Eastern Pieces of Scrap Paper

Iwate San

2008-08-17T14:32:00.000+09:00

I had to tear myself out of bed - it literally felt like peeling my body from my futon. My eyes felt like dead weights crusted with sleep, the beers I had drunk before were like what ball and chains are to a prisoner. So, when my alarm clock rang at 6:00 AM, I let out a massive sigh that sounded like it came from the bowels of some dying animal. Then I sat there for a bit, staring at the ceiling, my right hand flopping about trying to turn off the alarm.

But, I made it out of bed. I sat up, stretched, piled my futon neatly in the corner, opened the sliding door and b-lined for the kitchen to boil some water for coffee. Slowly the creaks of my joints, the stiffness of my back, and the sleepiness in my eyes began to fade away. I finished packing my massive backpack. Tent, mattress, sleeping bag, food, hiking boots, maps, road atlas, pens and paper to make signs for hitchhiking, power bars, head lamps, rain gear and a towel for a hot spring dip. It was too much to climb a mountain with, but just enough for a week long hitchhiking, mountain-hiking, camping excursion.

I boiled eggs, corn on the cob, and wrapped up salted salmon for the road. I heard the stirrings of my roommate - and my ride - in the room next door.

I've hitchhiked in this country more than I can remember - countless times on the road solo, moving somewhere on a map, maybe north, south, east or west, never knowing just how far I will make it. My language skills always jump up a level after one of these missions, as well as my motivation-levels, clarity, and general inspiration for life and for living in Japan itself. But, the longer you hitchhike for, not only do the older you get, but the juices which get you up and out of the door in the morning - the juices that get all that momentum started - are harder to tap into. "It would help to have a partner to go with," I lament to myself. "I'm 27 and STILL doing this?" I second-guess. "Aren't there better things to do with my free-time?" I worry. Some of these questions are pertinent, but I still make it out the door, Kaori, my roommate, leading the way.

You got to choose -something anyone who gives advice about hitchhiking in Japan is bound to say - between the highway/tollbooth road system in Japan, or the free, slow and "普通” or "usual" road system that link the cities. For me, I wanted to sling shot myself out of Sendai and get to where I wanted to go as fast as possible, and so I chose the former. The highways in Japan are massive bridges that run the span of the country, dwarfing the towns below them. To get onto them, you must pass through a toll booth, getting a ticket, then pay accordingly when you get off later on. Getting on these things can be a pain in the ass: if you hitchhike too close, the highway cops will come, or the gate attendant will yell at you. But if you hitch too far from the on-ramp, you can't be certain that you are targeting the right cars. And so, Kaori, with her giving me a ride to a rest stop already on the highway, was a blessing to start off the day. The highways, as they span the length of almost the whole country (except Hokkaido) have various rest stops for food, toilets, and gas. Sometime they even have parks, pic nic tables and restaurants. Kaori let me off at one of these nondescript places, which was packed with cars and massive trucks, and then headed off to work.

I stood there, the lone gai-jin or foreigner, with my bulging backpack, camera case, and thumb stuck out in the air. It took a good twenty minutes or so to catch a ride. A nice family, in a good old family van. The husband was well-ready to make conversation with a foreigner, the wife moved to the back to hang out with with the two children, and I took up the front seat. We all got along just peachy. I invoked the age-old hitchhiking conversation topics: living abroad, hometowns, current destinations, and Japanese and language learning (which inevitably moves into Japanese people's inhibitions like being "too shy" and how coming from a "unique" country is the source of such problems). Then, as the drive was a long one, we moved into more complicated but never original topics, like how foreigners are more free to travel and do what they want to do as the working life is so different in Japan (the salary man topic), we even got into some interesting talks, like Japanese women versus Canadian women. Fun, fun.

Before I knew it, I had made it to Morioka. A good two hours and a bit north of Sendai, and the launch off point for Iwate-san, one of the tallest mountains in Tohoku. It's a good 2000 meters, is a dominating site, and makes up the lower half of one of the most pristine hiking terrains in Northern Japan, Hachimantai. I would be ascending the active-volcano from the West route, up the ridge line (which makes for a more gradual, but longer climb - one less hard on the knees, as I would be carrying a good 22kg on my back). I hopped a bus, ended up at an onsen, changed from my flip flops to my hiking boots and, then... took a gondola.

Japan loves making things accessible, and I suppose, when I get old and have creaky joints and a crooked back but still love hitting the outdoors I won't complain. But, sometimes this country can pulverize its mountains with contraptions, and vending machines, and cables, and gondolas or chair lifts, all in the name of convenience. I guess it's a double-edged sword, though, as I wouldn't have been able to arrive at this mountain in such a short time if the road system wasn't so great. But, anyway, I digress. I started off the hike by riding a ski lift for a good fifteen minutes to get to the ridge line. I had descended this route before and decided it better to get to the edge of Iwate-San by chair lift versus walking, as I had a good five hours to go already - and it was already after noon.

I passed some boisterous ladies making their way down, some other old men who checked with me that I was staying on the mountain that night (I grunted my "yes"), and after a dangling and relaxed chair ride, I heaped my back pack on my shoulders, and made my way into the forest. The sun was blazing down, but I noticed the low cloud cover (which would be a god-send, due to the humidity). The trail was nicely cut and had been used for centuries. I just had to put one foot in front of the other for another five hours, shoulder this backpack, and hope my knees held out and all would be well.

The rest of the trek - if you have ever climbed a 2000 meter mountain in Japan - was beautiful but like the rest: a gradual ascension through forest, to more foliage, then to a rocky, volcanic terrain above the clouds (or in them) with gravel and often times ladders for maneuvering through the jagged rocks. I was grunting after a good three or four hours, my body taking a beating from the back pack, and the steep climb - but was loving every minute of it. I must've sweat a good 2 liters of water, because that's how much a drank.

My mind moved in and out of useless concerns related to my daily life back in Sendai: when would I teach makeup classes for my privates? would it be best to try to line up all my students on a Wednesday and Friday so I could go to soccer on Thursday? which tests did I still have to make for my current college job? was quitting work and going solo a good choice?... blah, blah. But, I soon began to come out of that cycle of monotonous, no-where thinking and noticed the winds and mists which enshrouded me with their subtleness. I felt the gravel beneath my boots and my body's muscles taut with the physical strain. I was glad to get out of the urban jungle and hit the mountains, again. Before I knew it, I had made it to the eighth station, and my destination: its mountain hut.

The hut stood two stories tall, big enough for at least fifty people, with a worker tending it. I chose a spot on the second floor, made my "bunk", hung up my sweat-soaked clothes and cooked dinner. I even got a free beer from the man in charge of the cabin. Tasted so good. All food was wonderful, even the simplest of packaged items. My body was creaky, my knees were thanking to have lost the pack, and I felt great. I must've sweat out and worked off all booze and calories gained that week and then some. The cabin had a buzz of people who were living in the moment, relishing the buzz of arriving at their goal, chatting over their portable cookers, glad to be away from it all, and on holiday. The 1500 yen was a small price to pay to be apart of the atmosphere.

I talked with the cabin manager and he told me sunrise would be at 4:43 and that I would need about 40 minutes to get to the top of the mountain if I wanted to see it. I did, and so I set my alarm for 3:30. It was 6:30 now. Bed time. Lights out was at 8:00, which seems late if you think about waking up at 3:30, but my body was well-enough worked over that a 7:00 bed time was definitely feasible. And considering that I woke up in the comfort of my room, about 150km south, in a different city, at sea level earlier that same day, I wasn't surprised. I lay down, thanked the family next to me who had give me some cookies (lovely people that the Japanese are) and mused at just how comfortable a hard-wood bedding could be. I passed out in no time (although snores, and crazy-early risings of the fellow hikers would wake me up at various points throughout the night).

3:30 AM. Pitch black, stiff limbs, and soggy clothes, but my heart was beating pretty fast. Most of the people in the cabin had already left, which kind of worried me. I quickly switched on my headlamp, packed my things, got dressed, and headed out the door. The mountain, lush with greenery had turned into a moon landscape with shadows casting this way and that, the stars gorgeous in the sky and as bright as bedside lamps made me feel like I was under some massive tapestry. I moved into the darkness like a man on the moon, making his way into some unknown landscape, nothing to trust but the light on his head and the faintly cut-out course of the trail before him.

I was panting in no time, my body's energy reserves used up from the day before. I hiked like a marionette: right leg, up, forward and down. Pause. Left leg up, forward, and down. Pause. Repeat. I made it to the top faster than most, though.

The morning sunrise on the top of the mountain in Japan is an absolutely beautiful thing. The sky begins to change hues, so subtle, that unless you stare nonstop at it, it's unnoticeable. To hike and look at the skyline now and then is to miss a transition of grades of colors words can't describe. This is all before the sun rises, at that time where the sky is licked with whatever rays coming from a sun still hidden. As the light begins to reveal itself, the stars sink away and a blue comes through which seems back-lighted like something on a set of a movie, as if the sky was a set piece that you could pass through, or go behind. And slowly, with this gradual and ever-so slight lightening up of the world above you, the land beneath your feet begins to take shape, to come alive, to become detailed and textured. You then see the unmoving clouds below you, making up a sea of cotton which seems like it was taken out of some oil painting or mural of old. The clouds just sit there, their current gone, the tide of the wind still, as if the only air that exists is above this floor of clouds, where you are, and below it is that of the ocean itself. It isn't until the sun slowly beings to emerge from below that the clouds begin to burn off, to move, to shift around. For, like a rooster in a barn, the sun is the messenger that it is now time to get things rolling. The wind picks up, temperature rises, the noises of birds and insects can be heard, and even your body begins to wake up; whereas before everything was a photograph, all has become part of an animated movie. And I sat there, one among maybe ten, on top of the world, drinking a cup of instant coffee, witness to this transition. It felt good to be in Japan. It also felt good, in one of those cheesy kind of ways, to be alive and well. I remembered why I had got out of bed the morning before and traversed the concrete jungle, took buses and sweated to the top of this place.

As the sun rose, I ate breakfast, took some pictures, and took it all in. After a good couple hours I made my way down the other side of the mountain. The descent is always harder than the climb - especially with a massive back pack. My ab muscles were under constant strain and if I let up on them my knees would take the brunt of it all. I wanted to just let gravity have its way and simply run down the mountain side, my backpack ever-pressing down on me. But, I persevered, soon found my rhythm and about three hours or so later, I emerged on a mountain road, with cars driving by, two guys hitting a tennis ball back and forth in a parking lot next to a camp ground, and in the reaches of society once again.

I planned this particular descent because a few meters away was an onsen / hotspring - the gods' gift to all who exercise and like to get dirty. I walked along the pavement, feeling my dangly limbs, my creaky joints, my caked-on sweat, and the weight of it all. After arriving, realizing it didn't open for another hour and fifteen minutes (it was indeed still only 8:15 in the morning - it's amazing how much you can do if you go to bed at eight and wake up before four in the morning), I pulled my feet out of my boots, peeled off my socks, and sat on a bench, enjoying life without a backpack strapped to my shoulders. (I have nothing to write about during this hour or so, as I simply sat there, in a frame of complete satisfaction, stretching here and then, watching people drive up in theirs cars only to find the doors still locked and biding my time. So, I'll get to the onsen).

The doors opened, old ladies came flooding out of nowhere, like they had set up a secret bunker just out off site, rushing to buy souvenirs and enjoy an early dip. They pushed passed me, not paying attention to the fact I had been waiting there first, and was weary with fatigue. I made it through them and their incessant chatting and poking of souvenir packages and gawking over them if they looked delicious or if it was a rare item. I paid my 500 yen, went to the change room, got naked, and scrubbed myself down until I was cleaner than I was before I even started this trek, and soaked in the just too-hot but muscle-relaxing hot spring water. It was bliss. I was in heaven. My blisters, cuts, scrapes and sore joints burned, but slowly became numb, and my mind floated, drifted up and away, all stress evaporating like the steam from the water. I sat there, until my body was as red as a lobster, and got out, lying down on the tile next to the big tub, feeling the water pulsate each time someone got in, and listening to the slapping of bare feet on tile of people walking by and kids splashing each other. If anyone comes to Japan, I have to recommend the one-two punch of physical exertion/getting dirty and the onsen soak. This country's people have it down.

But, one can only take so much of roasting-hot relaxing. I made my way out, dried off, put on the cleanest clothes I had, and made my way down the road and passed the spot I had came out of the forest. The time to hitchhike had begun once again. Cars were scarce, which is not a good thing. But, the fact I was in a hiking area and was wearing a massive backpack tipped the scales in my favor, and perhaps the fourth car stopped and drove me to the nearest on-ramp to the highway.

Plans were to head north... far north, all the way to the western edge of Aomori. After I got out of the car I realized I was in a bad spot. The sun was blazing now, I was hot, and on a sharp curve in a road where, if I moved further along I would be seen by the toll booth attendants, but if I moved in the opposite direction toward the flow of traffic there was no place for the cars to stop. So, I tried, closer to the toll booths than I'd like. Soon enough, two people started walking towards me, they were wearing blue jumper suits with decals and badges; they looked like something out of a Dr. Who/B-movie/sci-fi flick. They were Japanese cops. They played the good cop bad cop thing down to a button - so much so I wanted to laugh in their face. They wore their authority thick and in your face like all good people do who take a job for that simple reason - to have authority. After getting my i.d. off of me "just to check", and power-tripping for some time, they pointed out a better place to hitchhike and that hitchhiking anywhere past this particular sign was forbidden. I nodded, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They left. Then they came back to see if I was obeying them. I was. They drove off. They damped my high spirits and left a bad taste in my mouth. I switched plans and tried hitchhiking on the lower roads - the slower and free ones.

