Tokyo Ueno Station: Yu Miri

Tokyo Ueno Station
Yu Miri
Morgan Giles (Translator)
180pp

Light does not illuminate. It only looks for things to illuminate. And I had never been found by the light. I would always be in darkness.

Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri and translated by Morgan Giles is simply stuffed full of the type of insightful quips as above. Though dark in focus, it doesn't push away a reader, but pulls them in with the vision of one man's journey.

Kazu, our main character has lived a life of struggle and loss. He has lost love, money and children. Though only his son has died, and his daughter remains, it seems as though the shame of being seen as a parasite has made her just as lost to him.

My children held little affection for me, the father they rarely saw. And I never knew how to talk to them either... we shared the same blood but I meant no more to them than a stranger.

Miri, with her work here, is giving a voice to the homeless, but not just the homeless, as the above quote should show, she doesn't see the homeless alone in a box, but as part of an extension, or continuation of some of the more problematic parts of Japanese society: Fathers with little connection to children as one example.

To be homeless is to be ignored when people walk past, while still being in full view of everyone.

However, it is the homeless issue that takes up much of this book, and in what may be a gutsy move, much of our man Kazu's life is put in comparison with the Heisei Emperors. They were both born in the same year, son's born on the same day even. They both also find themselves in the park that sits in from of Ueno station, the park given to the people by a former emperor, yet taken away by the police when cleanup is necessary to protect the image of the emperor and Japan.

It seems that Yu Miri has found herself under attack from time to time from some right wing activists of sorts. That is a shame, as this book is certainly not an attack on Japan, or the emperors. It is obviously a call out for the respect of all humans, or all Japanese, to be treated as humans. It is not a condemnation of the emperor, but of the system that allows people to slip down and then kicks them when they are there.

Overall, it is a beautiful and worthwhile read. It portrays a situation, a life, that is undeniably touching, and undeniably true. Though, maybe we don't want to look, and pretend not to see sometimes.

Highly recommended.

Yu Miri