Probably anyone under 25 living in the U.S. will not know what that is in the photo above. Or maybe they saw one in an old movie. You know . . . old . . . like 1987.
It’s a telephone booth. Inside is a pay telephone. A person can put a coin or two in it and make a phone call. If they put a lot of coins in it, they can make a long distance call, maybe say ‘hi’ to their grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara.
The one pictured is in a fairly rural area about five minutes by bicycle from my house. Mind you, I live on the very edge of town, surrounded by bean and rice fields. This road is even further out but has houses on both sides of it, a small cluster of residences, forming one of the several villages which are the “neighborhoods” of Tambasasayama City*. Each village usually has regular meetings, puts on social functions — barbecues, holiday celebrations, bingo parties, etc — gets together to clean up and maintain the grounds and properties of the village. Most have a community center for hosting monthly meetings and various social gatherings. Some, like the one where I live, called Noma Village, have their own Shinto shrine, a valued but mostly symbolic feature — nobody goes there on a regular basis to worship, as they might a church or synagogue in America — visited on certain special holidays, e.g. New Years.
Back to the phone booth. Why is it there?
Well . . . someone just might need to make a call. And maybe their iPhone battery is down. Or they dropped their Samsung in a toilet and it’s not so waterproof after all. It’s there on the off chance someone needs it. Does this seem odd?
Actually, it reflects a typically Japanese level of forethought and consideration. Respect for redundancy. A willingness to leave some things in place — just in case.
Here’s another example: Everywhere you find a school or public building, they have what’s pictured here on the walkways.
What are they? They’re for blind people. Now I’ve been coming and going for 13 years. I’ve been up and down these streets. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’VE NEVER SEEN A BLIND PERSON in this town. So why do they have these? Well . . . ya never know. A blind person could show up one day. And the city doesn’t want to leave them stumbling around, wandering into the street, getting hit by cars or tractors or rice harvesters.
If the city council decided that there was some reasonable possibility that space aliens could visit our town, I have no doubt they’d designate parking places for their space ships and provide electrical outlets for them to recharge. That’s just the way they think here.
Tambasasayama is far from being a rich town. In fact, some would say it’s a dying town. There are hardly any young adults. Most kids bolt once they graduate from high school, first stop university, next a nice job in the city. Very few return. Not much going on here and unless you want to be a farmer, there aren’t really many jobs.
Yet, it seems they are constantly working on improving things. Paving the roads, installing new or fixing the old curbs. Here’s a bridge they painted a few years ago. I remember this well because I was so astonished at how much care they lavished on this particular bridge, a pedestrian/bicycle bridge which I use almost every day. When the tiniest, nearly invisible signs of rust appeared, they sanded it and put FIVE COATS OF PAINT ON IT! Five! Seven years later and it still looks perfect. It could probably take a direct hit by a MOAB and survive.
We have one street which is rich with tradition, sometimes referred to as ‘merchant street’. It has many traditional shops, vegetable stands, restaurants, art galleries, ceramics stores. It’s charming in every respect but one. The electrical lines.
They are now in the process of putting all of the power lines underground. Because most of the buildings have traditional architecture, when they’re done with this, this already charming street will look very much the way it did, say 200 years ago. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn seeing this sort of commitment of time, energy, and public funds to the town’s infrastructure: For the Japanese, aesthetics are an essential part of honoring history and community life.
Politicians in the U.S. are always bloviating about the need to repair the “infrastructure” there, which they all openly admit is crumbling, if not already in shambles. Then there will be another tax cut for the rich or another war or pandemic . . . or [ fill in the blank since any excuse will do ] . . . and nothing ever gets done.
Well, building and maintaining infrastructure to keep Tambasasayama safe and operable is not just a campaign slogan or bumper sticker here. It’s an integral part of daily life. We all do a little. But the government itself does the real heavy lifting.
To put it mildly, I’m awed.
