Virtual Scholars
An imagined form of scholarship…Archive for August, 2008
In Search of Darkest Peru
“I’m not a foreigner,” exclaimed Paddington hotly. “I’m from Darkest Peru.”
This is a line from the first chapter of the new Paddington book (written to mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the bear), which neatly encapsulates the delightful paradox of Paddington: utterly ‘exotic’, yet thoroughly home-grown. As Stephen Fry is oft quoted as saying, ‘He is a British institution’. It makes complete sense that Paddington can be both from Darkest Peru, yet also not a foreigner. ‘Darkest Peru’ is an entirely ‘home-made’ concept, coined by the author of the books, Michael Bond (who at 83 has written Paddington Here and Now, which is purposely given a more contemporary setting and foregrounds Paddington’s immigrant status). The phrase might well be thought to cause offence, but that is perhaps too easy a thing to say. It seems much more interesting to consider how Paddington represents a more subtle representation, how he seems to suggest a whole ‘other’ kind of subjectivity. A review in the New Statesman (12 June 2008) offers one alternative reading of his status:
But what do Peruvians think about the fact that their representative in the UK – the only one of their countrymen considered worthy of a monument here – is a hapless refugee who ignores Peru’s feted national cuisine in favour of marmalade sandwiches and cocoa? Are they upset by the description “Darkest Peru” – particularly as Bond, who coined the phrase, has never visited the country? More than 35 million Paddington books have been sold globally in the 50 years since they first appeared, but the bear is not so famous in Latin America. Has Paddington caused offence at home?
Apparently not. The Peruvian embassy was insistent: “Paddington Bear is very important to British people, so the name Peru has a positive association for them from childhood. And I think ‘Darkest Peru’ is a great phrase. It has come to represent exoticism, so it’s very cool.” Peruvians represent less than 0.1 per cent of immigrants in the UK, but Paddington’s refugee status is no cause for concern. “People have been moving around for centuries,” says the embassy spokesman.
In fact, the Peruvian attitude towards Lima’s most famous bear is so warm that when HarperCollins, which publishes the Paddington stories, held a reception at the embassy recently, officials helped him out with his immigration woes. “In the book, there is a problem with Paddington’s papers, so the Peruvian ambassador gave Michael Bond a passport for him,” explains the spokesman. “He will not have those difficulties again.”
Of course the spokesman was also careful to point out: ‘It’s not a real passport. He is a fictional bear.’ Nonetheless, the quandaries which circle around Paddington’s status are revealing and I think - like the bear’s own nature – suggest a certain optimism.
The article quoted above also notes how ‘[n]ew versions of popular children’s books generally introduce a token ethnic character or two to reflect the diversity of Britain today.’ Examples are given of an Asian couple, Ajay and Nisha Bains, who run the railway station in Postman Pat; and the introduction of George’s Anglo-Indian daughter, Jyoti, in the new Famous Five books. Numerous other examples could be cited.
Yet, writing back in the late 1950s, Michael Bond ‘had immigrants in his tales from the start. Not only is the duffel-coat-wearing protagonist a stowaway from “Darkest Peru”, but one of his closest friends is also an incomer: Mr Gruber, the antiques dealer who shares elevenses with the bear every morning, is Hungarian’. The Browns who ’take in’ Paddington are of course a model ‘liberal’, forward-thinking family, against which all sorts of post-colonial (and gendered) arguments can be raised (not least the fact that they impose a name upon the bear, because – by his own admission – his ‘real’ name is difficult to pronounce). Yet, the ease with which Paddington is able to assert an alternative category within the dominant order is, I think, of real significance. Looking back, I can see how Paddington was for me a very genuine (anti-)hero of the symbolic order in which I grew up. He was able to foreground his difference, yet simultaneously walk entirely free of any kind of categorisation. To apply Barthes’ term of the Neutral, which is an ‘idea of a structural creation that would defeat, annul, or contradict the implacable binarism of the paradigm by means of a third term’, Paddington represents an unprejudiced other. Importantly, Barthes’ term of the Neutral is not about blandness or a process of levelling things out. Quite the contrary, he suggests it refers to ‘intense, strong, unprecedented states. “To outplay the paradigm” is an ardent, burning activity’, it is everything ‘that baffles the paradigm’. The exploits of the duffle-coated bear are surely of this order and, particular to the concept of the Neutral, there is an optimistic sense of a happy, peaceful untying of meaning and representation. It is about ‘looking for [our] own style of being present to the struggles of [our] time’ – something Paddington does with such affable charm.
