COC 日本密史(3)

Man and Machine

人與機械

Japan has a love affair with machines and inanimate objects that is at once understandable, baffling and darkly disturbing. This obsession with things which require no social interaction rejects the sad state of our country’s youth, who can only microwave dinners and who prefer ATMs to living bank tellers. However, this integration has promise as well: taken to its logical conclusion, Japan may be the just to embrace cybernetic technology─ultimate fusion of man and inorganic artificial intelligence─into an entirely new species on our planet. The question is, will the electronic echo of a soul inhabit this new life form or will it be infested by a synthetic spirit, one incomprehensibly alien?

-Prof. Mari Makoto, excerpt from

Project Yhrei White Paper.

日本有種可以理解、又令人困惑和混亂不明的狀況─一種與機器和無機物的戀愛關係，這種對東西的執著必須要在不被社會干擾下，才不會被這個悲傷國家的那群只會微波晚餐和喜歡使用ATM提錢更勝過親自上銀行的年輕人抗議，然而，這條公式得到了完美的證明：將其導向合邏輯的結論，日本有可能才剛剛相信神經機械學的技術─能將人類與非自然人造物智慧融合的終極科技─可以在這星球上產生出全新的物種，問題在於，這些寄宿於全新生命型態，電子波動間寄宿的靈魂將會是一群人造的魂魄，抑或是令人費解的外來者？

Mari Makoto教授，

摘錄自Yhrei White Paper計畫

Now, in a new century, Japan wants to possess the newest and sleekest high technology to decorate its walls. Technology is a cornerstone for the future, and most Japanese believe it will make the country a trendsetter and economic powerhouse in the next century. To this end, modern Japan has firmly embraced high-tech as its new religion and philosophy, with disposable culture and sinful excess its artifacts.

現在的新世紀，日本想要擁有最新和最強大的高科技來建造出自己的防衛牆，科技是未來的基石，大部分的日本人相信它可以開創出國家下個世紀的新潮流，成為經濟的發電廠，為此現代日本斷然信奉高科技為其新宗教和哲學，一次性的文化和有罪的擴張其人造產物。

Most Japanese citizens feel much more comfortable with cold robotic gadgets than the inconveniences warm-blooded humans present. The extreme avoidance of social interaction by some Japanese has led to new dysfunctions in an otherwise smoothly interlocking society.

目前大部分日本市民都覺得冷兵兵的機器人工具遠比流淌著熱血的人類更加方便和舒適，有些日本人極端的避免與社會接觸，這導致他們難以與社會流暢的連結起來，產生一種全新的功能障礙。

Most new facets of modern society have developed to lessen physical interaction for the sake of convenience, as evidenced by cash machines, vending machines where you can buy anything imaginable, computer networks, and massive video game centers. Youths, welded to TV games for unending hours, find any undertaking more demanding than preparing an instant dinner an impossible task. The contents of video games played by kids are often quite disturbing to the older generation, leading to further questions about the alien morality exhibited by this new generation of zombified and passionless children. Combined with ignorance about the past deeds of the country and the world at large, the social ineptitude of the next generation is the greatest cultural problem facing Japan.

有鑑於現代社會多面向的發展，收銀機、可以買到任何你所想像得到的販賣機、電腦網路、和大型機台遊樂中心都左證了對機械的信心，也減少了實質上的阻力，年輕人無時無刻與電視遊戲緊密結合，想要找到一點未被開發的需求遠比瞬間準備好晚餐還要更像不可能的任務，這些小孩遊玩電視遊樂器的內容經常擾亂到老一輩，更加促進外來的倫理價值根生於這群無腦又冷漠的新世代小孩的問題，綜合這個國家對於過去的無視和世界觀的擴張，這個社會無力面對日本下個世代最嚴重的社會問題。

As people wantonly rush to embrace cold metal things, they leave behind a precious shard of their humanity: the human warmth that keeps people centered. Elite corporate elements have taken the Japanese love affair with machines as far as actually wedding metal and flesh together, creating new organisms with a science that seems almost sorcery. This level of technology has not been seen since the ancient Hyperborean  civilizations rose, and has not been explored since then due to moral and ethical considerations. Questions arise as to what such high tech wizards and their fleshy automatons deign worthy of worship in the coming new world order.

當人們全然的衝向冰冷的金屬製品的懷抱中，他們將其能將人們集中起來的人情味留在人性的外殼外，菁英組織的人員們借著日本人這種與機器的戀愛關係，盡可能的將金屬和肉體作出結合，創造出看起來幾乎是魔法才能達成的全新科學，這種層次的科技自古代極北文明的興起以來從未出現，也因為道德倫理上的考量沒辦法發展開來，這群高科技巫師和他們肉體的自動機器賜予即將來臨的新世界無上榮耀的問題也浮現出來。

COC 日本秘史(2)

Today’s Japan

現今的日本

. . . And castles made of sand, fill in the sea, eventually

-Jimi Hendrix, from the song “Castles Made of Sand.”

