Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Blogs | Writers | Paid | My Orble | Login

Fear in Japan

September 3rd 2010 07:34


In the Michael Moore movie Bowling Columbine the director interviews the singer Marilyn Manson. In many ways the interview is the defining point of the movie. The singer who is often reviled in the mainstream press commented that the mass media in America have made a successful connection between fear and consumerism. The more news stories, press releases and ad campaigns can strike fear into the heart of the populace the more money big business can make. For every fear there is a corollary product. Fear of burglary boosts the sale of security systems. Fear of spots boosts sales of acne cream. Fear of Islam boosts the defence budget. Fear and money. You scare the people into departing with their hard earned dollars.


Behind this powerful nexus is the assumption of what is normal – a world without acne, a world without crime, a world without terrorists, a world without obesity, heart disease, tooth decay, hair loss, aging, bank runs, robbery, illegal immigration. And so the list goes on. The media is completely complicit in this scheme to brainwash the populace. They report about killer bees, random stabbings, rare diseases, epidemics, unusual misfortune and a host of other improbables to convince people that a fate cruel and unusual is just around the corner for those not prepared to pay for protection.

This psychology is frighteningly omnipresent in Japan. The Japanese who live in Japan (there are many who live abroad and shudder at the mere thought of returning back to Japan to live) are almost always of the opinion that all foreign countries are dangerous. They want to visit Hawaii, Rome, Paris, Vancouver and Seattle but they prefer to go with a Japanese tour group to steer them through the minefields of poverty, crime, drug use and sodomy that awaits them in foreign climes. To further minimize the risks of foreign holidays they confine their tours to but a few whirl wind days which always end at a hotel which is reassuringly bland and international. The lack of personality a hotel projects is a reassuring reminder of the home country.




The cause of the problem is this stupid list that UNESCO has made up. The World Heritage Site is pure gold for Japanese. And the greatest insult they have suffered since Emperor Hirohito was made to visit General MacArthur to offer Japan’s unconditional surrender is that their beloved Mount Fuji was denied a spot on the star studded list. It is the list to end all lists. For the Japanese who are raised with a high level of literacy, subservience and ignorance of all things historical the UNESCO World Heritage list is the only way of accessing the value of a foreign place. If the United Nations scrapped the list then only Japanese managers, engineers and students would need to risk the war zone that non-Japanese countries represent. Countries without a traffic light every 50 meters, without a wide variety of bland foods, without 3 cars per household, without the mind numbingly respectable broadcasting of NHK, without the reassuringly staid values of the middle class and the aged class are to be feared and mistrusted.

Like all myths of national identity, it is a lie, an ideal never to be reached. The land of ‘wa’ can never have enough ‘wa’, can never be safe enough. One of my students today made the astonishing claim that a taxi driver in Japan was more at risk in his or her professional life than a fire fighter. She was a smart enough and old enough woman to know better. And her English was good enough to understand my point that fire fighters had to enter burning buildings in the course of their job to rescue people and pets. I emphatically made the point that firefighters risked death by poisonous gases and by collapsing structures. I also made the point that out of the tens of thousands of safe and uneventful taxi rides that occur every day it is only the one journey where a customer attacks the driver that the media chooses to report about. Nothing could sway the woman in her opinion that being a taxi driver in Japan was akin to a tour of duty in Baghdad for an American soldier.

That is the power of the media creating fear. Fear is largely irrational and so reason cannot dispel fear. The only thing the media-fed morons gain comfort in is the thought of a criminal being locked up or better still executed. Phew, that’s one less danger on the streets.

Perhaps if the media talked about the number of people killed every year by non-drink drivers, or the amount of damage done by pollution, or the amount of people who feel compelled to kill themselves we might get a more fruitful public response. If the government told the people how much land they waste on land fill sites for all the consumer crap they throw away perhaps this fear of impending doom could be channeled into more constructive and more forward thinking policies.

Let’s bring some facts into the frame. Here are the figures per 100,000 for intentional homicides for 2010:
El Salvador – 71
Jamaica – 58
Venezuela – 49
South Africa – 47
Colombia - 35
Russia – 14.9
Papua New Guinea – 9.06
Kenya - 5.72
the USA – 5.4
India – 2.82
China 2.36
New Zealand – 2
Canada – 1.83
Chile – 1.6
the UK – 1.49
Tunisia – 1.22
Spain – 1.2
Denmark – 1.01
Saudi Arabia – 0.92
Japan – 0.44
Singapore – 0.38
Iceland – 0.31
Liechtenstein – 0

What does this tell us? Well the first thing all Japanese taxi drivers should note is that Liechtenstein is the only safe place for them to pursue their chosen profession of over-charging and driving irritatingly slowly. These figures also point out that in fact Japan is not the safest country to live in. You are more likely to encounter a nutter with a weapon in Japan than you are in Singapore. Who would believe that Saudi Arabia is a better place to raise a kid than Denmark? Or that Tunisia is safer than Canada?



