Miri Yu

Damn…this book was a hard hitting one. Tokyo Ueno Station by Miri Yu follows the life and death of a man that can be considered inconsequential to the Imperial and governmental eyes of Japan. This man’s circumstances are the products of numerous capitalistic and governmental decisions made by the country without consideration of its working class. This man works so much to the point of not knowing his wife and children just so he can provide a life for them. He works hard, he loses most, he becomes houseless, he dies. Apart from his life, this story focuses on this train station and park by the name of Ueno and the houseless people who live there. They float in and out of Yu’s book and are given a moment of clarity and humanity where normally they might be invisible, undesired. Their stories and lives and losses are juxtaposed against the ever changing Ueno Station, a place that houses statues and memorials to many important figures and events in Japanese history, but does not house the homeless.
I felt many things while reading this.. sadness, anger, discomfort, despair. This lack of care for people with out houses is not distinct to Tokyo, or Japan, it is here in my neighborhood and in yours. Yu creates a space for us to reevaluate how much or how little our governments care about people—whether working class or houseless—and she reveals how that attitude may poison us—the privileged who may have a place to return to at night.
This book roots it’s imagery in sounds and vignettes of people and things and creatures passing through the station. It also follows the specific history of this region in Japan. Though very disjointed and fading in its flow through time and space, I believe anyone who reads this will be transported visually and emotionally to Ueno Station. A hard read, but a good read.… (mere)

Man, this was so sad!
The narrator is a ghost exploring and explaining his life in the Ueno Station homeless encampment. Originally a marginalised worker who spent most of time away from home, he loses his son unexpectedly and despite acknowledging he doesn't have a strong relationship with his children, he takes this loss hard. Later he is able to reconcile his relationship with his wife and spends some years at home until he loses her as well. While living with a caring granddaughter, he decides he no longer wants to be a burden and moves to Tokyo to the homeless encampment. The encampment is affected by the development due to the oncoming Olympics.
Having been to Japan recently this really hit home. There was a lot of Buddhist wisdom and customs with things I saw well explained. While in Hiroshima we also came in contact with some homeless people who politely asked us for donations.
The extreme cultural expectations of workload, pride and face come into play here.
While this book was sad, it was beautifully written and translated.
… (mere)

This is quite a strange story, in that our protagonist/narrator, Kazu, is dead.   Before Kazu died, he was homeless and living in a cardboard and tarpaulin hut in Ueno Park, right next to Tokyo Ueno Station.

All too often we are shown the shiny-shiny capitalist face of Tokyo that those in power wish us to see, the Olympics, etc., but never do we see, or hear, those who are cast aside, unwanted and unneeded by a system that some just can't keep up with.   Tokyo Ueno Station is their story, told by a ghost of one of the many people that society has no place for any more.

I know it sounds all rather depressing, but i didn't find it so because it's a view of Tokyo that is told in such a unique and interesting way, keeping our attention when most writers would have lost it, making us realise, consider and re-revaluate.   How many homeless people die on the streets every year and no one ever gets to hear their story, or realise the truth as to why they were homeless in the first place, this book makes you think about those things: they are important.

It's certainly a fact in the UK, where i live, that the government deliberately maintains a homeless population in order to keep the threat in front of people of what will happen to them if they don't comply with society's demands.   I presume this is the same in Japan:   "Do you want to end up like them, Salaryman?   Well you'd best work hard, do lots of overtime, and do as you're told -- or else you'll be living in Ueno Park too!"… (mere)