One last note. Proof that the telephone booth at the beginning is not just a fluke, here is a photo I took less than 100 meters (300 feet) away, even closer to my house. Frankly, I had never noticed it before. Yes, it’s yet another phone booth, this one sitting adjacent to a truly funky old bus stop shelter. While you’re waiting for the bus, you can call your grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara. How convenient!
* Note that in May 2020 the town officially changed its name from Sasayama — the name that appears in most of the articles in this series — to Tambasasayama.
There are highway service areas in Japan so elaborate and well-outfitted that families pay the pricey highway toll just to visit them and spend the day. For these folks, going there is the same as going to a park or a shopping mall to hang out and have fun.
Highway service areas in Japan are what we in the U.S. call ‘rest areas’.
Years ago, I used to spend a lot of time traveling the entire Eastern half of America by car. This was roadwork for my music business activities, initially as a musician, then later as a band manager and music producer. Trust me, I’m very familiar with rest areas. While I hear that these days there are some very fancy ones — with restaurants, shops, showers, and the like — this is how I remember them. Since these are current photos, there are obviously still many which conform to this basic design.
There are simple, basic highway service areas in Japan. However, they tend to be atypical. Even these rudimentary iterations provide more than just a restroom and a picnic table. Want to take a break from driving to do some fishing? Or feed some ducks?
Most of Japan’s service areas offer abundant opportunities to shop, eat, relax and play. They are more stop and play than gas and go.
We have a highway service area about 15 minutes from our house, which we visit with my step-daughter, Azusa, and her dog Ji Ji — because it has a dog run! We access it from a small road behind the service area grounds, which runs parallel to the tollway. So actually we visit this highway service area without even going on the highway.
So I won’t be accused of cherry picking a few exemplary but unrepresentative examples, here are just some of the highway service areas within 100 kilometers of my home town.
How do I explain how things work here? I guess it suffices to say that Japanese excel at taking everything to a logical and elegant extreme. They have extremely high standards and are perfectionists. This even shows in something as routine as setting up a place to pull off the road to take a break from driving.
Japanese folks will wonder why in the world am I writing about public restrooms. They take it for granted that when you gotta go, you just go. Restrooms are plentiful, clean, safe, well-maintained and open to the public everywhere here.
I can explain why this is a big deal. I’ll answer with a question: Have you ever tried to pee in New York City?
Without checking into a hotel?
Without sitting down to a meal at a restaurant?
Without buying an ensemble you didn’t need at a department store?
Or let’s say you do happen to stumble on one of the extremely scarce public toilets.
If you don’t encounter a homeless family who have set up housekeeping . . .
. . . if you don’t see a junkie shooting up over in the corner . . .
. . . if you don’t have to step over dead body or two . . .
. . . if you don’t find perverts having sex through a glory hole between adjoining stalls . . .
. . . then the stench will drive you out, because the place hasn’t been cleaned since they laid off some janitorial city worker six months ago to give tax breaks to Wall Street execs.
Let me be clear.
I consider peeing-on-demand a basic human right. Like breathing, going to the bathroom is not a lifestyle choice.
Japan completely respects the inevitability and the all-too-often urgency of nature’s call.
Here in my hometown of Tambasasayama, in the eight or ten block area which comprises the center of our town, I counted no less than five public toilet facilities. As restrooms go, they’re fine. Nothing fancy. But clean, properly kept up to the high standards and hygienic expectations of the citizens here.
Additionally, there are restaurants, temples, public buildings, stores which have toilets. I’ve never seen a ‘Restrooms For Customers Only’ sign anywhere in Japan.
Along with the five public toilets downtown is an outdoor one at a supermarket . . .
. . . another at a 7-11 convenience store . . .
. . . and yet another at a curios shop/restaurant . . .
. . . all publicly accessible, no questions, no hassles.
Could relief be any more accessible? Adult diapers? (Ugh!)
