bangkok found (& reading Zizek while crossing a glacier again)

Bangkok. I think I always saw it completely through the eyes of Mishima. A city of kings, Bangkok is my favorite big city in Asia, after HongKong. Like Tokyo, I think it is a city of huge contradictions. City of angels. City of demons. You really feel that in Bangkok, maybe somehow more than in other places...

I am reading Alex Kerr's new book, Bangkok Found. I am a huge fan of Kerr. With an academic background in China studies, he lived much of his adult life in Japan, but he says of himself,

"While my head is in China and my body in Japan, my heart is in Thailand." 

Bangkok Found is a sequel to his much older book, Lost Japan. I think because of his China background, Kerr was particularly well-placed to understand Chinese-style literati 文人 culture in Japan-- for example, tea ceremony connoisseurship and ideas surrounding the concept of aesthetic practice as moral practice (edification of art, etc.). Lost Japan remains --no contest-- my favorite book on Japan. So, not surprisingly, Bangkok Found is also deeply engaging for me. Maybe not unlike The Years that were Fat, Kerr's book, rather than explaining things, illuminates; and like all great books, it seeks harmony in contradictions (instead of trying to explain them away); persuading --not by the story or story-telling-- but rather by the charisma and virtue 得 of the narrator's character 人格.  

In Conrad's day, the City of Angels was actually the City of Water. Bangkok really once was the Venice of the east. Mostly it has been covered in concrete-- and yet, you can still catch these incredible glimpses of how it must once have been. I guess Conrad sailed straight into Bangkok from Singapore and in those days the city was dominated by boats and water. Someday, I'd like to take Adonis up the Chao Praya, because after the first hour, the scenery along the river really changes...after being dazzled by glittering views of the temple of dawn and the palace, golden spires and temples covered in colorful Chinese ceramics, you enter less courtly neighborhoods where kids do cannonball jumps right off the verendas of their wooden houses straight into the river below. The last time I rode that far up the river, I was caught in a monsoon deluge... there was no escape. The rain was relentless, and I think I may have fallen in love with Bangkok at that very moment, on that boat. 

And, I agree with Kerr, that because our modern aesthethic sensibilities have changed in favor of a refined minimalism, the artistic and architectual significance of the glitter of a Thai temple is under-valued in contrast to the minimalist elegance of a Zen garden, for example. But, of course, the Thais had a different project altogether then Japanese princes, daimyo or monks-- as they were seeking to create heavenly worlds on earth; images of paradise: 

The Thais hide better; embellish better. The whole thrust of royal Siam culture since Ayutthaya was the building of fantasy worlds; ethereal realms that are not of this earth. A lot of thought and chereography go into creating illusion. When the King used to meet foreign ambassadors in the eraly 1880s, he would wait until they all gathered ; then a curtain would be pulled back, revealing him on a high golden throne, a vision of the divine. It was a political statement, but it was also gorgeous pagentry. 

For me, nothing evokes this creation of fantasy worlds (I would see heavenly worlds) like the murals in the Buddhaisawan Chapel. Like my painting, Dream Journey, these murals left an extremely vivid impression on me. And like those murals at Alchi, I see them still when I close my eyes. A heavenly view. Angels. 

The Glorious Mural Express should surely make a stop here, as well.

Zizek gave a great interview last year about masks and Japan. I wrote about it here but I think it bears re-reading as it speaks much to this idea of creating heavenly worlds, illusion, pagentry and hints toward other ways of going about things:

The usual cliché now is that Japan is the ultimate civilization of shame. What I despise in America is the studio actors’ logic, as if there is something good about self-expression: do not be oppressed, open yourself up, even if you shout and kick the others, everything in order to express and liberate yourself. This is a stupid idea — that behind the mask there is some truth. In Japan, even if something is merely an appearance, politeness is not simply insincere. […] Surfaces do matter. If you disturb the surfaces you may lose a lot more than you accounted for. You shouldn’t play with rituals. Masks are never simply mere masks. Perhaps that’s why Brecht became close to Japan. He also liked this notion that there is nothing really liberating in this typical Western gesture of removing the masks and showing the true face. What you discover is something absolutely disgusting. Let’s maintain the appearances.

When I first mentioned the Zizek interview, Beijing emailed to say that

Regarding Zizek's quote, I guess the "Western" idea that there is an "essence" behind our "superficial" roles owes a lot to Platonic/Christian dualism that is largely absent from Buddhist and Confucian thought

This is certainly true. In addition, this is also to suggest that story-telling really does matter.

** 

A friend recommended this recent TED Talk by Shekhar Kapur

We are the stories we tell

I really enjoyed it. Especially the very end where he discusses art and story-telling as the effort to achieve a kind of harmony (or resonance) in the midst of what is an acknowledged chaos. Kapur also discusses his ultimate aim in film to not necessarily rectify all the contradictions or to solve all the problems like a Hollywood film, but rather to see a kind of harmony within the acceptance of them. We do this through the stories we tell, of course. Indeed, I believe not only are we the stories we tell but ultimately it is our stories that live on and survive us. And, in this way, words are actions. They are real life. One, then, seeks to read between the lines in order to interpret, translate and most of all to tell tales. 物語する (someone once told me that "telling tales" in classical Japanese was a way of saying "making love"... I don't know if that is true, but I like it)

Wearing Masks (& Reading Zizek While Crossing a Glacier)

In the Mood (Peony Plays the Piccolo in Bangkok)

Comments

[John Emerson]

Zizek's Japan think is reminiscent of Barthes's "The Empire of Signs". Not to say that he cribbed it.

[John Emerson]

Doi's "Anatomy of Dependence" and "The Anatomy of Self" are the best things I've ever read about the "real self" / "apparent self" relationship. Not just from a compartive point of view -- what she says about Freud is better than anything else I've read about Freud, in my opinion at least.

[Adarnay]

Meaningful coincidence, synchronicity for readers of Jung, has always been, uh, meaningful to me. I opened my NY Times this morning to discover Thailand in revolt, dateline Bangkok, and my first thought was that some live in a more extended time dimension than others--because for me this post was in the background today--along with Kerr's wonderful motto--because a sad reverberation in time had been felt by you earlier than it manifested in actuality and in the news...

[Eric]

The interesting thing about Thais is that more than any culture I've encountered - and I think any culture in the world - Thais have the ability to be bamboo in the wind. They bend, but never break.

The existence, and continued role and power of Siam - especially through the European colonial era was to accomodate, yet hold firm. To be of value, yet be ungraspable. Siam literally survived through the ingenuity of Rama V who created illusions of friendship, who changed his people's role to both emulate foreign standards (such as adding forks, spoons and even chairs and tables) to their culture, but at the same time, remaining distinctly Thai.

Over time, however, I think Thais have increasingly forgotten the value of being Thai. I wonder how much they remember what's supposed to be the illusion of accomodation and what is supposed to be real.

I worry that Thais lose their definition in a world where the West has invaded by tv's, satellites, Internet and cell phones. Can Thais bend so much that they forget which way is up?

Bangkok is a casualty of that in a way. The city still shelters those real pieces of Thai culture along the Chao Praya. But it inreasingly becomes something westernized - something alien. A good friend who visited me in Bangkok said it was something out of "Blade Runner". In some ways, it is.

Bangkok has a heart, but I wonder if it doesn't have heart disease as it forgets its ancient soul.