JAPAN

JAPAN

This then is the last entry with the heading of “Japan.” I almost don’t know how to keep a blog anymore without that introduction. I’m sure I will have to reinvent it once I get back to Madison: I can’t go back to old habits that readily. I’m of the belief that blogs evolve as writers pick up new ideas and approaches.

I leave Fukuoka at a beastly early hour tomorrow (my Saturday, your Friday) morning. I’m not quite heading home yet though. I have a stop over along the way, but not in Japan. Most certainly an attempt at blogging will follow, but it wont be before Sunday U.S. time, since it’ll take me THAT long to get somewhere and have something to blog about that wont be flight-related. Any flight-related blogging I reject as inherently not of general interest. And I have many many hours of flying ahead of me.

In the meantime, let me post a few notes on this day:

IF YOU COULD START FROM SCRATCH, HOW WOULD YOU BUILD A LAW SCHOOL?

Imagine an entire country pondering this as it embarks on this project of constructing new law schools to accommodate some 6000 students in a brand new graduate program in law. That is, indeed, Japan.

So how would a brand new state-of-the-art law school look? Today, I spent a morning visiting and lecturing at one, at Fukuoka University.

As in Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, the smell of fresh paint and new furniture is omnipresent. I think it is an invigorating smell. But it is also a reminder that this is an experiment, the results of which are in question. Exciting as it is to be in the first semester of the first year of a law program, in brand new facilities no less, there is also that frightening reality that you are the first to be in a completely unknown job market.

But that’s a couple of years away. Today one can admire the spiffy new library,



…the computer-wired (for the professor) class room,



…and the students, who successfully got into this first class, hoping now to succeed as the first cadre of graduates to compete for law jobs.




FUKUOKA IS A SHOPPING MALL IN DISGUISE

Perhaps I am exaggerating, but this afternoon I am for once searching for stores and so shopping is very much on my mind.

You can’t be away for almost a month and come back empty-handed. People would regard you as completely self-focused. I wish people would regard me as simply not a great shopper. I would PAY them twice over what I would have otherwise spent on them – I dread the shopping event that much.

I dread it because I am so bad at it. Everything looks great until I get back and unpack the suitcase and think – now why did I buy THAT? (I was already thinking this when I was PACKING my suitcase a couple of hours ago, so I know I’m off to a rocky start.) It seems so right in the store. Or maybe I just want to be done and so I MAKE it appear perfect, in the way that one paints happy events as even happier in one’s memory, or convinces oneself that it really IS okay that it’s raining during a mountain hike (hey, it WAS okay, truly).

Of course, no one asks me to go through this grueling shopping nightmare. Quite the contrary, I am told “don’t get me anything” a lot, but to me that only means one of two things: 1. my past history of purchases has been so bad that people truly would prefer not to have to fake enthusiasm anymore, or 2. it means that I don’t HAVE to get anything in general, but if I want to make an exception for them, just to show my true love and devotion, then okay, a small little something will do.

Yes, a small little something that isn’t trashy or expensive or ridiculously unsuitable to the recipient. Very easy.

But hey, on the bright side, I did work my way energetically through some crowded stores. I had a lot of luck, for instance, in this funky one:



…which may be of concern to those thinking that they are the chosen few to receive a little token gift. Yes, indeed, there do appear to be Barbies on a shelf behind the giggly clerks who spoke not a word of English. I SAID it was a funky store.

No more hints. If you haven’t been a recipient of a gift in the past, you wont get one now. I’m not looking to expand my torture circle. If you have gotten some post-travel memorabilia, chances are good that I haven’t dropped you yet. But someday I may and it wont be because I don’t care. I just don’t care for shopping.


MY LAST DINNER, SO BRACE YOURSELVES

The colleague (YA) whose guest I was on campus today invited me to join him and his friends for my last dinner in Japan. YA had introduced me last year to the “man’s world” Japan and I have long been grateful for that in an odd sort of way. He had taken me to the private clubs where professional men hang out after work, and he had shown me how an evening works for them as they are humored and pampered by the wonderfully friendly hostesses at these places. To this day, I can never hear the Elvis song “Falling in love with you” without thinking of that evening, because YA demonstrated how he would sing it in one of his favorite private bars and the super nice hostesses would sway to the music and it would be extraordinarily charming – for him.

