Gaijinphoto Magazine

Time to Share Some Photos

I have been out and about and shooting a lot, but like many others, the season's obligations occupied me so I have been less than diligent posting. A lot has been going on in Japan, with the arriving and passing of the spectacular autumn colors and the arriving and passing of the New Year's Celebrations. As usual there is a lot to shoot, and I tried to take every opportunity to get out there. 

 

For the first time I was able to stop by a local shrine in Tachikawa, that I have passed by for years, but never photographed. I was lucky enough to get there on the day after New Year during great weather to catch locals coming by and paying respects to their ancestors, many of whom are enshrined out back. During these visits people ring the shrine bell and lay flowers at and clean the area where their family remains are commemorated. I try to be reverent shooting in shrines and temples, part of that is shooting with small, quiet cameras.

 

While I was walking the grounds, I came across this little fellow who I think is a statue of a shrine priest who is in the next world now, but evidently while in this one, he liked to play with cameras. I think we would have gotten along well. It also reminded me, that although I am careful while taking photos in Japan, photography is engrained in the culture, as far back as the late 19th century. The Japanese have long sought to document daily life in pictures, I think more so than any other culture. This can be seen in the Ukiyoe woodblock prints that captured so much of popular and historical life in Japan. When the camera came along it was quickly accepted as providing a way of capturing the same moments without the need of experienced artisans and a team of printers, ink makers etc. to put it all together. The steroetype of the Japanese person carrying around a camera taking photos of everything is more truth than stereotype and it is why many of the best photographers and cameras in the world come from Japan.

 

So in that spirit I attempted to ramble around Tokyo (much like this article) to see and document the little moments that make me love this country. It is an oft-worn cliche, that I always challenge, to say that this is a country where tradition and modernity co-exist side-by-side in harmony. Any time I see that written, and it is in every travel piece ever written about Japan, I instantly think, "this person does not 'get' Japan." Japan is more a place, like most others on the planet, where modernity has done its best to sand blast history and tradition out of existence. They only endure by accident, or because some caring (and usually crazy), committed soul spends his/ her life trying to save it. They usually make movies about those moments, but the average Japanese has no more regard for their own history than a strip-mall developer has for a civil war battlefield in the States. We have that in common.

 

Tokyo in particular is a place where the places and moments worth preserving are mainly the domain of the photographer. Those who have never been to Japan would be far from the mark to imagine Japan as a place where all views contain Mount Fuji, a Shinto Shrine, a Maiko in a Kimono puring a cup full of the finest sake made, all from within a Japanese garden. But what makes the place enchanting, and a home for many an expat, is that there is a slight chance that one will come across all of that, at least once while here - and when one does, they seem to foget all of the hustle and bustle, crowds and ass-pain it took to experience it. 

 

It is the notion that while I content myself with shooting the tops of taxis when the lights go down, I can, when I really want, get on a train, go 30 minutes from my house, and walk around a shrine where there is not a single human soul - and shoot to my heart's content. I suppose that is what keeps me here so long. 

My Tokyo

Expect the unexpected in this city. Be ready for it, prepare, do not let it sneek up on you or go unoticed. 

 

This city pulses like none I've ever seen. The more I know of it the more I am mystified. 

 

Everyone rushes, everyone crushes, everyone is caught up in the maelstrom, knocked about together, always swimming alone, against the tide.

 

In my Tokyo, I see everything and try to shoot it. Every shot has been shot before - there is nothing new, except for everything, and that makes me see what others miss, and me miss what others see.

 

My Tokyo has a lifetime of mysteries for me to see, but I have to see them to realize they are there.

 

And that is what makes me look where other don't.

That Time of Year Again

I am happy to be child from New England when this time of year rolls around.

A Little Time in Kyoto

Temple girls behind the shroud at Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto

As much as I think that I go to Kyoto regularly, I was shocked to realize that I had not been there for at least 10 years. So it was a no-brainer to take the family down on the Shinkansen for a few days to see the beautiful sights, eat some great food, and soak in the charms of one of my favorite places.

