Ball games

Marvellous game, tennis. Cerebral yet visceral - like jazz.

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Great combination of power, technique, grace, constant improvisation, intelligence - so little is down to luck, unlike soccer for example - 'boot it and see'. Also, unlike soccer, there is an almost complete lack of tribalism - who cares if Ivanovic is a Russian, a Serb or a Canadian - as long as she plays well. And the women's game is so good these days. Love it - love it all. Marvellous game.

Blooming in the rainy season

Bucketing it down outside - cats and dogs. The hydrangea outside my window is happy - hydrangea means water-cup, presumably because they like water, as they bloom in the rainy season.

Just been down the supermarket and was impressed and slightly embarrassed by the checkout guy's over-the-top ingratiating service technique - as if I were the Crown Prince on an official inspection rather than some guy in a pair of grubby shorts buying a six pack and a bunch of bananas. They are an amazing people - and so contradictory. The other day I stayed in a very posh, traditional ryokan - old-style hotel, with the full works - beautiful gardens with Japanese maple dangling over carp ponds with turtles to boot, tatami throughout inside, loads of old wood, including massive 400 year old beams in the restaurant. Great onsen - thermally heated public baths, inside and out.

As we entered and left, a shoe man would bow deeply, greeting us and sending us off with an irasshaimasei! or an iterasshai! (or something along those lines) while banging on a hall drum to let everyone know the honourable guests were on their way - prompting more staff to appear, smiling and bowing deeply. At the very elaborate breakfast we had a personal obaasan (little old lady) pouring our tea, refilling our rice bowls etc as if we were 5 year olds. Japanese meals are very complex in that there are usually a dozen or more small dishes and so the waitresses go through a sometimes lengthy explanation as to how to deal with the unknown item - you have to add this sauce and mix it with that thing, etc. Can you imagine this happening in the UK?

Anyway, I was just thinking about contradictions, here in the most contradictory culture on Earth. A country where people are so convinced of the superiority of their way of doing things while simultaneously bending over backwards to be 'international'. By the way, we ended up the night before last in an excellent Mexican restaurant - or was that a dream? I recall large jugs of margarita... Last night we were sitting by the water's edge while a very convincing samba-type jazz band were performing Mas que nada and The girl from Ipanema and so on, in perfect Portuguese.

Do you find that if you don't do what other people want you to do, they then tell you you're selfish?

Do you find that the people who tell you you're bad at keeping in touch never call you up or email you?


Or is that just me?

http://www.jinya-inn.com/

http://mikelidgley.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

Rebounds

A friend from the States, the country of multiple marriage and divorce, told me the other day that there is a kind of folklore there that the third marriage is golden. The first time round, you are young and inexperienced and don't understand how hard it is to make a marriage work, so you eventually split and are drawn to someone with different qualities, the opposite, perhaps. Your first partner was boring and steady, so you are drawn to the wild, or vice versa. So that quickly doesn't work because you're with someone on the rebound from your first big love. But by the time the third one comes along, the theory goes, you know who you are, what you want, how to get it, and most importantly how hard you have to work to keep it.

Looking back, I can see how I have been rebounding back and forth like a pinball all my life!

Sketch by Rodin

Typhoons

The tragic loss of life in Burma and the Philippines recently was caused by a combination of a natural phenomenon (typhoons) and man-made negligence. I have found it odd that I knew about both Typhoon Nargis, that hit Burma, and Typhoon Feng Shen, that hit the Philippines, four or five days beforehand - because I get sent automatic emails by

http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/

I get them because I'm interested in sailing. But if I can get them, surely the governments of Burma and the Phillipines can get them too - and prevent ferries, for example, from going out to sea when there is a Red Alert - a 100% chance of a certain area being hit within 24 hours?

Halves

I've been helping a friend for the last two days - she and her 'half' kids had to move out in a hurry, big hurry. As she's a gaijin, outsider/foreigner, her kids are considered to be only half-Japanese, haafu, the bottle's half-empty, and despite having a Japanese father, and born in Japan, they will not be given Japanese nationality, because they are only half. This is despite the fact that every day the population of Japan goes down by 450, due to the declining birthrate.

