Japanese cultural life has long revolved around the changing of the seasons, in particular, and nature, in general. Or has it? The differences between Japanese sensibilities toward nature and those generally held by Westerners have been much discussed. Yet it is interesting to note that, when used to indicate nature, the word shizen is something of a neologism, first employed in the early 19th century to express the meaning of the Dutch natuur. Before then, Japanese tended to use only specific terms for particular natural phenomena.

Hence, "Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties," one of the most important Japanese modern art exhibitions of recent times, was less about the nation's relentless concreting of riverbanks and mountainsides than the seemingly ironic attitudes toward nature found in this land of awe-inspiringly beautiful countryside -- and nose-pinchingly ugly cities.

They cut down one of the few remaining trees in my neighborhood a few weeks ago, to install a tower for surveillance cameras. Meanwhile, the growing number of unsightly homeless living in the three little parks nearby prompted the city first to pave the parks over. Then, when the wretched souls somehow adapted to what was intended to be an inhospitable environment, the parks were fenced off altogether. Now they are a no man's land; receptacles for litter that is thrown over the fences. It is my guess that one day they might be cleaned up and landscaped, but that the fences will remain. Maybe the enclosures will be called "nature spaces." Look, but don't touch.