How Rodger Swan cured my Japanese psychodrama

The vlogger Rodger Swan won a scholarship that took him from his hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan to Keio University in Tokyo, Japan. He later returned to teach English in the northern prefecture of Iwate. All the while, he entertained thousands with his two YouTube video series, Tokyo Swan and Iwate Swan. Then he suddenly died of acute pancreatitis.

Three things. First, it's high time that, as a species, we ditched these lousy pancreases; they go south on us with terrifying frequency. Second, boy, memento mori for sure, especially since Swan was a couple years younger than me. Third, after finding out about him through an especially excellent episode of Keith McNally's oft-excellent podcast XO, I came to see him as the continuation of a thread in the experiential arts, if you like, that I've been faithfully yet only semi-consciously following for years.

This is the Westerner-goes-to-Japan narrative. I'm thinking of Japanese cinema scholar Donald Richie and his Japan Journals. I'm thinking of Japanese literature translator Donald Keene and his delightfully-illustrated Chronicles of My Life, which I just read. I'm thinking of the posts on Japan (former Marketplace of Ideas guest) Nick "Momus" Currie would write in Click Opera and now writes in Zuihitsu. I'm thinking of Pico Iyer and his The Lady and the Monk. I'm thinking of (also former Marketplace of Ideas guest) Ian Buruma and his numerous examinations of the country and its ways.

My favorite, though, has to be (also former Marketplace of Ideas guest) John Nathan's Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere, which, though filled with recollections of up-close-and-personal encounters with the likes of Kobo Abe, Kenzaburo Oe, Yukio Mishima, Hiroshi Teshigahara and Toru Takemitsu — yeah, I'm basically insane with jealousy — is also so distinctive and so personal that I can't read a chapter of it without feeling shock and gratitude that some editor didn't try too hard dick with it. Nothing in the entire memoir is put quite the way you'd expect, and that's a welcome quality indeed.

Spending hours upon hours transcribing my entire 13,000-word conversation with Nathan for 3Quarksdaily got me thinking: where are the heirs to this tradition? Many more Western kids are now interested in Japan than when he was getting onto it, and infinity more than when Richie and Keene were. But most of them seem to be interested for entirely different reasons. I actually asked Nathan about this right at the end of the interview:

You're a teacher at UCSB. You teach classes pretty regularly and you have kids of several ages. You're seeing a generation that's very much into Japan. Being someone who was interested in Japan kind of on the vanguard of that in America, what do you think of the way Japan — Japanese culture, Japanese stuff — for some American kids, a refuge?

I'm not the best person to ask about that. You're talking, of course, about anime and manga and some design elements and stuff like that. That's what it's about. You're talking about the otaku movement. This year, at ICU, we had students from UC campuses, and a number of them — maybe there were thirty kids total — studying in this program in Tokyo. More than half of them were computer and game addicts and freaks whose principal interest in Japan was this.

I have a very strong negative reaction to that, and I conducted myself accordingly. I said, "Look, you guys want to study that, you study that. I'm going to teach you wonderful things about Japan that you don't have any idea about, many of which are the fundament on top of which all this other stuff that wows you stands."

Flipping through SBCC's course catalog, I see what is perhaps a sad testament to this: "Japanese 121: Language and Culture through Japanese Anime. For students who are ready to learn the basics of Japanese linguistics and colloquial Japanese in order to understand and appreciate Japanese anime." I guess that's just playin' to the crowd, but damn.

This is why I'd long assumed Gen Y's inability to produce its own John Nathans, its own Donalds Richie or Keene. I've spent the past fifteen years suppressing, to the extent possible, my own interest in Japan; the subject seemed to have been hijacked by what Encyclopedia Dramatica might call the unwashed sperglord. At age 13, taught myself the Japanese language's phonetic scripts with great interest, but I dropped any ideas I had about taking any classes in it at school for fear, no doubt partially ridiculous, that I'd get lumped in with the mouth-breathing Evangelion-worshipers.

I don't know why Japan has become such a hideaway for this class of socially maladroit, culturally tunnel-visioned Gen Y-ers, but it has. What can it possibly offer them? Additional alienation, that of forever being a visible outsider in a supremely connection-centric culture? Whatever their motivations, I don't think I'm too bold in claiming that they're ruining it for the rest of us. Yet despite my decade-long crusade to diminish my own apparent fascination with the place, it's manifestly clear that I'm still interested in Japan.

Rodger Swan's Westerner-goes-to-Japan narrative gives me hope by standing as a counterexample to the now primarily (I assume) Naruto-driven Nipponophilia of our generation. And while I'll never know him except through his videos, I do have friends who put in or are currently putting in Japan stints and writing/blogging/vlogging/podcasting/vodcasting/blodcasting about them in a way that's not awash with cultural detritus, a way that's aware of, as John Nathan put it, "the fundament on top of which all this other stuff that wows you stands." But hey, part of what got me into Japan initially was anime, video games, J-pop and the like, so it's not as if I can really judge anyone else for it. (I could judge myself for never evolving forward from there, though — and harshly.)

