Badaud Dispatch 9---- Riots

Despite being buried in my little academic bubble under the sycamore trees I have been keeping up with news from America, and it's unrelentingly bad. I feel like I should be at home protesting in the streets, as my civil duty. Concerned internationals ask what in the hell is wrong with my country, and I don't know how to respond. It's hard to reconcile a humanist outlook with cops shooting unarmed children and getting away with it.

Here it is dreamy and peaceful and there is no local reporting on unrest, or perhaps there is no unrest. As cosmopolitan as Tokyo is, it does not have the same prickle of excitement that New York does. I suppose that is the payoff for following the rules. I got a parking ticket on my bike for leaving it outside a coffeeshop rather than paying ¥150 to put it in the official lot, and felt like such a rebel.

And so will this five year old

Fall has blazed by, with some of the most extraordinary colors I have ever seen in my life. Some friends and I went to Kyoto, which was ceaselessly, eye-poppingly beautiful.

Move over, Hudson Highlands.

I went to one of the strangest shrines I've seen yet, Fushimi Inari-Taisha. It's about 4 kilometers of orange torii leading up and down a mountain. Walking under them is an act of pilgrimage, a processional, and an exercise in color over-saturation. It occurred to me that a great deal of my time here has been spent ascending hills and mountains in large groups.

Stairs, mountains and orange- my favorite things!

Every single torii has been paid for by a company; the names are discreetly inscribed on the back so you only see them coming down. I recognized everything from Asahi to Toyota to one that just said, in English, 'Tattoo Parlour'. 

Some of them were fading a bit, but there were elderly guys here and there with ladders and buckets of orange paint. 

Kyoto has an entirely different feeling from Tokyo. The streets are narrower, the shops smaller, the pace slower. For the first time since my arrival I felt really in love with a place. It didn't hurt that it was the loveliest weekend of the fall and the large Buddhist population makes vegetarian food easy to find. We rode rented hybrids to a castle,

Just somewhere in the suburbs

And stayed in an amazing hippie guest house on Lake Biwa with sliding doors and futon beds and a tiny tree house in the yard. I spent the whole weekend in a permanent state of enchantment. 

Ten steps from the door

I took a cheap night bus there which was terrible, and an expensive one back which was slightly less terrible. They are not designed for any human spines I've ever seem. The latter had an 'executive suite' on the lower level; I resisted the urge to peek in. 

School picked up for two enjoyable weeks in the form of a venture capitalism class, taught by a charismatic and shouty American prof. I have never been remotely interested in that sort of thing, but I do enjoy short intense projects and I was lucky to have a really excellent team. We designed an app that wakes you up in time for your subway stop. 

The mascot is a hamster named Jonas, chosen as a culturally neutral beastie. 

We didn't win any funding for it (too nerdy, I think) but I had a good time and worked till 2 AM nine nights in a row. 

I also went to a public speaking seminar where I learned to modulate, make expansive gestures and argue succinctly. I also learned that the judicious utilization of sophisticated and arcane verbiage creates an impression of intelligence, or in my unsubtle case, causes a collective exodus from any areas in which my voice is audible. The professor was quite excellent, actually. I hate public speaking and tend to get completely sick before I do it, so it was good to get some concrete techniques to cling to. 

Today I went with a train enthusiast friend to try an get a 100 year anniversary Tokyo metro card (called a Suica). It is, admittedly, pretty:

Tokyo station is also really pretty, in a Western way

We were not, however prepared for the volume of fellow train enthusiasts: 

Who all looked surprisingly normal for hardcore nerds

After waiting for a while in the massive crush we determined that it was not worth it, and wandered around gaping at the  thousands (possibly tens of thousands) of train lovers all queued up in nicely self-regulating lines. I did see a more rabid contingent including old ladies, students, and little kids, just sort of leaning their way through some overwhelmed looking cops who were trying to stop them. This was the first sign of civil disobedience I have seen in Japan, and I was impressed. 

The line continued into and then out of the subway station. 

Apparently the crowds stayed on till two in the afternoon, well after the cards had been exhausted. When I found out they were going for hundreds (or thousands, but I must say I don't believe that) of dollars on Japanese eBay, it made a bit more sense. 

