“In Tokyo” - June 1997 (+2020)

(2020) - Another look back at something I wrote in 1997 and sent to a few people by e-mail at the time.  Not really much preamble needed for this one....

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“In Tokyo” - June 1997

This one is a little bit odd perhaps.  I wrote it with the intention of it’s being something like a diary, and ended up with impressions.  I had intended to just write about what was happening in a regular style, but the result is something like a poem.  In all honesty, I’m slightly embarrassed to send this out, but the feelings were real enough, so I think it’s valid.... 

June 25th, 1997 - Wednesday 20:20
Shibuya Rooftop Beer Garden

   The beginning of summer.  The temperature is just right, with a light breeze blowing up here on the roof.  I say the beginning of summer, but it’s already June 25th!!
   I think... I need a trip.
   I’m sitting here... feeling many things... there’s a desire to write, but what?
   Time.  I came to Japan in August 1984.  Everything was so different, the adventure of just living was enough.  It didn’t matter if it was a twenty minute hike to the station and it took two hours to get to the Japanese language school I was going to in central Tokyo.  It didn’t matter because the whole thing was an adventure, and just surviving an adventure is enough.
   But, at the end of 1995, I realized... I saw... I felt my old self.  The man in San Francisco standing by the ocean, wondering about mysterious foreign lands on the other side.  The sound of the always in-motion cable car cables underfoot on an empty evening street.  The mystery of China Town, and my passion for photography.  A general passion for life....

June 26th, 1997 - Thursday 1:15 p.m.
Joban Line

   I’m on my way to Kashiwa.  If all my train rides were like this one, life would be more enjoyable!  There are actually empty seats on this train!
   Outside the train, through the window, I watch the jumble of wires and buildings slip by beneath a beautiful sky of light blue and white....
   Early this morning I sent out some “Looking for e-mail pals” letters, and just before heading out, I checked for mail and found:

One letter from a cousin.
Two letters from new e-mail pals.
And.....................
One piece of racist hate mail.

   I’m a little depressed about getting it, but after all, I’ve sent out a lot of letters, and this is the first time I’ve gotten something like this.  Some people are dangerously crazy, but hopefully their numbers are few.
   I’ve never had this particular brand of racism directed against me before, because I’m an outsider here.  It’s strange, interesting, and eye opening to have this particular poison aimed at me.  I’ve asked Japanese friends about their experiences with racism overseas, and mostly, if they’ve had bad experiences, they just say that they’ve had trouble before, but don’t (won’t) elaborate.  But since I’m Japanese now (apparently), now I know.
   Unfortunately, there’s racism in every country, but sometimes when you experience it far from home, you forget about the evil people you left behind in the old country.
   But enough on that topic!
   I’m almost to Kashiwa.  I’ll try checking for new e-mail at a public phone there.

Ginza 18:42

   Another beautiful sky.  A jet flies by up very high, leaving a trail only where it passes through a light cloud.  Flying...  The clouds lit with the sun low in the sky.  The city is drifting towards evening and night, but the sky is still one of a summer day.  The city below, so... so... city.  The sky... so beautiful.
   A sound-truck drives by with marital music blasting from huge horn speakers facing in all directions.  A bone chilling wind blows over my warm mood.  A feeling of sadness.  I wonder - what would the sound truck men and the evil creature who sent me racist hate mail do if they were locked into the same room together...?
   I watch the sky...  Evening colors are seeping into the clouds...  The sound assault truck gone, my spirits pick up again....
   Now it is unmistakably the edge of evening, and I must be back at work very soon.  My thoughts go to you, the reader.  What do you think?  Does this day of mine seem to have some meaning?  Let me know if you would, please, for my weeks are too much the same.  Every day is different, but what I’m doing is more or less the same.  Or so it seems to me... and to you?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
June 26th, 1997
Ginza, Tokyo

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(2020)  Rereading this now, I remember the time delay in getting a response to something I wrote back then.  I would send out something via e-mail and then get some responses to it via e-mail replies over the following days.  Now there's the "Like" count or "heart mark" count.  Writing before was a speedy version of old-form letters.  How we toss text back and forth now is something else altogether.  The 1997 text I edited slightly, but it's 97% the way I wrote it back in 1997.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/

