Dementia for Disney

What's up with the Japanese and Disney? People of all ages are more than eager to go to Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea. They love the characters, the rides, the cheesy themed hotels, and especially the parade. On select holidays such as Christmas or Halloween, there is always some kind of special event featuring Disney characters doing even more inanely childish things.

Nonetheless, Japanese adults flock to the Disney amusement park not for their children, but for themselves. They come back with photos and tales of how they almost got to meet Donald Duck as if it was some international (human) celebrity, not just an underpaid part-time employee on his weekend shift.

There must be some sort of psychological reasoning behind why there is such enchantment and motivation behind visiting Disneyland, aside from the movies and characters that even American adults tire of before reaching puberty.

Of course, Japan is a culture that loves all things cute. Things, animals or people can be covered in fur, miniaturized, doe-eyed, or have an inviting color composition that would look good hanging from any accessory. The cutesy factor is prevalent in any icon of Japanese culture, which certainly diminishes the hardened, often cold exterior of the Japanese people. It is hard to strike up a conversation with a stranger and often uninviting. Yet, with a sweet, little Snoopy, Mickey Mouse or Tottoro dangling from your cellphone, it makes a certain social sterility bearable--at least on the exterior.

Still, the question goes unanswered as to why Disney is king. I guess American children grew up with it, and because of it's global prevalence, children from other countries are accustomed to the same fairy tales and characters. Even so, why not let loose a childhood reverence for a dressed up mouse with batty eyelashes? Perhaps comprehending the reality of Disneyland isn't necessary for Japanese, and it could be rightfully so. Maybe growing out of a Disney phase is unnecessary, and those Americans who are collectors or fanatics shouldn't be judged as a stunted member of adult society. Maybe Japanese have it right and it should just be a wonderful weekend away completely void of any notion of reality. It could be for a sense of sanity or a fresh breath of freedom from staunch societal shackles that Japanese adults would wish for such a sensation.

Even still, Disney could represent one overarching metaphor for the suppression of emotion. Only in a place of non-sensical fantasy can Japanese feel a zeal for life. That, or there is a pervasive obsession with American culture, thus the most iconic of American characters, would be revered as a mecca of all things wonderful--a chance to get just a little bit closer to the real thing. If only there were answers to such questions in life.

Uncommon Ramen

In Japan, there is an endless possibility for noodles. They can be eaten at any temperature or texture, accompanied with varieties of meat or fish, seasoned with the strongest or weakest of taste, and featured thick or thin. Any way you like your noodles, there is probably a way to eat it.

Borrowed from Chinese cuisine, ramen is a bestseller in shops and stalls nation-wide. It has been adopted with a clean broth usually made from chicken or fish stock. The noodles themselves are the feature accompanied with a garnish of vegetable and meat, typically pork and green onions. Although the diversity of noodles spread across the board, ramen is traditionally this. However, in those places few and far between, ramen is revamped and made with an uncommon savor.

Keeping in line with Japanese culinary perfection, tomato ramen stands strongly at the top. It is relatively unknown since it diverts from that classical ramen taste; yet, what it stands for is innovation in a bowl of noodles completely overlooked.

Ichiryutei, a local ramen shop in Akashi, hosts tomato ramen among a row of other, now seemingly boring ramen choices. In its bold attempt to combine a tomato soup taste with cheese atop, it is reminiscent of a Campbell's soup, but better. Considering tomato-based broths are relatively uncommon, especially for noodles, only foreigners would understand the warm satisfaction in a good bowl of tomato soup. Especially on a rainy day.

Perhaps its a longing for a comfort food unfound in a strange, foreign land that prefers clear chicken broth for its ramen. Or it could be the Tabasco that is recommended for a little extra kick, or the continuous selection of Beatles music featured in the shop. In any case, tomato ramen is in a noodle class all itself and adds an extra category of an already extensive--yet possibly not innovative--noodle array. Itadakimasu!

Checking out the other side of The Cove

Recent acclaim for Oscar-award winning documentary, The Cove, has unveiled a small Japanese fishing town to be a mechanism of dolphin slaughter. Japan is essentially the only nation that kills and consumes dolphins. Every year, nearly 23,000 dolphins die by the hand of Japanese fisherman in Taiji, Japan. Because of the shock value felt by oceanographic associations and animal rights activists around the world, this issue is seen as a national concern, one which was understood by the heroic efforts of a film crew and dolphin enthusiasts alike who risked arrest to bring the truth to light.

