The Beer at Soba Restaurants (Murakami)

The thing that’s troubled me the most since moving from the city to the suburbs in the summer of 1981, is that there’s no one wandering about in the middle of the day. Most of the men here are office workers, so they leave home early in the morning and don’t come back until evening. Inevitably, therefore, housewives are the only other people around town at that time.

I tend to only work in the mornings and evenings, so in the afternoon I like to take a stroll around town. But ever since I moved to the suburbs it’s felt strange. People look at me with a sort of deep suspicion, and I start to feel like I actually am doing something suspicious.

Most of the people seem to think I’m a student of some sort. The other day an older woman asked me if I was looking for somewhere to stay, and taxi drivers ask me if what I’m studying is difficult. I was even asked to show my student ID at a music rental store.

This is despite the fact that I practically live in jeans and sneakers all year round, and, at the age of 33, am far too old to be a student. Unfortunately, it seems that to the people of the town I live in, anyone walking around in the middle of the day must to be a student. This is completely different to when I lived in the city. When I walked along Aoyama Street in the middle of the day, I would often meet people similar to myself. I even met the illustrator of this book, Mr. Mizumaru Anzai, a few times.

Whenever I ran into him like this and asked him what he was doing, his response would usually be something like “You know… this and that…”

I still don’t know whether Mr. Anzai has a lot of free time, or whether he’s actually really busy but just never looks it.

Anyway, there were always a lot of unusual people in the city, and they would always come out in the middle of the day to wander around. I don’t know if this was a good thing or a bad one, but it was certainly comfortable. Now I’m just grateful to not get a strange look when I order a beer with my lunch at a soba restaurant. The beer at soba restaurants is always especially delicious.

On writing

The truth is, I'm a terrible writer.

For most people, this has always been the case but they never realise it, or don't think too much about it. For me though, it was a sudden realisation at the end of my high school years, and I never really recovered from the shock.

I've always enjoyed language, but this enjoyment has always been in the form of reading instead of writing. This probably forms an image in your mind of some intellectual frowning thoughtfully while reading through War and Peace. The truth is much more embarrassing. I’ve read some of the classics when prodded to or forced - Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Shakespeare - but most of my reading is limited to much more consumable stuff like Stephen King, Roald Dahl’s short stories for adults, Gerald Durrell, and Arthur C. Clarke.

When I realized how bad I was at writing, it became something I tried to avoid, except out of absolute necessity. I dreaded having to form arguments and write essays in university, and I just never felt the need to write at any other time. Looking back over some of those essays makes me cringe at how clumsily they were worded though, so I guess I must have improved a bit.

Eventually I discovered that I actually did enjoy writing, in the form of translation, and somehow managed to form a carrier around it. A lot of professional translators say that to be a good translator, you need to be a good writer. While I agree with this, I think that more than anything you need a strong awareness of your own language and its writing styles. Most of these styles I learned mainly through reading and then imitating them in translations, rather than learning them from scratch. Basically this means that I'm nothing more than a talented copycat. I don’t have anything of my own that’s interesting enough to talk about, so I have to let other people come up with topics for me.

Translating did teach me how to edit my own work though. This has been further improved by working as an in-house translator and having to edit other people's work. Suddenly I found myself spending hours a day doing nothing but playing with and contemplating English sentences.

In French there's a saying that goes something like "Eating increases appetite" and I guess that was the case for me. Even though I'm terrible at writing, I suddenly have the urge to do nothing but write, for writing’s sake, even in my spare time.

I've also slowly been translating my way through an untranslated collection of Murakami Haruki's (Haruki Murakami’s?) essays, published in his book "Murakami Asahi-do". I have no aspirations of becoming a literary translator, but for some reason I really find myself enjoying translating what he describes as his “scribbles".

So I guess that shock of knowing I was a terrible writer is fading, and I'm beginning to find enjoyment in it. Something tells me I will never be a Murakami Haruki though.

About divorce (Murakami)

I don’t know if it means anything, but just lately whenever I bump into an acquaintance, it’s always someone who’s just gotten a divorce. This sort of thing troubles me more than you’d think, for the simple reason that there are only a few patterns of conversation you can hold with someone you haven’t seen for a while.

Typically these conversations start with “So how’s the job?” or “Where are you living now?” and always seem to end with “And how's the wife?” It’s not as though I want to know about their wives’ latest trends or anything, I couldn’t care less, it’s just a form of small talk, like a seasonal greeting or something. Whenever I ask that question, I’m really just hoping for a simple answer along the lines of “Yeah, she’s doing ok” or something.

