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lisaontheroadagain · 6 years ago

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On Tokyo

Everything here seems to function as it was meant to. Trains, traffic, pedestrians. Despite 13 million people inhabiting metropolitan Tokyo, I witness no jay walking, no traffic jams. In five days, I literally hear someone honk their horn once. Everywhere I go people seem patient, waiting in single files lines, for restaurants, for elevators, for buses and trains. When the train arrives, notoriously on time, the train car aligns perfectly with markings on the ground, the commuters quietly stand in two single file lines on the side of the car doors until everyone exiting has deboarded, then enter themselves, quickly, orderly. On the escalators, everyone stands to the left, so those walking more quickly have free passage on the right. On the streets, everyone walks to the left, keeping to their own lane, staying off the raised yellow tile navigation system of lines and dots for the blind, a kind of braille for the feet. The whole of Tokyo seems like a well-oiled machine, each denizen aware they are a cog in a larger system, willing to play their part.

I count five pieces of trash on the ground in five days of walking my way through Tokyo. Despite walls of boarded panels covering up construction, not a single one is grimied with the familiar markings of a graffiti tag. I see no homeless people, except for a small tent city under the train tracks in Shinjuku. Each denizen has a large cardboard box, taped into perfect orderly rectangles and squares of varying sizes with thick blue tape. Pairs of shoes sit neatly outside, even the homeless feeling enough dignity not to sully their makeshift home with dirty shoes.

Every toilet has a bidet. Most have heated seats. Some of them have “privacy” buttons where the sounds of chirping birds or crashing waves will play loudly enough to hide whatever squeeches and pffts want to work their way out of your body. Even in train stations the toilet paper is so often folded into neat triangles, I wonder if it’s an anonymous origami gesture from whoever peed there before. Every seat is clean and dry, the floor of every stall without a single stray piece of ply.

I never see a single Japanese person in yoga pants or casual “comfy” clothes. Everyone looks like they have a stylist. Perfectly manicured and coifed, fashionable, in sync with the latest trends, attention paid to every inch of their look from the tips of their nails to the lace lining on their ankle socks. I feel self-conscious of my messy wave of curls, the stray frizzy hairs out of place, the bra strap occasionally slipping into view. The masses of passerbys – both men and women – create a dizzying scape of haute chic, a magazine spread come to life, each individual worthy of their own page. Some are more alternative, gothic punk, “kawaii” cute, Anime cosplay, Lolita-esque life-sized dolls with contacts to make their irises the size of a cartoon. But everyone – everyone – looks to have thought carefully about their look for the day.

I am astounded by the attention to detail. In the fashion, the interior design, the service, the food. Every plate, every chopstick, every corner of every room, every morsel of every meal, the size of the ice cube, the shape of the cup, the type of flower in the vase. It all seems chosen, intentional. Remarkable, more for what is not there than what is – the finesse is in the editing, the negative space. Everything is an elegant composition. An homage to efficiency. Even the signage in the public bathrooms, perfectly clear instructions in any language, to sit, not squat, to put toilet paper in the toilet and everything else in the trash. The organization of the train station, each car of the subway, each exit of the station, with its own number, so you know where to stand, where to walk, to exit closest to your destination. Someone has thought about this in advance, someone cared deeply about my experience of the bathroom, my experience of the train. In Shinto, the Japanese religion, everything has its own spirit – the trees, the rocks, the leaves – every object meriting respect. I can feel the dignity with which objects are treated here, the care with which they are imbued. It makes me want to slow down and pay more attention to the details in my life, to have fewer, nicer objects, worthy of my care.

We, too, are treated with the same dignity and care. Everywhere we go we are greeted with the utmost courtesy and respect. Everyone wants to please us, to make us feel honored. We are thanked and bowed to so many times entering and exiting an establishment, I feel awkward and embarrassed by the attention. They bow and I bow back and they bow again and I bow again, unsure when we can politely stop. Almost everyone is incredibly kind, helpful. But almost no one is friendly. There is so much respect I feel trapped behind a wall, simultaneously welcomed in and completely shut out.

I get frustrated by the persistent pleasing. When I ask our travel guide for advice on what to do for the day, she doesn’t give me a straight answer. She is shy, uncomfortable giving her opinion, searching for clues of what she thinks I want her to say.

I get exhausted by the intensity of Tokyo. The nonstop onslaught of people, places. The streets show no letting up, no reprieve. Buildings are stacked 9 levels high with businesses, neon signs in foreign symbols piling on top of each other, stretching into the sky. Shops and restaurants upon shops and restaurants, packed with people, ten story fashion malls seemingly on every block, with sprawling basement food halls hawking perfectly curated bento boxes, wildly expensive single pieces of fruit, beautiful pastries, gleaming sushi, slices of marbled wagyu, yakatori skewers, tonkatsu, onigiri, karaage, donburi, mochi, and on and on. More shops and restaurants fill the train stations, floors of underground malls beneath the tracks. Vending machines line every spare inch of street side real estate, a brightly lit convenient store on every corner, all busy inside. The constancy of the commercialism is crushing. I can barely breath.

Until we step inside and off the streets. The whirring of the city in unceasing motion quiets as the door shuts, giving way to an oasis of calm. Inside the restaurant, or teahouse, or bar, with just six seats, maybe twelve, it is jarringly serene. Like the clothes they wear and the food they serve, the design has been flawlessly fashioned. A single flower arranged inside a bud vase to arch perfectly over the bar. A shelf with perfectly arranged sets of cups, liquor bottles placed side by side, an exacting two inches apart. A set of rattan baskets, one arranged neatly by my seat as a receptacle for my purse. I am greeted kindly, in sync, by all of the staff. Then it is quiet, no music, perhaps a few hushed voices, speaking in low conversation. Time stands still inside. Tokyo, outside of this one room, ceases to exist. Here is serenity. I could stay for hours, barely remembering there is anywhere else.