We were all weekend in a panic trying to clear out the house, where they had lived for two years. Mid-afternoon a posse of neighbours turned up outside - had they come to ask how she was? Perhaps to offer help? No way - they had come to point out that she had put the rubbish out on a Sunday when the rubbish collection day was Monday so could she please take the rubbish to the municipal garbage dump today and not leave it overnight, under nets, and it was only plastic, not food, but still - it's the principle that counts?

On the way to my friend's house I was on the train and a small, frail, bent-double old lady fell down on the floor of the train. She couldn't get up without help. No-body moved an inch. She kept trying but men, women, young and old, all sat still staring into the mid-distance as if nothing was happening. It took a gaijin, me, to go over and help this little old lady up to her feet in the middle of a train carriage. No-one taught them what to do and say when a little old lady falls down in the middle of a train - so they don't move a muscle.

A couple of days ago I was on the train on the way to work and I realised something unusual was going on - I could hear people talking. This is very unusual. Normally, and I speak from experience, 200-300 people can be packed into a train carriage and you will usually not hear a word. Utter silence - apart from the clickety-clack of the trains on their rails and the earphone muzak. But here I was next to a North American mother talking to her 10-ish year old son, or less - I couldn't help overhearing, as they were next to me, and their non-stop conversation ranged all over the place, and included the meaning of government - what does government mean - what do they do, etc.

And I thought - how unusual - and I compared that 10-year-old to the 18 and 19 year olds that I confront every day, who usually list their hobbies as sleep, shopping and going to Disneyland, if that.

The other day I went to the Post Office to send some money to my bank account in England. There is a form to fill in: Name and address of sender of money - me, Japan. Name and address of receiver of money: me, Japan. Name and address of payer in of money - me, Japan. They couldn't handle this. An hour later and three, maybe four forms filled in in triplicate, we finally arrived at something which the bureaucrat could accept: Sender of money - me, my present address in Japan. Receiver of money - me, at my last address in Japan, in England.. So not only did I no longer live there, at that address in Japan, but clearly that Japanese address was not part of Britain - but nevertheless this surreal combination of nonsensities satisfied the screwed up version of reality that this particular Japanese bureaucrat felt he needed. Reality? Who needs reality?

Welcome to Disney-Japan.

Rant over.

Atami

Bit misty and overcast first thing in Atami.


















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The sun started to clear the mist as we rounded Manazuru Point.















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.The Captain enjoying a cuppa in the middle of Sagami Bay.




















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Steaming into Hayama at 6 knots.
















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Back at Enoshima for a sunset beer.




















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Just got to the university accommodation in time for lights out.

Tunes

Interesting to see that 2 - 4% of us cannot distinguish bum notes from those in tune:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2008/06/080611_tune_deafness.shtml

Which must be handy if you work in a karaoke bar.

Damn shame to see this guy died in a scuba diving accident. Only 44, but gave so much - brilliant musician and artist.

One shared space

Spent the morning with the painter of this, a lovely woman who may be letting me house/cat-sit for a year in her marvellous wooden, open-plan house by the sea - for free! Fingers crossed.


One shared space
Nobuko Watabiki
2006

Under my skin

Took the dinghy out this afternoon, thanks to H, out past the lighthouse and the tori, the gate-thing on the rocks - it's big close up, as you'd imagine. Drifted off into a yunagi - a flat calm that comes in the evening - something about anabatic and katabatic winds, the pressure drops over the land as the sun sets, or vice versa. Suddenly dawned on me that I was heading off out to sea, with no wind, and the sun is setting... Managed to turn her round and point back towards the shore I'd been so keen to get away from an hour or so earlier. Then out of nowhere the wind picks up, and up, and soon I am struggling to stop the water flood over the side - the sky darkens with storm clouds, But hey, it's fun! I shoot straight across the bay and join in the windsurfers in La Chaya bay, skipping across like stones.

