I have just finished reading your Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Your tongue in cheek and at times cynical sense of humour certainly saw you in good stead as you battled your way through the byways and back roads of rural Japan.

Looking for the Lost is divided into three parts, three walks through the hinterland of Japan, and each walk is coupled to an historical tale or series of events which give your story more impact. And the search itself for “Japan” is one that rasies many interesting questions. I think that all of us who come here from other countries (in your case England) are searching for something, something special amongst all the concrete, the castrated rivers, the detritus of advanced (and know semi-retired) capitalism. We may find it, we may not, but the thrill of the adventure drives us on. Perhaps in one of the little liquor stores way up back in the back of beyond, over a bottle or two of beer, chatting to the locals, you found it.

The first of your tales in this book is Tsugaru, a place I have visited a few times, a place where the wilds things are up at the tip of Japan’s main isle of Honshuu, on the Japan Sea coast. You follow the path Osamu Dazai followed in his Tsugaru, a useful vehicle that gives your writing a greater depth, something to bite into and masticate heartily. Dazai has been described as a writer full of irony and possessed of a gloomy wit. A writing style you seem to have taken to heart:

The stretch between Minmaya and Tappi offers an especially good opportunity to compare what Dazai saw with what exists today because it is one of the few stretches of road along which Dazai actually walked and on which he chose to exercise his talent for describing landscape, a talent that was not his forte any more than it is mine …. wrote Dazai, “I could see how serene life can be in the cheerful atmosphere of those trim, well-appointed harbours,” and if any part of that sentence represents an honest description of what Dazai actually found here, then the change wrought upon these pitiful places in the forty-four years between our visits is hardly less than that wrought by an ice age. pp. 22-3.

After Tsugaru, it is a hard slog through the wilds of Kyushu following the roots of that hero much loved by the Japanese: Saigo Takamori. You follow his escape from the overwhelming government forces in 1877 in the last stand of samurai against the coming age. Oh, and how it ruins your feet! Those adders and the wasps. Quite a hike, and quite a story too. Then finally heading up and out of Nagoya from its concrete monstrosities into the mountains and rivers where remnants of the Heike clan may have escaped too after being driven out of Kyoto by their arch enemies the Genji.

The amount of beer you drink is legendary. And even if your feet stink as badly as you make out I would be honoured if one day I run into your ghost in an out of the way liquor store. I’d love to buy you a beer. And then maybe one more for the road.

Yours,

Blizzardboy

Alan Booth’s Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan was published by Kodansha in 1995, two years after he sadly passed away from cancer of the colon at the age of 46. You should be able to find a copy at your local library if you live in Tokyo.

No, Tokyo Underwold isn’t an announcment for yet another visit by British electroheads Underwold tour to Japan to play yet another version of Hello Slippy to all their Japanese fans, rather it is a fascinating look at the seedier side of Japanese life and business.

In 1945 when the Allied forces began their occupation following the surrender of Japan, the country was in a right and utter mess. This left the field wide open to all sorts of dodgy entrepreneurs to set up shop. Tokyo was in ruins after heavy bombing by the allies, and food supplies were very short. The black markets which sprung up within days of the surrender being announced served in many ways to keep the population of Tokyo alive during those very difficult times. Tokyo Underworld starts from this point, and develops by recounting the mindboggling corruption and nefarious goings on in the post war period, including tales of both Japanse gangsters as well as the GI’s of the occupying force who stood to make a great deal of money at this time.

Two characters from Tokyo’s colourful past stood out in particular. First was Rikidozan, a former sumo wrestler who was almost at the top of the sumo ladder when the end of the war brought the sport to a crashing holt. He became a professional wrestler and for many Japanese an icon of the rebuilding as he fought and won against many much larger and stronger American opponents. Little did the populus know, or want to know, that both these fights were fixed, and also of his Korean parentage. Such are the machinations of a defeated nation.

The other character who provides much of the backbone of Robert Whiting’s well-written book, was an American from New York’s Italian East Harlem, Nick Zappeti. An amazing character who was once known as “the King of Roppongi and the Mafia Boss of Harlem” he seems almost to have stepped out of a Martin Scorsese film. Involved heavily in black market trading during the occupation, and then later moving out into more legitimate business Zappeti’s risa and fall, mirrored in an oblique way much of what has befallen Japan in the post-war era.

