On politeness

Oh honourable and exalted Reader, I must interrupt again, for today I will humbly attempt to offer up an explanation of polite speech in Japan. In keeping with the topic of this lowly post, the explanation shall be volunteered using the kind of speech which this unworthy writer regularly encounters in many noble and important businesses here.

This post is to be respectfully written in the language used by my august interlocutors in their speech, not their writing. Were the post to be conducted in this latter mode, even more levels of humility, politeness and abasement would be necessary than I am already humbly proferring to my lofty readers. I must apologise in advance for the clumsy construction of this unworthy post, and the occasionally poor quality of my modest explanations; for my Japanese is of very low quality, and no doubt my English is insufficient to the grand task I have appointed myself. Please excuse me for being a very great burden upon you. If it should please you to lower yourself to ponder such a matter, please kindly imagine how difficult it is for a newcomer to this majestic country to comprehend the kind words of dignified strangers when they are couched in so perfect and generous a form of politeness as this: even the simplest of purchases are plagued with difficulties, although of course this is entirely the fault of this base correspondent, and not at all to be made the concern of those of my betters who deign to speak with me.

When I was taught this wonderful language by my esteemed teachers in Tottori, it was explained to me that Japanese polite speech has three components (if I recall correctly, which I undoubtedly do not):

• honorifics (for example, the many ways of saying Mr. or Ms.);
• polite language (for example, saying "do" in a polite way instead of bluntly)
• humility and respect (for example using language which puts one below ones superiors; and using language which shows respect to one`s inferiors)

The first of these forms of politeness is easy to manage even for one as lowly as myself, simply requiring that one choose from amongst the many layers of honorific: kun (which is for friends); san (for equals); sama (for people one is serving, or who are better than one); and kata (more of the same). Despite being a dishonourable and lowly creature, for example, who does not even possess a noble family history in this grand nation, I am regularly referred to as "the honourable and exalted foreigner" (gaikokujin-kata) when spoken of in the third person. If I may humbly volunteer a judgement of my own modest achievements, I do not make many mistakes with this form of address.

Polite language is harder to learn, and even more difficult to listen to when honourable and exalted strangers lower themselves to speak to me; for it involves a combination of complex language structures, including never using the impolite second person ("you"), which is only reserved for that slender portion of society low enough in esteem to be one`s friends. Instead one must speak in the abstract; use others` glorious names in referring to their honourable selves directly; speak in the passive voice (so that, for example, one does not say "I will wrap this for you"; rather one says "this will be wrapped"); always use the politer form of a verb if it exists (so, for example, "mairu" instead of "kaeru" for "return"); always use the honorific form of the verb (so, for example, future-tense verbs should always end with "-masu", not "-u"); and put honorific terms in front of these words (so that, for example, one does not return, rather one nobly returns, or returns trailing glory, or some such). Much of polite language simply involves learning these new forms, many of which I don`t know.

Humility and respect were said by my meritorious professors to be the most difficult part of polite speech to which one can aspire to learn. Humble speech involves using language to ones inferiors which indicates respect and kindness; while respectful speech involves using language to ones superiors which appropriately debases and lowers oneself towards them. This extends from simple power relations at work to include those honourable and exalted strangers upon whom one must humbly impose in day to day life. So if, for example, I have a question for the great and noble person working at the honourable City Office, I must approach this person in a suitably respectful way - "excuse me for interrupting you, but could you please lower yourself to explain to me how I can update my worthless foreigners card" might be an example of this. In turn the gracious and superior City Office employee would then say to me something like "I am sorry for speaking, but could I humbly receive the noble card?" So it is that by regular debasements we are able to maintain our close respect for those eminent people upon whom we cast the burden of coexisting with our own pathetic selves.

I must confess that apart from a few stock phrases I have practised sufficiently to assist me in regular activities, I find the third part of polite speech to be exceedingly difficult (I am very sorry for having so failed to learn this noble language, and will continue to try harder). The Gracious, August and Delightful Miss E is currently learning the splendid details of this wonderful topic, and I fear is undoubtedly vastly superior at it than is my own poor self. I am sufficiently versed by now to be able to begin to decode the most appropriately polite and important speech of those considerate and virtuous strangers who graciously volunteer to converse with my own inadequate person (I am sorry for being a disgraceful burden to all of these honourable people).

