Ascendant Inferno

DISCLAIMER: This work is partly written from the point of view of an American in the 1930s, and as much as those views might be progressive for the time, they may veer into the territory of orientalism and a Westernized depiction of East Asia. The narrator's views do not represent my own.

I will try my best to present a realistic version of historical Japan, even in this alternate historical universe, however I apologize in advance if I make any errors in accuracy.

Thank you, and enjoy.

5-15-36: AN OVERTURE TO THE ORIENT, AND MY INITIAL DISCOVERIES

Light bloomed in from the sunflower shade of the earth onto the wood-rimmed buildings, stone-cobbled pathways, and iron-lined manufactories. The blue hue of the sky hanging overhead became patterned by the long, fulsome expanse of clouds that billowed across the heavens, these gobs of white that loomed over the crown jewel of East Asia urbanity. Narrow streets curdled throngs of pedestrians into each other, forcing an assemblage of so many shades, flags, and ideologies to walk amongst each other, this long grove of identities:

There were members of the Metropolitan Police Department combing the perimeters, their eyes checking each alleyway and cranny for suspicious activities, the doused grey on their uniforms glowing in the sunlight, offering a crystalline candor. Occasionally passersby could hear the cracking of batons and blaring whistles in the gulleys to the end of the streets, their victims usually drunken Westerners or sullen-faced gamblers, kicked out of the casinos and hotels in the Kabukicho pleasure district, bemoaning their fates for all the world to know. It seemed they were the chief agents of the Prefecture's local policies, as so often was parliamentary procedure enforced at the end of a blunt implement, or two. But increasingly their autonomy grew as policymakers in their own right, toting a heavy hand in labor disputes, ransacking press outlets deemed immoral or anti-statist, and seeking to uphold traditional morality across the sinful streets of the city. Although, their influence was always hidden in plain sight, as they were discreet when it came to breaking out the batons, knowing the need to keep up appearances of a law-abiding unit.

There were also the suits the police harangued—and their fair share of ties, cards, corsages, and cravats of all colors—which cut a fine figure for the gentlemen going about their day-to-day business, stopping to wind up their golden watches and exude that most formally machismo presence while waiting for the Mitsubishis and Fuji bikes to pass on the thoroughfares. While foreign investment was unmistakable, with Volkswagens and Fords driving along the way, coins flowing into Coca-Cola machines and Belgian chocolate wrappers lying on the pavement, the supremacy of the Zaibatsu, the native corporations working hand-in-hand with the government, harnessed Western intellect for Japanese industriousness and became the undeniable powerhouse of the national economy. Much to the chagrin of the foreign onlookers, of course.

But what of the faces, then? Maligned or not? What were the smatterings of skin, hair, and teeth, festooned occasionally by the ocular (or even aural) accessory, which made up the disposition of men? Even this demographic was multifaceted, depending on the nationality and temperament of the soul that lay behind the visage: German austerity frayed as Berlin businessmen coming from the colonial ports at Hanoi and Singapore wore their profits with a less-than-prurient smile. Some Chinese and Indochinese students kept their heads down in the face of their Japanese counterparts, while others were stern-faced and glare-adjacent, not submitting to a sort of facial hierarchy. Korean students imported from Seoul and Busan were 'cordially' invited to experience the height of Japanese academia at the University of Tokyo and other such institutions, bred in the framework of Western-style teaching for a decidedly Eastern imperialist purpose—something that not all the foreign students had their fill with, their minds populated counteractively with visions of independence for the motherland.

Besides the brewing nationalist sentiments, and in spite of the growing Pan-Asian movement seeking to unite the peoples of the Far East in opposition to Europe-American incursions, capital interests from across the Pacific clouded the physiognomies of many a merchant: there was an American swagger that, even amid economic crisis, struck a certain emotion of arrogant power, with the wide-rimmed fedoras and thick jacket fabric offsetting the Western smirk.

One couldn't go around the city without noticing the contingents of helmets swimming in the sea of civilian life, however. The light brown fatigues of the Imperial Army units stationed throughout the capital reminded the observer of the militaristic undercurrents underpinning much of Japanese history—as it was for many European stories, no matter how much democracy and Westernness put a 'civilized' gauze on wars and conquest—with the officers seeming to wear their epaulets and tight fabric caps solely out of pragmatism, not love for the Western style. In fact, they appeared to not really be 'worn' but rather enchained, sartorial shackles that suffocated the bloodstream and reddened the skin. For the most part, though, they paid the foreign pedestrians no mind, save for the occasional burning glare here or 'accidental' kick to the shin there, just to remind them who ruled the country.

It was precisely this tension that defined a new era of Japan, as encapsulated by the nation's gleaming capital: the nucleus of progress and order that was Tokyo. For every wooden wharf laced across the Pacific shore and kabuki theatre standing proudly before the main streets, there were two roars of the subways burrowing underneath and the bombastic percussion of the movie scores percolating out from the motion picture theatres surrounding the U.S. and German embassy buildings. At once, newspapers and tabloids flooded Japanese presses, infecting the native script with the literary spell of Roman letters, this Eastern-Western intermingling of words and ways. You had your Portrait of a Lady and Age of Innocence translations making top dollar at the novel bookstores popping up across the arts districts, at the same time as military theory from the core of the German Generalstab made its way into the Japanese mind. Never before had mass publications of the Kojiki myths and Zen Buddhist tracts sat side-by-side against the Book of Deuteronomy and Wealth of Nations so jarringly, and yet so seamlessly, the connexions between Atlantic and Pacific worldviews straining to some but inspiring to others.

