Who said Japan was running out of people?

I love Kyoto!  I am extremely grateful that I live in the Kansai Region where the likes of Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Nara are only a stones’ throw away from my humble little town (NB:  stones’ throw meaning a one hour car ride, followed by a 2-3 hour journey by train!  In Japan, that’s nothing to write home about, so I don’t.).

During my last trip to Kyoto, I had seen the posters plastered everywhere about a special exhibition coming to town in a few weeks’ time.  The exhibition was Vincent Van Gogh: a Paris Perspective.  The Japanese refer to Van Gogh as ‘Go-ho’, don’t ask me why.  If you said that word with a Glaswegian accent, that’s probably the closest description of how the Japanese say it.  If you try to pronounce it another way, it would sound as if you were chasing off a female, you have little respect for.  Anyway, it’s difficult enough for the Japanese to pronounce Proper Nouns in English let alone have to deal with a highly complex language like Dutch!  Van Gogh’s name contains two sounds that the Japanese find challenging to form at the best of times.  ‘V’ sounds like ‘B’ and ‘F’ sounds like ‘H’.  There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this and I’m sure Google would happily spit something out for you, if you asked nicely.    

So, anyway, I’m looking forward to returning to Kyoto to see the brilliant works of this talented, world renowned artist. 

Well, I returned in a fortnight, and the exhibition was fantastic.  A number of self-portraits and other works painted during Van Gogh’s time in Paris were expertly displayed on the walls of the gallery.   It was well worth the 1400 yen entry fee.  However, I was once again reminded of the ridiculously crazy number of people living here.  Apparently, the population is in decline.  Not that I noticed.  

I did expect to queue up for my ticket.  It is a rare thing indeed to find myself at the front of any line in Japan.  Most often I can barely see the velvet rope.  However, it always works out in the end as it did on this occasion and after a short time of waiting I found myself in front of the ticket counter and out of the rain.  However, what I was not expecting to see was half of Japan already in the gallery!  Shuffling along in a queue is tolerable if you know what’s waiting for you at the end.  Shuffling along in a gallery full of fine artwork that you can’t see because of the countless bodies in front of you is not.  I wanted to get close enough to see the detail of the brush strokes, but my efforts proved futile against the constant stream of people in and around me.  In such an atmosphere, you are not afforded the luxury of staring at a picture till the cows come home.   

On the one hand the scene before me demonstrated art appreciation at its’ monumental best.  On the other hand, appreciating art in a densely populated country like Japan does seem to have its’ drawbacks.   Japanese people love their galleries and museums, and it’s great to see them turn out en masse to support such places.  But attempting to enjoy these experiences alongside them has literally cramped my style.  Freshly pressed clothes are wrinkled in minutes in such close proximity to so many people.   If I had to ‘metaphorise’ it, I would say that it was more like a box of matches rather than a can of sardines.  Everyone conducts themselves in an orderly fashion, eyes front, feet together, while secretly seething inside, that for all their compliant ‘following of the arrows’, they still can’t see a damn thing!  And yet you know for certain that you would walk into a broom cupboard without hesitation if those blasted arrows pointed to one.  Priceless.  

Everything here is on a grand scale, so it’s not a case of the venue being too small.  It’s simply that despite the wide and open spaces of such facilities, there are just too many people to accommodate.  I guess the Japanese are accustomed to attending events where ‘standing room only’ usually applies.  Through their eyes, it is a minor inconvenience that need not spoil everything else. 

I decided at that point that I was going to be pro-active and get up close and personal to these Van Gogh’s.  Being the Year of the Snake, I tried to assume the form of one by slithering around people, and trying to contort my body so that I could fit into the gaps that were left vacant by people that had moved on. 

Imagine, if you will, a non-Japanese woman, significantly taller than the average Japanese person trying and failing miserably at discreetly manoeuvring her way through a room full of Japanese people, as if she was a frickin’ ninja!  It was nothing short of comical but ssssssseveral times my efforts were rewarded and I was ssssssurprised to find myself directly in front of a painting!  While admiring one of Van Gogh’s Self-Portraits, I suddenly remembered that I had the song, ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean on my ipod, in my bag.  Then I did a strange thing, although if truth be told, it wasn’t entirely out of character.  I put my headphones on, powered up my ipod, found the track and pushed play.  I walked around from one room to the next with this depressing song blaring in my ears, as Vincent Van Gogh tracked my movements with his hauntingly sad eyes, from one Self-Portrait to the next. 

Note to Self:  Never do that again.   There’s quirky and then there’s weird.  This is not quirky.