So it is that I come to the close of this shamefully inadequate presentation of important information which I hope has been of some little benefit to my betters. I have interrupted, and for this I am sincerely, hopelessly and completely sorry. Please accept my most earnest apologies, and forgive me for having been a terrible burden. It has been a terrible debasement, and I appreciate the effort required to have so lowered oneself to have listened to these reverential musings.

The beast of Ikebukuro

We found this frightening Hog specimen while returning from Lafcadio Hearn's grave through the Ikebukuro concrete jungle.





Obviously the driver is a person of good taste, as can be seen from the Aliens reference on the engine:












Or perhaps from the aerodynamic design of the rear seat:

Lafcadio Hearn's grave

To be found in a cemetery in Ikebukuro.

Nationalism, and drinking in the park

As I alluded to in my previous post, while in Tokyo we saw a strange mixture of the old, the new and the fractured aspects of Japanese society all parading past one another at the same time. In one small bridge we were able to see the inherent tolerance of Japanese society, its ancient ceremonial side, and its post-war fascist elements all on display at the same time.

The inherent tolerance of Japanese society was displayed in the way ordinary Japanese people wandered across the Harajuku bridge, paying no heed to the freaks by whom they were surrounded. Similarly, a march of some tens of thousands of drunken men wobbled its way by, and nary a conflict was to be seen. No-one yelled at the boys in skirts and make-up standing just metres away from the festival-goers; and none of the boys in skirts showed any desire to make themselves scarce. This could be because their make-up was perfect enough to fool an idle drunken reveller from more than a metre away; but I suspect it is more likely that the comfortable coexistence on display here is just a normal part of Japanese life, unremarkable at least to the locals. An alternative possibility is that cross-dressing is fine in this society, and the kind of cosplay which occurs on the bridge is treated as exactly what it is by everyone else - harmless fun - while perhaps those rebellions which I did not see are punished ferociously. I doubt this, however, and the locals' behaviour seems to me a classic hallmark of toleration after all the yelling and posturing one would see in the equivalent Australian scene.

But here we have the contradiction of liberal democracy, for parading behind the Harajuku kids we see the fascists, blaring their slogans from loudspeakers and freeloading an imprtant ceremony of national and religious unity (the shrine-carrying festivities passing by at the time) to preach the self-same message which almost destroyed Japan a mere 60 years ago. I say "self-same", but in truth I do not know the content of modern Japanese fascism, and for all I know it could be nothing more dangerous than a call to rearm the nation. Certainly the one slogan I could read ("the spirit of Japan is an important ideal", or some such) seemed innocuous enough; but what fascist movement did not start with these kinds of simpering vacuities, only to end up marching in lockstep down the road to ruin?

Alongside these strange contrasts marched the festival itself, which I should pass comment on. I have seen a smaller version of such a festival before in Tottori, and found it very amusing. A horde of men in traditional costume gathers under a huge palanquin of wood, on which sits a gold-embossed shrine. They haul the shrine along the road and into Yoyogi park, stopping periodically to rock the shrine up and down while chanting; and just like a huge rolling maul in rugby, men continually drop away from the shrine to grab booze, and are replaced by their slightly more drunken walking companions. Women also join this strange religious wagon train, and everyone - men and women, carriers and walkers, spectators and participants - is drunk on cheap chu-hi. In Tottori the chu-hi was dragged along behind some of the festival carts in huge wheeled eskies; but here it was hidden in boxes, I presume inside the shrines. At the front of each shrine a man walks backward with a megaphone, chanting marching chants; and at the rear a couple of men walk along behind ropes, pulling the palanquin back on track should it stray too far away from its line. I would say each shrine was carried by about 50 people, and there were at least 10 of these shrines in the march, probably more. From the accompanying photos it is clear that there is a huge gathering happening here, and as always at such a gathering, everyone was cheerful and there was no trouble of any kind. Even when drunk in big crowds, Japanese people are cooperative and polite. And many of the men at this particular festival were showing signs of dubious criminal background, namely huge tattoos sprawling over backs, necks, heads and legs. I was surprised that they weren't in the big black vans instead of under the shrines, but perhaps this is not unusual, given that Japan's most famous fascist, Mishima Yukio, was both gay and educated. Always Japan has to throw things in the opposite direction to the west!