Just one glimpse at the list makes you realize that it is all bullshit. Most people whose lives are cut short are not the victims of violent crime but the victims of malnutrition, preventable disease, car accidents, a bad diet, HIV and contaminated water. People die from inequality between the rich and the poor, from lack of education, from poor resources, from market forces. A few perhaps succumb to falling coconuts, snake bites, terrorism and homicidal taxi drivers but they represent a near negligible number compared to those who perish at the hands of global financial inequality. A child dies every 5 seconds somewhere in the world from a hunger-related disease. Compare this to the fact that (shock and horror) 2,929 people have been killed by terrorist attack around the world since 9/11. In just one day 17,280 children die from hunger. What should America be declaring war on?

Well by my reckoning it should be Liechtenstein. Zero murders is terrible publicity for the economy. How the fuck are the American elite meant to keep a sense of fear instilled in its population if countries like Liechtenstein set such dangerous precedents? And how do the Japanese feel now that they are empirically imperiled and shamed by the more upstanding citizens of Singapore, Iceland and Liechtenstein?

Clearly America and Japan should round up the elite of their taxi drivers; those who have survived the most attacks from disgruntled passengers; those who have braved the front lines of customer service for many years. The true hardened vets and give them all a bleached bone from an African baby (surely no shortage of these) and send them over to Liechtenstein to start clubbing the shit out of the locals. This will have several beneficial consequences: the terrorism figures will improve, Japan will only have Iceland and Singapore to deal with, and sure enough nobody but Bono will be interested in feeding Africa; the world’s eyes will be glued to the spectacle of bone wielding homicidal (and possibly Islamist) taxi drivers on the loose in Liechtenstein. In terms of telly and fear there really is no contest.
11
Vote
   


Osho Drives By


“Really dirty shit. Ah that feces is just soo dirty. Out with the shit. Flush that excrement away and restore harmony to the body. When the body has harmony so the mind can reach peace. Where there is shit there is chaos. Where there is the absence of shit there is the possibility for beauty to grow. That is why I cannot recommend too highly that you sign up for colonic irrigation. The first step to liberating the mind is to detoxify the body. And only 500 Baht if you are in the full resident program.

Metaphorically, what are toxins? Yes, that is right. Toxins are shit. And literally when you clear all that old ordure from your tubes you are also venting all the toxins. Ah the beauty of irrigation. Why is it called irrigation? Is not irrigation the nourishment of the soil to allow the soil to grow food? Well so it is for colonic irrigation. You are nourishing the body to make it strong and vital and ready to grow spiritual rewards. And is it not for spiritual rewards that you are here?

As my dear and lately departed guru always said, “Spiritual rewards are like the most beautiful flowers of the field.” How wise he was my guru, Sri Baba Mercedes, spiritual growth is as simple and as beautiful as a blooming flower. Only that flower will not grow in shitty soil. No, it needs higher nourishment. Only the four-fold path will nourish the flower. What is the four-fold path? It is one of India’s oldest ideas. Jnana, bhaki, karma and yoga.

Jnana is the way of wisdom. It is studying the great spiritual scripts such as the Rig Veda and the Bhagavad Gita. And it is studying the masters’ commentaries on these scripts…”

Candy zoned out for a moment. She thought: “There are so many numbers to remember: the Five Transporting Points of acupuncture, the 12 meridians – six ying and six yang, the Six Realms of Existence, the Three Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path of the Buddha. And now the Four-Fold Path. This holisitic approach is wholly confusing.”

She had been taking notes and she was pleased with her own silent pun. Candy’s eyes drifted away from Vishy as he like to be called. The gathering of ten or so guests at The Retreat all had somber expressions tediously focused on Sri Bodhi Maha Vishnu Varuna. They looked as if they were getting a colonic irrigation and were desperately trying to hold their composure by thinking about anything but the hosepipe up their rectum. Candy turned from the shady part of the ‘Dharma pad’ as it was pretentiously called and looked behind her. The view held granite boulders, lush vegetation and tropical trees - palm, cashew, durian and jackfruit trees, endlessly fecund. And off in the distance way below she saw the strip of sand that was Yaoyin beach and beyond that was the twinkling sea. Candy wanted to study the science of spiritual growth and she did have a certain amount of faith in Vishy. Despite the fishy name, the tight, crutch-hugging shorts he wore and a tendency to verbosity, he did seem to radiate a certain aura, a charm that poured from his intensely dark and fathomless eyes. He had the flicker of an ironic smile that constantly fluttered around the edges of his mouth when he gave these ‘wisdom sessions’ that seemed to elevate the man. As if he was at the summit of the mountain and with a father’s patience and humour he was watching his children struggle to clamber after him.

