Tokyo Weekender July 2016
Breaking the rules of kimono – a new book shatters antiquated views of this traditional garment. Plus: The boys for sale in Shinjuku Ni-chome, best sake of 2017, Japan's new emperor, and what really goes on inside "Terrace House."
Breaking the rules of kimono – a new book shatters antiquated views of this traditional garment. Plus: The boys for sale in Shinjuku Ni-chome, best sake of 2017, Japan's new emperor, and what really goes on inside "Terrace House."
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ody surfing on snowy banks, and playing<br />
with balls.<br />
It was probably a combination of these<br />
traits, as well as their sheer number, that<br />
drew a filmmaking couple, Kris Samuelson<br />
and John Haptas, to devote a few years to the<br />
crows of <strong>Tokyo</strong>. They got their first exposure<br />
to the birds when they were returning from<br />
teaching in Southeast Asia and stopped for a<br />
while in <strong>Tokyo</strong>. As they explained, “there was<br />
a garden where we were staying and we were<br />
amazed by the huge number of crows we<br />
heard and saw. We were intrigued and began<br />
noticing them everywhere we went.”<br />
Samuelson and Haptas returned home<br />
to Northern California, intent on learning<br />
more about city crows – “the urban guerrillas<br />
of birds,” the couple calls them – in general,<br />
and about <strong>Tokyo</strong>’s crows in particular. A<br />
short visit to Japan to shoot a funding clip<br />
followed, and a year and a half later, the<br />
couple received a Japan-US Creative Arts<br />
Fellowship that allowed them to spend five<br />
months in Japan shooting what would<br />
become <strong>Tokyo</strong> Waka.<br />
In the words of the filmmakers, the<br />
documentary is “an essay about man and<br />
nature coexisting in a megalopolis.” Its subjects<br />
include scientists, nature lovers, artists,<br />
a homeless woman, Shinto and Buddhist<br />
priests, and, of course, Corvus macrorhynchos:<br />
the jungle crow, also known as the<br />
large-billed crow. We see them building nests<br />
with hangers stolen from people’s balconies,<br />
chased away by the bees that make the honey<br />
that is sold through the Ginza Bee Project,<br />
and at play in the city’s many parks. The film<br />
has its darker moments – we see a crow that<br />
has been trapped by the <strong>Tokyo</strong> Metropolitan<br />
Government and bagged for euthanization,<br />
for example – but these scenes all help to<br />
draw a fuller picture of the interaction<br />
between humans and the animals they share<br />
the city with.<br />
As one of the film's subjects states,<br />
"Japan has a love of nature, but it’s a kind of<br />
nature that is moderated by mankind – not<br />
necessarily a 'wild' nature." And that’s why<br />
the crow is a complicated beast for <strong>Tokyo</strong>: it<br />
is inadvertently “raised” on what we throw<br />
away, but we really can’t control it, despite<br />
our best efforts.<br />
Another figure who is equally fascinated<br />
by the city’s crows is Hajime Matsubara,<br />
an Affiliate Associate at <strong>Tokyo</strong> University's<br />
Intermediatheque. His first early exposure to<br />
the birds set him on the course of research<br />
that has become part of his life’s work: “One<br />
day in my childhood, I heard a flock of crows<br />
cawing to each other, on the way to their<br />
roost. It looked as if they were talking, so I<br />
tried to call them, imitating their call. A few<br />
seconds later, two or three crows ‘replied.’<br />
Of course, I’m not sure that they really called<br />
back or were calling to each other for their<br />
own purposes. Anyway, that was an impressive<br />
experience for me.”<br />
THE CROW HAS<br />
AN OUTSIDE<br />
PERSPECTIVE,<br />
AND SEES RIGHT<br />
THROUGH OUR<br />
BEAUTY AND OUR<br />
UGLINESS<br />
To this day, he remains impressed<br />
by their attitudes, which he often likens<br />
to those of humans, and their “limitless<br />
ability to adapt to any environment.” And<br />
despite the city’s best efforts to control the<br />
crow population, he believes that crows<br />
have done quite well in the city. Matsubara<br />
estimates that the crow population in <strong>Tokyo</strong><br />
is somewhere between 18,000 (the official<br />
estimate of the <strong>Tokyo</strong> Metropolitan Government)<br />
and 100,000.<br />
As <strong>Tokyo</strong> Waka explains, trapping and<br />
gassing crows has been the official city<br />
policy for keeping the crow population<br />
down, but Matsubara doesn’t believe this is<br />
the best long-term approach (and not just<br />
because the crows are getting wiser to the<br />
city’s traps). “I think garbage control is the<br />
most successful way. Because, if their food<br />
resource is decreased, their reproductive<br />
success and survival rate must decrease.<br />
If we continue piling up garbage bags on<br />
the street and keep carrying capacity high,<br />
nothing can stop the crows from breeding<br />
and coming into <strong>Tokyo</strong> from other places in<br />
Japan.”<br />
When asked about their intelligence, he<br />
responds cautiously: “That’s a very difficult<br />
question, because they are very smart<br />
in some aspects and very foolish when it<br />
comes to other matters. For example, crows<br />
are insightful and capable of long-term<br />
planning. Their cousins, the common raven<br />
have shown researchers that they can<br />
figure out how to untie bow knots simply<br />
by watching other individuals’ behavior.<br />
But, for example, they don’t recognize their<br />
own mirror images, which is something<br />
that even pigeons can do.” However, when<br />
it comes to feeding, and figuring out how to<br />
stay fed alongside human beings, he thinks<br />
that crows are geniuses: “In <strong>Tokyo</strong>, [when it<br />
comes to feeding strategies] crows can adapt<br />
to human behavior very quickly – sometimes<br />
within some minutes.”<br />
Perhaps one of the things that attracts<br />
us to crows is that they give us a seemingly<br />
limitless opportunity to interpret their behavior.<br />
For example, even though Matsubara<br />
watches his research subjects with a scientist’s<br />
eye, he says that he’s noticed two things<br />
that humans can learn from the resourceful<br />
crow: “‘Make the most of every opportunity<br />
and be careful in seeking them out’” and<br />
‘Love is forever.’ Why? Because crows eat<br />
everything – even if it is garbage. And crow<br />
pairs seldom separate.”<br />
And, after all, who’s to say that the crows<br />
aren’t considering us, as we go about our<br />
days? Akiyoshi Taniguchi, a Buddhist priest<br />
at Chohouin Temple in Kuramae, who was<br />
interviewed for <strong>Tokyo</strong> Waka – and who had<br />
a prize goldfish taken from the temple pond<br />
by a crow – strikes a philosophical note as he<br />
muses about how the crows of <strong>Tokyo</strong> might<br />
look at the two-legged creatures they share<br />
the city with: “They are observing us in their<br />
own way. The crow has an outside perspective,<br />
and sees right through our beauty and<br />
our ugliness.”<br />
For more information about <strong>Tokyo</strong> Waka,<br />
visit www.stylofilms.com/tokyowaka.html. To<br />
learn more about the Intermediatheque, visit<br />
www.intermediatheque.jp/en<br />
TOKYO WEEKENDER | JULY 2017 | 33