Notes from a 3D skeptic: September 2010

Friday 24 September 2010

i don't go south of the river

It's beens just over a year since I got back from Japan.

I have lots of memories- good, bad, evocative, cherished, distant. Some memories are sharpening, brightening, calcifying. Others I'm losing. Still more have gone without me even realising, surely. Nostalgia has become habitual. For me, the grass will always be greener. I came across an interesting definition of nostalgia last night that strikes a chord:

'Nostalgia, psychoanalysis teaches, is always neurotic: an imaginary-hallucinatory-attempt to recover a lost past, but one doomed to fail because it ignores or forgets the present that was the essential component of the lost time.'

Ignore the 'pschoanalysis' bit. That's never really been my bag.

I know I'm not the only one with such nostalgic feelings for where I was, what I was doing, that's the thing. Thanks to social media, I know other friends that committed to a transient stay in Japan feel like returning too. Turn the thought over of someday going back. Maybe starting up in another part of Japan.

When I was 19 I travelled to Japan on my own and went from Tokyo to Kagoshima and back. I distinctly remember wandering around Tokyo, all of it, thinking, 'What a cool place to live'. Thinking, 'Wouldn't it just be incredible to live in Tokyo one day'. But part of me knew I wouldn't, that I would go back to England and get on with the business of growing up in Europe. To me, at that time, it seemed hallucinatory to consider living in Tokyo. 5 or so years later I proved myself wrong, and I did it. I made a life there, and I never want to forget that.

Part of the fun of living abroad in such radically different circumstances was reflecting upon my own language, national character, my own upbringing, daily habits, surroundings from another space, from the other side of the line. It threw everything that had come before in life into sharp relief- suddenly I inhabited a position far removed on a scale of comparison. Someone once said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living'- and the converse is just as true.

It can be as simple as the embrace of national stereotypes: kicking more footballs, lauding a capital city I'd never spent longer than a month, sending for brown sauce. Or it could be rejoicing in the aisles of the foreign food store. Or much more: reflecting on all the ambiguities and miscommunications between native speakers of a common language, acknowledging they occur much more than I had previously registered, realising this thanks to all the frustrations of trying to communicate in a language I hadn't yet learned.

It's all quite complicated, and difficult to express. But returning to the green grass on the other side, I give you Guardian journalist Scott Murray's live text-update introduction to the New Zealand innings against India back in March 2003:

'Preamble

It's really simple: India are already through, New Zealand have to win.

Meanwhile, have you ever thought WHAT SORT OF LIFE IS THIS AND WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING BOARDING A TRAIN FOR MOORGATE AT 6.30 IN THE MORNING AND THEN STANDING AROUND FOR AGES WAITING FOR A TUBE WHILE STARING AT A SIGN TELLING YOU THAT IF YOU WAIT FOR FOUR MINUTES YOU CAN BOARD A TRAIN TO UXBRIDGE I'D RATHER WAIT FOUR HOURS FOR A JOURNEY WITH THE GRIM REAPER QUITE FRANKLY AND THEN YOU GET TO WORK AND THEN THERE'S THIS AND I KNOW THE CRICKET'S GOOD AND ALL THAT BUT I'VE GOT OUT OF THE WRONG SIDE OF BED THIS MORNING AND IN ANY CASE IT'S NOT AS IF I'LL WRITE A CRACKING MATCH REPORT AND THEN GET REWARDED BY BEING SENT ON A WONDERFUL ASSIGNMENT AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE I'LL BE VERY SURPRISED IF ANY OF MY BOSSES WILL READ ANY OF THIS LET'S BE HONEST THEY WON'T ALTHOUGH ON THE OTHER HAND THAT'S PROBABLY JUST AS WELL HEY I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH TYPING THINGS LIKE THIS KIqL!UYS^%$DFLI ZSDSAFC SFE4O92 )(^(*^o"$ bBLKU E875O3 96*&^%o*"$ogb LOOK I'M SORRY THIS ISN'T EXACTLY THE SORT OF QUALITY EDITORIAL COPY YOU EXPECT FROM THE GUARDIAN BUT LOOK AT THE FACTS I'M ADRIFT IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE WORST CITIES IN THE WORLD SITTING IN FRONT OF THE SAME COMPUTER SCREEN I FACE DAY AFTER INTERMINABLE DAY HELL I COULD BE WAKING UP IN SAY THE MALDIVES OR SYDNEY OR COPENHAGEN OR A CROFTER'S COTTAGE IN SKYE AND GOING FOR A WALK IN THE CRISP MORNING AIR?

No? Only me then. Good.

The pitch

There are a couple of big cracks in the pitch which may open up later in the day...'

Monday 20 September 2010

A friend came from Japan. I took Tuesday off and we went around town. It was nice to have someone to show off London to, and do half the things I'd love to do. She'd been to the two best galleries the day she arrived, and I eventually ran out of ideas so I took her to the pub.

Throughout the week we spoke in Japanese, we spoke in English. Since I left Japan, all those words and radicals and kanji I got to know have retreated to higher and higher shelves, out of reach of my mind's grasp. Phrases don't come easily any more. I need to think through grammatical structures before speaking them. Whole tracts of vocabulary are gone, just gone. But hanging out with Ran, bits came back, of course. All the parts of the language are still sitting waiting on shelves, somewhere in my mind, just buried in dust but within fingertip grasp.

The funny thing is, looking back, I can't even remember if we spoke in Japanese or English for most of the conversations we had. It's only been a few days. The message is there, and I know what we talked about, but I just don't remember.