It took forever. No one stopped for a good hour. I was sweating, frustrated but pulled out the stops: I made a sign, with the kanji of the place I wanted to go. I did my little hitchhiking dance, and made eye contact with the drivers, I smiled, and bowed. Finally someone stopped. A great family, full of energy, enthusiasm and adventure. They drove me to my destination, after making three stops to do some quick shopping - each time the young and vibrant wife apologized to me as if she was causing me trouble. I smiled and told her she had things backwards. She laughed. We joked. They bought me a coke. Then they let me off at yet another on-ramp. We said goodbye, they wished me luck and I looked around, the beating down of the sun the only company I had. This spot was even worse than the one before. There's wasn't even a gradual turn, so the only place to hitchhike from was just before the gates. Plus there were no cars. Maybe one every 10 - 15 minutes. I sat down on my back pack, plucked a piece of long grass and chewed on it like some farmer would after a day of tilling his crops. I pondered. And I had a moment of clarity.

I have been hitchhiking in this country for more than six years. I've met more strangers in cars than I probably have friends in this country. I am 27 years old with unfinished endeavors and ambitions, ones I need to be back at home to initiate. I have things I need to do but have been put off, I have work to begin and sort out, relationships to sort out and clarify; in short, I have other actions which need a kick start of momentum themselves back in the city - just ones which cannot be physically moved, and therefore are so much harder to get going.

I sat there, like that on my back pack, on some complete random and nondescript corner of an intersection at the very northern tip of Iwate Prefecture, for a good half an hour thinking about this. I stood up and showed my sign when I car came, but the cars drivers were icy, old, and scared people who sped up as they saw me. But my mind was not intent on getting a ride, anyway. That's when I had this moment of clarity: I realized I was hitchhiking to keep myself on the move, to physically get lost in momentum and the flow of it all - all things wonderful. But, this moving, this physical picking-up of yourself and moving to one place and then another stems from the desire to progress one's life, to meet the need of change and growth that most people have. All of which is a good thing. But, the things which can't be seen physically changing, the things which are abstract but which need to be grown and cultivated are the most important of all to get the momentum building on, and therefore are alos the things which usually get put on the back burner.

The addiction of traveling is the growth, change, and constant self-challenge which is embodied with the physical moving about of yourself. Traveling, especially hitchhiking, is probably one of the best things you can do - something everyone should do at least once, and for a prolonged amount of time, in their life. But, on this trip, hitchhiking presented itself as a catalyst, a teacher, an instruction method, perhaps even a philosophy to me; although hitchhiking is a not a way to live in and of itself, it is a way to remind yourself of the ultimate way to life your own life; hitchhiking embodies what constant change, movement, and perseverance is needed every day, in the monotonous of it all, back in the nice to five gridlock grind of city life.

I picked up my bag while continuing to chew on my long piece of grass, put my sign away, and walked to the nearest train station and reversed all my momentum which I had building going north, to that of back south, to the city of Sendai and my home there. I cut my week-long trip of hitchhiking and climbing the four tallest mountains in Tohoku down to one night, two days, and that of hiking only one mountain. But I had achieved what I had set out to do anyway, and which is why getting out of the city and heading into the wild is something I'll probably never stop doing, and which, if you haven't done lately, you should definitely think of doing sometime soon

A reprise in Hiroshima

2007-09-06T13:23:00.005+09:00

Although my true destination on paper had been Hiroshima from the moment I bordered the 5:30 train departing Sendai, I purposefully took my time to get there and didn't have much of a route planned. Instead of taking the day-and-a-half it should take via the slow train system to arrive, I stretched it out to a week, stopping off at the island of Shikoku seeing where my thumb would lead me (see the entries below for an account of my times on Shikoku). In short, the theme of the trip was to perfect the art of meandering.

Hiroshima lies just west of Shikoku, Japan's inland sea separating the two. I crossed it faster than planned, feeling like I had spent enough time in the back country. I felt ready to head into the city, the urban jungle, the place where friends would be. I was ready to set aside my tent, let my hiking boots dangle from my back pack, and sleep on sofas and futons at the expense of my friends' hospitality. It was time to couch surf.

Hiroshima. The bomb. War. Radiation. Cancer. Politics. History. Suffering. A city with a history that most don't think about yet all have absorbed at least on some sort of level at one point in their life.

Hiroshima.

Since living there, all of the above images and stigmas have been replaced, re-molded and sifted out of me. Where before, a crumbled and crucifix-of-a-building, the A-Bomb Dome, stood, now marked where the public toilets could be found. Peace Park, the location of where the bomb was dropped, was now a meeting spot for my friends and I, a place to drink some wine along the side of the river. The A-Bomb Museum--the testament and reminder of how devastating man's hubris can be--was now simply one of the many stops on the tram line along the way to the famous island of Miyajima. Where before I only had images from TV, inklings from history books, and notions from my imagination, these features of a city which tourists come to see have all been thrown in a different color, changed, absorbed and claimed as my own, as I became apart of the city. It has been over a year since I moved from Hiroshima up north to Sendai, and upon finding myself back, I realize a soft spot exists deep inside when it comes to this city. A lingering feeling of ease, of mystique and of comfortability. In the city itself, its concrete buildings, trees, cafes and bars, I find myself attached and longing to remain.

Hiroshima is a tourist hot spot. When you arrive at the station, you're going to see a lot more Caucasian people than you're used to. Yet, you see a lot more Caucasian travelers--people not teaching English but who have come to Japan to see Japan, on route to somewhere else perhaps, backpacks bulging, clothes worn and creased, maps dangling. Yet, this isn't a bad thing. These tourists are not in your face, and mainly stick to the well-known attractions, so avoiding them--if that's your thing--is easy. On the flip-side, this fact--this tourist-presence--lends an important atmosphere to Hiroshima; the locals are used to travelers, to foreigners, to the "gai jin". Which, in return, makes it easy to blend in, to feel apart of the town itself; you don't feel like you're often awkwardly skidding along the outskirts of town, as you can when up north in the more rural areas of this country. Hiroshima is accessible from the moment you set foot off the train platform. A promise of open-doors and warm smiles lingers in the air for you as you ride the old-fashioned steam-engined (but now electric) trains donated to the city after the bomb; in Hiroshima, there is a place for you, whether you're the ex-pat or the short-term English teacher, or mail order bride, or landed immigrant. One's looks don't matter so much here.

But these are just first impressions. Important? Yes, of course, for even though impressions are not based on fact and come from the gut, they oftentimes carry more truth than not. Yet, they are, still, merely impressions. After living in Hiroshima I discovered a well-ingrained, strongly-knit and intertwined local foreign population. There are art exhibitions, organized parties, locally made websites and maps and guides to help the traveler even with the shortest of stays to find a place off the beaten path. Borders were being brought down, chances to meet one another were being created, and a sense of "home" could be seen on the faces and in the eyes, in the way one walked of so many of my newly-made gai-jin friends. It struck me as rare; I hadn't experienced this feeling I was seeing on so many of these people's faces. They lived in a place they called "home"--not a temporary one and they liked it. Their groups of friends involved people from many facets of the community, gai-jin and Japanese alike. Bartenders, photographers, chefs, glass blowers, djs, musicians, the common salary man, house wives, cafe owners.

Now, at this point I had already lived in Japan for a year and half, but way up north in a placed deemed a small, mountain town, Yamagata. The word "yama" means "mountain" while "gata" means shape and it's a good insight into what the town is like. Gorgeous Mt. Fuji-offspring mountains encircle the caldera of the city, in them mornings a silvery-bearded mist creeps in before burning away from the sun, deep greens and browns are its canvas, and during the winter white, heavy, packing snow blankets every flat surface. Pottery-making stores, old-school cobblers, calligraphy schools and rice fields, sweltering summer heat. For me, the fundamental image, the heartbeat and spirit of Japan will forever be contained in the slow throbbing of life found in Yamagata. But, just as you can stare forever at your favorite painting, adoring its lines and subtleties, you yourself are not apart of it, and that's how it was for me in Yamagata. I was what my title deemed me to be, a "gai-jin". A foreign/outside (gai) person/being (jin). Visitor. Temp. Tourist. Non-Japanese.

I stood outside of the station, under an awning to protect me from the rain. A slight drizzle had started. Houses, power lines, bulletin boards slowly were slowly passing by when I first noticed the spring shower. All the colors around me were faded out, toned-down one notch, blotted out with the dull sheen of the tumbling beads of water, as clouds had moved in to suck out most vibrancy the colors had before. And now I waited, with my backpack on, for Naoko to pick me up. I hadn't seen her for over a year.

When you travel for life, when you live abroad, you cross paths with more people than you can count, indeed more people than you can even begin to create and maintain a connection with. Yet each time someone passes you by, each time you talk to someone, a potential fork in the road you're on is developed; your headlights reveal a possible fork in the path or at least a twist, oftentimes even a hairpin corner. Traveling and living abroad is like trooping around with a magnet on your back, drawing all possible encounters to you. The more you move and themore you put yourself out on the line and in new places, the more momentum you gain and with this momentum, the more paths you criss-cross. This, for some, is a wonderful thing, and is something that sets off events in one's life like a chain reaction, like lighting a fuse. Some, on the other hand, meet so many people it becomes hard to find meaning in it all; some end up taking so many of the turns, trying so many new roads and embracing each twist and blind corner that all their left with is a pervading sense of quantity over quality. And soon enough, all that remains is yet another handshake, yet another introduction, and yet another conversation about origins, reasons, and work. Naoko, on the other hand, reminded me what it was like to meet someone back at home, a meeting that does not stem from being a foreigner or the random apple in the box; she reminded me what it was like to make a connection with someone not based on geographic location but on common interests--like a meeting of old, when you're too young to scrutinize anything and therefore connect on a deeper level. Even though I had known her for only less than a year, I found myself, standing outside in the post-nasal-drip rain, feeling like I was waiting for an old friend. Funny, how living abroad and traveling redefines what's old and new, long and short. Traveling takes time and hacks it off at the knees, giving it a new measure.

I saw the car approach, a smile on the driver behind the wheel. I threw my pack in the trunk, and more-flopped-than-sat myself in the front seat. With the close of the door, I was welcomed into the city, the last five days of mountain treks and solo-missions in the woods, on mountain-tops and through villages were gone. I was welcomed back into the urban flow, traffic-jams, and city gridlocks. Yet, with the friendly hug I received from Naoko, it felt good to be back in the city--a city I felt like could've perhaps become a home-away-from-home if I had stayed long enough, if I had given it the chance. Yet, the momentum I had gained from traveling and moving around over the previous three years had proved too strong, and therefore as I sat shotgun, I found myself merely visiting yet another place I had left some roots, created some memories, and found some people to call friends.

Shikoku, Part V: The Chiiori House

2007-09-05T15:21:00.000+09:00

I had already snagged two rides, slept over night at a rather swanky campsite, massaged my body with a long soak in an onsen, and traversed between mountain folds on roads which seemed to find the smallest crease between peaks by the time I found myself hanging out on the side of yet another road, in what was deemed a town. Upon my arrival I had tried to buy a packaged pastry, one of the nondescript kinds they sell at any old convenience store in the country. But when I went to the counter and dug around for money, the lady picked up the snack, examined it, and told me the expiry date had past already. I didn't realize the preservative-filled thing even had an expiry date. That's when I noticed the layer of dust on the clear plastic package. I smiled: I was truly in the countryside of Japan. I had then decided to buy some fruit instead, ate it and chatted with the old lady for a bit who didn't seem interested in much of what I had to say, which I also found curious. Now, I found myself jammed between the grocery house-shop and the road itself. The shoulder of this street was non-existent, and when a car came I had to hold out my thumb to show I was hoping for a ride while simultaneously be sure I didn't get it lopped off by the review mirror.

It was much hotter down here, away from the mountains. In fact, ever since I decided to take the ride and not continue into the back country, the sun had been beating down as if it was trying to make a point spring was here. Judging from this weather, I probably could've continued into the mountains alone, as planned, and been alright. But I had already made the decision not to and was in the middle of seeing out where it was leading me. I looked around, squinting at the light. I had made it deep into Iya Valley, but not yet to what could be considered its heart.

If you look at a map of Shikoku, you'll notice that its biggest land masses are found on the east and the west respectively, with a narrower piece of land in the middle connecting the two. If you move your eyes east and focus on the right land mass, you'll find a big patch of mountains, shared between the two prefectures which make up most of the east side: the eastern of Tokushima Ken and southern of Kochi Ken. If you're looking at a topographical map you can see that all the main roads bend and warp around a pocket of mountains sitting in between the prefectures, leaving a big green, undeveloped patch which is called Mt. Tsurugi Quasi-National Park; cities vanish, train lines end, and nothing is left but the curvy lines which signify various degrees of altitudes (indeed most of my destinations have such characteristics in common). Iya Valley (祖谷渓) is tucked deep in this area and is said to be one of Japan's "three hidden regions." Now, if I may lay a side note down here: no matter where you go in Japan, that area will be known for something: its food, its water, its rice, its wine, or its people or clothes perhaps. And, more often than not, it's scenic view. I've read more signs than I can count saying that "this spot is one of the three most beautiful views in Japan." Or something like "this mountains is called ____-Fuji due to it's resemblance of Mt. Fuji." After traveling through Japan you get the sense that the country has mobilized on a national scale to make absolutely everything cater to tourists; a spot that has natural beauty, which is worthy in itself to go and see even without being told about its resemblance to Fuji, or Kyoto, or what people "consider it" will be littered with such notifications and observations. So reading that Iya Valley was considered to be one of "three hidden regions of Japan" meant nothing to me. Until I started hitchhiking through it. I have to admit, this place deserved such a claim, and I found traversing through the mountainous area to be more difficult than usual (which was a nice challenge) and many of the region had such little access that my eyes fell upon an abundance of untouched nature. Furthermore, Iya has a role in history to stop even the least interested traveler.

