Big in Japan

One of my favorite opening line book quotes comes from the first line of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, a Cyberpunk sci-fi novel set, not just in the future, but in the next few hours.

The Sky was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

I’ve been lucky enough to be on an extended trip around the far east, a delayed honeymoon, following my wedding last November, and have just spent some time in Japan.

It got me thinking about Nature versus Nurture in developing a sense of place. On landing in Tokyo there is a palatable sense of culture shock from all that surround you at customs. As a seasoned traveller you search for common touchstones, metro maps, male and female toilet signs, escalator etiquette, and they are there, but so subtly different as to make you feel an alien on your own planet. 

Gibson’s quote above describes a future Chiba City, an extension of Tokyo’s metropolitan sprawl, and the night sky, no longer dark or with stars, but polluted by light, that orange brown glow that everywhere gets when the street lamps come on, or when the seven floors of neon signs light up Achiba, Geek Townand Electric City.

Japan is an environment that is so closely controlled by it’s people that it would be hard to say that Nature or Nurture held sway in developing people. In the Bonsai, the Japanese have perfected their control over nature, and at once accepted their own controlled destiny by nature, be it Typhoon, earthquake, Atom bomb or Godzilla and friends charging out of Tokyo bay to decimate the zen like calm of the Japanese lifestyle.

In 1997 I was offered an apprenticeship architecture place in Kyoto, and for whatever reasons at the time I turned it down. As sure as I am about wanting to return to Japan to discover more of this fascinating land, and more of what I may have missed out on a decade ago, I know I would find it hard to live here.

Anyway – I have two podcasts with interviews with Jay and with Rukkus, but as I’m halfway around the world I can’t link to them at the moment. I’ll be back in front of my own computer after Easter weekend and will repost them here then, until then, you can still find them on www.ukpoetrypodcast.com

Sayanora

Dominic