Essays
Man vs. Nature - Part 1
It is mid-August. The air is sticky and heavy. It is a Sunday, and last night was yet another late night, in yet another bar where buying beer for gaijin is the thing to do. I have yet to buy a drink in this country, but my diligent efforts not to offend have led to me quaff more than my usual ration. Frankly, my mouth is a little dry.
And I am groggy.
It is 6:30 A.M. The air is sticky and heavy. (Or have I mentioned that already?) My alarm clock went off just a few moments ago, and I am only dimly aware of the fact that I’m standing somewhere in Asia with a rusty sickle in my hand. I’m just a little too sleepy to fully comprehend that there’s something odd about that fact. In fact, I only have enough mental energy to stare at the pretty purple flowers in front of me. I’ve never noticed them before, even though they’re right below my apartment window. They’re vibrant little wild flowers, and such unlikely apparitions in this urban world. I stare at them with something akin to love—with something which I choose not to question in this rare fatigued, uncritical state.
Unbeknownst to them and to me, soon the flowers will be dead.
One of my fellow tenants drowsily marches up to the flower bed, sickle in hand; squats, and begins to mercilessly hack away at the purple flowers. The violence of his action ends my reverie, and kick starts my brain. I am standing here, and awake at this indecent hour, to take part in the clean up around my building. It is a monthly ritual, or so I’m told, the purpose of which is only nominally to clean the property. But the real reason for the custom is far subtler than that. Or so I’m told. It has to do with the Japanese notion of ie, or household. It is about connecting with the people you live with. It is about good old-fashioned bonding, Japanese style.
I am here to bond.
I take a quick look around me to see what the others are up to, and to try and figure out what is expected of me. The prime directive seems to be this: hack away at any and all living things with your sickle. Simple enough. I walk up to a patch of tall crab grass; squat, and begin to chop. I can feel the sun beating against my neck.
My sickle (which I strongly suspect is older than me) is blunt, and my attempts to trim the grass neatly, fail miserably. More often than not, I end up tearing the stuff right out of the ground, and leaving an ugly mess in my wake. And I’m not the only one who’s using this particular strategy. The purpose, it seems, is not to make the place look nice; it is only to kill—something which clashes against my ideas about Japan, or at least those ideas I had when I got off the plane just a few weeks ago. A lifetime ago, really.
Japan is a land famous for its gardens. Its traditional religions are Shintoism and Buddhism, two faiths that respect the spirits in all living things—it is the stuff of New Age philosophy, but ancient. One would expect the Japanese to have a deep love of nature, and most Japanese will happily tell you that this love is strong. Maybe so, but it is a love very different from the one I feel when I gaze upon a pristine lake, or unspoiled mountains—everything I’ve seen so far tells me that it has to be:
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In my few weeks here, I have seen many trees, but I’ve yet to see one in its natural state. It seems that all the trees here have all been chopped and trimmed and wired to conform to certain aesthetic principles. They are bound to prevent branches from growing where they shouldn’t, and tied to poles to force them to grow in unusual directions.
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While walking by the ocean last week, I saw an interesting rock formation. Closer inspection revealed that it consisted of several different stones which had long ago been cemented together. There are many such artefacts in the countryside.
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One of the nicer gifts that you can receive this time of year is a melon. A nice oval one will fetch close to a ten thousand yen. A cube shaped one will cost you twice that.
This list goes on.
There is definitely a love of nature here, but it is for nature that has been bent and twisted and perfected by the hand of man. Nature is undeniably revered—there are blossom watching, leaf watching and moon watching festivals—but perverted nature has a stronger appeal. The full moon may be an object of beauty, but more beautiful still is the moon the night after it is full. On that night, a small wedge is missing. One can almost imagine that it was bulldozed away by diligent workers; that intellect has forced it into a newer, better shape.
And so I am not shocked when my beautiful little patches of wild flowers meet their doom; when all the greenery on my property is attacked by the hand of man. I simply accept my role in the attack, and the pain in my legs, and the cuts on my fingers (the coarse, doomed grass’ only revenge). I do this in the name of experiencing Japanese culture.
And two hours pass.
* * *
My cultural sensitivity is wearing thin. Sweat-soaked and sore, I ponder my day, and I must confess that this chopping business is simply not doing it for me. I am hungry and sleepy, and mildly resentful—all the more so when I see how much more nature there is to destroy. Another two hours of work lies before me, at least, and my sickle is too blunt to even consider suicide.
Monthly clean up is stupid.
And then a man, one of my neighbours, emerges from the shed with a mighty weed whacker in hand—a vision that fills me with a strange potpourri of emotions. The familiar smell of an oil-gas mix reaches my nostrils just as the man starts the engine of the powerful beast. It is with both relief and confusion that I watch him level the remaining plant life with amazing efficiency; that I begin to fill garbage bags with all the tiny plant corpses we created today, rejuvenated by the knowledge that the clean up ordeal will soon be over. I find it hard to believe that my fellow tenants have, without complaint, worked so hard for a good chunk of their one day off knowing that there was a machine so close by that could do the work for them. Then I remember that this ritual is about bonding. We have worked and perspired together, all in the name of... well something. And we share the joy that it will soon be over. Yes, that’s what this is all about. Shared joy.
I look over toward my neighbour with these new conclusions fresh in my mind, and am struck with the overwhelming fact that I feel no closer to him than I did at the outset of the day. Not even a little bit.
And I can tell, I can just tell, by the look on his face, that he feels no closer to me.
Jean-Francois Chénier, Summer 1998
