Japanese whispers

I’m not some kind of Japan-ophile and am no more interested in Japan than anywhere else in the world. I would happily go there if someone gave me a round trip ticket and a suitcase full of money, but otherwise it’s way down my list of travel priorities.

Yet, Kafka on the Beach is the third Murakami novel I’ve read recently. I’ve begun to study the films of Hayao Miyazaki and put some thought into Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

Oh, I’ve read Japanese novelists or seen Japanese movies before now. Many years ago I was into the films of Nagisa Oshima and I’ve both seen Mishima and read several of his novels. But that was many years ago and over a long period of time. All this Japanese art and lit has come in a bunch lately. I don't know why.

Tonight as I was reading Kafka, I realized that there are an inordinate number of supernatural themes in Japanese stories. From what I’ve been reading, I’d say that the collective Japanese unconscious must be among the most spirit-infested in the world. The wall between the physical senses and the ghost world is as thin as rice paper.

I’m sure that more educated people are aware of that cultural trait, but the stereotypes I soaked up from popular culture gave me no clue. I think of the salary-men herded into subway cars who work 12 hours and then drink and whore around till late at night; the bright lights and neon of Tokyo; the Buddhist shrines and the zen masters; the giggling schoolgirls and the high tech industries with ultra-rational workers in little orange hard hats. They just don’t seem like the type of people who are obsessed with ghosts and spirit worlds. Shows how much I know, eh?

A Japanese woman lives in the apartment below mine. She is young and quite beautiful, but that neither here not there. I rarely think about her and our conversation has never been more than neighborly. She takes care of the yard and different plants, packages, and seed catalogues are regularly delivered to our door. At a glance you cannot tell that any plan is behind the landscaping. There is no symmetry to her design. She may not even have a design. Yet when you look closely, each plant fits in its space and something is always flowering. If you look very closely, you will find little shrines among the bushes and weeds.

Often at night the smell of Japanese cooking wafts up the stairs. Her bed is directly below ours and now that I’m reading Murakami I suspect that her dreams are mingling with mine, thus my interest in these supernatural Japanese stories. The Earth slowly keeps on turning. But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone’s living in them.

Well, that’s one possible explanation. I admit that there could be others. Maybe when I'm done with Kafka on the Beach I'll read some real Kafka to bring me back to a more western reality.