last night

Well, it`s my last night in Japan and this post comes from a bedroom in the Toyoko Inn near Narita Airport - a giant chain hotel where the corridors feel like the interior of a spaceship, and for all you would know, outside a nuclear war might have got under way...
Very different from the place I went to last Friday with Koujisan, Yuuka`s Dad: Nakanosawa Mori no gakko (forest school) is in the mountainous part of Niigata region, where people still live in harmony with the land. Bears, deer and Japanese monkeys (nihonzaru) roam wild in the thick forests composed of many different tree species. Number one (certainly for Koujisan, whose dream is to publish a photobook of them, though I can`t tell his wife) is the natual cedar, or shinrensugi. Shinrensugi may live for aeons and often their trunks develop in weird and wonderful ways, even separating into different branches which become equal partners in trunkship, allowing them to grow on steep hillsides where other trees don`t find foothold. The oldest, called the shogunsugi (boss of cedars) is 1400 years old. In other words it was already venerable when Genghis Khan led his horde west out of Mongolia. Incredible! The shogun is treated with appropriate respect and is like a temple to the Japanese. I wasn`t quite prepared for the need to put a 100 yen coin in a box and say a prayer before mounting the wooden walkway surrounding its huge circumference, but I think Kouji forgave my impatience to get close to it.
Long live the Shogunsugi!
There are so many more things I could mention from the Morigako, but it would take more time than I have now.
Anyway, it gave me a taste for disccovering more of the natural wonders of this country, which are easy to forget in the highrise hustle of Tokyo. When I come again, I want to go skiing in the Niigata area, diving off the coast of Sado Island, see the wilderness of Hokkaido and the tropical beauty of Okinawa.
Will have to get a job to do that though!
OK, thanks for reading, and putting up with my numerous digressions (he cranes his neck to see if any seats might be filled in the gloom at the back of the theatre)... This is the end of my japan blog september 2009.
(But no doubt I will go on to muse on other topics on this very same page)
Sayonara!!!

politeness

Thank you for waiting. Do you often use these words, in that precise order? I bet you don`t. But the average Japanese - unless they are hermits - seems to use their equivalent `omataseshimashita` at least five times a day if not ten. If you take longer than normal to get out of the car, if you break away from your group to put a crisp bag in the bin, if you stop to inspect the soles of your shoes for dog dirt (actually this action may not be common in Japan), you will inevitably say `omataseshimashita` or if you`re with family or close friends, the more informal `omatase`. It`s just one example of Japanese using polite conventions automatically in a situation where it wouldn`t even occur to most cultures. I`ve found this hard to adapt to at times, especially as we Europeans are used to excessive politeness actually getting in the way of easy-going relationships. I suppose the reason for this is that if you say something to someone, which is the same thing you would say to anyone, it still feels like the someone could be anyone. If you see what I mean. There are occasions where Brits still resort to conventional phrases sure: a grunted `morning` never going out of fashion, or at the opposite end of the scale, on meeting a bereaved friend, `I was so sorry to hear` tends to beat something improvised - which is like saying `I`m sad for you`, but I`m not about to sacrifice my right to compose original repartee. For yes, language, friends, is an opportunity to express individuality: the Tesco checkout wage slave at least has the choice of attitude with which to greet the customers. A cheery smile and `how are you doing, my love?` on checkout 7; the sullen, silent treatment on number 6; shoppers filing out of both, their moods minutely changed according to the queue they entered. Not so in Japan: whichever queue you enter here (and it will be short) you`ll be greeted in the same way, with a slight bow and a set phrase, something along the lines of `thank you for coming`. Your change will be presented to you in a little tray and another thank you. If you`re like me and always reply with a thank you of your own, you`ll be looked on with an indulgent smile by Japanese who might be watching - this is not the convention and so people don`t do it.
To conclude, I`ve only got two more days before flying back to Edinburgh on Monday, and this might be my last blog (I know you`ll be devastated). Next time I come to Japan, a checkout rebel, along with plenty of other things, will be on my list of things left to see.
OMATASE!!

