Book Review: ‘Tokyo Ueno Station’ Yu Miri — Voicing the dispossessed
Japan’s homeless population is uniquely invisible. Of those that can be seen, it is usually men above the age of forty who have lost their jobs or have been unable to maintain part-time and temporary work in labour industries such as construction. While the country should celebrate its lack of child poverty, there is an unsettling reality beneath this veneer. The attitude towards homelessness in Japan says a lot about its culture as a whole: it is based on maintaining appearances and saving face. Being homeless is simply not acceptable.
The writer Yu Miri wants to expose this attitude, which is sustained by authorities, by social attitudes, and by the affected individuals themselves. Miri is a Korean national born and raised in Japan, whose parents fled their native country during the Korean War. As a result of the historically tumultuous political relationship between Korea and Japan, citizens like Miri know firsthand what it means to experience racism and social exclusion — her perspective aligns with those of outsiders. In Tokyo Ueno Station (Japanese: 上野駅公園口) she distils the experiences of Tokyo’s homeless into a singularly sparse, elegiac narration. Though brief, the novel captures the pain of so many working-class people pushed to the periphery.
Our narrator, Kazu Mori, born in Fukushima in 1933, becomes a permanent resident of Ueno Park at the age of 67 after a string of misfortunes, revealed to us in a fragmentary sequence. ‘I did not live with intent, I only lived.’ he says at the beginning. He is speaking to us beyond death, ‘someone who has lost the capacity to exist’. Muri suggests that the homeless are hardly more visible alive than dead.
Though his life is lonely, Kazu is not alone — the park, situated behind Ueno Station, contains the makeshift homes of at least 500 others like him. On imperial visits they are made to evacuate with little notice, leaving the occupants to wander the streets — if they are lucky, staying in a capsule hotel or sauna, or riding the Yamanote Line all day. This detail, like so many others in the book, is sadly not from inference. In researching the novel Muri stayed near Ueno Park, listening to the experiences of its dispossessed occupants. It is with something of a sad irony that in the years since the novel, given the effects of the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Olympics and the coronavirus pandemic, this population is almost nowhere to be seen. Has homelessness decreased? Or have incentives to clear rough sleepers out of public spaces achieved their aims?
The birth of Kazu in 1933 and his son in 1960 happen to coincide with the births of Emperor Akihito and his son, the current Emperor Naruhito. This magical coincidence emphasises the symbolic quality of Kazu’s struggle. Kazu sees the Imperial Family on two occasions: in 1947, and in 2006, on a visit to Ueno Park. These snapshots are a stark reminder that time treats the privileged classes differently, and of the illusory sense of hope and unity embodied by royalty. In 1947, the young Kazu in one of 25,000 who shout ‘Long live the Emperor!’ In 2006, he can only stare at the Imperial car in silence: ‘My throat was empty’.
A key historical event represented in the book is the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which Kazu is contracted to work on. For him, and many other men from Japan’s North East, Tokyo promises work with financial stability. The 60s were a time of great economic progress for Japan, and yet Muri reminds us of the fragility of this dream, which would come crashing down with the asset bubble burst of the early nineties.
She also isn’t afraid to touch upon the human cost of work and progress. Kazu begins working at the age of twelve; though he starts a family with his wife Setsuko he barely sees her or his children, being perpetually employed in construction projects in Sendai. Only when personal tragedy strikes does he reflect on the purpose of this.
Like the 2011 tsunami that appears at the end of the book, Kazu’s life is steered by monumental forces he has little control over. And yet, Muri doesn’t force empathy on us — her style is lucid and direct, lending a naturalistic clarity to the voice of its immaterial narrator. This is a book of images — some of them shocking, others bizarrely funny, such as overheard conversations about grilled sparrows and marshmallows. Kazu is locked into the role of a listener, constantly coming across snippets of conversations, without ever engaging with the speakers. Interspersed between his own experiences, these passages create a collage of a nation that for better and worse does not sit still.
Originally published in 2014, the novel is critical of Japan’s future as it is its past. There is particular scrutiny of the then-upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which Muri is concerned will not restore the truly damaged parts of Japan’s economy. She asks: ‘What comes after the excitement and the enthusiasm?’
In writing the novel, Muri intended to link the experiences of the tsunami victims and the Tokyo labourers who found themselves without a home to return to. Tokyo Ueno Station is a convincing and compelling document of these stories, but as Miri herself alludes to in the afterword of the novel, there is still more that deserves to be uncovered. After it was published she moved to Fukushima, living in two areas surrounding the failed nuclear reactor that devasted the region following the effects of the earthquake and tsunami. Her commitment to giving a voice to Fukushima, and helping rebuild its communities, is admirable. I look forward to reading her follow-up novel that explores the life of a decontamination worker. Like Tokyo Ueno Station I don’t expect it to be an easy read, but it may be just as vital.
