Women of Japan is a photographic series showing various women living in Japan in their natural situations. Laurie Toby Edison is a photographer based on San Francisco. She was an artist-in-residence at Kyoto Art Center in 2002, and I invited her to the interview: "Facing Slowness in Body" in Diatxt.08. I wrote the following text for her website, both in English and Japanese.

Many years ago, I saw a photo in an in-flight journal, an issue featuring Japan. The photo showed a young Japanese lady in a beautiful long-sleeved kimono, dancing, and singing karaoke with a microphone in her hand. It might have been a snapshot taken after a graduation party at a college (wearing furi-sode, the typical long-sleeved kimono, is quite popular on such an occasion), or maybe it was a scene performed by a model just to illustrate the topic.

Anyway, I remember that I felt slightly uncomfortable looking at it. I wondered why I did. Surely, the image told of nothing bad about Japan or about Japanese young women. I am sure that the scene — a young girl in a kimono singing karaoke — is an absolutely normal part of life in Japan. So, there is nothing wrong with showing it, if that particular photo was a fake.

When I reflect on it now, I guess it was a message behind the image, not the image itself, that made me feel a bit uneasy. It was not a simple snapshot of everyday life of a young Japanese girl, but an image carefully chosen to intensify the way people — mostly Western males — like to see a female in Japan. The image implies the basic framework in which a Japanese woman — and in a wider context Japan itself — is represented in the West.

The photo clearly shows two opposite aspects of Japan: kimono and karaoke. Kimono naturally suggests the traditional values which are supposed, even today, to define normal life in the country. It shows ethics and aesthetics of obedience, modesty, and self-restraint. Karaoke, on the other hand, would tell us the totally opposite side. It is associated with an informal drinking party, in which people are allowed to give vent to their suppressed feelings. And the karaoke machine is of course a product of high technology which Japan is loudly advertising to the rest of the world.

So the message of the photo can read like this: Women in contemporary Japan, though they still appear to live in tradition, have actually become open and direct in expressing their thoughts and feelings. Or, if we shift the point the other way around, it would be: Women of Japan today may seem open just like Western females, but deep down, they still maintain traditional ways of thinking and feeling. And there is no way to decide which of these two interpretations is true. What is clear is that we are faced with two opposite images of (women of) Japan and we feel suspended between them.

Here, we can find a deeper message in the picture. It shows (women of) Japan as a paradox, in which we are confronted with two very different images: old family ties and westernized, individual lifestyle, perfection of small things — gadgets, the flower arrangement, etc. — and the chaotic urban landscape, primitive nature worship and hi-tech industry established in people’s lives, etc. Between these two poles, what is real about Japan remains invisible. We are left with a sense of mystery.

Mystery is profitable for the tourist industry, because it functions as a magic mirror in which customers find imaginary fulfillment of their desire. If you dwell on this sense of mystery, however, it will blind you, as you put every new experience of yours into a black box, keeping yourself unchanged by an encounter with something different. But it is impossible to understand another culture without changing yourself.

Looking at this series, “Women of Japan,” I find a completely different attitude to approach the subject. The women in these photos are totally free of the stale mysterious images often applied to images of women in Asia. The work appeals to no obvious references about Japan, but still seems to tell something very important she found in this country. Far from exploitation of exotic images, her work gives you a kind of intimate feeling, though you don’t know the people in the pictures personally. I very much like this feeling of intimacy, which I find in her other works, like Women En Large or Familiar Men.

There is no mystery behind these tranquil, beautiful images in “Women of Japan.” Instead of mystery, there is an important sense of comfort. It makes me feel comfortable, just the way the women in the photographs seem to feel. Maybe it is not just comfort, but a feeling you would discover in yourself when find contentment in what you are now. This is not resignation or self-satisfaction, but something coming from a positive decision to be yourself, to get rid of the images and roles pressed on you by society.

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