Life In Japan: Sports Festivals

Posted on May 22, 2018 by johnrachel

Above is the annual sports festival at a local junior high school here in Sasayama. These much-anticipated events take place at every school in the country around the middle of September — even pre-school and kindergarten!

To say they’re popular is an understatement. They are as much part of the fabric of social life here as eating rice and fish.

The events at a Japanese sports festival include some “normal” sports contests, e.g. relay races, tug-of-war, team rope jumping. But they as well have quite an assortment of unique, and I have to say, quite amusing activities I wouldn’t expect to show up in the Olympics anytime soon. There’s the hacky sack basket toss, the three-legged kick-the-ball then shoot-a-hoop match, a relay race carrying a tennis ball on a tennis racket while running at full-speed around the circumference of the field.

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Sports festivals are not restricted to just students. Villages compete against one another, meaning full-grown adults also participate in the action. I can’t say the village I live in does very well in these competitions. We may have the most geriatric team in all of Japan. But we have a great time, which is mainly what these all-ages competitive events are all about.

Here’s a mercifully short video of my legendary performance at a recent community sports festival. If it’s not entirely obvious, my challenge — for which I trained with the best coaches east of Nagasaki — was to inflate a balloon, pop it by sitting on it, then scramble back to the starting line, tagging my next teammate in line, who we hoped would repeat my gold medal-level performance, and lock in first place for this epic showdown.

What can I say? It seems no matter what the season is, there’s always something going on here, and whatever it is is typically is built around some excuse for people to get together, have a good time, and simply enjoy the company of those living in the community.

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Life In Japan: Western Food

Posted on May 5, 2018 by johnrachel
Eat, Pray, Die!

There’s no doubt about it. In its greasy, salty, sugary way, Western food tastes great!

Or at least many seem to think so . . . even here in Asia.

This isn’t to suggest that Western food, especially fast food, is in the least healthy. It’s not. Countries which adopt a Western diet — surprise surprise! — end up with a skyrocketing of diseases that are the main killers in the West: high blood pressure, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, heart failure, cancer, obesity.

Health concerns aside, it still astonishes me that standing in Beijing or Tokyo or Seoul, I see McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC. I never ate at these places when I lived in the U.S. — well, at least for the past several decades — and certainly don’t miss them now that I live in Japan and continue to travel extensively in the East. Of course, the “Westernization” — and its most aggressive mutant strain “Americanization” — of every square inch of the planet, is common knowledge and endlessly debated pro and con. At the same time, the extent of this cultural pollution still doesn’t really hit you until you go tens of thousands of miles from home and see some typical U.S. fast food joint next to a Buddhist temple, or yellow arches thrown in with pagodas on the city skyline.

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Even more astonishing to me is observing Western tourists. Here they are in some exotic place, rich in culture and unique tradition — which most certainly is reflected in what the indigenous people eat — and there they are in their Hard Rock Café Los Angeles t-shirts, Billabong surfer shorts and Nike sneakers, lining up for a Big Mac and fries. I’ve even seen blogs where backpackers discuss in detail the variations in the Burger King or McDonald’s menus across the globe. I’m not here to judge. But I can’t help but think that maybe these ethnocentric homeland food junkies might be missing out on something.

So far I’ve been focusing on fast food. That’s because it’s so popular, especially in America. Good or bad, America leads the charge into the dystopian future of hedonistic monomania and instant gratification. What could be better than a Happy Meal or finger-licking good fried chicken from Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe? Actually I have an answer for that . . .

Everything else! . . . but that’s just me.

The other end of the spectrum of dining out is also well-represented in Asia, as it is just about every place else in our globalized, homogenized world. There are many high-quality, sometimes very pricey, real restaurants in Japan, serving all sorts of cuisine from all sorts of places. We have Italian, French, Russian, Belgian, Greek, Swedish, Mexican. Because Japanese are such perfectionists, the food is always good. It may not be very authentic — I’m still waiting to be truly blown away by a Japanese rendering of American-style pizza — but trust me, on its own terms it’s usually quite delicious.

With that in mind, I know of one notable exception to this critical assessment. There’s a restaurant which serves both incredibly tasty Western food and it’s centerpiece menu item is most definitely as authentic as it gets. As luck would have it, this place happens to be right here in my home town of Sasayama!

That’s right. It’s a bagel restaurant: RH Bagels!

Mind you, it’s more-often-than-not hard to get a truly great bagel even in the U. S. of A.

