ON HOW THE JAPANESE INVENTED BLOGGING; or, A FEW TRUE THINGS AND ONE JOKE

japan does everything better, and does all the better things first. seriously. everything you think is cool already had an ironic revival in japan in the sixties. during my time there, it was like i was living a connecticut yankee in reverse. nothing about the giant robots came at all unexpectedly, and i regularly dazzled the japanese with my knowledge of the strange magics of football and organized religion.

so no one should be surprised that the japanese invented blogging (and well before america got around to inventing the internet). although it does surprise me that no one seems to have already done this post. this blogger posted something close but didn't give the japanese nearly enough credit. (i won't judge her especially harshly because i like the name of her blog. it implies that she is both annoying and a horse.) this url and this blog are evidence that people are familiar with the idea, but in that way of uncomfortable, romanticized orientalism. i suppose i could have done more research than just surveying the first ten google hits for "zuihitsu"（随筆）.

zuihitsu can be pretty well understood by the combination of wikipedia's definition, which makes it seem for some reason that the style hasn't been used since the 1800s, and the poorly written definition at this other wiki. the difference between essaying and writing a collection of zuihitsu? the japanese would probably tell you that it's too nuanced for a fixed explanation. i'd agree with my own hypothetical answer to the question that i also posed, then add that zuihitsu doesn't demand a writer establish any justification for writing, or really even make a point. some writers, unwilling to cede the japanese founding rights to blogging, would try to equate zuihitsu with "writing practice," but that can't deny its early origins or the esteem it's held since, well, a long time ago. it only makes sense (in the sense that it's the only scenario that can make sense) that japan, a place beautifully obsessed with mood and formalized contradiction -- as well, of course, as with well costumed science fiction futures, did it first. add electricity and endemic narcissism and you get a really huge blogoshpere egg.

why the fuss? because i usually eat alone. i make my grocery list around weekly menus, cook delicious meals and, more often than not, eat them by myself. and the other evening i remembered a short work i read from a collection i could have found in the zuihitsu section of junkudo. it was on remembering to take care in preparing and presenting food that you don't plan to share. living alone in tokyo is confusing. tokyo is to the gills with people, and personal space is extremely limited and expensive. and at the same time the city is powerfully lonely and alienating. if the internet were a theme park it would be tokyo.

cooking for one isn't something that the japanese look to for pleasure, which isn't surprising in a culture that equates an unmarried, childless woman in her thirties with the loser in a dogfight. that essay (i'll call it now) didn't have much of a point or conclusion per se, but it was comforting, evocative and delicious.

so, until the book deal it's this. and that's the sound of one hand clapping (uncomfortable, romanticized orientalism) from the looks of the comments. the weather in portland is awful again today. i'm going home to make soup.