Kabuki

Amongst other things today, I took a trip to the theatre to see a Kabuki play. It's something that I'd wanted to do before I got here, despite the obvious language issues of seeing a 17th century play in Japanese. Kabuki plays last for around 4 hours, with 3 acts and a long break between each to enable the Japanese to do some more eating, but thankfully for the Western tourists' patience and wallets, it is possible to turn up on the day and get a ticket for one of the acts, lasting about an hour or so. I went to the second act of the second show today, taking my seat right up in the gods for 900 yen (about 6 pounds or so). It was possible to buy headphones that would translate the whole thing, but I thought that might slightly negate the point of being there, so I just bought an English language programme instead which explained the plot of each act. The acts aren't related at all, so you don't miss out on anything by not seeing the whole play.

The rather flimsy plot told the heart warming story of the son of a rich Osaka merchant who had fallen in love with a courtesan and been expelled from his father's house. Dressed as a pauper, he goes to the tea house where his amoureuse lives and works, but as he is dressed so badly they don't recognise him and won't let him in. After a fair bit of wailing and running around, he manages to convince them that he is actually the rich merchant's son, and he is allowed in to see the courtesan. Unfortunately she's a bit busy with her 'patron' at the time, so he peeps through the curtains into the room where she is entertaining said patron, and becomes insanely jealous that she doesn't love him anymore. There then follows about 20 minutes of wailing, screaming and dancing about, before the courtesan manages to convince him that she does love him. They are happily reunited, but cannot marry as he is so poor, until... surprise surprise, a messenger arrives from his parents' house to say that he is forgiven and can claim his fortune again, so the lucky pair can get married, she can give up working as a courtesan (anti-social hours, I've heard) and the entire cast can have a big party involving lots of foot stomping and more wailing. It was almost exactly like a comic opera, with the same non-existant plot and farcical ending, except that the actors are all male, even the ones playing women (the Japanese are reluctant to let go of their traditions), the actors don't actually sing, as there are musicians on stage that do that for them, and everyone on stage is wearing ridiculous amounts of white face make up and the most extravagant costumes I have ever seen. I was somehow reassured by the plot being on such a universal theme: Japan was closed off from the outside world at around the time the play was written, yet still all anyone really writes about is thwarted love.

Aside from the gallery, where all the people who just go for one act have to sit, the theatre was full of evidently wealthy middle aged Japanese, with most of the women wearing kimono. Although it was very like opera, it did differ in some ways. The audience applauded whenever someone entered or left the stage, but there were no encores. Whenever there was a silence for more than a second or two, lots of the male audience members would shout something at the stage. My trusty programme explained that these people were Kabuki experts, and that they were shouting either their Kabuki name, or oblique references to the actor's performance in another play.

There's been a Kabuki theatre on the same site in Ginza, right in the middle of Tokyo, for centuries but the relentless progress of the Japanese skyscraper has meant that this one will be the last, as it is to be torn down in the next few months. It's a beautiful, traditional Japanese building on the outside, but a very average looking theatre on the inside, having none of the gilt and ornamentation of a London theatre.

On my way back to my hostel from the theatre, I popped into an izakaya to get some food. Izakayas are a bit like tapas bars, and until now I hadn't found the courage to go into one alone, as they have no menus and generally seem a bit local. For some reason, today I felt like I could go in, so I did. I had no idea what to order, so I asked for what the people next to me were having, which turned out to be teriyaki swordfish, yaki soba and edamame. Result. I started talking to the couple whose food order I had copied, and like rather a lot of Japanese people, their English was secretly very good. We talked about Japan, and England, and the bloke talked about the football, and as they were leaving they gave me an almost full box of Japanese sweets, because they thought I should try them since I'll try anything, and 'because they wanted me to like Japan'. Yet another example of how incessantly nice Japanese people are, for no reason at all.

I love it here. It really makes me wonder why people in London and Paris are so rude: Tokyo is bigger and crazier, yet people are still polite, still queue and still have time to help lost tourists. What is wrong with us? It really feels like most of the world is full of nice people but where I live and call home isn't. On my return to London I am going to make a concerted effort to stop tutting at people that walk slowly, to let people through doors first, to smile more, and to generally be a bit nicer. So there. And you can all remind me of writing this the next time I shout at a slow walking American on Oxford Street.