I particularly enjoyed reading this book and learning a lot about what went on back then, as well as picking a great deal of information about our local areas history. That this is non-fiction, and not fiction, makes it all the more worth reading.

Above is a print by the Edo period printmaker Hiroshige depicting a hawk. It is in the style of Kage’e or shadow print, something I hadn’t seen before I stumbled on the post Kage-e: Shadow pictures over at the Pink Tentacle blog. You can see more shadow prints at that page.

I love the way it is so delicately clever.

Before delving into these collections I hadn’t read much in the way of Japanese short stories; although the short story is a genre that I do enjoy. In New Zealand we have a wealth of short story writers from the very famous such as Katherine Mansfield through to excellent contemporary masters of the genre such as Owen Marshall. In fact I would say that New Zealand writers excel at short story writing much more than they do in the field of longer fiction.

Autumn Wind and Other Stories is a curious collection of stories spanning the majority of the 20th century. There are short stories by famous Japanese writers including Kawabata Yasunari and Akutagawa Ryunosuke as well as a number of works by lesser-known authors. Stylistically these stories in general are a little challenging for Western readers as they tend to seem vague and often lack the sense of closure we take for granted in short stories. These short stories on the whole are more like impressionist paintings with the reader having to do much of the work to fill in the gaps in terms “what happens.” I enjoyed Nagai Kafu’s The Fox (1909) the most of the works in this collection. Its strong sense of nostalgia for a “better past” reminded me strongly of Tanizaki’s Naomi (they make a nice contrast I feel).

The other collection, Japanese Detective Stories was more enjoyable, with the detective genre’s plot driven stories much easier and more satisfying to me. Originally published in the late 1970’s the copy I read was a reprint released by Japanese publishing company Tuttle. The original title was Ellery Queen’s Japanese Golden Dozen: The Detective Story World in Japan. Ellery Queen was actually 2 brothers who conspired(;-)) together to create the character / author Ellery Queen. As the longer title would suggest this collection brings together a dozen of the best Japanese detective stories. These stories were all published in the 1970’s and were selected from more then 2500 stories.

If one doesn’t read the Japanese language, then short stories can be hard to find, appearing as they do usually in periodical publications such as magazines. Therefore collections such as Autumn Wind and Japanese Detective Stories serve a valuable purpose, bridging the Japanese and English language worlds.

from the  Georgetown University site:

Scholar Explores History of China’s Xinjiang Region

Looking forward to reading that. I wonder if it will pass muster in China though.

A few people have asked us about where we are living, and bemoaned the paucity of material about the Xinjiang Region. So using the limited resources available here, Lonely Planet’s China, Tour in Xinjiang published by the Xinjiang Peoples Press and a couple of Japanese guide books I have collated the following. Any mistakes or inaccuracies are of course my own.

Xinjiang – an overview

Xinjiang is located west of the original setting off point for the Silk Road – Xi’an and in ancient times was known to the Chinese as the "Western Regions." Xinjiang’s full name is the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and it is the largest province in modern China. Situated as it is, in the far west of China, or in the far east of the Middle East, Xinjiang is as much a bridge between two worlds today as it was a thousand years ago when it was part of the Silk Road.

The current borders of Xinjiang link the place to not only Gansu and Qinghai in the east, and Tibet in the south, but also to eight countries: Mongolia in the northeast, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kurgizstan and Tajikistan in the northwest, as well as Pakistan and India in the south. Of these the borders to Kazakhstan, Kurgizstan, and Pakistan are easily traversable and then Pakistan only during the warmer months.

This province has borders of 5400 kilometers and a land mass of 1,600,000 square kilometers, and with the exception of salt water, seas and oceans, Xinjiang offers a variation of natural geography almost unparalleled in the world. At one-sixths the total territory of China, Xinjiang is three times larger than France, 7 times larger than the United Kingdom and four and a half times larger than Japan. The regions oil, coal and metal reserves have resulted in significant development over the past few decades.

In the same way that the Southern Alps divide the South Island of New Zealand, the Tianshan Mountain range, one of the largest mountain ranges divide Xinjiang north and south.

To the north of the Tianshan Mountains lies the Zhungar Basin – the second largest in the region. Hundreds of millions of years ago the basin used to contain a vast sea fringed with wetlands and forests. This past has left the region with large areas of petrified trees, dinosaur fossils from the Mesozoic era as well as large coal and oil reserves.

