chapter 3 harajuku

I’d normally ride my bike to the park, but my body, I don’t think, could take it. so, subway. it’s not more than a five minute walk to the subway from our place. we live in a little flat, which is the second floor of an old two storey wooden house, floating like an old decrepit bed of seaweed and entangled refuse in an ocean of concrete, in the middle of roppongi and shibuya, two of tokyo’s busiest areas. we are surrounded by giant aparto blocks, huge monolithic things without a trace of architectural flair. makes you wonder what kind of a person could design such a thing. I mean, how did they pass their architectural exams? is there no aesthetic component to it at all? in fact one of the few things that I miss about england is the buildings. I spent a week once doing a photography project for college, walking around looking at buildings, amazed by what i could see, when I looked properly. just by looking up. that simple. everyone in london, everyone like me I guess, rushes around like they have somewhere extremely important to be. even when in all likelihood they haven’t. but if you look up, above the gaudy storefronts, above the discarded burger boxes and last nite’s piss stains, there you can see the history, the proud lineage of that great old squire of a city, the different styles, often piled one on top of the other. look up, my son, and see history! don’t look down! (do keep an eye out for the dog shit though – wellies might be an idea).

but tokyo, well, japan, almost every city, there’s nothing like that- people still rush about like idiots, though, that’s the same (though there is no dogshit. seriously, not a jot)– but apart from the odd masterpiece, the odd striking wonder, maybe the prada building, a few others - it’s just a gathering of plastic and metal, formless concrete slabs, creating (if that’s the right word, for surely to create implies some artisticness – if it doesn’t, it should) these huge hard-ons to mediocrity, invisible in every sense other, unfortunately, than in their ugliness, anodyne facades that get thrown up in two months, built with the speed of jehova’s witnesses on crank, all designed to last only 20 or 30 years. new is progress. old is dead. they don’t inspire in any way at all, just conspire, rather, to leave you slightly worn and cold.

this must say something about the japanese psyche, the collective one that is, I’ve often thought, these buildings, but I'm lacking the necessary energy to get anywhere with that notion – the nearest I got was the idea that japan happens on the inside, that japan is interior. I’ve been in stores and restaurants here with incredible designs, on the inside – ugly as sin on the out. newly industrialised nations don’t have to time to worry about architecture, I suppose, to worry about how things look – functionality wins every time. I don’t know if that makes any sense though. I never seem though to have time, space, in tokyo – not physical space - it’s nowhere near as crowded as people believe, as hong kong say – but mental space. that comes at a premium here. and mine’s rapidly diminishing, has been for a while, if I even had any in the first place. the thought of constructing a coherent, connected series of ideas seems as likely as going to the moon. on a vespa. and this godzillaesque bitch of a comedown is not helping at all.

the too-bright, perfectly clean, air-conditioned subway deposits me at the station, I feel like I’ve just stepped from a vaccuum. and into – well, another vaccuum, these clean sleak streets. from here it’s a leisurely though winceful 10 minute walk through the gates to the big open spot where there’s always a crowd, any day of the week, but sundays especially. my mouth is proper dry so I grab a juice from the convenience store and cross the little bridge that links the street and the park, walking past the freaks that hang out here every sunday, the little high school girls, lolitas they call themselves, almost goths, but without a trace of menace, or style for that matter, near pre-pubescents in clumpy pvc 4 inch platform boots, woefully unsexy, black tights, lace skirts and odd frilly blouses, sometimes pill-box hats, the odd veil, clinging onto handbags with the gusto of a sea-sick passenger holding a rickety rail on an uncertain ocean, looking anything but confident, or groovy, more completely self-conscious and in utter fear of losing sight of the other lolitas gathered around - so maybe more like baby zebras on the african plain, with a whiff of lions in the air. maybe I'm being too hard on them (and on the metaphors), they’re harmless I know – I’ve taken photos of them often enough, even had a chat with a few of them – and they are rather fascinating, in a way - but none of them, when asked, could tell me why they did this, why they spent however much of their parents cash on these ridiculous outfits, other than to say „because it’s kawaii!“ – cos it’s cute. is it fuck. today their little mascaraed eyes look even emptier than usual, I know that that’s probably the chemicals working out of me, but all the same, it doesn’t help my mood.

past the lolitas, to the rockabillies, crowds gathered, tourirsts and tokyoites alike, watching japanese kids in leathers and boots with james dean quiffs twirling and huffing to eddie cochrane and fats domino, on past the skateboarders defying gravity (and you would have thought certain and horrendous injury), and then past the homeless, clean-shaven and polite in their blue tents, their shoes left outside the entrance to their makieshift homes. if your 50 in japan and you lose your job – unless your family can support you – you end up here, cos you won’t be finding another job. you read it in the papers, japan’s population is ageing – here you can see just what that means. it’s kind of depressing of course, to see them here, but they’re clean, they’re together, and no one is rolling them in their sleep for a bag of glue or pissing on them as they work off a hangover on a cold bench. and better than that they never ask you for money, and they look ok, you know, not crusty or deranged, so you never feel too guilty. small mercies, I guess. but mercies nontheless.

it’s a few days before the spring blossoms come out fully on the cherry trees, but there are people everywhere on the grass, sat on plastic sheets in large groups eating bentos and getting smashed on three cans of beer or a couple of glasses of schochu. I’d forgotten about this. literally every square foot of grass is covered with people. I walk through a few hundred yards, drawing a few stares, maybe it’s cos I'm foreign, I'm thinking, but then I remember that I have a blackblue eye peeking out from behind my sunglasses, and a swollen nose. I see under a tree a group of foreigners that I know, people I’ve hung out with often, but I quickly turn hoping that I’ve not been spotted and head for an exit. sometimes I just don’t want to talk to people – any people. which has me wondering why I came here in the first place.

folk are still swarming into the park, there’re balloon sellers and fried food stalls lining the path, the sweet sickly smell of fried meat in the air, a win-a-guppy box, cotton candy too, and one tree in the midst of the stalls that‘s just beginning to flower, under it stand maybe 12 people with cameras all getting the same utterly pointless shot, a kid in front of me drops the quivering meaty contents of her paper cone onto the earth and starts to cry, a drunk guy in a suit is staggering along trying to light a cigarette with the wrong end of a lighter, faces everywhere just keep coming and coming and I know I'm miles and miles from home, not a house, not a place, not even the place I grew up, but home, miles from home, whatever or wherever that is, I'm sweating and can’t get an even breath. you’re 29 years old, some voice Is saying, and you’re not right. this is not right, three tabs , endlass fags, half a bottle of jim bean and you get all you deserve. you’re a fucking idiot.

a voice inside - so, where should you be?

I rest on a small wall, just outside the park. deep breaths now, come on. you read about it, youngish guys just dropping dead from heart attacks, never says why. could this be why? I wonder if that – what was that, one of those things? was it an episode? an anxiety attack? what have I got to be anxious about though? ok, I get a little too wasted from time to time, worry about covering my rent, have a job I hate, and uh, got beaten up last night.… I have got to get home to bed.