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.

JAPAN

UPDATE ON THE ROSE SAGA

It is over. All hope is lost. Rosie’s café (see post below and others before it) won not only the croissant battle for the day but also the week-long bakery war. I am defeated.

As you may recall, the goal was to reinstate the elusive apple croissant into my breakfast basket. I had two more days to make it happen and I lost. A brief recap:

After dragging in late last night (morning?) in my post-Karaoke stupor, I slept for an hour and 25 minutes and then got up to work (alternating with blogging) from 3 am until 8:30 am. My appointments at the court house were at 10 and I dared not be late so I decided to skip breakfast and hustle over to do my work there.

In the afternoon, when I still had had no breakfast or lunch for that matter, a brilliant idea came to me: I would visit Rosie’s then. I will have with me two people fluent in Japanese (see section below on the return of Kazumi). How could I possibly fail then to get at the croissant?

We arrive late, late in the afternoon. And wouldn’t you know it, Rosie is out of apple croissants. They do have plenty of plain buns though and so I have one of those. By this time I feel so deprived of sustenance that I may have even considered a ham croissant.

Rosie is at her most charming though. She grills my Japanese friends about me, the returning stranger, and comments that I looked very brainy, which according to me means that I am always wearing my reading glasses and am taking rushed notes, while wearing the clothes of a frumpy American academic.

But I am ready to pounce now with my apple croissant request for tomorrow morning. I tell my friend to tell her in Japanese that I am looking forward to my last visit tomorrow and that delicious apple croissant. My friend does so. But no! It turns out I wont see Rosie tomorrow because Rosie’s is CLOSED tomorrow – their one day off in the week. I almost ask them to reconsider, I am that disappointed.

WHEN STRANGERS BECOME FRIENDS [OR: THOUGHTS ON THE CLASSIC ENCOUNTERS OF A CLASSICAL NATURE]

CLASSICAL THEATER:

Late in the afternoon, Kazumi and I are sitting in the theater and watching a rehearsal of the traditional Japanese “Noh” play (as a reult of last night's encounter with one of the actors in this particular show), a feature of which is the use of elaborate costumes and masks.

In one of the scenes, a handful of men recite, while three more provide the background chant (which consists of banging drums, howling, and a rhythmic shouting of ‘yo, hoh, hoh, huh!” uttered at all speeds and noise levels). In the middle of the stage a stern woman moves across and twists and turns her body and a hand-held fan to the rhythm. Just when you’d think they are fading and ready to move on to the next scene, she retraces her steps and is back on center stage while the yohs and huhs resume in intensity and we are right where we started from. Does that give some sense of it? Probably not, but it’s the best I can do. But it’s all in the costumes anyway and the few people who are in full attire (it’s not a full dress rehearsal) can hardly move under the weight of all the fabric, the masks and the props.



CLASSICAL GARDEN:

After two hours we decide that we should move on. That feels right. Sitting in any one place for long threatens to create dangerous dozing conditions in me – of the type where I do not wake up until I will have missed my return flight home. I ask that we visit just one more garden. Since it is late, I suggest the closest one, at Heian Shrine. We are in luck. It is not yet closed.

The classical garden of Heian makes use of ponds and trees and it also has a number of fields of irises that are beginning to bloom now. There is definitely a connection here to the 19th century garden painted by Monet in France some 150 years ago. Monet grew to love this type of Japanese configuration. Irises and water lilies figure prominently in his spectacular French garden in Giverny as well. Here, at the Heian, the lilies are intensely rich in color. The entire garden is just about at its best now.







CLASSICAL JAPANESE FOOD:



It is almost evening and Maseiko (maybe Kazumi's fiancee, maybe not)is rushing to town to join us for one last dinner. We go back to where it all started on my first night here – at Ganko Zushi. This time they treat me to a full parade of classical Japanese cuisine. (Okay, you`d eat grasshoppers if your hosts served them to you. Would you eat the whale, whose catch is in such controversy now, or would you decline?) I feel myself dazed from too much food and too little sleep. By 10 pm I beg off and tell them I must return to the hotel.