Sometimes they’re hard as a rock. Sometimes they have the right texture, tensile strength, and viscosity, but taste more like a dinner roll or a part of an old shoe. Or they’re flavored with all sorts of fruits, nuts, seeds and spices to hide the fact that whoever made it doesn’t know the first thing about making bagels.

In any case, RH Bagel manages somehow here in the middle of rural Japan to get it right. It’s owned by Richie and Hiro — hence the ‘R’ and the ‘H’ — who not only serve amazing food but have created a marvelous setting, a cultural mix of America and Japan, featuring jazz music, great decor, and enough plants to pass for a horticulture institute. The roots of the restaurant are deeply Japanese, as the building is an old rice barn. But everything else is Western-style. Richie is from Staten Island, New York and Hiro has been to America a number of times to study the art and science of restaurant management and cuisine.

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I love Japanese food! I really do. I now regularly eat many things I would have regarded as very special treats for very special occasions — sushi, tempura, edamame, teriyaki — and eat some things I never would have considered before — octopus, squid, rice daily.

But every once in a while, I get that hankering for the flavors of North America. It’s hardly an addiction, more of a diversion. I make no excuses. Six decades had to have made some impression on my eating habits and tastes.

It’s just that now, everything has flipped around. Now it’s a hamburger or bagel that’s the uncommon special treat or the item deemed for a rare special occasion. Sushi is available 24/7 just about anywhere that sells food — supermarkets and convenience stores like 7-11.

Hmm . . .

I wonder how eel sushi and cream cheese would taste on a cranberry bagel with French fries, Hawaiian pizza and pickled radish on the side. Maybe wash that down with a Coke and sake ice cream float.

I need to talk with Richie and Hiro about this.

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Life In Japan: The Nesting Tree

Posted on April 24, 2018 by johnrachel

We have an enormous variety of birds here in Japan.  Not just homegrown types.  Some very interesting breeds, for example, migrate from China and Siberia.  Colorful, exotic, fascinating to watch.  My house is on the edge of a forest, in a very quiet setting.  I often just sit and view them from my rear window as they come and go.

There are two large, majestic birds that most definitely migrated here many decades ago but now are permanent residents.  They can be seen everywhere, along the riverbanks, in the rice fields, soaring high overhead above our rustic town.

I’m referring to the great egrets and gray herons, which must number in the hundreds here in Sasayama.

They have a nesting tree — actually several in various locations in the region — very close to my home.  I pass it everyday when I ride into town to buy groceries and other sundries. 

Every spring the great egrets build nests, lay eggs, and give birth to their next generation.  I’ve never seen any gray herons there.  I’m not certain where their maternity ward is.

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Anyway, here’s a short movie.  Both Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis turned me down for the lead role.  It is what it is.






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Life In Japan: Western Arts – Pt 2

Posted on April 9, 2018 by johnrachel

This is a photograph of my wife, Masumi, at age 20 singing Il Bacio by Italian composer Luigi Arditi.  She has been singing opera all her life, plays beautiful classical piano, and dances ballet as a pastime.

I find it a fascinating question why Japan is so enamored with Western art forms, not that I’ve made any progress coming close to a conclusive answer.

Of course, Japan has always been an eclectic culture.  It has adopted much from the West, including English letters and words, integrated via Romanji, one of their alphabets.  Entire English words were Japanized and have become a part of the ever-evolving vocabulary, e.g. resutoran レストラン (restaurant), aisukurimu アイスクリーム (ice cream).  Going way back, certainly quite a bit has been “borrowed” from the Chinese, most notably, Kanji, another of the alphabets in everyday use.  And in the 19th Century, Japan replaced its cumbersome numbering system with Western Arabic integers.

All of this is the normal cross-pollination of cultures, which occurs when borders become more permeable, trade encouraged and opportunities for tourism pervasive.

Yet, there are some things that either don’t translate well, resist integration, because they are simply entirely incompatible with established social traditions and cultural legacies. 

Westerners are touchy-feely, given to open, sometimes histrionic expressions of emotion.  Japan is entirely the opposite.  I suspect it will always remain so.  A respect for privacy in both directions, each individual’s large inviolable personal space, shyness and reserve, all are too thoroughly entrenched in the Japanese psyche.  Yes, they may dress like Westerners here, but you’re not going to see chest-bumping or hugs and kisses at the mall, or simulated sex on the dance floor.  It’s just not going to happen.  Bowing is about as wildly intimate as it gets in public.

That, of course, is an example of steadfast social training. 

But I would have suspected that another type of training would be just as determinant.  I’m referring to ear training.