Always a great street shot waiting in Kyoto.

More practice for the temple girls.

The Urban

The Urban is a place that comes alive at night. It pops and crackles as the neon flickers to life, as people come and go, going about their business with some reason not apparent to the naked eye. It is a brightly lit ant farm, full of chatter and smoke, meat and gristle, the smell of one too many beers, breath condensed on windows.

In the Urban, Katakana tells me "standard burger with rice 620 yen," "Mexican burger with rice 660 yen." I bet both are good. The words frame the woman inside. I shoot; luckily no one in the Urban is hit.

The Urban is a lonely place - samishi, the Japanese would say. The throngs move about, crammed together in perfect isolation - from one another. Language does not separate people from people; in the Urban, people do. A million brains think a billion thoughts. Eight of them are: "Must get to work," "must get home," "what will I eat tonight?" - "Man I don't feel like cooking." "Maybe I'll go out, get a Mexican burger with rice. I know a place where it is only 660 yen." "Maybe there is time for...

just one drink...I promise."

"Or two...I promise."

"I'll even grab you a little something on the way home from the Urban."

In the Urban, a taxi is always just right around the corner. And the driver sits alone, reading, waiting for you. As least someone is; in the Urban.

Our Favorite Flower

As always, once we get into March, I begin to anticipate the coming of the cherry blossom (sakura). The best laid plans were made for a little vacation to Kyoto and the favorite spots around Tokyo for catching and snapping the epic splendor of our favorite flower. What we did not anticipate, as all contended people never do, was an outside force that would affect our lives along with the lives of millions of people around the globe.

Travel photography is my stock and trade. Photojournalism is not. So when I found myself amidst the devastation visited upon Iwate Prefecture by the Great Eastern Japan Quake of March 11th 2011, rather than being around the fading of the plum blossoms as an intro to the cherry blossoms, as is my tradition, as it is for so many Japanese, I, like they, was at a loss for what to think and feel.

It is perhaps and over-used cliche to regard the sakura as representing new beginnings. But this year that was given new meaning as those who survived the ravages of the tsunami turned to this little flower as a symbol of their survival, of their struggles, of their nation, of their hopes.

Those of us working long hours to try to bring a slight measure of relief to our Japanese family, were consumed with the task at hand, too focussed on the present to contemplate the future. It was the normal ground-hog day of military operations that push the simple pleasures of life aside as if doing so had some purpose - brought us closer to those who really felt the brunt of the disaster. 

But amidst all of the recent pain and suffering, and death and concern over the future of our Japan, something amazing happened. The flowers came anyway. Despite calls from the governor of Tokyo, who advised against flower viewing as a sign of respect to the people of Tohoku - the flowers arrived. And they were seen. And deep inside we kept a little secret to ourselves - that we were glad they came, that we were glad they woke us from our somnambulist shuffle - and even dared think that, even though the people of Tohoku were still suffering, that we could take a moment to notice the sakura and be thankful for them. And then the people of Tohoku told us themselves that it was OK for us to celebrate the sakura if we wanted to and that we should buy their sake and other products in doing so, so that we could do something tangible to help them heal...and to heal ourselves in the process.

So we did do just that, not the way we normally do, but in a way that has us hoping that the rest of the year is going to be better than its first few months. And some of us might even be so bold to think that next time the sakura bloom, it will be a time when the Japanese can reflect how far they have come since the last time they got ready to take time out spend time with our favorite flower.

Words do not come easily at moments like these. As I looked upon the ruins of what once was Rikuzen Takada in Iwate Prefecture, I thought of the words of the Japanese poet Basho, who referring to another era in Japanese history wrote, 

                    The whole country devastated

                    only mountains and rivers remain.

                    In springtime, at the ruined castle, 

                    the grass is always green.