I'm trying to write down a full account of everything I've seen so far. It's not easy. Too often, I get bolloxed up in how I feel and who said what, rather than the wondrous (I mean that literally) things in front of my face. A professor I know is doing a study about memory and we were talking about how unreliable it is. I hope I can piece together something basically accurate. I don't want to forget anything. 

Better get the lot written by Friday; my gentleman-friend is turning up then and I will effectively vanish off the map. I can't wait!

--Isis

Badaud Dispatch 8-- Et in Arcadia Wanderlust

One of my (admittedly flippant) reasons to go abroad was that this would be one year I wouldn't be whacked over the head with wanderlust when the fall came. I would already be wandering! The sense of smothered longing would not appear at inconvenient times (5 AM, history class) and make me unable to concentrate! I was wrong, of course. 

Last weekend I went to a ginkgo festival at the foot of Mt Takau. The gingko trees there do not mess around: 

The yellow goes on for miles

There were food stands and musicians and vendors along the yellow avenue, like a very long Smorgasburg. It one one of those brilliantly gilded fall days where your eyes hurt from the intensity of the colors. There were samurai:

Note the guns and the swords

And amazingly synchronized dance troupes with absolutely unflagging energy:

That flag guy was at it for nearly half an hour without a rest

It was strange to be at a festival with no idea what each dance represented, what the songs were about, or really what the occasion was. We bought gingko nuts, only to discover they had not been roasted and tasted exactly the way gingko fruits smell (the streets, unsurprisingly, were entirely gingko fruit free. I think the armies of elderly guys with brooms and buckets that appear to be everywhere were responsible). I felt increasingly ill at ease and restless, standing in a crowd with the mountains so close, and finally ran off in their general direction. 

Follow the river!

Hachioji is tucked up against the foothills, in the inimitably confusing Japanese style that makes a town look completely flat until you suddenly find yourself up against a wall of hill that your bike is probably not up to, or, worse, at the top of a cliff that your brakes are definitely not equipped to descend. On foot the hills creep up more slowly, which in this case was distressing- I wanted to be in the forest, alone, and the hazy woods kept receding or having fences around them. I gave up on the Official Heritage Trail which was crowded and paved and walled, and hurried through the town. How lovely it must be, I thought, to live here in the shadow of the blazingly bright mountains and know where the damn paths are. 

This way is trespassing.

This way too.

Finally I was about to give up and go meet my companions at the station and maybe go for a really long bike ride upon returning to Hiyoshi, when I saw exactly what I was looking for:

A PATH!

So I ran straight up the mountain as fast as I could, and the cars and music faded away at last and the air was sweet and clear. There was a little shrine with a fox god at the top and I bowed most respectfully. I may be a cold and logical atheist, but I was filled with such a sense of gratitude and peaceful delight to be there, dusty and out-of-breath, looking down over the coral-stained town. 

I didn't photograph the shrine because I read somewhere it was disrespectful.

I ran back down and miraculously made the train, and fell asleep at once. I was wearing khaki pants (laundry day) and noticed that they were not even slightly dirty. I think Japan simply hasn't got any dirt. 

School has become a bit stressful lately, as there is a presentation day coming up. I don't know if it is a communication issue, a language issue, or a cultural one, but the way the academic schedule and expectations are laid out is...not what we're used to. It's a tribute to my colleagues that we are all navigating the murkiness of university bureaucracy without too much grief or drama. I think everyone is trying very hard, but it does sometimes feel like a great deal of information is being lost somewhere in a miasma and everyone is confused. It's been two times I've left a frustrating meeting to gallop around the athletic track in my entirely non-athletic boots just to blow off steam. 

But hey! I made a robot! 

I WILL BE GONE SOME TIME!

He is based on Titus Oates if anyone is wondering. And if anyone is wondering why Titus Oates needs to be a robot I could not tell you, but he cracks me up every time. I broke the one above from making him fall over too much; I had to make a replacement. 

Maybe next post I'll write about school and design more. I worked on a movie about a ghostly karate man, thought up a transmedia project for homesick luddites, and am up to my ears in a collapsable, disposable, unfortunately still kinda goofy looking bike helmet. 

And it's really hard to concentrate on any of these when I can see the mountains from the elevator. 

