Noh Means No
Noh theatre is just like a Magical, Mystical journey to the land of Boring. Everything is unbelievably slow and unbelievably precise and unbelievably nonsensical. Boring. But magical and mystical nonetheless. I think today was made bearable because of the lingering appreciation for Japanese tradition that was left with me by The Last Samurai. (That, and whenever I got bored I just thought about how HOTT Tom Cruise is in Hakama. Yum.)

But seriously, I'm feeling rather disenfranchised with the West right now. What a gross social history we have! It's so tempting to spout new-age bull$h!7 about the hatred of my own race... until I think about the social history of pretty much every other nation and culture and realize that everyone has a lineage full of war, genocide and suffering. Even those nations who embrace their past embrace a past of pain. I think that knowing this is supposed to make me feel better but has instead given me a great sense of sadness about the destiny of the world.

When I mentioned this to my host dad last night, he quoted right from the movie something about "making our own destiny." I'd like to believe this, too, but I question how any one person can make a difference these days in ways that matter for a peaceful destiny. My hope is that through understanding this sadness and my inherent dislike of cultural assimilation, I can find some purpose for myself.

Of course, I'm still homesick like nobody's business. At least the weather has begun to turn delightfully cold. I can always think better in cold weather. I miss friends and family. I miss American Breakfast. I miss the east of life and the pace of the States, which I had heretofore thought of as too fast. Boy was I wrong.

So I both long to escape the West and find myself trapped in some odd version of it here... that has only revealed to me that I am, in fact, inescapably Western. I feel dirty.

Having now seen Noh (for five hours straight, BOO-YAH!), I think I understant a bit more about the essence of Japaneseness. As Tom Cruise says in The Last Samurai, "These are a people who, from morning to night, pride themselves on doing whatever it is they choose to do with utmost precision."

Take, for example, Tea Ceremony. Unless you've seen it, you really have no idea the pomp and circumstance that goes into making a rather astringent, algaeic tea. It's almost absurd but so... poignant... that even as a foreign observer I have some good idea of the feeling, almost spiritual, of the ancient tradition behind it.

It's not right for me to say that I come from a place with no history. America certainly has history. But it has no history like that of the Japanese. I don't know where my great-grandparents are buried; much less my ancestors of five generations. I can't trace my family line further than my parents' parents. We have no homeland, no property, no tradition. There are, of course, US families with a larger sense of tradition... but by and large our history is transient, migratory, gained through conquering the older peoples of this floating world.

Sometimes I despise being a member of the white, American majority. It is these times that I embrace my feminity, for in it I find my strength as an individual through being, at the very least, a cultural minority.

Now I find that I need that individuality most. Living outside my motherland has taught me how to fear America. Time spent living in America breeds indifference and apathy... unless, of course, you've spent the last three years in New York. Now my indifference is gone, replaced by both a sense of dread at what my nation is doing and a simple longing to go home. The truth is, I want nothing to do with what America "stands for" any more. It's just the safest place to be.

Even here, Japan is being cornered into cooperating with our soverign nation because of what their constitution and treaties deign them to do. No one wants to question America, not especially Japan. For a country that has no military and has been forbidden to wage war, Japan has now been requested to send "Special Defense Forces" to Iraq to aid the American Army. These are non-combattant troupes... humanitarian aid. And that, in and of itself, I don't have a problem with. But because of constitutional policy, these troupes aren't even allowed to carry weapons except for self-defense. "Special Defense," my ass. At least they're volunteer corps, even if no one but Prime Minister Koizumi seems to want to see them sent overseas.

Japan is not America. It is not the West. Japan loves all things Western and hates them also with a passion. My host father put it best when he said to me that he thinks the Japanese have a yearning for things across the sea, but also a nostalgia for the pastoral quitetude of the countryside. The gap between the generation of boom-year parents and children in this country is astounding. And it is so shocking simply because of how recently Japan was without the West and how easily the older people can still remeber those times. It makes me sad to think how much it must pain them to watch the young people here (who even scare me with their freakish emptiness) lose all sense of their heritage. It hurts me because they have a chance to grasp what *I* want and instead let it slip from them in favor of (for example) awfully dyed hair and prostitution for fashion income.

I certainly don't speak for everyone. But there also is certainly a sense of melancholy in Japan for this very cultural divide. It gives Tokyo its unique quality and is fascinating and energizing for the FOB gaijin and tourists to ogle. But I don't find it so energizing any more. I find it confusing and shameful. A paradox of cultures that at the same time embraces me and exiles me. Who am I here but a fair-haired, fair-skinned representative of that idol, the West? Who am I at all?

Has the world gotten more complicated since I was a child?
Has it become more fearful and dangerous?
Has life always been this way and am I just now beginning to notice?

When I come back home will I be changed for this?
Will I be active?
Will I be aware?
Will I be angry?

Will there ever be a time, a place for me to embrace the culture that surrounds me without guilt or apprehension?

Will there ever be a life spent one day without news of war?

Will I learn to make a difference?

Does it even matter one bit if I care?


This is the single most political post I have ever written. For that I am both glad and very sorry.