Yet, the need for Paddington to exclaim ‘hotly’ in the new book that he is both ’not a foreigner’ and yet equally ‘from Darkest Peru’ does capture something more contemporary and less optimistic. I am led to think of Rageh Omaar’s book, Only Half of Me, in which he writes about growing up a Muslim in Britain. Like the invention of ‘Darkest Peru’, Omaar describes Edgware Road (which was round the corner from where he lived as a child) as London’s ‘Little Arabia’. It is both not foreign, yet equally of a quite different order. The saddening thing is that this other space, rather than having been a means to free up the categories by which we live, has become contested and caricatured. Prejudice and ignorance is nothing new, but what is different, Omaar suggests, ‘is that these caricatures are no longer a matter of prejudice, they are now a matter of life and death for all of us’. And he adds: ‘The call has been for a dialogue within Islam to try to find the answers … But there is no point in pretending that the responsibility rests only with British Muslims … Where are the equally prominent calls for a dialogue with Islam and Muslims?’. There are a number of potentially shifting categories here, because at the heart of the book – as given in the title – is the crucial point that even within ourselves there can be the need for cross-cultural dialogue. ‘Only half of me is the person you think I am’. We need more stories that reveal the complexities of identity and their dialogues. We need to continually reacquaint ourselves with the very heart of ‘Darkest Peru’.
My Dad, whose history I know I still do not know, came to the UK around about the time of Paddington’s own arrival (the pre-history of which is similarly vague). Of course I never saw the connections growing up, but it intrigues me now that of all the various interests I had as a child we both shared an affection for the bear. Perhaps this ‘final’ instalment of the Paddington stories offers a chance for me to reclaim something of my past, my ‘roots’. I will forever remember being picked up early from school by my dad (perhaps it is my ‘Rosebud‘ moment, as we get at the end of Citizen Kane). He rarely if ever came to collect me. This was a special occasion (of course today being taken out of school early would no doubt be frowned upon!). He had found in the paper an advertisement for a Paddington Grotto in Selfridges, in London. It was an evening out, just for the two of us. Ironically, I do not recall anything of the actual grotto, just the fact we went up there together. We used public transport all the way. I still remember fidgeting at the bus stop, in the cold, waiting for the first part of the journey to begin and to officially get away from having been at school.
My Dad never read any of the Paddington stories. He may well have seen some of the TV programmes, but essentially – as far as I can tell – his affection for Paddington was entirely intuitive. And he still keeps my Paddington Bear (the best Christmas present I ever had, which came with real little Wellington boots!). Bizarrely, he stands, somewhat battered and forlorn, in the kitchen by the backdoor. Occasionally, if we talk about him, I sense a little dismay, as if my Dad feels I have abandoned my bear. Yet, equally there is ever that note of optimism. My Dad is and will always be his custodian. I know where to find him. It is, then, perhaps not so strange that everyday I seem to be searching for an equivalent phrase to Paddington’s: “I’m not a foreigner, I’m from Darkest Peru.” I’m not a foreigner (that much I can, must say), but as yet I’m not sure what ‘Darkest’ place I might suggest I’m from. When I work it out I look forward to the occasion I might state it ‘hotly’.
…and a Gorilla on top!
What, you might ask, is this huge cast of a gorilla (if not King Kong himself) doing on top of a building (with an opticians on the ground floor) in the middle of a mostly residential area? …and what is more, what is it doing here on this blog? I could go for some pyschoanalytic reading about the repressed forces of a suburban district just glancing out. Or about a superego that has been casting its shadow upon me all this time without my knowing. But, no, I won’t go for either of those (unconvincing) options, or anything like it. Instead, I offer these images simply as a final, playful moment of decoration, to round off these entries written in Tokyo over the last month. The philosopher Santayana once said something about even animals have their festive moments (when they chase their tail, or dance momentarily for no good reason!). I think this is just one of those light festive moments too.
