Thursday August 17, 1989
Kamegawa is very much a neighborhood of the type that exists in Europe, and maybe New England, but not in much in the rest of the USA--at least not any of the sections of the USA that I've lived in--those cities built primarily after the invention of the automobile. Kamegawa is a town built up along the paths people have walked for hundreds of years.
There is one main shopping street and most shopkeepers live above their shops. Although there is one chain supermarket, the street is lined with owner-run green grocers, butchers, fish mongers, bakeries, patisseries and flower shops. There are also some uniquely Japanese shops: the tofu-maker, the pickle-maker, the tea shop, the miso shop, the rice shop, the manju shop, the geta shop, and many kimono shops. And nestled among the universally recognizable banks, stationers, and barber shops, are the little public baths. The one on the way to the supermarket from my house is not a large tourist-style onsen, but a tiny cinder-block and corrugated tin-roofed building over a hot spring which only the oldest and most arthritic residents of Kamegawa seem to frequent.
Monday May 21, 1990
We explore a great deal more and enjoy it more. It's my experience that I have to walk down the same streets over and over, seeing them in all their seasons, until I make them my own.
Tuesday May 21, 1991
Does Kamegawa have character because it is dirty, crowded, and inconvenient? Does its character come from the trash thrown on the street, the smells of old fish blending with hot cooking oil, and the habit of small children and old men still of urinating in the street (although there are now posters warning against such parochial behavior)? I, who have never lived anywhere old, love the patina of decay.
People live here. People are dirty animals; the whole world is our trash heap. But like a lion rolling in our dung to mask our scent, we revel in our trash. If it were sanitized, Japan would look like one big amusement park. Which it often appears to be. Here the park never closes and the players never remove their costumes, at least not in public. Honne to tatemae.
It is only I, returning to America, who must turn in my costume and return to my dull life in a gray world of sameness we call modern life.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
September 05, 2002
Share Your Thoughts
I, who have never lived anywhere old, love Kamegawa's patina of decay.