Nihon News Part V

After the trip to Noto I described in my previous e-mail, only three weeks remained to my stay in Kanazawa. I didn't do a whole lot - there were after all a final test and a speech coming up - but I did go to a flute concert where my friend Ryosuke Suganami played the piano accompaniment. I had met Ryosuke at a traditional Noh dance performance of Mika's English teacher, and to the chagrin of my Japanese teachers always communicated with him in English.

I also found time to bake Zopf (Swiss braided bread) for my host family, probably pleasing myself more than anyone else. I miss Swiss bread. I miss bread that comes in more than one color, that has a soft inside and a crust that measures on the Vickers scale, and that isn't already sliced. (I've always had a problem with the idiom "The greatest thing since sliced bread.") One morning I looked on in disbelief as the Japanese TV program reported on the comparative merits of four, six and eight slices of bread in the same size plastic bag. Woefully beside the point.

But then, bread is secondary in Japanese nutrition. Rice - sticky rice that is easy to pick up with chopsticks - is a part of every meal and thus even more pervasive than bread in Western culture. Western sparrows eat bread crumbs; Japanese sparrows eat rice grains. The largest bags of rice in the supermarket are ten kilograms, whereas the largest bags of dog food are only eight - and my host family goes through one of those ten-kilo bags in less than a week. Not surprisingly, I have become accustomed to rice and, except for breakfast, don't avoid it anymore.

My last weekend in Kanazawa coincided with the extended weekend of the PII program. Most of the PII students headed to Kyoto, but Emi Lesure, Alex Hooker, and Kenny Fu (whom at first I kept calling Lenny) revisited Noto for the weekend, and I joined them.

We met early at the Kanazawa station and boarded one of the little diesel-powered local trains headed for the peninsula. On the bus trip, Alex had taught me euchre, so I reciprocated by teaching Jass, which we played until we reached the end of the line in Takojima, interrupting the game only for an excursion to a temple in Anamizu surrounded by hydrangeas. Walking to the Takojima beach, we passed an earthen mound shaped like a sea turtle, which might be the world's largest, but I'm careful as I say this, because you never know what some sleepy town off interstate 35 has been up to.

The beach itself was deserted. We stilled our immediate hunger with an onigiri each, courtesy of Kenny's Okaasan, placed our backpacks near the high concrete wall protecting the boating harbor, and explored the beach. A few boulders of various sizes had been placed near the wall, probably to break the waves before they reached the path that led along the foot of the hill to the local shrine. Other than that, the beach was sandy and overgrown with weeds and reeds in places the tide rarely reached. A good thirty meters from the waterline a concrete drainage ditch separated the watery tide from that of the little Japanese houses with the glazed roof tiles typical of the region. The path turned into a road and, rounding the hill, left the beach and crossed the ditch, connecting the shrine to the settlement. Up on the hill, hidden by the forest, stood another pointy-roofed square wooden structure, whose sacred position had not been able to safeguard it from falling into disrepair.

On our way back to catch the train, we briefly visited the little island guarding the entrance to the harbor. Its particular position between the tips of the two angular walls protecting the harbor like crab claws promised more excitement than we found. Of Takojima itself, that had promised nothing but the end of the railroad, the opposite proved true from the moment we saw the sea turtle.

Running on nothing but Pocari Sweat and an ice cream (aisu kurimu), we stopped at Ukai for a look at the famed steamboat rock, a large rock jutting out of the bay of Toyama about a hundred meters from the shore and shaped vaguely like a boat. Unlike the dark rocks on the Noto shoreline facing the sea of Japan, this rock was a porridge beige with a faint yellow tint from the afternoon sun. Trees grew on the top of the rock, but whether they were to represent smoke or passengers we never figured out. Loudspeakers crooning an instrumental version of Michael W. Smith's "I will be here for you" and halogen lamps for nightly illumination spoke of better times and fuller beaches - at any moment our party made up roughly a third of the visitors.