Irony

This morning I introduced one of the great topics of argument of the Garner family to Yuuka and her Mum. If there`s one thing my Dad can get on his high horse about, it`s irony, which he believes the Italians, my Mum`s adoptive culture, fail to understand. To fully appreciate this battle, you have to know that my Dad is completely rooted in a very English social awkwardness (though he`s lived in Scotland for ages) and can barely string two words of Italian together despite having visited multiple times. My Mum every so often feels the urge to needle him about this (`he had never been abroad before he`d met her`, etc ), stressing the fantastic taste, warmth, and social ease of Italians to implicitly contrast with said English awkwardness. Now my Dad, these situations usually being at the end of a family meal, tends to have already drunk at least four glasses of wine by this point. (they both have, though the exact respective numbers will or already have been hotly disputed) So instead of refusing the bait as he should, he becomes defensive. To the implication that he was green and untravelled, it hasn`t been unknown for him to give a detailed account of his job rolling barrels down into a pub storeroom as a seventeen year old -surprisingly this never fails to do the opposite of impressing her. But sooner or later, and probably sooner, he will use his favourite counter attack against the imagined hordes of Armani-clad Casanovas battering at his door. `They lack a sense of irony`, he will declare, and as soon as the words are out, the next stage of the battle has begun. Never one to miss an obvious riposte, my Mum shoots back: `What do you mean?` And off we go, for the next twenty minutes my Dad will attempt a definition of irony coupled with reasons why the Italians don`t possess it, and my Mum will hinder him at every turn, not least with the comeback that, as he can`t understand Italian, he is unlikely to know when irony is or isn`t being employed by them.
For my part I see what he means - appreciating irony does have something to do with a slight emotional detachment which Italians, from one angle at least - don`t seem to go in for. But what of the Japanese? This morning I thought I would investigate, so I typed in the word on Yuuka`s electronic dictionary, pushed the incomprensible translation across the breakfast table to her, and told her my Dad likes this.
Soon I had got down to one of my favourite activities, which was pedantically defining the differences between two similar words, in this case irony and sarcasm. Then her Mum got involved, and I had them both trying to give examples of ironic events - which I define according to the `spanner in the works` theory. After a couple that were merely unfortunate, Mamisan remembered a story I had already heard from Yuuka: M had been voraciously reading a Sidney Sheldon detective thriller and after three hundred pages was almost at the climax, when K (Y`s Dad) happened to pick up the book which she had put down for a second, read the final three pages, and nonchalantly announced the name of the killer. Yes, this was a classic piece of irony - I felt it immediately along with the accompanying pleasure. On reflection though, if the characters were replaced by strangers, most of the effect would be lost. It`s ironic because I know Koujisan wouldn`t really give a tinker`s cuss who the killer was, whereas Mamisan, a devotee of detective fiction, would have been thinking of nothing else but the solution.
So here`s the moral, kids - irony works best when you know the people involved. Probably. But don`t think about it. Just let it happen.
Anyway, that was just a long introduction to an account I wanted to give you of an awkward Japanese social occasion which I was involved in last night. Proper travel writing, the kind you come to this blog for. Thank you for waiting.

chanting, etc

It was 8.30 on Sunday morning when he came. I was still languishing in bed, but, eager not to miss the show, I pulled on some jeans and stumbled down the stairs, following the weird, rising and falling gurgling sound that had begun to fill the Yamada house. I entered the living room, and there he was: El Monk - kneeling before the shrine, incence smoke billowing lightly around him, only the back of his bald, liver-spotted head visible. I knelt between Yuuka and Koujisan at the back of the room. Then two seconds later I crossed my legs when the kneeling got too painful.
It was a sound unlike any other I have heard, but after a while I spotted a pattern - it went `oniononiononiononion`... oh no it didn`t - there was more to it, more like `yeronyerownyeronyerownyeronyerown` repeated endlessly, which wouldn`t be very encouraging to someone in the afterlife, you would think.
When it finally ended with the ringing of ceremonial bells, the `juushyo` was introduced to me. He wore specs and looked a bit like the Dalai Llama, with the twinkle in the eye of the able seducer I had heard he had been. He spoke thick local dialect which I didn`t understand a word of, but he seemed pleased to see me so instead of querying the economic affairs of Japanese Buddhism I just smiled.
Ok, better go now. Right now Yamada family camcorder videos are getting a grand screening in the living room. I`m sure Bondosan never had to do this in `You Only Live Twice`...

Nattou my god

Right, I think finally it`s time I said more about that all-important topic - FOOD!
In the past three days I`ve been out two nights to restaurants with Yuuka`s family, first on Saturday for `kuru kuru` sushi - which is where the dishes come round on a conveyor belt and you pick off the ones you want. At the end they charge you according to how many plates you have piled up on your table; there are bronze, silver and gold plates for three different price levels. We had forty four plates and I was frightened of the cost, but Papa Koujisan paid, as usual waving away my attempts to contribute.
That night I tried many daring things, including salmon roe(Japanese caviar), kanimiso, and my old nemesis, nattou. First two of those were actually tasty, even though kanimiso looked like diahorrea, as I whispered to Yuuka and she then broadcast to the table. Nattou, if you don`t know, is a popular Japanese bean paste of a unique filmy, frothy consistency, like viscous spittle. Basically, its appearance is enough to make a rhino gag and the taste isn`t much better. On this particular occasion it was inside innocuous looking sushi wraps, which made it even worse; like lying down on a soft bed and knowing that a cockroach nest is going to fall out of the ceiling onto your head. After one wrap, consumed whole as is the Japanese custom, I was just able to get to my beer in time not to be sick.
From then on, I knew that nothing they could throw at me would be any worse. (In fact I love the food here - I`ve just concentrated on the worst for entertainment value).. Ok, next time I`ll write about the womanising monk. That`s a promise!

Monk!

