cities are smells

Cities are smells: Acre is the smell of iodine and spices. Haifa is the smell of pine and wrinkled sheets. Moscow is the smell of vodka on ice. Cairo is the smell of mango and ginger. Beirut is the smell of the sun, sea, smoke, and lemons. Paris is the smell of fresh bread, cheese, and derivations of enchantment. Damascus is the smell of jasmine and dried fruit. Tunis is the smell of night musk and salt. Rabat is the smell of henna, incense, and honey. A city that cannot be known by its smell is unreliable. Exiles have a shared smell: the smell of longing for something else; a smell that resembles another smell. A panting, nostalgic smell that guides you, like a worn tourist map, to the smell of the original place.  --Mahmoud Darwish 

Anyone who has ever taken the bridge across the water to Venice, knows that cities (no matter how close in proximity they might be to each other) have their own distinct and discrete smells. Venice smells swampy and sweaty and you notice it the minute you arrive; Bali is overwhelmingly like heavenly frangipani and temple incense; Hue like fish sauce and lotus, Saigon like warm bread and coffee (and I think it smells like spies too)-- each has their own beautiful colors and culture; their own spirit and fragrances. And, cityscapes –like landscapes—become the particular atmosphere to which those who live in these particular places become attuned. It is this spirit which enables people to say that great cities are all more than just the sum total of their parts.

Think, for example, about how the citizens of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic war begged the Romans to spare their city:

            Spare the city which has done you no harm, but, if you please, kill us, whom you have ordered to move away. In this way you will seem to vent your wrath upon men, not upon temples, gods, tombs and an innocent city (Appian’s Roman History)

Cities do seem to be about so much more than the people who live there. And maybe this is why we become greatly attached to certain landscapes and cities in the same way we do to certain people.

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I've been trying out a new perfume line called the Scent of Departure. There are about a dozen fragrances and so far, I've tried Budapest, Vienna, Tokyo, LA, and Denpasar. 

And Tokyo is

 A treasure in the midst of invigorating citrus splashes wrapped in a green stem. The Shinjuku Gyoen leads you to an endless field of lotus, freesias and ozonic peonies, creating a light and fresh heart. Meiji Jingu and Asakusa Shrines trail with white musk, a lasting impression of Japan.

It is lemon, bergamot, green stem; and lotus flower, freesia, ozonique flowers, peony with white Musk.

Hmmmm....

For me, Tokyo could never be citrus--nor could it ever be freesias or white musk. It is first and always the sweet smell of tatami in summer. It is also the smell of rice vinegar (sushi rice) and miso. Those two smells are always first for me. Tokyo is also osthmanthus flowers in October and plum blossoms in February--sometime tachibana in early summer. It is the sweet smell of water boiling in an iron tea kettle; it is the winter months in tea ceremony: the smell of powdered green tea that unfolds in the small tea room and the warmth of the boiling water, in an iron brazier. It is expensive incense-- resins and aloeswood. For me, for so long it also smelled like home.   

Here are 50 reasons why Tokyo is the best city in the world (I agree).

Image by eBoy

 

Comments

[Douglas A. Stiffler]

Leanne -- I'm looking for the section on Kennan's heightened reactions to the olfactory & auditory of cities. Kennan himself was a superb writer, and there is a great passage from his diary on the literary & sensory sensations of Leningrad/St. Pete --- p. 204.

Kennan's haunting description of post-WWII Berlin on pp. 344-345 -- (Gaddis notes that "Kennan had permitted himself again -- as if with relief -- to filter a diplomat's observations through an artist's eye, a historian's ear, and a poet's emotions.")

I found the section that made the impression -- Here's an excerpt from Kennan's diary that Gaddis excerpts (on p. 53): "Riga, February 2, 1929: A furtive, fitful wind, smelling of dirty snow, and deserted wharves, sneaks in from the harbor. It rushes aimlessly through the empty streets, muttering and sighing to itself, seeking it not knows what, crazed and desperate, like a drunken man, lost in the dawn."

