Images, mostly but not all by Caroline Shepard, of a summer in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Hanoi, and Cambodia. Amazing to see the world from another perspective.
Sometimes we wake not knowing
where we are.
As we’ve made our way this last
month.
I wanted, yearned to see the East.
To explore the wreckage of our policies.
Nukes on Japan, followed by a
Marshal plan to rebuild.
2.2 billion.
Followed by a permawar from Korea
to Vietnam to Cambodia,
Through today’s folly in Iraq,
And hopefully not Iran.
The kids need us less and less each trip.
We made it back to Tokyo at
midnight, our third country in a day.
Which way is up?
Coffee please.
In a haze, we visited a Shinto
shrine in Shinjuku,
Juniso Kumao Jinja.
Breathing.
Meandering, getting lost.
Plastic culture expands and
expands.
Manicured parks.
Shopping.
Culture, art, clothes, books.
Rotating Sushi,
Better than anything we can find
in NYC.
Like Guinness in Dublin.
Walking the majesty of the city.
Once a prohibited spot where
people drank after the war.
As the city was being rebuilt.
“…this narrow side street quickly
became a prime spot for cheap drinks, yakitori and
cabaret-style hostess bars.”
Without, “restroom facilities,
patrons would wander off and relieve themselves on the nearby train tracks; it
didn’t take long for Piss
Alley to earn its name. In those days, the area provided a
social space for local residents who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to
afford such luxuries as meat and alcohol in an impoverished, post-war economy.”
Down Goldin Gay.
Smaller and smaller alleyways.
“mismatched,
tumbledown bars”
The teenager drops by.
Her cab lost.
She’s in a mood.
A summer on her own in Tokyo.
Down to Shibuya.
Snapping photos.
Kawaii.
The little says I can’t follow her
on social media.
You are no longer necessary.
Individuation.
They don’t need you or want you
around.
Except for paying.
Can’t say goodbye.
Still drifting,
Echoes.
Past signs of what the city was,
is, and is going to be.
Neon light for
Gas Panic
A joke on World
War II.
Off to the Rappongi Hills to the
Mori Art museum,
And a city view on the 50th
floor.
It all feels familiar, like the Tama
New Town.
Patterns
of migration, community formation, and
displacement,
The
story of Capital over and over again.
The
story of Pom Poko,
the anime of late
1960s Japan.
Raccoons
threatened by a suburban development project,
Tama
New Town, in the Hills on the outskirts of Tokyo,
Displacing,their forests.
Bulldozing
forests and homes,
…
living space and food decreasing every year,
the raccoons
fighting among themselves among their diminishing resources …
We
used to watch the movie over and over again.
I
will when I get home.
But
for now, the little one is chatting with her sister and her friend.
Wanting
less to do with dad.
Rappongi
is a like a mall,
Albeit
an exquisite one,
Lines
up to the top.
To
the museum.
And
the show:
Soul
Temples / Shiota Chiharu
“intangible:
memories, anxiety, dreams, silence and more…”
Identities
blurring across boundaries…
“…
threads primarily in red and black strung across spaces…
..
nameless emotions…
large
installations, sculptural works, video footage, photographs, drawings,
performing arts-related material, etc. …”
tracing
“presence
in absence”
of
living,
journey,
and
the inner workings of the soul.”
A
final oil painting.
Lost
objects
Scattered,
Between
our internal lives,
Connected
to something so much larger.
Stories
and spaces,
Between
where she was and is.
A
model house from East Germany.
From
Tokyo to Berlin.
Cities
bombed,
Creating.
Reimagining.
Objects
existence.
Black
expresses a deep universe.
Lost
in time.
Threads
entangled
Bristling
up against one another.
Connecting
a mental universe
With
the cosmos.
A
relationship ever ebbing.
Between
cities and creation
And
our lives through them.
Growing,
connecting, ever separating
Before
death.
Suitcases
dangling from the ceiling.
Leaving
home.
Meeting
others.
Models
from Paris and Stockholm who know Will.
Mixing
and transforming.
Afterwards
we are never the same.
Mirroring
that new place.
Looking
at yourself anew.
I’m
proud of myself says the teenager.
Hanging
suitcases.
Why’d
they leave?
Thinking
of the day they left.
Anticipation,
Regrets.
Don’t
forget your folks.
Leave.
Let
them go.
To
new homes from Germany to NYC to Tokyo.
Thirty
years after the fall of the wall.
A
transforming city.
Bombs
and craters,
Cold
wars.
Reconstruction.
Different
sides every day.
Disregarded
construction sites.
I
start to recall.
East
and west separated.
Lives
estranged.
Which
way onward?
Ramen
and a final strange stroll through Harajuku.
The
little one likes me now that I’m buying.
Making
our way back to the Tokyo Stay.
Back
in the room.
Wanna
watch this Ultraman episode?
I
ask the little one.
No
Dad.
I
know what a vintage anime looks like.
Three
people.
Three
different screens.
Suitcases
packed after weeks in and out of Tokyo.
Kids
growing up and away.
Meeting
at Shubya station at 1140.
Bus
to catch the next bus that leaves at 11.
Lets
get some bubble tea.
And
make our way back.
TO
meet the teenager who has been out.
24
hour party people.
Catch
the bus to the airport.
Lost
in Shibuya.
Again.
Its
like the castle.
We’re
caught inside.
Where
our journey began.
Five
mins to miss our bus.
There
is the building.
Back
up over and around,
The
crosswalk.
A
panic attack.
But
we find our way.
Saying
goodbye to majestic Tokyo.
To
a lunch an hour early.
Playing
cards.
Drinking
beer.
Playing
war.
Cards.
Kids
growing.
Conspiring.
Conspiring.
Writing
notes.
Hanging.
Talking
Runaways and Rock and Rock.
And
Canibal Girls
On
our way back home.
Watching
Aiuta: My Promise To
Nakuhito
Breathe
in
Breathe
out.
A
boy is lost.
Finds
a book of poems in the streets.
Starts
to cry.
The
first time I read it it made me cry to,
Says
the owner, leaving him her copy.
Nagi
Ito’s poems changed everyone who
Saw
them.
Four
years ago she died.
I
have lost it many times.
Every
time I lose it, it comes back to me.
I
watched the story about a lost poem.
Inspired
by Ai Uta’s Love Song,
Read
Prageeta’s Grief Cycle,
Writing
another blog.
Read
about Lina and Elanu
And
the story of a new name.
Wondering
about what comes of any of us,
Leaving
Tokyo,
Naples
Hong
Kong
A
summer of protests from Hong Kong to Praha and back to NYC.
Hopefully
we all make it.
Lost
poems and all.
Not sure if we’ll see Tokyo again.
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