How I missed toast, porridge, builder’s tea!We went to Japan on October 4th and I came back November 16th, leaving Gavin, the film producer out there, sunning himself in Okinawa. He may be there still for all I know. But six weeks is a long time. Long enough for me.
We went to Japan to make a film for the BBC, the film an attempt to unlock an apparently impenetrable culture and psyche through the ... metaphor I suppose ... of fish. Japan is a culture obsessed by fish and fishing. In many ways, as we found out, it is a culture defined by fish. There are towns in Japan where one fish dominates, literally dominates the identity of the place. In Niigita drain covers have koi carp on them. There are koi shaped underpasses. Concrete koi in gardens. Koi on taxis, on shop-fronts. Koi everywhere.
First published 25th November 2008
In Taiji it is whales (not a fish obviously).
In Shiminoseki it is fugu.
The fish of Tokyo is, I reckon, the bluefin tuna.
Could we, by exploring, the stories of these iconic fish of Japan get to know the place more fully?
I think we did. We didn’t go there to romanticise the place or airbrush over some of the ways Japan exploits the oceans - we didn’t ignore the plight of bluefin or whales. But we went to get past the cliched pre-conceptions of the place and to understand. To paint an interesting, lively portrait of a nation through its collective mania for all things fishy. Quite how that got me para-gliding in a panda suit I’ll never know, but it did.
The film, or maybe even films (we got so much good footage) will be on BBC4 in the New Year. Meanwhile I may fill a few blog entries with my diary notes from six weeks in the land of runny, cold seaweed for breakfast.
In Taiji it is whales (not a fish obviously).
In Shiminoseki it is fugu.
The fish of Tokyo is, I reckon, the bluefin tuna.
Could we, by exploring, the stories of these iconic fish of Japan get to know the place more fully?
I think we did. We didn’t go there to romanticise the place or airbrush over some of the ways Japan exploits the oceans - we didn’t ignore the plight of bluefin or whales. But we went to get past the cliched pre-conceptions of the place and to understand. To paint an interesting, lively portrait of a nation through its collective mania for all things fishy. Quite how that got me para-gliding in a panda suit I’ll never know, but it did.
The film, or maybe even films (we got so much good footage) will be on BBC4 in the New Year. Meanwhile I may fill a few blog entries with my diary notes from six weeks in the land of runny, cold seaweed for breakfast.
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