Week Eleven
Here is an Oasis (Japanese English written on a small watering can at my homestay)
Tuesday, Wednesday, September 23-24, 1997
Gajin for rent
Today I was rented out to a nice family of seven. They wanted me to spend the night so it was promised that I would by Takahashi. It was the first halfway decent day that I could remember in a long time and my entire family was going to start cutting their family rice fields. Basically what this means is that the men sit on the combine and drive it around the field while the women take these sickle-like cutters and crouch down by hand cutting and binding the rice that is in the corners that cannot be reached by the combine. Hard work. Of course I really wanted to photograph my Obachan cutting rice. But an obligation is best kept. What I did manage to do was slip away from the kindergarten field day long enough to photograph the Matsuda's (my homestay family) harvesting. The field is located right next to the shinkansen track and so I got a cool photo of Obachan in the rice with the shinkansen going by. Then I went back to field day. Not a lot of photos that I needed, but I took the opportunity to practice my sports photography using 4 and 5 year-olds as my subjects. Got some great face plants in the sand, I think.
In this family of seven was a grandmother who was 86 years old. No one liked her because she was kind of crotchety. I think she had been strict with the wife of the eldest son who also lives there. In fact, they all treat her a little like a dog including the grandchildren who are only 3 and 6. I was surprised when the grandson (28 years old) pointed to the wall and ordered her into the corner of the room. This space was obviously her corner, there was a floor cushion, a small kettle for hot water, a fly swatter, a small plastic garbage jar that you see in old houses, a few small boxes of sweets and some half eaten corn-on-the-cob.
The family told me that she was born in the Meiji era and those women are known to be very strict. Many young Japanese women will not marry an eldest son because they do not want to deal with the mother-in-law. In the words of this wife, if you get along with the mother-in-law then it is really good, but..... This is how Japanese people tell you that something is really bad, they end their sentences with a variety of forms for the word “but” indicating the severity of the situation.
This grandmother did not like me at all, and remembered me from my visits to Kawabe So, the nursing home. She had refused pictures. I had forgotten her face but when she started talking about Kawabe So I remembered her dislike for my total being. She talked in this broken voice about me and the act of taking photographs. All of which I did not understand. But what I did understand was NO PICTURES. NO PROBLEM, I said to her in my polite Japanese. What I really saw was a lonely old woman at the end of her life living among people who bestowed little warmth, respect, or affection towards her. I felt sad for her as she lay in her corner. No one talked to her, and I thought I heard her say that she hadn't eaten lunch yet (it was 3:00 p.m.) because she couldn't fix it herself and everyone left the house without thinking to leave her some food.
I only saw her eyes light up twice. Once when I asked her about Kawabe So mentioning that she must have a lot of friends there. The second time was after dinner around 9:00 p.m. I had finished eating and left the warmth of the kitchen to wander down the hall to the bathroom. As in most Japanese houses, the grandmother's room is built right next to the bathroom. I noticed her light was on and so I knocked on the door and opened it. She was sitting on the floor and next to her was an old box of yellowing cardboard. There was a neatly tied piece of twine folded on the floor and in her hands were photographs and postcards of memories from years ago. I opened the door and said "oyasuminasai" which basically means goodnight. She looked up from her memories and there was a soft look in her eyes as she shyly said “Oyasuminasai.” I think I was the first person who has wished her a goodnight in a long time.
The next morning as she was preparing the offerings to the budsudan, the altar that is erected for the deceased ancestors, I asked her if I could photograph her doing this. I was shocked when she said OK. I told her in America we did not have this type of thing. She was amazed and asked me to explain what we did when someone died. Later as she was placing the rice on the altar and lighting the incense, she said that no one in the house does this but her and that they all laugh at her for keeping the tradition. She then suggested that I go with her to Kawabe So when they come to pick her up. I told her I was going but that I would meet her later. The sad thing is that this kind of treatment toward these older people living in the same house is not uncommon. In fact it is very common. Unfortunately, the older parents, usually the grandmother, has probably been strict with the new wife and so as she gets older the young woman has a distaste for her.
The real problem is that the children see this behavior and mimic it. Japanese parents now are in for a real surprise when their kids get older, I think.
At no time in Japan are the generations farther apart then now. Women born in the Meiji era are still living under the same roof as those who danced to Elvis and the Beatles, and those who are skilled at Nintendo. Such drastically different lifestyles are an entire photo essay that I cannot hope to cover this trip. The truth is that in another 10 years the Japan that I really like is going to be gone, the older people whose life style speaks of a simpler time when Japan was more like Thailand or another Asian developing country are going to be dead and with them die a certain flavor that makes this country special to me.