It wasn’t Vishy and his ideas that had made Candy sign up for The Retreat. And yet in some ways it was. Candy had originally wondered up to the path from the beach on a whim. She had seen a poster offering free try-out yoga sessions and she thought why not?

yogic contortion


That first yoga session had been lead by Bhopal. Bhopal was half Thai and half Indian. He had sad eyes and a round belly. Yet despite the belly he contorted into several advanced yoga positions with a casual fluid ease. Candy hadn’t exercised for so long she couldn’t remember. She was blessed with a natural thinness and enjoyed sexual aerobics but she was surprised to discover how strainful yoga was. Sweat poured from her as she shakily held the asanas Bhopal demonstrated. Bhopal finished the yoga session with ten minutes of lotus position meditation. Again Candy was surprised. She had thought that meditating would be easy. Thinking of nothing, zoning out should have been just like those interminably long bus journeys in South America, but it wasn’t. She just couldn’t clear her mind. Pete, Rapi, drugs, Canada, what she would eat for diner, whether she had any clean knickers, her parents, her sister, Bhopal’s tummy and a thousand other thoughts all colluded to muscle in on her empty consciousness. She knew no way to control her mind, to control herself. She was beginning to see that she was both out of shape physically and out of control mentally. All the drugs she had taken had only been an abandonment of control; all the sex just an abandonment of her body. Candy even from that first mediation was beginning to grasp that it was not escape that she wanted but power over herself. She saw herself as a puppet whose strings were pulled by whim, desire and some notion of freedom that was a nebulous combination of needing to escape, getting high and getting fucked.

After Bhopal had slowly brought the meditating students back to the here and now of a shaded platform on the edge of the jungle, Candy felt altered. Her instincts had been right about coming to Thailand and trying to clean her shit up. This was what she needed.

Bhopal remained and chatted with a Swedish couple who were keen to discuss certain asanas. Another Indian looking man appeared on the decking. He headed straight for Candy.

“Hello, my child. I am Bodhi Maha Vishnu Varuna. I am the boss here. But nothing like Bruce Springstein.” It was a lame joke but it made Candy smile. Sri B M V V continued. “I noticed your confusion right away. What is your name?”

The man addressing her was in his forties. He had long shiny black hair with streaks of grey. It was tied back in a small tight bun that sought to hide his balding crown. The hair was matched by a shaggy beard with big patches of white. And the guru look was complimented by a smell of incense that hung about his loose blouse and tight shorts. The whole effect was masterfully rounded off by a slightly comedic sing-song Indian accent that permeated his English.

“Candy”

“Is that Candice?”

“Yes”

“You see there is your problem. Your name should mean purity, honesty, truth, but instead it means sugar, sensuous pleasure. You have allowed your desires to take control over your mind. The world sees you as you see yourself – as something sweet, something to be consumed. See yourself as wisdom, as sapience, as the sacred not the profound. Take control of your name, Candice and take control of yourself.

Ah this is a lot of talk from an old man. Don’t believe what I say because you are desperate to believe something called ‘Eastern wisdom’. I want you to go away from here. Go and float in the sea and instead of trying to think about what you should do, just look at the birds circling in the sky and the clouds passing over the mountain. Go now, Candice.”

And with that Vishy winked at Candy and turned away. He walked over to a higher platform where Bhopal and the Swedes were sipping yoghurt shakes. Candy was momentarily stunned. It had been so long since anyone had called her anything but Candy. She picked up her bag, slipped on her flip flops and with head cast down she descended the steps from the elevated decking and headed back to the beach.

Haad Yaoyin


____________________

“Power chords, dude. Gotta play it hard, man. If the audience can’t feel you feeling the music then there’s no connection see? Man. Yeah. Harder drums. That’s it.”

The drummer smacked the drums and cymbals briefly with venom like he was visualizing someone’s head that he wanted to kick in. Shnade held his right hand up to silence the drummer, Gen. Shnade’s left hand lovingly held the neck of his second hand bass guitar. He had been lecturing Hiro, Masa and Gen for over an hour. It was the second band practice. Hiro, Masa and Gen couldn’t quite remember inviting the foreigner with the potato shaped head to join the band and nobody could remember the meeting that put Shnade in charge; but at the same time nobody was going to confront Shnade about it. Shnade had met them in a bar and had delighted the band members with tales of touring with American rock bands about to make it big, about taking coke with Axl Rose and about teenage groupies with watermelon tits. Now Shnade was holding forth about how to play hard. Hiro had studied music at college and he wondered if that lecture had been one of those Monday morning lessons that he had skipped. Hiro couldn’t put his finger on it but the audaciousness and intensity of the foreigner seemed to be what the band needed. The only problem was that the American couldn’t play his instrument. He crunked through a few basic cords and invariably got his fret work slightly off. His chubby digits held down too many strings and he always played too loud. However, there was punk music and low fidelity which sort of said that not being able to play well wasn’t a hindrance to fame and fortune.

The Who


“And dude’s what gives with the name? What is the band’s name again?”

“Patna,” Masa said with a slight weariness in his voice.

Patga? What the fuck is Patga?” Shnade despaired with the Japanese and their inability to come up with a proper rock band name.