Of course, Americans will see this horrifyingly inhumane treatment of dolphins as a cause for concern. The film shows raw, clandestine surveillance footage of what really happens behind the “No Trespassing” sign of this Wakayama prefecture’s seaside cove. However, the aim of the American activists in making this film was to tug at the heart strings of Americans in theatres across the nation as they watch sweet, innocent dolphins being savagely slaughtered by a race of people relatively unknown to the American majority.

If the filmmakers could demonstrate a deeper understanding of the Japanese culture, one that would present both the traditional side and global opposition, the film could be more effective. Instead, watching ocean water run red with dolphin blood by way of guerrilla camera tactics simply instigates an emotional response, one of moral contempt.

The Japanese feel Westerners are imposing their own standards and values on the Japanese, which could be considered a sort of ethnocentrism. America is no stranger to the ways of propagating ethnocentric behavior around the world. Nonetheless, out of respect to the Japanese and credibility to the facts and filmmakers themselves, one would think that this issue of defining culturally universal values would be addressed. Alas, it was not.

Negotiating and compromising on a factual basis, especially when crossing cross-cultural borders, is the best approach to making a documentary film that should highlight a real issue of global proportion. Filming angry Japanese fishermen from a rural town when a camera crew of foreigners has no intention of civilized conversation or at least a few simple linguistic formalities of the language will of course enrage those who are trying to defend a practice that is globally attacked. This doesn’t make the Japanese fishermen of Taiji victims, but it naturally puts them on the defense.

On the same token, if humans watch anything die, especially in a somewhat unknown land and by people who are unidentifiable to most Americans because they are foreign, it will make us feel something.

So, Japanese would like to know, where is the line drawn? What is the difference between the hundreds of thousands of cows and chickens slaughtered in unkempt, often governmentally protected factories where working conditions are unsafe, laborers are underpaid and oftentimes working illegally as immigrants and the mass-production of meat works for the sole purpose of consumption. Why is it OK, or at least not globally challenged, that Americans kill so many animals? What is the criterion?

The film argued that the self-awareness of dolphins made them a unique mammal, one that can understand physical pain and pleasure more so than other animals. Such self-awareness comes in the form of the intelligence of dolphins to take their own lives under a state of depression from stress of performing in dolphin shows.

Nonetheless, this parallel of the dolphin's self-awareness to that of a human attempted to reason that dolphins are emotional beings. Be that as it may, most animals can feel pain when they are kept in captivity or killed. In the film; however, a self-awareness for an animal with a potentially keen sense of self turned into a sort of American self-righteousness for saving that particular animal. This view conveniently assumes that our own lives are the most precious and valuable form of life on this earth, and from that criteria, we can easily put price tags on all other forms of life in a hierarchical manner.

The argument could be made that dolphins don’t mass-breed in captivity, and are not being farmed or raised in herds for the specific purpose of being eaten. They’re being hunted. And any wild animal hunter either for food or game, should have restrictions so as to protect biodiversity and the homeostasis of the environment.

The purpose of the film was to try and get Japan to stop killing dolphins. It could be argued that the filmmakers and activists weren’t bluntly attacking Japanese society all together, just this “tradition” in which they deemed unknown to the majority of Japanese.

Yet, if Japanese tradition was honestly analyzed, it should have been stated that whale was one of the principle staples of protein during World War II, when the country was in a bleak state of turmoil and, as an island nation, they used the resources they could to survive. Due to dire need, Japanese used every part of the whale, including oils and certain tendons of the mammal as a substitute for rubber or plastic in various manufactured goods such as athletic equipment.

Japanese tend to reserve confrontation as a last resort. By attacking and exposing this ritual dolphin killing doesn’t make the Japanese want to stand up for themselves. It makes them retreat back within and attempt to smooth things out without public debate. This may seem cowardly to the American people, but then again, it’s a clash of culture which seems to be conveniently overlooked to prove some sort of arbitrary point that the Japanese are either ashamed or clueless about the goings on in their society with regard to dolphins.

Most Japanese may not have known about Taiji’s yearly dolphin slaughters, but they certainly knew about the Japanese habit of whaling, whether it was understood by living it or reading about the makeshift survival attempts of the people during times of war. The film seems to blur the distinction between the incident they were trying to document in Taiji and problems that could occur with whaling and sustainability.