Granted, there are those who might accuse me of focusing too much here on the mundane. Come on! Toilets?
Just remember. Sometimes it’s taking care of the little, simple things in life, which makes the much bigger, more complex things possible. Try to enjoy that stroll through Greenwich Village or taking in the sites at Times Square when you’ve had to hold it in for four hours.
The Koban is the heart of community policing in Japan.
Remember community policing? Yes, it was a big buzzword in the U.S. during the 90s, a decade that featured a brutal police beating of Rodney King, an unarmed black man, which sparked riots in Los Angeles. The idea was to have policemen be participating members of a neighborhood, an integral part of community life. This would promote good relations between citizens and the men in uniform, acquaint the police with the citizens and unique activities of the people living near the community policing stations, giving them first-hand familiarity with the “players” there, good and bad. People would see police as humans just like them, police would experience citizens on a personal level. Moreover, if there were a problem requiring their attention, the police would be in the vicinity right on the scene.
It turned out to be more of a PR stunt in most cities in the U.S. and the approach finally buckled under the tensions it created, fueled by suspicion, lack of real trust, the sense that the cops weren’t there to help but to spy on the locals, using their insertion in the locale to better subject the everyday citizens to the strong-arm tactics and “establishment” bullying law enforcement is often rightly accused of.
Community policing is not just a PR campaign here in Japan. It’s a reality. If there’s a problem and it’s not an emergency, you turn to the officers at the local Koban to get help. They truly are members of the community, living in the housing usually at the rear of the building, often with their own families.
There are a number of these in my home town here, and thousands all across Japan. Even in the big cities. I’ve seen them in Osaka and Tokyo.
Let me tell a story to see how this approach actually functions here. And please understand that I’m not trying to portray myself as some hero. What I did in this situation is exactly what 99.999% of all of the folks living here would do.
Masumi and I were on our way to a nearby town, if I recall, to visit her mom. It was a nasty day, rainy and windy, visibility was poor. I was driving. We approached an intersection and as I slowed down, I looked out the side window of her Mazda. This is what I saw.
Obviously, that was not the woman. I Photoshopped the pic to illustrate what happened.
I immediately braked, signaled to the car behind me to stop. Then I went over to the body laying in the road.
It was an elderly lady, probably in her 80s, and she was conscious, laying exactly as you see in the above pic, just staring straight into to cold, wet pavement.
The man in the car which was following me came over. We talked to the lady and helped her to her feet. She was fine. Just confused and lost.
There was a Koban not more than 100 meters away, around the corner of the intersection.
We walked the lady there, sat her down. The police officer on duty got a blanket, probably one of his own from the private quarters, and it greatly helped the lady warm up. It was a cold, miserable day.
Before I go on, let me show you the tiny strip on this narrow street where she was laying.
It was a miracle she wasn’t run over! As I already mentioned, the day this happened was gray and cloudy, it was raining, visibility was very poor. And this is a well-traveled road. To make things even more precarious, she was dressed in a long overcoat a color that almost matched to pavement.
The police officer tried to get some basic information from her. Sadly, I think she was a victim of severe dementia. But . . . because he was right there in the community, he knew exactly who to call. Yes, there’s a nursing home nearby. One phone call later, the staff at the nursing home confirmed a lady fitting her description was missing. They sent someone over and took her back to the comfort of her residential care facility.
See how easy this works? No calls to central headquarters, checking databases for missing persons, trying to piece together a narrative to explain and identify this lost woman. Being right there in the neighborhood cuts through a lot of red tape and guesswork.
The officer interviewed Masumi and I, as well as the other driver, got all the details, filled out the requisite paperwork — Japanese love paperwork! — and thanked us for our service. He was very professional. It was obvious he took his job seriously and liked his work.
Community policing works. Especially if the police are dedicated and honest.
Granted, ‘Udon, Soba & Ramen’ sounds like a law firm based in Yokohama.