If you've studied Japanese history, the family names of Minamoto (aka Genji) and Taira (Heike) stick out like sore thumbs, the queen and king on the chess boards, figures directly shaping national identity and the progress of a nation. Like any good country, civil wars were rampant in Japan, but one only is thought to be the mother of them all: the Genpei War. These two families fought bitterly overly the dominance of the imperial court (dominance of Japan), and battles took place all over the central and western Japan (check out the map above), on land and sea. Although The Minamoto were to prevail in the end, the battle had so many twists and turns a certain victor could not have been guessed until the fateful battle on sea between the island of Kyushu and Honshu (to the west of Shikoku). When the two clans were entrenched in this civil war, The Taira clan retreated deep into Shikoku and into these "hidden regions" of Shokoku, crossing ravines on kazua-bashi or vine bridges, cutting them after traversed making it impossible for their pursuers to follow. The end of this war and ensuing Minamoto victory marked the rise of military (sumarai) power for the first time in Japan where the emperor was made a mere figurehead, and the first time a shogun was ever to wield power on a national level. Furthermore, the colors of the two clans, red (Taira) and white (Minamoto) became the national colors of Japan, seen today on its flag.

I tried to imagine samurai running along this patch of road, past these houses where cars now drove. My foreigner mind enjoyed envisioning these romantic images; I pictured horses, perhaps some peasants and farmers working in the back ground, a Kurusawa backdrop developed in my mind's eye as I soaked in my surroundings. Did The Taira clan pass through this town way back when? Could this town have lasted through all these years?

I then chuckled, for I found myself, yet again, wondering which word to use for this post of houses, for "town" fell short. This place consisted of a patch of shoulder-to-shoulder houses on both sides of the section of the road. It was, in reality, simply a section of mountain road with a few people's homes lining it, opposed to the usual trees or ravines. There was a post office, in the form of a hardware shop of sorts where you could give the old lady behind the counter a parcel and she'd be sure the next delivery truck, which came once a day, got it. Some of the houses sold vegetables, some snacks, some random necessities like batteries, light bulbs, and such. Almost every shop was the first floor of someone's home, and when I stood there, I felt like I was hanging out in someone's front yard, only that it had been paved over as it was the only place for transportation to get by. For, behind the houses which I stood in front of was a canyon, much to deep to build on, and looming above the houses opposite of me and on the other side of the road was a mountain side which turned into a bluff of a cliff; the houses seemingly fell from the sky and stood as is taking up any vacant space. I adjusted my backpack and waited for another car in the breezy silence of the "downtown area".

In Japan, come end of April, the forests turn an awe-inspiring emerald green. As almost all the vegetation is deciduous, the leaves turn color, die, and come back to life in tune with the passing of each season. During the winter, with all other surrounding vegetation dead, the coniferous trees--which don't lose their leaves--glare at you from the landscape, as if they their camouflage has been used up. The rise up, from the base of the mountain, out of place, like patches of fur leftover on a cat after a fight. The bare parts are the now leafless, surrounding trees, looking more like spines of a porcupine. And, although at first looking at a mountain chain in Japan during winter isn't a pleasant site to look at--come Spring, the forests and fields radiate a green kriptonite glow that is a color unto its own . It is so noticeable, especially after a long, cold and desolate winter, the Japanese people have given this period a name, calling it shinryoku（新緑）: "new green". And, although just a tad early, I found myself surrounded by this, on this early morning on some random day (the names of days lose meaning when you've donned your traveling shows). I felt consumed by new, my thoughts on the subtleties of difference in seasons, in landscapes and history stirring my traveling blood.

Some people come to Japan to test out the adage that it is a country where future meets the old, where technology and ancient art collide, the salary man on his cellphone walking past a temple on his way to work, bowing as he passes someone he knows by--the kind of thing that makes me groan, but, like all stereotypes, these images are born in the abyss of truth. This stereotype of the country works on so many levels, so many facets of life, that it is almost pointless to try to talk about it or note it down on a pad of paper, indeed to photograph it. All you're going to get is a photograph that every other person has taken before. The same temple, the same kid dressed in a school uniform playing the most advanced hand-held gaming device; the same geisha stepping in small, bounded spurts, texting someone on her cellphone--images that don't lie, yet don't say anything new either. This fixation the west has with Japan is founded on truth, but it's most tangibly felt not when you take a picture or look in from the outside, but when you make a good friend based on common interests and spend a prolonged amount of time together, or if you work alongside Japanese co-workers, or especially, if you get the chance to work with the guts of the Japanese education system from the inside. Like any country, this clash of tradition and new is one of the many more-deeply felt-than-seen aspects which make Japan the country that it is. My words fail when I try to describe this dichotomy, this guttural difference between the country I live in now and the one I come from. I can't claim to be any sort of expert on this, but this pulling and tugging, this adherence to old but embracing of new, this preserved tradition combined with industrialization affects my daily life on so many levels, and is a foreign feeling to my Canadian, immigrant, roots.

The car nearly skidded to a halt. I was surprised, for it was one of the many company cars which race around the countryside on various errands. Usually the driver of such a company car is too rushed, on too much of a battle against time to even entertain the thought of picking up someone hanging on the side of the road. The car pulled over, and the driver looked at me through the window with a questioning look, begging the question "is that your car? Do you need a jump?"
I looked behind me, and noticed one of the cars which didn't stop to be pick me had stopped and put on its hazard lights. I then looked back at the driver and said "that isn't my car. But I need a ride."

A brief expression of annoyance fell across the driver's face, like when a young kid realizes he's not part of the joke but, rather, that it was on him. He glanced back at the road, then back at me, and in a kind of huff said to get in. It was more of an order than an invitation. I understood and quickly opened the door, tossed my bag in, and sat down--bowing, thanking, and pardoning for my intrusion the whole time in a manner perfected over the five years of hitching. The driver sped off. I chuckled to myself, and thanked the driver in the other car who had turned on his hazards.

I didn't say anything at first, eying my driver. He wore a customary work suit; not overalls but since the off-green cream color of the pants and jacket matched each other, the combination could be mistaken for one. He had some emblem on the chest pocket of his jacket, a company insignia. The suit had stains here and there, stains that told a story of a harder worker, not simply a dirty one--as it looked like it had been used for quite some time. The man's hair was disheveled and greasy, his fingernails dirty and his hands rough with wrinkles--hands of a laborer. When he spoke, he spoke with a lisp of sorts, making it difficult to understand, but not impossible.

"Wayne-san?"

My brows furrowed and I looked at him questioningly. He wasn't asking me my name, but rather guessing at my destination. The Japanese language is made up of one-word questions, hints, comments and responses--single words that speak volumes and at times puts the power of a single English word to shame. I tried to recall the volunteers names who worked at the Chiiori House. I then tried to remember the intersection I needed to get off at. For, the road which lead me to The Chiiori House was one which lead nowhere except up, and up, into the depths of the Iya Valley mountain range as well as into one of the many hamlets which finds itself trapped between mountains folds and living off of the game and land the area provided. But Wayne? Who's Wayne?

I told the driver I was headed to a place called The Chiiori House. He grunted, more from his gut than from his nose, and said, "yeah, Wayne." After listening to him and trying to filter through some of his heavy lisped words, I gathered Wayne was one of the house's volunteers. It seemed like this Wayne also got around by hitching. I wasn't surprised, but still mused a little nod to give respects to the laid-back nature of the area; a random salary man driving through the area in the middle of work--I recognized the insignia on the side of the car and the driver's jacket and thought it to be that of an electric company--knows the locals by their first name. It was just another sign I had left the big city far behind. The driver then said he knew where the turn off was but couldn't take me up the mountain as he obviously had a schedule to keep. I said not to worry about it, as I figured I'd have to walk anyway. He grunted and said it's a long way. Again, I nodded, and said that's what I figured. He then said it was really steep. I said I would be alright. He then said it was hot. I nodded. We then went through these motions for a bit, where the idea of using one's own legs to cover a long distance was alien, and I thanked him for his concern.

I can't lie. I first heard about The Chiiori House because of my Lonely Planet travel book (something actually proving to be damn useful in my travels--not as a book to follow, but one to lay the general game plan). The book had a bit of an excerpt written about the house in the Shikoku section of it, as well as a web link. I then, before Spring vacation started, checked out the website and brought it up in some conversations with my friends. Some of them had heard about it, too, it seemed and everything they heard was positive. A non profit organization, first started by Alex Kerr (A Japanophile and author of some popular books on the country, such as Dogs and Demons) when he was--like I was doing now--hitchhiking through Japan. Finding a vein of Japan which spoke to him personally, he was moved to begin to search out a spot in the country which he could make his own, and that's when he stumbled upon the tiny hamlet called Tsui, tucked deep in the Iya Valley. Here he found an abandoned, 300 year old thatch-roofed house 萱葺　(kayabuki). He fell in love with it on the spot. The process of buying the house was laborious and anything but cheap, but it won over the locals, created deep bonds of friendship, and started a pretty inspirational story for foreigners who want to create a life over here in Japan. He had to renovate and make the massive house livable again, and through this process, he slowly earned a spot in the small, rural and tightly-knit community while learning about local customs, facets of culture and bridging cultural gaps (click here for an article on the Chiiori House. The official website seems to have been changed as the house itself is going through changes, and perhaps is now unavailable to the public for the time being. Click here to check out the book which has this story as well as many others of Alex Kerr's).

Although the fate of the house has become obscured since I stayed there, at that time it was "run" by a lonely planet photographer and free-lance journalist, Mason Florence, with Alex more on the sidelines it seemed. Although, the project is truly run by the volunteers who care for the house on a daily basis, working with the locals and keeping the visitors coming. It was obviously a complex situation, with many people having attachments to it in one way or the other as well as seeing its future in different lights. At any rate, the house has been acting as a non profit organization for years, with various volunteers coming on stints, keeping it running, integrating the house with local programs and trying to make it stand alone as an independent project as part of the community and not propped up by individual funding.

It was the idea of being able to touch and feel a preserved part of Japanese culture which attracted me. That, and be part of a pocket of multi-culturalism, to witness with my own eyes the latticed relationships of people from different countries working and living together in the same community--for the same community. And my mind tried to conjure up some images of where I was headed and what my stay was going to be like as I hiked up the paved but bumpy mountain road. I walked briskly, my legs fresh from all the sitting-in-cars I had been doing. The sun was fiercely shining now, high in the sky creating a white sheen of a haze, filtering through the countless branches of cedar and pine above as I moved. The higher I climbed, the scarcer houses became, but they were present nonetheless. Many of the houses had metal sheet roofs, hinting at long winters, some painted baby blue, some rusty red. As I continued, dogs who had until then been lazily slumbering in the driveways or yards of their master's homes barked and paced as I walked by. Some farmers stopped to look at me, some men took a break from whatever they were doing in their sheds, or gardens to have a peep, but to be honest, most of them didn't take any notice of me. At one point, I looked down the ravine of the gorge on my left. The road I was walking on wound up the right side of the gorge, perched on the hillside, giving each house a commanding view of the opposite wall of valley below. That's when I noticed a massive boar standing, almost perching like a bird would perch, if it had four legs, on a big rock towards the back of a pen. The pen was more like a cage, the flooring messy with mud, and desolate of any life. The boar stood there, and stared bleakly ahead, like a relic of old, a neighborhood statue. It struck me not only how big the animal was, but how sad and motionless it stood there. I'm not one for zoos, especially ones in Japan made of concrete and metal bars, and this cage was no testament for closing in animals. But, it did give me a sense of where I was; it did stop me and make me look about my surroundings and feel a small surge of that feeling a traveler gets when he is in a different country and brushes against some foreign--a feeling that comes to me in very rare doses now.

After what seemed to be an hour or so, and sweating by this time, I came upon a bearded, red-haired white guy in his twenties chopping wood at a small looking cabin on the left-side of the road, looking over the valley. He stopped, looked at me and said, "you must be Jamie. How was the walk up? Did you make it alright?"

I told him about my luck with the hitchhiking and shook his hand. He had a strong grip, but shook my hand with an adjusted strength which walked the fine line of showing confidence yet courtesy as well. I didn't doubt his ability to chop wood, but felt a gentleness in his smile which was reflected in that grip--a gentleness which reminded me of someone who has learned to operate independently but would rather spend time in the presence of others. He took me inside the small cabin, leaning his axe against the wall and brushing off his hands. That's when I heard a "hello" spoken in a heavy American dialect--not one which conjures up the south, but more of the west, a very Canadian sounding accent at that. The girl spoke to me, without looking up from the computer, he hair black, her skin brown almost like it had been just a tad too dirty for just a tad too long, the sunshine and earth tones of outdoor life seeping into her face. "Just one more sec, I'm almost done here." She sat on the chair in front of the laptop as if she would jump away from it from any minute, her body already leaning in my direction, her head turned just a bit as she typed the last words on the keyboard.

