Mutant Cherries (Japan)

When I was a kid I grew up on Marvel Comics from the '60s (sourced from my older step brother's horde) and the '70s, and via The X-Men - as well as the 1970 movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes, starring James Franciscus and Charlton Heston - I learned early that radiation causes mutation.

In the case of The X-Men the process granted them some pretty nifty powers; in Beneath the Planet of the Apes the mutants might've been able to read minds, but it seemed to me at the time that they were also bludgeoned with the ugly stick several times over.

Being a Cold War kid meant you seriously expected the end of the world to come from nuclear warfare (since there were something like seven missiles aimed at every major city in the world) and/or the radioactive aftermath.

Mother Nature was another matter entirely.

I grew up being wary of bushfire risks in Australia, and we once caught a Greyhound bus south from the Gold Coast with flames on either side of the highway, but I'm too young to remember it and my mum paints her own memory vivid.


And yet while the earthquake and tsunami here were scary tastes of nature at its most volatile, nothing really prepares you for big business gone incompetent.

These are two cherries we got in a batch as a gift yesterday from a friend.

They're sourced from the prefecture next to Fukushima, where the nuclear plant is still spewing radioactive stuff while the inept owners (TEPCO) blunder on and refuse to give clear details about very much at all - including accurate reading updates regarding the levels of caesium-137 et al that are slipping out and across the country.


The cherries are seriously deformed; it's like those three cherries on top of the TEPCO logo were sent back to DNA design school but dropped out too early.

I went cherry picking when I was 18 back in Australia and in a week of plucking the buggers I never came across anything like these. The Siamese ones are particularly striking, but my daughter says the other one, with a poking out appendage, has an eye.

Speaking of eyes, it all reminds me of the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons.

Worrisome? Hmmm. I'll get back to you on that.

Asakusa: Reconstruction Town

Legend has it that back in the 7th century AD two brothers taking a fishing jaunt on the Sumida River managed to hook a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy - and no amount of lobbing the object back into the murky waters would relieve them of the burden.

So, Sensoji Temple - dedicated to that persistent goddess - was built nearby, in an area now known as Asakusa, right here in the heart of what’s now Tokyo.

A millennium on after its foundation, a rabbit-warren of streets just north of Asakusa - named Yoshiwara - developed into a licensed brothel area, whose denizens ranged from higher class courtesans to el cheapo prostitutes; by the latter half of the 19th century, the grounds of Asakusa Park were given over to a Kabuki theatre, jugglers, geisha houses, circus acts, photography booths, dancers, comic storytellers, performing monkeys, bars, restaurants, and archery stalls where sellers of sexual favours were reputed to have offered a rather wide variety of services.

While constantly the victim of nuisance customers like fire and earthquake, most of this disappeared in the conflagration of World War 2. So, while it rates as this city’s oldest temple area, the buildings themselves are amongst Tokyo’s newest places since WW2 bombing destroyed all the original stuff.

Just a few minutes’ walk from Asakusa Subway Station, the imposing Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), houses two effigies of the gods of thunder and wind—although this gate is in fact a replica built in 1960, as its predecessor was destroyed in an air-raid.


Visitors must pass under its improbably huge paper lantern, then negotiate the historic, forever-crowded Nakamise shopping arcade (a maze of stalls that’s over 200 meters long, full of faux Japanese historical odds and ends, yukata robes, fans, regional snacks, and plastic samurai swords), then pass by a five-storied pagoda (itself a 1973 reconstruction) and under the Hanzomon Gate, before even reaching Sensoji - which is usually awash in incense, used for purification, and guaranteed to induce a cough or two.

Even Sensoji Temple is itself a replica, constructed in 1958. Like the Kaminarimon and much of the rest of Tokyo, it was flattened in the Allied blanket bombing in 1945.

Still, you can’t complain about the location, and if some of the spice and sizzle of previous centuries has disappeared, you can still spot the occasional geisha.

There's also Kappabashi-dori (かっぱ橋), best reached from Tawaramachi Station on the Ginza Line. This is Tokyo’s restaurant wholesale district, and sells that insanely detailed plastic food you see displayed in Japanese eateries, metal spatulas, deep fryers, cool restaurant food banners, and an intense array of crockery.

And just nearby, on the banks of the Sumida itself - where that goddess statue came from—is the commercial HQ for a famed Japanese company that for some is itself deified.


Called the Asahi Building (not to be confused with the TV Asahi premises in Roppongi Hills) the place has what looks like a golden piece of crap atop, and is mecca for anyone who’s dabbled with Japanese beer or brushed up against the silver-shrouded contents of Asahi Super Dry - without doubt Japan's most famous international amber fluid.

Mmmm... beer.

Japanese Americans!

It's official: I'm typecast as a walk-on WWII era American MP, at least according to Japanese cinema.

If anybody actually bothers to read this hack blog you may've stumbled across a story about a previous outing I had in the movie I Want To Be A Shellfish (私は貝になりたい Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai, 2008), starring Yukie Nakama (Shinobi, Trick) and Masahiro Nakai (SMAP), directed by Katsuo Fukuzawa.

I did another film role yesterday, for 16 hours at the stunning, historic Tamioka silk mill in Gunma - just over 2 hours from Tokyo - for an upcoming TBS TV series called Japanese Americans (橋田壽賀子ドラマ) also directed by former rugby player Fukuzawa.

This time the stars were Nakama alongside SMAP's Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Death Note actor Kenichi Matsuyama, and veteran actress Pinko Izumi - who kindly offered donuts to me and Jon, the only other gaijin on the set.


Apparently this blog's ol' fave Kiichi Nakai is also starring in the show, but sadly he wasn't in the scenes they shot with the other actors (above) yesterday.

Yep, I'm an MP again - this time at the beginning of WWII, shepherding Japanese Americans into a detention camp. When will they figure out that my accent is all wrong for these rolls?

And, in the grand scheme of things, what's it all about anyway?

Well, this autumn TBS plans to broadcast the five-episode drama series, written by screenwriter Sugako Hashida, to coincide with their 60th anniversary. It apparently is set to focus on a Japanese family who emigrated to the United States around a century back and their tribulations with the advent of the Pacific War. You can read more about the plot HERE.

Crazy time as usual, particularly six MPs (none of whom were really American; think instead one Aussie, one Brit, and four fill-in Japanese crew members) lining up in formation and marching around a compound for a couple of hours on end - in the late evening in what felt like sub-zero temperatures, but probably wasn't... quite.

Ahhh, the things we do for art - and a fistful of yen. Go figure.