... or should I stay ... (79/365, 20 Mar 2022)
That could be a question for a lot of things I suppose, but in my case it is one I ask whenever there is a book fair, or a book shop, especially if said books are secondhand or antiquarian. Books have been around me, and I have been around books for as long as I can remember. I probably ended up as an academic just so I can continue to have reasons to find, read, buy, and write books.
This weekend is the spring equinox, and is in fact a public holiday in Japan. I noticed in passing during the week that the Jimbocho district in Tokyo, basically bookshops for as far as the eye can see, was holding its annual book fair this weekend. Now, yes of course, one can go to Jimbocho any day of the week and the shops are there but something something about a book fair, just makes it a bit more interesting. Do I need more books? No, not really, but you just never know what you'll find. So off I went.
And in one of life's little coincidences, I found myself back at Takashimadaira, site of last week's danchi post, because the train line, the Mita-sen, stops at Jimbocho. And the Mita-sen is a little bit nostalgic for me, it is one of the first trains I caught by myself when I had just arrived in Tokyo and headed to the University to meet people. My host at the time took me to the uni, and left, and said 'see you when you get home'... talk about thrown in the deep end. Anyway, I found my way back, but I digress.
The train line itself has barely changed in all those years (we are talking mid-80s here), just like the danchi last week. It is a part of Tokyo I reckon that remains just as it was, but without the Edo flair of Asakusa or Ueno. It is very 1960s Tokyo.
So step off at Jimbocho, with many people who look like they've had the same idea. Well, of course. Some have trolley bags...they've done this before I see.
I was initially pretty restrained, 'just looking' through the stalls that various shops had set up outdoors (partly a Covid measure I suspect, but also a good way to move around), and probably wandered by a dozen such stalls, being strong, thinking, all good, I don't really need these books, although they are very interesting...
And then, oomph, it happened, I walked into a stall with a couple significant and relevant politics texts, looked up at the sign, to see it was a specialist history, politics, philosophy shop. Uh-oh. And yes dear reader, this is where I bought most of the books I had to carry home, back on that train, back to home base. (Not having a car is a very good way to limit your purchases, there is that...)
Trouble is, I have rather broad interests when it comes to my research areas (that's before I even look at things I'm interested in outside my research), Japanese politics, Australia-Japan relations, Japanese security, and as my work has reached back into history, the possibilities go on and on. That was the 'problem' at hand in this particular shop. I stopped at the point where I thought 'I can carry no more'...
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| This is the key pile, the big book on Australia immediately caught my eye; There are two books there on proposals for Asia-Pacific Communities; two others deal with historical aspects of colonialism and communities (yes, probably rather racist) and one that investigates Article 9 and early postwar debates on Japanese security. |
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| This is the 'big book' on Australia, published in 1943, authored by the Kanematsu group said to be the first Japanese company to set up in Australia in the late 1800s; it runs to almost 600 pages with incredible detail, as all the books on Australia from this era did. |
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| A little more detail on those two books on proposals for Asia-Pacific Communities, one co-authored by Okita Saburo, a key figure in my PhD thesis, and the other co-edited by the fellow who was supposed to supervise my research at Todai, back in the day, Watanabe Akio; these are quite significant books in terms of the history of developing postwar communities in the region, a key part of the history of the relationship that tend to be overlooked these days. When I talk about what the bilateral relationship could be, much comes from the work done by Okita and others in this era. |
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| This! A detailed analysis of the 1989 and 1990 elections. I was here for the 1989 election where Doi Takako inspired many women to run for election--it was significant for the role of women in politics at the time as was the following election, the results of which heralded the disruptions to politics in the 1990s. Authored by the Yomiuri Shimbun group, it was in a time when they weren't quite the right wing government apologists they've become. |
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| These two fall into the 'interesting, broadly within my interests' grouping; on the right a book on the politics of words; on the left, the art and representations of Japanese people and life by Frenchman Georges Bigot, an illustrator who lived in Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; if you are looking for early impression of Japanese people present to the 'West'...here they are |
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| Is it even a day book shopping if I don't find something on whaling? |
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| These two, quite historical too. On the left, significant early activist Wakamatsu Shizuko, happy to pick up a book on early women activists of any type; and on the right, a set of lectures on Fukuzawa Yukichi, considered by some to be the 'father' or at least a significant political and philosophical figure of the Meiji period. His work has featured many times in my research on early Japan-Australia relations, I'm sure there will be something of interest in here... |
I did work, for a time, in a Brisbane secondhand bookshop. Although the working conditions were problematic on several levels, the thing about working with books, is that you soon realise you have to read so many, eventually, and there is so little time...and imagine that when it multiplies into other languages.
Today's pics on the Canon EOS M5, 18-150mm, to give it a run. I had hoped to take a few pics around the streets but the 'no photos allowed' signs were plastered rather thickly around so I refrained. But I'll be back. Maybe tomorrow.
