How would you define a hotel as a great one?

Think of a hotel, situated on the 50th floor of a city town in a metropolitan. It is decorated delicately to mimic a small hotel in Europe. Every picture on the wall represents the heart of the designer. Despite the incurably high price of the land, the hotel has striven to ensure each room of the hotel has sufficient space for the guests. There are volumes of literary works in addition to religious canons and a fax machine in the room. All of these apparently are superficialities, which, though good enough to pay the monies, are still far from sufficing the justification to do so as a person of peculiarity, as I have myself labelled.

And think of a great hotel, leisurely lying at the hillside of an old imperial city. It is surrounded by the greenery in summer and covered by snow in winter. Not far away from her recline the oldest temples and shrines, witnessing the rise of the city as the imperial capital and vicissitudes. Linked into the hill behind her was a trail extending over 3 km where you can see birds. Behind a classic concrete building in colour light apricot were some small Japanese houses where you can also accommodate and enjoy the way the special mood radiates. A great hotel must not only enable you to feel at home, but also bear the temperament that affects you as much as colours affect a painting – and knowledge a person.
I try to recollect some stories of mine and by them am sure that the payment of a high price for a good hotel is worth awhile and is truly necessary for a trip, be it a solitary one or of the company of a good lady (or gentleman). The mahjong fatties only think of mahjong and unconsciously need disembowelment. They should not spoil the precious resource of good feeling in a good hotel.

Beneath the dim yet concentrated light, I reclined on the bed, reading Macbeth in this kingly power where you could see canonisation for the Oriental equivalent of the story by a director who has been throned. Respectfully reading the Christian bible, you would forgive the one who initiated the hatred that would inevitably be developed in disputes and progress and those who retaliated with it. To the west, I can see a familiar panoramic view of a mountain with snow top during daytime. Even though the B-1’s have started a longest and most detestable journey from the US to Middle East, carrying the bombs, which many hope would have been disinvented, I cannot but accept that an inevitability of tragedy hardens the resolve of humanity. When hunger reminds me that it is the right time to saunter to a grill where for a dinner with Miss Aya O. (O may stand for an orange), an actress, I booked a table months ago. I put down my Shakespeare, and started to dress up seriously. How important and great it had become of stationing in this hotel, if you had not brought with you the books of which you need the company in a trip on your own.

If you do not consider the bill shown to you when you check out a means of terror, then you should have the freedom to enjoy wholeheartedly the station in the hotel to an extent equivalent to nirvana, a state of infinite, complete emancipation from the worldly passions, as defined in a Buddhist manner.

Miss Aya is an actress. I am not very acquainted with the system of the nation, and therefore am not certain of which television company or production company Miss Aya belongs to. She never talks about it and I never ask her of it. We keep regular contacts. Miss Aya called me one month ago in a letter sent to my house. It was a letter written on washi paper with fountain pen with emerald ink. Miss Aya said her latest movie was about to complete, and the premiere would be in a month. For such occasion, she booked a hotel in this city and invited me to join her in the premiere show.

The Grill at this hotel was definitely obsessive in the uniformity of the decoration and layout. The pearl white cloth, which showed under dim light, was viewed to bear a starry beauty. The square tables were put with exact space between.

I was led to a table viewing the west side of the city. This was a city mingling the metropolitan high classic and irreparable city slump, which, though, was in exceptionally good quality.

Miss Aya finally arrived. On her was definitely the most traditional attire. Long sleeve kinomo of orange in colour. Very complementary to what I think of her, orange. I thought. On the sleeve, waving the rippling leaves of which I do not have the knowledge of the name.