In any case, the cross-dressers, the traditionalists, the fascists and the foreigners all got along famously, and at the end of the day I'm sure we all returned to our homes thinking, for very different reasons, that Japan really is quite a cool place.

Dancing Lolitas

On the weekend just passed the Delightful Miss E and I paid a little visit to Tokyo, where we went on our usual mad charge through the Shinjuku shopping district and into Harajuku, again to take photographs of the strangely dressed folk who congregate there. On the way we managed to detour to Ueno to view an exhibition of Maori sacred items, and to wander about Ikebukuro (where we stayed) for a bit. Sunday was, however, perhaps the most interesting day, since not only did we take more pictures of the crazy Harajuku kids, but we did so against the backdrop of traditional festivities and modern political clashes; and we were able to visit the secret haunts of one of Tokyo's strangest creations, the Gothic Lolita. That's right, folks, we visited their nightclub.

Sunday was the appointed day for visiting Harajuku to take photographs of the kids sunning themselves on the bridge, but Sunday was also the public holiday to commemorate the Founding of Japan (I think that's what my supervisor said it was, anyway - I lose track of all of Japan's national holidays). Since the bridge is right next to a famous shrine, we found ourselves watching a huge procession of sweating, drunken men carrying massive buddhist shrines on their backs (see the photos in my next post). As these men grunted and swarmed their way past the lolitas and boys in dresses on the bridge, a phalanx of nationalist vans sat at the top of the park, music blaring and nationalist slogans braying out of loudspeakers. We followed the procession into the park to a huge set of Torii gates, and then sat down to eat lunch with all the drunken straggles of this parade. We then returned to the bridge, just in time to see the nationalist vans crusing off past the scattered kids in their crazy clothes:(If you look closely on the left you can see two dayglo rabbits). Thus we see how the Japanese get along together.

I took a few other pictures of these kids, with one particularly impressive chap in a satin skirt, partially mailed in silver plates, as the best of the lot. These photos can be seen on the accompanying illustrations. I still am at a loss as to what these kids are doing on this bridge; I was going to ask them but got shy of the task on the day, so satisfied myself with the pictures. The Delightful Miss E has a few additional bromides which are well worth a look.

In order to better explore the inclinations of these strange folk, on that same evening I escorted the Delightful Miss E to a dance party for Gothic Lolitas, called a la mode. Gothic lolitas pursue a kind of kinky Alice in Wonderland/French maid look, which completely desexualises them at the same time as it plays on all sorts of submissive gender roles and ideas. I find the look fascinating, strangely distasteful, and terribly childlike at the same time as I think it is very cool and completely sexless; it is also often quite same-same, since for most people it is constructed from complete outfits bought wholesale at shops. But at the club things were a little different. We had the racy suspender lolitas; there was a pair of girls who were dressed exactly like 17th century Parisienne high society, including the wig-like hair and the powder make up; there was a woman in a white-and-scarlet birdman kind of outfit, consisting of a kind of wings-over-pants look - and she had feathers instead of fake eyelashes. A couple of chaps were splendidly done in 18th century gentleman's outfits, and there was a fair amount of gender-bending going on (I have seen men even in rural Matsue walking down the street in a skirt over pants - really one can get away with anything here, and it seems a very popular bit of gauchery in the lolita circle). There were also straight-out corsetted goths, men with white make-up and crazy old-fashioned face-painted eye makeup - various photos of previous nights at this club can be found here, and give some idea of what people were wearing. The music at this venue was subtly different to what one might expect at a similar venue in Australia or Europe, being similarly metally-technoish, but with a bit more energy and drumming, and occasional twisted excursions. There was also an excellent selection of live acts, very impressively dressed and performing with a lot of style.

Overall a thoroughly entertaining night was had. I still do not understand these folk and their strange ways, but now I have seen their hidden world I am less inclined to think of this sort of thing as costume play, and more inclined to think that it is a genuine subculture, or at least some small part of it is. And what a fascinatingly dressed, shadowy little part of the world it is!

Kombat Kulcha VII

This post has the dubious distinction of being my 100th post. Such a milestone cannot go unremarked, surely, and so in honour of this frequent-posting achievement I have decided to update that series of posts which has occurred most frequently in the history of these Ancient Chronicles. Despite a long break for christmas, my odyssey through the martial arts world of Japan continues apace.

