Dechets de boulangerie

[imomus]

I'm back in Berlin now, but here's a photo of the patisserie party we had at Kumi Konki's place in Paris on Sunday. Apart from being one third of the brilliant Konki Duet (I know, the math is crazy), Kumi works in a bakery, and at the end of the day there are always unsold cakes to take home. So we assembled to eat them, along with coconut cakes from the Vietnamese bakeries of the 13th arrondissement. From left to right you see Miltos Manetas, Florence Manlik, Jessica, Hisae, cat, Momus, Johann, Miltos' friend (didn't catch her name), Mai Ueda, Mehdi Hercberg, Khanh-Linh La, Kumi Okamoto. Click the picture for a bigger version.



Mehdi runs Shobo Shobo, and Khahn-Linh has documented the eight events they've so far staged in her pictures. If you're in Paris tonight, check out Shobo Shobo 9 at the Glassbox Gallery (13 bis, rue Oberkampf 75011, Métro Parmentier / Ménilmontant, starts 20.30, free) featuring the wonderful Lullatone. I wish I were there myself.

I might not be at the Lullatone show, but I am on Neomarxisme. Marxy is doing Golden Week interviews, and it's my turn today. Explaining why I hadn't been contributing recently to his blog debates, I told Marxy that the recent China-Japan tensions had changed the context of the debates we were having. He came back with "I'm interested in what you mean by that," so I expanded:

Momus: There were points of similarity between what you were saying about Japan and what the Chinese were saying. For instance, you've spoken about the history book issue and so did they. And neither you nor the Chinese looked at your own national records: the Chinese completely fail to mention major famines under Mao in their history books, for instance, that killed millions. And you would never mention the current efforts of the religious right in the US to get biology textbooks rewritten so that "intelligent design" is presented on an equal footing with evolution. So I just began to feel that the whole thing was really distasteful.

Marxy: I think you're right about this, and the more I read and watched, the more it was clear that the Chinese claims are totally hypocritical. (In the past, democratic South Korea has been the ones leading the attack against the textbooks.) That being said, the LDP (or at least, its more right-wing side) was really bad at PR and kept saying things like "Japanese textbooks must support the government line!" The most interesting thing is that Japan went out and apologized very quickly: no one apparently, certainly not the US, can say no to China's market.

Momus: Japan gets beaten up for doing things that everyone else does, and worse.

Marxy: Sure, I agree. But the opposition voices in Japan are so muted that it's hard to get the sense that the Japanese are debating it themselves. I think you know and I know and everyone knows that at least half of Americans wanted Bush out of office, but it's definitely harder to get a sense on the Japanese public's views. I think they're mostly against all this LDP neo-nationalism, but we don't get to hear much in the way of domestic complaints.

Momus: Anyway, I'm glad to see you're taking a slightly different tack these days. And Duckworth seems to have gone full time into charity work.

Marxy: I never aim to be ethnocentric, misleading, chauvinistic, etc. and I've always appreciated you putting me back in line when my outrage overreaches itself.

Isn't he sweet?

If you're in a reading mood -- and, like me, love public transport and its history -- there's a great piece in the new London Review of Books by James Meek. It's about the history of the London underground and it's called Crocodile's Breath. Oh, and if you're in an interview-reading mood there's an interesting interview with The Super Madrigal Brothers here. John Talaga does a word association test and, in response to "Momus", blurts out "Dad!" Hush, John, we don't want everyone to know!

Comments

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

I read your interview on neomarxisme and I was struck by the apparent contradiction between your ostensible aversion towards China in the interview and the fact that you expressed sometime in the past that you were interested in living in China in the future.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think that was probably before I went to China! I mean, it's not an aversion. I liked Macau (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/2004/09/08/), for instance. But I felt some similarity between Hong Kong and Moscow, in that they both seemed to me like places where there's a kind of turbo-capitalism that impacts negatively on people's lives. Money accumulates and defines everything, but quality of life and relations between people are in poor condition. I mean things like Moscow's street crime, or the way people bump into you on the street in Hong Kong. Now, you may say "But what about all the money in Japan?!" But somehow, for me, Japan is not a place that's fundamentally about money, or politics, or anything like that. I see it as a place dominated by aesthetics, sex, strange obsessions, etc.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

Isn't Hong Kong a fairly advanced and rich nation with a high quality of living?

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

when is it that you went to china?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Last September, Quimby.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I should have noted that from your Macau piece. I know a girl from Macau who lives in my hall.