Japanese are not blameless in this matter. Their politicians are just as corrupt as those of the Western world, considering how the Japanese bought votes from impoverished countries such as Dominica and St. Kitts to vie for whaling support at international whaling conferences where the majority of participants are opposed to Japanese habits of whaling. However, this doesn’t make Japan any more corrupt of a country than any other.

The film certainly caught the attention as a suspenseful and heart-wrenching story about the inhumanity performed on our mammalian friends of the sea, which it was dually rewarded for in the Academy Awards. However, if the objective of the filmmakers and activists were to stop slaughtering dolphins, they picked the worst strategy, mainly because they decided negate any opportunity to express both sides to a degree that would make Japanese at least seem somewhat intelligible.

Moralizing documentaries such as this one are ultimately just a piece of entertainment for the viewer which offers moral justice to each, and of course, we would be more than willing to pay for that rush of moral superiority. It’s hard to find an audience, or win an award for that matter, with a documentary that is objective and not moralizing since there is no feel-good sense of premature accomplishment.

Yet, we should feel responsible for understanding a situation fully before judging it based off of one film that takes a moral high-ground to chastise a nation of people who are otherwise uninvolved with dolphin hunting. If the filmmakers could exhibit the sensibility and sensitivity to the culture they were scrutinizing, then it would have deserved more than just an Oscar.

Onsen Kinosaki

Although crispy tinges of winter air passed, the sun warmed a Sunday the way it should. It was bright and cheery when we arrived in Kinosaki. A breath of fresh air urged me to the onsen, to feel as relaxed as the quaint town around me.

Known for crab, Kinosaki boasts boatfuls of fresh crustacean on a daily basis. Often, it is the best culinary souvenir from this quiet north Hyogo town.

Lush mountain ridges encapsulate the small seaside village, and it is as peaceful from the top of the ropeway as it is around town. Light pockets of scattered sun spots made it easy to enjoy the surroundings. A steam strolled through the streets as leisurely as our nonchalance.

Making onsen tamago was easy. We just bought a mesh sack of raw eggs and put them in onsen water for about 10minutes. After, we clipped the top of the egg and enjoyed the deliciously half-cooked egg straight from the shell.

It could be the rose-colored glasses I've been looking through these days, or the fact it was my twenty-fifth birthday, or just a growing affinity for a culture that once seemed callously unknown; but, Kinosaki seemed a destination of uncharted happiness. It was a haven of relaxation, but in a quaint way. Ryokans lined the narrow streets following a shallow river with adorably small bridges. Old English lamp posts like the one you would imagine in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe marked every few feet with even more charm. And the peacefulness of absolute tranquility was the purpose of this town's existence--at least for me.

Actually eating the crab was much better than taking photos of it in the street. Yakiniku and crab nabe were in order for the feast of champions after realizing that was the only option for the evening. I guess closing shops and restaurants at 7pm was natural for a cozy town such as Kinosaki. Everyone was lounging like sedated frogs by the hot onsen pools or privately in their ryokan.
Before the train ride home, a foul-tempered foot bath attempted to warm our feet as the rest of us was drenched with a heavy rain and wind. I held on to the sunlit Sunday the day prior and remembered how beautiful that day would always seem--as a memento of perfection in the simplest of ways.
But, the weather was no mention because the company was so great. That's what I'll truly remember.

Sleeping is giving in

Working hard or hardly working? The latter can't be said for the Japanese.

Beginning in junior high, a Japanese student's life is set into hyperdrive. They maintain a rigorous course load of regular academic classes as well as begin attending juku, or cram school, which is just an extended time for studying. From sun up to sun down, students are working tirelessly on maintaining the highest marks, so that they can then prepare for entrance exams into high school, and then university and finally get dumped into a job which will set the marathon pace for the rest of their career.

The word "work" is synonymous with life. In Japan, the only true acceptance into society, especially as a man, is to be deemed a hard worker for a company you stick with forever. Wall Street investment bankers and on-call cardiologists can't even compare to the overtime hours that are implemented in factories and engineering facilities across Japan.

In fact, this type of after hour quality control in factories is often done in 24-hour shifts conducted by middle management employees who aren't compensated for the overtime. These sessions claim to be "voluntary"; however, in Japanese working culture, that is the circuitous way of telling the employee that they will single-handedly sabotage the success of the company if they don't participate in this unpaid extra routine performance.

