’s a very short video clip of my neighbors singing at the shrine.
Okay . . .
Enough is never enough, especially when it comes to wild abandon and revelry. Sure, we were exhausted from all the whoopee. But driven by relentless surges of hedonism and the insatiable urge to party like its 2099, as soon as we got home we decided to go to Kaibara, the town both near to where Masumi grew up and where we officially got married.
柏原八幡宮 (Hachiman Shrine) is a beautiful place at the top of a hill. It maybe takes ten minutes to walk up the stairs.
People step to the front of a shrine, make a contribution, sometimes light incense, ring a very dissonant, clanking bell to get the attention of whoever up there might be listening, then make an appeal for some desired improvement in their lives — new husband, better job, health, long life, happiness, money — the usual things. They also write these requests on pieces of paper and tie them to a tree on the grounds.
Whew! Wild and crazy times here in Japan, eh? We know how to party!
Personally, I find this all very calming, informal, charming, especially since I mercilessly was subjected to thetortures of the Catholic Massfor way too many years. What can I say? Buddhism and Shintoism rock!
I’ll end this account on what I find an interesting note. While there is some god, a spirit entity, associated with each shrine — our local shrine described above is in dedicated to Benten, goddess of art, music, literature, especially appropriate for Masumi and I — the Japanese, and most Asian people, especially Buddhists, don’t pray to a specific god, saint, angel, virgin. At least not the way Christians do. The Catholic Church has a precise org chart for all of its holy representatives. St. Christopher was assigned assuring safe travel, St. Anthony unobstructed breathing passages. Then there was the Virgin Mary, who had what could only be called a cult following of her own, rivaling that of Jesus, who of course was the Savior, source of salvation. Asians just send their prayers out there, as Masumi quite patiently tries to explain to me. Buddhists are very much into flooding outer space with prayers.
You may find this interesting. When you visit Buddhist monasteries, you see prayer wheels, hundreds of them, all different sizes, from ones which could fit in a bowling bag to ones that are taller than a human. Each prayer wheel contains hundreds — sometimes even thousands! — of sacred inscriptions from holy Buddhist texts. Again we have appeals for peace, harmony, long life, etc. Spinning a prayer wheel, it is claimed, sends these good messages out into the universe, inundating it with the highest spiritual content and aspirations.
While from what I can tell, it’s not working, it’s most certainly an admirable enterprise, and so different from the Western framework of a person’s relationship with God and his heavenly ecclesiastical staff. Take a moment and picture those televangelists, furrowed brows sweating, faces bulging with the power of the Lord, yelling: “You want that new car? You want your bills paid? You want that ugly goiter to disappear? To be able to sing along with Mariah Carey and slam dunk like the Shaq? Well, just put your hands on your television screen! I say, put ’em both right here on my face, and FEEL THE POWER OF THE LORD FILL YOUR LIFE with money, success, happiness! Ask and ye shall receive! PRAISE GOD!”
Just something to think about next year during half-time of the Rose Bowl.
The existing ten should all slide down a notch to make room for a new, necessary First Commandment.
1st Commandment: When it comes to others who embrace beliefs different than yours, thou shalt shut up and mind your own business.
I was raised strict Catholic from the late 1940s until July 1961. I attended Catholic school for six years. The indoctrination was mind-boggling — literally! I’m not sure where things stand now. Allegedly the Catholic Church has made some giant leaps forward. I find the word ‘leap’ a little hard to swallow. After all, it took them over 300 years to pardon that wildly insane heretic Galileo for declaring that the sun was at the center of the solar system. It’s too late for his family to sue.
What I was taught, with no room for interpretation or even the slightest bending of the rules, was that Catholics were true believers, everyone else was a pagan and would burn mercilessly in Hell for it. This obviously included jungle-dwelling savages with the bones through their noses, anyone with slanted eyes, hairy-chested men on horses who raped and pillaged without pause, witches, witch-doctors, probably acupuncturists. But it also referred to — brace yourselves — all Jews and Protestants!
