Hi dear Edward,
Let me write my confession at the opening of this letter: “Japan is a mysterious land”. Its inhabitants are very clever and accurate. No Edward! I don’t mean mysterious in the sense that Europeans may have realized at all. There is a famous saying advising those who may not know how to show one’s love to a woman, to watch a movie from France! Oh dear Edward, I agree that people in France also pay attention to the details, and the fact that they are punctilious and accurate. But not as accurate as the people in Japan. Land and the people of Japan are wonderful in expressing their love. To bring an accurate description of the moments! To explain about the quiddity of truth! You won’t be able to find many languages throughout history that have paid to the details to this extent.
Considering the mysterious and complex quality for the culture of Japan is not only because of the reality-based nature of those “mysterious and complicated” vocabulary, but lies in its exact opposite side. Complexity of Japanese culture makes sense on the opposite side. Let alone finding an antonym for the words mysterious and complex, because they lack existence or a semantic sphere. The words that are constructed throughout the history that are driven from the “space and time-based situations” are not accurate.
What shall we do Edward? Letting the words free themselves from all of the situation-based discourses throughout the time ? All in order to be able to find its existence and reincarnation from the hidden latent in another discourse system by manifesting itself through time. Not coming from the spatial-situations, but to let the words show us their hidden meanings from the heart of ‘sub-situations’. In this situation the worn out words will find another existence in the frozen space-time. Words will step into being. After becoming existential, we can reach for more discourse maxims with other pluralist readings. This may become possible to imagine a road-map for the Post-Orientalism condition by building new meanings and reaching new discourses.
Dear Edward, I know you are very smart. You have already understood my meaning so far. But I should go and take a few cups of coffee, and read this text aloud, and at a slower pace. It may also become necessary to re-write it once.
Assume a composer who is after finding a motive for composition in one of the cities in Japan for a number of days, and will be back home tired and frustrated on an everyday basis. As if she or he has totally lost her or his passion and taste for the job, merely eating the dinner just to stay on feet. Have barely lit a lamp at home, to be willing to turn it off or not when going to sleep. Going to sleep in one corner, until tomorrow, which is going to be similar to the day before. Being hanky, to the extent of madness, to sneak peek into the dustbin similar to the march of ants near the torn garbage bagages. With the same worn blue shirt, and a pair of trousers that have barely seen the face of a washing-machine since long, and a white pair of socks that are now grayish, the composer is going out of the house without putting comb and tidy the hair upon departure. It’s been hours since the start of walking, it is almost past 5 in the afternoon, and a sharp rain has started to fall. One of those rainfalls that even washes your sunglasses. Suddenly something takes life in her or his mind. And she or he feels it with a considerable amount of force, and wants to express it. She or he would scream “Samishii”.
Dear Edward, I consciously avoided referring to samishii as a ‘word’.
Most of the cultures of the world, reduce samishii as an equivalent to these words: ‘homesickness, sadness, loneliness, gloominess, sad and alone’. Even in Iran! This is very sad that it has also happened in Iran, considering many cultural relationships between the two countries.
Here, by referring to samishii as a word, western and eastern mentality is going to need subjects, verbs, objects, pronouns and prepositions. As an instance, people who are English speaking may write as follows: “He (specifying the pronoun) is very homesick and alone.” Western view can consciously express the sentence in a non-academic way, and to paraphrase it. But the person who is writing is conscious that she or he is writing a conversation.
O’ dear Edward! Japan is mysterious because of this: samishii is nor a word. It is a very accurate and unique expression of the situation. It is complete insiede. It doesn’t need a pronoun. Subjectivity and objectivity is inside the smishii. It is a subject-object that sparks in the situation of the unique event in a certain moment in the heart of a pious human being. It is empty of feminine and masculine adjectives. It keeps its subjectivity in its identity and identifier. And can consequently be different than the sadness and loneliness condition, unlike its equivalents in English language. We can observe the element of beauty in the samishii condition, and even the happiness in some moments.
In the culture of Japan, samishii is not only a word but is indeed an exact description along with the smallest explanation of a situation. Here, I should tell how the word samishi in Japanese language only constructs a saimishii situation.
samishii situation is a unique event. It is complete and monad. It constructs its subjectivity on its situations, without needing another presence. This is where we can construct a road-map for Post-Orientalism using the samishii situation.
A road-map in which the samishii situation is true. It is non-exclusive, and can be infinitely plural. Pious and searching human beings have the possibility of living in this situation, and won’t be susceptible to becoming corrupted. This is the main task of the art’s language to describe the samishii situation. It can hold multiple artistic styles and schools. Edward! Imagine an artist who mixes the situation using abstract techniques with paint and on a canvas, while others can use minimal or hyper-realist techniques, also composition using electronic, or acoustic instrumente, etc. to express the samishii.
This situation of plurality is where the Post-Orientalism situation will be constructed. Where the pious humans can share their vibrations and real images with a plural audience without being doomed to be limited to space and time-based situations. The situation of reality in Post-Orientalism is similar to the sun.
Reality of the sun is undenianle. It is not exclusive. (Indeed, Ellon Musk has not yet fancied buying it like the moon, but Post-Orientalism will no longer be valid, and will be no more, if someone buys it.)
But prior to that, the image and mutual vibration regarding the samishii situation between artists can be a shared stepping-stone for Post-Orientalism.
Dear Edward, please let me honor the great artists before us who have narrated the samishii reality in Post-Orientalism. And also to praise the name of artists who manifest the reality about the respectability of samishii on their painting canvases or their aural vibrations.
I have included three works by Wakabayashi along with this email, the Japanese intellectual and composer. I hope you enjoy listening to it.
Your little friend,
Ehsan.
April 29th, 2023.

Translated and edited by Soheil Soheili.

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