The Japanese scales — actually all Asian scales — are microtonal.  When they don’t sound randomly annoying, they sound intentionally grating, at least to my Western ears.  I’m just not used to hearing — literally not trained to hear — the two or three notes that purposely occur between C and C# or between E and F.  I’ll admit that in my band days I was often accused of tuning my guitar microtonally but that was just a way of saying I had a really lousy sense of pitch.

Regardless of how much their melodies may torment us Westerners, Asians will swear by the beauty of the music they create and listen to.  Their ears are trained to hear, accept, embrace what sounds cosmically wrong to us.

At the same time, Western music and the fundaments for making it have gripped Japan.  And in every form: pop, rock, jazz, classical, blues, rap, hip hop.

Recognize that there are Western arts chauvinists who would say this is inevitable.  They will make a very convincing argument that Western scales are fundamentally superior, more accessible and natural to the homo sapiens physiological mechanisms involved in processing music.

There is a very appealing mathematics to the Western scale.  The 37th key on an 88-key piano is A.  It vibrates at 220 cycles per second (Hz).  The 49th key is also an A, but it’s one octave above, vibrating at 440 Hz.  The 25th key is an A that’s one octave below, vibrating at 110 Hz.  Nifty, eh?  This suggests the mathematical foundation underlying the tonal relationships among the notes of the Western 12-tone scale.  In fact, this holds together quite nicely until we get to the very bottom and top of the useful musical range.  The math has to be adjusted a bit.  Pianos tuned to mathematical perfection tend to sound sharp at the very top and bottom, requiring at the extremes that the scale be “stretched” to make the piano sound in tune to the human ear.  This is not a flaw in the mathematics.  It’s a consequence of the physical properties of the strings of the piano, a stiffness which causes inharmonicity at the extremes.  Thus this need to “temper” the scale doesn’t diminish the essential elegance of the theory.

Zeebra, a very popular hip hop artist here in Japan (Click on pic to see a video.)

So as I say, it’s easy for music experts in the West, the ones juxtaposing Fibonacci spiral graphs on the human cochlea, to posit the intrinsic superiority of a viola over a shamisen, an oboe over a hichiriki, or a flugel horn over a horagai, put in the service of playing the Sound of Music.

They may be right.  But the bottom line is there’s really no way to objectively settle the matter.  An anecdotal aside:  I mentioned to my wife the other day that one of my English students sings Japanese folk songs to me.  The lady is very proud of her voice and the songs she had spent her life mastering.  My wife asked me if they were traditional or modern folk songs.  I didn’t know there was a difference.  Turns out that traditional folk songs are the original microtonal versions.  Now there are modern versions of those folk songs which make the melodies fit the Western 12-note scale.  Think about that!  They take these amazing songs from time immemorial and update them — literally Westernize them musically — for the prevailing tastes of contemporary Japanese listeners.

This seems to suggest some greater inherent appeal in the mathematically-based music system of the West.  But I say it’s just a sign of the times.  We have Burger King in Beijing, KFC in Kuala Lumpur, McDonald’s in Moscow.  There are rappers and hip hop artists in every country that has electricity, except maybe Bhutan. 

My wife, Masumi, of course continues to teach Westernized music to elementary students in a nearby community here in Japan, as part of the official school curriculum.  The kids play recorders, xylophones, accordions, keyboards, snares, bass drums, bongos, congas, and other percussion — all instruments from the West. And since she still loves singing, she even gives an occasional vocal performance under the auspices of the vocal teacher she’s studied with for three decades.  Usually she sings opera, though she occasionally helps me out on my original songs, in my informal home recording studio.

Here she is earlier this year in concert at a gathering in Osaka.






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Life In Japan: Western Arts – Pt 1

Posted on March 25, 2018 by johnrachel

Japanese Lady Gaga fans are slightly insane!

This is not going to be a formal or particularly thorough discussion of Western art forms here in Japan.  In fact, it’ll be largely anecdotal but nevertheless I believe an accurate portrayal of the odd juxtaposition of the unambiguously Western art forms and styles on a culture with its own unique rich heritage, which not in the least resembles or had been influenced by Euro-America until Japan finally was “opened” to the West 165 years ago.  Significant Westernization occurred in two peak periods:  From 1868-1900 during the Meiji restoration, and from 1945 until the present following the Allied victory over Japan ending World War II.  This resulted in modern Japan, where Kibuki Theater and geishas co-exist with American-style pro wrestling and Japanese hip-hop.

