One evening the mist grows thick, like a pea-souper, and chases everyone inside. I do everything to keep warm, including baking and eating a large sweet potato. Still the cold is uncomfortable, so I dress as warmly as I can and head off for a brisk walk, down silent streets that are now very familiar, hoping to raise my body temperature and thereby escape the fear of freezing.
I recall my first evening high in the European Alps. I had climbed to a deserted and dilapidated climbing hut, and settled in for the night. I tried to eat, but the exhaustion and thin air took away my appetite. The cold was relentless, so I lay in my sleeping bag, fully clothed. This didn’t work, so I searched my rucksack for spare clothing and put that on too. Finally, I pulled the empty rucksack up around the foot of my sleeping bag, for whatever extra heat conservation it would provide. I slept fitfully for a couple of hours, half-consciously trying to ignore the cold. At about midnight I suddenly woke, shivering convulsively and driven to distraction by the cold, and afraid, knowing there was nothing more I could do to mitigate it, and actually fearing for my survival. When dawn came and the sun broke clear and bright against the peaks around me, I headed straight back down to the valley below.
As I walk between the dark rice fields, with the breath curling over my shoulder, and the mist swirling around my feet, I try to assemble my thoughts about Japan. Our naturalistic fantasy says that nature is good and that anything that we do not like or cannot accept must be a dysfunction or perversion of nature and, therefore, ought to be corrected. This attitude, like the belief in a benevolent god, must swiftly perish in the face of continuous and calamitous natural disasters, as have been visited upon Japan. In fact the view of nature that is more likely to develop is a finely tuned and situational appreciation of it, a recognition of its essential moral neutrality, its caprice, and an automatic acceptance of the need to constrain it.
The replacement of things natural with their virtual substitutes is a strange and long-standing practice in Japan. It is a phenomenon not limited to Japan, of course, but it is here that it finds its most extreme forms of expression. And even though the process is gathering pace all over the world, Japan remains in the vanguard, and this may be why we find it such a fascinating place – it shows us where we are going.
In all cases of substitution, there is something good that must be recreated, say a view of Mount Fuji, but there is something bad about it too, say the fact that Mount Fuji just happens to be too far from where we are – so we make a new version, which has the positive characteristics of Mount Fuji, but none of the drawbacks. There are three parts to this.
There is the ideal original, which is truly an ideal, in that it has only ever existed in our imaginations or dreams.
There is the actual original, which has disadvantages that we sometimes cannot ignore or hide behind a barrier.
There is the virtual substitute, which has only the ideal qualities, and is the dream made real.
This triangle underlies both the old and new Japan, linking them tightly, and remaining hidden to most eyes, even Japanese eyes. We may catch glimpses of the triangle here and there and think we are seeing Japanese imitation, or the need for continuous improvement in arts and business.
The crafted substitute becomes the hyper-reality because the experience of it is closer to our memory, rose-tinted and therefore emotionally reinforced, of the original. By contrast, experience of the original will be dirtied and confused by all those aspects we didn’t remember or want to see. And the more we experience the substitute and not the original, the more real the substitute becomes and the more the original is forgotten. And then it is probably time for something else to be created in place of the substitute, and so it goes on.
Is there a danger that the fantasy and reality become confused when our experiences are no longer grounded? Probably.
Is the substitute an outcome of the process of improvement? Yes, because sometimes the original is made redundant.
Is the substitute meant to hide reality? No, because the reality can always be ignored.
Is the substitute just an invention? No, because the original always exists in some way.
Is the substitute digital or physical? It can be either.
Is the substitute a machine to replace a life? Sometimes, look at the robots.
Is the substitute an ideal? It is meant to be, look at Kyoko Date, but it sometimes fails.
Is the substitute a compromise? Sometimes, look at the virtual pony tours, or My Prince Charming.
Does the substitute duplicate something already existing? No, duplication is not possible for ideals.
Does the substitute reconstitute something lost? Yes, such as a hymen or Nagoya Castle.
Does the substitute refer, acknowledge, or allude to something else? Yes, look at view gardens, or Huis Ten Bosch.
Does the substitute still use the original, but make it more acceptable, or easier to get along with? Yes, look at user interfaces, and virtual machines.
Is the substitute a representation that doesn’t attempt to reconstruct the original? Yes, what else are ukiyo-e?
Does the substitute buffer us from raw experience? Yes, look at the photography mania of Japanese fathers and young girls.
Does the substitute pretend to be itself? Perhaps this is true of Kyoto, but is it the Kyoto of the mind that is doing this?
Is the substitute a perfect replica of something that was once in its place? Often. Look at all the castles and reconstructed buildings.
Is the substitute a remnant of former glory? In the case of Kyoto itself, yes – a few relict oases in a desert of concrete.
Is the substitute something that is kept new so that it cannot metamorphosise into something else? Yes, Ise-jingu springs to mind.
Is the substitute made non-existent by context? Yes, look at kabuki stage-hands and bunraku puppeteers.
Is the substitute able to conquer the feeling that ‘something is missing’? Often, and increasingly so, but not always.
What is the ultimate destiny of the substitute? To become the reality.