Amid all this overtime and underpayment, is there ever an inkling to question why? It seems unlikely considering the lack of success the Japanese government has had on setting legal limits for overtime work. During the 1970's, overtime work became the norm and many salarymen weren't necessarily arguing for a much deserved paid vacation.

For recent college grads, the first few years at a company are crucial in solidifying a position as an employee. Thus, many new hires are thrusted into an abominable 60-hour/week base and take it upon themselves as duty to continue to do more, even without compensation. In the Japanese workplace, longer is better. And also more respectful. If management is seen leaving before lower level employees, they feel ashamed by their lack of responsibility and leadership. Similarly, the rest of the staff feel obliged to wait until management leaves so that they can be seen as diligent and hardworking.

However, if the job is done, can't all employees feel good about the 9+ hours they've already put into the day and go home knowing it was a job well done? Apparently not because as opposed to most western countries that follow a pattern of linear hierarchy in job roles, Japanese companies work as a hybrid and function more like a soccer team, kicking work back and forth across the field until finally reaching the goal. It seems counterintuitive to do so, yet only if the system itself is questioned, which it rarely is.

After the '70s, the prevalence of overtime work took such a toll on Japanese that a word for the excessively overworked was coined. Karoshi, or death from too much work, was spreading throughout companies in Japan and even today is still a significant problem.

This is not metaphorical speak. Several reports of Toyota engineers since 2006 have died from working over 80 hours of overtime each month. One chief engineer was pushing 114 hours of overtime per month with bi-monthly international travel. He was found dead of heart failure in his home the day before he was supposed to fly back to the US to launch a new line of Camrys. Toyota's reputation has been tarnished by reports of other employees literally dropping dead during work from immense fatigue and heart failure.

If the work itself wont kill Japanese, they will sadly take matters into their own hands. According to government figures released in June 2009, nearly 2,300 Japanese had committed suicide that year due to work-related issues of fatigue.

With labor laws as ambiguous as they were 40 years ago, its a shame that companies who pride themselves on such a team effort couldn't learn from the loss of players past. It is not in the nature of any human being to have to suffer through life. Regardless of how much you love your job, it's more important to love yourself.

A sentou experience

Sometimes it amazes me how easily I become infatuated with things. Usually, obsessions range from fat, furry animals to TV shows and whichever food I've chosen to be my favorite for the next few months. As humans are habit forming, we tend to enjoy what we know. And if what we know pleases us to no end, then why should there be an end at all?

My most recent infatuation has been in the vein of Japanese relaxation style. Sentous or public baths aren't the eerie American-style public baths you would never visit, but only hear stories about the married men who do, leading some sort of double life, frolicking to abandoned parks to partake in clandestine gay sex. Public baths in Japan are of a completely different nature, and one that represents a pinnacle of Japanese modern and ancient culture.


Each sentou features a variety of different whirlpool baths, some even include underwater electric currents that massage your body from the inside. It feels as if there is some source trying to suck out your organs, but if you just let go, it's relaxing.

There are outdoor pools, sauna and steam rooms as well as gambanyoku, a hot rock bed in which you lay on to soothe back aches. Most sentou come equipped with beer vending machines, which complete the ultimate relaxation in a 40C pool. Showers are aplenty as well as wrinkly naked women with untrimmed bush. It's rather amazing how long their hair can grow--like the whiskers of an old sensei.

In either case, sentous have enlivened my exercise regime as the relaxing finish to longer and longer runs. The sentou near Marine Pia, Taihenoyu, also boasts an excellent view of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and the Bay.

Ironical art of a new generation

The exterior of a museum is judged like a book's cover is to the story inside. It sets a tone to otherwise encompass the body of artwork within the museum's walls. In the recent move from Expo Park to Nakanoshima, The National Museum of Art in Osaka celebrated its centrality in this often overlooked, grungier little sister city to Tokyo. Kansai expats and natives alike respect the gritty nature of a city internationally untold, and profess bold attempts to culturally enliven areas of Osaka, in a particularly modern way.

Japanese society certainly adheres to its traditions of ancient form, and of course, use its rich identity of archaic culture to inspire a generation of modernity. The current exhibition at The National Museum of Art celebrates 28 different Japanese modern and contemporary artists who use figurative painting to express a seismic shift in Japanese contemporary art that sets these artists in a category liberated from the context of western art history.

With this coexisting juxtaposition between an ancient culture still so vibrant in today's time along with a reach for modernity that often struggles to step out from the shadows of western influence, Japanese contemporary artists are asserting an ironical attitude about Japanese life. From modern sources of inspiration such as manga, picture books and the overwhelming imagery seen in Japanese advertising and daily life, these artists have come together to purport an enlivened expression of Japan from unique perspectives and uncommon attitudes of art.