My wife, Masumi, perfectly embodies the contradiction, though unlike most contradictions there are no discernible incompatibilities or anomalies.  ‘Contradiction’ is really the wrong term.  Because all that is contradicted are my expectations.  I’ll get to Masumi in Part 2, as she deserves an entire article of her own.

Long before I ever knew I’d be coming to and then settling in Japan, I received some early inklings about Japan’s love affair with the West, meaning not just its superficial courtship of dress and hair styling, but its thorough embrace of both formal and pop arts.  

I was taking jazz dance classes at Debbie Reynolds Studios — yes, that Debbie Reynolds — in Los Angeles, and one summer a plane load of young Japanese jazz dancers (late teens, early twenties) packed the classes.  To put it mildly, I was amazed, stunned, awed!  Not only were they physically perfect as dancers — slender; strong, sinewy muscles; elegant posture; each individually radiating grace and vigor, coupled with a charming shyness — they could really dance!

I also wistfully recall one of my favorite dance teachers mentioning that he loved taking on guest teaching positions in Japan, because the students were so fiercely dedicated and disciplined.  When he’d return from such an assignment, he’d jokingly count off our dance routines in Japanese:  ichi, ni, san, yon!  While we thought that was pretty darn cute, I never gave it all that much thought.  Japan just wasn’t on my radar screen back then.

At the same time, it was no secret that Western performers, in particular pop and rock acts — everyone from the Beatles, Cindi Lauper, Santana, Carpenters, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Rolling Stones, and Avril Lavigne, to Ozzy Osborne and Bob Dylan — loved playing Japan.  All reported that Japanese audiences were enthusiastic and they felt truly appreciated.

Get this:  Even jazz artists like Chick Corea, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Clark, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane had and often still have impressive fan bases in Japan.

Much more popular and widespread than jazz is classical music.  During my first full year in Japan, I was invited to attend a piano recital.  I don’t know what that sounds like to you but I assumed it would be a bunch of cute kids fumbling their way through simple songs, their adoring parents taking videos for the grandparents.  Right.  Try concert-level Chopin, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven.  And these were just high school students!  Turns out that studying piano from a very young age is pervasive here — piano lessons with a focus on eventually mastering the legends, for example, those just mentioned.  Japan has, of course, already produced a number of widely-acclaimed, world-class musicians and composers, and believe it or not, Tokyo alone hosts “no fewer than eight full-size, full-time, fully professional orchestras, collectively providing more than 1,200 concerts a year.”

Getting back to dance . . .

I’ve been a longstanding fan.  I saw my first ballet in high school.  Not only did I take some jazz classes for ten years starting in 1985, I even dabbled in both modern and ballet over the years.  The great ballet dancers like Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Fonteyn, Markova, have always fascinated me.

That being the case, about a year ago I became acquainted with a fellow who is not well known in the West, but in my opinion may be one of the best ballet dancers ever!  His name is Kumakawa Tetsuya.  Born in Hokkaido, Japan, he studied in England and became a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, before returning to Japan to form his own ballet company.  Feast your eyes on a man who seems able to rewrite the laws of gravity . . .

. . . and make challenging moves breathtakingly beautiful and inhumanly effortless . . .

There are two Japanese ballerinas, who despite being in my opinion, among the best in the world, are not exactly household names in the West.

Kuranaga Misa . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gnEXTcBojk

. . . and Nakamura Shoko . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxiHzXM7yxQ

Pretty amazing, eh?

If there is an unspoken, but nonetheless dutifully-regarded and rigorously-observed rule in play governing just about every act, action, activity, ambition, and endeavor here, it’s this:  Whatever the Japanese do, they do well.  They are maddening perfectionists.  Many would say this is why Japan was able to rebuild so quickly and totally after World War II, eventually becoming the world’s third largest economy.  Others would attribute Japan’s high suicide rate to the extreme pressures of high performance and achievement.

Both would be right.






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Life In Japan: White Day

Posted on March 12, 2018 by johnrachel

Japan is a gift-giving culture.  There are hardly any occasions for which it is not customary or at least acceptable to proffer a gift.  A visit, a lunch at someone’s house, health issues, news of even the lightest import — new pet, new home, new car, new set of dentures,  — knitting socks, harvesting soybeans, a near traffic accident.  Yes, I had a lady almost hit me on my bicycle with her car — she slammed on her brakes and literally stopped with her bumper against my pant leg — track me down (not very hard since I’m the only elderly Westerner in the area with Rod Stewart hair), and leave a bag of eggplants on my porch.  Add this abundance of uniquely Japanese magnanimity to the conventional observances which most modern developed economies share and have duly exploited to nauseating levels of melodrama and sentimentality — weddings, funerals, graduations,  anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day — means hefty dividends for anyone heavily invested in industries making gift-wrapping, ribbons and bows.