It is a sad moment. Kazumi has worked hard to put together an album for me of our adventures together these last three days.



It is sentimental and sweet and very meticulously executed.

CLASSIC ME STAYING UP TOO LATE AND GETTING UP TOO EARLY AND THEREFORE FEELING MYSELF TO BE TERRIBLY SLEEP DEPRIVED: I hurry back to my hotel. A quick nap and I am up again at 2 to jot down notes for my next lecture and, of course, to blog. My train for my next destination leaves late Wednesday morning.

JAPAN

REFLECTIONS ON BEING LOYAL TO A BREAKFAST SPOT IN KYOTO

Rosie’s (that would be the Rose Café, relabeled by me for purposes of convenience; see earlier Kyoto post) and I have been out of step from day 2 of our first breakfast encounter. Let me explain.

On day 2, she was still closed at 7:30 a.m. when I wanted her to be open already.

Then, on day 3, I came in, ordered the breakfast special (salad, coffee and a basket with 3 bakery items), but told them to just put in 2 bakery items because it is a waste otherwise. I wont eat 3. She brought me a basket with the 2 most boring buns in the entire Café, skipping the lovely apple croissant.

Then, on day 4, I came in and smacked my lips tellingly at the apple croissant so that Rosie could see what was coveted by me. But just as insurance, in case she wasn’t watching or understanding the “smacking lips” concept, I decided NOT to ask for a reduction to 2 bakery items. I was paying the same price and so I might as well get all three and eat my apple favorite. But Rosie, bless her heart, thought she had me figured out and so she only brought two: the same boring bun and a piece of buttered bread.

Then, today (day 5), I had been working on my interview notes and blogging between the hours of 2:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. (yes, my sleep is forever confused) and so I decided to take a brief nap before seeting out for the day. As a result, I did not get to Rosie’s until 10:05 a.m., by which time Rosie’s breakfast special was off the books. Good! I can finally REQUEST whatever I want. I am standing there, searching the display for my apple fantasy as Rosie draws my attention to a tray of freshly baked croissants. Oh fine, fresh is good, I’ll just have one of those with coffee. I sit down, nibble away and come across a thick slice of ham inside. I can eat it, not a problem, but given the choice, I would never ever pick a lunchmeat for any meal and certainly not for one before the evening which means basically never. So there you have it, Rosie flubbed again.

I have 2 more mornings left. Could it be possible that at least on one of them I will get what I have been longing for from day 1? I wont give up on her, but really, I am getting nervous. I may never have that apple croissant again. Is Rosie unforgiving about my misuse of her cafe name?

HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE TO WALK FROM ONE END OF KYOTO TO THE OTHER?

Many hours. I did it today. I could have taken the subway, but I walked instead. People ask me often why I take the slower routes. Why take the train to Sapporo for 8 or 9 hours when there is a one hour flight? Why walk when there is an excellent system of public transportation? The same reason applies to both examples and it is the obvious reason. I SEE more when I slow down.

Someone recently commented that my blog tends to highlight the spectacular places and moments rather than giving an impression of the daily, the ordinary. This is true and it is deliberate.

Kyoto is 95% visually unspectacular and that’s being kind. I am deeply interested in the street scenes (hence the long walk today), but what tugs at my emotions most are the gems – the temples, gardens, etc –that stand in stark contrast to the eye-sores that are common to virtually every block here. I cannot NOT blog about the sights that often move me so deeply. The other stuff, the street scenes, well, I take them all in and they stay with me, but I don’t know that they would enrich my blog. Or at least they would more than double the post length, because they would have to be in addition to, not instead of what I have already included. I feel I am already taxing reader patience with the number of words and pictures I insert here. And so I make choices and for the most part, the street scenes are eliminated after the first cut.


