Bowler hat

In Pacific Overtures, Kayama is tasked with driving away the Americans, who are in the process of breaking the centuries-old isolation of Japan.

Here is a description of life before the arrival of the Americans:

Kings are burning somewhere

Wheels are turning somewhere

Trains are being run

Wars are being won

Things are being done

Somewhere out there

Not here

Here we paint screens

...

The viewing of the moon

The planting of the rice

The stirring of the tea

The painting of the screens

We float

In Pacific Overtures, this isolation is seen as a denial and avoidance of life. Unfortunately, the alternative, i.e. the intrusion of the world, turns out to work not so well, either, so there is no real hope.

Taking the image out of its context and adopting a different frame of reference, it can be construed as a reflection of heaven (and heaven on earth), with the ego world kept at a safe distance, irrelevant, and impotent.

Kayama, far from succeeding in his brief of encouraging the foreigners to leave, actually starts to imitate the Americans' (and the British) ways. They stay, and they are staying for good.

Now we're getting to the interesting part.

His life is wonderful before the plot of the musical. Nothing is out of place. But as soon as the ego world (represented here by the advances, progress, and bustle of the westerners) intrudes, it exerts a pull, it produces desire, and the desire produces emptiness.

Note that desire does not arise out of the emptiness: the desire creates the emptiness.

In a perfect presentation of how 'a life run on self-will can hardly be a success', one by one he gets the things he finds exciting and interesting and finds himself dissatisfied and wanting more. Once he is on this down escalator, there is no escape.

[KAYAMA]

It's called a bowler hat

I have no wife

The swallow flying through the sky

Is not as swift as I

Am, flying through my life

You pour the milk before the tea

The Dutch ambassador is no fool

I must remember that

[Note the juxtaposition of the bowler hat and the lack of wife: the bowler hat symbolises the British; but his wife, who committed suicide after the foreigners arrived, is absent precisely because of the presence of the British. He is in the exhilaration phase of the ego's journey. But what is he preoccupied with? Details. The milk before the tea.]

I wear a bowler hat

They send me wine

The house is far too grand

I've bought a new umbrella stand

Today I visited the church beside the shrine

I'm learning English from a book

Most exciting

It's called a bowler hat

[So, he's started to drink. He realises the superfluity of these learned way: 'the house is far too grand'. But he's still having fun: 'most exciting'.]

It's called a pocket watch

I have a wife

No eagle flies against the sky

As eagerly as I

Have flown against my life

One smokes American cigars

The Dutch ambassador was most rude

I will remember that

[Swings and roundabouts: he has a wife, to replace the previous one, but note the juxtaposition with the pocket watch. She's one of a list of possessions, of accoutrements of the new life. The excitement is still there: 'eagle', 'eagerly'; but the admiration for the Dutch ambassador has turned to disgust. There is already the awareness that what he is doing is going against nature: the swallow flies through the sky; the eagle flies against the sky. This is not life; this is the opposite of life.]

I wind my pocket watch

We serve white wine

The house is far too small

I killed a spider on the wall

One of the servants thought it was a lucky sign

I read Spinoza every day

Formidable

Where is my bowler hat?

[What was too much has become too little (the house is now too small), and, at the same time, he kills, he ignores and overrides traditions, now immersed not in the simple, straightforward beliefs of his origins but in the complexity of Spinoza (who, perhaps importantly, did not believe in the immortality of the soul). The north star of the new world, the bowler hat, has been lost.]

It's called a monocle

I've left my wife

No bird exploring in the sky

Explores as well as I

The corners of my life

One must keep moving with the times

The Dutch ambassador is a fool

He wears a bowler hat

[The bowler hat has been replaced by a monocle. The ego never admits defeat. When something dissatisfies, it is replaced. The system of desire, frustration, and disappointment is never questioned. Wives now come and go like bowler hats. The bird imagery has changed: it's reaching the corners of his life; the infinite skies in which the eagle once soared are now a room with corners. There is resignation ('one must') and a recognition that he is no longer master ('eagle'): the progress, onwards and upwards (actually downwards), is in charge, and one has no option but to follow such movement.]

They call them spectacles

I drink much wine

I take imported pills

I have a house up in the hills

I've hired British architects to redesign

One must accommodate the times

As one lives them

One must remember that

It's called a cutaway...

[The speed with which objects endowed with magical powers are substituted is increasing. Monocle, spectacles, bowler hat. Note the deterioration in his eyesight. First one eye, then the second. He's drunk. He's drugged. There is no way back.]

Welcome to the world of the ego.