Actually, these are the three most common forms of noodles here in Japan, and are among the staples of the healthy diet of this country.
My history with ‘noodles’ is pretty sketchy. My mom used to serve me chicken noodle soup, typically Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. I tried to smile and show my gratitude but I’ve never forgiven her for serving me this slop in a can.
I’m now recalling the name of the character Robert De Niro played in one of my favorite gangland movies, Once Upon a Time in America. Yes, It was ‘Noodles’.
Hmm . . . let’s see. I used to eat buttered egg noodles for lunch sometimes.
There you have it. A lifetime noodling around. Until I arrived here.
Like everything here in Japan, the science and art of noodle-making has been perfected to the highest possible level.
There is, for example, a whole prefecture — a prefecture is the equivalent of a state in the U.S. or a province in Canada — devoted to creating the finest udon in the Universe. It’s called Kagawa Prefecture. I’ve been there! There are hundreds of udon restaurants, and you can watch them make noodles from scratch as you sit there waiting for your meal. They make dough, roll it, cut it, then toss it into boiling water. You can’t get udon any fresher than that!
Udon (うどん) is a thick wheat-flour noodle, served in a very basic broth. The slippery texture makes it enormously fun to eat. The toppings are a real bonus. They include varieties of tempura, soft- or hard-boiled eggs, fish paste, fish cakes, shrimp, with the whole affair then sprinkled to taste with chopped scallions. We eat udon at least once a week. A real treat is to serve a basic udon generously blended with Japanese curry.
Soba (蕎麦) is made from buckwheat flour and despite the name, buckwheat bears no relation to wheat. It’s made from grinding the seeds of Fagopyrum esculentum, a plant which is not a grass like wheat is. It took me a while to develop a taste for buckwheat. I had tried buckwheat pancakes in the U.S. and thought they were odd, certainly not at all an improvement on regular pancakes. Slowly here in Japan I’ve grown to enjoy the unique flavor of buckwheat and soba itself.
Most soba restaurants seem to be more traditional institutions, so the dining experience embraces atmospherics as well tongue tantalizing. My wife really loves soba, so at least once a month we go to her favorite restaurant tucked away on a country road in the middle of nowhere.
If you happen to go to this place, I’m sure you’ll be as amazed as I always am that anyone can find it. But there’s always a line at the door of expectant soba-aficionados eager to get their fix.
Ramen (ラーメン) is the least healthy of the three. Lots and lots of grease. Which means it tastes great! It’s based on Chinese wheat noodles, a meat or fish broth — usually it’s pork — and like udon is garnished with all sorts of yummy ingredients. Slices of butaniku (pork) are very common. Some people dump in tons of garlic or green onions, or peppery spices. Many regions of Japan have their own distinctive version of ramen. For example, tonkotsu is the ramen unique to Kyushu and miso ramen that of Hokkaido.
Ramen and people’s devotion to it sometimes have religious or cult overtones. This was beautifully captured in a very funny comedic film called The Ramen Girl, about an American lass who is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend, and apprentices to a ramen master to get her life back together. I highly recommend it!
(Disclaimer: This movie has no transgender CIA assassins who side-by-side with comic book superheroes attempt to defeat an invading swarm of 6-dimensional extraterrestrial nano-spiders. But it’s still outstanding!)
There you have it. Come to Japan. Join in on the fun.
Or if you’re already here, you know . . . the Japanese take noodles very seriously!
Sushi and I have a long history. I discovered the joys of raw fish on sticky rice back in the 80s, when I lived in Los Angeles.
I was a bit of a sushi snob back then, not because I’m class conscious, but because the people I was hanging out with at the time had a lot of disposable income.
Sushi scene in “Defending Your Life”
There’s a great romantic comedy film called “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep. The two sushi chefs in that film had a fabulous sushi restaurant frequented by movie industry types — moguls and celebrities. They were the “rock stars” of the sushi scene in that area of town, which is why they ended up in the film. These two geniuses were my initiation in perhaps the best sushi in the entire Universe! That’s how I became a sushi snob.