…和沙作的城堡，填滿海洋，終就

Jimi Hendrix，出自歌曲” Castles Made of Sand.”

Welcome to modern Japan, a country with an identity crisis. Japan, a place where millennia-old traditions clash with the eagerly adopted consumer culture of the West. Japan, where ancient shamanistic Shinto religion blends with modern Buddhism. Japan, an ancient land, which holds many forgotten secrets and treasures. Japan, a land nurturing a people who are spiritually closer to the One than any other, if they could just open their eyes. Japan, repository for some of the world’s most powerful archaic artifacts. Japan, where East meets West in a way like in no other Asian country.

歡迎來到現代日本，這是一個有著明確危機的國家；一個千年傳統和渴望採用西方的消費者文化衝突交鋒；一個古老的薩滿神道教與現代佛教搓揉混合；一個擁有著古代大地上各種被遺忘的秘密和寶藏；一個與人們心靈相通的豐饒的土地，假如他們能夠睜開眼睛仔細觀察，這裡是個充滿著這世上最強力古代神器的寶庫。日本，唯一一個在亞洲讓東西方擦出與眾不同火花的國家。

This land bristles with contrasts and paradoxes caused by superimposing an alien society, that of the Western World, over a culture that, less than 150 years ago, was steeped in ancient imperial and feudal traditions for over three thousand years. In the push to advance, Japan has incorporated Western ethics and heritage over the framework of a much older cultural model that had worked perfectly for hundreds of generations. But as a result, today’s children do not know the social foundations and history of their country.

這塊土地建立出一個被對比和矛盾所重疊的外來社會，一邊是有著一百五十年歷史的西方世界文化的強勢掩蓋；另一邊則是浸淫於長達三百年古老的封建帝王傳統，這兩股力量推動著日本的成長，最終日本成功的將這些西方思想和遺產融入了舊式傳統思維的框架中，持續了近百年的時間，然而今日的小孩子終究不知道他們國家的社會架構和歷史。

Today’s Japan is a shiny high-tech building erected over a skeleton not of steel and concrete, but of old and rotting timbers of ages past. Japan has tried very hard to catch up with the Western world. In the process of Westernization, it has discarded many old and valued traditions, viewed as so much dead wood blocking progress. With the adoption of Western scientific thought at the turn of the twentieth century, many Japanese believe Japan firmly left the traditional world of superstition and the supernatural behind. So hard have the Japanese worked at modernization that a collective amnesia concerning native cultural heritage has developed.

今日的日本那些閃耀著的現代建築覆蓋著它們的骨幹並非鋼鐵或水泥，而是古老、腐朽且上了年紀的木材，日本嚐試著追上西方世界，在現代化的過程中，他們拋棄很多古老的傳統價值，遇上很多死木塊的阻礙進步，隨著二十世紀的來到，很多日本人選擇相信西方的科學思想，將傳統的日本迷信和超自然棄之不顧，繁重的現代工作讓日本人集體忘記關注他們原生文化遺產的發展。

An old Japanese proverb goes, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Due to poor craftsmanship in building a modern nation, far too many nails stick up from the timbers of today’s social institutions. This Yin and Yang of old and new has created a generation ignorant of its past and ambivalent about its future. All of this selective renovation can only create unnecessary hammering. Where the hammer flies, conflicts within erode group harmony without something vital to the Japanese mind.

有句日本諺語是這麼說：「凸出的釘子會被敲回去(槍打出頭鳥)。」，有鑑於現今國家的建築技巧衰弱，很多社會公共建築木材上的釘子都凸了出來，陰與陽、古與新造就這個無知時代，過去與未來的矛盾，這個選擇性的革新只能造成不必要的打擊，當鐵槌飛翔，衝擊著這腐朽團體的和諧，除去一些日本人腦中重要的事物。

Buddhism also has a proverb that can be applied to the state of modern Japan: it is the concept of karma, which compares life to a burning house with no exits except enlightenment. Many Japanese have become content to stay within a home full of smoke and flames rather than risk growth possible outside their common experience. But still, the Wheel of Karma slowly turns, never forgetting, always taking account of the deeds of the suffocating masses.

佛教徒也有句諺語很符合當今的日本：「將生命比作燃燒中的房子，除非得到啟蒙否則無從逃出，這就是因果率的架構。」很多日本人滿足於充滿著煙與閃焰的房子中勝過讓他們危機感成長，有機會讓他們逃出自身常理框架，然而，因果慢慢輪迴，不曾遺忘，種下甚麼因，就會得甚麼果。

COC 日本秘史(1)

Something is coming

有「甚麼東西」要來了

Seek not to understand. Seek nothing. Let yourself be the void.

