Japan: a moveable feast
Jul. 27th, 2007 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI'm being a bit of a homebody just now, writing my novel and watching recent Japanese movies downloaded by our neighbour Yoshito. Since a large part of me (no, not that part, clearly) is a Japanese woman -- or at least seems to react emotionally like one -- the film I've enjoyed the most is a real "women's picture": Kamome Diner (written by Yoko Mure and directed by Naoko Ogigami).
Set in Helsinki (but written by a Japanese woman who'd never been there), this quiet, warm and quirky film tells the story of Sachie, who notes some similarities between Finland and Japan (forests, saunas, soul) and sets up a diner there. At first no-one comes, and Sachie collects a motley band of Japanese ex-pats, who work for her despite the fact that the diner has only managed to attract one customer -- a Finnish Japan freak, a blond boy who arrives each day in a different Japanese-themed t-shirt, drinks coffee, and sits in the corner by the window, eavesdropping on the conversations of the staff and speaking to them proudly in Japanese.
"Ah, your shirt shows a geisha today!" exclaims the tactless new waitress. "Why don't you bring your friends? [Sotto voce:] Oh, you probably don't have any."
The emotional payoff came, for me, at the end. Sachie is swimming at the local pool. She's finally attracted some loyal customers (they love her onigiri) and her success is represented by a crowd of bathers suddenly applauding her and declaring "You've really succeeded with your diner, Sachie!" The non-realistic "affirmation moment" resembles the one at the end of the Train Man movie, when the neons of Shinjuku suddenly light up with messages of congratulation for the otaku-turned-human. It's a classic Japanese women's picture moment; a fanciful, sentimental, valorizing visualization of the individual's affirmation by the collectivity. Society approves, and that matters. For some reason, it's a moment I always find deeply moving. Somebody honest, kind, humble, constructive and determined got their efforts recognized, their talents rewarded. It doesn't happen much in Western films these days.
Sachie's diner reminded me of Smart Deli, our favourite Japanese cafe here in Berlin. Run by Yumi Son, Smart Deli is like a little cultural mission for Japan, with muted Japanese TV playing in the corner, Japanese pop music on the stereo, Japanese home cooking and a constant stream of Japanese customers. There's also usually a Japan otaku sitting there. Sometimes it's me.
Yesterday Hisae and I were delighted to find that they've started getting Japanese magazines like Tune and So-En at Smart Deli. Yumi's husband works in Dusseldorf,
(known as Little Tokyo on the Rhine) where they actually have Japanese bookstores and video stores. So we order tapes of Japanese TV, and get them delivered from Dusseldorf. Yesterday Yumi asked us to recommend magazines she could leave lying around the cafe for customers to read, and we gave her a wish list of our top 20.
But it was already pretty exciting to see Tune and a new magazine (beautiful photos!) about tuna, or fashion mag So-En. The picture on the right is from So-En. It's someone called Kinichi Ogata, who runs an interiors shop in Sendai. I like to dream that I live in his forest house. That's what magazines are for, right -- dreaming?
They're also for identifying trends, no matter how small or silly. A flick through Tune suggests that the thing to do this season is wear dungarees with the chest panel hanging down, either just on one side or all the way down, from the waist, so it looks like a skirt.
[Error: unknown template video]
I love how you can assemble Japan anywhere. It's a moveable feast. No matter where you are in the world, you can organize a matsuri -- we're running a little stall outside Smart Deli on August 12th, starting at midday, for example. And if I sound like the Finnish Japan freak in the Kamome Diner now, that's because I basically am him. That's me in the corner.
Set in Helsinki (but written by a Japanese woman who'd never been there), this quiet, warm and quirky film tells the story of Sachie, who notes some similarities between Finland and Japan (forests, saunas, soul) and sets up a diner there. At first no-one comes, and Sachie collects a motley band of Japanese ex-pats, who work for her despite the fact that the diner has only managed to attract one customer -- a Finnish Japan freak, a blond boy who arrives each day in a different Japanese-themed t-shirt, drinks coffee, and sits in the corner by the window, eavesdropping on the conversations of the staff and speaking to them proudly in Japanese.
"Ah, your shirt shows a geisha today!" exclaims the tactless new waitress. "Why don't you bring your friends? [Sotto voce:] Oh, you probably don't have any."
