The Strings in Shinagawa

How do I treat a people or a population I supposedly belong to? Yes, a population. I should treat it nicely, for if I am one of them, and I do not treat it nicely, I probably do not treat myself nicely. The logic could be right. But in fact, I shall not bother. Perhaps, I should say, whenever I bump into any one of this clan, I shall slap him on the face. The logic is right, as I do not bother and slapping him on the face does not cause me anything that I should consider as treating myself nicely. Instead I treat myself really nicely, for I feel happy if not ecstatic by slapping this person on the face. What can I be made happier then? Slapping him a few more times. I am a Happy Slapper. This is the clan, a group of nonsensical compost-eating, urban-shitting cowards that I have to face everyday and tolerate and am forced to belong to. But the Happy Slapper could not be happier, if he goes to Japan. I am just fine without having to bring along with me the Happy Slapper. I shall be reluctant to become a villian in the highly pressurised nation, Japan, which is built by pressuring her subjects and by her subjects being subjected, rather willingly I guess, to such pressure. But pressure constructs beauty. I should say Inferno, not Purgatory, should consider bringing the reprobates to the city where I stay.

Shinagawa gives me another misty impression of Japan, which, despite such poetic obscurity necessary for aesthetics, is absolutely endearing, a feeling from within. I do not like commercial slogan but I cannot but admit that this makes feel home - Home Away from Home, a motto found on the brochure of The Strings in Shinagawa, an InterContinental Hotel. It would be unnecessarily profound to be ontological about Home Away from Home, as I did quite some time ago. Comparing Home Away from Home with Nirvana or plugging it into an ontological argument that 'Japan is home' per se is undeniable may still be logically and analytically understandable but will easily be rendered nonsensical. If you read existential writings of Continental Europe, you will oftentimes find something similar, well, by all means, as ontological as Home Away from Home, so gorgeously packaged in philosophical wrap, pretentiously posed for eternal discussion aimed not at finding an answer but meant to continue the game. However, from deep within myself is there a sense of aesthetics that guides my feeling, temperament and disposition; and this sense of aesthetics produces such power on me that I say, 'yes, I am home.' Such proclamation, so devoid of patriotism, is simply here, inside me. Some scenary such as Laforet or Gingakuji provokes the aesethetical sense to lead me to say 'yes, I am home'. The Strings is again another provocation - or put it more mildly - stimulus. With it I have the confidence to say, 'go back where you belong, patriotism.' At least, patriotism or chauvanistic nonsense attaced to my population in this case becomes obsolete and highly obscene, not to mention blasphemous against humanity.