Not Just Ninjas

A pitch-perfect article in the Japan Times about the curse that is a foreigner’s relation with any Japanese government office:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20070929td.html

The curse of the middle name

By THOMAS DILLON

…

As I have done many times for the past several years – ever since my older son decided to become a professional student – I walked to my local post office to wire him finances. As a veteran, I came prepared: I had my personal stamp. I had copies of the last many times I had wired money. I had my postal savings passbook. I had my alien registration, my passport, and my driver’s license. All this because I always feared something would go wrong.

But I had had no difficulties whatsoever in numerous tries. Which meant the post office was due.
…

We passed this wonderful advertisement (?) in the city of Sakata, Yamagata.  Unfortunately the building it was attached to was closed, so we never got to try this mysterious “blue soup”.

The text says “Kyuusai Blue Soup” and the speech bubbles above the guy’s head say “one more cup!” and “tastes terrible.”  We never figured out if this was an actual product or just an elaborate joke.

This is how I came to be face to face with the naked Japanese man.

I’ve been flirting with onsens lately… well, me and Chris both. Onsening seemed a little intimidating and unnecessary at first. I already have my own shower and the luxury of privacy in my own home, why jettison both for a clothes-free dip with strangers? Well, we’re sucking it up now, and giving it a try.

There are tons of onsens around, so each one has to find its niche to stand out in some way. An onsen’s selling point may be the mineral content of their waters, which are piped directly out of the bowels of the earth. Or it may be the water color, with shades ranging from turquoise to rusty brown, chock full of various healing properties, bound to cure whatever ails you. Another way an onsen can add spice to the bathing game is to add gimmicks to their pools. Here is where my stress comes in.

The general pool-soaking concept, I get. It’s a no-brainer. My issue is with the onsens that have decided to get overly creative, the places with slots for individual bathers, one inch pools with wooden head rests for laying down, electric pools, super hot pools, super cold pools, outdoor pools, or spouts of water that fall from the sky. Each onsen has a sign next to it explaining what’s going on, but this usually does me little good. Every time I go to a new onsen, I have to scope the scene, and watch everyone else nonchalantly to make sure I understand what each pool is “for”.

In the spirit of sampling the wide diversity of the onsen spectrum, we decided to visit Taenoyu near Lake Tazawa, where the water has a famed and mysterious milky-white hue. People come from all around to soak in these waters, and we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

With a new onsen, you just never know what you’re going to get. We’ve been to onsens that were basically ugly linoleum boxes, large industrial complexes with lockers for hundreds upon hundreds of guests, designed with an eye for volume instead of aesthetics. We were relieved to find the opposite layout at Taenoyu. We were welcomed warmly into a discreet little wooden building, overflowing with charm and ambiance. The small foyer, which was filled to capacity with empty pairs of shoes, hinted at the modest size of the establishment, with barely room for 20 people in the baths.

Once I had paid and disappeared behind the red curtain which marked the women’s only area, I found a beautiful bathing area constructed entirely out of wood, with only 4 showers for everyone to share. The scent of sulfur and herbal shampoo co-mingled pleasantly in the air. After showering, I soaked in the two simple yet relaxing baths, complete with wooden recliners built into the pool.

Two pools are all well and good, but a bit on the small side for an onsen, especially one as famous as Taenoyu. Which is when I saw the mysterious wooden door. Figuring this must lead to another room of female-only bathing, I nonchalantly walked my naked self through.

On the other side, I found a set of rather pleasant outdoor pools, overlooking a waterfall set amongst the trees. In between me and this tranquil scene was a naked Japanese man, who was lurking just outside of the door to the women’s baths (in retrospect this seems a little suspect). This area of the onsen was unisex, every man for herself.

With an eep! I quickly retreated to the haven of the women’s only bathing room to regroup. I had heard that mixed bathing onsen existed, but had been too shy to purposefully seek them out. I then noticed this label 混 on the door. If I had taken a moment to read this kanji earlier, it would have informed me that the room beyond was “mixed”. Ahhh, kanji. If only I could learn and remember 2,000 of you I wouldn’t, for example, walk naked into a room full of men. Mental note, must study more.

I struck up a conversation with two fellow female bathers. They informed me that all of the onsen in the area are mixed gender. Charming. My new friends exited the bathing pool, and covered the front of their bodies with a “modesty towel”. Why Japanese women feel the need to cover their fronts and not their backs, I’m not sure, but no one seems to mind if their bum hangs out in the breeze. Women started to gather at the door to the outside pools, sneaking peaks and assessing the situation.