Talk about being exclusive. The Catholic Church didn’t mess around!
I left that all behind. I remember the moment well. Both of my parents were dead. I was attending a Catholic mass, summer of 1961. I tried to listen to what the priest was saying. I looked around. People were staring at the altar. The priest droned on, something about the Holy Spirit. I was 15 and scared to death by a fear of eternal damnation — something which was pounded into my head day-after-day, year-after-year by both priests and nuns — afraid as only a thoroughly brainwashed young man can be, to do anything at odds with the Church or God or the Commandments. But then suddenly, like that perennial bolt of lightning, it hit me: None of this made any sense to me anymore. I walked out and never looked back. To this day,I’ve never againattended a Catholic mass or Catholic service of any kind, for over 56 years.
I now can look at religion the way someone might look at photos in their high school year book. Hmm . . . French Club . . . Junior Varsity Football Team . . . Mr. Hunter, chemistry.
When three years ago I wrote the song posted at the head of this rambling monograph, I tried to include Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on. But it’s just a song. There’s only so much room without turning the whole thing into a random game of Scrabble. So . . .
I settled on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and then gave a nod to atheism in one line.
I hear we’re now in the throes of a new “Clash of Civilizations”. This refers to a war for hearts, minds, and oil fields, mainly between the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East. The Jews are in there, since they are allegedly under siege by the Muslims, and they now have a marriage of convenience with the Christians — which is about as convenient as a marriage between a crocodile and a chicken, and makes about as much sense.
First of all, there’s nothing “new” about this epic showdown. Haven’t any of these idiotic champions of chaos and carnage shilling for this conflict ever heard of the Crusades?
Second, while I can buy “clash”, which seems to be the operating word in just about every interaction between the Western powers and everyone else on the planet, “civilizations” somehow makes me think about “civil” and “civilized”. Neither apply to those participants who have by choice, with full knowledge, by design, with clear intention, have brought the human species and every other living thing on the planet to the brink of extinction.
One has to ask: Is this the best we as a product of twisted fibers of DNA and RNA can do? Are we doomed by some kamikaze gene? Do we periodically have to self-destruct, tear it all down? Why do we bother with claiming it’s about ideologies or religions or politics?
Because it’s not. It’s about hatred. It’s about selfishness. It’s about evil, either inherent or manufactured evil.
It’s about either the evil we are, the evil we’ve become, or the evil that we allow to exist in our hearts and our minds.
What’s my song about? It’s so simple, so naive, so straightforward, so easy to understand. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult to take into our hearts, try to weave it in with those strands of DNA and RNA, let it become an antidote to the madness that drives us to reject and demonize others, that allows us to dehumanize those who are different, that feeds our inflated sense of importance, our “exceptionalism”, our grandiosity and rabid delusions of superiority, our ultimately self-destructive rejection of our shared humanity.
Happy New Year! Yes, we’re starting a new cycle. 365 days to do what?
Yes. What?
Maybe the whole New Year thing is just silly.
Peace be with us . . .
Hmm.
I’ve got it! You decide for yourself. That actually was the idea in the first place.
But I’ve given you a little push in the right direction.
Assuming you’ve gotten this far, here are the lyrics to my song, performed in the video by my extremely talented wife and myself, a simple straightforward message for a complex convoluted time.
It’s a very special time of year For family and friends holiday cheer For those no longer with us We shed a tear A time to share A time of feast A time to care And pray for peace A time to give to those Who have the least
(Chorus) Merry Christmas Happy Hanukkah Peace be with us Happy New Year!
This is the time to start anew Atheist Christian Muslim Jew To reach within And find the love inside of you Discard the old seek out the new Reject the false embrace the true To look ahead decide To bring out the best in you
(Chorus) Merry Christmas Happy Hanukkah Peace be with us Happy New Year!
(Chorus – Japanese) Akemashite Omedetoo Peace be with you Happy New Year!
(Chorus) Merry Christmas Happy Hanukkah Peace be with you Happy New Year!