I do use the phrase "continues apace" loosely, however, for I have been tardy about attending kickboxing of late and so have become decidedly unfit. Those times I have attended in the last month have been hasty on account of the strict time limit, and the fact that I am currently mixing teaching 3 foreigners with my training, so find myself a little snowed under. So it was that I chose this week to take a long car ride with Messrs Y and I, the latter being the head of the school, to Nanbu Cho in chilly Tottori. Mr. I's school has an outpost here, perched on the side of a mountain facing Mt. Daisen's lowest ski-slope; and I was determined to fit in a hard nights training.

The joy of going to these Tottori gyms is not so much in the exercise (we arrived late and didn't get much time to train, and it was damn cold) but in the chance to practise my Japanese a little. Last time I came to Tottori to train I discussed environmental issues with Mr. Y (since I learnt the verbs "to kill" and "to die" I have become quite a dab hand at explaining our river problems). Mr. Y was explaining this to Mr I, who was quite taken aback - Japanese people universally think of Australia as peaceful and pure, and are shocked to discover such things as Cubby Station or Roxby Downs - and so we moved on to a discussion of Australian and Japanese social problems.

Now don't get me wrong, dear reader, I have very little power to engage in these discussions except through using very basic language to talk around complex concepts. I can never remember a word I am told and I never understand anything that is said to me. However, it is surprising what one can do with the words for "friend", "die", "not good", "river", "farm" and "people". Quite surprising. Also last week I asked my private teacher how to say "I cannot distinguish between these two things", which meant that she somehow taught me how to say "I discriminate against ...", since the words are very similar. Thus it was that when Mr. I asked me about whether Australians discriminate against Aboriginal people I was able to both understand his question and respond. We discussed this for a little, and in response to his questioning me regarding Australia, I was able to elicit from Mr. I and Mr. Y opinions about Japanese social attitudes towards race.

Thus it was that Messrs I and Y informed me that Japanese people discriminate against black foreigners. This surprised me, since the black people I know have never talked about this problem (and have denied it when I ask them about it) - but I am in the country, and just as everything in Japan is the reverse of Australia, so it is that people in the country seem to be friendlier and more welcoming than people in the city. So too, perhaps they are less discriminating. Messrs I and Y also discussed the Japanese attitude towards Chinese a little, and agreed that it was a serious problem; and we compared the Japanese attitude towards their own Indigenous people, the Ainu, with that of Australians.

The really interesting conversational material appeared as we cruised into Matsue city, however, for now Mr I revealed that Japan used to have a caste system, and still discriminates on the basis of the caste from which individuals are descended. Particularly, the Burakumin are a class of people descended from those who worked with dead things, and are still treated poorly. Mr. Y revealed that while one might be able to have a Burakumin girlfriend, it would be considered very poor form to take such a lady for a wife; and he implied that some Japanese people do research on their own or their childrens prospective partners for the possibility that they might be descended from such a caste. When I asked, Messrs I and Y seemed to tell me that while discrimination had been disappearing in the past, it has returned somewhat in recent years. Sadly my power to understand Japanese tenses, especially when babbled out at breakneck speed by mumbling men, is limited. He may have been saying something else. Mr. I then tried to explain the very intricate details of this process of discrimination, but here my limited Japanese failed, and as we pulled into the convenience store parking lot where I was to alight, he said "When your Japanese has improved some more, we shall discuss this again."

This is the joy of both joining the rough and tumble of Japanese club life, and learning the language sufficiently to actually begin to try and converse. Things which previously I only ever could have learnt about in books written by dubious journalists are now open to me to learn for myself. Though it be slowly, it is through the kind and patient explanations of ordinary folk like Messrs I and Y that I shall learn my way around this strange and intriguing country. Kombat Kulcha indeed!

Updates to the Illustrations

I have recently updated the Illustrations for the Chronicle, adding many pictures of my environs and the various fun and interesting things I have been doing. Since I have been now keeping the illustrations regularly updated my reader(s) may find that there are an abundance of images which have not previously been viewed; however, I shall outline those changes which I have recently made below, so that you can choose where or whether to click in order not to waste precious break time on unnecessary images.

