April 30, 2005

Hope you find your paradise

Well, the insomnia continued. I couldn’t sleep well past 2:00am last night and woke up at 6:30. I had this overwhelming feeling of imminent Christmas, which I both wanted and didn’t want to come. And of course the best part of insomnia is catching the cockroaches unaware! Oh yes, the little bastard was hiding from me under the edge of my kitchen sink. He was dead the minute I laid eyes on him.

So I woke up with the sun, and went downstairs and read some of “The Years”. And then I began to write a new short story, whose subject popped into my head whilst I was attempting to sleep. I went to work at the usual time, read the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun on the train as per Saturday usual, but of course nothing was the same. Mainly because I was not displaying classic bad attitude, but rather was quite happy. It was a nice day, last Wednesday was sadder. Today felt more like one quick trip back. From the students, I received presents galore! I got beautiful pearl earrings and a pearl bracelet, a book called “Miffy Says I Love You”, a Miffy picture frame, a Japanese cook book, a Miffy glass, a Miffy towel, a Miffy bath soap set and a box of cakes. Stuart also received, from the staff at his school (where I work part time), the most beautiful picture album, which will be used to display the highlights of the Japan life. Nothing was quite as brilliant as the present I got from one student though- she’s perhaps the shiest person ever, prone to running away when I meet her and blushing boldly. I decided to give her my big Doraemon stuffed animal, as he is too big (and strange) for Canada. I gave him to her, with a note tucked in his secret pocket. She gave me a four leaf clover.

I feel weird, at odds. I don’t know what to do with myself. This life is so safe and cushioned, and now away we go again. We have to of course, and we have wonderful plans but the plans becoming a reality make me anxious. Happily anxious, but still. I think it will be scary as the next months are so transitional, but learning to live like that has been good for me. I’ve got Stuart, and lovely friends to go home to. So onward and upward. Bring on the permanant vacation.

April 29, 2005

Last Beautiful Weekend

We had a last beautiful weekend. Yesterday, we dropped off a million books to donate to the library, proudly sent home a money order for a very large amount of cash and discovered we have enough to make the next year work for us, I bought a cheap cotton kimono-like robe, we went to the gallery, got the photos developed from Miyajima and went to karaoke.

We also discovered that we can no longer eat chicken stirfry, which we’ve been cooking most nights a week for fourteen months now- spiced up by a once-a-week spaghetti (sauce from a bag). This isn’t entirely the fault of my cooking skills- it’s also the high price of Japanese groceries, absence of a microwave/oven/broiler in fact any heating apparatus beyond one burner and a bread toaster not to mention no counter space. We’ve been eating a balanced diet this past year, but hardly a varied one and that’s the end of it. Serious.

Last night I finished reading “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers, and was depressed as a result. I’ve also finished reading “An American Childhood” in my giant Annie Dillard book (definitely not her portable collection), which was better. I have begun “The Years” by Virginia Woolf, which the inside cover notes was began first in Nottingham in September 2002 but ne’er finished. I am going to finish it this week and leave it here, as it’s well-travelled enough.

Today we woke up at the usual time and went to Osaka quite early. We forgot it was a public holiday (the beginning of a weeklong one- and for once we get to play too!) and the world was a madhouse. The trains were crammed, so we sat on the floor and irritated people. When they got fuller, we managed to find one seat and sat in shifts, but I felt sick most of the way so I hogged it. When we got to Umeda, we went to Osaka Kiddyland to search one more time for the elusive Miffy in Overalls. No dice, but it was huge and wonderful. I perused the Miffy goods and selected some appropriate ones, and resisted others. Stuart was wonderfully supportive, though did get irritated by the Monchichi DVD beside the Miffy department and ended up turning off the television. It was my last Kiddyland experience, and Stuart was so patient as I struggled to say goodbye to Miffy goods for all your lifestyle needs. I am really really going to despair leaving it behind. This is not drama. After Kiddyland, we went to Shinsaibashi and hung about. We revisited the Sanrio Gallery, and had a lovely lunch (in a jewelry store’s cafe?) and then went to the Apple store. I got an Ipod Shuffle and Stuart got an Ipod Mini in green. Sugoi. The woman at the store asked me what operating system I had, and I told her I had a white mac and it was new. She talked just to Stuart after that. We left Apple, and went to Tower Records in America-Mura, where I bought magazines for the plane. We walked about America-Mura and shop staff were very nice to us, noting our Apple bags. We watched a sunglasses fashion show with human mannequins and it was strange. We drank lemonade outside Freshness Burger and watched the freaks go by. The cute goths were as ever, but my favourite candidate was a woman in harem-pants style acid washed jeans, a red vest with a tropical print on it and red pointy shoes. We went to the Athens bookshop after that, so Stuart could buy a book for the plane and we got “Eleanor Rigby” by Douglas Coupland.

We got the train after that. It was so busy, but we got off in Sannomiya to have dinner- bibimba! We got home after that, and have been eating strawberries and playing with Ipods since then. Tomorrow is our last day of employment for an indiscernible length of time. This is a positive step.

April 28, 2005

We went to the Himeji City Museum of Art today to see the Katsushika Hokusai exhibit. The Fuji prints were our favourites, particularly this- “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”.

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?”