We started the conversation with grace, a topic which would only be imagined as an ice-breaker for Catholics. ‘The well being of humans has apparently been improved. But I have no idea why they are still that optimistic even though the plight is just messy enough for them to worry about even expecting anything good of to-morrow.’ Miss Aya sighed. She then smiled mysteriously, continuing a somewhat indecipherable thought, ‘I am quite dissatisfied with the way in which humans live now. From a distant view, you can only see prosperity – look over the city here. The neon lights reflect our life is getting on well. But what is the point of getting yourself packed in a compartment of a train for 3 hours, commuting from the suburb to the city centre and you’re told that you’ll get paid 125,000 yen a month, an amount barely enough for the travel expense. You may on the next day feel despair after cramming for 3 hours to catch the train and arrive in the office only to find that you’re unemployed, as the company has gone bust. Or there, not long from this city, a construction company as small as consisting of only 10 people is being put on a life-supporting machine installed by the government. Once the machine is gone, the staff in this company will also be gone, for they are over-aged people with very tiny incentive left for regaining competitiveness. There are over 100,000 construction companies in this country. This is strange. Most of them are euphemistically very specialised companies. For example, one may only be engaged in paving a road in some suburb areas. This industry is highly uneven. The rural areas are morbidly subsidised by the profitable city areas. People here have built up the most beautiful artefact in the contemporary world. But most of them are white elephants, of which hardly can the construction can gain any sufficient grounds to spend that large sum of money.’

She then looked at the menu. I replied to her comments or, if you will, disgruntled comments, ‘perhaps the way white elephants can work is called inefficient beauty. If you look at the landscapes of this country and the constructional masterpieces, you won’t find it hard to appreciate the beauty of them, which I think is not derived from market forces, but from heart of humanity. The inefficiency is not bearable, so are the market forces that level all humanity. In fact, I am always inclined to think that the market force, once created by people, is now reshaping humanity and debasing it into some kind of servility whereby such force, itself conscious because of the collective decisions by a group of people, has dominated over our minds and secularised everything but all we can think of in such a world. As such, people will only accept what is bestowed by the market but unconsciously believe that it’s they who control the world, while in fact it’s the market that controls over us in such a weighty power that we have now no alternative but to abide by the force.’

Miss Aya’s eyes turned brighter. I continued my rather didactic speech without considering risking a beautiful evening to a nonsensical debate on issues far from getting any solutions, ‘the beauty of your country is that she still can assimilate market force into what otherwise would have been devoured by it – culture, natural beauty and humanity. Well, I have to admit that in many cases market force dictates all of us into believing that what the market sets is what is the optimal. As I said, this is not acceptable as a human as such force smudges our uniqueness, and such uniqueness, and only in a higher sense, would mean that humanity prevails. “In a higher sense” could mean that such uniqueness is developed through means of letters, civilisation – but not culture. Culture is not worthy of much speculation. I am glad that we could live under such inefficient beauty perhaps before we are immersed in the market force and become non-descript.’

‘You have been to Africa, haven’t you?’ Miss Aya said with her usual detached tone. In a painstaking pace, she carefully used her left hand to slightly push aside the long sleeve of her kimono, while her right hand holds up the Christofle silver spoon near her rosy pedal lips.

‘Yes, I have.’ I replied, ‘ but it has been a long time ago. That’s why you are not surprised why I said that?’

Miss Aya took a sip of the lobster bisque, the colour of which was golden. She smiled to show her concurrence. Then came a brief pause, as I was thinking how a lady could keep the lipstick intact when having soup. This was professional, for the golden liquid passed her lips without single drop touching them. I thought only a geisha could have been trained in that way.

I continued, ‘but I have already forgotten my trip there.’

‘I heard that you’re a Peace Corp in Somalia. Your group was attacked by the militias there.’ Aya said with a calm that was beyond description. ‘You were badly injured and rushed back to Providence. Your degree was granted through a vive voce examination by the professors, while you were being hospitalised. I thought you’re about to enter into the medical school.’ She paused for another while, and continued, ‘why did you give up a career as a doctor? And…’ she dithered slightly, ‘choose a job like this. I mean that’s so different being a manager at an oil company from a medical doctor. I attended one of your seminars in London.’