Nevertheless, me and most of my age cohort are obviously drawn by two different Japans. Mine isn't so much the Japan of mecha epics, blaring arcades, collectible Fullmetal Alchemist figurines, towering shelves packed with volume after volume of manga and vending machines brimming with used schoolgirl socks. It's more like the Japan of Kobo Abe's gritty surrealism; the experimental music of Masayuki Takayanagi, Ryoji Ikeda, Toru Takemitsu, Yasunao Tone (yes, he moved here, but still); the near-perfect pacing and atmosphere of the films of Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Yasujiro Ozu; the thousand tiny interpretive differences of local jazz; the context so opposed to mine that it lets me be, observe as, learn from and relish the status of a total outsider. It's not an objectively better Japan, but I find it a subjectively better one.

Rodger Swan has also, for what it's worth, gotten me intrigued by the art of vlogging. I admire his videos, and enjoy those of many other Japan vloggers, but were I to vlog, I would distinguish myself by adopting these vows of austerity (because I can't make anything without vows of austerity):

1. No camera movement
2. No use of "uh" or "um"
3. No use of the in-camera mic
4. No color images

But my video camera broke and I'll probably convert to Super 8 film, so whatever. The most important lesson I drawn from the life of Rodger Swan remains that, not only is life too goddamn short for Naruto, it's too goddamn short not to pursue your interests, or to dishonestly evade them because of associations you consider distasteful.

Comments

[Jennieinjapan.wordpress.com]

Rodg was my very dearest friend, and it's great to see that after the shock of his sudden death people haven't forgotten about him.

I'm sure he's going to be influencing us all for many years to come.

Thank you for writing good things about him.

[Johan N]

Hi Colin,
I've followed your blog for some time, initially because it was recommended to me by Google Reader. Actually, the title as well ("the war on mediocrity") caught my interest. Who would not want to do away with some of the mediocrity in life? I don't know you or your background well, but I wanted to comment on this post.

I'm not familiar with most of the people discussed in this entry, but both Rodger Swan and John Nathan seem like admirable people with deep passions that we all could learn something from. I am someone who gave in to my interest in Japan. I'm now 26 years old and studying for a Ph.D. at a Japanese university.

I have to say that I think some of what you say here has a tinge of bitterness. I'm not convinced that Japan is a hideaway for "socially maladroit, culturally tunnel visioned Gen-Y'ers". Most of the other foreign students I meet, or foreign people I worked with previously (when I worked at a foreign company in Japan) are pretty well rounded people. Maybe this refers primarily to a younger age group.

With the massive availability of anime and manga through the internet now, it would be hard to find any young person who's interested in Japan and also doesn't have the slightest interest in anime, manga or J-pop. The question is how many take it to a deeper level, pursue the language seriously, or really try to learn about the foundations of the culture. Here I think those who do definitely have the right to a certain elitism and to stand up for their values. I try my best to do it but definitely feel that I could work harder on the language, for instance. But why be so quick to reject and say that the others are doing it wrong? I think your image of Japan as a haven for maladroit people is mildly paranoid.

More generally, I would think that any young person who acquires a strong interest in another country and wants to learn more about it is basing the initial interest on a simplistic, romantic, slightly naive image in some way. Over time this image should be subject to refinement in most cases. Who exactly is your enemy here?

Also, I would heartily recommend that you give in to your interest in Japan, study the language and the culture, move over here for a few years, give up those fears about being lumped in with tunnel visioned ones. You'd enjoy it :-)

All the best,
Johan N

[Michael C]

Well said, Johan. As an admirer of Rodger Swan, I should note that his initial interest in Japan was largely rooted in a passion for both anime and Sega products. He wasn't limited by those interests, however. They merely served as his doorway into the larger world of Japanese culture.

It's nearly impossible for the average American teen or 20-something to have a view of Japan that isn't impacted by those media. Similarly, you'd probably expect a Japanese-born kid to view America through the filter of Hollywood or major pro sports. As long as they are willing to dig beneath the surface, I see no harm in utilizing these readily available, if superficial, "bridges" to other cultures.

[air jordans]

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.What do you think?

[air jordan 1]

If you would convince others, you seem open to conviction yourself. What do you think?

[buy viagra]

Indeed his videos are amazing, I usually stay up late night watching some of his videos.

[iserve pharmacy]

Your article is actually really clearly composed as well as easily understandable. Your current Blog theme is impressive as well! Would be awesome to discover exactly where My partner and i are able obtain it. Please keep up the excellent work