Masa the lead guitarist ventured upon an explanation: “It’s ‘Patna’ not ‘Patga’. Did you read Lord Jim by Conrad? No? It’s a great book. It’s about a man who abandons his boat too early and spends the rest of his life escaping from his guilt and bad reputation. ‘Patna’ was the name of the boat.”

What the fuck? Shnade thought. More faggy British English. Reading books! He had sold that Kindle that he had taken from the faggy Jap at the station and with that money and what remained from his first month’s wages after paying off his ganja debts he had been able to buy his pride and joy, his fender shadow. It had demanded sacrifice from the Shnade man (that sacrifice primarily consisting of sleeping in Jay’s spare room because he couldn’t afford to pay key money and rent for a place of his own). But it had been worth it. All legends demand sacrifice and now Shnade felt really good about himself: the Shnade man was up and running hard. He had a job (which Jay had helped him get), he had a new dealer (who Jay had introduced him to) and he had a new band (which Jay had nothing to do with). And some fucking dumb-arsed name like Pagna or Patfa (or whatever it was), wasn’t going to stand between him and being a household name. Only trouble was that Masa was a black belt in karate so his faggy bookish ideas were not something Shnade felt confident in openly deriding too much. Although Shnade overshadowed most Japanese in height and width he was wary of little fuckers with martial arts belts. He knew all about that Bruce Lee stuff: best to chip away at the name issue. Tackle the band members one by one and get them to persuade Masa that Pogna was no flag for rockers to fly.

____________________

The Retreat was on a small hill in the jungle. From the main balconies where people ate and did group yoga sessions the Gulf of Siam could be seen sparkling in the intense light. The white sand beach of Haad Yaoyin was just a ten-minute walk down a jungle path and over huge granite boulders. The beach was cut off from the rest of the island. There were only two ways to leave Haad Yaoyin: either you walked for an hour through the jungle to get to the main road or you caught a boat. The boat only made trips to the beach when the weather and sea would permit. So when a storm hit the island of Koh Rahmai people staying on Yaoyin were stranded. Candy liked this. She wanted to find a place as unlike Bangkok as possible, a place without stress and far away from any busy centre. Candy was certain about Yaoyin as soon as she got off the boat and stood in the still blue water up to her knees waiting for a Thai to pass her backpack down to her.

On that first day she could only see four people on the small beach. A few simple wooden structures were hidden in the tree line and as she looked up she saw the mountain covered in trees that effectively cut the beach off from the rest of the island. There really was very little to do in Yaoyin other than swim, sunbathe, get stoned or take one of the New Age courses offered by The Retreat. Candy had been less certain about the Retreat than she had been about the beach, but since she had felt in need of revitalization and detoxification she had given it a go. And after that first yoga session with Bhopal and the cryptic conversation with Vishy she felt as sure about the rightness of studying yoga and meditation as she did about being on the beach. She enjoyed being left alone. She felt a kind of sober happiness that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. How Thailand had changed for her. On Candy’s second day in Bangkok she had been on the verge of tears. She had felt emotionally battered. Leaving South America had been necessary but it had bought home to her questions she had been avoiding asking herself. The main question being: what the hell was she doing? When she left Canada with the credit card cash she had imagined that she was starting a new life - a life full of adventure, seeing the world and all its marvels, using her wits to live on. So far she had seen a handful of South American cities and the Amazon jungle. She hadn’t gone to Machu Picchu or Angel Falls or any Brazilian beaches. Other than that night buried in a hole in the jungle when she and Rapi had seen the capybara family she hadn’t even seen much of South America’s famous wild life. And where was this famous wit she was meant to be living on? So far she had prostituted herself to some ex-con to make small change dealing coke and then she had become a pusher for a small time Bolivian dealer. Candy realized that it was her looks and her body that she had traded to earn her daily bread. She didn’t feel very proud of herself. For a moment she wanted to go home but the fear of going to jail stopped her making a call to Canada. So she had gone through the motions in Bangkok and had entered a travel agent in Khao San Road.

“I wanna go to a beach where I won’t meet any of these people.” Candy said pointing out the window at a young Japanese woman getting fake dreads attached to her thin hair as she sat on a stool in the dirty and busy road.

The travel agent was a middle-aged Thai woman who smiled at Candy and replied, “Koh Rahmai is island for you. Here you look.” The woman pointed at a map on the wall behind her desk, “Here are many beautiful beaches, few tourist go here. This like paradise. No like Khao San road.”

Candy was sold. She bought a bus and boat ticket for Koh Rahmai leaving that night.

And now it was two weeks later. Candy was glad she had followed the advice of the travel agent. She was glad that she had chosen Haad Yaoyin and she was very glad that she had committed herself to a 10 week course at the Retreat. Every morning she did yoga and meditation and every afternoon after Vishy’s lecture she would go and float in the ocean. In the evening she would eat a simple vegetarian meal and hang out for a couple of hours with other students staying at The Retreat. She had stopped drinking beer and recently she had stopped smoking weed. At around midnight Candy would retire to her simple bamboo thatch hut in the jungle and fall asleep to the distant sound of the waves lapping on the shore line.

