Lost In Translation

Penguin Classics: Schopenhauer-Essays and Aphrorisms

I checked out Arthur Schopenhauer’s Essays and Aphorisms, because I am a fan of aphorisms, which are like compact little essays.  I am guessing that Schopenhauer’s disciple Nietzsche acquired this habit from his master.  Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of humanity seemed to sit well with me, for some reason, as I was reading it a few weeks back. There’s an excellent introduction by R.J. Hollingdale that gives insight into the life of Schopenhauer and how his character and personality affected his thinking. Some of this is quite dated, such as his shockingly misogynist mediation on women.  Here’s an example of one of his more thought provoking aphorisms:

Recompense, if recompense is possible can cure the injury done: but that bitter addition, the feeling ‘and that is what I have to put up with from you’ which often hurts more than the injury itself, can be neutralized only by revenge.

My Blueberry Nights

I have been a huge admirer of Wong Kar Wai for some time, but I must admit that his latest, My Blueberry Nights, didn’t live up to my high expectations.  He is still the master of mood and style.  He has always had an eye for romantic images set to moody music.  In this film it includes the likes of Norah Jones and Cat Power, Jones is one of the major performer and Cat Power makes a cameo.  What an Englishman like Jude Law doing in the American South running a traditional American diner? It is a most obvious case of miscasting.  The meandering storyline failed to grab my attention.  Perhaps it was the absence of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung that prevents me from caring about the characters.  I wonder if he will continue to make English language films in this vein-it will be interesting to see if this trend continues.

Shutting Out The Sun

Shutting Out The Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation, by Michael Zielenziger, is a fascinating look at contemporary societal problems in Japan.  The central metaphor of the book is the social problem known as “hikikomori.” Hikikomori is a condition where, basically young men, few women have this condition, withdraw from the world and society by shutting themselves in their rooms and refusing to interact with their families and society. As far as it can be established, this condition only exists in Japan.  I guess anywhere else the parents would knock down the door and tell to get a job or get out; apparently many of the men who suffer from this condition had been bullied at school.  There is no official recognition of this condition and few treatment centers with no government funding. 

I was first inspired to read this book when a friend of mine who was a long time resident of Japan said this book and a recent work related experience changed his perception of Japanese society. My friend is an executive recruiter (headhunter), it has been his belief that people are people and an understanding can always be made.  But one of his placements, a western woman, was fired for being too opinionated. In his words, “fired for trying to make the company better.”  So when he met a young Japanese applicant that had studied in America and said that she could maneuver both cultures due to her experience, he started to think there might be something to that.

Throughout the book he gives other well-supported examples of other societal problems plaguing modern Japanese society. For example, he looks at the phenomena of suicide which continues to rise yearly with over 30, 000 suicides a year.  Then there are the people’s obsessions with goods and consumer society where 94% of women in their 20s have at least one Luis Vuitton product. There are significant problems within the family unit as where in a disproportionate number couples are living in separate bedrooms. According to one source in the book, one in three custom homes is built with separate bedrooms for the husband and wife.

Zielenziger’s discussion of the underlying social reasons for these problems is particularly interesting to me as he discusses concepts like that of the tradition of dependence and social obligations related to communal rice production. Rice cultivation required broad cooperation and meant that achieving consensus and making sure agreements were followed had been matters of life and death.  This collectivist concept survives today and in studies between Japanese and Americans-Americans try to “influence” others to change behavior, while Japanese are more likely to change their behavior.

He also discusses how the collectivist mind set undermines trust of strangers and “social capital.”  Trust is an essential to make society efficient, productive, and responsive to new concepts. A Japanese social psychologist suggests that Japanese collectivist society undermines trust and prevents social capital from accumulating. They have trouble looking outside their the scope of their predefined relationships.

I also found his comparison and contrast of contemporary Korea with Japan quite fascinating, since I have spent some time there as well. Korean culture is similar to Japan, but distinct nonetheless. One observation the author makes in this section is that basic civil liberties are guaranteed, but real choice is absent.  Another observation states that democracy was imposed on Japan from the outside and warped by the one party rule and other factors. The results of this kind of democracy results in a system where dissent disturbs group harmony and deviance from the mainstream can jeopardize one’s livelihood.

All in all, Zielenziger’s book is painstakingly researched and supported with any number of facts, statistics, and authoritative opinions form people that matter.  He has produced a balanced and though provoking book about contemporary society, which seems to be ignoring some of its greatest social problems.

Gore Vidal Redux

Gore Vidal has another collections of essays out, which show that he still has a exquisite taste and a fine eye for argument and detail. Here's an excerpt from the review by Louis Bayard at Salon:

Vidal's essays, by contrast, have all the strengths of his novels with this additional grace: They don't have to make a show of inhabiting other minds. And so the qualities of the originating mind -- wit, phrasemaking, autodidacticism, a talent to inflame -- stand out all the more starkly.

For proof, we may call up "The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal," assembled by Jay Parini, the author's literary executor (more whiffs of the posthumous). That word "selected," of course, implies a certain amount of cherry-picking. Juvenilia, senilia, outmoded usages, casual tribalisms have all presumably been cast away. Or have they? To Parini's credit, more than enough remains to show why and how Vidal gets under people's skin.