End up later on inside La Chaya, with good friends, the best, admiring the best performer of her genre I have seen there - the classic crooner. Great rendition of "I got you under my skin, I gottyu steep into partamee", and so on. Nice bass.

What's it all about?

Omoshiroi - just spent almost five hours chatting in Italian, in an Italian restaurant, in Japan, with a Japanese - and not just about the cat sitting on the mat, or not. Compare that with my pitifully near-complete inability to still, after nearly two years living in this country, and a much longer association with its people, put together more than the simplest exchange of pleasantries. So what's that all about then?

From fine sashimi to eggo muffinu

Shot across Kamakura Bay at 22 knots, eleven miles in 30 minutes flat from Akiya to Enoshima, like skimming across a frozen lake, scattering Tasmanian shearwater and flying fish surprised to meet a massive white sea rocket with two happy men on board.

Quite a day as usual with H. We fixed a fan belt and fiddled on the dive boat, then moved Endeavour to her new mooring while her pontoon is being replaced, before it disengages itself from the main pontoon and floats off out to sea.

Met General Custer, his wife and dog/horse in a 1929 Mercedes Benz, on the way to lunch of raw baby fish (nama shirazu). Then back across the bay, skirting the fishing nets (just), for a sunset beer on the sambashi - the harbour wall/pier - mole?

Dinner on the finest sashimi I have yet eaten, in our local fish restaurant, run by a fisherman, and very decent sake. A small place usually with a queue outside on the pavement. Must try again - 'He who knocks will be let in' (Nick Cave).

Ended up in the university accommodation - traditional Japanese room, tatami mats, communal bathing etc. Thankfully tonight I have my own room. The other night I was in a large tatami space with 8 or so other men, who kept me awake with their coughs and grunts. Longer in bed but less sleep, for the wrong reasons. Ojalla! Woke up and sought breakfast - ended up in McDonalds outside the front gate, with a paper cup of coffee-like substitute and an eggo muffinu.

My life goes from one extreme to the other - dekoboko.

Contradictions

Don't know where you stand on the nature/nurture, DNA v. society debate/continuum, but I wander back and forth, cyclically. I am presently of the mind that there is overwhelming evidence that the former is uppermost - the driving force in almost every aspect of human behaviour, our sense of well-being, our character, our happiness. Desmond Morris was right - we are naked apes. As is that chap who wrote the Language Instinct, although I still prefer Darwin's phrase - 'Language is an instinct to acquire an art'.

For example, I just picked up my guitar for pretty much the first time in six months and tried tuning it. It would be possible for a stone deaf person (not tone deaf - I mean completely deaf) to tune a guitar, by the way, because you can see and feel it when it's in tune. The strings shudder when they are out of tune, as does the body of the guitar, but when you twiddle the knob (machine head) and the two strings you are working on come into tune they visibly and sensibly hum - you can see and feel it. Once the whole guitar is in tune it too hums, and stops shuddering. (Btw I am reminded of how a sailing boat does the same thing once you get the sails set perfectly together - she starts to hum through the water).

There is a perfectly practical scientific reason for this - to do with sound waves and oscillations etc. but the point is that we humans (and other animals) naturally sense such things, and find the harmonious result innately good. The natural scientific knowledge spills over into our artistic sensibilities - in fact it might be the case that our artistic appreciation is a means of seeking and detecting scientific perfection. Which might explain why so many top scientists and mathematicians appreciate high art.

Anyway, let's move on from harmony for a while to this week's word - compassion. Caring about people is again completely natural. If we didn't care about those around us in a mutually supportive 'looking out for each other' sort of way, society would disintegrate and we'd end up with more random acts of mindless violence, such as the truly horrific stabbings that took place in a Tokyo street in broad daylight the other day. To get people to harm and kill each other is going against nature - so soldiers have to be indoctrinated into thinking (or not thinking) they are doing the right thing, somehow, by going against their own nature. In the case of the military this indoctrination is intentional. In the case of the apparently increasing random acts of violence here in Japan, the indoctrination is brought about, it seems to me, by a society that doesn't show that it cares enough about its lost individuals. Which is why this country also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and a murder rate double that of Britain, for example, but which seems to be predominantly within families - brothers and sisters, husbands and wives - it's in the paper every week.