The only problem for Candy was money. She was down to her last thousand dollars. She wasn’t sure if she would have enough after paying for this course to fly home to Canada if that was what she wanted. To save herself money and pain she had opted out of the colonic irrigations much to the annoyance of Vishy who took a peculiar relish in not only propounding the benefits of colonics but also in over-seeing the muddy practicalities of the procedure. It was hard, however, for Candy to get too worried about her financial situation. She felt her growing spiritual strength would reveal a path for her to follow. Ever since Vishy had commended her at their first meeting to not think about making a decision she had found it easier to know what she should do.

____________________

Jay hadn’t quite fathomed how he had been manipulated by Shnade but he knew that he had. Shnade had met him that first afternoon in town and had poured forth his trailer park charm. Shnade had insisted on hitting some bars. The first few drinks he had insisted on buying, but not the last five or six. Shnade also insisted that the two of them were real buddies and that fellow Americans needed to look out for each other. Shnade had even insisted that it was their Christian duty to look after each other, to get the other’s backs. Jay was indeed a Christian of sorts who believed not just in God but also in charity and it was this lucky stab at pity on Shnade’s part that had finally persuaded Jay to help Shnade. Jay was no fool: he knew that Shnade was not in A city for a weekend jolly.

“So are you still married to Otoko?” Jay casually asked in the second bar of the night, a Jamaican bar with a pretty Japanese bartender.

“Man, I tell you we had our problems but I’m glad I have my little boy.” Shnade had recently added evasion to his conversational armory.

“And what happened to the job? The one we used to do together. I thought you told me that you were the best teacher in the place since I left.”

“Yeah man. The kids I taught were way smarter than the other kids. I tell you, I had them saying all kindsa complicated stuff.”

“But did you get fired?”

“I needed a change of scene. That city was way too small for me. I love being with my kid and all and the job was going fine. I just needed to move on and up. Hey, say. What’s the scene like around here?”

“You mean music or drugs?”

“Well both, man. I sure could fuck that bartender. She’s hot.”

____________________

Candy had decided that she needed to see Vishy about getting a job. After the communal dinner she had mentioned that she wanted to talk with the master and with a slightly disturbing alacrity Bodhi Maha Vishnu Varuna had agreed and suggested they rendezvous in an hour’s time in his bungalow.

In the master’s room Candy sat on the soft bed. The floor was tiled and on the walls hung Indian batiks. Vishy’s bed took up most of the room. It was covered in an opulent satin purple sheet and held many orange cushions. At the foot of the bed was a big flat screen TV. And in the far corner was another door half open revealing a tiled bathroom.

ganja Yoda


Vishy offered Candy a joint. Candy had got in the habit of refusing joints which raised a few eyebrows on Yaoyin where everybody seemed to be high on ganja. Vishy lit the badly made one skin and smoked in silence. He looked at her and the customary flicker of irony returned to the corners of his mouth. After a few drags he stubbed the joint out in a ceramic ashtray that had a phallus protruding from it. It seemed the ashtray provided the theme for Vishy’s private lecture to Candice. He stood up and moved to stand before her, legs apart wearing his customary short shorts and nothing else. They were alone.

“Society favours the pussy. Most religions favour the dick. So it is that society tells a man he must marry. He must commit to one woman. He must work to maintain a family and stay with the one pussy. Society tries to tame the dick with marriage and mortgage. But that is not the dick. The dick doesn’t want to be tied down to one pussy for the rest of its life. No one pussy is good enough. Sometimes dick doesn’t even know why he wants a certain pussy. He just wants change. He just wants to be unfaithful. And that is why man invented religion. Religion is all about dick worship. The Hindus worship the lingam – the phallus. Pagans worship the may pole. Religion gives the dick freedom. It is religion that allows the dick to have many wives. It is the religion that allows the dick the joys of legal young brides. Religion lets the dick taste the erotic forbidden fruit of incest. It is religion that looks to get revenge on the pussy. Religion creates the idea of impurity and says a woman’s menstrual blood is impure and because of her impurity a woman cannot control the religion. Religion makes the dick supreme. Religion says sew up the pussy, cut off the clitoris, stay a virgin. Religion loves making women stay pure and virginal because the thrill of being the first is a great treat for the dick. And now Candy it is time for you kneel before my dick.”

Candy looked about the room as if looking for guidance. Candy was unsure how the hell matters had come to such a head. She knew, like all women, that behind any man’s pose of spiritual perfection lay a thing of flesh and blood and she noticed that sometimes Vishy sneaked a glance down her top when she was leaning forward doing a yoga pose, but this was too much flesh and blood. She had come to Vishy’s room to try and negotiate some type of discount, to perhaps get a job in the kitchen. She hadn’t come to the master’s room to be confronted with the Sri Bodhi’s crutch just inches from her face angrily contained in his tight shorts.

