It is a cliché to say that all good things must come to an end. Yet there is no more appropriate way to describe the end of my latest chapter of living in Japan than a good thing that has come to an end.
For the last three years I called Tokyo my home. In that time I experienced the full range of Tokyo life from the seedy yet lively confines of “piss alley” in Shinjuku, to the clear, cool winter air of Mt. Mitake. The common theme for me, throughout that wide range of experiences is what managed to make it into my camera lens and end up on these pages. So it was with a great deal of melancholy and regret that I headed out over my last few weeks in the attempt to capture some images I thought evocative of my Tokyo.
Being a relatively lazy chap who never tires of the friendly confines of a well-known neighborhood, I headed out to Taito-ku and my personal favorite haunt, Asakusa. While there, I roamed the streets hoping for something to appear in my lens that screamed Japan to even the uninitiated. After snapping the obligatory shots of solitary deities outside of the temple, I came upon something I have long come to regard as rather mundane; a Japanese temple wedding. I always seem to have to remind myself that in life it is normally a great mistake to allow oneself to become bored with anything for the sole reason of having seen something like it before. The lens is not nearly as smart as the human brain; it knows nothing beyond the frame. Therefore, anything captured in the frame brings a new interpretation to the subject every time. I had seen Japanese weddings before. I had been married in a Japanese wedding. But I had never seen this wedding on this day and neither had my lens. That, for me, ended up making all the difference. So as I went through my normal routine of snapping away at the prematurely judged mundane wedding party I was not yet aware that I would shoot a shot that I would end up being fairly pleased with. More importantly I was reminded of the all-important rule of travelers: never take anything for granted. In fact the reason why wanderers spend so much effort and money to travel and carry cameras in the event, is because we are looking to experience and capture life on the road in all of its manifestations.
And that is why photography is the ideal medium to help us reflect on the people, places, things, events and other things we have run across in our travels. Something as esoteric as a Japanese wedding draws us into it, and looked at in the right way can capture the imagination. But is that as true for the red temple door we pass on the way to the wedding? If we are guilty of thinking that the wedding has become mundane, even while we were drawn to it, what are we to do with the doors we pass?
We shoot them.
When Japanese decide on a name for a child, they are very careful about the meaning and balance of the kanji characters used to express the name. Similarly, the Japanese are concerned about this balance of letters in every aspect of their lives. During my first visit to Japan in the ‘90s I had the notion to get a stamp (rakkan-in) of my name made to use to sign my photos, much in the manner of Japanese prints. I sought out a famous Japanese rakkan-in maker in Kichijoji who crafted rakkan-in that were true works of art. When I made the request of the husband and wife team that actually produced these wondrous little artifacts, they were instantly mortified by my obviously ill-considered attempt at appearing cultured. I initially requested that they use the kanji character Ran, meaning chaos, made famous by the Kurosawa movie of the same name. I was informed that under no circumstances could they produce Deran, a twist on my name (Daren), using the Ran character unless they found a character for Da that would balance the inauspicious affects of Ran. Their position was that they would have no part in producing an article that could cause the buyer to suffer the affects of such unbalanced chaos. I waited in the shop four about forty minutes while the pair searched through their kanji dictionaries to find a character that could meet my request while keeping the unbridled powers of chaos in check. A decision was made, a transaction transpired, and ended up a few days later with one of my favorite keep-sakes and a valuable lesson about the importance of balance in Japan. Although it is neither by design nor prescription, Tokyo itself is a city of balance and contrast. One can duck into a temple, whiff some incense and disappear into a bygone era only to be shocked back to reality by the bright lights of Shibuya.
Yet , the most fascinating aspect of Japan and Tokyo in particular is how these cultural and urban elements mix together, coexisting in a Blade Runner reality equal parts yukata and ramen, i-pod and cell phone.
In the end, however, being the foreigner (gaijin) that I am, I inevitably am moved toward the traditional. I am continually fascinated with how this country maintains the relevance of all of those things that have gone before. The temple girls, kimono, matsuri (festivals) and zen monks move about the everyday population without batting an eyelash. The most esoteric of traditional sweets sold by a street vendor will elicit a lengthy informational lecture from even the most reclusive or ill-informed Japanese.
The Japanese may have leaped forward into modernity after the Meiji Restoration of the mid 19th century, yet even the bleakest recesses of the concrete Jungle that is Tokyo retain a connection to the past that the Japanese seem to ignore, yet revere, and that travelers flip out over.
I certainly am guilty of flipping out. I am guilty of being sucked in by the mysteries and wonders of this ancient and modern land. And I admit that during my time in Japan, I went as native as one can get and still retain their gaijinness. I know this Gaijin Photographer will be back at the first opportunity, trying to make sense of it all. For now it is off to another East-Asian country, which retains its own, perhaps more well hidden charms, South Korea. I have lived there before so it is actually a return of sorts, but Korea is so dynamic, I am sure there are a lot of surprises in store. Stay tuned.
