Fish TV

by Wes Thorpe

Last summer Tomoko, a friend of mine, invited me to come and see an enormous aquarium that had just opened up and was getting rave reviews. So I went, more or less as an excuse to see Tomoko than anything else.

It took us about an hour to get there by train and, in true Japanese style, we waited for about another thirty minutes just to get inside the park. It was a big production, along the lines of Sea World meets the Vancouver PNE. So, in addition to all the usual fish-related things, there were a variety of amusement park attractions which I am at a loss to describe except to point out that they, like most amusement park rides, went round and round and up and down at varying rates of speed.

Fair enough, I thought, and Tomoko and I duly proceeded to allow ourselves to be twisted, rotated and spun in ways that were, I guess, proportional to the price of our tickets. Arms were raised, women screamed, Tomoko turned green. Standard fare.

Screaming on a modern roller coaster is something that I have a hard time understanding. It's not as if you are going to fall out. When those new-fangled shoulder braces fall into place (always an inch or so lower than comfort or, for that matter, safety would require, I imagine) you couldn't move even if you had your heart set on it. And with your knees jammed up against the rigid plastic seat in front of you, just try getting the heels of your ruby slippers to click together three times, just try. My question, then, is: if you eliminate danger from the equation, just how terrifying can the experience be?

I have screamed on a roller coaster only once. It was a kiddy-coaster at the fair during Klondike Days in Edmonton, Alberta. The contraption was called the Mighty Mouse and I swear that it had been made out of rusted pull tabs and engineered by those folks who brought us such fine products as Ginsu knives and Ronco smokeless ashtrays. The Czechoslovakian designing team which made the Mighty Mouse considered things like the safety straps, roll bars and air bags of modern roller coasters to be pointless concessions to sissified democratic society and concentrated on real engineering issues like conserving resources by using old aluminum foil instead of titanium alloy.

Riding the Mighty Mouse was like playing those old Apple II adventure games in that at any given moment the options of movement were strikingly limited. Go North, Go South, East, West, up, down, none of the gentle slopes and rolling curves of modern amusement rides. Logic seems to dictate, outside of Eastern Europe anyway, that an immediate ninety-degree rotation at thirty kilometers per hour will cause significant stresses on the undercarriage of a vehicle. And believe me, when I heard those axles scream I started screaming too. Your run-of-the-mill roller coaster scream is part of a cultural ritual, governed by rules formed through years of TV watching and a kind of mass hypnosis. My screams were related to something a little bit more primal, something that a Neanderthal tied to the back of a young T-Rex on its way home from school would identify with.

At any rate, when Tomoko had returned to a normal color we proceeded towards the aquarium proper. At the entrance we were informed of the times of the various 'special performances' that would be taking place. There was a dolphin show, a sea lion show, a penguin show and piranha show (just joking, but I've always wanted to see one). But that was for later, in order to get to where the shows were being held we had to go through the tank area.

The Japanese have a passion for standing and looking - they are avid fans of fireworks, art galleries, zoos and aquariums. On this particular day the viewing areas of the aquarium were packed with people slowly inching towards and across the large windows. Seeing each particular tank (if you wanted to get up close and 'personal') would involve a good fifteen minutes of effort so, since I'm a lot taller than most Japanese, I stayed back in the less densely populated areas and waited for Tomoko to cycle around to the front and back. As it was, I had a lot of time to watch the people watching the fish with their mouths slightly open and a glazed-over look in their eyes (that is, the people looked like this), a lot of time to listen to the general observations of the people around me (earth-shattering stuff like

"Gee, look over there, that's a big one", "Smell that? That's the sea." and "I can't believe how yellow this one is!"). After a spell it began to dawn on me that: 'Hey, this is just like TV!'

Just like TV. If we put George Lucas and Aaron Spelling on the case, do you really think you'd be able to tell the difference? It's not as if the aquarium staff is actually inviting you to put on your trunks or bikini and frolic with the angel fish, is it?

Having got that thought started in my head, I have to say that it changed the whole aquarium experience for me. In one part of the aquarium there is an escalator which goes up through the middle of the tank in a giant Plexiglas tube. As Tomoko's lips began to part and that funny look came into her eyes, I turned to her and said: "Hell, Spielberg could pull this off." At which point she turned to me and looked at me as if I had suggested baby seal clubbing as a way to round off our day. I'm sure that whatever had been going through her mind at that moment must have involved use of the Japanese word for philistine.