And when understanding arrives, true enlightenment will follow.

-Zen Proverb.

探尋無解、追尋無物，讓自身化為虛空。

但當你到達了領會之境，隨之而來的將是真正的啟迪。

-Zen Proverb

There is something. . . important . . . coming. It’s a vague stirring sensed by every soul with Japanese blood coursing through their veins -a deep, inchoate feeling that can’t be grasped. It screams for remembrance, but is only glimpsed on the edge of nightmare.

有什麼…嚴重的…要來臨了。

每個日本人的靈魂感受到一種含糊不清的騷動，這種感覺流遍了全身的血管─一種深沉、萌發且無法控制的感覺，它在記憶中尖嚎著，又僅僅在惡夢的邊界中一閃而逝。

Upon waking, these fragments are quickly eclipsed by the daily drone of pop music, television drama, and office gossip. Lingering in consciousness is a formless dread, a deep sense of urgency most often channeled into the everyday grind and forgotten. Is the forgetfulness a sanity-protecting safety valve( for Japan’s inhabitants? Have they lost hold on something much more sacred and valuable by living in a fantasy world of material possessions and diversions?

一旦醒來，這些片段很快的被每天各種饒舌音樂、電視劇和政府醜聞的聲音給侵蝕，徘徊在潛意識中無形的恐懼，這種深沉且急切的感覺往往被每天的日常給掩蓋並遺忘，這種健忘，可能是一種日本民眾調節理智閘門的自我保護？難道他們因為失去原本賴以為生的中心價值和恐懼感，只能將其轉嫁於幻想和物欲的世界之中？

When not dreaming half-remembered nightmares, sleepers travel to places in the Dreamlands like Old Edo, land of medieval heroes; havens of super-technology like Colony Five; dwellings of the o-bake-mono; or even gateways to the Buddhist heavens and hells. All these worlds permeate the waking thoughts of a contingent of painfully shy people, known as otaku. These ultimate fans bury themselves heart and soul in fantasy realms, to try to forget the harsh disappointments that reality constantly drums into them, and to shield against the hovering terror all Japanese feel in their hearts.

在似乎記得又不記得的噩夢中，睡眠者在一個像舊江戶般的夢中世界遊歷，一個有著像Colony Five的中世紀英雄和妖魔鬼怪居住的地方，或是佛教徒所稱的通往天堂和地獄的通道，這個世界滲入一群代表著極度自閉的的族群，我們稱之為御宅族，這些狂熱的信徒將身心靈魂全部埋入這個幻想世界中，在嚐試遺忘那些在現實世界既椎心刺骨又無時無刻拍打著他們的失落感，同時又要防範著盤旋於日本之上的恐懼殖入他們的心中。

In the gloomy secret corners of Japan there are beings who refuse to be consigned to the oblivion of fantasy. These things are satisfied to be dormant, as long as they are given the proper respect and rightful fear due them. The “New Japanese” have forgotten their people’s origins; these “ancestors” are determined to remind the living of lessons buried with the dawn of the modern age. These beings have not forgotten the darker history of Japan. They relish re-educating Japan’s forgetful people whenever they can.

在日本那些秘密的黑暗角落，一群生物拒絕被交付於遺忘的幻想之中，除非他們得到從人們出於懼怕所給予妥善的尊重，否則不會滿意的蛰伏於世。新世代的日本早已忘記自己的根源，這些「古老」的存在打算好好的在現代社會中上一堂課程，讓這群人回想起當初那黎明與希望皆被遮蓋的年代，這些「存在」不甘被忘卻於日本歷史上的闇影，他們想要盡其所能的再次教育這群健忘的日本人。

As much as these native monsters of myth disdain the living, they also need them. Much more that is incomprehensible to men slumbersin the cold Japanese waters. Some beings are pleased with Japan’s ignorance of the old ways. The gears of destiny set in motion millennia ago may grind the unwary to pulp under leviathan teeth.

即便那些神話中的原始怪物藐視著生靈，生靈卻是他們不可或缺之物，但更讓人難以理解的是那些沉眠在日本寒水中的人們。有些人對於日本仍保持著舊日的無知感到高興，或許，千年前轉動命運的齒輪早已被海中怪獸的牙齒不經意的嚼個爛碎。

This book is about rediscovering Japan’s true legacy, a process set in motion before the first emperor ever stepped down from the heavens to rule mankind. Can the heritage be discovered and stopped before the world reaps a bitter harvest?

這本書述說著日本未被揭發的真正遺產，一套能讓最初的征服者從天堂降臨、帶領人類的程序，這些遺留之物或許能夠發現和阻止苦痛豐收的這個世界？

Something waits for the stars . . . to be right. . . . M.D.

有甚麼東西正等待著星辰…來臨…M.D