With the prefectural capital of Urumqi at its heart, the Zhungar Basin is the most heavily populated region in Xinjiang. Other towns in the Basin include Changli, Manasi, Jimsar, Fukang and Qitai along with the recent addition of the oil base at Keramay and Shihez.

To the north of the Zhungar Basin lie the Altay Mountains where murals depicting what may be the earliest known pictures of skiing have recently been found. The Ertix (Erqisi) River in the Altay region is also the only river in China to flow into the Arctic Ocean. The grassland and mountains in this area are reminiscent of the vistas to be found in parts of Siberia. For tourists the main attractions in the area include Kanas Lake and the hot springs at Alashan.

More heavily travelled are the parts to the south of the Tianshan Mountain Range. This area includes the largest basin in China – the Tarim Basin and the great and mysterious Taklamakan Desert.

The Tarim Basin is encircled by some of the most formidable mountains in the world – to the west lie the Pamirs, the Roof of the World, to the south and south-west lie the Kunlun, Kara-kunlun and Alkin mountain ranges. Of the world’s 14 peaks over 8000 meters 4 are in Xinjiang including K2 which at 8611 meters is the second highest on the planet. 11 mountains are open to climbers although travel permits are usually required.

These great mountain ranges feed some 19,091 glaciers which in turn provide that scarcest of resources – water – to what is in many ways one of the most inhospitable on Earth. These glaciers and snow melt feed rivers throughout the Tarim Basin, including China’s largest inland river, known strangely enough as the Tarim River, as well countless lakes and nurture the string of oases that made the Silk Road a possibility.

The original Silk Road began at what is now known as Xi’an into Xinjiang through Hami and on to Turpan where the road branched, much as the railway does today. The northern route proceeded on through the current capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi to what is now Kazakhstan whilst a central route carried travellers along the north of the Tarim Basin through Korla (Kuerle), Luntai, Kuqa (Kuche), Aksu (Akesu) and on to Kashgar (Kashi) from where it was possible to proceed south to Pakistan or further west to Tajikistan or Kurgizstan and then onto Uzbekistan or Afghanistan.

A southern route skirted the Basin from the now ruined city of Loulan through Charklik (Ruo Qiang), Cherchen (Qie Mo), Niya (Minfeng), Hotan (Hetian) and up to Kashgar.

These oasis towns which supported the merchants and travellers on their travels developed and died with the rivers to the extent that over 40 ruined cities have been discovered so far in or alongside the Tarim Basin. The most famous of these is Loulan, with Turpan’s Jiaohe and Gaochang (Khocho) ruins also being popular with travellers.

Today Xinjiang remains an exciting place with an exhilarating range of landscapes for the eyes to feast on, economic development and the interaction of the growing Han Chinese population with the local Uighur, Kazakh and Mongolian minorities for the mind to ponder.

This has been rectified now with an update – The New Silk Road which aired for the first time in Chinese on China’s CCTV 1 on March 10th. The Chinese and Japanese versions differ quite significantly so it will be interesting to see which version makes it into stores as a DVD.
Silk Road documentary unearths latest findings

As archaeologists gingerly opened a boat-shaped coffin wrapped tightly with an ox hide, a smiling face of a young woman welcomed the dumbfounded discoverers.

“She’s so beautiful!” gushed Idelisi Abuduresule, head of the Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, who led the excavation deep inside the Lop Nur Desert in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2003.

It was truly a wonder because the smile came from 3,800 years ago. Wearing a pointed red woollen hat, the mummy of the young woman was so well preserved, her eyelashes were long and upright. It seemed she had just fallen asleep.

Archaeologists named her “Princess Xiaohe.” Xiaohe (Small River) was where Swedish scholar Folke Bergman (1902-46) first encountered the mysterious mummies in a sand dune 175 kilometres away from the ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom in the summer of 1934.

But nobody could find the site until some 70 years later. After their excavation, Chinese scholars found “Princess Xiaohe” and her fellow kinsmen to be descendants of ancient people who originated from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

This rediscovery was listed as one of the nation’s top 10 archaeological findings in 2003.