Religion in Japan. Right. Ahem. This topic is probably the topic of numerous weighty tomes by lifetime scholars but I`ll attempt to cover it in a short blog for the benefit of you, my vast and credulous readership who could, at any moment, desert me for the relevant wikipedia page.
The Japanese, unique among developed nations, accomodate two major religions side-by-side. These are shinto, the older pantheistic religion, and buddhism, which came, like many aspects of Japanese culture, originally from China, at some point in the misty past.
Interesting thing: Shintoism has no concept of a life after death. It seems to be all about imprecating different Gods (thunder, rain, wind, etc) for good fortune in this life.
And that`s probably why Buddhism makes such a nice spiritual bedfellow. You probably already know as much as me about Buddhist beliefs on reincarnation and coming back as a different part of the natural world (i.e. not very much, but you get the general idea).
Hhhm, all of a sudden I have less confidence in what I`ve written. I`ve just asked Yuuka and she says she`s never heard of Shinto. But I`ll accomodate that into my theory anyway, which is that Buddhism does a much better job of that all-important aspect of religion - turning a profit. All the Buddhist temples are loaded with charm sellers, with different charms for diverse matters as specific as keeping your luggage safe on a long journey. They also have o-mikuji, which is where you pay 100 yen (50p) and choose at random a paper telling you what your luck is going to be. From what I`ve seen of Yuuka`s family, they take these quite seriously, and bad luck from a mikuji is a cause for alarm and discomfort. So much so that they might pay another 100 yen for a second go.
Sure, sure, these slot machines for the soul fulfil people`s needs, and there`s not going to be so much money in it for the temples. Think of all the paper they have to buy, and the incence - for all I know they barely cover overheads. But yesterday Yuuka`s family told me about another aspect of Japanese buddhism that I had no idea about.
When I first rolled up at the front door on sunday (a little nervous) I was immediately whisked through to the living room of Granpasan`s ground floor flat to `meet Obajan`. Almost certain Granny had passed away, I wondered what was going on, but actually I just followed Yuuka`s example in kneeling before a kind of shrine which had been created at the fireplace. Candles were lit, incence burned, and we both prayed (though I have to say I just looked at Granny`s photo and felt, slightly eerily, that she was looking back at me). Apparently however, it is not only me and the family, who do the praying. Tomorrow, a monk from the nearby temple - a notorious womaniser, so they say - will come to perform his monthly benediction. You`ve guessed it - this is not a free service. When a Japanese dies, their family pay a vast sum - at their direction - to ensure their spirit receives a favourable reincarnation. Your prestige in the next world depends on how long a name you get - the longer the name, the more it costs. Your money also buys monthly visits from a monk (the more you pay the higher the level of monk) who chants and does other monk-like stuff. I ventured to ask Yuuka how much her Granpa (very old, very fearful of death) wants to leave to the Jinja (temple). When I named what I thought was a ludicrous figure - in the hundreds of thousands of pounds - she said it would be much more than that. Oh my God! If every Japanese death is followed up by these kind of payments, the temples must be wealthy beyond belief. What I can`t tell you is what they do with their money. Do they dutifully invest it in new robes and training manuals, save it up for a rainy day, or buy shares in missile defence companies? Are the Yakuza gangs involved in the whole business?
Tomorrow your correspondent will meet the womanising monk, and, if not find the answers to these questions, at least tell you if he tries it on with my girlfriend, her mother, her sister, or even me (if I wear a yellow kimono and bat my lashes). Til then. Mata atode

toilets, etc

Phew, that`s over. Now we can get back to other matters, of which there are two I particularly want to tell you about.
The first is a technological innovation commonplace in Japan that most Europeans seem to have no notion of. It`s an area where the British are not so far behind, but the French remain in the dark ages. I am talking about toilets - the kind you place your bum on.
Everywhere I`ve stayed,including Yuuka`s house, has what they call `an oshiri shower.` Oshiri means bum. You have a little control panel with an array of buttons on the wall just at sitting down level next to the pan. The buttons have writing and symbols on them which if you are like me, you will have a hard time deriving any meaning from, and thus be too scared to use. This morning, after my excretive affairs were discussed at length over the Yamada family breakfast (constipation on first arrving in Japan, followed by it`s inverse:`geri`), I was cajoled into using the oshiri shower properly for the first time. On a previous occasion (at the spa) I had toyed with it gingerly, but actually found the spurt missed the key spot, if you follow my meaning. My error, apparently, was this: you have to move to find the oshiri shower, not the other way round. The optimum way to do this, Yuuka`s mum informed me, is by a kind of seated salsa arse jiggle.
Happily, I was able to put the instruction to effect, and even moved on to the third and strongest setting. The effect was pleasing I suppose, and maybe more hygienic, but it doesn`t obviate the need for toilet paper. I will put it down as an example of how the Japanese love any form of technology that increases their comfort.
At a cost of about two hundred quid (to update a standard toilet) it's not that expensive either. Though let`s face it, most people have more pressing needs on which to spend their filthy lucre.
Oh, one more thing: there are three pink buttons too, underneath the main shower trio, which apparently are for `female needs`. I wonder if I should have a go...

Second thing I wanted to mention was the Japanese attitude to religion. But it`s actually too big a topic and I can`t be bothered starting now. Mata atode!