COC 日本祕史(4)

A Slice of Life

人生片段

“What you ask is impossible! It is difficult to the extreme”

“No, what I ask is just beyond your limited sight. Look outside, this ramshackle of wood and rice paper will one day be monoliths of glass and steel. But you do not see this. Joken, it is because you are human and lack understanding. ”

「你所問的事情是不可能的！要到達極致實在太困難了。」

「不，我所問的只是超出你狹隘視野的部分，往外看看，這些腐敗的木材和米紙在將來的某一天會變成巨大的玻璃和金屬材料，但是你無法看到。Joken，這是因為你是個人類，你無法理解。」

Looking past the illusionary mirror to the West, Nippon, as natives call her, is very much a society of stratification and extremes. To see this vividly illustrated, imagine you are in the city of Tokyo, the slightly tarnished jewel of Asia. One of the largest cities in the world, Tokyo is comprised of interconnecting wards resulting in a continuous urban sprawl fifty miles in radius.

看看過去對於西方世界的鏡中幻想，Nippon，一個原住民對於她─社會階層和極端的稱呼，看看這些生動的繪圖，想像一下你正處世界上數個最大城市的其中之一─東京市裡，一個失去它原來璀璨光芒的東方明珠，城內所有地區的道路相互連通導致其持續向五十碼內的郊區擴張其版圖。

Now, of the numerous famous districts in the city, you are in Shinjuku, one of the busiest and most crowded wards of Japan. Gleaming forty-story glass and steel towers loom over an undulating ocean of black hair at street level. As you stand on the bustling corner, thousands of impatient commuters brush past.

現在你正處在這個城市裡數個著名區域裡的Shinjuku區中，日本最繁忙又壅擠的城市之一，閃爍著四十個故事的玻璃和金屬製塔，反射在街道上縱橫交錯的光影織出如同一波波黑髮絲海浪的光景，假如你站在繁忙的一個街角附近，成千的通勤者毫無耐性的與你擦身而過。

Your nostrils are assaulted by the smell of raw sewage emanating from the numerous open grates at your feet, blending unpleasantly with the delicious aromas wafting from the street vendors littering every corner who sell fried octopus and steaming ramen bowls.

你的鼻孔被來自腳底下無數敞開的爐排，其中未經處理的汙水發出的味道，與街上每個街角零亂攤販販賣的炸章魚和拉麵飄盪出美味香氣混合後，這種令人不悅的味道向你襲來。

While a street scene plays out in front of you, under your feet, in Shinjuku Station, over one million people a day commute to and from work. Loudspeaker vans of the fanatical ultra-right pollute the air with nationalist slogans as oblivious but trendy teens walk down the artificial canyons of the big city with PHS cell-phones glued to one ear.

當這幅街景呈現在你眼前，代表你已經腳踏在這座城市, Shinjuku,一個每天超過一百萬人萬頭鑽動來來往往的地方，載有大聲公的卡車用極右派的狂熱思想汙染著空氣，放在明顯處的國家標語被追隨流行的年輕人無視，耳朵上黏著一隻PHS手機自顧自的朝大都會裡的人造峽谷下去。

Holding old women, hunched over almost 90 degrees from osteoporosis, push barren baby carriages for support, while well-dressed salary men in blue suits, silk ties, and suitcases push by in a hurry to get to work. Swarms of bicycles bearing sailor-suit-clad girls on their way to high school rush by as a sun glassed man in a punch-perm, the local Yakuza, guards the door to his club where a stripper dressed in the same sailor suit entertains drunken salary-men. Droves of cliquish college students from Tokyo University, on par with Oxford or Harvard, sit and chat in the coffee shops facing the street comparing their entrance scores, while the young service staff, dressed in identical uniforms, resignedly hope that they might get into a fourth tier university after a second try at entrance exams. All of this is just the briefest of moments on a street corner in Tokyo, but a good still picture of the intense sub-cultures, group-ism, hierarchies and challenges Japanese life fosters.

扶住一個因骨質疏鬆症駝背超過九十度的老女人；給在搖籃上沒人照顧的嬰兒援助；還有一個受薪階級的男人穿著整齊的藍色套裝和領帶，手拿公事包趕著上班；身穿水手服的少女騎腳踏車趕著上高中時與帶著太陽眼鏡的日本黑道─平時在當地的脫衣舞廳，守衛著為了取悅爛醉的受薪階層，同樣穿著水手服的脫衣舞孃─撞個正著；一群能力與哈佛大學不相上下的東大學生，坐在咖啡廳裡面對街道的位置聊天，正比較著他們的入學成績；一位年輕的服務生，穿上店裡的正式制服，因為在第二次嘗試大學入學考試落榜後，放棄他進入四年制大學的夢想；這全部都只是東京裡面某個街角短暫的一刻，但他卻完美的呈現出交融的次文化、團體意識、社會分層和日本人在成長中面臨的挑戰。