We had soon seen all there was to see, and while Emi got busy picking up trash off the beach in righteous indignation, we three guys hurt our ears ringing a Shinto wishing bell and played hackey sack, hampered by the wind. Sometimes gender stereotypes just happen.

At Ogi (which means "little tree") we again got off the train, which was crowded with schoolchildren even on a Saturday, and walked to the secluded youth hostel sitting near the mouth of a calm inlet where a couple fishing boats with their typical clothesline of lamps were anchored and a local was trying to reel in dinner. We had planned to walk back to the train station to catch a ride to the Ushitsu summer matsuri (festival), but the gregarious hostel owner with the metallic smile hooked us up with some Japanese guests who were also going and would give us a lift. Since they were not the Yellow Corn Motorcycle Gang members who had passed us on our way to the hostel, we gladly accepted the offer.

Even though the sky was already exploding with gorgeous fireworks, we headed straight to the nearest combini (convenience store) for some grub. We met a youth there who was readying himself to help carry the kiriko, portable lanterns carried by two or three dozen men, with sitting room for pipers and drummers. Most kiriko carriers wear a Happi coat, but the really manly ones - like our combini friend - only have a white cloth wrapped around their lower torso.

We reached the harbor just as the last fireworks sketched spidery flowers amongst the stars. The kiriko were lined up along the left side of the harbor, lit up. We stuffed down our ham sandwiches (proof that it is possible to obtain unhealthy food in Japan), looked at the kiriko, and watched the people milling about, until we caught sight of what they were heading for.

On the other side of the harbor, across the bridge that spanned the river, a couple kiriko were circling a bonfire like noisy, drunk glowworms with hominid legs. As we ambled over, they kept coming, swaying, drums beating, flutes piping, until roughly two dozen overgrown insects were weaving through the onlooking crowds in savage ecstatic revelry as fire after fire erupted under the rising moon. At times, the glowworms came dangerously close to crashing into enthralled bystanders or plunging into the harbor, but they always stopped on time, their wooden skeletons creaking to an abrupt halt as their legs gave way, grunting and yelling. Even if a glowworm singed itself, as occasionally happened, it reeled on in its sacred timeless mating ritual with fire and light. When all but the last stake were burnt out, the remaining elevated fagot dropping fiery masses and sending sparks to the moon, and the harbor was littered with smouldering cushions the kiriko carriers had discarded, the four of us bought tasty yakiniku (fried meat) at one of the many food stands typical of Japanese matsuri and headed home. The glowworms, fueled by Asahi, probably reveled on until the morning sun before going to sleep again for another year.

Sunday morning found me on the early train to Kanazawa, dividing the time between dozing and looking at the scenery I had missed the previous day playing cards. Getting off the train, I was touched and surprised to find Okaasan and Otousan waiting for me with food and drink for my trip to Chiba prefecture, where I was to begin work with Nippon Steel Corporation the next day. Except for being confused by the vast Tokyo train station, I made it to Kimitsu station without any problems, where my supervisor, Sasai-san, picked me up and brought me to my dorm. That was July 8 - I don't know if I will ever catch up to write more current Nihon News. For all I know, I'll be writing the last editions next April back in Switzerland.

Before I finish: I was asked by one of you for the price of a Playstation 2. I don't know yet, but I'll check next time I'm in Akihabara.
Someone else kindly wrote that reading my newsletters would make a good preparation for traveling to Japan. Thank you, but I do recommend reading serious travel books as well, such as "Dave Barry does Japan." It's about as accurate as any book on Japan I've read without buying (except for all the BWAAAAMP stuff).
Additionally, those who enjoyed Nihon News Part II (on the use of foreign language in Japan) will most certainly enjoy the following website two of my friends brought to my attention.
Finally, all Nihon News are now posted on the web at my homepage, which is otherwise still very incomplete, but brimming with promise. (Long-term promise, that is.)