YA is an exceptionally good law prof and colleague. He has translated for me and arranged meetings for me and I have been in his classes and he has always attended to my scholarship in a serious and not perfunctory way and I have been grateful for that. In addition, he is genuinely a good host. He will not invite me to dinner because he HAS to, he will do so out of a real concern that I should not eat alone while in Fukuoka. And so, when he realized this was my last night here, he insisted that I come along with him even though he already had dinner plans. I agreed, and was somewhat surprised to see that his two other guests were women associated with the bars I’d visited last year (one was an owner, the other was a hostess on the side – a pharmacist in her day life).

It was a sweet evening in an odd sort of way. But of course, the set up was a bit bizarre and I could not comment without sounding ridiculously nosey. And so I kept to the don’t ask, don’t tell strategy. In fact, all three of them seemed to be having a comfortably good time conducting a conversation that included tons of laughter.

One thing that I can’t help but like about YA is that he doesn’t scrimp when he takes people out to dinner: he goes full force into wonderful Japanese restaurants and he orders the most interesting dishes. Today was no exception and I am going to torture a blogger whose site I read just today (here) by posting lots of photos of foods and commenting on how I COULD HARDLY FINISH IT ALL AND WISH I HAD A DOG TO GIVE LEFTOVERS TO, except that this would have been difficult as we were in one of those Japanese tea rooms where there wasn’t much to the “underneath the table” bit.

For those not interested in food, scroll down. Feeling uplifted by friendly email voices from back home, I took a last brief walk along the side streets of this teeming with life city. The everyday has finally made its way into the blog: the beautiful, the ridiculous, the modern, the odd, the sublime. You can decide which label is appropriate to which scene. To me, what remain most vivid, most tugging at the heart are the encounters with people, the ones I asked for help, for direction, or the ones who sprung to assist without my even asking. That sticks with me, even more than images of the gardens and of the food. But let's not underestimate the natural beauty of this isolated country. And those gardens. Don't let me not mention again the peace encountered in those tiny manicured spaces.

THE FOOD AND THE COMPANY (TONIGHT):













A WALK ALONG ONE BACK STREET OF FUKUOKA

This is a back street??



...On a TV screen in a shop:



... she was watching a fountain show, coordinated with jazz music:



...this was the fountain show:



...so many interesting Tshirt logos. So many.



...And even more clubs for the men:







Do all pedestrian signs look like this, or is this a Fukuoka image?



...and if you can't find the machines, you can try your hand at macing:



...art and nature thus combined...

JAPAN

SEEKING GUIDANCE

Fukuoka is a nice enough city, but I had done a thorough exploration when I was last here. Now I want to use my still valid golden Japan Rail pass and head out. And so I have the following conversation with my colleague:

NC: Any recommendations?
HU: Go to Nagasaki!

NC: Nagasaki… The atomic bomb pretty much leveled it, didn’t it? [a momentary break in the cloud cover, a pilot seizes the opportunity and seconds later 75,000 are killed. Many, many more die later. A missed target. A mistake of war. The bomb was, after all, not intended for the peaceful community it destroyed.]
Have you ever been there?
HU: No, but I have always wanted to go!

[That clinched it. It reminded me of all the ‘places I’ve been meaning to go to’ back home. Some of them are probably gems. Some of them.]
NC: Yes, well, maybe. And where is it that you do go when you want a break?
HU: I go to the hot springs. Ah! You would not want to do that.

Oh yes I would. I inquire at the hotel and find out that a mere two and a half hours on the comfy JR line will put me in Yufu-in, home to this island’s hot springs.

Concerned about weather issues, I ask the hotel person what one does if it rains (rain is the forecast for Thursday). He tells me “oh, it’s best that way! You will enjoy it!” And finally, I have to force myself to ask this: does one need a swim suit? His response: “ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! No.”