1997と2020 - Recording Methods Over the Years

(2020) The first electronic word processing machine I bought was (unfortunately) a dedicated word processor.  I say "unfortunately" because while the machine worked well enough and was useful, the data I saved to floppies is now unreadable and it delayed my entry to computing (outside of school and then work).  I bought my first used computer in 1995, and then a second machine in 1996, but both of those computers were too under-powered to get onto the Internet, so for my third computer, bought in late 1996, I bought an old-stock new machine that had just enough power to get on-line.  The first two machines weren't a complete waste of money though, as I used them as word processors and they were immeasurably more powerful tools for that than the 1980's word processor I had been using.
   Right at the end of 1996, I began to realize what a fantastic machine an Internet-connected computer was for communicating long-distance.  (Recently, I'm beginning to see the drawbacks to that, but that's another story.)  So, heading into 1997, I used the machine a lot for writing and exchanging text messages with people residing in other parts of the world.  This was before FaceBook, Twitter, etc., and so there were only chat rooms, or e-mail.  I briefly spent some time in chat rooms, but abandoned those in favor of e-mail (starting with a small group of people I had met in chat rooms).
   I go into that history as part of the history of how I have attempted to record things.  How I've recorded things has been dictated by time and tools, and what tools I've worked with has been dictated by the technology available at the time and by my (generally limited) financial resources to acquire things.  The basic timeline of how I've recorded things is as follows:

Early Days-1990 - Single image photography via SLR 35mm cameras.
1990-1993 - Analog video (digital sound, some in mono, but most in stereo).
1993-1996 - Single image photography via SLR 35mm camera.
1996-2000 - Text, either hand-written or typed into a computer.
2000-2006 - Single image photography via digital cameras.
2007-Present - Mix of single image digital photography and digital video.

   The 1996-2000 period stands out as the only time I was not recording images with some sort of camera.  I accidentally left my Nikon FM2 on the Yamanote Line in 1996 (I reported it to the police, but it never returned) and I didn't have enough financial resources to replace it with another good camera, so I decided to just go without a camera for a while and record things in words.  Finally!  We come to the reason for all of the above text!  All of this preamble is to explain why I have zero photographic images from 1997 to 2000, but do have text.  Only text.  And I recently dug out of the back corners of a hard drive some of the things I sent to a select group of people via e-mail in 1997, but didn't put into a blog.  (I don't think I did anyway, enough time has passed since I started blogging that I might have put something up and forgotten about it.)
   In any event, it was kind of a special time for me, as I found it relaxing to go somewhere, stop, pull out a notebook (or batch of folded paper) and pen, and calmly write - having only words to record what I was seeing, hearing, experiencing....  As I got into computing, I began carrying a laptop computer with me and writing with that, but that was contingent on having somewhere to sit down and since my equipment was using a pre-lithium-ion battery, it didn't run for long between charges, so if I wanted to spend any time writing, I usually needed to plug it in.  These days, coffee shops and fast food places know their fondle-slab loving customers are much more likely to be there if they can plug in their devices, so there is an outlet by every seat, but in 1997, AC outlets were generally to plug in vacuum cleaners and were few and far between.
   One last note about the timeline I wrote above (scroll up...).  That is to show my primary method of recording street scenes, etc., and the 1996-2000 period was exclusively text (with the exception of some junk camera pictures taken to record people events, but nothing suitable for posting), but text has been an ongoing thing.  It's never been only pictures - you have to explain the pictures with words after all.  That's why I didn't mind going to all text for awhile - I was already used to recording things that way in combination with images, so it wasn't too big of a jump to just go to only text.
   OK!  And finally we come to something I wrote back in 1997 - on June 7th and June 9th - partly by hand and partly straight into my laptop computer (edited):

“What to Write...” - June 7th, 1997

(Handwritten)  Here I sit, on a train heading to my first job of the day....

I was just thinking, wondering - what to write about.  This morning I was thinking that maybe I spend too much time on E-mail, but I realize, as I sit here on this train, that I really need that interaction, and far from interfering with my writing, it’s the spark that sets off a storm of ideas.
   Several hours pass....

(The following written with my laptop in Shinjuku at Kinokuniya Book Store in “Times Square”......)