Wayne asked if I wanted some tea. I said yes. Herbal was fine. I sat my bags down and before I knew it we were all joking around about sitcoms, epic fantasy novels I used to read when I was young (and which Wayne had been staying up late to read with his headlamp as of late) and even found ourselves searching up what a kamoshika is on wikipedia as my stories were received with skeptical eyes. I took a liking to the two almost immediately, and although I found out it was their job to be entertainers and basically it was in their job description to get along with anyone, I felt like the next day or two would be genuinely comfortable and relaxing. That's when they took me up to The Chiiori House to show me where I'd be spending the rest of the day, night and however long I chose to stay.

We wound up a stone path, between houses and through yards until we came upon a dog strapped to a long leash which ran along a line which looked like a clothes line; the house's guardian. My first thought wasn't too look at the house and all it's rumored glory. My first thought was more along the lines of "finally, a dog that isn't a poodle, that isn't a chihuahua, that doesn't have a sweater. Finally a real dog."

Kitty Chan. Doraemon. Anime cartoons. Manga comics. Constr- uction signs with comic book characters telling you to watch out for falling rocks; cars with eyes and mouths drawn on them notifying you of steep grades and water hazards. Japan loves cute and cute loves Japan. Hell, more than once my head has been turned by cute women wearing cute fashion in this country. But the dogs, the dogs are something else. Growing up in rural Canada, a Husky, a German Shepherd, a Rotweiler or Dobberman Pincher. A retriever, a Black or Golden Lab--these are dogs. Here, dogs are cats gown awry. Rodents in knitted sweaters with colored, little booties. Dogs are accessorized fuzzy balls of fashion and it's one aspect of this country's culture which I have to admit I can't meet half-way on. So, to cut a long rant short, The Chiiori House and its owners, indeed all of Shikoku, scored points with me as I my eyes fell upon this dog (it wasn't even that big). It was a mutt, but looked like it perhaps had a bit of Pit Bull in it. After my moment's flash of canine appreciation, I noticed the house.

It loomed before me, hedged in by grass and roofed in thatch. It didn't take my breath away like some ancient, mist-encircled castle of old perhaps would, but rather hit me with an upper cut of nostalgia. The house took me back and far away from Japan to the fuzzy, unfocused memories of when I was a toddler playing at my grandma's farm back in the Kootenays. Neon signs, public works projects, concrete telephone poles and condensed-milk cities vanished when standing in the presence of this house. It radiated a softness, a calm of sorts, like it was simply part of the landscape, witnessing the coming and going of things, like an old man who feeds the pigeons from his well-used park bench. The sun shone, even glimmered, adding a orange hue to all the earth tones of the scene before me while warming the back of my arms and top of my head. The browns and new-born greens of the surrounding trees painted the canopy for the house, that along with the clothes hanging on the clothesline and the chickens pecking, fluttering and Egyptian-dancing in the front of the house. The dog eyed me curiously but wagged its tail furiously at the volunteer who spoke to it in text-book pet, baby-talk. I took a deep breath of mountain air, and put my pack on the ground to take a closer look.

The house was big, and open. Nearly it's entire front wall, facing the deep ravine, was made of sliding, wooden and glass doors. Light entered and exited the house freely, on par with its visitors. The entire ceiling and rafters above were stained a pitch black from the irori--sunken hearth found in traditional homes used for cooking. The house exhaled earth and grassy scents. I was told to make myself at home (something I already felt) and that we'd be eating together later that night around the irori.

The rest of the day was spent taking the dog for walks, reading outside of the house, and well, simply putting the breaks on all the momentum I had built up and was encircling me since my first initial step out of my front door of my house hundreds of km away. To reach a place where you want to simple "stop" is a big thing for a hitchhiker, a traveler. When you have only an alloted amount of time and you're hitchhiking, you need to give yourself up to the swing and movement of things--never in a rush but never permanent. But here, as my backpack was now somewhere inside, with only a novel on me and relaxing under the sun on a bench, I found myself immobilized, stopped, on pause. I thought about staying here for more than the one planned night.

There are a few places in Japan, besides the tops of mountains, where you can really feel like you've got away from the bee-hive drone of it all. Japan, in a country with nearly four times the population of Canada and nearly thirty times smaller, I've learned how to dance with the ebb and flow of the presence of others, yet also to immensely appreciate the untouched, vast space found in Canada. At the very deepest place inside of me, in the pit of my stomach, like some crystallized pea, resides an innate yearning to find a patch of land to call my home, a patch developed in sync with its surroundings, where the presence of man and its feats is not shunned but used in tune with whatever mother nature provides. I found this feeling which runs through my veins as deep as bone marrow responding to The Chiiori House.

I've always said to my friends that, if I ever moved home, the first thing I'd do is run through a grassy, Canadian park in bare feet. It's funny, for to most of you who read that, such a sentence will be construed as very streamlined "hippie". But if you've ever lived in Japan, you'll know what I mean. Although I was doing no running in parks at this moment, I did find myself with mys flip-flops off and barefoot, feeling the exact experience I would long for if I was running through grass back home. But, I wasn't home, I was on the doorstep The Chiiori House, on the roof of Iya Valley, and in the backyard of Shikoku, Japan.

Shikoku Part IV

2007-09-01T14:32:00.000+09:00

There is something odd about walking along pavement with hiking boots, lugging a heavy back pack full of the outdoor essentials. It feels akin to using one of those moving, floor elevators at an airport that scoots you along even after you've checked your bags and have nothing to carry. Everything I wore was made to make me self-sufficient, to lend me ease when living away from the man-made elements. Yet, I was moving deeper into the forest and further up the mountain on the flat but hard surface of a man-made road.

It had snowed through the night, and it was like the thin layer of sprinkled ice-sugar snow had dulled all sounds, muted any sharp edge a bird's voice might carry. Everything was soft, even my heavy foot steps. I stared down at my feet and then looked back: a perfect trail of foot prints were etched in the snow behind me, each step revealing a dark gray and cold concrete patch of the mountain road underneath which I was walking on. The foot prints curved, bended around the corner and down the road, then faded into the distance. I breathed in the crisp mountain air, and moved on, keeping company with myself and the stillness of everything around me.

I think I walked for a good two hours before I reached the trail head. By this point, the amount of snow had increased a good half-foot or so, in proportion with the altitude. It was a tad disconcerting because I had contacted the weather bureau the week before and at that time apparently nearly all the so had melted; it looked like I brought a cold front of air with me from the north. This was not good.

I took a deep breath, knowing that my backpack was much too heavy for a healthy hike up the mountain side, and my knees were going to pay for it. But since I planned to stay in mountain huts within the mountain range itself, I needed to lug everything up there. I put my feet ahead of me and began the climb. My legs fresh from the couple of good nights of sleep and hitching, I made good time.

That's when I realized I wasn't alone. To my right, across a small ravine and on the bank of a fold in the mountain, I could see two or three kamoshikas; big enough to stop you in your tracks, with eyes which try to stare you down I felt a mutual distrust grow between myself and the animals. They would walk, stop, stare at me and wait for my move. I continued ahead and we kept our distance. Everything seemed fine, and as long as they knew my whereabouts, they would make the effort to keep away. But, like some eerie bringer of fate I came upon a massive tree, its bark stripped bare, from the ground up a good five feet. Whatever did this had paws, claws, and strength; the good old bear, I thought.

In Japan, besides way up north in the eastern areas of the island of Hokkaido, the Asiatic Black Bear is what you're going to run into, if anything. Although it keeps to itself and mainly eats berries and vegetation (you should note that it does it meat, though), it can still grow six feet tall and weigh up to 300 pounds or so in weight. I stood there, looking at the tree for a moment, but couldn't picture a black bear doing this. Too much of the bark had been stripped away. But it couldn't be a brown bear as they aren't found in Shikoku (a grizzly is a sub-species of brown bear, only found in North America), which are known to be more aggressive and much bigger. So that left me with alone with my roaming imagination. In all my hiking travels, I have only come upon a black bear once. It was young, but not a cub. The first thing it did when it saw me was dash back off into the forest. The most important thing to do concerning bears is not to surprise them--hence the bear bells that most "serious" hikers wear. Making noise is probably the best safety measure you can take while hiking, and thus it's a good idea to always hike with someone. In my case, as I often hike alone and don't wear a bear bell, I yell every now and then, before blind curves in the path, and am general mindful of not being quiet. After eying the scalped side of the tree, I made a rather loud noise to let any unknowing animals nearby that I was here then continued ahead.

Mountain climbing is a sport which sneaks up on you. Although I don't consider it a sport, even to this day, as much as a I consider it a lifestyle. I have never been one of those people who live, die, and breathe for the feeling you get from reaching the peak of a mountain after putting in the time, energy and body power that it takes to reach it. But, somewhere along the line finding myself scraping the sky's ceiling, my own two feet and planning being the sole reason I made it there, combined with the surrounding sights gave me such a strong feeling of satisfaction that I hit the foothills of Japan whenever I get the chance. Yet, this feeling is made up of so many other subtle emotions and elements that hiking is something that becomes more of a mindset and way of life than most other sports.

I've played various sports all my life, from volleyball to basketball to ultimate frisbee. But soccer came out on top as my favourite. Competitive sports get the blood and adrenaline going, releases endorphins like any other prolonged physical exercise, giving you that sense of satisfaction that comes with getting your body in shape. Furthermore, working with a team and against another team, winning a game to prove your skill creates a feeling unrivaled. Yet, I think of hiking more in a class of its own, separate from the common term "sport". Hiking is more akin to surfing. This may come as a surprise, but some of my best friends are surfers and although it's true that the rush and sense of adrenaline that a surfer longs for is obviously not found in hiking, both of these sports become an aspect of one's life more than a team or competitive sport does. Of course, if you are a professional athlete you must train daily, eat a specific diet, and your life changes to support your role in this sport. But, if you take hiking or surfing, your purpose is to enjoy an element of the world that has always been there, and to find your place in it. Surfing: the ocean. Hiking: the mountains. And so the environment is perhaps the biggest factor when doing these sports--the surfer and his/her relationship with the water, and the hiker and his/her relationship with the mountains.

Hiking, though, is different because it is such a long activity--hiking for three or four days straight, especially solo, focuses the mind and is a test of endurance, strength, will as well as planning. After awhile of climbing a mountain, you find yourself in a rhythm, completely disconnected from society and its suit-and-tie clock but in tune with your self. Your body is tested on a daily basis to such an extent that all food becomes wonderfully delicious, your mind slowly gets rid of its stresses and worries attached to your city life, and you then begin to become aware of your surroundings more than you do when you're back in the urban salary grind. Cooking becomes a milestone of each day. Simplicities, like boiled rice and miso, becomes gourmet. A cup of instant coffee is the desert of a lifetime. A peanut-butter and banana sandwich is food sent from the gods. It's these small elements which all slowly add up, over the course of your trek which change your perspective on life as well as your lifestyle; what you deem important becomes embedded with the reasons you hike and what hiking means to you. Thus, arriving at your destination after a days of hiking through a remote mountain range, it is not so much an adrenaline rush you get, but the range of feelings you experienced from living solely out of a backpack, carrying everything you need on your own, self-sufficiently, while the whole time your body being the vehicle for any progress made or lack thereof.

And, so time flew by as I put each leg ahead of the other. My mind wandering from thought to thought. I'd stop now and then, drink some water, eat a little food, and be left with nothing else to do but continue ahead. Each bend in the path was a step closer to the top. I had to do up my hood as the wind started to blow harder. I was still hot and sweating beneath my fleece and wind-breaker, though, but knew the moment I stopped moving I'd start to cool off pretty quickly. I continued ahead, and before I knew it, I was at the top of Tsurugi-san--a decent 1954 metres in the sky. As I stood on the top of the mountain and looked around, I saw snow-capped mountains everywhere. The wind was raging now, blowing me in one direction or another. I was a constant standing leaning tower of Piza. My heavy backpack putting me even more off balance. It was barely noon, and if I continued according to plan, I was to hike for another four hours to a remote mountain hut tucked somewhere off in the South-Eastern part of of this mountain range. My fingers tingled with frost, begging the question if I had brought enough warm clothes with me to last through the night at an elevation this high. I stood there, debating my options. I hate turning back--it's a bad characteristic to have as a solo hiker--but my memories returned of the lone hike I did when I lived in Hiroshima and found myself stuck on the top of a mountain in below-freezing weather, trapped in a snow storm which blew in off the Japan sea (click here and scroll down towards the bottom of the page for that experience). Although I had been in a mountain hut at the time, I hadn't been prepared for such a freezing cold night, and even though it was a rookie mistake, the sense of being at complete mercy to a raging snow storm has stayed with me and it was saying something to me as I stood on the top of this mountain deciding whether to continue ahead into the unknown alone or not.

That's when I heard a couple voices from behind me. A man and woman, shielding their faces from the wind were at a near run towards the summit sign to snap off a picture then make their way back down. I could see they had come up here solely to get this shot and were going to shoot it and turn around immediately. My mind started to spin: if I turned around I would have to hike all the back to the base of the mountain then down the road all the way to where the obasan lived who drove me up here. I had seen no cars on the road the entire way up, and it would be a good nine hour walk to anywhere with moving vehicles. I would rather make my way into the mountains than retrace my steps on a road for another day and half. I felt another gust of wind hit me, sending shivers up my spine. I approached the couple before me. They had a car. They were going to be driving out of here. They were headed south--where I wanted to go.

I was at one of those moments where your trip could take on something complete unplanned. I sat there, thought for a second, then decided to see where getting a ride with these two people and the resulting decision would take me. Hitchiking and traveling alone is all about giving yourself up to fate, chance, and the random order of coincidence.

"Would you mind if I got a ride with you?"

"Of course not. But we're going to head down the mountain to the car in a moment."

"Alright, I'll meet you at the parking lot. I'm carrying a lot so it may take a bit longer for me to get there."