Amplifying the initial impetus for graciousness and generosity driving the whole gifting frenzy — evidently hard-wired into Japanese people — the act of giving a gift triggers a immediate, requisite response, a reciprocation in kind, the product of heart-felt appreciation for the original gesture:  The ‘thank-you-for-the gift’ gift.

“どうもありがとうございました！”  (Thank you so very much!)

“どういたしまして！”   (You are indeed very welcome!)

It is beyond any dispute:  If gift-giving were for some mysterious reason to suddenly come to a halt here, the entire Japanese economy would collapse within hours.

One month after Valentines Day in Japan — meaning March 14th — we have White Day. 

White Day is the occasion for the guys to give to the girls sweet treats and other simple gifts, payback for bestowing on them piles of chocolate and other heart-shaped confections on February 14th.

Is it tit-for-tat?  Do guys at least for this simple, rather innocent holiday put their chauvinism on hold, do the expected thing by giving a thank-you-for-the gift’ gift?

Some do.  Others ignore most of the girls who’ve been generous with them and just give a White Day treat to the one(s) they’re interested in, as in viewing with something remotely resembling romantic interest.

Whatever the case, while diabetes is on the increase here in Japan, afflicting around 6% of the population, it still is ranks far behind the three leaders:  India, China, and the U.S.

Not that many people worry about the insulinary efficiency of their pancreas on either Valentines or White Day.  That would probably be true just about anywhere in the world.

Time for a Snickers bar, anyone?






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Life In Japan: Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 20, 2018 by johnrachel

日本の女の子たちはとても素敵です！ 彼らは西洋で失われた無実を持っています。Japan, like most Eastern cultures is very patriarchal, bordering on officially sanctioned misogyny.  I could go on and on about why this is so, despite the extreme Westernization and “modernization” of the country.  But it would be pure speculation.  Certainly, much of it is born out of deep and longstanding traditions generated during the tribalism of pre-history.  But I suspect the modern manifestation of male dominance imbedded in male-female relations is now more a product of extreme insecurity and a sense of inadequacy by boys and men — collectively borne at a very sub-conscious level, of course — than it is a reflection of the inheritance of rigorous structural societal norms.  This probably sounds like extremely superficial pop psychology, masking as a gracious critique.  But I’m hardly apologizing for what I observe might be vagina envy or something even more ridiculously unflattering and ultimately embarrassing or pernicious. 

Isn’t there a homily that goes like this?:  We worship that which flatters us, love what we can dominate, ridicule what we find puzzling, lash out at what we don’t understand, enslave and torment that which reminds us how pitiful and primitive we ultimately are.

They celebrate Valentines Day here — it’s a distinctly Japanese version of the love holiday — which like everything else in the U.S. has been turned into just more marketing, churning out of kitsch, and indulging in commodified histrionics.  Pumping up the GDP is the only reason for anything and everything, after all.  They’ll be putting a meter on my love muscle and collecting a surtax any day now.

Right in line with everything that goes on here, especially involving human interaction, there’s a sweet innocence to Valentines Day, remindful of a time before my time and thus not something I can duly remember.  But think of Frank Capra movies and extrapolate.

It’s innocent to be sure, but the guys are still in charge.  Yes, on Valentines Day, the guys in Japan just sit back and the girls pile it on — chocolate, that is.  From what I can tell, none of the giving is based on hot passion, hot sex, hot anticipation.  Basically, the message is:  “I’m a girl and you’re a boy and you’re not all that bad.”  Or maybe:  “I like you.  I think.  Call me maybe?”

As an English teacher, I got my share of Valentines chocolates from ladies of all ages.  Yes, I mean ALL ages.  From 7 years old to 60, 70, and beyond!

And all I was obligated to do was collect it, smile, say ありがとうございました (thank you so very much), then eat it at my convenience.

I almost felt guilty about all of the attention.

Then again . . .

There’s a payback.  But it’s very asymmetrical.  It happens exactly one month later.

March 14th is called White Day. 

Stay tuned.  






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Life In Japan: Arthur the Celebrity Cat

Posted on February 12, 2018 by johnrachel

As a novelist, satirist, essayist, political blogger, and someone who has not gotten beyond the I-want-my-oompa-loompa stage of human development, to say I crave attention is a vast understatement.

