Musings on Tokyo

Well, I've been out of Tokyo for a few days now so I have had some time to reflect on my experiences there. I also just haven't had a ton of time to post the last few days- lots to catch up on and little time to do it.

Tokyo is a very, very interesting place. My initial itinerary was to only stay for four or five days, assuming I would easily tire of the intensity, filth, consumerism and coldness. Much to my surprise I really enjoyed my stay there. My Mount Fuji interim was a nice break from the city, and really all I did when I went back this past weekend was Design Festa- but I was happy to be back. It's an exhausting city with a lot (probably too much) to do. There are travel guidebooks hundreds of pages long for Tokyo alone.

I think if I had to describe Tokyo in one word, it would be the Japanese, "Sugoi". Here is its entry in my Japanese-English translation dictionary:

Sugoi, adj. 1. amazing; wonderful. 2. awful; terrifying.

This sums up Tokyo pretty well. It is a strange, enormously powerful place. It thrives with a creative energy that I have never seen the likes of elsewhere, a sort of mental (over)stimulation that is probably not equaled any other place on Earth. On the other hand it shows every sign of a globalized, consumer society where many modern cultural trends, i.e. fashion, are fed to the masses by the big corporations. You can tell that everybody has good intentions but that those intentions are perverted (literally and figuratively) by their environment. A good comparison would be a tidal wave, like this one:

"The Great Wave at Kanagawa", by the Japanese master painter and printer, Hokusai

I believe the term "sugoi" aptly describes something like a tidal wave as well as Tokyo. Both are amazing and awe-inspiring. At the same time, their potential for destruction is tremendous. In Tokyo, for example, a certain few ride the crest of the wave without effort. Some just tread water and many drown, overtaken by it. Homelessness is one example of this- walk a kilometer or two anywhere in Tokyo and you will pass a dozen homeless men and women. Sleeping in parks, sleeping on sidewalks, eating ramen from the 100yen shops, collecting cans etc. And most of those who do end up leading "successful" lives work their asses off 6 days a week from 9:00-19:00 or so. This in turn results in the purchasing of Louis Vittoin handbags, cellular phones with hundreds of useless features and $300 shoes that will be rained on in a month. Rush hour in Tokyo lasts from about 18:00-21:00. It's like observing a school of fish- a seemingly inert, neutral group albeit extremely complicated in its interactions.

This brings up something I've been tossing around in the brain lately. Typically people consider large cities as cosmopolitan places of fashion, trends, money etc. But it seems to me that these are the places where people act the very most like animals. It's so much easier to see a human being as a primate when they're selfishly moving their way along, pushing through crowds, pissing in bushes, smoking on trains, etc. ad infinitum. Being from an entirely different country might have something to do with it as well...Anyway. Here are handful of photos from Tokyo and its environs.

Shibuya District, Thursday May 24 2007, around 21:00

The same very famous intersection, roughly same time. I felt like the guy in the foreground.

Who does this girl think she is? What she is is a moron. I guess it's acceptable from a very liberal artistic point of view...

A really awful advertisement

Moving on!