When I moved to Portland, Oregon I was heartened to find one phenomenal sushi bar, unfortunately now out of business. I was home free! The competition wasn’t exactly stiff. Portland’s unofficial motto is still to this day ‘Keep Portland Weird’.
Predictably there were some very bizarre places that passed themselves off as sushi restaurants. One was called Rock ‘n Roll Sushi. I tried it. It was horrible! Other places were run by individuals who clearly had no training in the fine art of sushi making, weren’t remotely Japanese, probably thought miso soup was just bad English, as in “Me so glad to see you, Yoko!”
It was in Portland I first heard of conveyor belt sushi. I immediately dismissed it as just more Portland weirdness, glanced in the window of the new conveyor restaurant only once — yes, it was the talk of the town and I was curious — and thought, what a stupid gimmick!
I was pretty confident I wasn’t missing anything. Here’s what one customer said about it: “Sushi Mioga may not serve the best sushi in town but for the price and with tons of options, this is my new favorite conveyor-belt-sushi restaurant for now.”
Whatever. Sushi delivered on a conveyor belt? Ha! What a joke!
Of course, I was wrong about at least part of the story. Conveyor belt sushi was invented by a Japanese sushi restaurant owner back in 1958. His name was Yoshiaki Shiraishi, and he was looking for an effective way to get his sushi quickly to his customers. A visit to a local Asahi brewery, which used conveyor belts to speedily move the beer through the process of bottling and packaging, was his inspiration.
So Portland wasn’t being weird or innovative or anything of the like. It took someone there almost 50 years to discover and capitalize on this clever invention. By then, Japan had entire conveyor belt sushi restaurant chains up and running across the nation. The most well-known and successful is Sushiro, which has been in business for over 30 years.
Sushi tends to be very polarizing. Either people absolutely LOVE IT or are nauseated by the thought of eating raw fish.
I guess I’m pretty lucky living here, since I’m a hard-core sushi and sashimi lover. Both are as common here, both at home and when eating out, as pizza or fries are in America. Masumi and I went to a cook-out at a friend’s house and along with the usual things that you’d see at a backyard barbecue, there was the huge plate of yellowtail sashimi pictured here. That would cost over $100 at a restaurant in the U.S. And here it was being served as a snack like you’d serve cheese and crackers. I was in heaven!
We don’t eat out all that often — both Masumi and I love to cook and she’s certainly a genius in the kitchen — but on average we eat conveyor belt sushi once a month. Our favorite place is in nearby Tanba-shi. Usually we go with Masumi’s mom and her two daughters who live near us in Sasayama.
It’s not only incredibly delicious and inexpensive but I frankly find it to be a lot of fun. There’s always the anticipation of what the sushi chefs have coming down the belt next. Sometimes some real surprises!
Since conveyor belt sushi is extremely popular, for the lunch or dinner rush hour it’s generally a good idea to make an online reservation a few hours in advance. Last time we were there, however, it wasn’t peak time and the place wasn’t as crowded as is usual.
Even though they weren’t blasting Megadeath over the speaker system and the waitresses didn’t look like something out of Zombie Goth Apocalypse, we still had an excellent time!
I’ve been spending time in Japan on and off for almost thirteen years. I’ve lived here as a permanent resident now for over eight. I can’t ever recall seeing a police officer smile.
Then again, they’re not paid to smile. Apparently they’re paid to serve and protect.
This story appeared as an article in this morning’s newspaper. Yes, we have it delivered everyday. It’s white paper with black printing, sometimes a few color photos, a pleasant way to keep informed, which my wife Masumi reads then we recycle. The story . . .
Kakogawa is a town in our area. There an 81-year-old lady’s disabled husband fell off the bed where he unfortunately spends most of his life now. She was unable to lift him and put him back into the bed. He himself could offer no assistance.