--Isis

Badaud Dispatch 7-- New Gods (And More Old Ones)

I have noticed a definite prevalence of fish in Japanese everything. I bit into what looked exactly like an apple pastry the other day, only to discover it was full of fish. Today I saw that even shoes are fish.

I didn't buy a pair. Then I jumped in the ocean and stepped barefoot on a fish. Serves me right. 

I have settled into a routine, more or less. There is school, slightly more time consuming but still nowhere near Pratt stressful, and relentless adventuring in all directions all the time. By the time I get home to New York I will want to sleep for weeks. I spent one day fully indoors and was immediately restless and grumpy, so I suppose this is just how I am wired. That and my dorm room is small and grey and hasn't got a cat in it.

Tokyo Designers Week was last week, and it was cool. 

Light up cell phone suits

Double hilted safety sword

Holographic fashion frog!

Again, it was distressing to have almost no Japanese. I really wanted to chat with designers, and while everyone tried their best and was patient I just haven't the vocabulary. So I smiled a lot and said 'Sugoi desu ne!' and was handed informational packets with beautiful graphics that I cannot read.* 

I did find someone who spoke perfect English:

She has better hair than I do.

It was only the nonspecific lip movement that made it obvious that she's silicon and wires and breadboards and batteries. It is really unsettling to speak to a robot:

Me: Konnichiwa! O genki desu ka?

Her: (In the squeaky voice of an affected teenager) Konnichiwa. Genki desu. Yoroshiku onagaishimaaaaaasu. 

Me: Um, do you speak English?

Her: Yes of course. How are you? Good day. What's your name? Where are you from? Hehe. 

Me: I'm Isis. I'm from New York. 

Her: (Eyes getting big and slightly misaligned) New York! Cooooool! Hehe. 

Awkward silence

Me: Um. Er. What do you like to do in your spare time? Do you have spare time?

Her: (Vibrating) I like to learn things! It is cool to learn new things. Don't you think?

Me: Oh yes. You bet. (Awkward silence). Um, I'm off. Nice to meet you. 

Her: I am very glad to meet you, Eesees. I'm sure we will meet again. 

Me: (quietly) In my damn nightmares....

There were also some comfortingly robotic looking robots:

They did the electric slide.

The other day in class I was trying to explain why I personally would not like a humanoid robot, even if it did the dishes and the laundry and picked my socks off the floor. It's just too close to a person, and if I'm able to feel embarrassed and tongue tied from just talking to a robot, I don't think I could bring myself to order one to do my menial tasks. I'd feel guilty and want to pay it. However, if the robot in question looked entirely inhuman, not even like a beast, I could be ok with it. An unsympathetic box can collect my socks any day. 

Speaking of beasts, here is a confession: I saw a squirrel and immediately seized my camera to take a picture. It was a normal grey squirrel but I haven't seen one in two months. Fortunately for my dignity it scooted up a tree and I didn't get a picture and I did not join the legions of doofuses who photograph squirrels. But I came really close. 

Today I went to Kamakura, which is a shrine-heavy area a bit past Yokohama. We started by visiting this giant peace goddess who is visible from the train:

See her up there? It must be nice to have a giant peace goddess watching over your town.

She was built in the 50s and has a nice sympathetic look to her. You can enter a hatch in the back and there's a little shrine. 

It's hard to make a giant head without being all looming, but the sculptor managed. 

Then we went to Kamakura proper, which was packed. There was some kind of children's festival, and dozens of unbearably cute kids in tiny kimonos. They were also without exception behaving themselves. I wanted to take pictures of them, but that seemed creepy so I didn't. 

Going to shrines involves a lot of running up stairs:

Grand stairs

Old stairs

Creepy stairs

It was lovely. My nonbeliever's soul is perfectly happy in a Shinto or Buddhist shrine, much more than in a church or synagogue. I appreciate that they are largely outdoors, on hilltops, and very welcoming. It's nice to just go and be somewhere quiet and peaceful for a bit. Even the little prayer gongs have a sweet, soothing ring. And there are bamboo forests! 

The best rustling ever

We visited the giant 12th century Buddha, who is in exceptionally good shape considering his age. 

You could buy little kawaii Buddha charms in the giftshop

And then ran to the beach with the windsurfers and the beautiful bluegrey waves and the still warm water. 

