English is something of an international language, and so it tends to make out with a lot of native tongues. In Japan, I hear a lot of English phrases scattered into otherwise Japanese conversations. Most of them, however, make no sense to anyone who isn’t Japanese.
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My coat pockets are filled with scraps. I dredge up chewing gum wrappers and konbini receipts when I fish for change. There’s no garbage on the street, but there aren’t garbage cans, either; everyone just carries their trash with them.
Some say rubbish bins are rare because of recycling laws, or because people don’t walk and eat at the same time. But the real reason is something nobody wants to talk about.
You can’t find a rubbish bin in Japan because of a religious cult that killed 13 and injured 5,500 while trying to install a messianic yoga instructor as the new Emperor of Japan.
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
- Wallace Stevens, “The Snowman”
Japan makes me anxious.
“Writing shit about new snow
for the rich
is not art.”
- Kobayashi Issa
(trans. Robert Hass)
