Film: 人間の條件 (The Human Condition), Part 1

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
First Released: 1959
Runtime: 208 min.

I went to see this film at the Northwest Film Center on Friday night.

Set during World War II, Tatsuya Nakadai plays Kaji, a “bleeding heart” who, ironically, accepts a job as the supervisor for a large group of Chinese prisoners forced into hard labor at a Manchurian mine. As he works to better the conditions of the laborers and actually treats them as human beings, he faces both distrust from the very Chinese people he’s trying to help (“Japanese devil!” they shout), and harsh repercussions from his superiors at the mining company and from the ever-menacing kempeitai (the military police at the time).

Audiences who may not be accustomed to “foreign” films need not worry much. Despite the heavy themes and historical/geographical context, the film is quite accessible and will seem familiar to anyone that watches old Hollywood films (the sweeping, dramatic music particularly reminded me of classic Hollywood epics). I was watching the movie thinking the main character could be Jimmy Stewart, and the New York Times did me one better by comparing him to Gregory Peck.

Either way, Kaji is a somewhat unwitting yet tireless hero, fighting from within the system against a war-driven, ethnocentric Japan. The things he fights for feel timelessly relevant: that the ends do not necessarily justify the means, that we should not dehumanize even our war enemies, and thus we must not lose our humanity.

Kaji is most flawed when it comes to his relationship with his wife, Michiko (Michiyo Aratama). Believing that she would not understand and wanting to shield her from the horrors of his work, Kaji through most of the film stays stubbornly distant. They reconcile their differences at the end of the film, but now Kaji is to be drafted into war (under suspicious circumstances).

Part 2 screens at the Northwest Film Center on September 27th and 28th, and Part 3 screens on the 27th and 29th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to Part 2 (1959, 181 min.) and probably won’t make it to Part 3 (1961, 190 min.) (depending on whether I decide I can sacrifice sleep on a Monday night).

Go to the Janus Films website to check for screenings in other parts of the country.

Random video this time

Apologies about my increasingly sparse posts, but I’m still figuring out how to get back on a full-time work schedule.

In the meantime, here’s what’s been going on right across the street from me:

No, I haven’t wandered into a Hitchcock movie. It’s the swift migration that happens this time of year at Chapman Elementary School here in Portland, OR.

I love sushi, but not the condiments

Contrary to popular opinion, Japanese food is about more than sushi.

That said, I love sushi.

But I’ve always been a picky eater, and two things I can’t stand go with sushi: ginger and wasabi.

I like ginger when it’s in the form of, say, ginger snap cookies. I generally don’t like strong ginger in cooking, and those piles of pink pickled ginger is just gross.

I like spicy food, as in chili-spicy. But to me, wasabi doesn’t taste spicy. In fact, it doesn’t really taste like much of anything while a stinging sensation goes up my nose and I feel like my whole face hurts. It’s unpleasant, and I just don’t get it.

Consequently, one thing I really appreciate about most American sushi places is that the nigiri doesn’t just automatically come with wasabi between the fish and the rice. I can eat sushi feeling safe and all carefree-like.

Not so when I eat sushi in Japan, where I have to ask for no wasabi. My family then makes fun of me, as kids are the ones that don’t like wasabi. Sometimes I forget to specify, and I end up spending half my meal time painstakingly trying to get the wasabi out of my sushi (which as you can imagine, is difficult since it’s a pasty substance). Worst of all, I might just forget completely, stick a nigiri in my mouth, and my eyes water as I go running to drown myself with water.

East Asian Christians?

I visited The Grotto over the weekend. It’s a Catholic sanctuary that features this main altar with the Pietà replica set in a cave. Beautiful, yes (and I’m not religious at all). But it was after I paid the $3.50 to take the elevator to the upper level gardens at the top of the cliff where I found some intriguing surprises.

In a small chapel there was, among others…Asian Christian art. I never took Art History and I promptly slept through just about all of History in Japanese school, so if anyone more knowledgeable wants to educate me a little, please do so. These artwork didn’t have any sort of labels on them telling me what they are.

And then on the garden path was this “Peace Pole”:

This side says “May there be peace among the world’s people” in Japanese. The other sides are in English, Spanish, and Russian.

Curious, I looked up this “Peace Pole” when I got home. Apparently, it’s a project of the World Peace Prayer Society founded in Japan in 1955. According to their website, they have 200,000 of these in 180 countries, all with “May Peace Prevail on Earth” (or a close translation of it, I suppose) in various languages.

Japan’s Catholics number 0.4% of their population (0.75% in China, and of course more in some other Asian countries particularly in historically European-occupied Southeast Asia). Finding material for this blog was the last thing I expected when I went to this Catholic sanctuary on a whim.

My complicated relationship with Japan, Part 4

I apologize for the lack of posts this week.

I’m back with the last part (for now?) of the “My complicated relationship with Japan” series, and I’m going to end on some positive notes.

First of all, two things of note that I like about going to Japan:

- Food. I love Japanese food. Ramen, udon, soba, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, sushi, donburi, tempura, sekihan, and Japanese curry, and snack food like dango and anpan. Even the “Western” food tastes better, like spaghetti and korokke (croquette), or desserts like cheesecake and crêpes. Everything in Japan is delicious. It seems that when I’m in Japan, I’m living for my next meal.

- Family. As much as it’s annoying to be with some of them sometimes, I’m no different than most other people that I enjoy spending time with relatives. In particular, I’ve always stayed in fairly good contact with my cousins on my mom’s side, and they both have two young kids. It’s been fun to see how they’ve grown every time I go back to Japan.
The last time I went to Japan, we had what might be called a “family reunion” dinner on my dad’s side, and it was the best part of that trip (family and food!). I’d always thought I had a rather small family (only child, only a total of 4 cousins), but I met relatives I didn’t even know I had. Over at our young-people side of the table, I sat next to (bear with me) my grandmother’s cousin’s great-grandson (that would mean a great-great-grandparent of mine would have been the sibling of this guy’s great-grandparent, I think), who was the same age as me. There was also my dad’s cousin’s daughter (or my grandma’s sister’s granddaughter, if you prefer), who coincidentally happened to be back in Japan from Germany (where she currently lives) at the same time I was there.

I’m careful to say “I don’t like going to Japan,” as opposed to “I don’t like Japan.” If I wasn’t proud of who I am, I wouldn’t have this blog. If you haven’t been to Japan and might be interested in going, I’d encourage you to do so. You’ll probably have a great time. For you, it’ll all be new, and you won’t have the problems I have. And if you’re white (or black, for that matter) and know 2 phrases in Japanese, everyone will love and adore you.

Which brings me to… I’ve had more than one person suggest to me that I’ll have a much easier time in Japan if I play up my American-ness. In a way, that might be true, as one of my problems is that I look and sound too Japanese to be an obvious “foreigner” (particularly if I’m with family), except I’m sure there’s something that seems a bit “off” about me. So while the average foreigner traveling in Japan will impress locals by knowing any Japanese or anything about Japan, I look and sound the part of a Japanese woman enough that I suspect I strike people as just weird and a little stupid. I feel this way pretty often in stores, train stations, information desks, hotels, taxis, etc.

But do I put on a fake American accent and pretend I don’t speak Japanese well? That wouldn’t exactly solve my problem of feeling like I can’t be myself in Japan, would it? Do I tell people every time “I’m an American”?…Right, because then people won’t think I’m weird at all. I’d just confuse people.

The struggle continues, I guess.