NIJO CASTLE

Ah! Not a shrine! Not a temple! It is the one castle in Kyoto that you don’t have to literally petition the government to gain entry into. It is, perhaps for this reason, swarming with school groups. In Wisconsin, every fourth grader gets to go on a visit to the State Capitol. In Kyoto Prefecture and beyond, every junior high schooler gets to visit Nijo Castle. Or so it seems.

But it is a remarkable building and so I can hardly blame the teachers for wanting the kids to see this historic structure. It has fantastic screens and the ghosts of Tokugawa shoguns and feudal lords and a nightingale floor (built so that when you step on it the boards purposeful emit a warning squeak, sounding very much like the twitter of a nightingale) and a wonderful garden. In short, it is a gem. I wont write a single other detail, but so long as I am garden obsessed I did want to point to the mystical quality of this one. Of course, gardens are so weather dependent. Today, the skies went from cloudy to drizzly to torrential rain to cloudy to drizzly etc etc over and over again. The garden is verdant and the water still manages to beautifully reflect its every detail, but given the cloudiness, the greens become more muted in tone.



IS IT OKAY TO REVISIT A SIGHT FROM LAST YEAR’S TRIP HERE?

So far, I’ve been going for the new. There are so many shrines, gardens, temples – why retrace steps already taken? One reason may be because there is the occasional Temple that impresses so much that I think it deserves a second look (particularly since I now seem to be hitting the beginning of the Japanese iris season). And so, today, I come back to the Golden Pavillion of the Rokuon-ji Temple.



The rain comes down with a vengeance after I leave the Temple grounds. How lucky, again, I am on this trip! As the downpour begins, I find a gem of a tea shop with Japanese cakes and the most soothing, gentle brew of tea I’ve had in a long time. After asking for seconds and thirds, the waitress finally just brings me the whole teapot. And the little cake is delicious. And the check comes to 189 Y. How nice!


THE UNEXPECTED BEAUTY OF THE QUIET NINNA(JI)

I went to the Ninnaji because of the name. Really. It is not a place pushed by the guide books and so I almost had second thoughts myself (it is rather out of the way). But no, I have now that creeping feeling of desperation: one more temple, one more, my time here is almost up, let me just fit in another!

It is raining. I have some difficulty finding the entrance to the Temple. Inside, the grounds are sprawling and there are no western language signs. I walk past cherry trees with branches hanging almost to the ground in an uncharacteristic way – they must be gorgeous during sakura blooming season here. An old pagoda emerges to the right. It is fitting that it looks so old in this rather overgrown garden. There is something solitary and forgotten about the entire place. I amuse myself by thinking of ways to analogize it to me, just because of the name.



I watch the rain pour down the slate roofs of the secondary buildings. It’s all rather sad, really.

I’m ready to leave, puzzling why the doors are closed off everywhere. They should be open, for I read somewhere that this place has lovely temple rooms with well-preserved gold plated screens. I see no screens.

On my way out I study the large landscape map by the entry. It is in Japanese, but I can plainly see that it shows buildings I completely missed. I wonder whether I should go back. It is so lonely here. Last days, last hours, last temple perhaps. I go back.

I enter the forgotten Zen Temple as the rain again starts to turn vicious. What good timing. In the Zen complex of buildings, as you leave your shoes, you follow open corridors that have the smooth wood floors and are covered with roofs. Nowhere is rain less important than in a temple of this sort. In fact, I begin to think that this is as close to experiencing rain without getting wet as you can get. You are outside and yet you are protected.



Here are the screens! The cranes on one are so much like the ones I saw on the Kyoto riverbank the other day (see photos below)! This is only the second place that permits inside photographs and I am happy to be able to capture some of the interiors (I have spared blog readers my clicking nirvana). Oh, and that wood feels so good on sore feet that have walked too much today. A handful of people shuffle by noiselessly, for without shoes, our feet buff the surfaces without a sound. It is so quiet here!