“What are you doing, master? I came to ask you about a job. I agree with you about religion and sex, but I can’t remember agreeing to having sex with you.”

“I say again Candice it is time to kneel before my dick.” With an ungraceful shrug and tug Vishy managed to pull down his shorts. Candy remained seated and cast her eyes down to the master’s little master.

Her guru’s pride was not yet at full mast but rather sporting a semi lob-on that made it springy and banana shaped. The bulbous purple head pointed off to the side.

“Now is the time Candice-ji to worship the Sri Bodhi Maha Vishnu Varuna lingam.” Vishy gave it his best tantric teaching voice.

Candy remained sitting and made no movement towards the mini guru. She stared first at the expectant guru dick and then looked up at the brown-skinned face of the master.

“This pussy is not to be won over with words. I want a job here. I can wait tables, do some kitchen work. Maybe lead a few yoga sessions.”

“My child, everyone working at the ashram is a volunteer. There is no paid work.”

“You get paid and I bet Bhopal does too. And why would the Thai cook work for free? She doesn’t seem on any path.”

Candy could see the enthusiasm seeping out of the mighty lingam. She knew a thing or two about how to make a deal. If there was one thing she had learned on her travels it was that she shouldn’t underestimate the power of her charms. Candy grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt with both hands and as she rose from the bed she roughly ripped off her top revealing her flat toned stomach and young breasts nestled in a flimsy bra.

“Now is the time for you to change your policy. Pussy for a job. I want free board, lodging and yoga and 1,000 Baht a week. And I don’t mind telling you that I think that is cheap for what you are getting.”

Vishy’s face lost its beatitude. Suddenly he looked like a boy having to share his favourite toy. He looked pained but at the same time his eyes roved over the revealed bulges of Candy’s breasts pallid in the moonlight coming through the window. Candy could read the fight going on between the master’s mojo and his greed. Time for an ultimatum Candy thought.

“Well if you’re not interested. I’ll be going back to my room,” Candy began to straighten her T-shirt out and put it over her head, “alone.”

“Bitch,” Vishy muttered, his dick fast losing its impressiveness. Vishy looked wistfully at Candy’s cupped breasts being covered.

“OK deal. You get free food and bed, but only 500 Baht a week.”

Candy finished putting on her T-shirt. She stood just inches from Vishy and suddenly had a déjà vu. This was all wrong. This was what she was trying to escape. Had not the master told her to act with her mind and not follow the flesh. She was slowly regaining her self-dignity and here she was on the verge of throwing it away just to save some money. Fuck you Candy thought. She broke off eye contact with her teacher and fumbled in her bag for a few moments.

“You are pathetic. Worship your dick. Ha! Turning tricks in a brothel would be preferable to having to blow your arrogant self-aggrandizing mumbo jumbo New Age penis. Dick-pussy. Fuck that. And by the way say cheese.”

Candy pulled a camera from her bag flicked the flash on and in a matter of seconds had snapped mini Sri Bodhi Maha Vishnu Varuna. Clutching her bag she ran from the bungalow.

And so it was that Candice left The Retreat that night without paying her bill. She got posters made up of the master’s unmighty lingam early the next morning and taped them to several trees around the beach and on the path to the ashram. Feeling satisfied with her righteous revenge and ready again for the possibilities of the open road, she waded into the water, handed her pack to a young Thai man and boarded the first boat to leave the beach.

revenge


The opening picture is taken under the Wikipedia commons licensing system. Osho was fond of collecting Rolls Royces and gullible lost souls. He died a rich man in Europe. Still today Osho twats are to be found everywhere.

Catch up on earlier installments of Candy and Shnade:

Shnade Gets Drunk with a Serial Killer and Candy Arrives in Bangkok (Part 6)

Candy and Shnade Move On (Part 5)

Candy Trips in the Jungle and Shnade Trips Up (Part 4)

Candy Comes in the Jungle and Shnade Becomes the Man (Part 3)

Candy in Bolivia and Shnade in Hawaii (Part 2)

Candy in Argentina (Part 1)

80
Vote
   


Vampire Culture in Japan

July 21st 2010 15:49
Vampire


There must be something unique about the molecular structure of Japanese plastic that mimics midi-chlorian because Japan has the highest per capita number of Jedi of any country I have encountered. Lonely and dedicated guardians can be seen all hours of the day and night waving their mini red light sabers protecting road side repairs and car parks from the dark side.

Which makes me think about the fact that we manage in the UK to park our cars without these wielders of the force. Is it that there are no Sith in the British Isles? And that in Japan the agents of evil team in the shadows ready to bend a fender or smash into a work hut by the side of the road? It must surely be so.