If at that moment, they say something like “Oh, actually we got a divorce” it’s not only troubling for them, it’s troubling for me as well. It’s not as though I have anything against divorce, it’s just that I have no idea how to respond. If it was news of a wedding or a birth I could get away with “That’s great to hear!” and if it was a funeral something like “That must have been tough” would cover it.

When it comes to divorce though, none of those handy phrases are available to me. Maybe they were glad they got a divorce, but there’s no way for me to know that. If I said something like “That must be a relief!” it would sound kind of irresponsible, and something like “Wow, I’m really envious of you” would just sound superficial. If I put on a serious face though, and said “I’m really sorry to hear that” it would ruin both our moods.

I always end up saying something like “Oh, really? Hmm…” And the other person says something like “Yeah...” This has happened to me 3 or 4 times in a row now, and I’m getting thoroughly sick and tired of it.

Divorce is becoming more common throughout the world, so wouldn’t it be good if they added a chapter on it to those funeral and wedding etiquette books you can buy? Well, I think it’s a good idea anyway.

On Japanese Summers

As a foreigner, I’m apparently meant to hate Japanese summers. I don’t know why it is, but whenever a foreigner starts talking about the seasons in Japan, it always ends with something like “But I can’t stand the summers.” This makes no sense, because it seems to me that summers in Japan have benefits that no other seasons do.

During Japanese summers, beer is always more delicious. I hate to sound like a poorly written advert, but there’s nothing like coming home at the end of the day, covered in sweat, washing your face with cold water, opening the fridge and pouring a cold glass of Asahi. That first mouthful makes the whole day worth it. It’s even better when served with hiyayakko, with the back door open to let in the humid air and the sounds of insects.

Then there’s the atmosphere itself. Stepping out of your house in the morning, to find the sun shining and the air already sticky with moisture, is the only proper start to the day. The other nice thing being of course, is that if you work in an office you’re likely to benefit from cool biz: no ties, no jackets, just a shirt and trousers. Somehow seeing the office chief sat fanning himself with his top shirt button open makes the working environment more relaxed. It’s like the whole office is breathing a sigh of relief.

Speaking of clothing, being a non-single man I, of course, have never noticed this, but friends have mentioned about how nice it is that Japanese women wear shorter skirts and shorts in the summer. I’ve also heard that the sight of Japanese women wearing summer kimonos and eating chocolate dipped bananas is a favourite amongst many men here.

Then there’s sightseeing. I love walking in the woods or around temples and shrines, and this experience only gets better in the middle of the day when the temperatures are at their hottest. I’m at my happiest walking along the philosopher’s walk in Kyoto, with a packed lunch, a bottle of cold sports drink and no one else around. Halfway along I’ll sit down in a shady area, with the cicadas so loud in my ears that it's almost painful, pull out a book and eat. Sweat pours down my body, and my hands are so damp that the book gets wet and sticks to them, but none of this matters. Following this up with ice cream from a vending machine is just an added bonus.

Summer is also when the gods are at their closest in Japan. I’m not religious, and normally reject the idea of anything that vaguely resembles a god, but when you’re halfway up a mountain at Fushimi Inari shrine, surrounded by hundreds of red torii gates, exhausted and semi-dehydrated, with the smell of moss and rotting leaves in the air, you know the gods are lurking nearby, and suddenly the world seems like a much more mysterious place. It’s like going back in time 1000 years.

Music is always better too. Whether it’s listening to a jazz artist like John Coltrane or a modern artist like YUI, everything just makes more sense. Even moreso if I have a glass of cold beer in my hand at the time. Also, some styles of music are only good in the summer, Japanese reggae being one of those. Japanese reggae is best listened to at an evening summer festival, while avoiding the throngs of kimono-clad twenty-somethings and letting the smells of suspicious looking fried food vendors make your stomach growl. At times like this, a cup of melon flavoured shaved ice is always the safest option.

Going to the movies is more satisfying on a hot summer’s day, and because it’s the middle of the school holidays it’s when all the best movies come out. Walking out of the heat into a cool, dark, theatre and smelling warm popcorn always makes me feel excited. I go to the movies more often in Japan in the summer than at any other time – one summer I even saw the same movie 3 times in 2 weeks.

That’s not to say that I hate the other seasons – warm sake and hotpot in winter, mushrooms and seasonal vegetables in autumn, those clear, light blue skies in spring – but summer is definitely the best. Even in Australia I felt the same way, after all, I’d rather be baked than frozen. The only country whose summer I don’t like is England’s, which always ends up making a pretty halfhearted attempt at a season. If you’re going to do a season, I figure, you may as well do it properly.