In the Pink

Saturday night I caught a pre-emptive case of the Sunday night blues.  Strangely enough, two weeks of doing almost nothing - hell, even with the two days’ work unpacking - didn’t prepare me to come back to school today.  Commuting is mendoksai and even though the new building is nice, I can't help thinking that moving sometimes don't solve old problems, and may actually create new ones.  It's probably too early in the game for me to be so cynical, but there it is.

I had a couple more chances to art it up before I surrendered to despair, though.  I've especially been trying to catch nihonga shows before the clock runs out.  Last Saturday I went to the Suntory Museum of Art to see their Kawanabe Kyosai exhibition.  I was a little irritated that it was so hard to look closely at the works, and for the most part it didn't knock my socks off, although the notable exception was a scroll depicting a fart battle.  Apparently this is a thing in Japanese art, dating back to the Heian period, and if you want to see what it looks like, Dr. Yokai has written a post about this unique genre over on his blog.

I wasn't done with nihonga yet, though.  I took leave of my sanity long enough to decide that the height of hanami season was the time to go to Ueno to see the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition about the "lineage of eccentricities" in Edo-era painting,  There were some really knock out paintings in the show, but there were so many people AT the museum that I was so triggered that I didn't really enjoy it.  After two years, I still haven't figured out how art students are supposed to do serious museum studies in this country.

After leaving the Met going to another art museum, particularly one that promised to be even more crowded, was the last thing I wanted to do...and yet, that is exactly what I did.  Sensei, the Director, and I had been talking about going to the teamLab installation at the Mori Building Museum in Odaiba for months, and finally we'd settled on a date and gotten tickets - a last hurrah before returning to the trenches for the last term.  We met up and walked over, where we were met by a long line of people, which turned out to be the line for pre-purchased tickets. 

So far, I was not impressed.

We waited outside for a while, then we waited INSIDE for a while, and finally, we made it to the real entrance.  We were ushered through a curtain into - I shit you not - a different world.

Let me back up here for a moment.  Last year the three of us and Horn Blower saw a performance of Drum Tao's Mangekyo.  Although the staging was relatively simple, the multimedia effects really added to the performance.  teamLab was the company that created those effects.  As a musical performance, it was sublime, but imagine, if you can, using the same ideas in - essentially - an infinite blackbox theater that loops in and around itself.  Words become butterflies, lights create waterfalls, and in a bamboo forest it's perpetually firefly season.  That's kind of what Borderless was like.  

In one room paths led through crystal ropes of light.  The colors changed, as did the patterns.  After we'd wandered in, the lights dimmed and started trickling downward.  A little while later the "rain" slowed down, and on the outskirts of the room parts of the installation changed colors, creating a rainbow effect.

All of my favorite rooms included that sort of 3D element.  One you entered to be greeted by poles holding up transparent plastic disks, across which flowed patterns of light.  The floor angled upwards and suddenly it was like you were standing in a pond surrounded by lily pads.  When the light tracked across the disks, it becomes apparent that those patterns are actually fish swimming.

The crazy thing was, once you were in the museum, it actually didn't feel that crowded.  The lines set me up to feel like there were going to be a ridiculous amount of people annoying me, but the inside of the museum was so big, and the installations made such good use of the space that for the most part, you could actually enjoy it.  There were parts that you had to wait for - the mirrored room with all the lanterns, for one, but I felt like it was totally worth it, and because they regulated how many people were in it at the same time, you really didn't feel like you were packed in; it was just you, your friends, and a few others.  Although I wasn't impressed when I got in line, by the time I walked out, I was definitely a fan.

Sadly, I can't say that about every part of my life in Japan.  Even though I'm glad to be out of the old school, where the air was toxic and my classroom was constantly occupied by other teachers, I miss my walks to and from work next to the stream that runs through my neighborhood.  I miss seeing the ojiisans who'd be exercising together along the way and telling them ohayogozaimasu!  I miss being able to hit the snooze button until 6:55.  But I'll soldier on somehow.

