Saturday, my past lover told me about the romanticists that we both were, who desperately reconfigure the external phenomenon in the service of one’s desires and lusts. We live in a house of fantasies, walled by a range of defense mechanisms that shield us from potential emotional dangers. Not only we craft a fictional future but perpetually reimagine the past.

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This makes me think of the Yushukan museum and how a nation embraces this facet of life through its reconstruction of history. At the very end of the museum tour was a brief mention of Japan’s “contribution” to Southeast Asia’s liberation against Western powers, forgetting that its presence meant severe famine, possibly the deadliest in this region’s history and particularly in Vietnam (Christoph Giebel’s lecture, 2019) due to extreme extractive policies and cruel treatment. The memory gap caused by historical falsehood doesn’t plague out the truth, but perhaps what matters more to Japan is how it is viewed in the public eye through self-representation. The external validations it receives beats whatever moral stance it should take regarding historical justice and truths.

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Having said this, I question how I have constructed my identity within our group. My identity creation is not without assimilation to seek for public validations; Thus, just in two weeks, I had several relapses where I stopped directing but performing, given instructions by a constant process of readjusting self-perception regarding external perceptions of me. The gaping chasm between ideology, rationality, and habitual patterns of responses that choke one's freedom of actions. I criticize Yushukan but look at how much we have in common. To heal identity crisis is to come back to places that speak to us, to reside in people whose enduring appreciations for our values calm our worldly anxieties and inspire us the bravery to thrive. It is rather silly but I wonder how a nation deals with an identity crisis. A collective lack of self-awareness caused an arbitrary but real national confusion.

 

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The second conversation that touched me was enshrined within the four walls of NYC’s bedroom. We lied on the bed and played with bubbles of stories, throwing back and forth genuineness, vulnerability, and bravery. This made me think about the artistry of personal narratives, what truly resonates is through the way we construct and convey them. The lectures at Sophia University and Kamata’s were both personal, but the former struck me as disorienting while the latter moving. Reflecting on why this was the case, I had a sense that the speakers from Sophia’s were out to sell their audience emotional baggage. We did not need to be sold that immigration crisis was a problem in Japan; Thus, when the Uganda speaker flashed horrific pictures of violence, it shook me to tears but I felt that my sensitivity was mistreated and my trust betrayed, as if I was being taken advantage of. The presentation on Christianity's effects inside the immigration center was also too binary and exclusive for my personal taste, the experience was of an indoctrinating nature. Kamata's talk, on the other hand, was effective because she owned the philosophical reasonings and messages she gave. It was simple, down-to-earth, and trusting. Her emphasis on using empathy regardless of the personal sexual assault that she went through resonated a vibe of courage and genuineness. This comparison sheds light on how I want to own self-representations and my personal narratives, and when I bring this wisdom to other dimensions, it eases my understanding of how I experience the world and what speaks to my heart.

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Another conversation that stayed with me was a brief discussion on humility and popular art that's based on mainstream culture versus the artists' true expressions of life. The Chiharu Shiota exhibit in the Mori Art Museum was the latter, a pure expression of creative art and humanity. Caves of yarns represented the internals and disturbing films side-by-side philosophical meanderings on identity sucked me in a fantastical world of identity-exploration. The reason why we were easily impressed by popular arts (low-culture) lies in its familiarity; We are drawn to things that are aesthetically sensible and comprehensible, whereas unfamiliarity gives a vibe of ugliness, asymmetry, and confusion. I think of the uncommon, nongeneric shapes of identity everyone carries around, but we hide them under our clothes, our education, religion, aspirations, and whatever concept we can afford to have. Life is thus turned into blankets of complications. We forget that when this body was just born, it was very light. An antidote to this delusion is to cultivate humility: a heart that is so patient and quiet that it is able to see through the true expression of humanity and arts.

While in Japan, I remind myself to not be blinded by the loud, the extravagance, the crowd and the touristy hype, but to be yielding and tentative to the quiet beauties that speak to me.