When I was a kid I often used to spend a part of my summer visiting my grandmother in Victoria, B.C. For me, the thing that made Victoria worthwhile was Sea Land and Miracle, the killer whale. Miracle had accidentally been caught in a fishing net at a very young age and had been nursed back to health by the Sea Land staff (only to drown a few years later when some environmentally concerned idiot tried to set him free by cutting a hole in the steel net that formed the boundary of the pool). I'd go to Sea Land daily to watch Miracle and the whale show but the most interesting thing about it was not the show itself, I tried my own hand at whale-command. I'd watch the trainers gestures very carefully, writing them down and memorizing them, then as soon as everybody had moved on over to the California Sea Lion show I'd start waving my arms, trying to get Miracle to do stuff.

The amazing thing was that it actually worked for a while. I'd signal 'roll over on to your back' and he'd do it for a few seconds. Then I'd make the gesture for 'jump' and he'd do that too, only in sort of a half-assed way. It was not until many years later that I realized that I was also getting first-hand experience in the law of diminishing returns. When Miracle caught on that there was no herring coming his way he quickly lost motivation. Come to think of it, I must have confused Miracle quite a bit and put a real crimp in his training. If the staff knew what I had been up to every day they probably would have revoked my season's pass.

But hey, THAT was fun; that was interaction.

I've never been able to understand people who owned fish tanks for that very reason. I can't understand why people waste money by spending hundreds of dollars on tanks, fish, food, little bubbling deep-sea divers and shipwrecks and stuff when a goldfish has as much claim to the status of 'pet' as a rhododendron. Do any of your friends greet you in the morning with stories of the crazy antics of their neon tetras? When was the last time an angel fish ever chewed up a slipper? How do you train (or for that matter, discipline) a guppy?

Of course, I understand your reasons for buying that first fish. Your five-year-old daughter Suzie wanted a pet and you thought having a fish tank might teach her about responsibility. Okay, so far so good. You set the whole thing up for her, teach her how to feed them every day, tell her not to tap on the tank, etc. Things seem to go well for about three days but then the power goes out one night, shutting down the heater in the tank and in the morning Suzie goes crazy because little Tom, Dick and Rover are belly up and not eating the food that she so conscientiously sprinkled on their bellies.

Great. Now you have to teach Suzie about DEATH. You're wondering how you can get her 15-year-old brother Alex to keep a straight face when the family gathers at the commode for the funeral when he walks in and says something intelligent for the first time in his life. "Don't worry kid," he says. "Dad can buy you three more!"

Suzie looks up at you, tears streaming down her cheeks, and you tell her that it's true. You're going to make everything all right again. You pull her into the station wagon and down to the mall, where she picks out three Blazing Peruvian Aphrodites at $30 a pop. She looks up at you again but this time she's smiling. You figure, hell, it's worth it. You also make a note to pick up that bike that Alex has been wanting for so long. One good turn deserves another, right?

Two months later Suzie forgets to feed the Aphrodites for three days straight and Rover II discovers his previously repressed cannibalistic tendencies. Suzie once again has tears in her eyes, not quite sure if good fortune will strike twice. Your get your wallet from the drawer of your desk...it's just easier this way.

Suzie, over the next six months, learns to face death not with equanimity, but with complete boredom. Tom, Dick and Rover have been reincarnated so many times you wonder if the species originally came from Tibet. Suzie learns where you keep your wallet.

Then one evening you get a call, your mother-in-law has just died. You announce this latest development to the family after dinner and while Alex is visibly shocked, Suzie seems unperterbed. She calmly gets up from the table and disappears down the hall. You, your wife and Alex talk a while about Grandma Janice, when suddenly Alex starts howling with laughter and pointing at Suzie, who has just returned. You look down at her and see the wallet in her hand. Alex is laughing so hard he has to struggle to breathe.

"Think fast Dad."

You wonder if it's too late to return that bike.

I always used to laugh at people who bought fish videos or fish-related screen savers for their computers but now I'm beginning to think that they have the right idea. These people save hours each week by eliminating the tasks of cleaning the tanks and flushing the dearly departed through the porcelain gateway of the ichthyological river Styx..

Let's not spend our time quibbling here. You say that you miss that 'real water feeling?' Fine, remember that old humidifier that your mom used to shove inside your room when your were sick? I guarantee you that she still has it. Go pick it up from her place and hook it in. There you go. No smell? Fine. Throw in some sea salt. Smell that? That's the sea.

Okay, it's not quite 3D yet, but I'll put Steven, George and Aaron on it. They'll get back to you. And remember not to tap on the, uh, tank, it's bad for the 'fish'.

Wes Thorpe

Tokyo-to 162                   Phone: (03) 3225-9102
Shinjuku-ku                    email: wes@gol.com
Tomihisa-cho 39-5
Ide-so 201
JAPAN

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Last Updated: December 7, 1996