A Time To Sneeze

I've decided that one of the Japanese things to approach with dread and complain about til it's over is allergies.  I've avoided saying the "a" word over the last few years, even as I began to suspect (contrary to longstanding personal beliefs) that I might actually have a couple.  It's possible someone maybe should have thought about this BEFORE planting five bazillion cherry trees here.

A year ago with Five we were a little too early for sakura-mania.  This year, on the other hand, they were early and I more or less missed them while I was in Mongolia (not that this has prevented me from going through an entire roll of TP in 24 hours, finally forcing me to resort to buying actual kleenex).  Although I've come to the conclusion that I like plum blossoms way better, not writing about sakura season in a blog about Japan seems like a cardinal sin.  So here ya go.

First of all, sakura treats.  I'm not entirely sure if it's right to say that cherry blossoms have a flavor, but everything seems to be sakura flavored, so they must.  This year I had the opportunity to try sakura Cinnabon, sakura frappuccino, and a few different kinds of mochi treats, including the Haagen-Dazs sakura mochi ice cream thing.  My verdict: fun, but overrated.  It's always interesting to try special flavors, especially when they're pink, but they weren't the most amazingly delicious treats I'd ever had.

Although the craziest part of sakura season happened while I was chillin' in UB with my homies, the Yamatane Museum helped to make up for it by having a special sakura exhibition.  I got to take part in something similar when I went to the National Museum four years ago, but this time there were no prize buttons...just lots of really interesting nihonga.  Even more than the flower pictures, though, I enjoyed seeing the changing style of the paintings.  There were several pictures that made me think, "This is different," and when I looked at the label, I realized it was from 1940, or the 80's.  Skills of an artist, yo.

Finally, I visited Araiyakushi Park on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to feel like I'd enjoyed the spirit of spring.  (Mostly because I was going all the way to Koenji and figured what the hell, why not?)  They had a festival listed on Savvy Tokyo with performances including taiko, and since I haven't seen any taiko in a while, I figured it would make up for the fact that most of the flowers would be gone.  I did find one tree in bloom - the double blossoms apparently bloom a little later - and ate some festival food, but after working on a painting for five hours that morning, my head wasn't really in the right place.  Also, drunk people at picnics aren't nearly as interesting when they're not your drunk people, so I didn't stay very long.

Flower Power

Once upon a time, Shaggy sent me a postcard from the Boy Scout Jamboree (I think).  It had a picture of a sunflower and said, "I knew you'd like this postcard cause you like that flowery shit on everything."  Likewise, I appreciate how excited Japan gets over flowers.  It seems like it should be too early for flowers.  It's only mid-February, and yet, they are peeking out all over the place.  I've been admiring early spring bulbs - daffodils, hiacinths, crocus, and iris - for sale at shops while I was out walking around, and broke down and bought some last weekend to keep in my windows...and maybe plant in the little patch of ground next to my balcony so I can admire them again next year (I'm not sure if my landlord will be copacetic, but if I don't ask he probably won't notice).

In all honesty, though, I should have just waited.  Although sakura season's still a ways off, the early birds are already feasting on ume, plum blossoms.  My friend Sensei went to Setagaya last weekend, and the photos she posted on Facebook made me jealous.  When I read that Yushima Tenmangu was hosting an ongoing ume matsuri - plum festival - I knew where I would be going before my Nihonga lesson on Saturday.

Before I went, I found myself thinking it might be a good subject for my next Nihonga painting (and at this rate, I'll need a new festival every 2 weeks to supply myself with inspiration).  I thought I would do a sketch before I left the apartment, but instead of looking up shots of Yushima Tenmangu I watched an episode of my old Most Favorite Ever Anime, Noragami.  See, I've learned a thing or two about names of shrines, enough to know the place I was visiting was a shrine for one of the gods in the show, Tenjin.  He's a Japanese original, a scholar and poet who was deified after his political rivals died mysteriously in succession, to become the god of learning.  And he loved plum blossoms.