I live in a city which the Japanese bizarrely refer to as the countryside. There is some countryside to be seen if you look in the right direction, but in the other direction it is uninterrupted concrete, drinks machines, convenience stores and culture centers bereft of culture all the way to the bigger city where I used to live. One thing I have noticed since moving to the ‘countryside’ is that despite the masses of concrete and huge public buildings it is deadly quiet at night. As soon as the sun dips below the horizon it seems that all the good citizens flee to their little houses and prepare to get their habitual early night. If it was Brazil I could understand why nobody lingered on the streets; but mugging and armed robbery seem unlikely here. That is not to say, however, that the place is without its dangers. I have a gnawing and sickening feeling in the base of my stomach that the city is actually over-run with vampires. Two things make me think so. I have spotted a dingy gothic bar by the station and there is an uncanny preponderance of over-sized and pointed molars amongst the gobs of my students.

The vampire theory would also explain the unbelievable and irritating wholesomeness that I encounter every day. To be so wholesome is to hide a dark and evil secret. That secret is that they drink the blood of humans caught straying in the darkened ways of the city. No wonder the Jedi have drafted in some of their finest big bellied old warriors to protect those among the populace that carry untainted blood.

My vampire paranoia might not be so ill placed when you also consider the face mask, or the courtesy mask as they like to call it, which 20% of the Japanese population wear at any given time. Is it really that they crave the anonymity of a mask? Or is it that they are hiding their bloodied fangs because they only got back from their night feastings literally minutes before they had to throw on their day uniforms and go and prove the maxim that the more successful you are at erasing thinking from the work place the more money you will make. The Japanese spend their entire lives working in order to buy the goods that their efforts miraculously produce. And these consumer goods have become false idols that have clouded clear thinking. Thus, the brand of the wallet is more important than the amount of money it contains. And thus rows of cheap housing have balconies where the sun cannot penetrate inside for the number of satellite dishes on display. And thus ultimately money and entertainment and advertising rule the mind. This is exemplified by the utter waste of time that the ubiquitously enjoyed habit of window shopping represents.

Is this surely not the perspective of the vampire? If yours is a fate of an eternity of lonely nights watching the centuries slip by would you not start to find money meaningless as a symbol of value? For the vampire money is to be wasted just as blood is there to be spilled. And is not a fascination with surface not symptomatic of an ennui with content? Doesn’t a dislike for substance represent a boredom that only the perspective of eternal life can engender? The vampire psychology is a virus that has made Japan number two in the world. The makers of Hello Shitty know that the twilight mind prefers a facsimile cat to a real one.

I only half jest. People do seem to live forever here. And the moronic answer that people in the media talk about to the problem of an aging population is to bring thousands of poor Asians to Japan’s vampire infested shores. As if these poor Thais and Filipinos won’t themselves become vampires and live forever. Luckily, the media just talk about it without much mass action occurring. That’s for two reasons. One reason is that governing political parties in Japan don’t actually have that much power to govern and the other reason is that Japanese vampires are closet racists who only want to drink the pure blood of the land of the rising sun (the flag reminds all good vampires when it is time to assume their Clarke Kent personas).

Nukekubi
Nukekubi


Japanese have their own version of a vampire called Nukekubi which are creatures that look like people except for a line of red markings around the neck. At night the Nukekubi detach their heads from their bodies. The body becomes inanimate and the head flies abroad seeking victims to bite. The best way to kill a Nukekubi is to find its body when it is detached from the head and hide it so the monster cannot re-join itself before daylight.

Could not the Nukekubi be a metaphor for the evil of separating the mind from the body? When the two are severed there is no longer the discrimination of logic and reason to counter the insatiable wants of the body. If you break the connection between desire and thought you are left with the perfect consumer driven by urges that can never be sated, only senses blunted by over-consumption.

The analysis of the metaphor could be expanded to describe the Japanese economy. In vampiric capitalism the body must surely be the automobile industry which supplies 1 in 5 jobs either directly in production and sales or indirectly through parts, housing, accounting and the whole panoply of wearisome jobs funded by making and selling pollution. Cut that away and the economic beast withers. As the 2008 economic crash has adequately demonstrated. China pay attention. Here is your chance for revenge – a Chinese Toyota will kill Japan.

concrete culture


To return to the Japanese vampire: it is a head that cannot stay on a body. The ill-fitting body and head is a dichotomy mirrored in manga porn whose central motif is a child’s head on a slut’s body. Other noteworthy disassociations or unnatural juxtapositions commonly seen in Japan is Orange hair on an Asian head and artificial nails that render digits un-useable. The Japanese vampire is about rendering nature unnatural. The apotheosis of this is turning Mount Fuji into a plastic bin and suicide ghetto. The distortion of nature is the sign of the vampire and the result of a vampiric mind set that seeks to suck truthful representation from the body and replace it with dissociated elements that only the propaganda of the cute and cool can make stick. This is reflected in the shortage of commonly used adjectives that cast an aesthetic judgment – something is either interesting or uninteresting, cool or not cool, cute or not cute, exciting or not exciting, strange or not strange and creepy or not creepy. Blunting the binary oppositions of judgment is the linguistic equivalent of covering nature with concrete. It hides the diversity of nature and replaces it with a sterile and convenient lie. This is vampirism of reality and this is the goal of modern Japan – to make a nation of vampires that feed off superficiality and plastic and in turn are the victims to an economic system that drains the life of the masses for the notion of economic growth which is itself a vampiric metaphor.

