Intro to the winged newts of Märchenland

There were pink newts with wings for ears and yellow balloon-fish bobbed up and down in the small waves of the tank, two neon horns pointing straight ahead. They are like dream creatures and I have only seen them here.

In Shinjuku Goen, just before spring, my Grandma told me “I am in a fairy tale land”. A dark cherry tree stood above us, bandaged for the winter and bent over a sagging support beam. When we looked above the clawing branches, towers of office buildings surrounded us. The whole park a green bubble in the midst of a maze of grey and neon.

I went to Golden Gai, a tangle of alleys and kitsch signs, blue and green lights spilling out of curtained doorways. There must be over a hundred bars there, in the span of two city blocks, most about the size of a walk-in closet. Some are smaller. Number of maximum occupants: 6. Like an elevator.

Märchenland is fairy tale country, it is the world that surrounds me. Recreated, altered, simplified and dismantled. It is my sight.