There is enough, too, to show that Vidal was, in some respects, well ahead of his time. His defense of homosexuality as "a matter of taste" (in the midst of the '60s), his calls for limits on executive power, his attack on "the National Security State" ... these still walk the razor's edge of topicality. Mere weeks after the Iraq war was joined, Vidal was calling attention to the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. Some 15 years before Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great," Vidal was declaring that monotheism was "the great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture."

Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

I recently revisited the 1988 version of Dangerous Liaisons, based on Christopher Hampton’s play, starring John Malhcovic and Glenn Close in order to compare it to the original novel that I recently read.  I find that the film, directed by the always-impressive Stephen Frears (most recently Dirty Pretty Things), stands the test of time well.  The standout performances by the leads supported by brilliant sets, locations, costumes, and music add to the ambience.  The other supporting roles were also impressive-Michelle Pfeiffer was nominated for a Best Support Actress award. The only role that strikes somewhat of a false note is Keanu Reeves as Danceny; whenever I see him on the screen I mouth the word “dude.”  Uma Thurman’s performance seems impressive in retrospect as well.  The film ends differently than the novel, in which Merteril, Glenn Close’s character, loses an eye at the conclusion.  In the film she is socially shunned by Parisian society. 

Tokyo Achikoko

My friend Gary brought me to his friend's Okinawa/fusion restaurant, Tokyo Achikoko, in Jimbocho the other day. It's a cozy little spot with lots of inventive food like blue cheese gyoza, There's also traditional Okinawin food like goya champuru and Okinawan pork salad. Then there's more international fare like hummus and homemade guacamole, salsa, and chips. Plenty of awamori choices as well.

Tokyo Achikoko

1-38 Kanda Jimbocho

Chiyoda-ku Tokyo

101-0051

Tel/Fax: 03-6382-9654

Open 17:00-23:30 M-SAT

Fukutoshin Subway Line

This month will see the opening of Tokyo's newest subway line.  Here's an article from Metropolis about it:

More than 80 years after Tokyo’s first subway line opened between Asakusa and Ueno, the last major underground railway debuts as Tokyo Metro unveils the Fukutoshin line on June 14. First planned back in 1985, the Fukutoshin will travel 8.9 kilometers from Ikebukuro to Shibuya, with six stations in between. It connects with the Tobu Tojo, Seibu Yurakucho and Seibu Ikebukuro lines, and through service is planned with the Tokyu Toyoko line at Shibuya for 2012, completing a broad rail network linking southwestern Saitama with central Tokyo and Yokohama. 

Being promoted under the dubious slogan of “Subways that harmonize with towns and are loved by people along the line,” the Fukutoshin (the name means “subcenter”) is the ninth subway line to be operated by Tokyo Metro Co Ltd, which currently carries 5.9 million passengers a day along 195.1 kilometers of track via 179 stations. By comparison, the city’s other subway system, the metropolitan government-run Toei network, transports 2.03 million passengers daily and has 109 kilometers of track and 106 stations on its four lines.  

Behind The Paper Screen: Hinkaku

Sawa Kurotani examines the "hinkaku" boom going on in Japan at the moment in her column for The Daily Yomiuri:

Hinkaku, the "nobility or dignity that is felt in a person or a thing" (my translation of the definition in the Daijisen Japanese Dictionary), has become a buzzword in Japan in the past couple of years. Although the dictionary definition sounds straightforward enough, hinkaku is a slippery concept.

First of all, hinkaku is socially relative. That is, actions and characteristics that are considered "noble," "classy" or "respectable" differ according to one's station and what is expected of that particular social position. Furthermore, the definition of classiness widely varies from culture to culture and one historical era to another. Therefore there is no one universal model of hinkaku that applies to everyone.

Secondly, hinkaku is all about the perception of others who observe and pass judgment. These "others" are usually not an identifiable group of people, but something more generalized and harder to pinpoint, often recognized as "public opinion" or "common sense." This perception of hinkaku may, furthermore, be manipulated. For example, a person can increase their hinkaku by wearing items of clothing that are considered "classy" or by joining an organization with a good reputation. In turn, an organization can raise its respectability by recruiting members with recognized hinkaku. Advertisements frequently associate their products with celebrities to generate a sense of classiness.

The recent barrage of hinkaku puts forward different standards of hinkaku for nations and corporations, women and men, children, company presidents, sumo champions and so on. However, there is one critical commonality among them: the reference to the idealized past at the core of hinkaku.

David Sedaris on Smoking In Japan

Here's Sedaris on the Daily Show.

Joy Division

Joy Division, the documentary by Jon Savage, is a good companion piece to Control, which is essentially the fictionalized version of the same story. It has all the talking heads of people who were relevant to the rise and fall of Joy Division as well as live performances and various other artifacts.  I was surprised to see that several scenes that I thought were embellished from the film were actual occurrences, like the time that Bernard Summer hypnotized Ian Curtis to see if he had experienced any previous lives for example. The film is a more artistic rendering of the same story, but both examples are compelling in their own rights.  However, I would have to say that the documentary is probably more for serious fans, whereas the film version can be appreciated for the cinematography and dramatized aspect of the short, intense life of Ian Curtis.