To put it mildly, with all of the hyperbolic hype, million dollar advertising, sensationalized news, wars, political machinations, terrorist attacks, celebrity scandals, hyperventilating talking heads, and widespread anonymous screaming going on out there these days, it’s very difficult to get anyone’s attention.
Let me be candid . . .
My last shameless self-promotion fell flat on its face. No one was moved by my lugubrious plea to give my personal Gross Happiness Quotient a much needed boost by buying dozens of my brilliantly entertaining novel as holiday gift. Indeed, I got up every single morning, faithfully checked the New York Times Bestseller List, and frankly was day-after-day quite shocked to not see it debuting in the Top Ten. Just yesterday I finally called the Times to suggest there must be some mistake, but for technical reasons got disconnected. My line must have been crossed with another call because I distinctly heard laughing before the connection went dead.
Anyway . . .
The only conclusion I could draw — since my Shameless Self-Promotion – Part 1 is without any question so persuasive it probably should be registered as a WMD with the NSA and Department of Homeland Security — is that no one saw it. Like thousands — more like millions! — of extremely vital and noteworthy announcements, it was brutishly swept up and swallowed by the tsunami of nonsensical infotainment being upchucked in copious excess in our world of digital delirium.
So . . .
What can I do? How can I cut through the cacophonous roar and have my message heard?
I sat for hours pondering this. I was so totally absorbed by this conundrum, my new cat, Arthur, used me as a scratching post and I had to throw my sweater away.
Then I remembered a phenomenally effective promotion I used back in L.A. one summer to get my indifferent, drug addled, me-generation friends to attend a pool party!
Back in those wild and crazy Hollywood days, I had put together a invitation mailer with a pic just like the one at the top of this page. In bold letters was this message:
Attend my party or I’ll shoot this dog!
The turnout was spectacular! I felt loved and respected, people ate all the food and drank all the beer, wine and mixed drinks I provided, and the life of the dog was spared. What a smashing success! I assure you, everyone was talking about my Encino pool party bash for weeks afterwards — well, at least a couple days or until their hangovers abated, whichever came first.
So!
The ball is in your court, readers. You’re all incredibly brilliant people, or you wouldn’t be here at this website. Just finish this sentence and know deep in your heart where it truly counts, that you stepped up, stood tall, felt the love, and did the right thing:
Buy my book or . . .
And we’re not just talking dogs here, folks. It’s not just about the whole messy business of dog brains and fragments of canine cranium scattered all over the yard.
We’re also talking $$$! Meaning, saving $$$ big time! And what timing! This excellent bargain arrives just when your out-of-control holiday extravagance has the limits on those credit cards being bludgeoned like Conor McGregor’s sparring partner!
This adventure in credulity and shock wave to literary sensibilities is available from all of the usual suspects. You can even walk into your favorite local book store, and after giving you an enigmatic smile, the clerk can order a copy — if it’s not already right there behind the counter with the nudie magazines.
Poor Billy Green! When he was just turning four, his father tried to throw him in the trash. He was a smart kid but that just seemed to create enemies. His darling mom did everything to protect him. But this was Detroit, armpit of the wasteland! Catholic school didn’t help much, except the time he got his first kiss from an atheist nun. Home life was dismal. Was his father capable of anything but drinking beer and farting? And what was with that neighbor who made puppets and tried to molest Billy? Golly! Detroit was sucking the life out of him. At such a young age. Then adolescence swirled around him. Like water in a toilet bowl. High school was a B movie. Only without a plot. So finally he did something about it. Billy ran away … to college. Cornell University. That was a good move for sure! He studied hard, lost his virginity, met the love of his life. Things were definitely looking up! What could possibly go wrong?
They have a nesting tree — actually several in various locations in the region — very close to my home. I pass it everyday when I ride into town to buy groceries and other sundries. 
Life In Japan: Western Arts – Pt 2
This is a photograph of my wife, Masumi, at age 20 singing Il Bacio by Italian composer Luigi Arditi. She has been singing opera all her life, plays beautiful classical piano, and dances ballet as a pastime.
