Japanese spirit 3: final

While the artist and my mom were into their serious conversation about Mt. Koya and Shingon Buddhism, I was taking a picture of everything in his studio. I was totally like a tourist inside of his house. Right, after having been away from Japan for a long time, I have been missing this kind of Japanese spirit. Or, I have been looking for it even before then. I never liked Tokyo. I was not comfortable with the society and life style, like fully crowded trains, robot-like people in a same type of clothing in a same routine, hierarchy, and so forth. I had been physically, mentally constrained and suffocated. Every time I went back to the city, the feeling of confusion and hatred towards Tokyo became worse. The appearance of the city has been changing radically. New modern architectures, and hundreds of hundreds of new boutiques have been built up. It has been absolutely disgusting to observe. Why do we need so many boutiques? Surely, people seem obsessed with fashion, yet to me, they don't look happy with even a fancy, high-end dresses. Above all, everyone looks the same anyway; men with a cheap looking suit, women with a same style of make-up, hair color and fashion. I hate that almost every women die their hair in brown. I hate the fact that though they are so much in to fashion, too afraid to be individual. Why like this? Since when? Every step I took, this question mark is banging my head and upsetting my stomach. What happened to our beautiful traditions in this country like Shrines, Temples, Kimono, Black hair, sense of beauty, and sensitivity in people? Did we all lose them, as we lost the war? Was the US invasion only the reason? Then, do those Japanese living in Japan who are desperate to be like westerns know about the western culture beside the fashion? I was questioning why our great things were left behind and became something to just view, not to live or cope with. I am not saying that we need to live like in the ancient manner, yet at least; we could take and use some of them in a daily life. A daily life level, yes, which is it. That's exactly what I am missing and exactly what this artist is doing. Though he is not living in a traditional house, or not wearing Kimono, he is accommodating the forgotten traditions to contemporary life. He takes over what his grand father as a Miya-daiku has left in this country, the great spirit of the craftsmanship. Lost his parents in his young age, he had to carry what all his ancestors tried to tell. I assume that it would not have been easy path as an artist or as a human being, yet he found the way. Then, this spirit deeply manifests through his work. Thus, the work becomes genuine, touching one's heart. His work doesn’t need any explanation. After my mom and I left, we are speechless for a while. We didn't need to talk about it. Given some important ritual stuff from Mt. Koya by him, she was grateful. The first thing I did for art in Japan wasn't only about art. It became the most significant event in my entire trip this time. Since I have been in NY, I myself have been ignoring Japan. Now, this event gave me an opportunity to face it again, evaluate it again, and identify myself as Japanese. More importantly, it woke me up to the point where my feeling of passion to bridge the gap between forgotten and now, and west and east became much stronger.