By 7 a.m. Thursday, my blogging is done for the night/day and I am on my way, riding the subway with the salary-men to the train station, snatching a coffee and croissant (the aroma of baking croissants is everywhere; stacks of them can be found at all major train stations), boarding a little red train for the hills and hot springs.



SPRING FORWARD IN SPIRIT AND FLESH

It is indeed raining when I arrive at Yufu-in, but I know it will let up. That’s how it works here: drizzle, pour, abate, over and over.

I find the recommended to me older inn that has a reputation for having good hot springs for bathing (‘Musoen’). Now what? Oh, the embarrassing questions that one must ask. ‘Where do I go’ is the easy one. How about ‘what do I do then?’ Unfortunately no one speaks English and so I enter into the realm of trial and error. I shall not go into the error parts. Use your imagination.

Finally, though, I am there, with the women, squatting in a large pond of steaming water, with a view of the valley below.



There is an extended, beamed roof for those who want to stay away from the ‘elements.’ There are also rocks throughout and some take advantage of those, sitting like seals at the oceanfront, waiting for the inspiration to do another dip. The water is too warm to stay in for endless stretches.



For me, the very best, the absolutely very best is to sit half in, half out and to feel the very light rain prickling with its cool but not cold drops, while the warm spring water works its way up the lower limbs. Heaven.

Anywhere from 3 to 10 women are in the hot spring at a time (sometimes in three-generation sets of grandmother, daughter and toddling granddaughter), but there are plenty of corners and spaces so that you can have solitude if that is what you crave. Everyone is at once discreet and open. You learn quickly what is allowed and what is considered shocking.

I want to post a photo of one of the pre-soak shower stalls because I groaned so much about the scrub-down in my earlier Matsushima post. Please do note the number of soaps you have to work with. Is this indicative of obsessive cleanliness, or what?



And I do have a locker secret to reveal: so many of the women here wear firming half-tights under the slacks. I was surprised. They hardly need corset-like additions – for the most part, they are slender. Is it vanity? Is it a long-term firming device? I do not know.

I don’t want to so often write about money issues, but this ‘day at the spa’ was shocking in terms of price. Let me give the low-down (divide by roughly 100 for the dollar amount):
- croissant at station: 150 Y
- coffee at station: 250 Y
- train to and from hot springs: free because of JR pass
- day at the fancy hot spring spa: 600 Y. I might note that this is one fourth the price of a day-guest pass at the Princeton Club in Madison.
Japan is full of surprises.


THE SPICE OF LIFE

I had dinner with two of my law colleagues here. I had always thought that they were a bit at odds with each other, but tonight proved me wrong. One of them brought along a friend – a Fukuoka prosecutor who was teaching a class this year at the university. The prosecutor did not speak English well and so much of the time the conversation between the three of them was in Japanese. That was fine. Occasionally someone translated, but more often, all three got lost in the spirit of their talk. It was so animated that it was a pleasure to watch.

We ate at a Chinese place, run by a former student of theirs, a prominent Tokyo international law attorney who had decided that he had had enough of the legal culture. He opened the restaurant and has been successfully in business for a number of years now. I talked to him for a bit – the restaurant world is different in Fukuoka than in the States. For one thing, it is surprisingly more egalitarian here. Cooks from his place routinely travel to Shanghai and come back with ideas for dishes which are then incorporated into the menu. The chefs in the States and in Europe cling fiercely to their hegemonic rule in the kitchen. Even at “Madison-pseudo democratic” l’Etoile, ideas of line cooks are only given token recognition. The chef makes all menu decisions and rarely does she encourage the cooking staff to come forth with suggestions.

The post is getting long. Let me just end on a fiery note: I have never seen a dish of this nature: chicken with chopped hot peppers. It is FIERCELY spicy, demonically so. If you ingest just one sliver of the hot stuff, you will surely gag. One of us did tonight. For once, the error was not mine.