We went to Iwate to see the devastation first hand, with representatives from the UN, World Food Program and USAID, and to see what else needed to be done to alleviate the suffering of the local population. We sat at a simple table, amongst stacked relief supplies and my mind wandered as I had a, "what the hell am I doing in this dream," moment, reading in Japanese the word "braziers" on one of the relief supply boxes. I suppose that is when I realized that the local people I was sitting with had lost everything in the maelstrom. 

I have seen documentaries of great human tragedies, the holocaust, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the rape of Nanking, but I had never witnessed the wake of one of a scale that exceeds those, if not in numbers of dead and missing certainly in physical devastation. The human mind does not have answers for such things; certainly not the modern American mind that finds itself obsessed with the mundane, the trivial, that sweats the small stuff until momentarily jolted by reality like when the kids have to go to the hospital. 

But what does one do when one loses everything? All of their possessions, their pets, their family, their memories, their dignity. How does one begin to contemplate the idea of a hospital full of patients, many of them elderly and bed ridden, lying in their beds as the great wave rushes towards them, while doctors and nurses frantically try to move them to the fourth floor, but the power is out so the elevators don't work, then the wave hits taking out three floors of patients, doctors, nurses, visitors, leaving only 15 or 16 people alive, out of hundreds, to make it to the roof and begin their new life, doomed to have this recurring nightmare until they die.

We think in terms of absolutes, that is the human way. And most of us live in that black and white world, missing the very important, subtle hues that make life worth living as well as giving us the respect for life that only horrific events stimulate the perception of.

As I looked at the relief effort from my distant perch, I thought in terms of those killed, those who survived, those evacuated, those fed, those clothed, those in shelters - until I could comfort myself that the numbers of those being "helped" was sufficient to set my one-dimensional mind at ease. But up close and personal to the issue, perspectives are drastically different, visceral, razor sharp and discomforting. 

I never imagined that in the ruins of something like this, normal human, and particularly Japanese psychology would take hold and dictate their foul, heartbreaking terms. Like the people whose houses survived, sitting at home without power, perhaps missing a relative, or two, or three, hungry and cold - as Iwate has a harsh winter climate - too ashamed to go to a shelter to get food, for fear of incurring the scorn of those living in the shelter who had lost everything. A post-apocolyptic paradigm fit for MAD MAX, but not for modern, comfortable Japan. 

There are those who deal in this currency more than I. True riverboat gamblers of tragedy and mercy. To those men and women I tip my hat. This is not my stock and trade. In some weird way I am more comfortable planning to kill people than I am trying to save them, and in the process of trying to help a small amount of them have arrived at more questions than if I were trying to destroy them, in the name of my country of all things. I would have to say that this has shaken me to a degree I did not anticipate. Then I think, "who am I to claim to be shaken?" Any man that is able to walk away from a tragedy and be unaffected by its ravages is by definition not a victim of it. But the human animal is a weird animal, and the curse of consciousness afflicts our lucidity, throwing us off course, making us turn in on ourselves in solemn contemplation. Some people turn to religion to explain it. I choose to think of it as inexplicable, because I judge myself unable to add reason to it, and unable to trust the judgement of my fellow man who knows no better.

Then when we seem at our darkest moment, a stranger offers a simple kindness that is so profound, it shakes us back to our senses as if it were a tsunami of the soul. At the end of my visit to Rikuzen Takada, a once-beautiful town, I was offered by their ever-beautiful, enduring people, a gift of their local sweets - literally from the hands of people who had lost everything. Despite my protestations that I could not, in the circumstances, accept any such thing from a folk so aggrieved, they told me that these sweets were the one thing they had plenty of and were a specialty of their town that they were eager to show off. So I relented and accepted. And as we drove away in our car and I contemplated the sweet clutched in my hand, I decided it was right that I should eat it. So I did. I have never eaten anything so delicious.

Image of the Week

The Ume (plum blossoms) are back in Ome, Western Tokyo.

