Day Fifteen

Oh, I hate politics. But I just can't seem to get away from it. The last two days I've encountered people who say some really strange, hypocritical, and obnoxious things. For instance, in class yesterday (Friday) one person gave a 3-minute speech about the current crisis over North Korea's threat to launch ballistic missiles, and a 15 minute discussion ensued afterwards regarding US and Japan policy about how to handle the situation (ok, too many scare quotes to be found in this sentence, so place them leisurely at your will...) Now, my Japanese isn't anywhere near good enough to sufficiently participate in such a debate (nor is my knowledge of East Asian politics) so for most of the time I was content to sit back and just listen. But I got really annoyed when one person in class just flippantly called Kim Jong Il "irrational" as if that explains EVERYTHING. Ummm, maybe it's just me, but I don't see how the pathologization of a single individual replaces a more sustained critical analysis of the complex histories regarding Japanese colonial ventures in and around Asia, U.S. foreign policy and its own imperialist interests in East Asia, whatever internal and external political divisions that are going on in the Korean peninsula, etc.etc.etc. that, y'know, may just happen to also inform the current state of affairs between North Korea, Japan, and the U.S. I mean, I'm not defending Kim Jong Il whatsover, but all I'm saying is that mmmmaybe it goes a little deeper than just the kind of sensationalistic fearmongering that passes as legitimate news that we see so much of in the mainstream media. My contribution to the discussion was a simple, "What do you mean that he is irrational?" One other student, who is Taiwanese, followed up by saying, "Well, isn't your (i.e., U.S.) former president Bush also irrational?" Everyone in the class kind of had to laugh in agreement to that one. Really, it was kind of a pointless conversation, but kudos to the student who gave the initial speech for making us learn how to say things like "Cabinet Legislation Bureau" and "defense policy division of the Liberal Democractic Party Policy Research Council" in Japanese. I will be generously peppering all my future Japanese conversations with these useful phrases. Also, I must say that I am grateful for having two Taiwanese students in my class, who are able to provide some much needed insight into our conversations that tend to get a bit too heavy into a U.S.-Japan dichotomy.

This incident wasn't really a big deal, but it just confirms my decision going into this program to keep all my conversations as light as possible. For instance, more examples of my practice sentence structures:
"After spending time with my friend the vampire, I too decided to sleep in a coffin every night."
"I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if I could enjoy eating brains like a zombie."
"My friend was killed by a zomble, so I decided to avenge his death."
I have now successfully pigeonholed myself as the vampire/zombie/weirdo whose sentences are good for a cheap laugh. Yes.
And my three-minute speech is on Monday. I chose the oh-so-interesting topic of my vegan meal at Gaya (see previous post and pictures). And my friend Chen-san (one of the Tawainese students in the class) asked, "what no vampires??" To which I responded, "no, that will be my next speech." Now I just need to figure out exactly what about vampires I will be speaking about. U.S.-Japan vampire relations, perhaps??

Speaking of Chen-san, here's a pic of us in front of Soji-ji Temple, where we went on a fieldtrip yesterday. It was a bright sunny day out, and we, being vampires, could not successfully have the details of our faces taken by the camera.




Speaking of the fieldtrip to the temple, is it wrong that I find Buddhist monks really hot? Two years ago, the monk who gave us the tour of the temple was really hot. This year, we got yet another hot monk! What the heck??? Is being a hot young monk a prerequisite for conducting tours of the temple? At one point during the tour, he stopped and asked if anyone had any questions. Me, being so stealth and subtle, decided to try to take a quick snapshot of him to show you, the readers of my blog. Of course, no one had any questions, and the empty silence of his inquiry was broken by the loud *click* of my SLR camera. OOOOPS! The other students around me laughed at my indiscretion. I, of course, was really embarrassed. And for all the trouble, the picture came out all blurry!! Damn. But here it is. Use your imagination...


