Memories of Japan: Enka

After 2 years, I may be leaving Japan in a couple months. Although still uncertain, facing the possibility, I grow reminiscent.

Much of my time here has been characterized by solitude. Nothing encapsulates that particular solitude like the enka reverberating through the floor on this cold February night.

Enka is a form of Japanese music popular with an older crowd. It is shunned by young people like many shun country music in the US, but I am told that one suddenly likes it upon turning 30. In terms of melody, it retains a certain 'Asian' quality that often wouldn't sound strange being plucked on a koto. It is in contrast to J-Pop and other modern Japanese music which, wishes with all its money and half-English that it were American. J-Pop is completely devoid of the qualities that we in the West understand as originality and creativity but it is masterful in terms of emulation and technical skill.

Enka is terminally maudlin. Lyrics are necessarily about memories, lost love and inebriation. This type of music goes hand in hand with alcohol - literally: a mic would be in one hand and a glass of Korean liquor, shochu, in the other. You see, enka is made for karaoke. And in little bars run by a mama, mainly male over-fifties sing for each other late into the night. Every night.

This kind of bar is called a snack. There are no fewer than 3 of them on the first floor of my building. I live on the second floor. So the bass of these slow, moaning melodies drifts through my floor like the distant wailing of the damned. Sometimes there is also a pounding bass drum as I sleep on a thin futon in my modern wood flooring apartment. Did I mention that there is no concept of central heat in Japan? So it is cold as people party below me.