Scots on the Rocks – The Japan Lights, an Enlightening New Book by Iain Maloney

Oct 27, 2023

Scots on the Rocks – The Japan Lights, an Enlightening New Book by Iain Maloney

A few years ago, I noticed on social media that my friend, Iain Maloney, had developed an obsession with lighthouses. Every now and again, here he was stood in front of another old lighthouse on some windswept outcrop of the Japanese coastline: in Ehime, in Izu, in Nagasaki. What the hell was going on? Iain is a man of the arts. He is a critically-acclaimed author – some of you may have read his excellent The Only Gaijin in the Village – and he writes poetry. He is the guitarist in Red Flag Waltz, a grungey, post-punky band that includes Fugazi covers in their set. He is cool. This was not the sort of guy you would imagine harboring a deep-seated passion for the architecture of something as mundane and functional as lighthouses. There must be something deeper here. There must be a story. With Iain, there usually is.

Dark days

It all started back in 2017, as Iain toured around Tōhoku in Japan’s northeast. It is an area of staggering natural beauty, but to the wider world it is best known for one thing: Fukushima. Like many foreigners who were living in Japan during the 2011 tsunami that took 19,759 lives, Iain has strong memories of that March 11, and though he had hoped to find on his trip a closure of sorts, confronted with the sheer level of devastation, Iain was instead engulfed in a profound exhaustion. It was all too much to take: the recognition of mortality, the acknowledgement that, though we humans consider ourselves the masters of this world and all within it, we are instead no more than matter, defenseless against the will of Mother Nature. On what was supposed to be a pleasure jaunt around the countryside, for Iain, this was a bit of a bummer. It was in this state of exhaustion, collapsed in a small hotel room, that Iain started to read about a fellow Scottish traveller who had been in the region long, long before.

A bit about Brunton

Born in an Aberdeenshire town overlooking the North Sea, and with a father in the Coastguard, it was perhaps only natural that upon pursuing a career as a civil engineer, Richard Henry Brunton (1841-1901) turned his expertise to the building of lighthouses. Perhaps less expected was that, in 1868, he accepted an invitation from the Meiji government to assist in the modernization of Japan’s infrastructure. He focused many of his efforts on developing a robust lighthouse system along the treacherous Japanese coastline.

Though brusque and haughty towards his peers and employers, and frequently contemptuous of his hosts in the way that Victorians abroad tended to be when it came to ‘natives’, Brunton set about revolutionizing lighthouse construction in the country. Over the next five years he introduced advanced engineering techniques and cutting-edge technologies, designing lighthouses that withstood the region’s harsh weather conditions and earthquakes, his designs becoming iconic symbols of Japan’s modernization. As a result, he was dubbed ‘the father of Japanese lighthouses.’

A spark of light

This was not the first time that Iain had encountered Brunton, having discovered him when writing about other Scots who had made an impact upon Japan, but there from the malady of his hotel bed, at an emotional low brought about by the devastation of the Tōhoku coastline, Iain made a decision. From Nagasaki in the southwest to Nosappu in the northeast, he was going on a pilgrimage to follow in the footsteps of his countryman. He would visit all 26 of the lighthouses that Brunton, a fellow son of Aberdeenshire, built in Japan. Unbeknownst to him, it would become a marathon of a journey that would consume six years of his life.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking: “a book about lighthouses? That doesn’t exactly float my boat.” And if you’re not thinking that, you should have been, because it’s a very route-one joke. But, just as I’m Dave Gorman  is about a lot more than a bloke meeting people with the same name, The Japan Lights is so much more than a guy looking at tall buildings on coastlines.

Rough seas and smooth sailing

In many ways the story, which takes us all around Japan, is a love letter to the country in which Iain has made his home, as he guides us down winding countryside roads (all the while cursing at Google Maps), along ruggedly beautiful coastlines, and into jazz bars in some of his favorite cities, meeting unusual characters and even the odd pack of monkeys along the way. With that said, this is not an entirely uncritical exploration of Japan and its culture, as he shares instances in which Japanese life can be regularly frustrating and at times downright unseemly. However, through light and shade (lighthouse pun obviously intended), Iain brings us so much of the ‘real Japan.’

One aspect that immediately resonated with me, however, is the internal conflict of the immigrant (some would say ‘expat’, but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we), the clash between your culture of origin and the one that you have chosen. It is clear that Iain retains a deep affection for his beloved Scotland, whilst recognizing the similar shade that he has discovered in Japan, and this conflict finds representation in the character of Brunton himself. It is clear that he was a great man, one whose achievements are worthy of phenomenal respect, but was he a good man? He was an imperialist, one who looked down on the ‘natives’, one who bullied and diminished those who were both his employees and his benefactors. In this I saw a metaphor for much of immigrant life, as we must both carry in one pocket our love for the nation we left behind, and in the other pocket a wariness of those who champion it without critique.

In the light of love

…But sorry, I’m not only getting beyond my remit as a reviewer, but I’m also doing Iain a disservice by highlighting only the heavy themes of the book, because above everything else it’s a funny old read. Yes, his Dictaphone line is an oldie, but it’s still a goodie, and his consternation that a fellow Scot would develop – shock horror – a cricket ground, makes you wonder what Iain would have preferred (a caber tossing field, perhaps?) but it has bags full of laughs throughout. I mean, actual ‘laugh out loud so much that you get a dig in the ribs because you are embarrassing your wife on the train’ sort of funny. (Gomen, Mai-chan).

And while the laughs are aplenty, The Japan Lights also carries an emotional heft. When living in Japan, friendships with fellow immigrants – especially at first – can be fleeting, as people dip in and out of your life, heading home when they have achieved their goals or feel that they have to return to the ‘real world’. However, with those friends who stick around the bonds are strong. In The Japan Lights we are introduced to a few of Iain’s close mates, uncover the backstories, and it is beautiful to read about how those friendships have grown and blossomed.

 But of course, these are not the only relationships into which a window is opened for us, for this is also a book about love. The Japan Lights is dedicated to Iain’s wife, Minori, to whom we are introduced as the long-suffering foil in Iain’s pilgrimage, as she joins him on the trip, bored, complaining as she joins him for a selfie in front of one lighthouse that “it’s your thing… but you can’t make me pay attention.” However, she is also a catalyst in exploration, bending and breaking rules, and providing balance to Iain’s occasional obsession, ensuring that his trips are more than just trapses into windswept borders, but are instead labors of love – not only matrimonial, but for all the fine things that Japan has to offer.

So, part travelogue, part thoroughly researched biography, part exploration of the immigrant’s desire to make an impact on their adopted home, The Japan Lights has absolutely everything that someone with at least a passing curiosity about the Japan experience could want. Except helicopters. And if you happen to have one, give Iain a shout. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.

The Japan Lights is available from tippermuirbooks.co.uk and all good bookshops as well as the usual online behemoths, but I’m sure that Iain would much prefer you supported your local bookshop than tax ambiguous multinationals…