   I’ll just start writing something, and see where it leads me.  But first, as I only have about twenty minutes before I have to be back at work, I should describe my surroundings right now.
   I’m sitting in a line of young woman who are all holding copies of a new book by a comedy pair (a man and a woman) who call themselves Bakusho Mondai  (爆笑問題).  They’re waiting in line to get their books signed by the authors.  So, what am I doing here?  The reason is simple my friends, I’m here for the grid.  I was walking along, and I felt a sudden desire to start writing this after seeing something that inspired me.
   Anyway, I was walking along thinking “Even if I pull out the laptop in the bookstore by the public phones, the battery will go dead on me before I can get much written.  What to do, what to do....”  And I remembered that outside of this department store in Shinjuku, there are grid connectors (probably there for cleaning), so when I saw that a convenient looking one was right in the middle of a line, I walked up to the two women who were sitting on either side of it, and asked them if I could sit between them so I could plug my computer in, and they didn’t mind, so here I am.
   I asked the nice woman next to me if she wanted to say something to everyone, and after thinking awhile, she said:

“Chikyu ni yasashiku ikiyo.”

First, a direct translation:
“Let’s live on Earth kindly.”

And a more natural sounding translation:
“Let’s take care of the Earth.”

Now I’m out of time!  I’ll be back when I get a chance!

(1997/06/09)  I spent most of yesterday at Showa Kinen Koen, which is a very nice park, but it cost about eight dollars to park, and four dollars to get in, so it’s not the kind of park you just wander into.  Since a lot of financial power is there for the park though, it really is quite nice inside.
   Yesterday was a perfect picture of people relaxing on a Sunday in the park.  The only odd thing was the constant sight and sound of helicopters flying overhead, but living in Tokyo you learn to tune out what you don’t want to hear or see -  particularly what you don’t want to hear!  I can listen to classical music with the window open and construction only two houses down, and the hammering doesn’t even invade the music in my mind... unless I start thinking that it’s strange that it doesn’t, and that thought puts the noise in mind until I can empty my thoughts again.  There’s something to be said for not thinking sometimes... or not thinking rationally anyway.

(2020)  Thinking about this post while going over it just before putting it on-line, I realized/remembered another element to the text-only period.  It exactly coincided with my text-only Internet usage.  I was using (as were most people at the time) a slow and expensive dial-up connection and sending photos was a sure way of making people angry!  Myself included actually.  I really hated it when someone sent something heavy, since I was paying per minute for time on-line, I didn't appreciate having to wait several minutes for a single photo to download.  So partly I was thinking at the time that all I could use was text anyway, so I might as well go without photos for a while.  The text-only period was interesting, but when I got my first digital camera in 2000, it sure did feel good to be taking pictures again!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
tokyoht.blogspot.jp/

2000年5月 元玉川上水の散歩

I stumbled onto this scene on May 2nd, 2000.  It had a feel of history and mystery to it, and a tranquility, accented with a feeling of risk... "Is it okay to go down there...?" I wondered.  What was this wonderful green space - clearly a former path for water - doing hiding in the center of Tokyo?

I later met someone living in the area and they told me it was the former path of the Kanda River, which I believed until (years later) discovering an old map upon which it was clearly labeled as being part of the Tamagawa Canal.  I've found since then (when trying to learn about the history of other things), that people are often mistaken, and some (many?) just make stuff up.  And this for not very old history - the kind where you can discover the truth fairly easily with a little time invested in research.  It makes me wonder how accurate historical accounts of things are....

This is how my unexpected adventure (a simple enough experience, but it felt like an adventure) began.  I looked down this street and thought "I wonder what's down there at the end of the road?"  When I got down there, I walked over the foundations of a house that had been recently(?) demolished and discovered these stairs leading down into the former waterway.

I hadn't planned on going down there - in fact I was running shy on time, as I had to get back to work, but the area was inviting and interesting, so I walked down the stairs, thinking "I guess this was whoever lived in the missing house's private access...."

A contributing factor to pushing ahead was the path through the grass.  Clearly, the area was accessed enough by others to make that path, so presumably it would be okay to walk down it and see where it went.