Move over, Atlantic. 

I could go on forever about this slightly enchanted endless summer and the beautiful trains and lovely prayer flags and all the books I am reading and the strange short nights. But there is homework to do and possibly a robot bit acquisition mission, so off I go. 

-I

*I am studying! But I am just not good at languages and it's taking forever and there are SO many Kanji... I hate being bad at stuff. 

Badaud Dispatch 6-- Old Gods

Today I got an assignment to write a sci-fi story about a technological solution to a human want. Aside from being stoked to write fiction or really anything (writing is one of my greatest pleasures, between cycling and sleeping) I think it's an interesting problem. I have always viewed technology with a certain unease, although I use it all the time. I'm very conscious of becoming too far from the physical world, and how easy it is to forget the feel of the sun and water and leaves and sand and real things. 

I went on a field trip to Sony, and it was really impressive. They had super high resolutions screens, full sensory music videos, all kinds of real time interactive stuff. It was glassy and shiny and sleek and cool. And I left feeling a little sad, because I so love the real world and actual, existing things, and it seems to be slipping away gadget by gadget.

They didn't allow photos. So here is a giant saw instead. 

Later, I went to a robot expo, which also didn't allow photos. There were big robots, little robots, service robots, rolling robots, and moonwalking robots. My terrible Japanese was not up to technical chat (or really much of any chat) but I was glad to see what should be out in a world in a year or two. There was one, much like the picture below, which is supposed to be comforting. I picked it up and it weighed and purred more or less like a big cat. It was comforting. I didn't even feel bad and it made me feel better. But also somewhat revolted, because, though it was warm and soft and cute, it was a machine. 

Chummy, chummy plush

There were also these little penguin-like things being tested by very serious men in suits. 

These people are having too much fun.

It felt weird to be one of a handful of women, and the only Western one. I'm becoming used to being stared at (politely, surreptitiously) but it was particularly marked there. 

On Saturday I watched the most slow paced, introspective fireworks display I have ever seen. There were acts. And intermissions. It was lovely. Thousands of people stood watching on the beach off Enoshima saying 'Sugoi!' [awesome]. It was so different from the ones at home, as unflashy as a fireworks display can be. Then I ran into the water and ran right out again because it was full of dead minnows. 

SUGOIIIII! (Video by Dayna)

And on Sunday I joined the Keio Birdwatching Club on an expedition to the 'Gyotoku Birdwatching Place', but we somehow wound up helping the nature center people harvest rice instead. I think, though I could be wrong, that we wandered into the wrong meeting and were too polite to leave and just went along with it. 

Some of my lovely fellow birdwatchers.

They gave us work clothes, which included hand towels and tiny boots. I managed to jam my feet in, but the pants were hopelessly short. I had to assure the impossibly sweet park lady that I really didn't mind getting my jeans dirty. Really! Truly! I think they may be used to somewhat more fastidious city people than myself. 

That fellow showing me how to bundle rice stalks used to design logos for Nikon. Who knew?

It was so lovely to spend a morning outside, doing simple manual labor with the crows wheeling by and the sweet smell of the cut stalks and the satisfying sense of accomplishing something tangible. It's hard to write about this without sounding terribly corny, but I was genuinely reminded that all the digital excitement and robots and screens are only a thin layer over what is real, which is the land.

Drying on a bamboo rack

Then I went to an autumn festival in Kawagoe, which is a district full of traditional buildings and shrines. There were floats and drummers and vast, happy, lantern-lit crowds. It reminded me a bit of the Philadelphia Mummers, except that there were no knee deep piles of trash, vomit and drunk guys. In fact, the few times I saw an empty patch of street there was not so much as a cigarette butt. 

Here comes a float!

There were stands with amazing street food, stationary stages with traditional performers, and a pervasive, though relatively quiet, sound of flutes and drums. It wasn't raucous in the American sense, because while the mood was bright and celebratory there was a solemnity about it too. Even the children, in their festival yukata had on serious smiles. 

I don't know who this dancer was representing, but he had moves. 

It was thrilling to run through the crowded streets, to watch the streams of brightly dressed people sweep back and forth. It was intensely dreamlike, and it seems appropriate that almost none of my photos came out. 

