Three views of Japan

Summing up an entire country with a single anecdote is even more stupid than letting one story stand for a person, so I'm not even going to attempt it.

Sometimes, though, a single moment can serve to illuminate a country or person, to show some of the place's or person's complexity and character.

Here's a moment that did that for me in Japan.

Standing in the center of the overpass right behind the Harajuku station, facing the station, you can watch the famous Harajuku girls posing. Some stay in character through endless camera clicks; others huddle behind ropes and take their roles only if you ask and they grant permission for photos. You can't help but be aware that you're standing in the presence of manufactured culture, but there's also an underlying deep reality, that of teenagers everywhere struggling both to find and to hide from themselves.

Look to your left, and you can see the road leading to the torii gate that marks the entrance to Meiji-jingu, the Shinto shrine in memory of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, his wife. The forest begins just before the gate, stands tall and dark and cool on either side of it, and extends backward on either side of the main road for a very long way. The place reeks of power, calm, and spirituality.

Stare to your right, and the road extends up a slow rise and beyond the edge of your vision. Lining it on both sides are high-fashion stores boasting the names of designers who sell in only the richest cities around the world, high-end installations of American chains, and restaurants catering to hungry and thirsty shoppers.

And, making its way down the left side of that same road on the day we were there, a Sunday, I believe, was a shrine parade that featured drummers, chanting, and a large gold bowl riding atop poles carried on the shoulders of a couple of dozen people, mostly men but here and there a woman, too.

My camera's battery died before I could photograph all of this, and at the time I was annoyed at myself for not remembering to charge it the night before, but now, I don't care. I take photos with the small digital camera I call blogcam, and I am learning more about photography, but what I most care about, what I collect, are moments and the stories that surround them. I treasure this one.