That's precisely why I arrived on these sandy shores, shorn of pragmatism as much as I was spurred by artistic ardor. To see the point where East and West interlock, sometimes violently, sometimes fruitfully, and inspect the craters of culture that erupt from this fault line of exchange.

The white curlicues marking my bonnet imparted afresh the American spirit I embodied, slanted up towards the horizons, with a peak taller than Mt. Fuji in all its snow-tipped glory. The sapphire of my dress matched the gemstone nestled within the chic brooches of the local women, glazing outward like the spill of the San Francisco River. Little frills along my skirt nipped at the air as I swayed across the streets, nimble and swift, wishing to be at one with the motion of the city, the urban friction that Tokyo emanated. A notebook at my side anchored me while I languished on the sidewalk, occasionally jotting down my observations onto the charred pages, my hand a flourish of cursive that could only dream to reach the heights of the calligraphic genius which affirmed the Kanto script. My earrings were a duo of pearls hanging from my ears, swishing with every step, adding that silver accent to my glimmering disposition, bought at a local jeweler in the Ginza shopping district.

I remember what the jeweler said when she spoke to me, her voice eliciting a sage aura:

"Western pearls for Western girls. The business is appreciated!"

In the last seventy years, it seemed that the foreigner had undertaken a special status of his or her own. Investments into the Japanese economy had borne fruit a thousand times over as the mills crooned in the Keiyo Industrial Zone, the light smog pouring out a banner for Japanese progress; the plates, silverware, and clothing produced the prizes of that progress. And yet, there was always that distance between the West and the heart of the East which secured the Japanese a unique identity: the rakugo storytellers and ukiyo art installations were not dispersed by Sophocles and Manet, instead integrated side-by-side. The wood harvested from the Sakura trees along the Kanto Plain to build Tokyo's edifices was not burned to make way for the new crop of steel and concrete filling the expanding areas of the city, even as the latter constructs became increasingly common. Even the Emperor himself, donning the epaulets and the medals like a bona fide Hohenzollern, still retained his godlike status, inured from Western conceptions about secular rule.

Perhaps Japan desperately wished not to be absorbed into the European fold, to lay down her arms in a cultural sense, though her armies reigned supreme in the Pacific arena. At the same time, the Rising Sun knew that to disregard the way of life and war that had dominated the entire world would be ritual suicide, and so a compromise had to be struck between the exotic and the native.

It appeared that Japan empowered itself as the 'New Europe' in Asia, the rising threat to the chokehold of power the white man possessed, all fueled by the white man's technology and culture, but all the more driven by the Japanese spirit, all the same. That's how captivating this place is to me: this surly mixture of ancient and modern, of the rice paddies and the steel mills, of the Katana blades and the Karabiner rifles, of the Nobunaga engravings and the Hirohito murals. Japan—the proud amalgam.

"Josephine! Watch where you're going!"

A charming voice broke my geopolitical ponderings like shrapnel through skin, saving me from running headfirst into an assortment of rice bowls at a nearby strip-stand. Muttering apologies to the lady behind the stand, and quiet words of thanks to my friend for preventing me from being damned to pick the rice bits out of the seams of my dress, I puffed my cheeks, staring over at her presence.

She chuckled, a hand coming to her chin, amused at my American brashness, I could only guess.

"If you keep up your theatrics, you'll have to write your novel behind bars, I'm afraid. Tokyo may be a city open to the whims of the West, but there is such a thing as exceeding the hospitality we grant you."

"It's your fault!" I battered back, laughing myself a moment, before stepping to the side to let another battalion of soldiers and German merchants through the walkway.

"Your enchanting tales about life through the streets here simply made me rapt with enthusiasm to explore! Next voyage, be sure to act as droll and dry as possible, Arakawa."

"Duly noted. I'll have to avoid stimulating you like the plague."

We kept along, an easy silence passing between us, and as I peered to my side, I could see that the wry smile never quite left her lips. Arakawa-san indeed cut a handsome figure, her face filled with youthful dimples and the lushness only a woman of high society could fully portray, like a blooming cherry tree sapling in the meadows. While her hair was curled up in a traditional Kanzashi bow, the raven reams forming a moon-shaped ensemble above her temple, her dress was rather a mix of styles, the pink-red contours and floral patterns reminding the eyes of the archetypal Kimono, even as its long-flowing flares represented the Western opening of fashion and country alike—like the Commodore himself willed the flares to flow outward.

"You know, Josephine," she looked back, and my eyes returned to hers, a guilty look on my cheeks for staring.

"You might be floored yourself at the sights, but it's not so easy to return after lounging in the stiff dorms of Berkeley, either. It feels as if America has branded me with its underplayed boorishness," she smirked.

"And ever still has Japan embossed me with the spirit of wonder," I retorted, playing her little games of drama as I always did.

Our friendship had brought us to a new old land, from a new old school. It was both an emotional and intellectual decision that spurred us to arrive back on the shores of the Sea of Japan, one that saw us marinate in a multicultural fabric that granted us the context of a turbulent, yet fascinating time.

Before Tokyo and Japan, there was Berkeley, and the sands of the California desert offering an oasis of thought for us all.

You'd be surprised where excitement can roost, and a character can flourish.