MIDNIGHT MOUSE?
A Japanese notebook - some of it musical,
with composer ADRIAN WILLIAMS
The festive season in Tokyo is, like almost anywhere else in the world,
just a huge commercial bash. Masses, indeed legions of people heave around
the department stores in this department-store-minded land. And the noise
is unbearable. Do not imagine Charles Ives's (great!) Symphony no 4,
or the Holidays Symphony can ever represent this level of cacophony.
Ivesian converging massed bands cannot compare with three dancing Santas
playing Jingle Bells and White Christmas against each other,
tinkly tunes pouring from toys, gadgets, computer systems, PA systems, and
positively nerve-gnawing screeching of 'Irrashimase, irrashimase' (welcome)
from robotic girls whose batteries never seem to wear out..... all in the
space of about a hundred square metres. The desire to find some kind of
Christmas peace became all-consuming. Would it be possible to find a church
and meditate on 'that greatest tale of all' ?*
Well we thought we'd 'brave the masses' and go for it, setting off in
good time to find St Mary's, somewhere near Roppongi. Not St Mary's Roman
Catholic Cathedral, where there would be a queue a kilometre long (sorry,
kilometer -- this is Japan and they only recognise (recognize) American
English here).
The nice man in the 'St Mary's Church Bridal Office', the only office
open on Christmas Eve, (maybe the only office there, period) had given my
wife precise times of Christmas Eve 'Masses'.
Finding an ancient cathedral with choral tradition is impossible in Tokyo,
as you would expect. No way can one expect even parish-church-type treats
of solo treble singing 'Once in Royal David's City', first tang of
incense penetrating the chilly midnight air, certainly not cathedral choir
elevating that superb David Willcocks descant for the last verse. To an
English former church musician in Japan that's the stuff of nostalgic imaginings.
It's odd. Considering some of the horrors Japanese civilians endured
this century (and continue to endure) - it's somehow sad how puppet-like
they conform to American interests, standards, culture. Added to the sense
of defeat after WWII (which still prevails) was the humiliation of their
Emperor's declaration that he was not, after all, divine -- leaving the
Japanese feeling that their national heart had been ripped out. Not surprisingly
in the rebuilding of Japan they absorbed and imitated foreign culture, much
of it American. To this day, like it or not, Japan is held in an arm-lock
by the USA, defence-wise, (to maintain the stability of the region, supposedly)
-- and so its influence permeates everything. The Church is no exception.
Continue >>
Copyright © 3 January 2000, Adrian
Williams, Tokyo, Japan
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