She called her son, who lives in Himeji. He promised to get there as soon as possible, but Himeji is well over an hour from Kakogawa.
The lady then called the police. Hoisting people from a fall is not really their job but they said they would get there as soon as possible.
Two policemen showed up at her house in ten minutes. They were able to get the old man back into the comfort of his bed. She was overwhelmed with gratitude. As they left, they reminded her to be sure and lock her door. I’m not sure why because crime is practically non-existent here in Japan, especially in the more outlying towns like Kakogawa.
To be honest, I have no way of knowing if the police officers smiled. But they certainly went way beyond their official line of duties to help this distressed old couple.
Protect and serve. Be human. Be helpful. Be kind.
When I lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, all of the patrol cars had ‘To Protect and Serve’ on them. Regardless, it was well established that you didn’t talk to, call on, approach, or in any way engage the police. If you did, you would be inviting harassment, abuse, even arrest. That was back in the 80s and early 90s. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it’s like now.
What happened to America? When did public servants become the enemy?
Every nation has its pluses and minuses. Maybe I don’t look to the police here for a smile. But I know I can count on them if there’s a problem.
The first time I ever saw a washlet, to be entirely honest about it, I was genuinely afraid to sit down. To my unschooled Western eyes, it looked like an ejection seat in a fighter jet. Seeing it plugged into the wall most definitely made me pause. I’m not exactly excited about having 100 volts of electricity anywhere near the 2nd most important cluster of organs on my body — the ones responsible for both a great deal of pleasure, as well as relief from the build up of sludge and stinky fluids.
The washlet is the technological evolution of the “bum gun”, a simple, standard approach to hygiene for the private parts, still commonly seen in Southeast Asia — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar.
When I first saw a bum gun, I thought “how primitive!” The real truth? My disdain itself was an embarrassingly primitive, insular, knee-jerk reaction. What do I mean by that?
Is this the best we can do? Seriously?
I imagine an advanced race of extraterrestrials returning from our beloved planet Earth, reporting to the Council of Wise Elders on their own beloved space rock: “Well, they’re an interesting but strange bunch there on Earth. In some ways, they’re quite advanced. But in others quite puzzling to say the least. They actually cut down trees to wipe their asses.”
Yes, we cut down trees, process them, turn them into pulp, then toilet paper. You know what happens next.
The bum gun does the job much more admirably and is much more eco-friendly, at least in terms of maintaining forest cover on our ravaged planet.
Just spray and wash. Pat with a towel. Get on with your life. Frankly a thorough wash is much more sanitary than . . . you know how it goes.
Back to the washlet, a Japanese innovation I put on a par with the invention of the steam engine or artificial intelligence.
Washlets come in varying degrees of sophistication, accessorized to accommodate a wide range of tastes. But they all perform the same purpose. They wash you. Men in back. Women back and front.
You can adjust the temperature of the stream, the intensity of the stream. It can be just a direct stream or in “massage mode” a wiggling stream.
Some washlets greet you! Some play music. Some put the toilet seat up and down for you.
This borders on somewhat excessive for my particularly pedestrian world view and spartan expectations. But there’s one feature pretty standard on washlets that is truly admirable. THE TOILET SEATS ARE HEATED! And you can adjust the temperature on them too.
Why haven’t these caught on in Western countries? Has someone tried to market them to the wiping/smearing/stinky-butted round-eyed barbarians of Europe, the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the rest of the non-Japanese world . . . and gone bankrupt? I don’t get it.
Yes, I admire much about Japan. And every country has its pluses and minuses. You can examine and study, compare and argue, go back and forth, weighing the pros and cons.
Then some one thing comes along which is so phenomenal, so HUGE and AMAZING, so entirely off the charts, so beyond anything else on the table, it’s no longer a contest.
What were you doing New Years Eve? The usual. Or the unusual.
