There are many "experts" on Japan, some are good, some are bad as in most things. In a recent article by Chris Patten (Lord Patten ) about the book by David Pilling, Bending Adversity; Japan and the Art of Survival, Patten concludes in part that Pilling demonstrates, "This is another example of Japan not being as dissimilar from the rest of the world as it and others regularly assert.".
Obviously I am not as insightful as the former Conservative Party chairman, previously Governor of Hong Kong, currently Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Chairman of the BBC Trust, but I do have to disagree with this fashion for dismantling notions of Japanese exceptionality.
Perhaps David Pilling when the Financial Times correspondent on Japan walked about the streets and mixed in with Japanese society at that level. Maybe he didn't find himself domiciled in gated ex-pat zones along with other media personelle, global business executives and diplomats. There is no reason whatsoever that he wouldn't have given up a business meeting at the Tokyo Hilton or an evening at an Embassy trade reception in order to mix with old ladies in an obscure street market, dance at a summer festival or pound rice in a back street of an unfashionable suburb.
None of these activities would particularly provide specific insight to someone who writes primarily about the global economy and Japan's role within it. Equally there is no earthly reason why Chris Patten would need to do any of these things in order to authenticate his insights on Japanese culture. In the global economy and global diplomacy all players wear suits and ties, sit in the back of expensive cars and travel together in business class as a minimum. In such things Japan is clearly no different to the rest of the world and not at all dissimilar.
As one person said in the comments section of a Guardian review of the book, "Great another patronising look at the quirky Japanese, i've [sic] not seen that before."
All of which leads me to a story about Japan which took place on the 12th January 2014 (yesterday). I had been invited out to mochitsuki, the pounding of rice to make one of the great favourites of Japanese people, mochi, a sticky mess of compounded rice flavoured with all sorts of subtleties.
My hosts were So and Fumi Kohiyama, the patrons of a local sake bar I frequent when in Mushashi Koyama. They met me at the front of our home here and we walked down the back streets until we came to a road which had been blocked off to traffic for the purpose of making mochi.
This event was organised by a group of local people and would be recognised by us as a small street party. A superb old boiler for steaming the rice stood proudly amidst trestle tables and a team of mostly men (isn't it always the way when fire and engineering are present, you can't get the boys off of the toys!) cleaned and washed the special mochi rice, with a special wooden scoop slipping the "portion" into one of the truly magnificent giant wooden pestles carved out of a tree trunk.
The rice once in the pestle is pushed together and mashed using two great wooden hammers. This first stage takes a few minutes before the rice is then ready for a proper pounding. Once it is a sticky mass then one person pounds the rice as another deftly folds the sticky mass over and gets his hand out before the downward blow.
Alongside the other pestle is filled with water which is added in very small amounts to the mixture to keep it fluid and clean. Whilst all of this is going on a variety of men with huge bottles of sake ensure that everyone gets a truly good fill of the spirit of the day (all without a till in sight). Beer was also available, as were trays of fried chicken and once the only foreigner there had been spotted there seemed to be a need to ensure he got to taste every possible option in the extensive sake range.
So, filled with sake I took my turn at smashing the mochi with a large hammer. I say this because I would like to observe several health and safety issues. No doubt there were enough breaches in this event to send British H&S Trolls into furious meltdown. People smoking cigarettes, drinking strong alcohol amongst food preparation in a back street with an old boiler being fired up from a large gas cannister. Kids running about everywhere whilst people on bikes just cycled through the small crowd without any obvious use of brakes.
As fast as the mochi came out of the pestles a team of women folded and pulled it into cakes and then added different flavours and toppings which were then served out in plastic trays to a very excited audience. This was just another day when the Japanese people could simply be Japanese, nothing exceptional about that. Young and old were there, the old enthusiastic for their mochi and the young learning the festival and its small rituals and once again reinforcing their identity.
As I have mentioned health and safety, an area the Japanese are pre-eminent in when it suits them, I have to mention the 1200 dead so far this new year from eating mochi. That's 1200 dead just in Tokyo. You see because mochi is very sticky every year there is a death toll amongst the elderly from eating too much too quickly and choking to death. Every year hundreds die from eating mochi at new year.
I can just see our H&S Trolls banning this confection from nursing homes for the elderly because of the risk. No chance of that happening in Japan. Mochi is mochi and death is death, both are inevitable. But that is no different to us is it, there is nothing dissimilar in this approach.