That said, I should say that I do really enjoy the zen meditation exercise we did. It made me think that I should pursue more meditation and maybe look into the Buddhist temple near my apartment over in Hollywood. The lingering trauma of organized religion (i.e., Catholic school) is still a bit too strong for me to go through with it though. But we'll see....

When the tour was over, I wandering over to the gift shop and bought some of Soji-ji incense, which the salesperson proudly pointed out was the temple's own original scent. So now my closet/apartment in Yokohama smells like a Japanese Buddhist temple. Hey, it's no Nag Champa, but it'll do!

After the temple, I headed into Tokyo to do some punk rock record shopping. I mentioned in my last post that I'm really excited about seeing Japanese anarcho-vegan crust band Battle of Disarm. Turns out the lead singer also operates a punk record store in Daitabashi called DIY Records. I headed over there and after not too much trouble located the shop:


I chatted with Ryuji for a while, and got a bunch of recommendations for various Japanese punk bands to check out and ended up blowing around 100 bucks in music. A lot of it was on vinyl so, again, I'm gonna have to wait until I get back to the States to enjoy it. But I did get a couple cds so I'm set for a while. Hopefully. And he gave me a complimentary ticket to the show on Sunday so I'm pretty damn excited about going to see Battle of Disarm live. Whoohoo!


Here's some pics of the interior of the store.



There's something about being in such a small, somewhat cramped space chock full of records, tapes, posters, flyers, and anarcho-zines that just makes me feel so much more comfortable. I guess walking to school everyday and having to literally walk through two shopping malls to get there takes a toll on a person. (Maybe next time I'll take some pics of my daily walk thru the malls.) After five consecutive days of that back and forth, you begin to thirst for something, anything, that breaks up that routine. And so it was really nice being in an intimate space like the DIY record store, with someone who was quietly doing his own thing, staying true to his own politics, or at least trying to as best one can. I really appreciate that. So that's why I didn't feel at all guilty for spending so much money at this store cuz, unlike my trips to the grocery store or convenience store, I'm actually supporting a small independently owned operation.

So I started off this post with a rant about politics, so let me continue a bit further down that path, with whatever necessary digressions come along. So today (Saturday) I spent part of the day with my friend Ryan who also graduated from the UCLA Asian Am program and is in Tokyo right now conducting his dissertation research here in Japan on post-war Okinawan history. We had lunch at a restaurant in Ikebukuro and then did a bit of browsing in a large bookstore in the area. Afterwards, we chilled a bit in the public square, listening to some folkie singers who were giving a free performance there.


This part of the day was really fun and relaxing, and it was just nice to hang out with someone whose politics are pretty similar to my own. There's a certain comfort in being around someone who kinda just gets it. I mean, we hardly even talked about anything overtly political, a lot of our conversation was about Japanese TV (he told me there's a new TV drama right now called, "My mom is a new-half"--"new half" being the term used in Japan for someone transgendered) and we also reminisced about how great 80s post-punk is, how hot Siouxsie Sioux is, and how we grew up loving certain record labels (him 4AD and me Alternative Tentacles and Earache). And sitting on the next bench over, was this really awesome old guy who we both decided was pretty bad ass. He looked like some character straight out of a Japanese comic book. I again tried my hand at my stealth and subtle photographic techniques by pretending to take a pic of Ryan and instead focus on this dude. So click on the picture below to enlarge and see what I mean.