And here is Gaddis commenting on Kennan's literary efforts:

"But why this profusion of extracurricular prose? Maybe to practice observation, a useful skill in a diplomat. Probably in imitation of the German journalist, poet, and playwright Alfons Paquet, whose travel writings had made a deep impression on Kennan. Certainly out of an enormous sensitivity to landscapes, environments, and moods, in a way that he found difficult to explain. Kennan speculated, late in life, that he might have done better as a poet or a novelist, but only at great cost, "because art is open-ended, and I didn't have a balanced enough personal life to go into this expression of the emotional without being torn to pieces by it."" (p. 54)

[facebook conversation]

Bucky S: Yaizu in the summer is like one gigantic tuna boat with a broken catch freezer And Vienna is caraway seeds (they seem to put them in everything there)

Douglas S: Reading John Lewis Gaddis's new biography of George Kennan -- Kennan had intense sensory associations of cities.

Colleen M: Nice piece L and so true.

Alexus M: So true!! It's one of the senses I associate cities with most. Delhi is sugar cane (I think that's what it is) and dust. That's always the first thing I notice as soon as I step off the plane, and it was the first thing I noticed on my first trip there. And when I find a book made in India, I smell the pages and it brings me right back. I love that scent.

It's interesting, I didn't recognize that my hometown (Washington DC) had its own distinct scent until I did more traveling and came back there as an adult, then immediately I not only noticed it, but also had the startling realization that I'd known it my whole life, and had simply failed to notice. That was an exhilarating moment.

Karen S: Yes, the smell of tatami in the summer is very evocative. It takes me right back to my little 6-jo apartment in Nakano. And by the way, Portland smells like espresso.

[Peony]

‎Alexus, I bet Delhi has changed so much since I was there but for me, the absolutely overwhelming smell--even in the new city-- was dung fires and dust (agriculture) I was there at that time of year so dust covered everything, hanging really low in the sky so dust and cows and the really unforgettably SWEET smell of the dung fires...could that be the sugracane? Delhi does smell very very sweet (neem flowers in the sweaty season?) You know, to me LA has NO SMELL... is it, then, an unreliable city like Darwish suggested or is it that I have not grown up yet?

[Peony]

‎Karen, me too, Karen... it is very evocative of that place, as is osmanthus. I bet Portland smells of espresso!!

[Peony]

‎Bucky --they do put the seeds in everything and I wonder why it isn't used in the perfume? I wore the Scent of Departure Vienna tester yesterday and it is mint and chocolate, coffee and cinnamon and cloves....liquorice. Actually, it is kind evocative of carroway seeds now that you mention it... It is nice and I think it does kind of capture Vienna... If you ever have a chance to read Taste of Conquest, I think you would love it. I am re-reading it now and am loving it the 2nd time too.. it is about the three big spice trade cities: Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam and it is so hard to imagine that European food used to be spicy like Indian or like Hungarian... but it was and especially wines and meats were very spice-doused...It is an incredibly fun book and I have been begging my mom to make goulashes and spice cakes ever since (aren't I an annoying daughter?) Oh, and Shizuoka (where you know who had his jikka) always smelled of fresh fish to me too... not tea but fish--very much of the ocean and they were not right on the ocean but in 富士市!

[Peony]

‎Alexus, btw, this might be way too much for your wife but I tried this perfume on Friday called Jaisalmer that was too much incense and way too much for me and yet after I kept thinking about it-- by Comme des Garçons "each one is a painting an “olfactory portrait of a particular milieu” in the incense tradition"--Kyoto is the most popular but I really loved Jaisalmer

[Bathrobe]

For me the initial smell of suburban Tokyo was that of the kumitori benjo (the pit toilets), which gave off a rich aroma as you walked down the narrow streets. Of course I think they've all disappeared now, leaving nothing more than a sentimental memory.