I glanced at my friends, and I knew what I had to do. I told them, if you go in, I’ll go in with you. We made our pact, and I went to go get my own towel. Together, we took the plunge, through the looking glass and into the world of co-ed public Japanese bathing, and this is what we found:

In the end, the mixed gender thing wasn’t such a big deal. Onsens are about relaxation and contemplation, so everyone was in their own little world anyway. That plus the fact that I knew no one and would never see them again made any initial awkwardness dissipate pretty quickly.

Final analysis? Totally worth it and I’m so going back.

*Thanks to the Taenoyu website and the Flickr community for the photos that appear in this post.

There’s a marathon coming up in the nearby town of Gojome. The list of prizes completely captures the feeling of small-town life. Here they are as described by Gojome JET Corey Newman:

50 people will receive a “Morning Market Pack,” which probably has all the daikon and mountain vegetables you could eat – a virtual countryside tabehoudai!

25 people will receive 720ml of sake made right here in town. Our mayor owns a sake company, and it’s pretty good stuff.

Finally, another 25 people will receive 2kg of rice.

These prizes define Gojome.

You know the vice-principal, the guy at my school full of propriety and decorum who keeps everything running smoothly? He thought it would be funny to tell me all the bad words he knows in English today, so he put on his sailor’s cap, and started pointing at things around the office, spewing “Bitches!” and “Fuck You!”. I was a bit taken aback, but that’s okay… little does he know I taught my English club girls how to say turd yesterday. Whaat? Don’t look at me like that. I needed rhymes for bird, and “rd” is a legitimately difficult sound for my Japanese students to make. They should get something titillating every once in awhile for their efforts. Besides, it’s legitimate cultural exchange. Months ago one of my students taught me an equivalent word in Japanese, unko, which is used with abandon. A word that happens to sound just like anko, the heavy pasty brown bean paste inside of Japanese pastries. Make sure you don’t get those two confused. It could be messy.

*Thanks to the Flickr community for helping to photographically illustrate a point

It’s not often that a garbage truck brightens your day, but here you go, fresh and ripe from the nothern city of Sapporo.

Singing Trash

The sky is clear and brilliant, littered with stars. In this cloudy, waterlogged country, that in and of itself is a miracle. Though the sky is clear for now, early summer’s rainy season is well underway. With it comes the humidity, and the insects (I had forgotten you), unobtrusively grotesque on my living room wall.

It’s refreshingly cool this evening, a June Aberration. A radio tune I can’t quite hear winds through the street from some far off window, delicately drifting in and out of reach. Water rushes quietly under the street, hurrying to some unknown secret place.

I pass the elementary school field, which is abuzz during the day with children, my students, shouting ohstephaniesenseihello! ohstephaniesenseihello! At night it seems empty by comparison, until a chorus of frogs hums up out of the night, krrr-chickchick-ga-ga-ga! krrr-chickchick-ga-ga-ga! They’re proudly broadcasting their froggy tune, the welcome song of summer.

Tonight, there’s no snow, no strong wind, no steely flat clouds. No screaming children, no staring adults, no witty repartee. Just me and Japan, out for a stroll, sharing this perfect evening together.

I just stumbled upon this wonderful article by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post Magazine of April 8, 2007.  In January, the paper organized a “stunt” with Joshua Bell, the world-famous violinist, to play for an hour at a D.C. subway station during morning rush hour. The results are heartbreaking (in a good way) and I think you will enjoy this article, especially if you are a musician of any sort.

“It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . .”

The word doesn’t come easily.

“. . . ignoring me.”

Bell is laughing. It’s at himself.

“At a music hall, I’ll get upset if someone coughs or if someone’s cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change.” This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

Read more…

The weather’s been warming up, which means I can locomote by bike again! Biking to school is so much more enjoyable than driving. I pass all sorts of businesspeople, also on bikes, on the way to their jobs. We bow and smile and “Ohio gozaimasu” to each other. I see grandmas getting up to care for their property, shop owners tidying up, cats on the prowl.

Most kids pedal their way to school, as Noshiro is small enough to navigate entirely by bike. I pass every sort of plaid on my way to work… it’s kind of like Scotland and tartans, only here it’s kids and school-specific plaid uniforms. As I get within a few blocks of my school, I start to see my students. They’re always surprised to see me…. maybe adults are supposed to be in cars? They know I have one… perhaps they wonder why I’m slumming it with them? It’s an easy answer: one part California hippie fossil fuel consciousness and one part exercise.