Yushima Tenmangu is near Ueno Park - I got off the train at Yushima Station and followed Google Maps to the foot of a very steep set of stairs, capped by a stone torii.  When I got to the top I was greeted by an assortment of food stalls, which I promised myself I would check out after seeing what was going on.  The line of petitioners waiting to throw in a coin and clap to announce their presence wasn't too long, but Tenjin's popularity was evident in mountains of ema.  Since I am trying to get better at adulting I'm attempting to "budget," so I decided not to buy an ema myself (also, I have at least ten I still haven't painted), but I did join the line to offer a coin and petition for academic success.  At the moment my 4.0 GPA looks safe for this semester, but I'm still a long ways from earning my master's.

Before I did that, though, I checked out the golden calf (bulls are one of Tenjin's symbols) and washed my hands at the ablution fountain.  As I rinsed out my mouth, I realized they were playing music and was thinking how nice it was, but it wasn't until I looked around the corner of the nearest food stall that I realized the music was live - a flute and a koto in the midst of a traditional Japanese garden.

If this isn't fitting of the shrine of a scholarly poet, I don't know what is.  As I was wandering my way through the trees, I began wondering what my shrine would be like.  I realize it's not likely that I will ever be deified - my family may be good at holding grudges, but if I came back as a ghost I'm pretty sure I'd be having too much fun messing with people to seek revenge.  Still, for the record, I'd like to become the patron of mangaka, specialize in protection from fire, and have cinnamon incense burned in my shrines, in the event it does happen.

I was just thinking about how I wanted some drums at my festival, no matter how much I loved the flute, when I came across a stage set up at the back of the temple.  Nearby a small ensemble was playing strings and accordion, and I had a surreal moment where I wasn't sure what country I was in or the festival I was at (Germany?  Oktoberfest??), but the stage in front of me had drums set up, so I found a seat and did a little sketching while the audience filled up.  Finally a group of kids and middle aged women carrying lanterns took the stage, and I got to hear my drums...although I soon found myself wanting to get up and move to the music.

During the last song the kids got up and distributed small gift envelopes with little panda erasers inside.  When it was over I made my way around the rest of the temple.  I found a small display of ume bonsai that made me consider going back on my oath to never kill another bonsai tree again (this was a sort of expensive hobby for me in college - I sucked at keeping them alive).  I finally decided to check out the food stalls in earnest and snacked on a small cup of kara-age (tasty, but cold), and my new festival favorite, yakisoba.  The lady dishing it up was in no small way part of the charm - she placed some into the plastic container, then put the container in a bag before tilting the container hinge-down and stuffing the rest of the noodles in.  "Like Subway," she explained, as she handed me my chopsticks.  Maybe, I thought, but Subway could never be quite that fresh.

Size Does Matter

(Alternate Title: I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie)

For anyone out there who may be wondering, my interest in Japan goes back waaaay longer than my interest in anime.  When I was in third or fourth grade, my gifted class did a study of Japan and visited the collection at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, which served as my gateway, and later this would become my art home.  This influenced me to choose Asian Art for my non-Western history course, even though African/Oceanc/etc was usually considered to be the easier way to go..  Even now that I have been infected with otaku fever, I have a lot more reasons to want to live in Japan than just access to all the merch (although that definitely figures into my list).  Just like I'd been wanting to see a proper geisha dance since my first visit, there was another spectacle that I've been trying to catch throughout my travels to Japan, and Thursday I finally got to experience it: sumo wrestling.

Five is the kind of adventurous person who likes to try everything, so when I told her I wanted to attend a sumo tournament she was like, "Alright, cool."  Apparently I gave her the impression that it was in Osaka.  Perhaps because when I told her all I could remember was that it was close by.  Sort of.  Himeji isn't technically in the same region - it's in Hyogo, whereas the rest of our trip was spent in Kansai - but it's not that far either.  A two hour train ride isn't terrible, especially since sumo tournaments typically take place during odd-numbered months, and I seem to always be on vacation in the evens.  However, there are a few special tournaments that take place in April.  When I went to Tokyo three years ago, I missed the special tournament at the Yasukuni shrine by a few days.  I wasn't going to let it happen again.

