April 28, 2005
My fortune
Every morning for the last two weeks or so, we’ve awakened at 7:50, perhaps stirred by an outside noise but I’m not aware of what. I wake up and the facts of my reality flow back around me after dreaming, and then there is no way I can go back to sleep. The next few months are beckoning with such treasures in hold, and plans and schemes are constantly running through my busy head. All the while the rest of the world disappoints and horrifies me, and I don’t understand the impossible disjunction, when the people and places that I know positively glimmer in their brilliance. Yesterday on my way to work, I cried again, nearly sobbed on the commuter train by myself and everyone pretended not to notice. I cried because I know that route so well; I know the mountains and the blossoms, and each house and its hanging laundry, and then there is only one more day I’ll go that way. To love someplace so much, you cry at leaving but then to know where you’re going next is even better, where you’ve got to be, burning with excitement to get there. And to love someone so much that no matter where you go together, something good there will lie. I am fully conscious of my fortune.
April 26, 2005
Charis' Toronto Island Cottage!
AS Byatt! And a Literary Map of Manhattan. Wouldn’t it be brilliant to do one for Toronto?
April 26, 2005
Amagasaki
There is really nothing I can say about yesterday’s train crash at Amagasaki, but I have to say something. Amagasaki is about 40 minutes from where we live, and we have stopped there numerous times on the way to Osaka. I’ve never taken that line, though Bronwyn did when she was here and took the train to AstroBoy’s Museum in Takarazuka. I take the train to work most days a week, and the train I’ve seen in pictures looks the very same as mine. This is not to say that one’s proximity to tragedy is so paramount, but it’s certainly upsetting. Between earthquakes, tsunami and various human-made disasters, one must step carefully on this continent. Or at least it’s seemed that way this past year. I am very sad for all those poor people involved, and I’m hoping for a miracle or two.
April 24, 2005
Good stuff
Sue Townsend reports on the current state from a council estate in Leeds. Great article on writer Hilary Mantel. Observer Music Monthly on Top Ten Rock and Roll Muses. Peaches Geldof’s documentary discussed in this interesting article on teenageness. On how literature is changing the way we’re understand the history of Canadians of colour here.
April 23, 2005
Pride and defiance
Margaret Atwood has inspired me to do many things. I read this article in a book in August 2002 and it inspired me to move to England, to really go and not as tentatively as I’d done two months previous. If you’ve ever moved to England, or met me, or most notably met me in August 2002, this article will have a certain resonance.
An interview with Nick Hornby. The Guardian Books Bangkok Diary. A 1977 interview with my beloved Joan Didion in The Paris Review Archives.
In politics, kudos to Japan for being better and apologising to China. Pride and defiance are unproductive when it comes to International Relations, and now the Chinese government is banning anti-Japanese protests (which shouldn’t be too difficult as they instigated them on in the first place). I do find it too bad that the Japanese can’t find a way to honour their war-dead without honouring their war criminals however. China, on the other hand, needs to calm down. And annoying David Frum on the Liberal scandal. I’d take the Liberals over Conservative principles any day.
April 23, 2005
On Moral Relativism
Over at my friends’ Live Free or Die, there’s been a bit of a debate about moral relativism, as they put it. I’ve been thinking a lot about and posted the following comment:
“I think you’re right. I think idealism is far too idealistic to work beyond itself, and when people like you dare to condone violence under a certain set of circumstances, take a stand on culturally sensitive issues and hold opinions that don’t look so good on t-shirts, it’s brave and profound.
But I also believe that violence is always inherently the wrong course of action. I believe that war, death, and violence are issues that require a blanket generalisation with no exceptions. It’s wrong to kill people. Perhaps with some regimes, violence is the only language they will understand but personally I would be ashamed to speak that language. We must raise our personal standards, morally, politically and diplomatically. Fire versus fire is a rather predictable fight.
I realise I am saying nothing new or altogether helpful, but you can’t just dismiss my opinion because you find it irritating.
You’re right that sometimes the only really impactful response to genocide and human rights abuses is war, but I think input from people who disagree with this is essential if these missions are going to be carried out well. Because the thing is they usually aren’t carried out well. Liberators have a knack of inflicting human rights atrocities of their own, fuelled by self-righteousness and supposed moral superiority. Further, war-mongering is a reflex with too many people in powerful places, and they have to be kept in check. Also, which countries deserve or require liberation? I, like you, believe in a universal moral standard for humanity, but this is as deeply problematic and simplistic as cultural relativism, because who determines it? Are you really that sure of yourself?
You can’t just stake a claim and stay there. Ideas have to be ever-evolving and dialogue must continue from people on all-sides. Everyone must be willing to be proven wrong and you can’t always be anti-anti. You have to listen to the Noam Chomskys, and Michael Moores, because they have something worthwhile to say. I know you’re both more open-minded than you sometimes let on, and that indeed you do this, hence the balance of sites on your links page that started this debate in the first place.
So does it make me the ultimate relativist to say that you’re right, but sometimes the people whose opinions you disagree with are just as right as you are?”
April 22, 2005
Miyajima Dream
We had a brilliant weekend in Miyajima. Way too tired to write about it in any detail. Yesterday we checked out various shrines and temples, and followed many a meandering path. The weather was beautiful, and we got to eat Hiroshima-yaki. We checked into our ryokan around 3:00, and changed into our yukata. We had an ocean view, and it was phenomenal. Unwound while reading and overlooking the sea. Our dinner was served in our room at 7:00. Fish fish and more fish, The dishes spread across the table and the course kept on coming. After dinner, we went for a walk to see the shrine illuminated, and came back to find our futons set up for the night. We made us of the ryokan’s hotspring onsen before we went to bed. The light flooded our room this morning, beautiful through the paper doors. We had breakfast before checking out, and then we went to climb Mount Misen. It was an amazing trek, quite steep and demanding at times. The scenery on the way was well worth it, and when we reached the top, the beauty 360 degrees around us was overwhelming. Also overwhelming were the near 200 school girls in black tracksuits eating their bentos at the summit. We ended up walking down with them, we kept waiting for them to pass but they never really ended. We made many friends. All in all, the mountain experience was about three hours long and we returned to the bottom sore and exhausted. We went splits on Hiroshima-yaki, and tried kaki-yaki, which was oishii! Around 3:30 we got the ferry, and then the train back to Hiroshima, and then the shinkansen home, sunburnt, euphoric and knackered. We’re leaving in just over two weeks, and what a note to be going out on.
near the floating shrine
atop tatami we sleep
good-bye to Japan