I’ve never really been inspired to burn calories via bike. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lived in car-infested areas like Berkeley or San Diego or LA where you suck up more fumes than anything else. However, I just read the account of a woman, just out of college, who biked the Silk Road with a few friends in China. 5,000 kilometres in 4 months, riding through punishing mountainous terrain in Eastern China. This adventure has inspired me to rediscover Japan by bike. If only I had the vacation time, I would circumnavigate Hokkaido, complete the 88 temple pilgrimage in Shikoku, and do laps around Lake Biwa. For now, I’ve settled for rediscovering the countryside around me.

After 9 months here, I figured I pretty much knew everything there was to know about Noshiro. But there are those little streets between the arteries that still beg for exploration. I’ve found new temples and shrines in neighborhoods tucked away in the rural expanse. I’ve discovered beautiful tiny access roads that drift between the rice fields, which have all just been flooded with water for the upcoming planting season. I’ve biked to the next closest city, about 25 km to the east, following the serpentine Yoneshiro river. Along the river is an overgrown forgotten park full of blooming cherry trees and dilapidated playground equipment. Clusters of vertical polished stones indicate a small graveyard here or there.

In the middle of my ride, I stopped to talk to some older ladies to ask where I was, as I’m not sure where my town Noshiro ends and the next, Futatsui, begins. When I asked these women where I was, they said something like “Noshiro inaka desu yo!” and cackled, which roughly translates to “man, you’re in deep-country-side-boondocks-Noshiro!”

Farmers in their tractors pass me on the road, calling out to ask me if I’m tired or cold (no to both!). Farmers farther off in their fields bow slightly in my direction as I pass and do the same. I watch as everyone manicures their rice and vegetable fields, leveling the wet heavy muck, or patiently hoeing the dirt into rows for produce. The birds are out, grey herons and white egrets that stumble warily out of the river brush as I ride by.

I am falling in love with Tohoku all over again as green overtakes the countryside, and spring slowly manifests itself. And I can’t wait to see what happens next, what lies around the next curve.

Only if you live in Tohoku are you lucky enough for cherry blossom season and Golden Week to intersect. Ever since I saw revellers sitting out in Kyoto, drinking sake under the blossoms and the stars, I’ve been awaiting my chance to do the same in Noshiro. While the blossoms are finally, finally here, the social aspect kept falling through for some reason.

Last weekend we made plans to party with my adult English class, but the weather was cold and the blossoms weren’t out yet. Tuesday, our English club at the high school was going to make a go of it after school, until two of the girls were caught shoplifting. After that incident it was considered in poor taste to go out and have fun, so the girls stayed after school to do English drills instead. I was invited to not one, but TWO tea ceremony/flower viewing parties last Thursday, but unfortunately, I caught the crud that’s been going around the high school, and I was incapacitated by a 24 hour flu.

So this weekend, with the trees in full bloom, we created our own sakura gameplan. Plan A was to wander through the park near our house, and try to get ourselves “pulled in” to an ongoing party. We arrived a bit late in the festivities, as everyone was winding things up just before sunset, but we did have some nice exchanges with these friendly construction workers, who fancied a good frolic on the swing set.

The rest of the weekend, we went chasing blooms. The most magnificent display was just to the north in Hachimori, which boasts an entire hillside covered in cherry trees. We also checked out two castle parks in the not so near Akita City, but these didn’t hold a candle to the parks closer to home.

On Monday, we were satisfied with the blossom element, but still searching out the party. We said screw it, plan B, we’re going to make our own party. So three of us, all English teachers from America, bravely trotted out to the park, plentiful goodies and alcoholic supplies underarm. No sooner did we all crack open a beer when we were swept into an adjacent party (see plan A).

We were invited to join a party of Izakaya owners and goers, which means they all frequent a particular pub ’n grub establishment in town. It also means they are very practiced at having a good time. This crew brought several dozen glass steins and a beer keg to the park! Festival food for the offering included someone’s tentacles, denuded shellfish, remarkably lifelike shrimp with all the appropriate appendages still attached. We ate hanami dango and sausages and grilled veggies. The party also included a long haired dachsund, who would run amok on the picnic blanket, spilling food and dragging food in his wake.

And now we’re off to Osaka to enjoy the rest of the long weekend. Happy Golden Week, y’all!