27-29 August, Fukuoka, post-contemporary life.       

     
       The tidy crowd, who knows what to do under the shadow of the lush skyscrapers, who has a moment of calculated hesitation in front of the traffic lights' red, who in the evening under the tireless lighting up sees in a sip different things, that crowd who springs between alarm clock, lunch breaks and any means of transport, shapes a metropolis.

       The polite crowd is the harmony of intentions, the equanimity of meanings, the guarantee of hierarchy, the accounting of holidays, the spending of 'my' will, the freedom grated at the end of the month. That crowd build up a society.

       Of course there are also individuals, but what are they in comparison to the crowd. Although independents into their own words, believers in their identity, subjects in their unique appearance, they are absorbed in the glowing queues, in the race for a acceptable recognition, in the approved judgment of the illegal. In the crowd there are a whole series of games, where tamed dreamers, protesters on probation, original stylists immediately copied, can put on the table what they think they can do best. And it doesn't matter if they win or lose. The crowd needs their play to be strength, to become will.

      So through those thoughts, I could see what was around me. And around me it was Fukuoka.
      And I didn't mind it.
      There was no negative judgment, though it may seem.
      I was crossing a bridge and I stood on a bench with the shape of a shiny, polished boulder. There were four like that. And the yellow melted along the borders and the floor of the bridge matching perfectly with everything.
      On the other side, opposed to mine, the same benches hosted a different occupant. There was a woman playing the 'shamisen', a old three-stringed instrument from China. The woman didn't sing, she sneezed. And as annoying as the voice could be, listening to it together with that instrument, on that bridge, in that city gave me a sense of relaxation and positive mood.

       I had been walking all day, following my own pace, with nowhere to go; taking a corner, crossing a traffic light, stopping on a bench to regain strength, keeping on going again. I had visited shopping malls and found them also beautiful. Discovering important temples that no guide mentioned with the spirit of child dreaming to be an explorer. With open eyes there was the crowd that did not scare me, it did not shrink me, I did not envy. Somehow as much as I had nothing to do with it, I knew I'd end up in the same capsule as the crowd would do occasionally. 
   

      In an English Pub, a small group of Japanese made an appearance: five boys and two girls. For simplicity it would be possible to describe them with seven caricatures: On the male side, the coordinator, the comedian, the loser to make fun of, the silent, the cool guy. On female side: the gaudy and the shy. All the boys were dressed in light black trousers and blue shirts. They were their work clothes. The girls, on the other hand, had prepared themselves very well to go out.
       After choosing two tables near the entrance, they sat in this way; starting from the right side of the gaudy, they were loser, coordinator, silent, cool guy, comedian, shy and gaudy.
       The evening's leaders of the night were, of course, comedian, helped by coordinator, and gaudy. Sometimes cool guy intervened. The other two were little more than extras.
       The night was proceeding with the jokes of comedian and small sipped to the bottles. Shy hadn't really touched hers. Gaudy had to do something to solve it and suggested the game: 'Go, jump, back.'

       The game was simple. The first said 'go', the one on the right could choose between 'go', 'jump' and 'back'.  If he would chose 'go' , the next one always on the right side could have the choice again of the three words. If he would say 'jump', then the choice would have fallen on the second person in succession to the right. 'Back' would have gone to the one on left side.
        The tour started with a series of 'go' and then suddenly someone said 'jump' and to talk was the first on the right and not the second on the same side. The former had to take a sip. The same happened with 'back'. If to speak it would have been the one on the right and not the one on the left, then he had to drink as well. It's no wonder that loser was winning it. In general the group did not care of the winner, they had fun expressed in loudly laughs and rather surprising cries for the polite, respectful, obedient, regulated Japanese.

       And among the various 'go', 'jump' and 'back' it became late. And due the exaggerated and childish noises the crowd of the day was dozing away without totally disappearing. The next day, all seven of them would return to the real 'go' game, a game without 'jump' or unforgivable 'back'. And the price to pay for put asleep the crowds, maybe even just for one day in the week, was to lock themselves in a capsule for the night. A capsule that certainly did not carry you into space, or that in cryogenic mode would not put you to sleep for an awakening in centuries to come, a capsule that looked more like a morgue or cemetery locus. A capsule that I had chosen for accommodation.


        In Japanese society the concept of 'capsule hotels' is widespread, especially in large cities, where daily working immigrants arrive and sometimes cannot leave; too late  to take the appropriate means of transport, too much alcohol to step in the right one. So with their work satchels, their uniformed work dress, and nothing else, they go to these hotels that reflect the needs for a post-contemporary life. together with the encapsulated bed they get a bag containing: a large towel, two small ones, a toothbrush with a disposable toothpaste, disposable slippers, and pajamas.
Every time I appeared, no matter night or day, in the area of mirrors and hairdryers which was then the area of the showers, i saw the same scene: people taking a shower, drying hair, putting pajamas. The pajamas, the only element that separated you from the crowd.
And I slept very well in that locus. There was no noise, no light that could filter. And how could they. The hotel was dug two floors underground.

When I got out of the subway to look for the hotel, all I had to do was to take an escalator and there it was. Even the direct accessibility to a metro station, just all the time and space were been thought, no chance to lose your way.
So on the day of my departure, after I reemerged from the mineral state, since I was under the earth's crust, I went down to the metro and fast, fast I was at the airport.

The metaphor of the living dead who rises from the ground and drags aimlessly beyond life could be easy to make. On the contrary, all those who left the 'capsule hotel' were not living dead of any kind. They weren't dragging anywhere. They knew 'freely' where to go. Everyone was there, where it was supposed to be. Myself included. 

   
     
        Post Scriptum
        Is there hope for change?
Sure.
From those who aren't infected by the crowd. From those masses who want to force their way in and who are pushed back. And with good reason. The crowd fears them. Tremendously. What if everything becomes overcrowded? Cities encompass everything, in a allowed framework, to become megalopolis, but they also say 'basta'. Those masses will rewrite the limit, they will broaden the frame and all of us will be forced to repay our debts to us as well to put them back to one debtor.
Which one?
The choice will be ours when the time comes. Maybe it's ours right now.