"Where do I Begin?" (Shirley Bassey, Away Team Mix - Diamonds are Forever)

Last night I went to an "Event" involving traditional Japanese intstruments, projections of waterfalls and ponds onto empty walls, a DJ, and a dancer dressed in white so as to blend in with the images. It was amazing. I think the instrumentalists must have been 120 to 125 years old. The woman was playing something that looked like a dulcimer the size of a park bench. I have to find out what it was called. It was amazing watching her play and sing along. The man was playing a large recorder flute. I seem to remember getting up very early in my childhood days to go to a 7am recorder class before school. I wonder why I never stuck with that.

As a westerner, I can only imagine what the artist's true intent was. But as I sat there, so many different emotions flooded over me. The Japanese have such a love/hate relationship with themselves and seem to be constantly pulled between their traditions and their modern ways. Some seem frustrated that their history is getting lost in the neon. Some seem to feel trapped by the isolated nature of Japan, wanting to push the borders and discover what else is out there; frustrated by some of the ways that have become the norms that have now led to apapthy and acceptance. For example, so many women who believe they are damaged goods if they aren't married by 25. Men who work for companies for 12-14 hours a day, exhausted, bored, and with one company until the end of their career - just accept that that's the way it is. They escape into 24 hour convenience stores to read erotic comics for hours on end, then fall asleep on the train. I know I'm painting with broad runny strokes.

But, I was watching this dancer. She was barefoot on the part of the floor dedicated to shoes (which is interesting in itself), dancing in free form. There didn't seem to be any routine she had memorized, she was just dancing, spinning, enjoying. The wall behind her was a projection of water, perhaps a pond filmed over the course of several days. Her dress was white and her hair was anime black. There was no difference between the water behind her and the image that moved across her body. The relationship we have with nature, the acknowledgement of that relationship in Japanese culture, that Japan is surrounded by water, the plucking of this instrument in the background, all of these things were moving to me. But her tone and her face (which she rarely showed) were meloncholoy, lonely and sad. She clawed at the wall as if wanting to get out of the water, and then changed back into a turn or a spin or some fluid movement in the center. Then she would run to the outer edges and push back from the pillars in the room as if somehow unable to go past. Seeming to give up, she went back to the center and into fluid movements again. I only have my western eyes to look through. Or maybe I've just seen The Little Mermaid too many times.

More and more I find myself curious about the differences between interpretation and truth and cultural upbringings. I'm told that I will never understand Japanese culture, but the people telling me this find it immensly difficult to be creative in class. When they were in school, there were always black and white answers. Yes and No. Right and Wrong. Answers given in class had to be right or there were consequences. So, when I ask questions that have no right answer to them, my students are quiet and seem frustated. I can't ask things like "What do you do in the morning?" without a bit of silence. It's not that my students don't have the vocabulary to say things like "I eat breakfast, I brush my teeth, I check my email, I get dressed etc." They do. I think it has more to do with not knowing if or rather having the confidence that their answers are right. So, when they tell me I couldn't possibly understand something, I wonder if they think that only because they themselves don't understand another way of thinking. Or, am I projecting my OWN western thought into it, thinking that of course I can at least somewhat understand. I can do ANYTHING. Who knows? And is it important? I'm not sure yet. But it's been on my mind lately.

It also makes me wonder about interpretation altogether. What I mean is, I don't think we can truly understand someone else individually. We can only look at things through our own eyes. We have a set of experiences and histories we call our own and this will always affect the filter in which we view the world. Is this gap widened by cultural differences? Or are we able to understand to the degree we can understand anyone at all?