A few nice facts about animals images I found:
The Japanese of Love Vehicles and Time-Travel
Image by timtak
Professor Kishiro Sawa, one of the academics on my corridoor, is an expert on transport and has written several books on the varieties and systems of transportation in Japan.
In his latest book (Sawa, 2010) he points out that transportation tends to be viewed as a means to get from point A to point B, but that in Japan there are a vast variety of transportation services, cable cars, private railaways, jets "wrapped" in the designs of characters, bullet trains, miniature trains, vehicles both animal and human powered, and other means of transportation in weird and wonderful variety, that are seen wholely or in part as an end, the objective of travel.
There are narrow guage railways in the UK, and of course roller coasters in theme parks, and the aforemented pleasure cruise. But looking at the number of examples that Professory Sawa is able to give, it seems fair to say that the Japanese sometimes travel to travel.
Professor Sawa interprets this behaviour as being part of the extrasensitive and carying Japanese service industry - from the pull perspective. In an attempt to make their customers happy, transportation service providers have been so successful as to make their services attractive as tourism products in an of themselves.
What other things might motivate the Japanese love of vehicles?
The animism that is argued to motivate the Japanese love of robots (Robertson, 2007; Schodt, 1988) many also encourage them to be fond of, friendly or almost familial towards vehicles.
Alternatively, vehicles, in the form of Omikoshi take prominent place in Shinto festivities. If locatednees is an important feature of the sacred in Shinto (Pilgrim, 1986; Pilgrim, 1993) then the movement of the deity in a mikoshi may help to create "liminal" (Turner, 1964) chaotic, merged, exstatic stated among festival-goes. Elsewhere I have suggesed that boarding trains - which are capable of moving not just people but spaces - may also created this unchained, unrestrained festival feeling among the "Lococentric" (Lebra, 1992; Lebra, 2004) locationally structed Japanese. It is this feeling that that Nenzi feels was the objective of Edo period travel, "As the juxtaposition of movement and immobility in this image suggests, motion is, in a sense, the antithesis of order: it displaces what ought to stay put; it frees what ought to be contained." (Nenzi, 2008, p188). In the picture that Nenzi is describing (ibid, p. 189) with these words it is not people so much as space itself that has been set free.
Another theme to note is that Japanese often emphasies roads, particularly historical roads (Hori, 2010; Shirahata, 1995; Guichard-Anguis, 2009, p 2. ) following in the footsteps of others such as Takasugi (2002), or Basho (Sekiya, 2009) which is what Basho himself was doing, and circular pilgrimages where again, the act and space of travel itself seems to be the purpose of travel, rather than the destination (Reader, 2005). The attention placed on roads and the act of travelling has been associated (Creighton, 2009) with the practical and spiritual "paths" (dou, michi) such as Japanese martial arts, calligraphy, tea-ceremony and flower arrangement. Similar to the Japanese love of travel for travels sake, in each of these praxese, accorded the highest veneration in Japanese society, the ends are seen as of secondary importance to the means, the process, the concentration and ascetism required to get there.
Finally, as usual, on this blog I have taken a Nacalian look at travel. If the Western self is seen as narratival, symbolic, and while infected by the image always eschewing of it, I have suggeseted that perhaps Westerns go to see sights for the same reason that Western Philosophers have conjured upthought experients about sighless impressioned women coming out of achromatic rooms: to assure themselves of the duality, and existence of self. If on the other hand the Japanese self is predominantly imaginary, seen from the eye of the other, then perhaps the Japanese travel in search of signs and symbols - as they do appear to do, to named, literary historical places, for stamps, and icons.
Taking this analogy one step further, if as has been suggested by philosophers of the Japanese self (Nishida, Heisig) the image is associated with place, and as suggested by Western philosophers of the self "the meaning of being is time" (Heidigger) and the sign (Derrida) itterablity and timing or defferal, perhaps Westerners go to see places, spaces and sights, where as Japanese travel to experience time.
Certainly an awareness of time figures prominently Japanese travel. The tremendous emphasis on history and nostalgia and witnessing changes in nature, the flow of the seasons, the impermanence of things. Usually I have understood this desire of Japanese to witness time as a desire for a self-extinguishing enligtenment. But if the Japanese self is a primordial space (Mochizuki, 2006i, Nishida, 1987) the externalisation of time through time travel, may in fact be much more like Robo, logo Mary going to see the sights, protective and creative of self, and the self other boundary.
So perhaps the Japanese have a thing about vehicles because they like to go to experience time, and by doing so in the framework of tourism, externalise it.
Bibliography
Creighton, M. (2009). The Heroic Edo-ic: Travelling the History Highway in Today’s Tokugawa Japan. In A. Guichard-Anguis, O. Moon, & M. R. del Alisal (Eds.), Japanese Tourism and Travel Culture (1st ed., pp. 37–75). Routledge.
Guichard-Anguis, S. (2009). The Culture of Travel (tabi no bunka) and Japanese Tourism. In A. Guichard-Anguis, O. Moon, & M. R. del Alisal (Eds.), Japanese Tourism and Travel Culture (1st ed., pp. 1–18). Routledge.
Hori, ?. 堀淳一. (2010). にっぽん地図歩きの旅ー古道、旧道、旧街道ー. 講談社.
Ichisaka, T & Yoshioka, I. 一坂太郎, & 吉岡一生. (2002). 高杉晋作を歩く. 山と溪谷社.
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observe: multiple santa action
Image by Amelia-Jane
flip says: (11:40:48 PM)
here's how it works
flip says: (11:41:24 PM)
there is only one santa. that's the point. he does something completely and utterly impossible but there is only one of him, that's why we love him. if there were a team of santas that worked out how to cover each continent, he/they would be much less lovable.
flip says: (11:41:36 PM)
he/they would be like the elves. no-one cares about the elves.
flip says: (11:41:59 PM)
they're just interchangeable, kind of eccentric but generally not revered as the spirit of christmas like santa.
flip says: (11:42:36 PM)
and no, not like the reindeer, because their personality works with the fact that they're animals.
flip says: (11:42:45 PM)
*personalities
flip says: (11:42:51 PM)
anyway, the whole point is that santa is singular.
flip says: (11:43:55 PM)
and that's why it's abominable to put more than one santa in your christmas display. because you admit that santa is ideologically uniting, and instead partake in a multi-deity pagan kind of love fest of postmodern santa interpretations.
flip says: (11:44:26 PM)
it's not even like they're consciously saying 'this is like the bob dylan film, i'm interpreting different aspects of santa's personality'
flip says: (11:44:51 PM)
it's blatnantly saying 'your concept of santa is false! santa is dead!'
flip says: (11:45:00 PM)
and this would be fine
flip says: (11:45:14 PM)
except for the fact that THE WHOLE POINT OF CHRISTMAS LIGHTS IS APPARENTLY TO CELEBRATE THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.
flip says: (11:46:14 PM)
and so having multiple santas effectively undermines any kind of success a christmas display might have, and also slowly but surely destroys christmas, one extra santa at a time.