Of course I live in Japan, so while I continue my lifelong efforts to become a household name in America, I consider recognition here an important part of building my legend. Plus I’ve long been a believer that any press is good press, anywhere on the planet.

I can’t say I’m making much headway.  I’ve tried countless ways to breach the media firewall that keeps me hidden from the Japanese public eye.  A while ago I tried burning down the largest wooden Buddha in Japan.  I couldn’t get the damn thing lit.  Once I tried dressing up as a geisha.  All that happened was I got a lot of very strange looks and one comment from a young school boy in a baseball uniform — その醜い女性を見てください。– which my wife, Masumi, said basically translates as: “Look at that ugly woman.”

I even entered an octopus eating contest and came in last!  But not before I started to hallucinate giant sea cucumbers dancing across the stage like an entire chorus line of Rockettes had turned into wart-infested pickles.

Yes, I’ve tried everything except running through the center of town dressed as a samurai, carrying a bamboo pole wrapped with flaming kelp leaves, while yelling, ‘The Emperor has no oompa-loompa.’  I ruled that out when I found out he doesn’t.

My most recent humiliation occurred the other day, early one morning. 

We still get a newspaper delivered to our house every day — can you believe it? made of paper no less? — which mentions one or two major news stories but mostly focuses on news from around our prefecture — which is the equivalent of a state in the U.S.  Many human interest stories, local sports teams, city and school district events.

But . . .

There it was!  A brief mention to be sure, but no less humbling. 

My cat upstaged me by getting in the news!

Now I love Arthur to pieces.  And I have no doubt he deserves any and all the great press he can get.  But let’s be honest.  He didn’t do a thing to deserve this.  He’s just so cute, an old guy like me, regardless of how many books I write, web sites I put up, despite how funny I am, or “politically aware”, how can I compete?  Let’s be blunt:  I don’t stand a canary’s chance in a cat cafe.

Okay.  Okay.  I sound like I’m bitter.  I’m not.  I’m so proud of Arthur!  If anything, I’m wondering why they didn’t put him on the front page and do an exclusive feature story on the little guy, including an interview and a link to video footage of him being so darn cute!

At the same time . . .

That still leaves me in a quandary.  What do I have to do to get some press around here?  Dress up like an American soldier and fly an Osprey into the Tokyo Tower?






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Life In Japan: Bicycle Theft

Posted on January 31, 2018 by johnrachel

This is your basic girls bike here in Japan.

Yes, they sell Schwinn, an “American” bicycle, manufactured of course in China.  But there is quite a selection based on this standard model.  They cost between $50 and $150.  The pictured one is pretty fancy.  Pink adds at least $50 to the sale price.

I’m going to talk about something which recently happened here, not that far from where I live, maybe within four hours driving.  I seriously doubt if the bike involved was anywhere near as high-end as the pink beauty pictured.  But it certainly looked something like this, being a basic boilerplate ride-to-school-and-back bike.  They’re ubiquitous here.

It’s EXTREMELY rare.  But a girl who lived in Shikoku had her bike stolen.

She reported it to the police.  Seriously . . . she did!  That’s what you do in Japan.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.  All bikes must have a registration tag.  A couple years back, I was riding my bike back from the grocery store and a young police officer on a motor scooter stopped me, looked at my tag, thanked me, and drove merrily away.

Anyway, a month later, the school girl got a call from a police department northeast of Osaka.  They had found her bike, and wanted to get it back to her.  The young lady was understandably very happy!  She told the police that she had an aunt who lived in Akashi.  If they could arrange to bring the bike there, she could pick it up.

The police welcomed the suggestion.  They were much closer to Akashi than the little town the girl lived in on Shikoku Island.

Next day, they personally delivered the bike to the girl’s aunt in Akashi, a trip which took nearly two hours each way, a total of almost four hours of their valuable police time.

I want to put this in perspective, especially the distances involved.  Here’s a map.

Mind you, while Shikoku is sparsely populated, the entire area around Osaka is quite congested.  Two hours is not excessive, considering traffic, having to locate the aunt’s residence, etc.  And to return it to the girl’s home town would have been close to four hours each way.

The most significant point is that the bike turned up 219 km (136 miles by car) from where it was stolen.  The police officers at this distant location tracked down the owner via the ID tag, and personally made sure the bike got back to her.

I don’t know if this is blowing your mind or not.  I’ve lived here on and off for over ten years and this type of thing still leaves me slack-jawed.