"Take your time. We're in no rush." The man talked with confidence, and with a simple air that was refreshing to my ears as it was easy to understand; I was pretty sure he was from Tokyo. He didn't take any notice of my foreign-looks, and said things as a matter of fact. The woman with him simply smiled a warm smile that concealed nothing. I smiled back and bowed.

I had passed the parking lot on my way up. It was near the trail head, next to a temple. I looked back again at the rolling mountain tops, and shrugged the shoulders of my mind. I guess this trip wasn't going to be as much as a mountain hiking expedition as I thought. But, I could see my father approving of the decision I had just made, a decision not to push the limits. My father being a helicopter pilot and doing many search and rescue missions for lost hikers, skiers, snowboarders and outdoor enthusiasts, especially during the winter. It felt strangely mature to make a responsible decision. Perhaps it was one of my first, I thought and chuckled to myself.

I could use a nice warm hot spring soak anyway, I thought. The couple offered to take my picture--one of those classic ones where you stand on the summit next to its sign. I agreed, lent them my camera, then packed it away and began my descent of Katana Mountain. My mind already beginning to picture my map of Shikoku and what destinations lay ahead of me. I still had a good week and a bit of vacation left, and again, I put one foot ahead of the other with no plan and no destination.

Shikoku Part III

2007-06-23T11:30:00.000+09:00

And so I sat in the back, my hand braced against the side of the car as it twisted, turned, careened, slowed-down and sped up, following the river up into the foothills of Shikoku. I felt cold sweats that took me back to the days of my childhood and all the road trips I'd go on with my family to play soccer--and all the nausea that came with it. A hitchhiker who gets motion sickness. I laughed at myself and kept my eyes as focused ahead on the middle of the road as best I could. The couple in the front seat talked to each other now and then, in such a thick rural dialect that it didn't even seem like Japanese, let alone a language. I heard a couple set-words come out now and then--ones that fit into the second-language puzzle I had put together over the past five years of studying the language--but it was like the red-haired obasan and her partner communicated in a different tongue, a secret code. Although I should confess that I thanked the time out it gave me from having to maintain small talk, as I tried to balance my center of gravity, taking deep breaths to keep the nausea from building.

Although I did my best to focus ahead of me, my eyes followed the river at times, as it came in and out of view. Rivers are the litmus test of a country's attitude regarding their environment, and each time my eyes fall upon a river here in Japan I feel a longing for home rise deep within my chest; the concrete siding, the paved river beds, and the "waffle iron" concrete sprayed onto hillsides then bolted down with a deep metal rod wounds the soul. These gray patches among the green stare out at you like scars, unnatural wounds that never healed properly, nature succumbing to man's will. It is the construction company's battle with landslides and earthquakes they say--but the longer you live here and the more you learn about politics and public works projects, the more that reason doesn't hold up, and the more infuriating it is for the nature lover. For me, it just makes the need to get away from the concrete dominating urban sprawl now and again that much more important.

At last, we twisted around yet another corner and came upon a small village with old buildings built into the mountain side, creaking just a little too close to the valley cliff, which was now on our left. This place couldn't be called a hamlet, for it wasn't comfortable enough. Nor could it be a village as it wasn't big enough. It was like a suburb of the smallest village, an outpost: nothing in particular to take note of; yeah, I'd say it was more of a place to simply pass through, yet it was a place where a place shouldn't be. The grayness of the half-fog-clouds which caressed the trees and tickled the metal-sheet rooftops of the buildings combined with the in-between spring and winter tones which are devoid of any primary colors seemed to speak volumes for this subtle and unbecoming post of houses. Yet, it was here that the driver deemed it time to stop at a Japanese noodle shop for a bite to eat before night completely fell. I looked about and thought "a shop?" I normally wouldn't be surprised, for I have encountered some of the best noodle shops in the middle of nowhere, serving hand-picked vegetables and hand-cut soba. But still, here? It felt like everyone fled this place before the last barbarian raid.

That's when I saw the owner--a sole old women gathering vegetables out back--hunchbacked, and hobbling around, disappearing and reappearing from out behind various rectangular houses and sheds. No one else was to be found up here, dusk drawing, the air crisp giving you the hint that snow was lurking around the corner--everything had the sense that it was still just a little bit "too early". No gift stores were open, the shutters pulled shut and doors jammed closed. No cars in the parking lots, and besides the old lady, just a tad too cold to give any vibrancy of life or movement, like the crisp mountain air had descended upon the area and froze everything the way it had been centuries before. As I peered around I wondered: had I got the timing wrong? The end of March is still winter up in the mountains, even in Shikoku it seemed, and I was to hike alone for three days through the mountains which loomed beyond. I checked my cellphone, two bars stared back at me--I still had reception up here. But, who knew for how much longer. These thoughts got put on the back-burner as we all got out of the car and made our way to the old lady, who upon seeing us, bowed, said some words to the couple topped off with a chuckle. She opened up the store then fired up the gas cooker just for us. She talked with the owner as if they were childhood friends. I wouldn't be surprised if indeed they were, their dialects shining, their questions and responses receiving one another like an invisible jigsaw puzzle. I listened and imagined what the resulting picture looked like after each piece of their conversation fit together.

I then ate like a king. The warm soup, vegetables, rice and other various dishes warming the soul from my toes to my ears. I had to decline yet a third helping from my hosts and now care-takers. I brought out the map and we all hunched over it to check my plotted route. It seemed they had all heard of the trail I was to travel. They were still worried though, it seemed, and wanted me to eat more before my night in the mountains. They also started talking about the bears, and wild boars, and kamoshikas (a dear, quasi-goat animal native to Japan). I had heard all the stories before and had looked into hiking around Shikoku and knew what they said was true, and to be fair, hiking and camping alone in the mountains is a stupid idea. But, like usual, it had been impossible to find anyone else with the same holidays as me--the college I teach at giving unusually long breaks at times different than the English conversation schools. And I was not about to just meander around in the city.

With a full belly and warmed insides, we said our goodbyes, got back in the car and snaked our way up the mountain, that is, until a thing layer of snow began to sprinkle the road. Before the car could make much of a claim for its winter traction, it pulled over. The husband and driver, pulled the e-braked and turned around to peer at me from the front seat.

"It's as far as I can go. We don't have snow tires on the car." He said--or at least that's what my ears translated.

I nodded and understood. I was extremely thankful, and before they let me out, they both gave me their meishi, or name-cards, and told me to phone them if I had any troubles. Again, I was humbled and thanked them for their help. They checked and double-checked that I had a cellphone and I assured them I did. They then asked if I had warm clothes. Did I have tent? Was I prepared to sleep in the snow? How about hiking boots? I nodded and asked them please not to worry. If things got tough I could simply follow the road back down. They nodded, chuckled, said something to themselves and that was that. They did a u-turn and headed back down the mountain, leaving me standing on a paved road on nondescript mountain in a foreign country somewhere hundreds of kilometres from my place of residence up in Sendai. Snow started to fall in light flakes, the kind that reminds you of those white Christmases told only in story books or sung about--the ones with the flakes that flutter down and command a silence and serenity that no other times of the season can rival.

It is in moments like these, so far away from home at an unknown spot on the map while surrounded by the new that I feel the most aware of being in control of my life. When you find yourself in an obscure and utterly unknown place, you have to ask yourself "how did I get here"? This feeling is even more poignant than when you arrive at a famous destination spot, more than when you find yourself surrounded by people in a metropolis such as Tokyo or a cultural tourist hot-spot like Kyoto . When you find yourself on a stretch of mundane concrete, with a mural of trees to your left and right with only a rather vague sense of where you are, do you get hit with a sense of ultimate freedom. No one at this moment knew exactly where I was, indeed, no one had heard of this place on a map and probably no one before has ever pitched a tent on the middle of this section of this road during a time like this. Everything about this moment was half-way, not there yet, in the middle, and on the go. It was a destination in limbo. Which is why hitchhiking is so great: you can't control how far you are going to or how fast; everything becomes "how you get there" versus "where you're going".

As I unpacked my backpack to set up, it was night number two, the second on-route stopover
which was merely a part of the process, the journey. I felt shivers slowly dangle their long fingers along the back of my legs and up my back. I was going to need thermal underwear tonight. I was going to probably need every item of clothes I brought with me, as packing your house on your back including food and water doesn't leave room for much else.

I slept in the fetal position, together with the vague darkness, the obscurity of place, and the absence of people that only nature can claim.

Shikoku Part II

2007-05-29T08:52:00.001+09:00

I bought a big black felt pen marker from the convenience store, aka the konbini, and went out around back to grab some cardboard boxes ready for recycling. I ripped off one side, and wrote my destination on it. As I did this, a very brief flash of my subconscious surfaced and my eyes darted left and right wondering how strange and out of place I must look—a white guy rummaging through recycled boxes behind a convenience store, ripping them apart, writing on them. Even a trivial act such as this can make you feel leagues apart from the masses of Japanese people, who generally speaking adhere to a certain way of doing things, especially when in public. But, this moment of self-consciousness soon disappeared, and I sat down on the curb and began writing. A lady and her dog walked by. I felt their questioning eyes on me. I had to check my atlas for the correct kanji of my destination (as city names are dreadfully difficult, their readings seemingly decided by the cosmos around the same time that the ancient sun goddess and mother of Japan, Amaterasu, gave birth to this country). I then sat down and scanned my atlas for the best way to get onto the roads, the best launching off point into the grid of traffic ahead. Where would someone most likely stop for me, and where would there be enough space to stop, giving the driver enough time to debate as to what to do after seeing me? I quickly realized I was in a bad spot, caught in the crags of concrete urban sprawl, and would need to walk nearly an hour north and try to get onto the massive highway system, having to abandon the series of fuutsu michi—regular roads—I usually stick to.

A note on hitchhiking: Japan doesn't have a pastime of hitchhiking, and if you stick your thumb out on the road waving it wildly at the oncoming driver you're going to get various reactions. One of them comes in the form of a massive swerve away from you into the oncoming lane, the driver's eyes bulging. It would seem, after having this experience, that someone standing on the side of the road with their thumb does gets the synapses firing in the onlookers brain, but not in the "this guy needs a ride" kind of way. Indeed, in more of a confused and "What in the world is going on here? Has this man been stranded? Is in need of help?” This reaction is usually limited to the elderly man who drives with his wife sitting in the back seat. The younger drivers: well you get a mixed reaction from this lot. You often get a thumbs-up back at you from the youthful driver, as if the hitchhiker doesn't want a ride, but is simply passing on good vibes to the drivers coming his way.

All this being said, you are going to get picked up sooner or later. But, I do recommend making a sign and writing (if you can, in Kanji) your destination on it. It's almost like a right of passage: you got the sign, now you are a man of smarts, with a mission and speaking in a language the driver's can understand. Plus, you can write kanji, which is an element of relief for the Japanese driver whom may not have all the confidence in the world to strike up small talk in English within the confines of the privacy of their car. Furthermore, if you have the backpack slung around your shoulders, have a sign, and invoke the image of a proper “worldly traveler’ it’s going to help you all the more. Things are done here properly, not half-assed. If you want to go hiking, rain or shine you need to be “a hiker”, donning the gators, the bear bell, the vest, and flannel top, the energy bars and boots—no matter the weather, the hike, nor the climate. This transcends jogging, working, club-going, and anything else. It’s good to keep this in mind when hiking. If you simply look like the average bloke, disheveled, in need of the ride and hanging out on the side of the street you’re less likely to be picked up.

I've hitchhiked, like many other foreigners do in this country, all over the damn place and I've been picked up by the very first car, and although sometimes have had to wait for quite some time, but never longer than an hour and a bit. I'd say, generally speaking, out of the four years I've been hitchhiking here, I've been picked up on average within about twenty minutes.

Now, as I hung out behind this convenience store planning my route of attack, I realized I had to make it on the highway system in order to get onto the island of Shikoku. And for those of you who don't know, Japan has a two-tier highway system. The word "highway" here means the toll highway, akin to the expressway in The West. While the highway, which in Canada usually means the roads which connect one city to another, is simply a "city road" as it is rare to ever truly "leave" a city before arriving at another one; partly, this is due to massive urban sprawl, but also do to geography. 80% of Japan's mountains are undeveloped, volcanic spires which shoot into the air, undeveloped for city life (but at times still deforested and replanted and paved now in the most ridiculous manner, but I won't get into that). Which means, the 120,000,000 inhabitants of this country can only build in between these rocky folds (or must simply bulldoze them to the ground to create more livable space, which of course is not unheard of. eg, Tokyo, Osaka, et al). If you ever have the chance to look at Japan from a high altitude, you will see that the floor of the island--the land in between the mountains--is a spidery web of roads, lights, and buildings. That western road which leaves one city, brings you into a land of animals, nature and darkness is unheard of on the main routes of Honshu. On must go to Hokkaido, or head to the mountains to experience such a thing in Japan.

So it was the express way for me. It costs a high price to get on this network of roads. The highway system was made during the bubble years where yen was flowing freely on par with pork barrel politics, and was such an expensive and major undertaking the government still hasn't paid it off to this day (or so I hear). These expressways can be jaw-droppingly amazing sites at times: the bridges more than five stories high with shock absorbers for earthquakes and which rise above you, completely dwarfing the town underneath; the tunnels last more than twenty km long, blasted through dozens of km of mountain with massive fans bolted to the ceiling to recycle the air and get out the exhaust from its depths. To the eyes of a Canadian, it's a truly massive undertaking of a project that spans nearly the entire country.

