Guiding through my own culture - Iyer's eccentric guide to Japan.

In Japan, girls dress alike to fit in. This is one of the many cultural observations that Iyer makes which makes me wonder in turn — when in Spain, I felt myself dressed wildly different from others, was it because I wanted to fit in? I neither wore the converse shoes, nor the expensive Doc Martins then. So when Iyer indulged in this statement a bit more, I, too, indulged myself by thinking that as for me so was it for the author of this eccentric guide; fashion was something that made one stand out. But I wanted to wear those shoes, those slightly flair-ed jeans, more and more. I thought the way they dressed looked like something that I would want to dress in as well, and even though I had worn canvas earlier, and I had worn the flared jeans too, in fact I would go ahead and say that that was one of my signature styles, yet I found the need to wear that exact dressing style coded in the modern European cities, more and more urgently. I wanted to trade my style for a style that was more exact to my surroundings, but I still failed to understand as to what was being influenced in me; was it the sense of the culture that I carried with me and therefore a need to fit in, or was it a question of genuine taste?

After reading Van Gogh’s letters for a while, I found out that he was extremely fascinated with the Japanese art. He consumed and absorbed all that there was to know about this ancient art form with much vigour as any artist would who was irreverently in love with their art. It is indeed the most innocent and ardent desire to be in the know and the company of great artists. However, when Iyer talks about Van Gogh’s obsession with the Japanese art, he brings out the political undercurrents in it, questioning the legitimacy of the political over the artistic and the arts. Van Gogh could access the Japanese art because the European Market was flooded with it at that moment with however little influence; “the western ship sailed into Japan … and the Japonaiserie began flooding the European Market.” Yet, it seems that the eastern culture rarely had or has as strong a cultural influence as the west on the over all culture of a society. What makes me wonder through Iyer’s observation is what I would consider a sense of influential disparity. Though vaster, the east lacked the number influenced, though older, it lacked the continuation of that same influence. Perhaps an answer to this question could also determine something about my urgent need to trade my combat boots for the doc martins, keeping in mind that both of them carry a sartorial verisimilitude.

Nevertheless, for Iyer an eastern culture seems to have become even more alienating to him than, perhaps, a western one. With his observations and indeed his authorial role as a guide and an outsider, with him being a literal one, it is surprising that he seems to not have read into any similarities as such that one may have found and deemed as general human nature. The influence of the culture in his observations makes one wonder if Japanese people can ever share anything in common with other people at all. One such incidence is his customer service experience with a Japanese employee in a world famous American company. One cannot help but relate with the commonality of the experience with customer service , but even this becomes an exercise in cultural observance and difference!

I have not been to Japan and whatever I know of it has been a due gift of the books of Murakami and the anime of Ghibli Studio; artefacts which are full of human emotions, anguish , joys and sadness of a life. So much so that when I was reading Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, I threw the book in familiar anger. This Beginner’s Guide then comes as a shock of a bold othering on Iyer’s part because it is true that people of a certain culture act a certain way based but it is based on a variety of facts. Interestingly, Iyer himself points this out when he talks about the studied “vagueness” of the Japanese because they would rather use the “ I am not sure” unlike the American form of “ If I were you..”

A culture is needed and sorted after, especially in a cultural mix. I, for one, have always felt a lack of culture living in New Delhi for as long as I have, some 25 years. Yet, I have not been able to put down any guides, and I guess that I would be one of the worst guides to guide someone through the culture of Delhi and its history. I cannot say anything in particular about what is it that is Delhi, here I of course talk about at a much smaller level than a country, but I only become sure of what is Delhi when I see other’s observe it. Iyer becomes that same outsider so he others himself from Japan even after having lived there for an odd 27 years through the maturer years of his life. I, therefore think, that the best way to learn about one’s culture is to write down everything that is the most shocking yet the most unsurprising thing about one’s city/country/home.

Another distinctive feature that the guide provides is an opportunity to compare. Iyer writes that Japan is still a closely knit and conservative society where strangers still addressed each other as big sister, grandma etc. These are also the terms of endearment that we, as Indians, still use for people unknown to us which led me to a rather funny observation. It had me wondering if by using the much satirised terms of “aunty” and “uncle” for every other unknown person in India , were we democratising the lingual semantics of the term, or were we diminishing the importance of the relation that we ascribed to this word? Who and what was an uncle or aunty in India, and did it have the same connotation as that of the ancientness of the Japanese society where everyone through extension is a familiar.

When in Spain my father insisted on relating to my landlady as sister since she took great care of me, making her for him, a part of his family. But what family was this? National? International? It was certainly not blood. It was a culture stealthily working on the semantics of the English language the extent or influence of which remains undetermined. Another close relative told me that in the 60s, aunty was what they called bhuas (your father’s sister) and maasis( the mother’s sisters) because it was fashionable.

Semantics are important if you want to write for, from and about a country. I have been born, grown and cultivated in India, yet my mind chooses to switch more willingly to English than it would to Hindi or Punjabi. I leave a hole in the total understanding of my own experience and by extension in the common culture by dubbing my experience as an Indian in English.

Nevertheless;

अब जापानी दुकान Uniqlo में जा कर एसा लगा जैसे कि में अय़र की दिलचसप टिप्पणियों को पेहले से ही मान गयी थी। उनके कपड़े अादि पूरी तरह से अय़र की गाइड के मुताबिक ही थे इसलिए वह जापानीथे। जापान अब मेरे लिये हमेशा अय़र , एनीमे अौर मुराकामि की नज़रों से सबसे पेहले देखा जायेगा ।