[inparticolare.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that most Asian localities you enjoy were either former colonies or occupied by Western powers who have, in various ways, shaped the governments, cultures, and economies. Are you really into Eastern culture, or just Westernified Eastern culture?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, that's an interesting observation, but I reject the implication that there is such a thing as an essence of Eastern culture which somehow stands outside of the history of the East, timeless and pure. Contacts with other societies are part of the identity, the cultural DNA, of every society. How to disentangle Japan from the West, how to disentangle it from China or Korea? Is there a pure essence of individuals too, separate from their interactions with other people?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But having said that, how a society negotiates its relationship with dominant cultures is very important. Its ex-colonial feel is undoubtedly the reason I didn't feel comfortable in Hong Kong. But Japan has a genius of passive aggression when it comes to incorporating Western memes, stripping out, for instance, all metaphysics, or turning English words into Japanese ones.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

Isn't the stripping away of essence a purely postmodern practice? And isn't postmodernism originally a Western concept?
Or is it the product of a new globalist trend as opposed to the perceived cultural consumerist imperialism of the West towards the East?

Re: PM

[(Anonymous)]

"Postmodernism" is a Western concept describing a social condition that can happen anywhere from changes to a post-Fordist re-accumulation of labor/capital and expansion of media technology.

[inparticolare.livejournal.com]

Then how can you at one point be so enthusiastic about Japanese society, culture, and economy and in the next instant lambast the West? Perhaps it would be good to acknowledge both the negative Western aspects as well as the positive Eastern ones instead of engaging in a constant praise of Japan. Still, even this begs the question: what of other Asian societies that have less contact with the West? Why is their role in your worldview so much more obscure? Perhaps what you really enjoy about the East is what the West, that you hate, has done to it.

Just a thought. I don't mean to attack (though I often come off that way).

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

There may not be such a thing as an entirely pure culture per se, but there are historical, cultural, and social definitions for any particular culture. Japan definitely had an ancient culture of its own, but whether the its culture today is Japanese or Westernized is much harder to say from an outside or even inside perspective.

Towards the contrary ...

[(Anonymous)]

If Japan is a place dominated by aesthetics then why is it so ugly?

[georgesdelatour.livejournal.com]

Japan's war-time record in Manchuria was appalling. But when the BBC mentioned the protests in China, it just left us to assume these were spontaneous expressions of popular feeling, like anti-Iraq War protests in the UK. But given the political system in China, they must have been government-organized.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

They were government sanctioned, but organized by grassroots organizations in China. It was on the BBC; the BBC was also excellent in providing background history on this issue so as not to portray it as a random event. Now, CNN did that for sure.

[georgesdelatour.livejournal.com]

How do you judge if a so-called "grassroots" organization really is grassroots in that kind of society, when they're only permitted at all so long as they agree 100% with the opinions of their rulers?

If I was Chinese I'd probably want to protest against the Japanese textbooks. But I'd know that if the political winds changed direction, if my government suddenly switched over to some new strategic alliance with Japan, they'd turn around and put me in prison. So I'd only dare to join a protest once I knew the government was behind it.

The Tianenmen students, Falun Gong and the Tibetan nationalists, these are true "grassroots" groups, who say things the Chinese government doesn't want to hear, and are prepared to face incredible persecution as a consequence.

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Apart from being one third of the brilliant Konki Duet (I know, the math is crazy)

The math is so 1977, is what it is (ref. Thompson Twins).

[darksomnabule.livejournal.com]

the debate with marxy reminds me of a common american idea, the "two wrongs make a right" school of pop-history. are the chinese hypocrites? of course! does that mean japan should get a pass on this book issue? fuck no! apologies for japan in this matter are as immoral as apologies for china in so many others. shuttling the past away is not acceptable--just ask a survivor of hiroshima about their experiences in japan after ww2. i know you mean well, and it's important to debate these things. but i think we need to abolish this notion that it's somehow acceptable for japan (or any other country) to shirk off responsibility for a wrong because the accuser has also been wrong/evil/fucked/whatever you want to call it.

Well, said.

[(Anonymous)]

I basically agree.

Marxy

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

This is not particularly related to the post, except in that it touches upon international relations, but, I just wanted to ask if you're familiar with Okakura Tenshin? Someone gave me a book by him for my birthday. I have started reading it and I think it's quite marvellous. It was written in 1906 in English - though Tenshin is, of course, Japanese - and deals with the history and culture of tea. It is, in fact, called The Book of Tea.