The emotional payoff came, for me, at the end. Sachie is swimming at the local pool. She's finally attracted some loyal customers (they love her onigiri) and her success is represented by a crowd of bathers suddenly applauding her and declaring "You've really succeeded with your diner, Sachie!" The non-realistic "affirmation moment" resembles the one at the end of the Train Man movie, when the neons of Shinjuku suddenly light up with messages of congratulation for the otaku-turned-human. It's a classic Japanese women's picture moment; a fanciful, sentimental, valorizing visualization of the individual's affirmation by the collectivity. Society approves, and that matters. For some reason, it's a moment I always find deeply moving. Somebody honest, kind, humble, constructive and determined got their efforts recognized, their talents rewarded. It doesn't happen much in Western films these days. Sachie's diner reminded me of Smart Deli, our favourite Japanese cafe here in Berlin. Run by Yumi Son, Smart Deli is like a little cultural mission for Japan, with muted Japanese TV playing in the corner, Japanese pop music on the stereo, Japanese home cooking and a constant stream of Japanese customers. There's also usually a Japan otaku sitting there. Sometimes it's me.
Yesterday Hisae and I were delighted to find that they've started getting Japanese magazines like Tune and So-En at Smart Deli. Yumi's husband works in Dusseldorf,
(known as Little Tokyo on the Rhine) where they actually have Japanese bookstores and video stores. So we order tapes of Japanese TV, and get them delivered from Dusseldorf. Yesterday Yumi asked us to recommend magazines she could leave lying around the cafe for customers to read, and we gave her a wish list of our top 20.But it was already pretty exciting to see Tune and a new magazine (beautiful photos!) about tuna, or fashion mag So-En. The picture on the right is from So-En. It's someone called Kinichi Ogata, who runs an interiors shop in Sendai. I like to dream that I live in his forest house. That's what magazines are for, right -- dreaming?
They're also for identifying trends, no matter how small or silly. A flick through Tune suggests that the thing to do this season is wear dungarees with the chest panel hanging down, either just on one side or all the way down, from the waist, so it looks like a skirt.
[Error: unknown template video]
I love how you can assemble Japan anywhere. It's a moveable feast. No matter where you are in the world, you can organize a matsuri -- we're running a little stall outside Smart Deli on August 12th, starting at midday, for example. And if I sound like the Finnish Japan freak in the Kamome Diner now, that's because I basically am him. That's me in the corner.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 01:07 pm (UTC)Japanese TV is hit or miss in my experience, there's no middle ground. It's either utterly brilliant or appaulingly bad.
I think one of the best comedies to come out of Japan in recent years is "OH! Mikey". Instead of actors they use storefront dummies from the 50's. It's hilerious and utterly bizarre.
Also, when you were recommending magazines I hope you recommended Cyzo...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 01:51 pm (UTC)In fact, I blogged about Oh! Mikey (http://imomus.livejournal.com/215601.html) last year at the height of the Momus-Marxy flame wars. Marxy had been claiming that the Japanese were incapable of self-conscious postmodernism or something.
I have to say that my book is a lot closer to Oh! Mikey than it is to Kamome Jyuduku or Densha Otoko. It'll make people laugh rather than cry.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 02:42 pm (UTC)"In fact, I blogged about Oh! Mikey last year"
*HIGH FIVE*
Do you think "Japanese Postmodern" is the same as (Western) postmodern? Zen Buddhism encapsulates a lot of post-modern principles that reject the imposed unities of meta-narratives, yet Zen buddhism has been a central part of Japanese culture for hundreds and hundreds of years now... I think I'm a bit out of my depth with that one.
Also, ALSO, because I'm a horrible pedant, I need to point out I misread the kanji 食堂 as jyukudou, it should be jyokudou
相済みません OTL
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 02:55 pm (UTC)I think Japan's postmodernism has been easily embraced because Japan is already positioned at an "ironic" distance from other cultures. If pomo is all about second degree, second take and so on, Japan's very "secondariness" (marginal, but with strong, fast links to the hub) makes it a culture which is "naturally" postmodern.
But, you know, you could write books (that nobody would read) about this...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 12:48 am (UTC)FUCK YOU JAPAN AND YOUR STUPID MULTIPLE READINGS FOR THE SAME GODDAMN KANJI.
I'm going back to using my kanji dictionary. I knew it was one of the ょ's...
*sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 01:23 am (UTC)The most unforgiving character out there is 生 which reportedly has like 20 readings.
食 is not bad. It's usually just "ta-beru," "shoku," and "ku-u."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-29 04:11 pm (UTC)Sorry, just thought I'd be a smart-ass while I'm here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 01:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 02:44 am (UTC)was Asada showing off how cool japan is or implying that power is more difficult to challenge precisely because it shows it's mechanism and carries its own undoing?
weren't Derrida's last efforts about showing deconstruction to be embedded in ancient chinese thought and stuff ?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-30 08:03 am (UTC)The flap-down garments are called overalls, or in some rural American parts - overhauls. Similar garments with sleeves are coveralls.
ciao
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 01:45 pm (UTC): )
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 08:58 pm (UTC)assembles you(me), too.
i really want to see this diner film now.