Beyond Belief (Cubed)
(1) Make-believe (and its paper trail): As I made my way into Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Arts I couldn’t miss the huge foil-like structure lurking outside, playing tricks with the surrounding architecure. A shimmering leaflet (which I thought far more beautiful and alluring than the sculpture itself) explained how the artist, Kimihiko Okada, ‘experiments to change the ways people perceive space with the materials he uses in his art works aside from his work as an architect’.
The structure we are told is made with a ‘complex and ambiguous geometry, and the object employs a thin, integrated metal membrane’. The purpose is ‘to reflect rain, wind, and other atmospheric conditions, as well as the movement of the sun, color of the sky, and other quiet changes in the environment’. Laudable aims no doubt, but the harsh light that bounced off the work didn’t really seem to capture necessarily ‘quiet changes’, if anything the crumpled surface seemed only to pull its surroundings into the body of the piece, whilst emitting only white light in exchange. I wouldn’t want to be facetious and ask where the baking tray had got to, but of course the remark hangs there…
I pressed on to the exhibition I’d come to see: Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata/Miyazaki Animation. The layout or ‘blueprint’ design was something Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki introduced to the production process of animation films in 1974, when working at the time on the TV animated series Heidi a Girl of the Alps. Unlike actual animation cells, the layout or blueprint is more a schematic of a series of shots and how they will be achieved. Each individual piece of paper gives the relevant informtion of a scene. Against backdrop sketches the key animated elements, particularly characters, tend to be drawn faintly in red. Also written onto the sheets are details of relative positions of elements, direction on actions, indictations on whether or not there will be camera movement and effects etc. Thus, the purpose of the blueprint is to provide an overview of a sequence and crucially is used to ensure a greater sense of unity for a given production. Indeed, the introduction of the blueprint was a direct response to the ever more specialised and divided process of production.
The exhibition presented some 1,300 blueprints for Studio Ghibli films ranging from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to their latest release Pnyo on the Cliff by the Sea (which had opened just at the time I attended the museum). I was half-expecting the sheer overload of images from the films – indeed that was what I got. Room after room with rows and rows of thin pieces of paper on display. Whilst a mixed audience, many were true fans - their faces lighting up as they recognised the films from the drawings on display. There were also a number of young couples. Seemingly it was a place for a date! I can’t say I am a ‘fan’ of anime as such, though I have certainly enjoyed watching the films I have seen. I would be keen to follow up a few lines of interest to do with hybridity as a form of representation and also a link I can’t quite yet articulate but would like to pursue between pictures of ‘floating world’ woodblock prints and the visual array and movement of anime, particularly in Miyazaki’s work. My problem, of course, is that I can’t face having to wade through the existing body of literature; for me it is a ’body’ and not a ’field’ of study, the latter would be too open and fluid a description. I left the exhibition feeling a little empty-handed. Nonetheless, from such close scrutiny I marvelled at the ability to conjure up faces, expressions and the flow of clothing from only very simple and few lines. A wonderful art. I also couldn’t help thinking it staggering, not only the sheer number of sheets of drawings (as mere pre-cusors to the films), but also the amount of beautiful detail of the drawings, which were after all only ‘blueprints’. All this paperwork that goes into making an unbelievable world believable!
(2) ‘the price we pay’: I made my way on to Ginza. In particular I wanted to visit Maison Hermès, a building that is clad entirely of glass blocks . R. had taken me there when we had been together in Tokyo, part of the informal – and at times accidental – architectural trail he took me along. Across the street, a number of floors up R. had spotted the scene of a plush, red cafe. We went up there and he took a photograph. This time, however, it was not there, it had been refurbished and made into something far less inviting and certainly not engulfing.
On the top floor of Hermès is their gallery, Le Forum (a tangible manifestation of corporate social responsibility). As I made my way up I saw a lovely wallet on sale. It took me a little while to convert from Japanese yen (I couldn’t quite believe it for a while). The simple, thin wallet was on sale for around £1000, which took my breath away (there would be nothing left to put in it I thought!). I then reached the gallery – doubly out of breath – to encounter an installation ironically titled Leftovers.