I did see Tetsue (the 86 year-old grandmother) at Kawabe So. I spent the morning riding with the Day Service Center picking up people to bring them to KS. Guess who we picked up. Tetsue. She was back to her crotchety old self. Sometimes I am really glad that I cannot understand things. I have a sensitive skin and might be negatively affected. I think I got some nice photos of the two care workers helping a women get ready in her house. I am absolutely loving this. Each moment unfolds another page, another interesting situation. And even if there is nothing to photograph, I still learn something.
Kawabe So is getting bitter sweet. Smiling at faces and visiting with bedridden patients, it is getting to the point where I cannot say "ittekuru" which means I am going now, but will come again. There is one old man who looks very scary. He has a gnarled old stubbly face that shaped in a long oval. All day long he sits with a white hand towel stuffed in his mouth. His bed is next to the nurses station in a room with two other bedridden men who don't talk but will wave. One day I decided to go in and just say hi and tell him what I did that day. I was totally amazed when he took the towel out of his mouth and reached for my hand and said "doomo" which in this part of the country is a standard greeting and thanks. Now I visit him each time, giving him water, or food if he needs it. He also waves as I pass his room. Last week I brought in flowers picked from my home stay’s garden to give to the residents. He placed his neatly in a soda can beside his bed. It is still blooming.
People ask me when I am going to return to Kawabe, making references to next year. This is where I say that I want to return and then use a form of but indicating that it may never happen.
Never is too long a time to contemplate when talking with people who are seventy and eighty years old. My old trick when leaving places has always been to say that I will be back. Now these new friends want to know exactly when.
Today I wanted to photograph the doctor's visit and the day service center. In the morning I photographed the day service center. There were two cute little old ladies sitting in this tatami mat sipping tea and chatting. I started photographing and there was no reaction, so I continued. Then the care worker came in and they started bitching about me taking pictures. Boy, were they not happy, I was shocked that they had not said anything. I started to explain to them what I was doing and they were super chilly, so I said excuse me and left. I got a nice photo though I didn't mean to upset anyone.
The afternoon was filled with brilliant light as the doctor leaned over this sick man's bed and checked his IV. I still think the doctor is a bit of a quack. I took several photos of him smoking cigarettes in the nurses’ office. All he did for each of the residents was take their blood pressure. No kidding. Oh, and he prescribed some medicine for a woman who had a runny nose.
I think that this story about Kawabe So has also been a lesson in the use of light for me. The setting is fairly cluttered although interesting, I really have tried to make it more interesting with the light. The situations are fairly static; there is a lot of sitting around, and a lot of sleeping. The long days are punctuated with brief human interactions, brief moments of a prayer to an ancestor or a laugh with a friend. That is what I sought out amongst the mundanity of the lifestyle there.
Details
Details. Japan is a country whose story could be told in details. Posters hanging in the kitchen with nonsensical English, hello Kitty stickers on the gymnasium floor, blue caps neatly strapped to the small chairs at a kindergarten field day, tomatoes sitting on a wooden shoe dresser in the entry way next to the chestnuts, the doll carriage sitting next to the aged floor cushion, the toothbrushes and cups neatly lined up. The list is endless. Japan is a country full of still life images to me. I have photographed many of them, my eye keeps heading to these little piles of stuff discarded without a thought but seemingly thoughtfully arranged.
Thursday, September 25 - Kawabe, Japan
Today I woke up early and headed out to the little train station once again. There is a picture there somewhere and I am going to find it. I think I did this morning. This is significant because there are no high schools in the small towns all the kids must go to the cities, traveling upwards of about two hours by bicycle, bus and train. In addition, this photo also could point to the fact that farming cannot support a family any longer. The prices have gone down and farmers are being forced to find other sources of income, but I have already said all this.
In the morning at (8:00am) I went to check out my homestay brother's place of work. He works for the agricultural cooperative here in town. In this huge building there was little old women and young men working marking rice. Then they took me back to this huge room, and opened this stainless steel door. Inside was piled three years of unsold rice. Evidently the country didn't buy it and it is not selling. I think there must be huge amounts of rice stored all over Japan in these warehouses. The demands have gone down with the imports of other grains, as well as the imports of other rice like Californian, Australian and Thai.
It is harvest time in the country. Once a year, all over rural Japan family garages/barns are converted into small factories for producing rice. The farmers dust off their expensive machines and begin cutting their rice. They do not all share one or two machines that would be too easy and too inexpensive. They all buy their own combine, their own rice dryer and their own rice bagger. They use these machines once a year, and for the remainder of the year the machines collect dust next to their cars and bicycles. I go to bed to the sound of the days harvest in the dryer, and come home to see my homestay Otosan (father) drinking beer and eating beans while bagging his family's rice. The air is thick with smoke from the piles of burning rice husks or dust from the machine that is removing the dried husks.
