A call out to my friends and colleagues, visual and multimodal anthropologists, cultural anthropologists, photographers & sake and tachinomiya lovers in Tokyo and the surrounding area; VAoJ is making a rare appearance in Tokyo for a special lecture:「The Intersections of the Sensory, Multimodal and Ba: The Tachinomi Project」Please share and spread the word...

Check it out!

July 17, 2024, 18:00-19:30
Room 402, 4F, Building 2
Sophia University, Tokyo

Abstract:「The Tachinomi Project」is a visual ethnography based upon the con- vergence of social science research and contemporary art. The project began with long-term participant-observation and a photographic exhibition featuring a 40-year-old tachinomiya (standing drink bar) in Osaka called Tenbun. The study sought to explore photography in public spaces, privacy and image ethics while showcasing a “grimy” (Farrer 2019) and stimulating atmosphere with colorful characters including the shop owner, employees and regular customers. The interactions with Tenbun collaborators and gallery audience at the exhibition became the first of several post-fieldwork encounters, leading to the re-positioning of the research into wider social and academic contexts during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. This present account utilizes reflexivity, autoethnographic vignettes (Stevens 2013) and photography to explore the intersections of the sensory (Pink 2013 [2009], multimodal (Collins et al. 2017), and ba (Kajimaru et al. 2021) of Tenbun and other eating and drinking establishments.

Click here for some background on the project.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Standing Drink Bar「Tenbun」Old Boys Reunion 立ち呑みの居酒屋「天文」O.B. 会

We were on the bus, traveling through the borderlands between Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures when the imojōchū began to kick in.

We had just finished an hour-and-a-half of “all you can eat/all you can drink” at a traditional izakaya banquet. This kind of gluttonous binging and imbibing pushes participants, especially those on a pensioner’s budget with little left over after pachinko and horse race betting activities, to extremes, to make sure they get their money’s worth. Since the food turned out to be only standard fare, we concentrated on the drinking: beer, sake (nihonshu) and sweet potato distilled liquor (imojōchū; usually 25-35% alcohol).

A half hour in we were getting livelier and louder, and receiving dirty looks and disapproving frowns from the shop staff and other customers. Our severs were stingy, only allowing us to order a new drink after giving up the empty vessel from the previous beverage. Some of us countered this policy by pouring alcohol into PET bottles and plastic bags for secret take-out. We drank steadily until the last order. Somehow, we all were able to stand, pay our portions of the bill, use the toilet and stumble to the return bus without too much trouble.

What started out as a gathering of long-lost friends taking a short trip on a privately rented bus with quiet small talk of recent illnesses, hospitalizations and deceased drinking companions, was now a drunken cacophony of laughing, shouting, quiz games and attempts at singing enka. We exited the bus at the Keihan Kuzuha train station, took a memorial photo and made our way to the shopping arcade, formerly the aged, everyman Norengai (“Noren Street”), home to several traditional eating and drinking establishments. Recently this arcade was gentrified and renamed “El Kuzuha.” The older shops, many of which closed due to COVID-19, were conveniently replaced with fashionable chain restaurants. We wandered through the corridors until deciding on an acceptable pub for our continued revelry.

This post-fieldwork encounter chronicles a reunion of the owner and regular customers (the O.B.s or Old Boys) of a 40-year-old tachinomiya (“standing drink bar”) in Osaka called Tenbun, that closed in 2020.

Imojōchū has a strong taste and pungent smell, even when mixed with ice and water. For me, drinking it results in a contemplative body buzz; but when combined with beer and sake, the odoriferous contemplation turns into a gregarious stupidity. Nonetheless, this can be fun with the right people at the right time.

The Tenbun O.B. reunion was such a righteous group and occasion.

After all, we were trying to resurrect something. Not a specific time, place, feeling, memory or dream. Something more, perhaps a sort of fluid liminal communitas (and I do not use these terms lightly) that, in the past, we could enter at will, or at least between Tenbun’s usual business hours Monday through Saturday. The hour of day (or night), people, circumstances, jokes, arguments, daily specials and drinks always varied and at the same time enmeshed to create this familiar something. Looking back, I can see how we took it for granted, the longest-term customers for as long as 40 years. But now we missed it. And we wanted it back, even if only for this one day.