A few highlights from the show:

Kato Izumi Untitled

Embryo-like figures are the recurring image of Kato's paintings as well as sculptures. He calls upon a womb-like existence, or fundamental component of human nature. He often has the shape of the embryo image extend its limbs into some sort of stem or bud, representative of a close connection between humans and nature and the cyclical behavior of living beings. What's interesting about his style is he uses his fingers instead of a paintbrush, which only compliments the functionality he's trying to capture in the connectedness of human existence. He is as connected to his art as his own fingers are his tools for construction.

His use of color is deliberate and more vibrant hues are used to emphasize the head and sex organs, an attempt to explain that humans are both instinctive and intuitive. Through our own self-reflection, we may see ourselves as an extension of what we touch, much like Kato's connection to his own art.

O JUN OCHIRUCO

The title translates into "the foreigner" and shows the flesh tone as washed out as the background. In a sense of distorted reality being upside down, many foreigners feel turned around in Japanese society. Yet, the person depicted looks Japanese herself, and in traditional school uniform, so perhaps its attributing the alienation and often sterile environment many Japanese feel within their own society, especially those of the budding youth. Aside from this particular piece, O JUN has a highly sexualized style that is depicted ironically in these soft strokes of oil paint, almost melting back into the canvas, as if some secret of the human condition is revealed to an otherwise droid-like sexual environment. However, adhering to the theme of ironic transitions, this perversity of O JUN's art isn't expressed as overtly as a western painter where society is completely inclined to such imagery. O JUN trumps the normal values of a Japanese life and challenges its very existence. It could be that this secret of human sexuality isn't a secret after all and thus the irony ensues.

Aida Makoto Blender

The sheer enormity (290 x 210.5 cm) of this image, painted in acrylic is certainly important to the piece. Aida has the mind of an otaku who has been more than influenced by the vulgarity and rawness of manga and Japanese comics. With such a strong infusion of the absurd, it is again in an ironical light that he composes this painting with the design to look like a real photograph. Inside this oversized blender is hundreds of nude women bodies, contorted and writhing with confusion. Toward the bottom, the blade had the better of them, and many of their heads and limbs are shown slushing around in blood. It is a thoughtless concept--this kind of tortured woman, trapped in a life similar to her female counterparts and struggling to make it to the top. The symbolism may have been apparent, but the execution was jarring and of course evocative--kind of like a car crash, you can't help but stare.

Kusama Yayoi Girls

One of the more veteran artists featured in the collection, Kusama has been completely influenced by western art and earlier modern movements such as Art Brut, Pop art and abstract expressionism. Nonetheless, her biggest inspiration has been her own insanity. Now living in a mental ward under her own will, Kusama continues to paint in what seems to be a surrealist style fused with a hyperbolic sense of feminism. Her most prominent feature is polka dots, which she attributes to hallucinations she had as a young woman. She would often construct paintings and installations with ideas she conceived during these bouts of mental illness. In a true surrealist sense, Kusama toys with this idea of infinity, much like Dali and Miro. In these sinuous lines that extend up like flowers and then follow the shape of a female face, the image continues into infinity, much like the aforementioned pattern of polka dots. As the image of the woman in the painting extends into that of another woman and so on, she also begins to lose her sense of direction, which would mirror her inability to delineate between reality and fantasy.

Nara Yoshitomo The Little Judge

Nara is a playful artist who is in the forefront of the Japanese Pop art movement, which started in the 1990's. He has gained a cult following around the world for his demurely designed children and animals that are often paired with unusually aggressive objects such as knives or other weapons. With influence from the crass collision of manga, graffiti and punk rock, Nara's confident yet cartoonish drawings are a sign of the darkness within the light. In a similar vein of the Children of the Corn, these children possess a potential evil, but what's ironic about Nara's work is that his children aren't self inflicting this poisonous violence, they're merely trying to protect their innocence from the rest of the world's negative space.

As each artist extends themselves to the public, a new meaning of modern is unveiled. This dichotomy of old world versus new happened so long ago for western artists (think Impressionism) that there is no longer this grappling of transition. For Japanese contemporaries, there is a louder cry for unadulterated Japanese culture--the one we know today and the one the rest of the world has to visit Osaka to find out.