All feats of engineering aside, it's harder to hitchhike on the expressway. First of all because it's illegal, and secondly because people are driving so fast it’s dangerous (not to mention shockingly strange) to see a person standing on the side of one of these roads. To get on to them you must pick up a ride before the toll gates, not in sight of the attendant (you'll get kicked off) and at a place where the car isn't going so fast. You then must leapfrog from rest area to rest area. If you do snag a ride on here, you can cover a vast amount of distance in one fell swoop, as the highways by pass cities and their gridlocks (although the scenery is not nearly as interesting on here as it is on the lower, usual roads).

I did make it onto the island, with the help of two cars and their drivers. The first helped me get to the highway itself. With old style clothes, disheveled hair and crooked teeth, he was young fellow buying canned coffee from a vending machine when I approached him. I didn’t ask him for a ride, but for directions. He then simply said it’d be faster for him to drive me to my destination than give directions. A stroke of good luck on this chilly March morning.

Out of the two people in the second, it was the girl in the passenger seat, half enthralled with and half scared for my well-being, who I had to thank. She got her boyfriend—someone twenty years or more her senior-to stop for me. I ran up to the window of the sleek, sports car, met the eyes of a cute girl in her twenties who didn’t say hop-in but rather, dai jyoubu?—are you okay? We exchanged formalities, I assured her I was traveling according to plan, and finally got on my way, bag on lap and eyes on me.

She kept peering back from the front seat, while her boyfriend looked at me through the review mirror. They were both kind, and beyond the innocent questions most people have in this country about foreigners, conversation was easy. The girl was indeed worried for my safety and took it upon herself as responsibility to be sure I go to where I was going, as if she didn’t, someone would have been along the way to hinder my further efforts. We stopped and looked at some flowers together on route.

That’s when I made it into the first city on Shikoku - and got stuck. One’s got to avoid cities at all costs when hitchhiking in Japan (probably anywhere for that matter), for stopping not only becomes a task, but stopping on a busy street, in front of dozens of other people, like anywhere else, reduces your chances of being picked up. I had but no choice, and decided to walk along the main city road with my sign wavering until I snagged a ride. It took about an hour or so, but I got one, the driver doing his bit for karma as he had hitchhiked throughout Europe as a teenager, “giving back to all those people who helped him then”, but he could only drop me off on the other side of town. So I found myself dancing, waving, and smiling at all cars on the main road again—the cars going so slow making eye contact was an easy task. Some shying away, others waving you away like an annoying fly, most bowing apologetically, others giggling and staring at you even as the cars passed, and others, stopping for you, and ordering you to get in the car in almost a lecturing manner, chuckling among themselves.

The latter happened to me, and I snagged the ride which would steer me too the doorstep of Mount. Tsurugi-san. Who did I have to thank? Two obasan. Obasan, meaning Grandma or old lady, also pertains to one of the many archetypes which make up the world of fashion and living of Japan. Like any country, archetypes can be seen, some adhered to by people, some completely blown out of the water by others. My two benefactors this time around, driving an ordinary family sedan of Japanese proportions, encompassed what image my students would conjure up in their minds of the word "obasan" when I did I class on stereotypes. Dyed blue hair, strong personalities; a full-deal package, cracking jokes they laugh at more themselves than their listerners do. Plump, direct, to the point. Their dialect thick, their questioning tone strong—not the meek, skinny and cute image most people have of Japanese women. Although these two picked me up, they grilled me the whole duration of the ride. I felt like I shrunk one foot in size and turned back into an adolescent boy during the span of this ride. Something out of a Alice in Wonderland tale, where the two women sitting in the front seats were giants, laughing, speaking in some indiscernible dialect, poking fun and sharing some secret I could not access.

They were not rude, but the series of questions they had, truly shed the light that they viewed whatever I was doing to not only be completely alien and ridiculous, but quite immature. “So you stand on the side of the rode and ask for rides? Do you expect people to pick you up? Do you often do this? Where do you sleep?” and so on. Of course, with their many years of experience on this earth, they said, they not only had the responsibility to pick me up, but to try to feed me along the way (handing me sweets, oranges, and the like). This was nothing new to me, and instead of causing a stink, after denying their offers I humbly accepted (although I had no where to store any of them).

An hour or so later I was bowing outside of the car, not only in thanks to my two benefactors, but also now to one of the woman's husbands who came out to see what all the commotion was about--a wolf in the chicken coop, too many feathers were being ruffled for the master of the house not to come out and see what was up. I was standing outside of the house, the driver of the car now gone, leaving me saying goodbye to the obasan with the husband. I peered into the house: it was a simple one, but one that told a story of families and tradition. You could tell kids had been raised here, and the house spoke of years of undisturbed domestic living--years of proper marriages, reared children, salaries, oranges on tables, five o'clock news, and tucked in sheets on nicely made beds awaiting for the return of the moved-on children.

I looked down the road the house was on, more of a paved mountain road then a city one. I had already began to leave the city areas of Shikoku and was on the outskirts of the valleys which lay ahead. This road was my next route ahead, the mountain folds of Shikoku becoming more enclosed the closer I made my way to the mountains. The river on the right which paralleled the road getting that much bigger, rugged. The houses becoming scarcer, and as it had been almost 8 hours since I first made my cardboard signs behind the convenience store, the skies had become darker.

The husband asked me exactly how I was planning on getting to the door step of Mt. Tsurugi, the second tallest mountain on Shikoku. A mountain which was still about two hours away, in an area where traffic was unlikely.

I looked at him, and replied, "Plan?"

Travels: Shikok Part I

2007-05-28T23:23:00.000+09:00

It's one of the four main islands which make up Japan and for some reason, is the least popular among them. To add to this mystique, it is also one of the most pristine (if that's an adjective someone can use to describe Japan) with the only undammed river in the entire country, the site of one of the last stands between the samurai of old and the modernized Meiji army and an ancient 88 temple circuit founded by a now renowned Buddhist monk. So, after scouring a map of Shikoku, in a deep breath which resembled more of a huff and a puff, I gathered my-could-be-last-amount-of-Japan-traveling energy and made it down there for my spring break which was about a month ago.

It was my fifth time to hit the railroad tracks, the hills, the roads and the mountains on a cross-country mission here in Japan. I've been to a lot of places in this country, from Okinawa to Hokkaido, Ise Shrine to Tottori Sand Dunes, from A-bomb domes to Anime museums, Kabuki theatres to mangrove forests and to be honest, this time it took more than the usual motivation to get my backpack packed and my butt out the door. The winds which before had filled my Japan-exploring sails as it were has been dying due to the phenomena of becoming "familiar with", "used to" and "assimilated"--that, and as I had to catch the 5:30 train from Sendai to Himeji City in one day; it's the furthest one can go on regular trains in a single day and it would put my all-you-can-ride jyuu-hachi kippu train ticket to the test.

The seishyun jyuuhachi kippu (literally the "18 year old youth ticket") goes on sale every spring here in Japan for anyone who wants to use it. It was conceived for all the university students out there who go on break come March and April. But, the random traveler is free to use it as well, and so I dished out the 8000 yen (80 bucks) and that was that. One of the most rewarding aspects of traveling for more than 18 hours on the local train lines from the northern town of Sendai to Himeji was the perspective it gives you on Japan as a nation. Sendai, the metropolis of the northern Tohoku region finds itself situated in the boonies, the countryside, Japan's "granary". It's more of a town slumbering, set apart from the concrete jungles that give the country its urban image (and therefore one of the reasons Sendai is a great place to live). So, the first train I got on had a backdrop of rice fields, with the odd passenger getting on here and there. Trees whizzed by, an odd temple or two, and many unmanned rural stations. But slowly and surely enough, after around four hours of riding in this picturesque manner, the train started to get more crowded, greenery turned to concrete, the blue sky donned a hazy light, and signboards, office buildings, the zig zag of bridges, streets, and telephone lines littered the landscape--not a single earth tone in sight. I had arrived in Tokyo.

This is where things turned into a balancing act for me and my backpack. There was to be no sitting, unless I was lucky. I had no choice but to go with the ebb and flow of the Tokyo passenger tide; for around two hours I felt like I was at the mercy of the some urban sea--when it flowed left, so did I, when it tried sucking me out I had to hold on to the vinyl handle above me until the surge passed. The more limp I was, the easier it was to sift through the train stops, transfers, and two step commute shuffle.

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, soon high rises began to be etched out from the horizon, then the concrete, then the advertisements, and soon everything vanished and I was traveling along the coast, ducking in and out of tunnels, with rice fields on my right and the vast expanse of the pacific ocean on my left. A moment's reprieve before another concrete slap in the face: for within an hour or so I had arrived in Nagoya, Japan's third biggest city. Again: suits, briefcases, black and gray cookie cutter people packed the sardine can train. Then, poof, they vanished and I was traveling through the green mountains, brown and silent pre-spring forest to my right and left, no people except beautiful farm houses and the odd town.

But just as the tide comes and goes, the next urban wave came to shore. The train stopped and as if signaling my arrival at Japan's notorious and famous town of comedic personalities, the city with an edge and a flare for life out of the ordinary, a man hopped on the train. He wore striped socks pulled up to his knees, dark bug-eyes sunglasses, and a tight long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. He did a sort of pirouette, looking for a seat and skipped on past like a urban faerie of modernity. I was in Osaka.

People talk about Osaka like it's in a league of its own, its people strong, outspoken, a little mad. It is overshadowed by Tokyo, with a bit of a rivalry going on there, as Osaka is has been casted as "number two". But as most rivalries have, there is the element of the underdog boasting something that even the biggest city cannot touch--an element of culture, of originality and intrigue that no other city offers. It's dubbed as "Japan's Kitchen" for its renowned food, and one of Japan's playgrounds, with a rowdy nightlife scene. Most of Japan's famous comedians hail from Osaka, which adds to its image of extroverted quirkiness. At any rate, as the train filled up once again, this time with party-goers (as it was nearly 10:00 PM by this time) the thought that I should try to spend more time in the cities struck me. But my brain was too tired to pursue the thought by this point and I soon drifted off to sleep as the train took me out of Japan's second largest city.

After twelve transfers (some which merely consisted of a meander from one boarding gate to another, and others which were a mad dash through hoards of people, bag-straps flying and with only a couple seconds to spare) and 18 hours and one novel later, I made it to Himeji City (well just outside of it actually).

I walked off the nearly empty train, my massive back pack full (as I was to live out of it for the next week or so) and a telling sign to any onlookers that I was not heading home. My knees felt weak, kind of like the rust which had formed on my bones during all the hours sitting down at work was in the process flaking off but not yet gone. My eyes had that sunken-in feeling like they had been drilled by a fluorescent light bulb, then dried out with a hair dryer. I wondered if my contacts were part of my eyeball at this point.

I flashed my ticket to the attendant who gave a grunt in acknowle- dgment that I was able to leave and with that, I walked out into the crisp March night air, past a convenience store, and down a dark street towards the harbor. I had no idea where I was going (in fact I wasn't even sure there was a harbor), but my goal was simple: to find a patch of grass and pitch my tent. The more concealed the better as I still feel like a bum every time I camp in the middle of a city. But this is where Japanese's Shinto shrines come into play... find one of them and you'll most definitely find a few trees, probably even a wooded area and some privacy. I stumbled upon one, half-assedly put up my tent, set my alarm for five and passed out dreaming of mobile house parties on wheels and train crashes where Astro Boy was the resounding hero.

The next morning I woke up, jumepd out of my tent to see an old man in a jumper- of-a- jogging suit power walking by and doing his best not to stare. I quickly ate some peanut butter and jam sandwiches and wondered if I could make it to the mountains by nightfall.

I took up mountain hiking and camping on an almost ridiculous level since I moved to Japan. Why? For three reasons:

1) I was raised in Nelson BC, on camping, hiking and the outdoors
2) It is ridiculously easy to access any railhead in this country
3) I would go mental if I couldn't at least sometimes get away from the concrete and power lines which enclose every single sight from any single spot in any single city

And hence Shikoku. It not only has two renowned mountains, but it, as I mentioned earlier, has some of the most remote mountain villages and valleys in the country and is, well, just not a tourist destination (there's no Kyoto, no Nara, no Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukuoka or Osaka on it). I flipped open my atlas, its pages wrinkled from four years of hitchhiking journeys, its pages awash with faded phone numbers, station names, and timetables written in ink, and I double checked my destination: Tsurigi-san mountain, or "Sword/Katana Mountain" in English. Another day's travel if all went smoothly. But it is impossible to plan, for from here on out there would be no trains or schedules to prop myself up on: it was to be all hitching. I just needed to find a good place for someone to pick my unshaven and white ass up, a place to buy a piece of cardboard to write my destination on it, and a flashy smile. I also needed to figure out which direction to head to get onto one of the three renowned bridges leading to Shikoku--bridges which have a past linked with dodgy politicians, bubble-economy hubris, and environmentally devastating public works construction projects.

I packed up my stuff, put on my house of a back pack with a little hop to get it resting properly on my shoulders, and put my fate into the hands of... of... it turned out to be a used clothing store owner with a lisp and a milk truck of a car. He also had funky clothes on.

Irreversible

2007-05-28T22:43:00.004+09:00

It's hard to recommend something that makes you recoil, that sickens you to your stomach, that pains you to watch. But, what happens when that which makes you grimace is the same thing which shows you a perspective on beauty--a perspective you've never seen before in film? What happens when, the very same thing which made you cringe and put your hand to your chest, leaves you with a message that so many other directors have failed to create?

Just as how the camera floats around, hovers, twists and turns as it does between edits, the emotions summoned within while watching Irreversible do the same. A teeter-totter of disgust and beauty, dread and life, horror and love. I grimaced as I sympathized, I shuddered as my sympathy even morphed in and out of empathy.

