A "Dodes-Ka-Den" Moment

DODES' KA DEN. A young boy, Rokkuchan, stands in a shop doorway--the windows behind him reflect the passing trolley. He smiles. He goes inside and joins in Buddhist prayers with his mother. Everywhere on the walls are children's paintings of trolleys. His mother seems uncomfortable in his presence, sad. HE leaves the room, and then he pantomimes dressing himself in a uniform and goes outside. He stands in a pit filled with what seems to be garbage and junk.

Outside the little boy, Rokkuchan, pretends to ready his "trolley car," and then he climbs on board. All the sound effects are realistic. He starts out--great point of view shot--he repeats "Dodes' ka Den," as he walks--the sound of the trolley wheels going across the tracks. Kids throw rocks at him as he passes by. They call him the crazy trolley kid. As he moves along a straight path, it is clear from the surroundings that this is a shanty town in the garbage dump. He parks his trolley and the ride is over.

I was in Tokyo this past week for an event and was staying just next to Tokyo Station, the main train station in town. Each day as I walked under the train tracks to the International Forum, where the event was, I heard the sound of the train wheels running over the tracks and all I could think of was this compelling little Kurosawa movie from 1970 and the image of the little boy, dressed as a conductor running down the train tracks repeating over and over, Dodes Ka'Den, Dodes Ka'Den. (It really does sound just like that when you listen to the train going over the tracks).

There is a certain kind of efficiency mixed with isolation, not only in the story, but in the way that Japan appears to me. Even with so many people there is a kind of loneliness, not the loneliness of a foreigner portrayed in "Lost in Translation" (that's there too), but a feeling of being lost that sometimes creeps into the eyes of people I see in the streets, at their jobs, just going about the daily business of being.

There is that cultural stigma of "face" or "shame" that is to be avoided - of creating jobs for people for the sake of making it appear that there is no one left behind. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it creates some odd situations where you might have six young men, all dressed alike, standing behind a table, handing out something, and realize that this could have just as easily been done by one person. It's in those situations, as you sit and watch this for a short time that you start to see the feeling of loneliness that is engendered.

It may be one reason why the Japanese are so good at creating fantasy lives, fantasy games and why media plays such a huge role in the street scenes of Tokyo, with huge video walls and incessant lights flashing. It's a way to escape the drudgery and feel the electrons of the city pulsing.

I love going to Tokyo. It never fails to fascinate me. It also never fails to depress me in some ways - seeing the culture being subsumed by this kind of post-modern world where it is all about bigness and brightness and very little about humanity. At least, that was how I felt this week.