I can Feel Spring in the Air

Plum blossoms (ume), make an early appearance at Yushima Tenjin.

A fantastic book that I have had for years and occasionally take down from the shelf is Jean Pearce's Footloose in Tokyo, which is an homage to the main Japan Rail line that forms a ring around the city center, the Yamanote-sen. One who does not know Tokyo well, and even the most serious aficionado of this megalopolis could find out a lot about the city just by ruffling its pages and traveling to some of the places highlighted in the book. A little dated, it still lays out some great adventures, history, and itineraries for the Tokyo traveller.

Tokyo has mild winters, and about mid-February, some blossoms of one flower or another begin to reveal themselves after the long slumber since the previous spring. My favorite is the first harbinger of spring, the plum blossom, or ume 梅 in Japanese. The Japanese people hold these flowers in high regard, but they play second citizen to the vaunted cherry blossom or sakura 桜. The venerable sakura is celebrated in song and verse and is a metaphor for the temporal existence of life in full blossom. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Chushingura tale, or as we know it in the West, the Tale of the 47 Ronin, where our hero Lord Asano is forced to take his own life by performing ritual suicide (seppuku), as cherry blossoms fall from the trees around his blood-stained body. Beyond the famous legends of the samurai, the sakura is the basis of what could probably be best described as a cult, as the Japanese try to predict and time their annual cherry-blossom viewing, hanami 花見. 

Those of us in Western Tokyo are blessed to have the best of both worlds as the ume reigns supreme in late February to mid-March, whetting our appetites for the coming of sakura. Not far from where we live is the town of Ome 青梅, which you may be able to tell from the kanji characters means blue plum. In Ome they have a famous annual explosion of ume at their park, known to be the best place in Tokyo for ume, which release their wonderful fragrance and demand that we drink the most fruity and fragrant sake we can find, along with seasonal delectibles; I am normally willing to oblige.

Until then, I am on the prowl for the earliest blossoms, and normally stumble upon them by accident - or by word of mouth (or book in this case) - that leads me to the prize. In Footloose in Tokyo, I learned of a place I had never been before, Okachimachi, one stop on the Yamanote line from Ueno, that has the jewel in the rough of Yushima Tenjin.

Yushima Tenjin has not only ume, but the ideal that us Westerners seek when we are looking for the "real" Japan. My experience is that the "real" Japan is hard to define, but that has become a worn cliche to recount, and the next non-Japanese to write that, "Japan is a land that holds in harmony the ancient and the modern as girls in kimono use cell phones," should be summarily executed. Tokyo is megalopolis and NYC could fit in it several times over, in area and in population. There is nothing like it on the planet. Most of it is bleak city-scape, full of overcrowded trains full of people going to and fro their 60-plus-hour-a-week jobs, to their shoebox of an apartment where they pay too much in rent and taxes compared to the average American.

But Tokyo has its manifest charms, and among them are the temples where people congregate during festivals, or to see flowers, or to pray for propitious outcomes related to some major life event. At Yushima Tenjin, it is to pray for auspicious academic success, at other shrines and temples it is to have a healthy baby (it worked for us), or to be cured of an ailment.

At Yushima Tenjin students write prayers on emma, little wooden signboards, that they leave to be answered by the temple deities. 

As a photographer, these are the places I haunt, camera in hand to catch a glimpse of something going on. Is it the "real" Japan? I don't know. But I have long ago given up trying to define people as a people rather than individuals. But the Japanese culture has produced many of the things I adore in life, and as the winter turns to spring, I am ready to see it all take place again - hopefully in front of a lens.  

Tonight It Snowed

It doesn't happen much in Tokyo, but tonight it snowed. I did not know what do do about it, worrying about what tomorrow may bring. We stress over work, travel, responsibility complicated by the weather, but the three year old in us loves something about it, I love something about it, and there was nothing we could do about it, because tonight it snowed!