• Pictures of the Ryukakuji (Dragon Memory Temple) graveyard, in Matsue, are in the Shrines and Temples section
• Pictures of flowers decorating the gravestones at this temple can be found in the Flowers section
• My fish are, of course, in the Animals section
• More fish skeletons and other grotesqueries are in the Life in Japan section
• Some pictures from this weekend's Matsue food festival, are in the Festivals section, including a quite ordinary picture of a famous Takoyaki - octopus balls - stall. Note the balls are balls made from Octopus, not of an octopus
• Pictures of Shimane University are in the Views of Shimane section

The fish bones, incidentally, are the consequence of Setsubun, a festival which requires that in addition to beating up a demon one should eat a grilled sardine, cooked ungutted in front of the supermarket. This we duly did, and didn't entirely regret.

I recommend continued occasional checking of the Illustrated Chronicles - I am going to Tokyo this weekend and in addition to visiting Lafcadio Hearn's tomb, I intend to take pictures of crazy Harajuku kids.

Grotesque Food 2: Shirako

On Thursday night I tripped out through the gathering snow with the Maths kids for a dinner interlude at Hokkaido Sushi. While sitting at the counter ruing my backsliding Japanese, I noticed a dish going by which looked like a pile of ice cream sitting on seaweed. I read its name wrong when asking my friend, but he told me it is called Shirako. Fortunately for you dear reader, I do not have a picture of this supposedly fantastic food, but you can find one if you look through the seedier spots of the web.

The reason I say seedier, my friends, is because Shirako is literally fish's cum. Appropriately to some previous posts on this blog, it is usually the cum of a cod, an anglerfish or a pufferfish. Sometimes it is cooked, although I have a sneaking suspicion that in a sushi restaurant it is, like most food in such restaurants, raw. I am told by Japanese people that it is delicious, but I have yet to find a Japanese person eating any at a restaurant. Maybe it serves the same role in Japan that tripe does in the West.

In my opinion, a willingness to eat Natto, an appreciation of sliminess in food, and a taste for (possibly raw) fish sperm may explain this. In any case, I have been led by my exposure to this particular food to consider the development of, as Donald Duck would say, a new metric for consideration of known unknowns. If a group of people are willing to eat fish cum (raw or not), they are radically different to me. Next time you are considering something strange that you have heard about Japan (and once you have discounted the possibility that it is a gaijin myth), if it seems inexplicable and just plain confusing, remember: they eat fish cum.

That should explain it!

My new friends

Thanks to the inestimably handsome Mr. H and his charming and pretty girlfriend Miss K, the delightful Miss E and I received an aquarium as a wedding present. It is very small, but it demands fish! So on Friday after a week of preparation I finally stocked it with cute fish:
I have three of these, which I think are pygmy pufferfish. I had wanted to keep them in Australia but they were difficult to find, while here they are $4 each at an aquarium near the station. When not hiding under a rock, they hoon about like little helicopters:These puffers only grow up to 2.5 cm long, and are freshwater puffers - the last ones I had, many years ago, were saltwater. Distinguishing features of pufferfish (for those of you who have only ever encountered them during cruel bomb-making exeriments as children) are:

• they can swim backwards and straight up, which is why they seem like helicopters
• they nip other fishes fins
• they have independently mobile eyes, so the eyes do not have to always look in the same direction as each other

Two of these traits make pufferfish exceedingly cute, especially when they come propelloring up to the glass to watch you dubiously through their little goggly eyes. Very cute! Because of their fin-nipping trait I had to get another fish that doesn't have much in the way of fins: a kuhli loach, in fact. Every house should, in my opinion, have an aquarium and at least one pufferfish!

Shimane University

Now that the winter snow has come, I have decided to take the opportunity to take some photographs of the University grounds, for those who might be interested in what a rural Japanese university looks like. Here we see the playing field and the bicycle park near the co-op building, at night. I took the photos in black and white because snow looks better that way. The playing field is a gravel field (no grass for the rugby players in this country, I am afraid) and the bicycle park has been ravaged by the strong wind which always seems to blow through Matsue when the snow falls. This is probably the last heavy snowfall for the year: today is setsubun, a festival for casting out evil spirits, and on setsubun it is said that it always snows in Matsue (which indeed it did!) After this winter will recede, and we can settle in to wait for the next milestone in Japan's seasonal calendar, hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing, which comes in April.

More pictures of the University can be viewed here, at the Illustrated Chronicles.