So, caring about each other, and showing we care, is way of increasing our own survival chances, as individuals and as a society. It's again in our DNA. So we are drawn to people who care, about whatever. People who are passionate about some aspect of life - whether it's racing cars, or opera, or global warming, or the mating rituals of the Emperor penguin (as one of my students is) - or a combination of the above. This is what can be depressing and frustrating about some of our students here - the almost complete lack of passion about life, and compassion towards others. So many of them (but by no means all, thank God) seem hidden away in their own worlds - worlds of fantasy - video games, Disneyland once a year, and sleep as often as possible - ie. escaping from, rather than passionately seeking, the reality of life on Earth.

I have just contradicted myself - because the conclusion is that these lost souls are the result of a socialisation process, which pushes them away from what is naturally within them - the need for harmony, passion and compassion in their lives.

Bonding

Went to a hugely enjoyable barbecue yesterday - the food was as eclectic as the guests. Thing about expat life is you find yourself at such gatherings amongst a diverse range of people who would probably not always hobnob if they met elsewhere. Like being in a lifeboat, perhaps. So at one point, for example, there was a hysterical conversation going on between a deep South Texan whose hobbies seemed to include killing as many different animals as possible - "I shot 'im right between the eyes boy!" - and a clearly very well-to-do British Italyophile, who imports absolutely everything from Italy - the bond between them was car engines. The former loves drag racing, while the latter has a collection of a dozen or so classic 60s racing cars in various garages in London. Had a long conversation about goats - seemed to go on for about an hour. Great tequila.

Contrast

We naturally like contrast. A photo of an object on a sunny day is more pleasing - because of the contrasts. We need contrast, we need difference. Uniformity is unnatural. Reconciliation of diversity is, however, natural. If we understand that we are driven by millions of years of natural evolution, rather than a few thousand years of human culture (which is nonetheless endlessly important and fascinating, because we are human), then God (etc.) is no longer necessary! Our purpose in life is to be human - our humanity is in our genes. We are designed to be social, so we have to learn how to fit in - how to be a productive member of our community. The cultures/arts that we see around the world are responses to this common human condition.

Robinson Crusoe

I am blessed with some wonderful friends, scattered around the world, like anchors, and three amazing children, who frequently remind me that they are wiser than their progenitor, which makes one wonder whether Darwin was right. I guess he was talking about the entire race over millenia, and not an individual over a single lifetime.

Offspring number two, for example, told me this morning that while we may not always have romance in our lives, we can have love anytime - we just have to open our hearts.

Brilliant. We are surrounded by and infused with love - as that Hugh Grant film points out - what was the song? Love is everywhere? The trick/lesson/quest in life is how to tap into it - how to access it, and then build it into our everyday actions and behaviour.

Just as we are surrounded by, and infused with, beauty - it's everywhere - it's right in front of your face. And it's within you. We are all beautiful!

Who needs drugs?

Offspring number one just pointed out another very important truth: that we should focus more on what unites us than what separates us.

Also brilliant. We are all simultaneously separate, diverse, different as well as belonging to an amorphous whole, like the individual cells of a sponge, or the single bird in the flock of thousands, or fish in a shoal. Without each other, we are nothing - we don't exist. We are lost in space.

I am reminded of that philosophical (?) question over whether a tree falling in the forest makes any sound if there is no-one there to hear it.

One of my favourite TV programmes as kid in the 60s was Robinson Crusoe - I can recall the theme tune and the opening scene - the black and white waves washing up a monochrome beach - I was almost in love with Robinson Crusoe. But I couldn't understand his angst - his longing to leave the island, risk his life doing so, his passionate delight in finally getting "Man Friday" (and then teaching his 'savage' English'!).

Now I do! (Not the English bit - clarification)

PS. Not sure what amorphous means.

PPS. Come in offspring number three!