Geisha, Interrupted

Bar Flower, a novel written by Lea Jacobson, now takes a place among my stash of favored literature. Her writing is eloquent and intelligent, thoughtful and easy-to-read, otherwise described as straight forward - with no guessing at metaphors and vocabulary. All in all, a very skilled artist. In the wake of my increasing thirst for all things Japanese and the country's darker underpinnings - including those of hostess clubs and virulent prostitution - Bar Flower emerged at precisely the right time. Lea keeps a blog called Geisha, Interrupted that is equally engulfing for the reader. A homage to her life in Tokyo, Japan.

My thoughts today have nothing to do with her book and the world of hostess clubs, but rather Haruki Murakami, who writes in his latest book After Dark this poignant paragraph, chosen by Lea and advocated by myself...

Archetype and Octopus

The following is a passage from page 92 of After Dark, the latest Haruki Murakami novel in English translation. For some reason I found it so brilliant, and, so perfectly bizarre!

* * *

Takahashi: "As I sat in court, though, and listened to the testimonies of the witnesses and the speeches of the prosecuters and the arguments of the defense attorneys and the statements of the defendants, I became a lot less sure of myself. ...To my eyes, this system I was observing, this 'trial' thing itself, began to take on the appearance of some special, weird creature."

Mari: "Weird creature?"


Takahashi: "Like, say, an octopus. A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean. I'm sitting there listening to these trials, and all I can see in my head is this creature. It takes on all kinds of different shapes- sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers....What I want to say is probably something like this: any single human being, no matter what kind of person he or she may be, is all caught up in the tentacles of this animal like a giant octopus, and getting sucked into the darkness. You can put any kind of spin on it you like, but you end up with the same unbearable spectacle."

Moshi, Moshi Foreigner

The dream: to know a foreign language yet not to understand it: to perceive the difference in it without that difference ever being recuperated by the superficial sociality of discourse, communication or vulgarity...to undo our own "reality" under the effect of other forumulations, other syntaxes...in a word, to descend into the untranslatable.

-Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs
Lea Jacobson, Bar Flower





I experience a certain anxious ecstasy in anticipation of learning a new language. I am not frustrated with grammatics or limited vocabulary, but rather, simply salivating to speak aloud the alluringly foreign, lusty new words. The newest (and always easiest sentences) I learn, roll off my tongue and curl in my mouth. I am in heaven in my ignorance of the future. Too soon, pronunciation becomes embarrassing, and I fear any native would cringe to listen. This is xenocentrism at its worst, as I am morbidly fearsome of what the natives will think; my world now revolves around theirs and my self-awareness culminates in terror - cutting me off at the throat. I will never learn like this. And sometimes, I simply cannot bear it anymore, and my only action is to put the reference book back on the shelf. However, my new obsession will not allow such submissive action. So, I took one Sunday afternoon and drove to downtown L.A. with a singular stop in mind - to find inspiration.

Little Tokyo provides an expanse of opportunities to speak with Japanese, the limits of which I will (in all likelihood) never test. I can see my future: it is a breeding ground for my now insatiable appetite for all things related to modern Japan and it's pop culture, including red bean Mochi and Death Note Manga.

I ended up here one Sunday afternoon, trying to search out the origin of my favorite Mochi brand, Mikawaya. Thinking I would discover a costco of a mochi manufacturing plant, I was happily disappointed to find the shop to be a small, almost empty confection store. Offering different Mochi flavors I hadn't discovered, alongside additional confections similar in texture to the rice covering of Mochi. Once satisfied with 6 pieces and coconut ChiChi, I left the shop to explore the town.

Little Tokyo is exactly that, little. The surrounding apartments and housing stretches further than I can see or know, but the "cultural" center, most likely dedicated to serving tourists than the actual residents, is fairly small, seeing as how a 10 minute walk takes you through most of the shops and two levels of related stores (assuming you're not doing much shopping). However, I find that this superficial Tokyo offers a Japanese video store and many a small eateries offering Japanese cuisine unrelated to Sushi. This place is not solely a tourist trap. Still, my suspicions that the center is more of a tourist shop than real cultural experience are somewhat confirmed, as the first store I enter sells cheap but beautiful chopsticks and small sake sets alongside Hello kitty pencil sharpeners and Totoro aprons.

Mystery breeds creativity, and mystery awakens the imagination. ~Lea Jacobson, Bar Flower

This exploration will or must culminate in the commencement of learning and tedious study of the minutiae that is the Japanese language. Listening to the language is fun in itself; hearing the girls voices especially - talking quickly in high voices, giggly and cute-as-a-button adorable in their fashionable clothing and brand name bags. The language manages to sound elegant and delicate.

I have yet to forgive myself for not property devoting myself to learning the French language, so the responsibility of learning another looms ahead; intimidating but still enthralling, the love affair having just begun.