As is standard operating procedure for us, Masumi and I were well off the beaten path . . . we certainly weren’t in Times Square. We weren’t wearing a beer guzzler cap. We didn’t do vodka jello shooters, smoke DMT or put magic mushrooms on our eleven-cheese pizza. We never even got around to singing Auld Lang Syne.
Here’s the very short, edited version of our New Years Eve celebration.
This was the climactic end to seven days in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
To put it mildly, it was a unique and highly entertaining visit to a country I’ve been to before, but always finding intriguing. My wife Masumi, however, has never been to Thailand, so this short adventure was especially exciting for her.
Doi Inthanon National Park is about an hour drive from Chiang Mai, and is home to the highest peak in Thailand. On our way there for two days in nature, we went through a Hmong village, where they happened to be having a New Years festival.
The park and surrounds were outstanding. Unfortunately, since Doi Inthanon Mountain itself shrouded in a cloud, while we were there the visibility at the top was limited. But as the day progressed, the air cleared and we got to do some hiking and experienced stunning views of the countryside. We stopped at a few villages sprinkled around and sampled “real life” in this rustic, relatively underdeveloped part of the world.
For easy access to the park, we did a homestay at Nongtao, a Karen tribe village actually within the great expanse of Doi Inthanon National Park. People were shy but amicable. Our host was truly superb, helping us decide what to do and how to get places.
Not far from our homestay was an elephant park. These were no ordinary elephants. They had all been in the parade celebrating the recent coronation of the new King of Thailand. You can sense from their regal bearing and sophisticated manners their royal blood lines.
What would a visit to Thailand be, however, without spending time at a few of the literally tens of thousands of temples and shrines? We capped off sacred site hopping by visiting the world-famous White Temple, a short distance outside of Chiang Rai.
We were so comfortable and fit in so perfectly, I’m sure no one suspected for a moment that we were tourists.
All of us at one time or another have had strangers come to the door. Maybe it’s Jehovah Witness or Mormon recruiters; someone looking for a prior resident; a person whose car has broken down; a magazine salesman; one of those people who go around stuffing fliers in mailboxes, advertising a new gym, a sale on snow tires, a new restaurant opening down the street, a holiday sale; a person with Alzheimer’s disease who wandered out of the back door of their house down the street.
But how many of you folks can say they’ve had Shinto monks come by to bless your home, your life, and all of those in your immediate family?
Of course, they’re seeking alms. But that’s really standard operating procedure here in Asia. When I was in Myanmar, shortly after sunrise, young monks would fan out through the neighborhood where I was staying and ask for a daily contribution for their sustenance and the continuation of their spiritual work. The community values their presence and what they contribute to the social equilibrium, and shows its appreciation with pocket change and small bills. Is this so different than passing the hat, collection basket, handheld wireless ATM at a church in the U.S.? I think not.
Besides, the Shinto monks who go door-to-door here put on a nice little show! See for yourself . . .
It must be working. No one around us that I’m aware of has gotten the plague, we’ve had no invasions of locusts, blood seems confined to the arterial systems of the hosts, we never get thunderstorms of hail and fire. We have our share of frogs but quite honestly they’re cute little critters. Noisy but cute.
I’d say Japan is better off than most ancient civilizations. Meaning, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I’m certainly looking forward to another visit from the Shinto good fortune team when they run out of money. Until then I think I’ll just levitate . . .
Life In Japan: The Telephone Booth
Probably anyone under 25 living in the U.S. will not know what that is in the photo above. Or maybe they saw one in an old movie. You know . . . old . . . like 1987.
It’s a telephone booth. Inside is a pay telephone. A person can put a coin or two in it and make a phone call. If they put a lot of coins in it, they can make a long distance call, maybe say ‘hi’ to their grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara.