(speaking of movies, we watched oshima's
cruel story of youth the other night--the japanese
rebel without a cause, as it's sometimes called).
a couple of small points on pomo:
i'm thinking pomo doesn't "embrace" cultures
as much as it "manifests" itself from within them
(at different times, since all cultures are on different
trajectories, at different points on different spectrums)
also, i was thinking maybe islamism is also pomo
because it's harkening back to a pre-modernist
expression? shades of lyotard's idea that the post-
is somehow pre-... islam is a tricky one, but never-
theless extremely important and interesting...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:05 pm (UTC)Maybe you could try tracking down one of the instruments and trying it out. It could be new inspiration, you never know!
(http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:07 pm (UTC)First link (http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/)
Second link (http://community.livejournal.com/momus_lolz/4659.html)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:29 pm (UTC)Second link -- wow! Hats off! And everything else too!
I think I have no reason not to friend momus_lolz now...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:36 pm (UTC)All for you, Momus! It shows just how much I love you. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 11:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 10:34 pm (UTC)That film sounds lovely. I fall for that sentimentality every time! When I see those Japanese dramas, and the sentimental music comes in, and the town salutes the dude, and he feels this overwhelming emotion, and the "sarariiman-damashii" kicks in or something, and everyone is happy and proud for the main character.......I get all teary-eyed.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-27 11:29 pm (UTC)And I've not downloaded these movies.
Sorry, it's secret, from where it comes :)
---Yoshito
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 03:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-28 07:59 am (UTC)What I especially dislike about far too many Western films is that nearly everything important that happens is the result of an accident or mistake.
On the topic of Japan freaks…
Date: 2007-07-28 12:07 pm (UTC)Don’t you see the West selectively importing Japanese culture as a kind of alternative to Americanism? (I guess in the same way Japan selectively chooses what Americanism it imports)
I mean my HMV has an Anime section the same size as its foreign film section, and the only Japanese films are basically live action anime: Miike Takashi, Casshern, Versus and the like. But nobody knows about NOobody Knows. Just Google Otaku and you will find many Western people claiming to be one, predominantly not knowing that it is an insult. The existence of the terms Wapanese and Yellow Fever.
There is probably a notable increase in websites such as Jbox offering Japanese products. I have never known for a Chinese (other than their famous epics), Korean or Thai films to be shown on terrestrial T.V. But Spirited Away, both Battle Royale’s and Dead or Alive have been shown.
I worry that like the dilution of alternative idealism, the principle of supply and demand will reduce Japan to little more than a controlled consumer product. Monoculture trying to monopolise by allowing people to think, by choosing Japanese culture, they are free thinking.
Maybe I am just being over dramatic
incredible!
Date: 2007-07-29 07:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-31 12:24 am (UTC)I admit to being a periodic reader of "Click Opera", and I certainly have never felt I'd had more to offer of much worth to the entries, nor the sometimes dozens of comments and comments-to-comments that come in as responses. But I felt, this time, I owed it to actor-writer Yoko Mure and her director husband Naoko Ogigami, and to Momus for also enjoying the film and writing about it, to admit (proclaim?) that this gentle, quiet movie is one of the highlights of my stay in Japan. Chotto hazukashi ne. This may be a little embarrassing. But we liked Kamome so much, we even found at the Tsutaya rental shop a DVD with some episodes of "Yappari Neko ga Suki", the three-sisters-living-in-one-Tokyo-apartment sit-com from some ten years ago that features two of the three actors in Kamome Shokudo.
And as I've entered myself into this conversation anyways, and even if this is merely a forgotten comment at the bottom of a lengthy scroll in a page that is no longer current, it seems worth reflecting that an unassuming film made for bored Japanese housewives and shot to look like an issue of everyone's favourite simple-life-in-Japan magazine Kunel, can lead to a conversation that touches on: kanji trickery; Japan's pomo-ness, either inherent or adapted; and a "that's-me-in-the-corner" confessional for embarrassed (or not) Japanophiles. There's even an interesting suggestion that the new palatable alternative in the Western mainstream is composed of lifted bits from Japan. Hrm.
So, thanks for the forum. It's great. Perhaps I shouldn't be merely periodic in my visits. Thanks to an anonymous contributor, the next time I'm at Tsutaya, it'll be Kiraware Matsuko no Issho that I next seek. Good luck to you and Hisae with the Smart Deli masturi in August. I'm sure we're all expecting a report.
--Colin
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-31 02:59 am (UTC)