The tournament in Himeji actually started at 8, but after a long day at USJ we were in no hurry to get anywhere that early, except possibly the McDonald's up the road in Shinsaibashi.  We managed to pull into Himeji Station around 11 and after a bite of ramen, made our way to the gymnasium - about a half hour's walk.  When we got in we were given a program, a calendar (in case we wanted to catch some wrestling later this year), and a plastic bag for our shoes.  We got some help finding our seats (Japanese-size, just like on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey) and figured we'd come in on some sort of opening ceremony.  There was a drummer playing some mad beats, and then all of the wrestlers paraded in, led by the referee, wearing these beautiful embroidered apron-like cloths called a keshomawashi (I had to look that one up, I'd never seen pictures of them before).  Some of them were carrying their babies with them, which Five thought was cute and I thought had the effect of making them seem even bigger than they already did.

Then before the actual wrestling, we got to see a wrestler have his hair done.  They all had their hair tied up in a topknot, which is part of the sumo lifestyle, it turns out.  It took at least 10 minutes (based on my file details...but it felt like it took longer).

Finally it was time for the main event.  My knowledge of sumo was almost non-existent, but I did realize there is a certain amount of ceremony to it.  Being Japanese, there is a fair amount of bowing.  Being a sport, there's some posturing thrown in as well.  Even ignorant gaijin like Five and I knew about the foot stamping part, where the wrestlers face each other in the center of the ring, lift their leg as they lean to the side, and then stomp it back down.  (Edit: Five knew about this because of Street Fighter, and was slightly offended at being grouped in with other ignorant gaijin.  See, this is the problem with sharing the spotlight!)

But apparently, as I've learned while reading up on it, there's a religious side to sumo as well.  I'd seen the salt-throwing before, and knew that it was about purification (have I ever mentioned that I've watched a lot of anime in the last three years?), but it turns out that religious tradition still has a lot to do with sumo.  The canopy overhead is even modeled after the roof of a shinto shrine.

The match doesn't actually start until both wrestlers put their hands on the ground at the same time.  In some of the matches we watched, it took longer to get to that point than the match actually lasted.  They'd come to the middle, bow, stomp, get some salt, toss it - occasionally one would do this with panache, really throw it into the air...rinse and repeat.  Most of the matches were over in a matter of seconds, after all that.  Since you win by getting your opponent out of the ring, it's sometimes just a matter of lifting them and carrying them over the line (easier said than done when your opponents are this size, but you get what I mean, right?)

I don't think Five was expecting to enjoy it as much as she did, but I think she actually got more into it than me.  The matches are so fast paced that it never got boring.  After the first one or two, we decided to bet our small change on each match.  One of us would set the wager and the other would pick the wrestler they thought would win.  I was not doing well - I'm a terrible gambler - and eventually we had to stop because I didn't have any more small change.  Instead, we refined our strategy for picking the winner.  Five based it on the color they wore, picking the color she liked better, and going for the smaller wrestler if their loincloths were the same color.  I didn't really have a strategy, merely watching the way they moved and looking at their overall muscle tone (no, that's not a joke - these guys were seriously strong).  The exception to her strategy was if one was a foreigner.  There were several - one from Georgia and another from Brazil, as well as a few that we were sure were foreign without being sure where they came from - and I pointed out that for them to be this successful in a Japanese sport, they must be really good.

At one point the matches ended - this was the lower-ranked part of the tournament, I think - and one wrestler came out with a posse of other wrestlers to have a special rope thing (called a tsuna) tied around him.  Apparently this means that he's a grand champion.  There was more pageantry with two different yokozuna posturing for the crowd (this might be a religious thing, as well...one of the articles I read said that grand champions have a god-like status).  But eventually we decided that it was time to head out, and left the gymnasium to find out that it had started raining.

