Han, I Want to Be You

It took The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift—of all films—to wake my Japan obsession back up. Specifically Han, played by Sung Kang: effortlessly cool, snacking through near-death experiences, occupying every room like he was born inside it. I want to exist like Han exists. I’ve had worse ambitions.

And right on cue, I stumbled onto a set of Polaroids from a Japanese Halloween party in 1964. They’re exactly what you’d want: wonderfully stupid and quietly stylish at the same time, in that way Japan has been pulling off for decades without appearing to try. The costumes shouldn’t work. The expressions are unreadable. The whole thing coheres into something you keep looking at.

Japan has a permanent gap between sincerity and absurdity, and it turns that gap into art. It shows up in the disposable stuff—the mascots, the vending machines, the game shows—just as much as in anything meant to be taken seriously. I fall in and out of obsession with the country on a regular cycle, and right now I’m back in hard. Possibly picking up Japanese lessons again. If any Japanese people are reading this: I genuinely want to be your friend. I don’t bite. Unless you’re into that.