Bar-hopping with my friend

Tuesday, I went bar-hopping with my friend at Kichijyouji, Tokyo. We talked about art etc. Then, eating Yakitori, we promised next time we visit Tokyo national museum before go to bar. The discussion we talked that sacred art is the most moving art. The museum is best to enjoy the feeling in Tokyo. Luckily. the museum hold a special exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci in June. We will see Annunciation etc as well as Buddha statues.



The friend lives in Spain and in Japan. We go to a spanish bar at first and I drank a kind of spanish wine called sherry. It has quite good flavor. Then we went to a Yakitori bar named "Iseya" near Inogashira-park. The mood was like Japan in 1950s. I often pass on the bar but it was first time to drop in the bar.



We discussed a lot of things. One of them is that there are many artists who don't understand what art is in his area. He said many mix up copying spanish is the art. He said if he criticizes them he will have been regarded as like "unpatriotic". I understood what he wanted to say. I replied "The person can call them as unpatriotic is you". Not apply only to his area, there are many Japanese get lost and can't digest western culture. Many philosophers say Japanese schools should teach philosophy　decently. I haven't thought about it for real because half-baked philosophy is danger, but I thought they may should do it.



When I was 20 years or so, Okamoto Taro, who is my favorite contemporary artist, said European realism is not realism because it is not real for Japanese! When I heard this, I became hilarious. He studied in France and I think he understood what he is. However, even now, there are Japanese admire realism as realism. It is sure when I saw realism, I felt it is not realism. So, I laughed. As I recall, Japanese middle school taught it as realism. It was utter folly when I think back.



There are many people don't capture the essence and accept definition as true. Although I often can't elude, I think people who can evaluate it with own mind can criticize in the true sense of the term. So, it is matter of course that Japanese criticize it with different way from Europeans. Such an identity crisis is an illness of Japanese. Lamentable Lack of philosophy! Hmm, I think Japanese still have Japanese spirituality but lost own thinking way in many area.



He always feels he is a Japanese. Especially, his area is Spanish one. He seems to ask himself almost every day. And he told me that, in Spain, he have been asked "Where is Japan in China?" by a Spanish. haha.



Today, I thought of international exchange in this region. That is, relation between Japan, China and Korea. Perhaps it was a different from nowadays one because racism is originally a part of Western culture. I would write about it later.



Well, gentleman, take care not to suffer from diabetes!



I took the photo at Koku-Koen. It is a photo of plum bloom.