The piece was made up of a long line of bamboo leaves, upon which a repeated sequence of food had been laid out. And next to each of the leaves was a sheet of paper with the print of someone’s feet. Whilst all very similar, each ‘place-setting’ was unique, both the footprints and the state of the food. In some cases the food had been spilled and mixed up, but mostly it remained barely touched. A leaflet showed a diagram of each of the food stuffs as representing different things: beauty, culture, hunger, choice, history, future, identity, taste, ‘…..’ and space. Presumably the manner in which the foods had been touched related to thoughts about these different elements. I didn’t read the leaflet until I had left the building, but even if I had, for me the leaves conjured up a sense of rural living, with connotations of limited food supply, yet all counterbalanced by an uncomfortable sense of food having been wasted, as it lay discarded, half-eaten. We are brought to believe/see what we don’t necessarily want to believe/see.
(3) Religious belief: I love subways. I love the mix of life forms (and the way the advertisements are really large, yet seem to just jostle with the to and fro of everything around).
As I waited on a platform for my train – listening to ‘Heart’s Filthy Lesson‘ by David Bowie (aptly a line rings out ‘I think I’ve lost my way’) – I was accosted by a band of merry Christians from the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, who told me they were here on a ‘short mission‘ to convert the already converted 1% of Christians in Japan (well that can’t be right, but that was how it sounded). Ironically, it seemed to be the fact that I was not from Japan that prompted them to say hello. “From England, wow!” …on having to admit I was not a Christian (at least not that I know of, and despite its ideology underpinning much of the culture I know), I was asked: ”Are you Jewish?” – accompanied with a light pat on my shoulder as if it might be equally difficult to admit; or perhaps, had I been, an acknowledgement of some kind of respect. It was difficult to tell. As we all climbed aboard the incoming train, I felt the best course of action was to say (truthfully, though lacking in all knowledge) that I was ‘interested’ in Buddhism and Shintoism. “…oh okay… I know they have a concept of Nothingness. It makes me think of flat-lining on a heartrate monitor!’. I did my best to explain (but where my ideas come from I do not know) that the concept really refers to an all inclusive interconnectedness (which is not easily translated across to the Ego-based religious concepts typical of the West). The person who had been the one to initiate the ‘hello’ then told me about a wonderful film she had been watching prior to her departure to Tokyo: “…it was about the tea ceremony, you know they have a tea ceremony thing here? …well it turns out it might be related to the fact that a long time ago Christians had to hide – they were not allowed here”. There was some mention of the sign of the cross in relation to the typical tea house design and of grass left to grow through to hide the said sign. All fascinating I thought. Just as the train was arriving at my stop, I asked after the film title so I could see it for myself, but she couldn’t quite remember. She quickly tried to get her husband’s attention, who was further up the train carriage. He shouted out some director’s name, but I couldn’t quite catch it and then it was time for me to step out. As the automatic doors were about to close the woman grasped the air and said she’d pray for me. I believe(d) her. I am grateful to meet those who exhibit ‘true’ belief, if only because I wonder what it must feel like.
Slavoj Žižek, in his book On Belief, writes of a debate on the Larry King Show between a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Southern Baptist. Both the rabbi and the priest, he explains, ‘expressed their hope that the unification of religions is feasible since, irrespective of his or her official creed, a thoroughly good person can count on divine grace and redemption’. The Baptist, however, ‘insisted that, according to the letter of the Gospel, only those who “live in Christ” by explicitly recognizing themselves in his address will be redeemed, which is why, as he concluded with a barely discernible contemptuous smile, “a lot of good and honest people will burn in hell”‘. The basic premise of his book ‘is that, cruel as this position may sound, if one is to break the liberal-democratic hegemony and resuscitate an authentic radical position, one has to endorse its materialist version’. It is a refreshing commentary, for surely the need to return to issues of faith and belief vis-a-vis ideological critique is vital. However, it leaves me wondering, is Žižek’s pursuit of a ‘materialist version’ of belief (and his ‘mission’ to overturn today’s Empire) going to have to come down to only one ‘authentic radical position’? The near-missed exchange of a director’s name, which momentarily did genuinely interest me, suggests to me something much more ambiguous.
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