Drummers

Then my (heavily international) group read each other children's stories on the train (first traditional Japanese ones, then Struwwelpeter and Max and Moritz) and that only added to the sense of having come unstuck in time and place. Upon finally stumbling back into the dorm I fell asleep at once and had strange, colorful dreams. 

There were real candles in the lanterns.

It's a good thing for me that I thrive on strangeness and novelty. There is plenty of that here. 

-Isis

Badaud Dispatch 5-- Gakusei desu, too.

Housekeeping stuff first-- I started an Instagram because thats what the cool kids have, apparently. I'll try to put up pictures every day. And now I know why everyone's trip photos always look better than mine-- they've applied the insta flattering insta filters of instagram, which makes everything look wistful and Williamsburg, and now mine do too. I draw the line at Twitter, however. I'm way to much of a verbose bastard for that, and I love stretching and bending and hammering my own beloved language to within an inch of its life, despite the various wails of various professors.* 

Also, who are all my French readers? Do I know anyone in France? Bienvenue, in any case. 

It occurred to me that I haven't mentioned school at ALL-- which, as it is my stated purpose for being here, doesn't look too good. I have approximately one class per day, though sometimes two or three. My schedule is non-repetitve and vague. So are the professors. I think the approach to design here is pretty philosophical and open-ended, as opposed to the relentless hands-on regimen at home. We're encouraged to wander and explore and absorb (you couldn't pay me to NOT do that) and the assignments are, so far, exceptionally manageable. The professors are also really sociable-- they keep throwing us sake-soaked parties and are happy to chat with us about everything from drones to European metal clubs. I was expecting the sensei-student gulf to be insurmountable, but it's hard to be intimidated when the sensei is wearing a froofy cosplay suit that is somewhere between a maid, a cat and a penguin.

So I have plenty of free time which I spend a-badaud-ing, which is far more interesting to write about than Innovations In Digital Media or Creative Conception for Transmedia (I might be designing a folding electric personal mobility whozzy though, so that's exciting).

I went to the Edo-Tokyo museum and was blown away at the detail of the exhibits. According to the seriously amazing English language guide, each figurine cost ¥20,00-50,000 (which is around $200-500).

The fishermen had tiny fish.

She said that after the financial collapse the dioramas have less people. Like everything here, the exhibits were beautifully, graciously, carefully laid out. I love museums anyway, and what was supposed to be a two hour excursion consumed an entire happy day. 

The first department store! They sent customers home with branded umbrellas for free advertising. 

There was an extensive section on the Tokyo air raids in WWII, and as the only American in the tour I wanted to crawl under a historical table. I've noticed that history is almost never mentioned here, and I wondered if perhaps no one wants to mention history to me. The guide did seem a lot more comfortable with Tokugawa. I suppose things move quickly and it's a new time and a new generation, but our mutually shameful past is still there and always will be. 

There was a truly righteous escalator:

That elegant Tokyo orange

And a new river to walk by and a boat parking area:

It's hard to see, but the little houses lining the artificial bank are ramen shops

Then there was a typhoon, so we stayed in and watched Rashomon. It was so loud I had to film it:

Whoosh!

There's another one coming this weekend, apparently (it's weird to hear how casually everyone talks about it- 'Oh yeah, there's another typhoon coming. Want to get sushi?') and I'm making a pilgrimage to Tokyo's only English language used bookstore tomorrow because there's only so long I can stare at a screen on a rained in day. 

This morning I went to Yokohama because why not, and there was something comfortingly familiar about the indolent waterfront. It wasn't just the grand Western architecture or British-y rose gardens, I think it was sense of openness and possibilities that I always feel in harbors. 

Plus, awesome pointy suspension bridges.

There were dragon boats! And few tourists. And all kinds of oddly placed parks on piers and elevations that I will revisit on a cooler day.

DRAGON BOAT!

There is a dreamlike sense I get when I walk out in sandals in October and the sun is hot but the light is autumnal and everything is very like New York, but not quite. Sometimes it's only the constant soft ache of missing people that reminds me how far I am from home, and sometimes it's everything. 

Strange deserted sculpture garden

And sometimes it's just beautiful:

Odaiba. Photo by Dayna (thanks Dayna!)

--Isis

*162 characters, point PROVEN.