Streets of Tokyo
I was recently suggested to blog again in English. Blogs are islands that appeal to different creeds of seafarers. They open up different tracks of opportunity. This puts Conversation in Tokyo back into the treadmill, back into the streets.
Streets
What has changed so far? Walking around the streets has been an ever consuming activity, what with a new interest for urban architecture. The conscious activity of walking, seeing around perspectives, looking for the declivities in the back alleys that save the unpleasant avenues from boredom has unexpected reaches. I have been thinking lately about the reasons why Japan, and Tokyo, which are not the same entities, generate such longing, especially for those people now away that share the experience of having lived here, even for a short, touristic stay. Longing is not unique to any specific place. Yet, I have a feeling, without supporting the entrenched discourse of Japan being special, that there is something, for the urban Westerner first, that stirs in a very specific way this longing. Longing for Tokyo is not longing for Japan. This, I am sure of while not being able currently to elaborate on the reasons why. Being a part of it, Tokyo, and Japan sometimes when we get out of the city, does not help to ponder on those issues.
There is the human made landscape and the human landscape. I am not knowledgeable nor fond of the second. Once you leave the big centers through back streets - granted back streets were left - you enter a dimension of Tokyo that applies to a vast extend of the city. There is lots of silence, and so very few people to meet. The other day, in the plushy small alleys of Takanawa and Shirogane-dai, I met again with the same quality of silence one can find in the West part of the city where Tokyo looks more than ever like the countryside, west of Tachikawa. Where are the people? Very often at home, at least the wives. What are they doing? Not playing the piano or the violin at least. Not so much tending for the small garden. The silence is a mystery, a heavy mystery.
Streets
What has changed so far? Walking around the streets has been an ever consuming activity, what with a new interest for urban architecture. The conscious activity of walking, seeing around perspectives, looking for the declivities in the back alleys that save the unpleasant avenues from boredom has unexpected reaches. I have been thinking lately about the reasons why Japan, and Tokyo, which are not the same entities, generate such longing, especially for those people now away that share the experience of having lived here, even for a short, touristic stay. Longing is not unique to any specific place. Yet, I have a feeling, without supporting the entrenched discourse of Japan being special, that there is something, for the urban Westerner first, that stirs in a very specific way this longing. Longing for Tokyo is not longing for Japan. This, I am sure of while not being able currently to elaborate on the reasons why. Being a part of it, Tokyo, and Japan sometimes when we get out of the city, does not help to ponder on those issues.
There is the human made landscape and the human landscape. I am not knowledgeable nor fond of the second. Once you leave the big centers through back streets - granted back streets were left - you enter a dimension of Tokyo that applies to a vast extend of the city. There is lots of silence, and so very few people to meet. The other day, in the plushy small alleys of Takanawa and Shirogane-dai, I met again with the same quality of silence one can find in the West part of the city where Tokyo looks more than ever like the countryside, west of Tachikawa. Where are the people? Very often at home, at least the wives. What are they doing? Not playing the piano or the violin at least. Not so much tending for the small garden. The silence is a mystery, a heavy mystery.
posted by Lionel Dersot at
4/10/2006 07:48:00 AM