For a while I’m grateful for the respite. To know that whenever I need, there is a nearby establishment I can escape into for a moment of peace. But then even the quiet begins to suffocate. If outside is chaotic order of overwhelming magnitude, inside is delicately crafted, oppressive calm. Though seemingly opposites, they are but versions of the same strive for perfection, two different expressions of the same exquisite restraint, varying functions of the same set of rigid rules. I want to scream. I want to throw my beautiful plate of pea tofu with sea urchin foam and a single curled carrot strip at the walls. I want to claw my way out of the suffocating precision and tear my hair and jump up and down headbanging to Rage Against the Machine. I suddenly think I have insight into the high rates of suicide, the infamous lack of sexual desire, the fascination with violent manga and tentacle rape porn. I think I get the escape into virtual worlds, the otaku obsessionism, the gritty shibari/BDSM scene. After only a few days I need an outlet for my individuality, a place to express my energy, a way to kindle my life force before it quakes beneath the conformity.

In the middle of all this, I find myself eating a 14-course meal at a restaurant called Inua that won best new restaurant of the year. Each dish is spectacular, creative, colorful, beautiful, an homage to the nature from which its components came. One dish – a sort of savory sweet fruit rollup created from local plums, laid like an artwork on a piece of honeycomb inside a wooden frame, baked with edible flowers and a variety of herbs – somehow tastes simultaneously new and familiar, exotic and comforting. It is so beautifully plated, so magical and delightful and whimsical in concept, so confounding in its flavors, it awakens all my senses and reminds me how exciting it can be to exist in a human body that is able to see and smell and hear and touch and – above all, in this moment – to taste. To taste! I am so humbled by the dish and the experience the chef created for me in this bite of food I am moved to tears.

I find myself at TeamLab: Borderless, an immersive digital art museum filled with wide halls and hidden rooms of moving images. Ceiling to floor digital sunflowers, a parade of traditionally-drawn 6 foot bunnies I can follow across the walls of the entire exhibit, a room filled with lanterns that grow brighter or dimmer based on the proximity of its viewers, fields of digitally lit lily pads, floral tigers and elephants stampeding by, screens of digitally dripping water that change their flow pattern when I interrupt them with my hand. It is a maze of art work that responds to me, knows that I am there, is changed by my presence, allows me to become part of it. I watch a four-minute experience known as the Cave Universe, a dance of birds flying in such dizzying immersive beauty that I feel like I’m doing somersaults, turned inside out, unsure which direction is up. I lose my balance, assure myself I haven’t done any drugs. It is so thrilling, a rollercoaster ride standing still, I watch it at least four more times.

I find myself in the middle of Tokyo’s busy streets, six inches off the ground in a red and yellow go cart, wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle onesie. It is the most fun way I’ve ever explored a new city, wind in my face, foot on the gas pedal; there is an immediacy to the experience I immediately love. Plus, we are clearly bringing joy to hundreds of pedestrians as we whiz by. They are waving, taking pictures. I feel adored. Like I am famous. I am delighted seeing their demeanors change, serious grimaces and blank stares breaking out into huge smiles, excited eyes, when they see us pass. Hordes of school girls make heart shapes on their heads for us to mimic back, business men in taxis roll down their windows to say konichiwa. It is the first time I feel a bridge to the Japanese people that isn’t completely shrouded in politeness and etiquette.

Thankfully it isn’t the last. We bond with our bartender in the tiny ten seat bar, one of 200 in the Golden Gai. He speaks almost no English, but he pours good Japanese Whiskey, and he smiles and makes charade-style jokes like we’re old friends. The chef at our Michelin starred sushi restaurant stands in front of us and makes us nigiri piece by piece, telling us about a day in his life, waking up at 4am to go to the fish market, living on three hours of sleep per night, smiling and laughing, eating up our experience of his meal like we eat up his fish, clearly devoting his life to the thing he loves. The owner and waitress at the neighborhood soba shop teach us how to slurp soba and ask our help translating a few lines on their menu, giggling at the fact “beefsteak plant” actually means “shiso leaf.” But so far these experiences have been the exception rather than the rule.

The language barrier certainly makes things challenging; not many people speak English well. But it feels like it’s more than that. I have a sneaking suspicion that, like most everything else here, the distance is intentional. We are here, as tourists, as their revered and honored guests, and they our venerable hosts. It is not lip service – service is an art form here, completely genuine, a great source of pride. The formalities, they are the tools of the trade, a signal of how seriously they take their hosting, how important the exchange. And yet, I can’t help feeling the politeness is also obscuring something more. What? Whatever the “real” Tokyo might be? I am not sure. All I feel is the wall. This sense there is something else I can’t yet see, some way I can’t yet connect. It leaves me feeling lonely. Isolated. Hungry for meaningful interaction. Yearning for depth. I am craving authenticity. Personality. Someone more themselves than they are pleasing. Someone who will tell me like it really is. I can’t help but wonder what this city would be like if I had a way in, someone who could show me behind the courtesies…because there must be something behind the courtesies...right?

Perhaps the next time I am here, for I feel fairly certain this won’t be the last. Until then, we board a train for the countryside, leaving Tokyo behind….

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lisaontheroadagain · 6 years ago

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Here we go again. Off to Japan!

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lisaontheroadagain · 8 years ago

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