Around the corner I am stunned to see a complicated Zen garden. The gravel and stones are set against a pond flanked by greenery, with the distant pagoda showing its roof above the tree tops. It is breathtakingly beautiful and the rain adds a dimension that I had not anticipated: it’s as if there is more water here than just that in the pond. I sit as so many others have sat, alone again, glad that this Ninnaji got passed over. I am again selfishly enjoying the beauty of a more quiet, contemplative Ninnaji. The place is magic. It is worth looking for.





AN EVENING OF FOOD, THEATER STARS, NATIONALISM AND KARAOKE

Kazumi and Masaiko (friends from day one of my Kyoto stay) take me to another favorite food house for dinner (“Muhoumatu”). It is a ma & pa type of eating establishment: the husband and wife do everything, from going out into the hills in the morning in search of weeds to cook and garnish with, to cooking and prepping the food. As far as I can tell, no more than about 8, max 10 people can sit at the counter at the same time, the place is that small.

(FOOD:) My friends are right to praise the food. The chef, a self-taught guy, has a flair for pairing flavors. I am throwing in just one or two photos from this meal below (including wild mountain weeds tempura!), but again, I am too intent on consumption to worry about art too much.





(STARS:) A new couple comes in and sits down. Over time, we come to include them in the evening – it is a small place after all and we find ourselves commenting about the food together. The man, Matsunoto Karu, is an actor and professor of the traditional Japanese Kanze theater. I gather he is quite well-known among the acting circles.



Matsunoto asks if I would like to come and watch them rehearse tomorrow. I tell him that I am working most of the day but would be glad to come over afterwards. Kazumi offers to rearrange her schedule so that she can be in Kyoto one more day and join me for this rather nice honor.

(NATIONALISM:) As Matsunoto talks of his most recent travels to Europe and Canada where he both teaches traditional theater and acts in it, our chef grows increasingly agitated. Finally he can no longer contain his displeasure with the world. He gets our attention and proclaims: “I am not part of international. I am Japanese! I cook Japanese food, I like Japanese ways, I am Japanese! I want to stay Japanese!” He appears angry and he retreats into the back of the kitchen.



Everyone is silent, feeling profoundly embarrassed at the chef’s perceived rudeness toward me. But I am not offended. What, I don’t know that there are people like this in Japan? In the United States? In Poland as well? People who hide behind safe labels of patriotism and loyalty to their country and who resist having the external world encroach upon their safe habits that they regard as somehow superior? The difference here is that the chef expressed with a great deal of emotion something that is concealed in so many others.

I have no great tolerance for nationalism of this sort. I do not forgive it or accept it. But I don’t feel it helps to engage it at the emotional level either. I tell the chef that I admire his desire to preserve traditional Japanese ways of cooking and I let it go at that.

(KARAOKE:) It is well after midnight before my hosts suggest an evening of singing. I agree, but only for a brief hour. So much work awaits me tomorrow that I feel I should end the evening soon.

Karaoke here remains extremely popular. In most instances, it is a private activity that you engage in with your particular group of friends behind closed doors. We are given the key to one out of many rooms. There we select songs and take turns belting out the lyrics, sometimes together, sometimes in solo renditions. There isn’t the public element to it and so the competitiveness or potential humiliation are at once removed. And you can limit your musical options to those that appeal to your particular group.





Finding common ground unfortunately steers my little group to music of the Carpenters (a real favorite among the Japanese), Boz Scaggs, and less unfortunately –the Beatles and Carole King. Masaiko and Kazumi are gutsy singers, but then so am I. By this late hour, any missteps (and there are many) are extremely funny – as are the video clips that accompany each music selection. If I was tired earlier in the evening, by now I am wide awake. The struggle with aligning my internal clock continues. But sanity does lead me to finally call it quits at some beastly unmentionable late (or is it early by now?)hour. Too many miles of walking today to keep me peppy now. And there’s still the blog to attend to back at the hotel.