JAPAN

FUKUOKA

It’s where I am right now, at the southwestern tip of Japan. However, that sentence implies a greater degree of alertness than I currently feel. So scratch “am right now” and replace with “checked into a hotel today.”

This day (I’m writing this on my Wednesday night/Thursday morning, you guessed it, 3:30 am) never really had a beginning. In my last hours in Kyoto, I was ready to load my post at 3 am (24 hours ago) and found that Blogger was no longer permitting me to do so. No images, no post, no nothing. I spent the next 3 hours trying to appeal to the inner soul of Blogger techies and to the outer souls of colleagues, friends, anyone who had any connections to bloglife. But there was nothing I could do. It seemed that this blog would be discontinued until until – who knows when. Perhaps forever? I mean, it just died. Deleting pictures, scrambling posts, deleting computer files, nothing revived it. Blogger clearly hated me, for no good reason.

On top of it, I was now completely sleep-deprived. I’ll not recount the travel moments where I drifted in and out of doze-dom. It was one big nightmare of speeding trains and voices talking and lecture notes formulating some text or other – oh, it was unsettling.



But once in Fukuoka, up in my hotel room, I find that Blogger is apologizing. It’s not me, it’s them. I wish I had known that in the middle of my last night in Kyoto.

WORK

From the minute I step off the train in Fukuoka I am on work mode. I am rushed to do classes and meetings, etc. I can only say that I am in that state of tiredness where it no longer matters. The irony is that my work is going surprisingly well, down to the last late seminar minute. And because what was originally spread to two days got compacted into this one long afternoon and evening, most of tomorrow has opened up to be free of meetings. Intensity can be sustained when relief is in sight.

[Class participation of Japanese law students, undergrads this time: 75% female, 25% male again. I asked my colleague why he thought I was consistently getting more activity from the women. He said bluntly: “People think that in Japan, because men were in dominant positions, they were the stronger sex. It is not true. In Japan, women are stronger. And this shows itself in the classroom as well. They are more serious, less timid, and they almost always lead class discussions.” Though one has to take generalizations of this sort with some degree of lightness, still, I have to say that looking at the faces of the women students here, I am often struck by the feverish intensity with which they listen and take notes. I sometimes imagine that they are literally at the edge of their seats. “Engaged” is an understatement.]

FUKUOKA AT NIGHT

If Kyoto is a village (see post below), Fukuoka is a cosmopolitan hub. In a country known for its ethnic homogeneity, Fukuoka stands out as having a rather large non-Japanese population. It is an oceanic gateway into Japan, with Korea just a stone’s throw across the water.

It is also a commercial mecca. There are more shopping opportunities here per square block than even in Tokyo. At night, the neons blaze and the people stay out. It’s one of those cities that never seems to close.

It is late by the time I am done working – just like a true Japanese! And I do as the locals do after a long day in the office – I go to the food stalls along the river bank in search of good home cooking. It’s mostly me and the so-called ‘salary men’ out there.

The stalls (called Yatai) aren’t like the ones in Madison’s library mall. They are self-contained eating places. They fold out to a tiny 6 inch counter, and they have snug stool-like chairs, cramming some maybe 8 bodies shoulder to shoulder around the eating hut. Behind the counter two people typically grill, slice and otherwise cook foods.



How do you decide which Yatai has the better food? Certainly as an outsider I can only give myself over to the tastes of others. I pick a crowded one (pictured above) that has good smells coming from it. Mom is the main cook, grown son works the grill and pours the beer.







Both seem happy to have an American choose their place. Fukuoka doesn’t see many faces from the States since it is too far from most of the tourist cities of Japan. (Besides, how can you tell your neighbors with a straight face that you are going to Fukuoka. BTW, it’s pronounced F’koo’oh’kah.)

I eat a grilled river fish and Mom’s vegetable tempura. I can’t believe how crisp and flavorful the veggies are. It is a terrific dinner. And the anticipation of sleep, immanent sleep, is almost too much pleasure for one body to take.

Of course, that was then. Now it’s 4 am and I am again blogging.