Yatte minai to wakaranai
(Don't try doing, don't understand - Can't know until you try)
I am getting a cold. My throat is sore; my head aches. Shit. But I used this to my advantage to back out of a dinner with someone I didn't really know to go to dinner with a family of three generations that I know from taiko. My purpose was to photograph. The grandmother is one of the major caretakers of the grandson much in the traditional fashion. And they have a great relationship. They even sleep together. I photographed the grandmother, grandfather, son and daughter-in-law cutting rice during the day and they said I should come to dinner and spend the night. I ate sushi and drank sake. Then went to bed. The grandmother and grandson sleep together and they knew that I wanted to get photographs of this so they invited me to sleep with them. There I was at 2 in the morning lying there listening to the sound of the grandmother snore. I had gotten a few nice photographs of them at bedtime, but what I really wanted was shots of them with nice morning light asleep. I was totally nervous about shooting them asleep. What if I woke them up and they freaked out or something. Of course they didn't care since I was sleeping right next to them, but I was nervous. I went to the bathroom at 4:30 a.m. to change the fast speed film into the F3 because I knew that I could lift the mirror to make it a little quieter. I went back to my futon and waited for the morning light. I kept thinking that maybe I should bag the idea, but something made me want to push myself. If you don't try you will never know has kind of been my motto this trip when I am nervous about shooting something. I always think what is the worst thing that can happen. At least here in Japan, I won't be shot or beaten up. And so far the worst thing that has happened is that I have been ignored.
As the morning light came in both of them were sleeping facing each other with their faces almost making a heart shape aimed up out of the futon. The light illuminated their faces only. I quietly mounted my camera on a monopod and focused, lifted the mirror and shot a few frames. Then went back to the futon and waited for a few more minutes. They got up at 6:00 so the time was nearing, and I had only one or two chances. I did not want to wake them and I did not want to scare them. As the light got brighter (not that bright it was cloudy f2 1sec) I got up and fired off a few more frames. As I was finishing the grandmother woke up. She looked at my feet, and not recognizing them got a scared look in her eye, but quickly remembered, looking up at my face smiled and went back to sleep. I took one more picture and got in my futon feeling good because even if the photos are not what I need for the project, I pushed through a fear I had. Why did I need photos of a grandmother sleeping with her grandson? Was it necessary? yes. This is a big role for the grandparents in the traditional family, care taker of the grandchildren in the family. A major part of that included sleeping with them. This grandmother was extremely proud because her grandchild, Ryuuta, recently had been doing well at the running races at school. Usually he came in last out of 41 students (he is a very round kid and only eats meat) but since he had been sleeping with her he had started placing higher, first 31st then 28th. I think this is an important part of the grandparent's role in the family and I think that when in the nursing home they have to try and adapt this role as best they can with the younger care workers.
Friday, September 26 - Kawabe, Japan
My Obaasan (grandmother of the house I am staying in) forgot and left a pan on the stove for the third time in two weeks. The house smells of burned daikon radish. She is now running around opening windows and spraying fragrances to rid the house of the smell before my friend/her daughter-in-law comes home. She says Kazuko will get angry. She has been my pal for the past month or two letting me photograph most of her activities. And I have rescued many forgotten pans from the flames. Last night when I spent the night at the neighbor's house, they told me that Obaachan said she loves me. In Japan it is a big deal to use the words "ai shite iru" which basically means you love someone. She hasn't told me this, but I guess the entire neighborhood knows. That has been happening frequently lately. People will tell me things about me, places I have been, things I have done but they were no where near me when I did them, or I hadn't even met them yet. Word in a small town travels faster through the rice fields and the small family gardens than by television or radio.
Today again I am battling a cold. It is perfect weather to sit around all day and sleep. It is cold and rainy. I did go by the agricultural co-op to tell them that I wanted to come back on another day when the weather was nicer. And I went by to check out this organization called "Home Helper" which brings meals to the elderly who live alone in this town. It may be a little late to start this but I thought I at least need to attempt to present an imaged pointing to alternative forms of care for the elderly.
Slippers, shoes and bicycles
The Japanese always know where you are. If you go to the toilet, the toilet slippers are missing. If you are home, your shoes are in the entryway. I myself have become addicted to this game of figuring out who is home and who has gone out. Today as I was driving around, I discovered another way that people know where you are, the bicycle. Scattered throughout the gardens and rice fields were carefully parked bicycles. Their bicycles are vintage steel model, dating back about 30 years. They all have baskets. The older people ride them because they do not know how to drive. And basically they become markers for whose grandmother is in the woods picking mushrooms or beans.