Of course, none of the O.B.s explained the reunion in these terms, except for the over-analyzing anthropologist with a camera, soaking in another post-fieldwork experience. Ba…

To be continued…

Announcement: VAoJ @Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture 上智大学比較文化研究所「The Tachinomi Project」July 17, 2024

Dowload flyer here: https://www.icc-sophia.com/_files/ugd/2edff9_6a975eb58ccc4236ad4014881870fc43.pdf

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF COMPARATIVE CULTURE: https://www.icc-sophia.com/

56: So on this Day I will wake up early to do a zoom guest lecture at 8:00 AM (Japan time)...

"Introduction to Visual Anthropology: Focus on Photo-ethnography."

The first half of the lecture will be about Visual Anthropology in general; the second half will be about my Tachinomiya Visual Ethnography Project. I will discuss the setting of a standing drink bar in Japan, my photographic fieldwork, photo exhibition and post-fieldwork encounters.

頑張ります！

This is what replaced Tenbun:「"Takoyaki/side dishes standing bar Peke x Peke"」

Tenbun closed on March 28, 2020. The space it occupied was empty for a year and a half. Then on October 10, 2021, a new shop opened, Peke x Peke. I walked by the new shop a few times but never felt right about going in. But a couple weeks ago I went there to take photos and I did go in for a drink. Of course, it just wasn't the same. It seemed (bias warning) too new, artificial, cheap, trying too hard to be hip and stripped of any tradition and personality. I couldn't believe they tore out the beautiful old counter and replaced it with what they did. There weren't many customers (but it was a Monday evening) and none of the old Tenbun regulars were there. Replacing old shops with new chain stores is a part of the gentrification process going on at Keihan line train stations. Peke x Peke is not a chain. The manager told me that this is the only location with this particular configuration. But the owner has multiple shops.

You can get a good idea of the new configuration in my photos and then with photos from a web site I include below. Scroll to the end of this post for a link to see our beloved Tenbun.

Photos that accompnaied the announcement of the new shop on "Ko-shin," the Hirakata-shi Featured Event (i.e. advertisements) website.
https://www.hira2.jp/open-close/batubatu-20211018.html

Congratulatory flowers in front of the shop when it opened.

The new layout, counter, big screen TV...

Seating...

Take-out window.

Here's where to go to see Tenbun:
https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/12/behind-scenestenbun-closingpresentation.html

2022 Fall Festival - I'm feeling like monochrome...

For (a lot) more information about the fall festival:

「Neighborhood Autumn Festival in Japan: A Multimodal Visual Ethnography and Performance」

https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/05/special-multimodal-bonus-resources-and.html

2022 Fall Festival - Day Two

See yesterday's post for Day One Photos. Here's Day Two... I'm already looking forward to next year!

For (a lot) more information about the fall festival:

「Neighborhood Autumn Festival in Japan: A Multimodal Visual Ethnography and Performance」

https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/05/special-multimodal-bonus-resources-and.html

2022 Fall Festival - Day One

After two long years of COVID-19 restrictions, we were finally able to hold our neighborhood fall festival this year. The program was cut back a bit - no night festival or mochi maki and an abbreviated course. Rain hampered things on the second day no we couldn't have our usual yaki niku barbeque. But still, it was great to see my friends after so long and push-pull the danjiri throughout the neighborhood. My activities were cut back as well due to injury. I went back to being the event photographer rather than a danjiri pusher. But we were lucky to have a group of student volunteers from a nearby college - we really couldn't have done it without them. So, here are the Day One Photo Offerings...

For (a lot) more information about the fall festival:

「Neighborhood Autumn Festival in Japan: A Multimodal Visual Ethnography and Performance」

https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/05/special-multimodal-bonus-resources-and.html