After hanging out with Ryan, I headed to Shibuya to meet up with some dude I had met earlier last week on the internet. This part of the day was not so much fun, and I'll explain why in a second. We decided to go for dinner at a vegan restaurant in the area. Our first attempt was not successful, since the restaurant he chose was no longer vegan. (I guess running a vegan restaurant just doesn't pay the bills sometimes...) So we headed to a different one around the corner called Vegan Healing Cafe. Enroute to the restaurant, he bombarded me with information about why he thought PETA was fucked up, and he cursed all the big SUVs that got in his pedestrian way, etc. Now, let me just say that in all likelihood this person's politics is probably very much in line with my own, but it's the way he expresses his politics that I find so fucking obnoxious. And a lot of our dinner conversation just annoyed the fuck out of me. So while we ate a relatively good vegan meal (with some great desserts at the end), he started complaining about how there's no radical queer activist groups in Japan. His background, by the way, is that he is from Ireland, moved to Portland with his folks, but has been living in Japan the last two years. So anyway, in response to his comment, I just offered that maybe there is some type of "radical" queer politics going on in Japan but that it is just something he hasn't been able to locate. He responded that he has actively sought it such groups and that none exists, and that the group that would be the closest thing to such "radicalism" wouldn't even let him join their group. Oh my god the nerve of them!! I politely suggested that perhaps they didn't feel comfortable with having someone who wasn't from Japan joining their group and that it was their right to decide who could join and who couldn't. He replied, "I can understand that to a certain extent....I guess," and then rolled his eyes as if to indicate his overt disgust and derision of a group that wouldn't want him as a member. Then he proceeded to tell me how behind Japan is in its queer theory and that queer theory is so much more "radical" and exciting in the U.S. academy. Me, being the kind of asshole that I am, allowed him to go on his long rant about how great queer theory is, without really mentioning that, um, yeah I kinda specialize in that field as well. And this guy is no fool, let me just say that. He is well-informed, intelligent, critical. He offered a really great class and race-based critique of the fallacies of gay marriage. But it's one of those situations where someone can say all these really insightful things but then turn around and be completely blind to his own imperialist imaginings about the "proper" way of being a "radical" (queer or otherwise). I mean, c'mon, do you really think that just because there's no overtly visible "queer radicalism" going on that it doesn't exist? For someone who does a lot of complaining about how Japan is stuck in the 90s assimilationist utopia of queer activism, he doesn't seem to get that maybe, just maybe, his own entrenchment in the politics of visibility (isn't that also an outdated paradigm??) doesn't allow him to "see" that there just might be more subversive ways of inhabiting your activism that just saying, 'yes, i'm here, i'm queer, get used to it?' That maybe the social/political conditions of Japan don't warrant the same form of "radical" "activism" around one's sexuality as that found in the States? For example, that maybe Japan isn't governed by the same conservative Christian stranglehold that would immediately censor an American equivalent to something like "My Mommy is a Tranny" to be aired on national TV? That maybe, his definition of "queer" "radical" "activism" (all scare quotes, mind you) isn't the universal norm and can't be so easily traced onto another culture/country of the world? Is that what your exciting, cutting-edge queer theory is teaching you? If so, well, maybe we've just read different theorists. Or maybe you're just an ass.

Anyway, I tried to be very diplomatic about this situation. And I spent most of the time just listening to him talk. It was one of those situations where I learned a lot about him, but I don't think he learned all that much about me. He wanted to hang out after dinner but I told him I was gonna head home cuz I'm not a night person (true) and that I had laundry to do (again, true). Of course, both those things could have been easily pushed aside if I was enjoying spending time with him. But either I'm a really good actor or he wasn't paying much attention, cuz he wanted to schedule another time to hang out again. I don't get it.

And by the way, that is pretty much how I decide whether or not I want to do something with someone: would I rather be sleeping? studying? doing laundry/cleaning the apt? If the answer is yes to any or all of the above, then I try to get out of the situation. And in this case, the answers were YES, YES, and YES!

So anyway, sorry to bore you with this long rant. But it just goes to show, you just can't win! You have fucked up people on one side of the political spectrum. You have fucked up people on the other. What can ya do really?

Oh, and another side note, for those who question why I refuse to go out with anyone in academia, there you have it, a prime example. I probably should have cut off communication with this guy once I learned he was in graduate school, but a certain someone (who shall remain nameless) encouraged me to pursue it. With no fault at all directed at that person, I decided I would try it out, but I should have known better. But whatever, it's done and I can chalk it up to experience. In case you are wondering, I did go home and do laundry, which is drying right now while I am writing this. I have also beeing listening to my new J-punk cds. So the night ended on a happy note.

I am now gonna fold said laundry and head to bed.
Remember to write me and keep in touch!