Rain or not, I was still hoping to take a look at Himeji's castle.  It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and Five hadn't been to any castles yet, although we at least walked past Nijo on our way to Fire Ramen (that post is still coming, FYI).  By the time we got to the park surrounding it, though, the legs of my pants were wet and my shoes were soggy, so since Five didn't actually care, we just looked from the outside.  At least we finally got our fill of cherry blossoms - they were just beginning to get interesting before we left Kyoto, and our last night there the Kawaii Kingpin showed me the bar street, which was gorgeous with its blooms and small creek, as long as you didn't think too hard about the vomit and urine that had been deposited in the creek the previous night.  However, I'm an artist and at least a little bit of a weeb, so a trip to Japan in the spring just wouldn't be quite right without a legit amount of sakura.  Even if we couldn't sit under the trees thanks to the rain, I felt like we'd finally found that.

White Nights, White Days

I woke up at 3 this morning, and yesterday.  I never used to be a morning person, but after 10 years of teaching I've come to the point where I no longer want to kill people for speaking before 9 a.m.  These days I tend to wake with the sun, which could be problematic when the sun decides to be an insomniac.  At three, the sky was light.  Do you really, really get that?  The amount of light in the sky was approximately the same as when I go out to walk at 5:40 in UB.  I'd been sleeping for 6 hours by then, and so I thought, "What the hell!" and took my shower.  I really, really wanted to go out and do crazy things in the streets, because it was THREE AM AND IT WAS FREAKING LIGHT OUT!  In fact, I looked up St. Petersburg's erotica museum, MusEros, since that was in my plans for yesterday, and having figured out that it was open 24 hours, I considered getting up and going then, because why not?  (Well, there's the fact that going to an erotica museum in the middle of the night, no matter how light it is out, seems sketchy.  Going in the middle of the day just lends a scholarly veneer of respectability to the pursuit.  That's why not).

Just one of the displays at MusEros...

I didn't actually make it to MusEros until about noon on my second white day.  It's been overcast since I arrived, so it's been hell - can't tell the time or the direction.  I stumbled out of a street onto the Neva yesterday...I had no idea I was going north!  I'd intended to make yesterday my museum day, but after taking a ridiculously circuitous route to get to the Hermitage on the metro, only to look at the lines I went, "AW HELLS NO," and wandered off to find one of the ubiquitous Subway restaurants, then continued on my way down Nevsky Prospect to my fourth erotica museum.  Most of the labels weren't in English, but as my mom has said, "If you've seen one erotica museum, you've seen them all."  Okay, my mom actually offered that opinion about art museums, but there might be some truth in it here...it wasn't that different from the Musee d'Erotisme in Paris or New York's Museum of Sex.  In fact, as strange as it is for me to admit this, I think the Chinese did it best with the museum in Tongli.  Weird.

Also weird is the unsettling familiarity of being here.  Maybe I've been in Asia too long, but not only can I walk down the streets of St. Petersburg without getting stared at like a pink-spotted giraffe, but people actually try to speak to me in Russian.  I can't even begin to tell you how strange that is.  The first time I was told I looked Russian was in the Middle East, and rather than wondering if it was true (because I assumed it wasn't...let's face it, all us white people look the same), I questioned whether it was a compliment or an insult.  Now, I'm not sure.  Additionally, I am neither taller than everyone or fatter than everyone, and it is refreshing not to be laughed at or smacked on the ass.

The French never mistook me for one of their own (although genetically I'm closer and at least there I speak more than the handful of phrases acquired from Socrates), but I'm blaming at least part of my quasi deja vu on them.  Everywhere I look I see art nouveau embellishments, and although I'm not exactly great at picking up on architectural stuff, I can see places where the builders of the city have copped some Parisian style.