Some art, whether it be in the written form or on the screen, speak of stories that need to be told no matter how tough, and are told in a manner which plays nobody's fool, rounds no corners, does not add a "soft filter" to beautify its content. Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark , Murakami Ryu's Almost Transparent Blue come to mind--a dissection of the grotesque yet tangible reality of how savagely unsympathetic life can be, humans can be, society can be. And in the case of Irreversible, how brutal the passage of time can be. Yet, somewhere during the process of experiencing these crippling stories of tragedy, by the end, the theme you're left with is unexpectedly one of life. Mixed in that lump of sadness and brutality which remains lodged in your throat are the small things that which make up life itself; the moments which most of us fail to ever appreciate, to notice and understand, have been laid out before us--have been shown to us with such a new and fierce light all but none can fail to recognize them.

After watching this film it's as if the viewer has been imparted with some rare wisdom, has been given the chance to look back on what it means to live, to make every moment worth its value. Irreversible's director, Gaspar Noe, has taken you into the void, to the underworld and shown you how dark it can be, and has thereafter returned you, unscathed back to present day, plopped back down in your living room in front of your now black TV screen, the credits finished rolling. Now, the question that is being begged is this: what have you learned? What are you going to do with this new wisdom, this proverbial elixir, which you have been given?

Irreversible is just that, a movie which takes you on one of the most brutal journeys, but takes you backwards, starting with the last scene of the day first, and the first scene, last. The movie begins in hell, and ends by showing us the opposite of what hell is. And it is within this technique of moving "backwards", of knowing the end of the tale, of knowing who the characters are before you know their story, is what provides you with an uncanny insight into how humans work, and of course, makes you simultaneously aware of how you--the viewer--works. For, as you react to each scene, you are now casting judgments based on information you shouldn't already know. This movie is not only an insight, but an experiment on action/reaction, cause/effect, perhaps even what "fate" means to us--and you're the petri dish.

Now, this film has received plenty of mixed reactions, and as it should. Called everything from gratuitous, unskilled, amateur, thoughtlessly shocking, to distasteful. Yet these are not simple critiques but are reasons alone to watch the film. For, Irreversible is, above everything else, challenging. It would be hard for me to watch every scene in its entirety once again, but then again the images have been burnt into my mind along with its message and linger there, so perhaps I need not watch it again. It is a rare thing when such a movie comes along, one which questions the audience, ones which goes a step further than the rest-- whether mistakingly or not.

I debated turning off the movie after ten minutes into it, indeed I covered half the screen at times (and this is coming from someone who has never done such a thing before). I asked my self "why do I need to see this? What's the point?" And, in a funny way, in the end that's the exact reason which kept me watching. For, this movie is all about "its point", and it can only come to you by the last scene of the movie, which is also the first scene of the day in the life of the characters.

The question is whether you can make it to the end of this movie or not.

What the critics have said:
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"Likely the worst movie of the year, Irreversible exhibits fascist, gay-bashing tendencies, goes backwards for no reason, dizzies you with aimless camera work, and covers its banality with a veneer of pseudo intellectual bull."

"Irredeemable...just a pointlessly nasty violence-and-vengeance tale told backwards for 'effect.'"

"Excruciating exercise in voyeurism, provocation and pretentiousness."

"I hope people who go to see this don't walk out in the first ten minutes or after that scene, because I think you have to experience the entire film. And then you can decide whether or not you're offended by it."

"At once overwhelming and inconsequential, harrowing and banal, gimmicky and humourless, overheated and undercooked, this mega-hyped French movie may represent the ultimate triumph of cynicism in the global trade in non-English-language movies."

Plot Outline taken from IMDB:
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Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex (Monica Bellucci) is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass. Her boyfriend and ex-lover take matters into their own hands by hiring two criminals to help them find the rapist so that they can exact revenge. A simultaneously beautiful and terrible examination of the destructive nature of cause and effect, and how time destroys everything.

The growing fiction of ‘National Culture'

2007-03-04T13:32:00.000+09:00

Japan fits into Canada more than twenty-seven times. Indeed, it fits into the province of Ontario nearly two and half times. Yet more than one-hundred and twenty million people live in Japan—that’s nearly four times the total population of Canada. Two million foreigners— over six per cent of Canada’s population—live in this East Asian country. Japan, a country which almost completely closed off its borders to the outside world for more than two-hundred and twenty-nine years, which was on the other ‘side’ during World War Two, and which managed to generally reject all forms of western religion as a nation, is a perfect Petri dish to host a clash of cultures. Within this nation’s homogeneous way of life, Japan hosts a demographic of people which has no defined place in relation to its existing national culture. And it is here in this indefinable ‘in between of cultures’ where the life-long foreign resident—otherwise known as the ex-pat—is becoming the new trailblazing global citizen for future generations. It is here the ex-pat is challenging our predefined notions of what culture means—whether they realize it or not.

Unlike a child who grows up and learns a ‘nation’s culture’ unconsciously, the ex-pat is fully self-aware when they move abroad; they constantly judge and criticize their new country’s culture as a discriminating adult. They discover aspects of this new culture they love—perhaps the people’s definition of entertainment, the attitudes toward fashion, or how one portrays respect towards others—but they also find elements which annoy and frustrate them—perhaps the roles between the sexes, the way people do business, or attitudes towards the environment. All of these things, from the most minute to the most generally stereotyped, make up a nation’s culture, and therefore the ex-pat’s life. And so, all the while being cognisant of, the ex-pat learns how to operate within these new confines of culture.

And so, what does the ex-pat do? Well, they pick and choose what aspects of a culture they like best, like a child in a candy shop: they surround themselves with other foreigners, yet not completely. They don the suit at work and bow, using honorific and humble speech when conversing in the native tongue; they value Japan’s respect for the elderly, yet they shy away from the archaic housewife, working-husband role and value equality and following one’s dreams within the home. They enjoy Japan’s night life and rules of conduct, yet shun the hierarchical system. In essence, the ex-pat creates a hand-made, cultural comfort zone based on their own set of values combined with new ones claimed from the new country they live in. When they go to work, when they go out with their Japanese lover, when they go downtown shopping, go to the neighbourhood pub or enjoy a session of karaoke, they take on new roles, and behave with a new set of customs, ideals and outlooks on life. With this constant dipping in and out of cultures, a totally new kind of culture is being created: a culture simultaneously made up of two other national cultures, part of both but neither completely the same as one: in essence, a hybrid-culture defined by the individual, not the nation.

Over the years we have seen the rise of expressions like ‘cultural melting pot’, ‘assimilation’, ‘clash of cultures’–words coined with the advent of air travel and globalization. Yet, among all these phrases to describe the clash of cultures, our language fails when describing the result of it. It is here where the next generation of people are being born—global citizens embodying an individual versus a people identified by the boundaries on a map. We need to take a look at the children born into this hybrid culture, for it is here they are being raised within a culture undefined and without limitations. It is here, where the child—unlike their parents—unconsciously gain the values and way of life of a global citizen, affecting the child on a fundamental level. It is the emergence of this generation which has the potential to close the cultural gap even further in generations to come.

The Tao of Culture

2007-02-15T19:50:00.001+09:00

First and foremost, thank you all for participating freely in the survey I passed out awhile back. For those of you who didn't contribute but are interesting in reading the answers, I'll catch you up: I've been in the process of writing a short piece for an online magazine about culture with the themes being "fictions" (still not published yet, but if/when it is I'll let you all know so you can finally hear my answer to the questions). And to provide myself with some inspiration I gave out a survey consisting of two questions. The first: What is culture? The second: Can someone have multiple cultures? I gave these surveys out to the Japanese staff in the English and Japanese Dept., my co-workers (getting only three answer but answers from teachers from England, America, and Canada) as well as to the students in the 2-1 group (thank you Jason).

After finally sifting through all the answers, I must admit that it's not only been a reflective and inspiring process, but a frustrating and challenging one as well. But, one of the coolest products of all this seemingly-endless bumping of minds has been the atmosphere created in the teacher's room; I've talked with other teachers I normally would never have, and I think (hope) it's brought us all just a tad closer - especially as nearly all of us are linked by the common bond of having overseas experiences and what it feels like to be "the foreigner". Anyway, I'll stop rambling and let you read the answers. I have separated them into numbered bullets, with each number in the list representing an individual (ie. "1"' being the same student, and "2" being the next, "3" and so on. You must scroll down to read the same person's response to question number two).

*I didn't correct anyone's English (unless in person) as to not change the intended meaning.

Student (EC 2-1) responses to the question "What is Culture?"

It is unique, original one, even if it isn’t understood by other people, it is quite understandable for people who live in it or made it.

People automatically do things without hesitation. For example, Japanese use chopsticks when they eat something. In addition, language affects culture. Japanese language represents Japanese culture.

Culture is tradition. It’s protected by people who live there from long time ago to now.

Something most people in the country share.

Things that are only there.

Culture is what has been kept by people for a long time. It is what people think/believe it is important and normal for them. Like us using chopsticks?

Beliefs shared by people for a long time; all behaviour that comes from our parents; automatic action that taught from people and actually we didn’t study about it reminds constantly but it depends on culture which we are in now.

I think culture is a kind of traditional thing. A lot of things have each cultures, but I can’t explain them because I always do them unconsciously. Or things that foreigners feel strange. It’s peculiar to their country.

I think culture is a tradition and history of the country. It is a precious thing that our ancestor has made.

Things that people have been proud of for a long time.

I think it’s a symbolic thing of the country. We usually judge or image other countries by knowing each other’s “culture”. And also, culture is each one’s identity, I guess. So, I think we should know or “own” culture before we get to understand other cultures.

Something which is always around the people who live in the country and something they can’t get away from even if they want to because they are familiar with it since they were little. Something which just keeps going no matter what they feel about it.

The lifestyles that have been kept and believed for a long time among people.

The thing/image which reflects the country’s mind (it’s way of thinking, what they feel is important, what they feel is beautiful, what rules and manners in their life, etc)

The things that people who live in one particular area have done customarily or thought it’s natural. It is established by people in the area. It is deeply related to the history and the geographic condition.

What I was given by my parents. What I must give to my kids.

Student (EC 2-1) responses to the question "Can someone have multiple cultures?

Yes they can. By understanding where the culture came from, and agree or like it, we can get it. Like Autumn.
Yes, he or she can. For example, there are some Koreans in Japan. They speak both Korean and Japanese. They also go to their own ethnic schools. They have multiple cultures.
Yes, because sometimes people can share the same things across the border. For example, religion, music or food like that. Especially for people who life in other countries, they van have multiple cultures I think.
Yes, cause we have the right to do that. That will add up to the understanding of other cultures. People who are different in the race can get closer more.
Yes. If the person is interested in another country, they could have.
Of course, yes. As long as the person is interested in the other culture, cultures can be shared.
In modern days, I think many people especially young people have multiple cultures and they are trying to carry it out seriously. For example, they have a big dream to adapt themselves to different country’s culture and so they choose to live in foreign countries.
I think it depends on the situation. If we try, we can be used to.
Yes. A friend of mine is half Japanese and half Korean. She has two cultures and cherishes both of them.
I can’t say yes or no, but I want to have multiple cultures. Because I’m interested in other cultures. If we could share many types of cultures completely, it’s really miraculous thing. But it’s too difficult…
To tell the truth, it’s hard to make multiple cultures, I think. Of course we want to know other person’s culture and share the culture, but sometimes it might be dangerous. Unless we strive to understand the country deeply, we tend to misunderstand other cultures. I hope we can share all cultures as a natural thing… I hope.
Yes. Because I think people who live their life between 2 countries have experienced multiple cultures. Just because this kind of people actually exist.
I think it’s possible. People who life in a foreign country sometimes need to follow the culture in that country. And it’s possible that this makes their thinking and beliefs change.
I don’t think “can’t” but I think it’s very difficult because culture isn’t surface things. I mean, if you want to get multiple culture (other country’s culture), you have to understand other’s country’s mind deeply.
I’m positive, because we can learn or experience many different cultures after we got our own culture.
It depends on a way of thinking of each person. I think “can” for me.

Foreign Teacher responses to the question "What is Culture?"

The shared practices (the arts, politics, humor, conceptions) that represent a country or members of a group within the larger country.
The way of life of a people group, developed over time and passed from generation to generation.
I think culture and national identity are very disparate things. People sometimes refer to a country’s customs as it’s “Culture” but culture more often develops in opposition to nationality – an organic expression of shared beliefs or shared disagreements on the nature of humanity. Rather than the utilitarian structure of laws.

Foreign Teacher responses to the question "Can someone have multiple Cultures?"

Yes. On considering Asian/African Latin Americans in the U.S., they have the right to feel part of both subcultures by definition assumes that a person may be connected to more than 1 (although I sense the question implies something else).
No, I don’t think. A person’s culture is what it is. In the case of a foreigner living outside his/her culture, they adapt to the new culture, thereby changing their own culture, but I don’t think they have multiple cultures. Over time, such a person would be able to switch easily, between one or the other, but maybe never again feeling completely at ease in either one.
People are definitely fluid enough to move between culture, and can certainly occupy different aspects but when people begin to actively define (as is the case in “have”ing) those culture they usually negate each other and even possibly their own cultures.

Japanese Teacher responses to the question "What is Culture?"