As I walked along, I kept looking over at the houses and apartments on one side (with a park on the other side, over the high fence) and thinking how nice it must be to live in a convenient area in central Tokyo with all that tranquil green on one side....

As I walked along, I daydreamed about living in one place or another, and wondered what had happened to the missing water.  I wasn't afraid of any creatures in the grass, but since this time (in 2000), I've been stung by one of those giant centipedes, come face-to-face with one of those giant wasps, and come across snakes on three different occasions - including coming within inches of stepping on a poisonous one that was lying on a mountain road I was walking on.

And so, the more time goes by, the more I have become leery of tall grass and lots of green.  Being right in the middle of Tokyo, this strip of green was probably about as safe as it gets, but if I stumbled upon something like this now, I would be more reluctant to go marching through the tall grass.

That said, stretches like this with the grass not so tall and the path fairly wide look safe enough.

That apartment building makes me wonder all over again what it would be like to live there.  To come home via typical Tokyo streets and then go out on the balcony for a look at all that tranquil green.

Residences along this former waterway must be quite expensive.  Looking at these pictures and remembering the walk, I recall one house in particular that looked like it would be perfect to live in.

It was high up above a section of that concrete retaining wall with a decent sized yard and enough setback from the edge that you wouldn't worry about it tumbling over that artificial cliff in an earthquake.  It looked really ideal and I imagining living there and having a backyard party in the spring (too hot in the summer).

Oh, and there was this compact tent!  I wondered who was camping there.  It could be a good spot, but out of sight of people who would chase you away is also out of sight of people who could help if someone attacked.

I may have been daydreaming about other things as well, but I remember it as a time focused on the ambiance of the space with the unanswered question (unanswered at the time that is, I know now) about the history of the waterway and continually imagining how it would be to live in one place or another.

There were some older wooden houses quite near the path, and while they looked cozy, they also seemed a bit exposed. Probably there would be some nervousness living there - like living in the wilderness somewhere.

Which is why the houses and apartments up high above the space seemed so appealing.  Living there, you would less likely be accessing the space for a stroll, but you could see the space and not have to feel nervous about it at night.

And so where did this former waterway lead?  On this first visit, I ran out of time, but on a later visit I discovered that it didn't go much further than I had ventured.  At a road, it took a sharp turn to the right and went into a tunnel - which sounds exciting, but looking in the barred off entrance, it only went back about four or five meters to where the tunnel had been walled off.

At the time, I just figured that was the end of it, but thinking about it now, I wonder if that tunnel continued (continues?) on the other side of the wall....

There are stages to exploring something new.  First you contemplate it - wondering if you should take the risk of doing something you've never done before and going somewhere you've never been before.

Then you decide to go ahead, and you enter a new space with sharper senses, not sure what to expect.  As you progress, you begin to adjust to the new space.

As the nervousness fades, you congratulate yourself on having escaped the usual routine and begin to enjoy yourself.

Then the initial post-nervousness excitement fades, but in its place you're more relaxed and you start to tune into the new space you're in.

That state continues for some time, but unless you really belong in the new space, at some point, a feeling of lost time begins to creep in and you start to want to get back to your usual routines.

And so the journey out of a space is never as fun, exciting, and enjoyable as the trip into it.  This was a short trip, so it wasn't so noticeable, but on some long trips, the journey out into the countryside is pure fun and adventure and the trip back pure tedium.

It was a nice experience enabled by low expectations and contrast.  I hadn't been expecting to escape the typical city streets that day, so it was quite nice to suddenly be in that quiet green space.

The timing was good as well - early May, so it was a nice temperature and the green everywhere was a spring green.  This same space wouldn't have been as nice in the August heat.

It would be nice to slip back in time and see this with the water flowing.  Due to the absence of people (I didn't meet anyone at all while there) it seemed as though I could feel something from the past, but it would be nice to slip back with a camera and get some video....

And so we come to the end of the dry canal bed adventure.  I'm glad it beckoned to me from down the street that day.  The experience was better in a way than going off into the countryside for a change of pace - being unexpected and suddenly experienced as it was.  I've recalled the experience from time-to-time and enjoyed revisiting it through these pictures I took that day.  Hopefully I've conveyed something of that experience with this blog post.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
tokyoht.blogspot.jp/