Saturday, September 27 - Kawabe, Japan
I awoke this morning to what I thought was an earthquake. I was told that it was actually a thunderstorm and very high winds. It is raining again. Chopped yellow rice stems float in the puddles in the now bare fields. For the farmers that have not harvested their rice yet, they are all complaining with a smile about the weather. Everyone has taken off vacation days during this time in anticipation of the harvest, but everyone is sitting around because nothing can be done in this weather. Wet rice ruins the blades of the combines as well as the other mechanical parts. Still plagued by this cold, I am finding this small break a brief respite from the hectic schedule of the past few weeks and the ensuing hectic schedule as I try to shoot my last few assignments as well as say goodbye to many friends.
Sunday, September 28 - Kawabe, Japan
Here is an Oasis (written on a watering can at my homestay)
Some Japanese English has a nice ring to it for me. It strikes some kind of artistic chord when I read it. It is simple, yet holds some kind of deeper meaning if you sit and contemplate it for a while. There is a Japanese way. I am sure you have heard about this. In fact the Japanese are very proud of this. It is an intangible way of living your life, a perspective colored by contemplations and structured around simplicity. I have to again emphasize that I am talking about this Japan, Tohoku, Japan Akita Prefecture, Kawabe Machi, Japan. Not Tokyo. And I also have to emphasize that this is for the older people. I still am at a loss for figuring out the younger people.Thus the duration of this project will be spent looking at the older citizens.
In my shooting, I am searching for signposts, markers telling of the inner soul of these people. Hands folded neatly in the lap, sitting back contemplating the flower arrangement, scissors neatly placed, details. I have said it before Japan is a country who's story is told in both the careful attention to and the lack of attention for details, the Monster arms sitting next to the plants in the entryway, the plastic fish sitting in the bowl of water with rocks greeting visitors as they walk in, the Winnie the Pooh plaque in the toilet, the piles of old faded stuffed animals in the upstairs hallway, the piles of junk behind the garage, the mother wearing the Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt, the colorful arrangements of morsels carefully placed on the tiny plate. Details. The face holds little information, but look around there is much to be read. The body language also reveals the spirit behind the mask. I remember when I first came to Japan, I was hypnotized by the body language. The delicate but thoughtful movement of the hands, no energy wasted and with total awareness of each finger the hand would pick up a flower or cut a carrot.
With just over a week left to really shoot and still lots of rain, I feel like I am in pretty good shape. I plan to go back to Kawabe So for one more visit although there is not much more that I feel is missing except maybe another shot of a tired care-worker. I have not really photographed the "d" word, death. But as far as I am concerned that is not what I am looking at, I am looking at life there. I have photographed some of the sicker members, and perhaps I should have been more mindful of this, but I feel like there is a certain literal translation with images like that that I want to try and avoid. If looking at the images, one doesn't understand that this is the last stop, then ? What? There are sign posts all over these photos pointing to eventual deterioration and death.
As for the younger members of this community, I am totally confused by them. On one hand they are totally selfish idiots (to be totally boorish) and then on the other hand they are not malicious or mean or hateful either. They play their video games or go drinking all day and night, but then will go to a traditional dance lesson for a few hours, or help out their family with the rice farming (at least those who have chosen to stay here). They don't participate in many family gatherings except for meals and that is only if they are home. Occasionally their friends will come over and they will all get drunk with the father and have a total great time laughing and talking. Then they disappear, diving into their inner darkness with lengthy isolation spent smoking cigarettes and sleeping while listening to rap and other Western and Japanese western style musicians. They seem to be much more complex than I can handle in this short amount of time.
Monday, September 29 - Kawabe, Japan
Here is an oasis and so I write. Every day I go to sleep with one new small memory that I want to hold in my hand and put in my pocket. Each memory piles on the other, building a small oasis as I think forward to when I will be back in the States frantically working to put all this together. The slow moving old men and women on their bicycles will be replaced with fast speeding cars and impending deadlines. Yesterday it was Kazuko and I taking a little trip to the wild part of the neighboring prefecture. The small narrow road winding through lush green forests dropped us off at an old onsen (hot spring) that was renowned for its fertility enhancing water. In the women’s half there were two outside baths, an inside bath and a Jacuzzi. The two outside baths had different purposes one was for long life the other was to increase fertility. Just in case you were unsure about the main purpose of this onsen (hot spring) there was a large brass penis about the size of a school chair erected in the women's outdoor spa. I am still wondering if it erected as some kind of reminder. I asked if the men had a similar sort of monument to our genitalia in their spa. Kazuko said she didn't know because she hadn't been in the men's side but assumed they did.
My cold is almost gone, but I am plagued by the longing to sleep - all the time. Is it mono? I doubt it so I keep structuring my days with assignments but the rain has a way of changing my plans. Today the clouds are large fast-moving white billowy plumes that keeping me guessing up to the last minute if I am going to shoot or not. I photographed a grandmother I know taking her grandson to school on her bike, but it was gray and not that interesting. I am going back when she picks him up from school maybe the weather will be nicer.
All replies are welcome.
I miss bagels and the sun.
jen
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