JAPAN

MOTHERS

SUNDAY, MAY 9: I was given instruction this morning to search out flowers for the hotel room. Rain had been in the forecast and sure enough, it was raining hard. Nonetheless, am I going to settle for the hotel florist when there may be an open flower shop somewhere in the city? Of course not. The search begins.

An hour later I find one. They are in the midst of preparations for what will surely be a day of great chaos, given that this is Japan and a day to give presents and expectations center around flowers. It is early, they are not open yet, but a few coaxing nonsensical words gain me permission to enter and browse. They humor me as I pick through flower possibilities. Eventually they put together a bouquet of orchids and peonies. The care with which they work on this attests to the preoccupation they have in this country with flowers. In the hotel as well, when I ask for a vase, they bring several to my room to assess which will look better and then insist on a careful arranging of each stalk.





Thank you, and for the cards as well!

Oh-oh. Am I forgetting something? Like the need to finish this quickly and go upstairs to call someone in Berkeley? My mother by now will have told everyone in her senior home that she expects to hear from neither of her daughters. I am certain that stories about daughter inattentiveness figure prominently in her conversations. Sorry to disappoint, Mom, I'm about to call!

KAZUMI’S PLAN

I met Kazumi and her boyfriend (is that the correct term for a man who is 42?), Masaiko, on my first night in Kyoto, at a sushi bar (see post below). She is coming in to Kyoto today to take me around to places I am not likely to find on my own (Masaiko is working and will join us for dinner later).

I come down to the hotel lobby and she is there, along with two friends (Mieko and Eiko) from her ‘Cultural Center English class.’ The Japanese are forever studying English in an attempt to improve their speaking skills. Nevertheless, all three barely speak it at this point. I would say that the chances of my simple sentences being understood are at best 50 – 50. Of course, my Japanese skills remain at a level that, when rounded up, comes close to 0.

Kazumi has a plan for today and she is undaunted by the steady rain. She has brought along brochures, maps and booklets, meticulously marked with post-its. I tell her I will follow along and do whatever she suggests.

1. BOX LUNCHES: I associate the term ‘box lunch’ with something you eat on the run (although in Japan this would have to be SITTING DOWN). Obviously I am wrong. We walk to a place that is slow-paced and refined. Two men spend the entire time we are there arranging food for presentation. That is all they do – they bring it in from the kitchen and work to creatively place it in boxes that are then brought to us. I did not want to become too obsessed with my camera during this day (that’s true for the remaining pictures as well: my attention was too much on my hosts and the places we were visiting) and so these basic photos will have to suffice. The use of choice plates and containers is, of course, extremely important to the arrangements. I wont even begin to describe the food itself. Absolutely delicious. And about ten times as much (in quantity) as I would normally eat in the course of the day.





2. TOFUKU-JI: There are Zen temples and then there are Zen temples. There are gardens and then there are lush gardens. We travel by train to Tofuku-Ji, a temple outside of Kyoto that can be described as perhaps the ‘lushest’ of them all.







In part, it is the time of the year. In May, the juxtaposition of various shades of greens is especially pronounced and it serves the Japanese gardens well. A Japanese maple with its delicate pointy leaves looks stunning next to a fir with curved, darker blue-green branches.



And in the Zen creations, where pebbles are raked (with a bamboo pole) into a checkerboard design or into one with circles, the greens again come to play a role, both in the strategically placed bushes in the background and the mosses that figure into the template.





The rain has stopped and miraculously, it does not come back for the rest of the day. Incredible luck.

Kazumi’s leadership is crucial in getting us from one point to another. I am a mere puppy, following along, asking irritating questions, liking the role of the person without a plan, without any idea even as to where we are going and why. I am repeating the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘splendid’ over and over, but it is appropriate and true. (It is also dangerous to try to introduce a new word. At one point I commented on how polite the Japanese people are to each other. Polite? – ask my hosts. What’s that? They look through their dictionaries and say ‘aaaah, kind.” No, not kind, I say. Kind is different. But how do you explain the difference with a “see Spot run” vocabulary? A challenge.)

