9 hours

Laforet Tokyo

This is an old entry of my log on 21 July 2008.

One day in 2002, I was on my way back to the city where I stay, stopping over in Tokyo. I took the Airport Limousine to Shinagawa Prince, and on the way, the bus stopped by Laforet in Shinagawa, before stopping at the Prince. I had been to Japan for so many times that I thought I should get used to the scenary of this country and should not have profound feeling when encountering something new. I had this thought many times but each time I was proven to be wrong. Every time I met with something of my taste in Japan, be it a new thing or a familiar experience, I had that refreshing feeling. Laforet, again, gave me the refreshment I longed for. Probably I was awaken after a brief nap which I always did whenever I sat inside a limousine bus to downtown Tokyo. I saw a couple of bellboys, welders and disciplined, picking up luggages for their clients at Laforet. What a beautiful moment! The yellowish light at the entrance that appeared to glow exceptionally bright, accompanied by the darkening sky with the fiery purplish hue, presented the best picture of the working bellboys. I was not sure what this hotel was, but not long after this moment, my memory put this picture away. All I had perhaps was a faint memory of the word Laforet. Time flies, and 6 years later, I again planned my trip to Japan of this year. I haven't gone to Japan this year because of the honeymoon for which I chose France. The autumnal temperament made a sojourn to Japan inevitable and irresistible. Except one in the early 1990s in which I was a college student, my trips to Japan were never budget ones. I am never thrifty when coming to enjoying the best of Japan. I am not particularly financially better off, but I think that whenever affordable, I should enable my heart and soul to be touched by the essence of Japan without disturbance. One way to achieve this is to make peace of mind a first place. I do not need to worry about transportation, accommodation, food, books and sightseeing arrangements. So I would choose the best that I can afford. One day when I was browsing on the Net for hotel information, the picture of the Laforet bellboys at dusk was suddenly retrieved from the archives and it gave me the comforting moment as strong and alive as when in 2002 I actually saw them. The actual substance of this moment remains somewhat beyond verbal description, but the desirability and comfort drawn on the picture I recalled and the Japan I know definitely played an important part here. I decided to look for Laforet and my memories were correct. Can I really experience Laforet this time? From a commuting perspective, it is not truly a desirable place. Laforet is located in Shinagawa, a short distance from the JR station. Although Shinagawa is not comparable with Shinjuku, Shibuya or Ikebukuro, if trendy nightlife is your goal, it has certain attractiveness to me, so to speak, for it is still on the Yamanote Line and Shinjuku and Shibuya are only a couple of stations away. But Shinagawa is far subtler in the sense that the chances of meeting those loud people from the city where I stay would be much lower, and it has also some historical significance not far from that which you would find in Shinjuku, Ginza or Tokyo Marunouchi.

I don't know what else to say...but I am certain that the reality created by, if you will, the Laforet experience, would be an enjoyable one - it is a pursuit of happiness, serious and far from frivolous, stretching the amplitude of life, in what I believe is the highest level of human living. That evening, alone and tranquil, was a moment and it was eternity.

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.