Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: Japan
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Today I visited Meiji Jingu to attend one of the stranger rituals I have seen in Japan: the Doll Appreciation Ceremony (oningyo kanshasai,お人形感謝祭). This ceremony takes place once a year under the sponsorship of the Doll Appreciation Society, and is held to venerate those dolls that are being passed out of use. The information we…
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Yesterday I visited Matsumoto with my friend from London, Dr. M. We were unburdened by annoying Germans, and able to enjoy the full glories of this small town nestled in the foothills of the Japanese Alps. Matsumoto’s castle is a national treasure, as well as a deathtrap for elderly people, and like most castles in…
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I have recently been spending a lot of time around (white) foreigners in Japan, much more than usual, and a recent experience with a particular pair of them has helped me to understand a kind of increasing discomfort I have with the way westerners interact and the way they perceive Asia. I guess being largely…
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On Sunday I played in a short Shadowrun (5th Edition) adventure, which is likely to become a campaign. I think Shadowrun is a brilliant idea, and I can’t play it without playing some kind of magic-user: the idea of playing a wizard or a shaman skipping through the shadows of a corporate dystopia is too…
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Recently I again visited Minamisoma on business, and while I was there I was taken to visit another area damaged by the tsunami. Last time I visited an area near the inner exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant, where I saw how nature is reclaiming the tsunami-ravaged coastline. This time I visited a different…
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Last week I was invited by collaborators to attend the Nomaoi horse festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima. This festival dates back 1000 years, to the warring states (sengoku) period, and appears to have arisen from some kind of training ritual. It was cancelled in the year of the Great East Japan Earthquake but has otherwise been…
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When Japanese people want to succeed at life’s challenges, they will often visit a shrine and pray to the God therein for aid and succor. Most shrines have a designated purpose, with the God ensconced there tasked with aiding childbirth, or the accumulation of wealth, knowledge, or success in love, for example. Those who live…
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Recently I visited some collaborators in Minamisoma, Fukushima, and after our work was done they took me to the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant. We didn’t enter the innermost zone, but traveled right up to edge of it. Similar to Chernobyl, the area is slowly being reclaimed by the wilds, and its level of…
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Today it was 26C in Tokyo, and we had our first taste of this year’s yellow dust, the strange and nasty pollution that tends to drift over Japan from China during spring and summer. Today’s was the worst I have ever seen in 5 years in Japan – the above photograph, taken from my ground…
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Yesterday was another Gothic Lolita-styled live event by the crew at A la Mode, the 42nd event of this venerable institution. This night had the same excellent value-for-money line up of 6 or so bands interspersed by DJs, for just 3000 yen, but this time there were less of the pretty little 5 minute floor…
Compromise and Conceit 