The story of “Princess Xiaohe” was the focus of the first instalment of “The New Silk Road” a 10-part documentary, which debuted on prime time at Channel-1 of China Central Television (CCTV) on March 10.

The show comes as a fruit of another co-operation between CCTV and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) since their unprecedented expedition into the Silk Road 26 years ago.

In 1980, the Sino-Japanese exploration resulted in a documentary called “The Silk Road.” It was the first time that the mysterious western parts of the country were brought to the common audience by cameras. The documentary made a big stir in and outside China.

The two organizations came together again in 2003 to make an updated version. Although the two teams covered roughly the same routes, the two finished versions are quite different. NHK already aired its documentary this January.

“We are different in our perspectives,” said Wei Dajun, general director of the CCTV team. “The Japanese team focused more on the new look of the Silk Road, the lives of the common people and the cultural aspects, while the Chinese team paid more attention to the history and culture of the Silk Road, digging behind the ruins.”

When filming the Dunhuang Grottoes in Northwest China’s Gansu Province, for example, the Chinese team cared more about the preservation of the precious frescoes, while the Japanese team went to the local market and asked about the price of vegetables.

It took the 350 people in the Chinese and Japanese teams two years to prepare and finish shooting at 10 sites along the Silk Road such as Dunhuang and Loulan.

According to Wei, the total investment for their joint project exceeded 30 million yuan (US$3.7 million). CCTV and NHK provided 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) each, with the rest from advertisers.

Weeks before the CCTV documentary was aired, many media reports had hailed it as setting a new standard of making documentaries in the country in terms of both techniques and concepts.

Technologically speaking, this is a fair claim.

The series combines several shooting methods to create an overwhelming sense of realism cutting-edge aerial shooting, low-flying shooting from a motor paraglider to capture a vast expanse of desert, and filming of cultural assets using a state-of-the-art high-quality camera.

By employing various directing methods using the latest digital imaging technology and historical re-enactments, the series brings back the history of the rise and fall of the ancient route, and the cultural fusion buried in the desert.

“Princess Xiaohe” was reenacted by a beautiful young woman walking amid a golden wheat field.

A small grass-made basket containing wheat seeds was found beside every mummy at the Xiaohe cemetery. Archaeologists believe the people who created the cemetery must have lived on planting wheat and raising sheep.

The Bezeklik Grottoes of the Turpan Basin in Xinjiang thrived in the 11th century but was looted by several foreign archaeological teams in the early 1900s. Its splendid frescoes are now treasured in a number of museums across the world.

The documentary team went to those museums and filmed the remnants of the cultural relics. But what is more satisfying for the audience is the digitalized reconstruction of the frescoes at their original places.

With the help of modern technology, people could see the intricate details of the dresses, expressions and colours of Sakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, which couldn’t be pieced back again in reality.

But this documentary could have been better in many ways.

The directors seem to assume that everyone watching their show ought to have a thorough understanding of the various ethnic cultures, which once thrived and disappeared around the Silk Road.

The route of the Silk Road, for example, has been roughly rendered on a miniature model dotted with tiny names. The model used repeatedly in the show, however, still doesn’t help the baffled audience find out the exact location of the subject in question.

The documentary is like a banquet with too many courses. Both the audience and the directors need a lot more time to digest the complex information embodied by this unique link between cultures through time and space.

Source: China Daily

Japan Post (日本郵政公社, Nippon YÅ«sei Kōsha?) was a public corporation in Japan, that existed from 2003–2007, offering postal and package delivery services, banking services, and life insurance. It had over 400,000 employees and ran 24,700 post offices throughout Japan and was the nation’s largest employer. One third of all Japanese government employees worked for Japan Post. As of 2005, the president of the company was Masaharu Ikuta, formerly chairman of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd.

Japan Post ran the world’s largest postal savings system and was often said to be the largest holder of personal savings in the world: with Â¥224 trillion ($2.1 trillion) of household assets in its yÅ«-cho savings accounts and Â¥126 trillion ($1.2 trillion) of household assets in its kampo life insurance services, its holdings account for 25 percent of household assets in Japan. Japan Post also held about Â¥140 trillion (one fifth) of the Japanese national debt in the form of government bonds.

On October 1, 2007 Japan Post was privatized following fierce political debate that was settled by the 2005 general election. After the privatization, the Japan Post Group companies operate the postal business. (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_post)