Saturday, April 15, 2006
Come to Osaka, fools!: Osaka 5 (Summer 2005)
A letter I wrote to a friend trying to convince him to move to Osaka:
I don't know mate, that's a tough one! Hong Kong
would be a whole new adventure, a new language to
learn (or not learn) a new set of rules, etc. It
sounds like an exciting prospect. I try hard to fight the idea that what's best for me
is also best for other people. But I'm still going to
try to convince you to come to Osaka!
Osaka has is all: the party, the energy, the edge, the
tension of cultures meeting and clashing and sometimes
melding, the sense of something new being created and
destroyed every night. It has the youth and all that
it implies: all those cutely earnest youngsters in
their best hip hop gear, along with the truly talented
artists, rappers, singers, djs, break dancers, etc.
and it has a solid representation by the older
generation: some of the warmest most outspoken, fun
loving, quirky people in Japan, who all adore Osaka
and all its flaws, who will come up to you on the
street and hand you an orange, some soybeans and a
snack pack of seaweed, and who will aways always
ALWAYS try to talk to you in a bar or restaurant;
thick Osaka-Ben flying like mad, careening perilously
past broken teeth.
Osaka has this cool funky underground feeling, like
there are all these amazing things going on right
under your nose, on the 8th floors of office
buildings, in converted warehouses down by the port,
in makeshift studios under the train tracks, behind
unassuming interiors lurk hidden treasures. And no
I'm NOT talking about "snack bars"! [note: "Snack Bar" is
the Japanese euphamism for a hostess club] I'm talking about
the Taiko center where I take lessons every wednesday
night that's a hub for young and old japanese people
(some are in their 70's) to get together and beat on
big drums, and then maybe go out for beers at this
cool place that's literally carved out of the concrete
of the underpass. You'd walk right by it and not even
know its there. But there are jungle trees inside,
and a cat, and for some reason a life size model of
Elvis. I'm talking about going on a whim to hear one
of my private students play in a band, at a bar I've
cycled by a hundred times and never entered, and
finding six old Japanese guys jamming on electric
guitars to a packed house, followed by a Japanese
African drum and dance troupe (those ladies can shake
it, fake afros and all!) Then going straight to
another bar to hear my friend's funk band and watch an
amazing young Japanese woman, still a high school
student, sing like Gloria Gaynor. [This all
just happened to me this Saturday night. The week
before that I took a secret elevator hidden behind a
red velvet curtain at a club, and the door opened onto
the changing area of the transvestite dancers who,
instead of being angry, they let us help them put on
their makeup. I can't even imagine what next weekend
will bring.] I'm talking about the random pottery
studio set up in the middle of a small farm (which is
of course surrounded by stores, fish flake factories,
family style diners, mechanic shops, etc, etc, on the
outskirts of Osaka) where I just went for the first
time this week to learn Japanese style pottery. I'm
talking about so much energy and creativity it's
amazing the city can contain it all.
And apart from the musicians, the artists, the
dissatisfied youth, the fashionsitas, the
counterculture, theres also a tremendous ammount of
creative spirit in the merchants, the shopkeepers, who
are really the heart and sould of the city. I mean
the tako yaki stand lady who always gives an extra
ball, the old man who wanders around with his cart
singing about the quality of his warabi mochi , the
guy trying to entice me into his eel shop with almost
a jazz riff on Irasshyamasen (sah sah sah, irasshyi!
IRA-ra-ra-shyai! SHYAI!), the old laides, bent over
90 degrees from a life of planting rice, still going
about their business, chatting and cackling away to
one another as they push their little carts ever so
slowly through the grocery store aisles.
Whoa, I feel a bit drained. I want to write more, but
I'm afraid if I do I'll never stop.
I hope this helps, or at least helps to complicate
your decison a bit more!
Good luck to you! I envy you your possibilities. And
I truly envy you the possibilitiy of spending next
year in my Osaka. ¶ 9:55 PM
I don't know mate, that's a tough one! Hong Kong
would be a whole new adventure, a new language to
learn (or not learn) a new set of rules, etc. It
sounds like an exciting prospect. I try hard to fight the idea that what's best for me
is also best for other people. But I'm still going to
try to convince you to come to Osaka!
Osaka has is all: the party, the energy, the edge, the
tension of cultures meeting and clashing and sometimes
melding, the sense of something new being created and
destroyed every night. It has the youth and all that
it implies: all those cutely earnest youngsters in
their best hip hop gear, along with the truly talented
artists, rappers, singers, djs, break dancers, etc.
and it has a solid representation by the older
generation: some of the warmest most outspoken, fun
loving, quirky people in Japan, who all adore Osaka
and all its flaws, who will come up to you on the
street and hand you an orange, some soybeans and a
snack pack of seaweed, and who will aways always
ALWAYS try to talk to you in a bar or restaurant;
thick Osaka-Ben flying like mad, careening perilously
past broken teeth.
Osaka has this cool funky underground feeling, like
there are all these amazing things going on right
under your nose, on the 8th floors of office
buildings, in converted warehouses down by the port,
in makeshift studios under the train tracks, behind
unassuming interiors lurk hidden treasures. And no
I'm NOT talking about "snack bars"! [note: "Snack Bar" is
the Japanese euphamism for a hostess club] I'm talking about
the Taiko center where I take lessons every wednesday
night that's a hub for young and old japanese people
(some are in their 70's) to get together and beat on
big drums, and then maybe go out for beers at this
cool place that's literally carved out of the concrete
of the underpass. You'd walk right by it and not even
know its there. But there are jungle trees inside,
and a cat, and for some reason a life size model of
Elvis. I'm talking about going on a whim to hear one
of my private students play in a band, at a bar I've
cycled by a hundred times and never entered, and
finding six old Japanese guys jamming on electric
guitars to a packed house, followed by a Japanese
African drum and dance troupe (those ladies can shake
it, fake afros and all!) Then going straight to
another bar to hear my friend's funk band and watch an
amazing young Japanese woman, still a high school
student, sing like Gloria Gaynor. [This all
just happened to me this Saturday night. The week
before that I took a secret elevator hidden behind a
red velvet curtain at a club, and the door opened onto
the changing area of the transvestite dancers who,
instead of being angry, they let us help them put on
their makeup. I can't even imagine what next weekend
will bring.] I'm talking about the random pottery
studio set up in the middle of a small farm (which is
of course surrounded by stores, fish flake factories,
family style diners, mechanic shops, etc, etc, on the
outskirts of Osaka) where I just went for the first
time this week to learn Japanese style pottery. I'm
talking about so much energy and creativity it's
amazing the city can contain it all.
And apart from the musicians, the artists, the
dissatisfied youth, the fashionsitas, the
counterculture, theres also a tremendous ammount of
creative spirit in the merchants, the shopkeepers, who
are really the heart and sould of the city. I mean
the tako yaki stand lady who always gives an extra
ball, the old man who wanders around with his cart
singing about the quality of his warabi mochi , the
guy trying to entice me into his eel shop with almost
a jazz riff on Irasshyamasen (sah sah sah, irasshyi!
IRA-ra-ra-shyai! SHYAI!), the old laides, bent over
90 degrees from a life of planting rice, still going
about their business, chatting and cackling away to
one another as they push their little carts ever so
slowly through the grocery store aisles.
Whoa, I feel a bit drained. I want to write more, but
I'm afraid if I do I'll never stop.
I hope this helps, or at least helps to complicate
your decison a bit more!
Good luck to you! I envy you your possibilities. And
I truly envy you the possibilitiy of spending next
year in my Osaka. ¶ 9:55 PM