Granted, in a small town like Elizaville, Indiana or Wanblee, South Dakota, I can imagine someone telling the sheriff about a stolen bike.  But for most Americans — over 80% live in urban areas — the thought of going to the police about a stolen bike seems absurd.

“You want to report a what?  Listen, buster.  While you’ve been standing here teary-eyed, telling me about your $50 bike, we’ve had two shootings, three car jackings, some bozo dressed like Michael Jackson jumped off a bridge singing ‘Beat It’, and there’s a 152-car traffic pile-up on the freeway because some idiot at the Department of Transportation posted a warning on all the traffic advisory signs that there was a missile carrying a hydrogen bomb incoming from North Korea.  Get a job and buy a new bike, loser!”

It’s obvious, priorities are different here in Japan.  We’re not in a constant frenzy, in a constant state of paranoia, convinced there are terrorists lurking in every doorway and child molesters hanging out by the monkey bars at every city park, suspicious of every individual who isn’t suspicious of everyone else because obviously this person is out of touch with reality and a clear danger to the community.  People here aren’t armed to the teeth, such that everyone’s worried about a mass shooting, or that a minor disagreement about a parking space will result in the barrel of an AR-15 being shoved down our throat.

But it goes even deeper than that.  There’s an innocence here, and a sense of honor and courtesy, a respect for the possessions of others.  So much so that a bicycle theft is truly out-of-the-ordinary.  And thus it warrants extraordinary response by the authorities.

No country is perfect.  Japan has many issues as well.  There is still a difficult struggle with its past, its military aggression and savagery.  There is racism.  There is a bit of arrogance, a condescending attitude toward other Asian countries.  There is — in my opinion — a mindless, unnecessary obeisance to the U.S. in military and diplomatic matters, and a puzzling infatuation with Western culture, especially American pop culture.

No country is perfect.  But some are certainly far superior than others.

I take great comfort in knowing . . . I don’t have to worry about my bike.






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Life In Japan: New Years

Posted on January 30, 2018 by johnrachel

It hasn’t been that long. 

Of course I remember the typical New Years holiday celebrations in the U.S.!

The shots of Buttery Nipples, Afterburners, and White Gummy Bears, the beer chugging contests, DUIs, the streaking of police patrol cars, mooning at McDonald’s drive-thru, the totaled rental cars, 72-hour hangovers, the arrest warrants, getting herpes from kissing some stranger at midnight, the Rose Parade, lying in the den in a puke-soaked Kurt Cobain sweat shirt through 12 hours of football — Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Toilet Bowl, Oxycontin Bowl.

It’s impossible to overstate how different New Years is for me here in Japan.

Granted, there might be some revelry in the big cities like Osaka and Tokyo.  Compared to what typically goes on in America, even these are more like Thursday afternoon bingo in Butte, Montana or octogenarian shuffleboard in Sun City, Florida.

Fasten your seat belts, people, to keep from falling off your chair when you nod off reading this.  A pot of hearty espresso is recommended if you’re serious about making it to the end.

New Years Eve day, Masumi, her daughter Azusa, and I, climbed a mountain I’ve written about twice before.  It looks like a mountain but it’s really not that high.  It has steps and trails, so we left the GPS, emergency flares, ropes, and rappelling gear at home.  What I like about it, besides offering a decent work out, a couple hours in nature, and splendid views of the valley which contains most of my home town, Sasayama, is that by bike it’s only about five minutes from my house.  It couldn’t be more convenient.

This time, we also brought Azusa’s Black Labrador puppy too.  We all headed over — Azusa on foot, Masumi and I on our bikes — to the trail head, which is situated right in front of a small shrine.  Of course!  Shrines are as ubiquitous here as fire hydrants are in the States.   Anyway, about 45 minutes later, we were on top the small mountain, had a picnic lunch, then returned via the same trail.

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It was cool but comfortable, perfect for this relatively easy hike.  However, as we made our way back down, the temperature started quickly dropping.  And continued dropping right into the evening.

Masumi and I had the option of visiting the grounds of a local temple to “ring in the New Year”.  They have a No Theater performance, a bonfire, and serve free non-alcoholic sake.  This is a real family affair for all ages.

But we decided it was just too damn cold!

So we stayed home, falling asleep before midnight.  We missed the tofu cannons, whale juggling, sky diving ninjas, and laser holograms of Godzilla eating the Moon.  This was prudent.  We needed to rest up for the next wild and dazzling phase of our extended weekend, Land of the Rising Sun New Years extravaganza, set for next morning.