3. UJI: Several stops further on the train line we come to the town of Uji. Just as Hotaka is known for wasabi and Hoppa is all about soba, Uji has two claims to fame: the Byodoin Temple with its great Phoenix Hall,



…and green tea. Grown, served, consumed in every which way, sold in all imaginable incarnations of jellies, sweets, baked goods, creams and basically anything else that you might think could be improved with a splash of green color and the strong, almost bitter flavor of this uniquely Japanese product.



At a very old tea house we eat green tea deserts (green tea jelly, green tea ice cream, rice balls, and sweet red beans).



I am given presents – packages of the green tea to take back to Madison. My new friends are wonderfully kind to me. Note that I am, of course, the tallest among them (though not the oldest! We span the years from Kazumi’s 38 to Eiko’s 54).



4. KAWAMURA SUMO FOOD SHOP: In the early evening, back in Kyoto, Meiko and Eiko depart. Both are enthusiastically plotting their first trip to America. Suddenly learning English has a concrete purpose.

Kazumi and I meet Masaiko at a tiny tiny Sumo Food Shop for dinner.

I do not associate sumo wrestling with food, but indeed, Sumo cuisine has its own unique features. Masaiko is well known in this particular place and as we sit at the counter, the cooks and staff engage us in one long conversation that orbits around figuring out how to say something in English. I feel like I am eating at someone’s home (it is getting late and we are the only clients – not that there are many seating choices were more people to come); the atmosphere verges on being rambunctious as dish after dish comes to us from behind the counter.



Anything notable? The octopus tempura, the raw squid, the sea urchin, the Kyoto veggies, the spring bamboo noodles, oh, this is getting long.





Mostly I am so FULL of food. Just when I think I cannot, CANNOT eat any more, I see plates of rice in sea weed, and then, oh, here comes a boiling pot with Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, pieces of chicken (chicken! This is my first encounter with meat in Japan!), oh stop, I cannot! What? A shojiu drink after those mugs of beer? What’s a shojiu? A GIN AND TONIC?? You have got to be kidding. How can they take it in and not appear even phased by the voluminous nature of it all? It’s healthy, yes I know, it’s all very healthy, but THERE IS SO MUCH OF IT! [The Food Shop staff gather to watch me eat. I am a source of amusement to them, I'm certain of it.]





It becomes clear that this day is more than just about sights and dishes of food. The desire to show off one’s home, to share it with someone who is just passing through is palpable. Masaiko has made a CD for me from the Kabuki Theater where he was the sound manager (he will be traveling to UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan and Harvard the following year with this troupe; he is very excited – he has never traveled abroad before). He gives me a pack of photos as well, taken by him during the last show. The chef makes up dishes we never even request. The hostess gives me scrolls with sumo titles on them. Kazumi picks up endless post cards for me. They all want me to like it here and they work hard to make this happen. I never even see the bill for the huge meal. They will not accept anything from me. They only know how to give.


I wonder what it is like to work, as Kazumi works, teaching piano lessons in this compulsive nation. Her oldest student is 57. Her youngest is just two. Two? How can you study piano at the age of two? Kazumi says the little girl just sings and sings as she bangs away at the keyboard. Kazumi herself started at the late age of four. Her music friends have gone on to do great piano things – they are currently studying at Julliard and she plans on visiting them in NY next year. But she herself sustained a hand injury while at the university and so her performance days are over. Does she like teaching? Sometimes. Just sometimes. Does she think of doing something else? Of course not. This is her job.

Maseiko and Kazumi want to go out to dinner again tomorrow night. Yes, yes, okay, but really, we have to decrease the number of dishes. I cannot keep up. Karaoke afterwards? That’s intimidating! Kazumi sings jazz on the side. Maseiko is a sound manager. This will take Karaoke to a different level than listening to renditions of “I will survive” at Noah’s Ark as sung by two girls from a Girl Scout troupe. But I am game for anything. I will let them lead. They are so good at it.

All this from a chance encounter at a sushi bar.