I seem to have a thing about tea, anyway (perhaps it was karma, but the second time I went to Japan, I lived in Uji, which is held by many to be the green tea capital of the world), but reading this has made me conscious of exactly why I like tea so much.

A choice paragraph:

"Strangely enough humanity has so far met in the tea-cup. It is the only Asiatic ceremonial that commands universal esteem. The white man has scoffed at our religion and our morals, but has accepted the brown beverage without hesitation. The afternoon tea is now an important function in Western society. In the delicate clatter of trays and saucers, in the soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in the common catechism about cream and sugar, we know that the Worship of Tea is established beyond question. The philosophic resignation of the guest to the fate awaiting him in the dubious decoction proclaims that in this single instance the Oriental spirit reigns supreme."

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

Sorry if you know this already, but one of the intriguing aspects of Okakura is that he was far more comfortable writing in English than in Japanese. He was taught at one of mission schools in Yokohama set up by James Hepburn (the romaniser) and the story is that when he visited Tokyo one day, his father who was shocked to discover that his son couldn't read any of the characters. Okakura was sent to live in a temple in Kanagawa, but still spent half his day at the mission school.

There's an intriguing article by Christine Guth (http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/positions/v008/8.3guth.html&session=74816590) that compares Okakura with Longfellow as "cultural cross-dressers" [Looks like it's developed into a book (http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/GUTLOC.html)]. Indeed, Okakura had a very distinct style of dress that borrowed freely from other Asian countries and there are photos of him in Indian costume, Daoist robes, as a rustic fisherman and so forth. When he set up Tokyo Art School (Tokyo Bijustsu Gakko), students wore a uniform based on styles from the Nara period.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's fascinating. Tenshin (Okakura?) is still a very new discovery for me, so I wasn't aware of that information. He sounds like he was as colorful in real life as his prose suggests. I'm only on the third chapter, but I think The Book of Tea is going to be a favourite for me.

Interesting that he was a pupil at one of Hepburn's schools. I don't think he uses the Hepburn system in The Book of Tea. Or maybe he uses a mixture.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

Strange, I wasn't aware that two wrongs made a right. Or that usually if they do, the rule holds across the board for both parties.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that impression from the interview so much as that it's important to keep track of which pots are calling which kettles black.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

But in the end, they're both black. And is that any excuse?

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Nope. It just goes to show that justice is only a hand maiden of self-interest.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think this reveals a divide between those who believe there are only interpretations (self-interested, vested) and those who think there are objective international standards of "right and wrong". The relativists versus the absolutists again, in other words. The relativists are saying "Don't "reveal" the vested interpretation of history of one nation without "revealing" the others. That isn't fair, and anyway, it isn't much of a revelation that we all spin history." This position cannot be equated with "two wrongs make a right" because, for the relativist, there is no wrong and right, there's only a battle of interpretations, and each interpretation is inevitably skewed and situated. You know, we take that for granted when reading history books or any other kind of account, so to point it out, and to do so selectively, is not very helpful, and, what's more, is often a pretext for the "acceptable" expression of aggression. In this case, Chinese aggression at Japan's likely accession to permanent UN Security Council membership.

Meme me...or is it me, me, me?

[theopsys.livejournal.com]

I've been living vicariously through your blog for about a year now, so I figured it was about time I hopped on the meme bandwagon.

The allure of Japan is most certainly in the 'way of being' that you described to Marxy. The first time I visited, it was for a mere two and a half weeks, but the feeling I was left with will last indefinitely. It's so much more than 'peacefulness,' which is the understatement I often use when explaining my love affair with Japan. There is truly an intangible element hovering in the air that, when breathed, just feels 'right.' My greatest lingering fear is that some unforeseen socio-political catastrophe will someday shatter this delicate cultural organism.

It's nice to know there's a little subculture of Japanophiles out there who appreciate and understand the society beyond what it's been pathetically reduced to here in America: manga and sushi.

Also, I want to thank you belatedly for your eloquent post-Bush-re-election rant about expatriation. How anyone could fathom overturning The World's Greatest Neo-Conservative Oligarchy with anything short of an all-out revolution (God knows, it's not the liberals who own all the guns here) is beyond me. As much as I'd like to be the one to get the ball of progressive politics rolling, it seems more and more apparent to me that a nation incapable of self-reflection is a nation immune to self-help. Global peer pressure is, I believe, the only realistic antidote at this point. That said, mass expatriation might prove to be the sit-in of the twenty-first century. But that might be the biggest pipe dream of all.

Keep up the good work.