Shitty feet aside, I'm enjoying my wandering.  After coming out of the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood last night (more about that to come), I walked along the canal past countless stalls selling souvenirs.  In front of one building two sisters played duets on the violin and viola, and I stopped to listen, regretting the fact that I never got to travel with Lit, because she would have danced with me if she'd been there (just like we danced once upon a dream).  After my promenade on the Neva quay I steered my steps toward Irina's, through Mars Field.  Mars Field has an illustrious history as a park and military grounds, but what drew me there was the fact that you can smell the lilacs planted on it from two blocks away.  I spent a spring living in my uncle's spare bedroom waking up to the smell of sun-warmed lilacs every morning, and it's left an impression on me.  I walked across the grounds at Mars Field high on the scent, stopping here and there to just inhale, and was happy to be in St. Petersburg.

Flowery Speech

It's the most wonderful time of the year...sakura time, that is.  I've learned that in different countries "the most wonderful time of the year" means a lot of different things, but I have no doubt that in Japan, it's spring.  The weather is warm and the trees are in bloom.  What could possibly be better?

Although it's not a specific "thing," the blooming cherry trees were definitely on my list for this trip to Japan.  You don't have to be that culturally aware to realize that the sakura blooming is a big deal here.  The whole city is cloaked in the most delicate shade of pink because of the cherry trees.  The owner of the ryokan where I stayed made sure to tell me that it was a great time to visit Ueno Park, which was nearby, and I had to agree, since I'd stumbled past as I was trying to get there.  But after my wander through the cemetery studded hills of Taito, I came through the park and got to see the full extent of the blossoming madness.  The sides of the walkways were roped off, and people were enjoying picnics (with an abundance of trash receptacles on hand, organized by content).

It was also interesting to see people taking photos of the moon through the trees.  I managed to catch one, myself, although personally I like the way the lantern lit up the tree.

After breakfast at McDonald's on my last day, I made my way to the National Museum.  I grew up in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, which has the best collection of Asian art in the Americas, and this had a significant impact on the art teacher I grew up to be...so I was really excited to see the Tokyo National Museum.  Wandering through their halls gave me a sense of déjà vu, not only because of their amazing art, but I found the layout to be very similar to the Nelson's - it's a beautiful, easy to navigate space.  And even here, the blooms were the stars of the show.  As I was taking a look around the entrance hall, I noticed something about the cherry blossoms, and a lady giving out little pink buttons.  I asked her what it was all about, and she explained that it was the "Sakura Rally" - you went through the museum to find the different pieces of art with cherry blossoms in it, and got stamps at each piece.  I thought this was genius, and started thinking about how we might be able to use this for my upcoming student art show.

There were pieces of pottery decorated with sakura, of course.

And those famous printmakers wouldn't have been worth their salt as artists if they hadn't included some cherry blossoms in their pictures.  There was a whole wall taken up with ukiyo-e prints that included cherry blossoms, but I was particularly taken with this one - I love how they showed the rain.

Right now I am up to my neck in the school's recycled fashion show, and two different girls are working on designs centered around the kimono, so of course I took several pictures of blossom-spangled kimono.  This was one of the amazing things about the Tokyo National Museum - they actually let you take pictures of most of the pieces of art.  Maybe this is because the Japanese are such shutterbugs; whatever the case, I appreciated it a LOT.  The labels of the artwork had a struck-through camera symbol on them if you weren't supposed to take photos of it.  Other than that, you could take photos of everything, as long as you kept your flash off, which (of course) a fair number of people didn't, because they're idiots and don't realize what a flash can do to a delicate piece of art 200 years older than themselves.

One of the labels discussing the prints talked about how this art form helped circulate fashion from the city to the towns.  Ukiyo-e are "pictures of the floating world," which includes lovely landscapes, scenes from kabuki, and (predictably) beautiful women.  While photography was still developing (see what I did there?), these prints captured the fashions of their time.

Women's fashions weren't the only thing illustrated in ukiyo-e prints, either.  Men's fashion was also a huge part of it, as you could see if you were actually standing in front of this case of netsuke (the forerunner of cell phone baubles).

It was later that afternoon that I went to the cat cafe.  Just before I left, as I was scratching this sleeping beauty's head, the manager of the cafe came up and told me her name was Sakura.  If there was any doubt left by then at the fervor of the Japanese love for cherry blossoms, this moment cured me of it.