I find it a fascinating question why Japan is so enamored with Western art forms, not that I’ve made any progress coming close to a conclusive answer.
All of this is the normal cross-pollination of cultures, which occurs when borders become more permeable, trade encouraged and opportunities for tourism pervasive.
Yet, there are some things that either don’t translate well, resist integration, because they are simply entirely incompatible with established social traditions and cultural legacies.
That, of course, is an example of steadfast social training.
But I would have suspected that another type of training would be just as determinant. I’m referring to ear training.
The Japanese scales — actually all Asian scales — are microtonal. When they don’t sound randomly annoying, they sound intentionally grating, at least to my Western ears. I’m just not used to hearing — literally not trained to hear — the two or three notes that purposely occur between C and C# or between E and F. I’ll admit that in my band days I was often accused of tuning my guitar microtonally but that was just a way of saying I had a really lousy sense of pitch.
At the same time, Western music and the fundaments for making it have gripped Japan. And in every form: pop, rock, jazz, classical, blues, rap, hip hop.
Recognize that there are Western arts chauvinists who would say this is inevitable. They will make a very convincing argument that Western scales are fundamentally superior, more accessible and natural to the homo sapiens physiological mechanisms involved in processing music.
There is a very appealing mathematics to the Western scale. The 37th key on an 88-key piano is A. It vibrates at 220 cycles per second (Hz). The 49th key is also an A, but it’s one octave above, vibrating at 440 Hz. The 25th key is an A that’s one octave below, vibrating at 110 Hz. Nifty, eh? This suggests the mathematical foundation underlying the tonal relationships among the notes of the Western 12-tone scale. In fact, this holds together quite nicely until we get to the very bottom and top of the useful musical range. The math has to be adjusted a bit. Pianos tuned to mathematical perfection tend to sound sharp at the very top and bottom, requiring at the extremes that the scale be “stretched” to make the piano sound in tune to the human ear. This is not a flaw in the mathematics. It’s a consequence of the physical properties of the strings of the piano, a stiffness which causes inharmonicity at the extremes. Thus this need to “temper” the scale doesn’t diminish the essential elegance of the theory.
Zeebra, a very popular hip hop artist here in Japan (Click on pic to see a video.)
So as I say, it’s easy for music experts in the West, the ones juxtaposing Fibonacci spiral graphs on the human cochlea, to posit the intrinsic superiority of a viola over a shamisen, an oboe over a hichiriki, or a flugel horn over a horagai, put in the service of playing the Sound of Music.
They may be right. But the bottom line is there’s really no way to objectively settle the matter. An anecdotal aside: I mentioned to my wife the other day that one of my English students sings Japanese folk songs to me. The lady is very proud of her voice and the songs she had spent her life mastering. My wife asked me if they were traditional or modern folk songs. I didn’t know there was a difference. Turns out that traditional folk songs are the original microtonal versions. Now there are modern versions of those folk songs which make the melodies fit the Western 12-note scale. Think about that! They take these amazing songs from time immemorial and update them — literally Westernize them musically — for the prevailing tastes of contemporary Japanese listeners.
This seems to suggest some greater inherent appeal in the mathematically-based music system of the West. But I say it’s just a sign of the times. We have Burger King in Beijing, KFC in Kuala Lumpur, McDonald’s in Moscow. There are rappers and hip hop artists in every country that has electricity, except maybe Bhutan.
My wife, Masumi, of course continues to teach Westernized music to elementary students in a nearby community here in Japan, as part of the official school curriculum. The kids play recorders, xylophones, accordions, keyboards, snares, bass drums, bongos, congas, and other percussion — all instruments from the West. And since she still loves singing, she even gives an occasional vocal performance under the auspices of the vocal teacher she’s studied with for three decades. Usually she sings opera, though she occasionally helps me out on my original songs, in my informal home recording studio.
Here she is earlier this year in concert at a gathering in Osaka.