jeudi 7 mars 2013

You Were Always On My Mind: Thinking of Native and Japanese Culture

For the class of Tuesday March 5, 2013.

The only thing I can remember without notes right now about Tuesday's class is the very end of the class when some movie clip was playing and I started to feel sick. So sick. Run to the bathrooms 'cuz you have cramps and and then be confused about which end you want stuff to come out of sick. So let me take out my notes one second...

While I do this (in the future when I'll have them... wait, what?) let me give you an overview of some things I've been up to lately that I find very interesting.

There's this paper on Tokyo, you see, and it's kind of my baby. It's making me really want to go there one day and, knowing me, there's a good possibility I will. I've even been checking out flights there "just to know", but let's face it, I'm actually testing out if the lake's ice is hard enough to walk on, and it's looking pretty smooth.

This list of 100 things to do in Tokyo is pretty much the best (written in French). Some of my favorites are:

70. Wander and get lost in the Shinjuku train station, the largest in the world. 
Given my current obsession with trains, YES PLEASE! The station is situated in the district of Shinjuku, pictured below.



74. Enjoy some sushi by taking the metro to a kaiten-zushi in Ameya Yokocho (Ameyoko) at Ueno.
Because I LOVE sushi, and also because their metro looks like this:

83. Have one beer, then two, then three in a neighbourhood Izakaya.
Izakayas are the japanese equivalents of the english pubs. They moslty serve Japanese beers, sake, and hot or cold foods to be had in a casual atmosphere. Before reading this, I had totally forgotten that Japan is a big producer of beer and I was very glad to be reminded... I'm a total beer gourmande! Check out this website on Japanese beers.




97. To have a zen time in a Neko Cafe, petting cats. 
Neko Cafes are cafes, you guessed it, with cats. To me, it's like the the idea of sushi: simple, but brilliant! Ever feel like petting a cat and have none around? No problem! Just drop by a Neko Cafe and hang with the masters of the house there. They'd sure have my business... I'd be hooked!



Also, although I didn't see it on the list, Tokyo has many green rooftops, and some of the ones in Ginza are a-buzz with excitement! (hehehe) Check out Ginza's rooftop bees and beekeepers in the following news cast:


Alright, are you still there? I've found my notes! They remind me that on March 5th, we saw the works of artists Andrea Mortson (living in Sackville), Christian Pflug, Kent Monkman, Eleanor Bond, Wanda Koop and George Shaw. Out of all these, and to relate to all the Japan-esque information above, the one that kept my attention most was by far Kent Monkman.

Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist who identifies as Cree, Irish, and gay. A dabbler in many media such as film, installation, and performance, he is the author of "Icon for a New Empire" (2007), of "The Impending Storm" and of the film "Group of Seven Inches". By presenting himself as an individual of mixed and surprising identities, Kent Monkman breaks the rigidity of the Native stereotype as defined by descendants of Europeans colonizers. Yup, that includes me, and statistically speaking, odds are that it includes you too. 
"The Trapper's Bride" (2006) Kent's images often feature his alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testicle, cross-dressed and in homo-erotic situations such as this one, alluding to Jacques-Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" (1801-1805).

Kent Monkman, as I mentioned, does performances for which he often fabricates his own accessories and dress. Here, a spicy pair of high-heels have been modified by Kent.
To me, what all of this has to do with Japan is the way in which learning about a culture diversifies your understanding of it. Indeed, skimming is very limiting, and in the case of the West's approach to Native and Japanese culture, some stereotypes are simply false. For example, as Jessica Danforth pointed out it in a mind-blowing talk last night, great respect and even veneration was often expressed in many native communities for what we call today members of the LGBT community (lesbian, gay, bi and transexual). Such individuals in Aboriginal communities since the 1980s refer to themselves as "two spirited". What more, many Aboriginal communities were matriarchal, a structure that patriarchal colonizers intentionally set to destroy to gain control of the land on which we, as Canadians, now all live on. I do not strive for a matriarchal society anymore than I thrive for a patriarchal one, but from such a culture, (also one that honours the land and its resources) us Euro-descendants have so much to learn!

In much the same way, my History of Japan class is enriching my understanding of Japanese culture, one that was before dictated mostly by popular culture and its often limiting idiomatic characters. An article I just read this afternoon, for example, talks of the 1960 Mi'ike Coal Dispute and of the subsequent second phase of the Citizen's Movement and Public Protests. Yet simplistic stereotypes would have it that the Japanese are an orderly and docile people, both to the state and to the opinion of the masses. Information such as this reminds us of human individuality and underlines the importance of stepping into another's shoes and of trusting that he or she is the larger authority on their lived experience, something I am sure both Jessica Danforth and Kent Monkman can agree with. Dare to be proven ignorant every once in awhile, and we will all be the better off for it.


Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire