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