That would be at べんてん神社 (Benten Shrine), the Shinto shrine which belongs to our village.  We live on the very east end of Sasayama proper, in a village called Noma.  Each village of several in our city of 50,000 or so typically has its own shrine and community center.  Living in Japan is about community life and getting to know your neighbors.

The motif at the shrine was similar to what we missed at the big temple downtown the previous evening.  There was a small bonfire, free kelp and squid snacks, and sake.  This sake was the real stuff but only dispensed in thimblefuls, so no one exactly got rowdy.

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This being a shrine and to the rather meager extent that Japanese indulge in religious services, there was singing.  Mind you, this bore no resemblance to Handel’s Hallelujah chorus or a medley of tent revival spirituals.  In fact, what we apparently were singing was the national anthem, which is why my lovely, principled wife was not singing along.  She is categorically and staunchly opposed to nationalism, even superficial celebrations of what has not served humankind very well over its blood-soaked history.  Which explains why I had to burn all of my American flag Hanes boxer shorts right after we got married.

Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I am joking.  All of my American flag undies were long gone decades ago.  I believe they were used as rags to stuff Molotov cocktails at some street protests in Berkeley back in the late 60s.  I can’t say for sure.  It’s difficult to track where things end up after you drop them in a Salvation Army collection box.

Let me add that Masumi thought the idea of singing the national anthem on this special occasion was very strange, a total anomaly.  Somebody certainly made a very odd choice.  Personally, I found it to be a rather doleful affair, not the stuff of conquest and plunder.

Anyway, here’s a very short video clip of my neighbors singing at the shrine.

Okay . . .

Enough is never enough, especially when it comes to wild abandon and revelry.  Sure, we were exhausted from all the whoopee.  But driven by relentless surges of hedonism and the insatiable urge to party like its 2099, as soon as we got home we decided to go to Kaibara, the town both near to where Masumi grew up and where we officially got married.

柏原八幡宮 (Hachiman Shrine) is a beautiful place at the top of a hill.  It maybe takes ten minutes to walk up the stairs.

People step to the front of a shrine, make a contribution, sometimes light incense, ring a very dissonant, clanking bell to get the attention of whoever up there might be listening, then make an appeal for some desired improvement in their lives — new husband, better job, health, long life, happiness, money — the usual things.  They also write these requests on pieces of paper and tie them to a tree on the grounds. 

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Whew!  Wild and crazy times here in Japan, eh?  We know how to party!

Personally, I find this all very calming, informal, charming, especially since I mercilessly was subjected to the tortures of the Catholic Mass for way too many years.  What can I say?  Buddhism and Shintoism rock!

I’ll end this account on what I find an interesting note.  While there is some god, a spirit entity, associated with each shrine — our local shrine described above is in dedicated to Benten, goddess of art, music, literature, especially appropriate for Masumi and I — the Japanese, and most Asian people, especially Buddhists, don’t pray to a specific god, saint, angel, virgin.  At least not the way Christians do.  The Catholic Church has a precise org chart for all of its holy representatives.  St. Christopher was assigned assuring safe travel, St. Anthony unobstructed breathing passages.  Then there was the Virgin Mary, who had what could only be called a cult following of her own, rivaling that of Jesus, who of course was the Savior, source of salvation.  Asians just send their prayers out there, as Masumi quite patiently tries to explain to me.  Buddhists are very much into flooding outer space with prayers.

You may find this interesting.  When you visit Buddhist monasteries, you see prayer wheels, hundreds of them, all different sizes, from ones which could fit in a bowling bag to ones that are taller than a human.  Each prayer wheel contains hundreds — sometimes even thousands! — of sacred inscriptions from holy Buddhist texts.  Again we have appeals for peace, harmony, long life, etc.  Spinning a prayer wheel, it is claimed, sends these good messages out into the universe, inundating it with the highest spiritual content and aspirations. 

While from what I can tell, it’s not working, it’s most certainly an admirable enterprise, and so different from the Western framework of a person’s relationship with God and his heavenly ecclesiastical staff.  Take a moment and picture those televangelists, furrowed brows sweating, faces bulging with the power of the Lord, yelling:  “You want that new car?  You want your bills paid?  You want that ugly goiter to disappear?  To be able to sing along with Mariah Carey and slam dunk like the Shaq?  Well, just put your hands on your television screen!  I say, put ’em both right here on my face, and FEEL THE POWER OF THE LORD FILL YOUR LIFE with money, success, happiness!  Ask and ye shall receive!  PRAISE GOD!”

Just something to think about next year during half-time of the Rose Bowl.

 






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