So far away… doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?

(Carole King)
Almost the entire day was spent on rectifying a scheduling mistake, of the type you make when you are either over 40 or under 35. (In between you have a window of opportunity to behave in a rational and sane manner, with the benefit of experience, but with the ability still to remain attentive to detail.)

Next month I am to return to Japan to complete my interviews with court personnel in every corner of that sprawling country. I will, as before, go from the northernmost island of Hokkaido to southern Kyushu, hoping to discover some variation in the way that customary law intersects with the civil code, to produce the uniquely Japanese brand of conflict resolution in family disputes.

This project has been difficult from day one. For one thing, I don’t speak Japanese and so an entire dissertation could be written on whether I am entitled to draw conclusions based on interviews that are painstakingly conducted with an interpreter or two at my side. I continue with the project only because I have gotten my hands on such wonderfully telling information that I have not the courage to throw it all away. So, this spring I am about to work through my final round of interviews.

Except that in setting these up, I forgot about the Japanese Golden Week. The Golden Week is something we just don’t associate with the working people of that country. We imagine them to be industrious, after all, putting in an average of 80 hours a week, with overtime for especially demanding tasks (like entertaining foreign visitors). Because we operate with this fixed bias in our heads, we simply do not expect the entire country to look at a calendar and say: “oh! all those national holidays so close together! why don’t we simply close down the nation for ten days and not work at all?” Well, from April 29 until May 9 this year I can expect all government offices to be shut down in observance of this spring holiday period. And where will I be then? Trapped in the middle, waiting for the country to “reopen” again.

I could, I suppose, fly home in between my already scheduled meetings, but something tells me that spending 13 golden hours on the plane each way to escape this golden week of Japanese leisure makes little sense. Thus I will kill time on the islands, waiting for the holidays to be over.

Today I tried to find a spot in Japan where I could hide for ten days and not go nuts in my solitary state of disengagement (in the “Lost in Translation” sense), at the same time that I could experience something breathtakingly beautiful, at a reasonable price, on days when the entire nation will be hell-bent on travel and holiday merrymaking. I have several email messages out to different places where I may hole up for the period, but I am certain they will only produce the typical miscommunication I am famous for with my polite and non-comprehending pals in Japan.

I was discussing all this with a reader and a friend today. I got the distinct impression that she thought that a month of solitary work and travel would be too much for the likes of me – even though I generally am terrific at solo treks and enjoy talking to myself on sightseeing expeditions where the only person within a 100 mile radius that speaks any familiar language is me. She suggested that I turn to my usual list of people who in the past have not minded accompanying me on these ventures, just to see if they’d tag along this time, but I know it’s hopeless. The trip is barely a month away and Japan is expensive.

All I can say is this: be prepared for some odd blogs in April and May as I make my way through many weeks of conversational solitude, trying yet again to understand what the hell people are saying around me. It will be a challenge. Am I looking forward to it? But of course.