Japan really does need all those Jedi out there. Only it needs to re-deploy them. Let car parks and manholes take their chances with chaos and let those guardians of right-seeing gather and combine their strength and then attempt the last and great battle: the battle to free the hearts and minds of the post war generations from the dominant vampiric credo of Japan. Kill the body of the Nukekubi and slay the beast and let words and ideas and freedom yet again roam the islands.

Jedi vs Sith
111
Vote
   


dead body in a toilet


Nobuyoshi Saiko was a superman, an Übermensch, showing the sheep-like masses the brilliance that a single individual could achieve. He was one of the few that could mold disparate experiences into one unified moment of perfection – an embodied vision that was pure, hard, translucent perfection. For a moment as he stood over his victim, soaked in the delicious odour of death, he would feel like he had elevated the spirit of mankind and that the symbolic value of his homicide had for that one diamond second brought unalloyed purity to a world otherwise sadly lacking in anything wholly without blemish. The thrill, the rush of his own genius was often too much for Nobu. It literally took his breath away. It was always the case that as the heady rush of creation subsided, he would need to sex the dead body. He didn’t know why but after the spirit had soared to the very heights, to the very limits, the animal rose to take its lowly deserts. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action. It was as if the animal sought to emulate the achievements of the spirit, but could find only crude expression in the two-backed beast. After satiation his genius would work at disposing of his seamen stained work of art. This was a puzzle that Nobu enjoyed too. A lesser pleasure, but it further fueled his pride. His meticulous brain would solve the problem of how to erase the forensic evidence. His art was like a crystal snow flake that shone briefly and brilliantly in the pellucid moon light before melting into nothingness. How useless the Japanese police were. How full of deference the Japanese were. Money really did make you a god in Japan and Nobu had masses of the crude stuff called cash. Not only that but he also had the blood of an old family. Nobu had wealth and a name. He was untouchable


[ Click here to read more ]
111
Vote
   


Scoring Weed From Tom Waits

June 20th 2010 03:43
Tom Waits


We had just moved into rented accommodation. It was the start of the university year. Perhaps our first year. There was a group of us – me, my brother, big Steve and others I can’t identify. We are all in our glorious first bloom of youth. We walk down a grimy working class road in Britain; the tarmac is wet with rain. It is a dour residential area somewhere near the centre of town. It reminds me of Cardiff


[ Click here to read more ]
105
Vote
   


The First Night of The World Cup

June 12th 2010 09:18
Wayne Rooney
Now that's what I call Samurai


Those countries who are seeking to mount bids to host future World Cups are missing a key variable when considering their possible chances of succeeding. Everyone knows about the ‘bung’ (I love that word, is it because it is only a vowel away from ‘bong’?), about wining a dining the FIFA officials, about the persuasive powers of high class hookers sent to hotel rooms, and about unleashing the ultimate weapon in charm offensives, David Beckham; but do they know about the Trippy Traveller effect


[ Click here to read more ]
113
Vote
   


Candy and Shnade Move On

May 26th 2010 06:27


Candy came down in a crippling fashion the next morning. She woke up in the small tin shack in the jungle next to Rapi. The hut was hot and airless. She struggled to open her eyes. They were gummy and momentarily out of focus. She wondered where the fuck she was. Her stomach howled with hunger. Her last meal had been god knows when. Her throat was parched. Her bare legs were red and swollen from insect bites. And there was Rapi, untouched by the insects and in perfect repose. Fuck that. It was all coming back to her: the lonely afternoon in the jungle, the coke deal and her new relationship with a Bolivian Indian


[ Click here to read more ]
81
Vote
   


Hey, Mr. Dealer

May 15th 2010 07:07
tarred and feathered drug dealer
tarred and feathered drug dealer


Epigraph1:

[ Click here to read more ]
99
Vote
   


Candy Trips in the Jungle and Shnade Trips Up


Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you – Jean-Paul Sartre


[ Click here to read more ]
82
Vote
   


orgasm in nature


Candy was in a shopping mall. It was a mega mall several floors high. In the dream she was on the highest floor looking over the rails at the shinny mezzanine below. There was a massive waterfall in the centre of the plaza. People on the ground floor looked tiny. Candy turned away from the view and saw brawny Pete, a random Sikh with a turban and big beard and her father. Candy climbed over the barrier and from the corner of her eye she saw her dream fellows doing the same. Then something weird and unexpected happened: Candy woke up but she remained in the dream. She knew with a certainty that was clear and sharp as a diamond in the mind that she was aware in a dream


[ Click here to read more ]
90
Vote
   


More Posts
1 Posts
1 Posts
2 Posts
73 Posts dating from July 2008
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:

Green Island's Blogs

I have no other blogs :(
Moderated by Green Island
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]