The one pictured is in a fairly rural area about five minutes by bicycle from my house. Mind you, I live on the very edge of town, surrounded by bean and rice fields. This road is even further out but has houses on both sides of it, a small cluster of residences, forming one of the several villages which are the “neighborhoods” of Tambasasayama City*. Each village usually has regular meetings, puts on social functions — barbecues, holiday celebrations, bingo parties, etc — gets together to clean up and maintain the grounds and properties of the village. Most have a community center for hosting monthly meetings and various social gatherings. Some, like the one where I live, called Noma Village, have their own Shinto shrine, a valued but mostly symbolic feature — nobody goes there on a regular basis to worship, as they might a church or synagogue in America — visited on certain special holidays, e.g. New Years.
Back to the phone booth. Why is it there?
Well . . . someone just might need to make a call. And maybe their iPhone battery is down. Or they dropped their Samsung in a toilet and it’s not so waterproof after all. It’s there on the off chance someone needs it. Does this seem odd?
Actually, it reflects a typically Japanese level of forethought and consideration. Respect for redundancy. A willingness to leave some things in place — just in case.
Here’s another example: Everywhere you find a school or public building, they have what’s pictured here on the walkways.
What are they? They’re for blind people. Now I’ve been coming and going for 13 years. I’ve been up and down these streets. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’VE NEVER SEEN A BLIND PERSON in this town. So why do they have these? Well . . . ya never know. A blind person could show up one day. And the city doesn’t want to leave them stumbling around, wandering into the street, getting hit by cars or tractors or rice harvesters.
If the city council decided that there was some reasonable possibility that space aliens could visit our town, I have no doubt they’d designate parking places for their space ships and provide electrical outlets for them to recharge. That’s just the way they think here.
Tambasasayama is far from being a rich town. In fact, some would say it’s a dying town. There are hardly any young adults. Most kids bolt once they graduate from high school, first stop university, next a nice job in the city. Very few return. Not much going on here and unless you want to be a farmer, there aren’t really many jobs.
Yet, it seems they are constantly working on improving things. Paving the roads, installing new or fixing the old curbs. Here’s a bridge they painted a few years ago. I remember this well because I was so astonished at how much care they lavished on this particular bridge, a pedestrian/bicycle bridge which I use almost every day. When the tiniest, nearly invisible signs of rust appeared, they sanded it and put FIVE COATS OF PAINT ON IT! Five! Seven years later and it still looks perfect. It could probably take a direct hit by a MOAB and survive.
We have one street which is rich with tradition, sometimes referred to as ‘merchant street’. It has many traditional shops, vegetable stands, restaurants, art galleries, ceramics stores. It’s charming in every respect but one. The electrical lines.
They are now in the process of putting all of the power lines underground. Because most of the buildings have traditional architecture, when they’re done with this, this already charming street will look very much the way it did, say 200 years ago. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn seeing this sort of commitment of time, energy, and public funds to the town’s infrastructure: For the Japanese, aesthetics are an essential part of honoring history and community life.
Politicians in the U.S. are always bloviating about the need to repair the “infrastructure” there, which they all openly admit is crumbling, if not already in shambles. Then there will be another tax cut for the rich or another war or pandemic . . . or [ fill in the blank since any excuse will do ] . . . and nothing ever gets done.
Well, building and maintaining infrastructure to keep Tambasasayama safe and operable is not just a campaign slogan or bumper sticker here. It’s an integral part of daily life. We all do a little. But the government itself does the real heavy lifting.
To put it mildly, I’m awed.
One last note. Proof that the telephone booth at the beginning is not just a fluke, here is a photo I took less than 100 meters (300 feet) away, even closer to my house. Frankly, I had never noticed it before. Yes, it’s yet another phone booth, this one sitting adjacent to a truly funky old bus stop shelter. While you’re waiting for the bus, you can call your grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara. How convenient!
* Note that in May 2020 the town officially changed its name from Sasayama — the name that appears in most of the articles in this series — to Tambasasayama.