However small the culture is, or whatever it is like, I just like the idea that people around the world have their own unique culture for centuries. Some could be immortal, while others could have been slightly changed to adjust to the environment. Where there’s people, there’s a culture.
Knowledge, art, behaviour, ways of thinking, etc. Which belong to a particular group of people and have been developed throughout the history of the group…?
It is a thing that we are usually unaware of. It is a thing that we think is normal. We take it for granted and may recognize it when pointed out. It is a thing that the wider our commitment to society becomes, the greater we realize.
We could say it is – language we use, food we eat everyday, customs and celebrations we hold, values when we say it is good or bad, tacit models or patterns we behave or follow, assumptions we usually do not articulate, such as the idea, “The sun is watching you always”, and so on.
It may form our nationality. We realize what it is like when we read foreign books, watch foreign films, eat foreign food, and talk with foreign people. It is not the matter of good/bad but it is culture.
Culture is, just like air and water, something that we can’t live without but which we don’t pay any special attention to in our daily life. I’m living this way. In spite of this, I’m sure we Japanese are “created” by Japanese culture and Americans by American culture. To me, culture is something mental, thereby giving us some “mental frame” when we think about the things happening in the world, which means we judge a lot of things from our viewpoint based on Japanese culture. Of course, I don’t think Japanese culture is universal. As a matter of fact, no culture in the world has its universality. Therefore we should respect any culture and any people with cultures different from ours. This is the only way we can survive long into the future. I don’t want any kind of “Clash of Culture”. Do you?

Japanese Teacher responses to the question "Can someone have multiple cultures?"

Absolutely yes! Unless you understand different cultures, I don’t think you can really understand your own culture. If you like it, or feel it fits you, then you can have it.
Negative. One who has multicultural background should be considered to have his/her own “mixed” culture, although the ratio of one culture to the other(s) in the mixture varies among people. I don’t know if I should call it a “culture” or not, though…
I think the answer is ‘yes’. If a person is born of parents with different cultures, he/she can get both cultures without noticing it. Or if a person is born of parents with one culture but brought up in a different country, he’she can get both cultures, though the latter may be aware of the difference of the two cultures inside/outside the house.
when we get along with a person of another culture, we may accept and respect his/her culture without giving up our own culture.
My answer is “Yes”. Firstly, if my father is Japanese and my mother is American, it is quite natural for me to have Japanese culture and American culture at the same time. I think this means I can have multiple cultures. Secondly, if I live in a foreign country long enough, naturally I’ll get used to the culture of the country, thus making it possible for me to enjoy multiple cultures without giving up my own culture. So where do I stand? After giving this subject too much thought, here it is.

Answer to question number one: "What is culture?"

I believe culture is the collective-unconscious of a group of people who innately act and think the same without having to use language or concrete symbols due to generations of similar upbringings/situations/and lifestyle. Therefore, culture is a constantly changing thing that is constantly in tandem/step with the collective group. Individuals can trigger changes in culture, but only if the group accepts this change (they can be forced to accept it, I believe and these changes don't always have to be a good thing as seen throughout history).

"Answer to question number two: Can someone have multiple cultures?"

I believe it is possible to "have multiple cultures" but not fully - one can become multicultural but never completely "have" more than one. Saying that, I do believe one can make a switch over time, losing their old and gaining a new one, but I don't believe one can make this choice consciously.

In order to truly instinctively/subconsciously gain another culture, I believe one must forget everything they have learned - all language and stereotypes and icons passed down to them - via their original culture. They must leave all that at the door and become a blank slate. Since I believe language is a tool and works by triggering images/icons/symbols/stereotypes in the listener's mind - ones that were ingrained into the person via the culture their grew up in - I think it's impossible to "gain" or "have" another culture by simply being interested in it, studying it or even understanding it perfectly. This is because I believe culture is like a filter or lens which someone looks through: it affects the way one views and thinks about the world, how one reacts, what one deems valuable, important, and prioritizes one's life etc. And, to have more than one culture - or filter - within you sets up a situation where you will forever be at odds (at least to some degree) with yourself and how you view life and the world. It would be like constantly having to switch between two pairs of sunglasses with different colors; if one situation, say when at work, you put on your foreign pair of sunglasses operating in a manner akin to your home country. And then, when in a different situation , you get frustrated, and end up putting on your pair of sunglasses which reflect your native country's culture you now live in (sorry for the terrible analogy of situations, but you get the point). So, unless one has subconsciously and innately accepted the culture on a fundamental level without making any choice like "I want to be Japanese" or "I like America's lifestyle or I prefer this style of living over that", they will constantly be switching between sunglasses (cultures) and only grow to understand a culture, but not become part of it. In other words, it will become second-nature to take some aspects of one culture and some of another, but never become fully part of one culture or the other. This is when a person becomes multi-cultural. If one changes without realizing it on a fundamental level, and has thrown out the other culture completely - and therefore lives their life through one filter only - I believe they can "have" the new culture. If not, then I believe they have become multi-cultural, with bits of both cultures within them, sometimes seeing through one filter and sometimes seeing through another, but never through only one - never feeling at complete ease in either cultures. This person, I believe, has become part of some sort of hybrid culture unto itself.

Whew... All this philosophizing has lead me to the conclusion that this question fails before it begins due to it's medium: language, which operates with symbols cultivated by culture. To think and talk about this question is to lose all chances of "having another culture". For, to truly "have" another culture is to operate within it at complete ease, subconsciously, innately and as one with the rest of the group. To think on it (like what I've made all of you do) is to take two steps back and one step forward. It reminds me of all those Zen sayings, where to talk about the Tao is to lose the Tao; it's what can't be taught or put into words. I don't know if I'm saying culture is like the Tao, but all I know is that, for me, the only way to "have" multiple cultures is unconsciously become part of the collective group by using one's soul, heart and body. It can't be done with knowledge nor one's mind.

If any of you have any responses to this, please post a message! I realize this could be a wonderful exercise in chasing one's tail, but I hope it was fun for me, and it was great putting one's thoughts out there with you all.

Bonobo

2006-11-19T20:53:00.000+09:00

"The Bonobo, until recently usually called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is one of the two species comprising the chimpanzee genus, Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee. Both species are chimpanzees, and the term can be used both to refer only to the larger of the two species, Pan troglodytes, and to both species together..." Actually, Wikepedia is wrong when it claims that there are two species of The Bonobo - indeed, there is a third, and he hails from the concrete jungles of Brighton.

Simon Green, aka Bonobo, debuted in 1999 at the age of 18 with a song released on the Tru Thoughts Recordings label. This was a fully self-produced track, and with it he caught some attention as "one of the new downtempo pioneers"(downtempo as in "a laid-back electronic music style, often referred to as chill out music", just in case you were wondering what the official definition was). Indeed, Allmusic.com describes his music as "laid-back, mellow, nocturnal, freewheeling, and detached." But all these labels and cookie-cutter words aside, tucked between broken drum beats, Latin sounds, funky bass rifts, strings, flutes, vocals, cellos, and computer-generated beats and samples (the list continues), are rhythms which invoke feelings less easily described, and which make Bonobo's sound all the more poignant.

The "laidback", "chill-out" music genre is a hard one to carve a respectable niche into, for there is the constant risk of being too self-indulgent and pretencious as the artist tries for that original jazz-fusion and trendy sound that conjures up smokey lounges, leather couches, top hats and stand-up bass guitars. No matter how many bass rifts, saxophones solos and cello combinations are thrown into a song, the fact is, the artist is still operating within the confines of a computer-generated, beat-driven genre where a relative formulae needs to be followed or it sounds pompous and trying--that, or too abstract, which is another genre in itself. On the other end of the spectrum, the artist may lean on the beat too much, falling into a yet another category of dance music, unable to create enough of a fusion sound, and in the end being too bland, dull, and worn out--like the hundreds of chill-out albums come and gone (you know, the ones played and almost at once shelved away into the recesses of your mind alongside an uncountable collection of unidentifiable down-tempo compilations). It is here, maneuvering between these two extremes of bland dance beats and snobbish chill-out lounge, where Bonobo has identified himself: like America's Thievery Corporation and Austria's Kruder and Dorfmeister, he manages to create a sound that is distinctly enough his--one that manages to strike an original note deep within and therefore find a memorable space set aside on that proverbial shelf in your mind set apart from all those other "chill out" albums; in short, Bonobo engineers a sound that deftly lingers just outside of your music-classification-reach. It may be the heavier-than-average beats he props his jazz-influenced samples up with; or it could be the acoustic sounds he sprinkles throughout the breakbeats which please the less electronically inclined listener; or perhaps it's the vaious asian and international instruments he dabs with, lending a more nostalgic and authentic sound to his dance tracks; or maybe it could be the rather direct, simple and therefore uncondascending framework he roots his songs in... anyway, I digress.

To think why Bonobo's sound works among today's fast-paced society and beat-propelled escapism electronic music, we need to look at the structure of Bonobo's tracks. And, here is where Bonobo "sound" identifies itself the most. For, on the one hand, it is unarguable that Bonobo's song structure can be simplistic, straightfoward and sometimes, for lack of a better word, basic. Yet, it is this exact aspect of his music which provides him with the opportunity to mess around with the "content" of his song as much as he likes without raising his nose at you; Bonobo has the ability to delve as deeply as he wants into jazzy roots, fusion, and acoustic elements without sounding too hauty in a genre which defines itself as being electronic. Allmusic.com attests this point: "Simon Green's Bonobo project may not have the respect of discriminating, forward-thinking electronica fans, but his melody-driven downbeat pop is no less interesting for its lack of processing power -- in fact, Dial "M" for Monkey is more intriguing for its focus on discernible melodies as well as experimental samples" (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:n6rp286l053a). And so, because of this "simplistic" element, the originality of sounds which make up his song become Bonobo's main act: if a song of his lacks original samples, rare combinations of instruments, and meloncholic vocals, his tracks pitter out before tweaking that memorable chord in the listener's mind. Luckily, this is less often than not. Indeed, Bonobo uses an vast array of instruments reminding the audience that he is a band and not only a computer engineer. As a result, he keeps his "sound" rooted in the tangible, where computers meet wood, strings meet samples, and smokey lounges coming crashing in on dance floors.

* * *

Animal Magic (2001). His debut album. This 12" gives the listener a glimpse into what is quintessentaial Bonobo sound, yet can be a bit rough around the edges. A wicked album, paving the way for what is yet to come.

One-offs, remixes and B-sides (2002). Released on the Tru Thoughts Label, this disc is solely responsible for getting me into Bonobo. The remixes are plentiful, and a theme of nostalgia runs pretty deep throughout the song - nostalgia with a chocolate-molasses beat.

Dial M for Monkey (2003). For me, Dial M for Monkey and Animal Magic could've been released together. Sister albums, they play off of one another wondefully well, and where. Animal Magic could feel a bit like eletronic layering, Dial M for Monkey has that more polished feel.

It Came from the Sea (2005). A mix cd of Bonobo's influences, funky and jazzy counterparts with some of his tracks thrown in.

Days to come (2006). This album is beautiful. Like polished oak, there is a deep resin of soul and bass rifts in this album. All which provide a stage for an array of vocals. With this album, Bonobo has taken his sound and added something else entirely to

...And some praise for Bonobo, the monkey king:

"Inspired throughout." - Independent, 4/5
"Bonobo returns triumphant. An outstanding piece of work." - iDJ, 5/5
"A ravishing stew of styles. A man of many talents." - The Sun, 4/5
"A high point in his career to date." - Music Week
"One listen was enough to convince me to bestow 5 stars on this. Without doubt a future classic." - Notion, 5/5
"A simply brilliant piece of music." - Straight No Chaser
"Simply the most stunning tracks Ninja have put out in years… Unmissable." - Stool Pigeon
"Consistently brilliant." - Clash

Dramatizing History

2006-09-08T18:46:00.000+09:00

There is a line that should be drawn--and it needs to be drawn by Hollywood, big-time TV stations and anyone else who is debating making a movie, a short, a full-length feature, a tv series, or even a mini-series about history. This "line" that needs to be drawn is something probably most relatively intelligent people feel the need for when they hear of Hollywood making a full-length feature on the the NY Firefighters and their bravery on 9/11 (Oliver Stone's World Trade Center), or a quasi-documentary/dramatization of what happened on one of the planes that crashed into the twin towers (United 93 by Paul Greengrass).

Picture millions of people flocking to the theatre--people who have no interest in history dictated by facts (which is hard enough to decipher as is) , people who are so emotionally attached to an event (ie. 9/11) that they are already seeing history through subjective filters, and generally speaking, people who internalize films on the silver screen as history itself (take Spielberg and his flims like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Amistad, among many others) some of which may be masterpices of film-making but, regardless of their calibre cannot and must not be considered history). Putting something on the big screen and watching it enshrouded in darkness with hundreds of other people sharing in an collective subconscious experience has its risidual effects.

The reason I thought this to be reason enough to write about in my blog is due to a recent article I read. It was about the American TV company ABC and a mini-series they are going to air about the events leading up to 9/11. A mini-series? On regular TV? To be beamed in the livingroom on households around the continent? To be watched over dinner before the kids do homework? Part of me is not surprised whatsoever, and part of me wants to puke at the ridiculous nature of corporate America dramatizing, re-making, glorifying, and packaging and selling this event over and over again. It's the beating of a dead horse, the kicking up of ashes again and again--ashes which have finally begun to settle. 9/11 has obviously been permanently etched in America's (and other western people's) psyche--there is no arguing that, but when I turn the page of a newspaper and read how a second-rate tv channel is going to air their take on 9/11, I can just envision all those people who don't get out enough, who don't have the brain power to see the bigger picture, who are already emotionally attached (and rightly so) to the event, staring blankly at the tv with their brains turned off watching yet another dramatization of 9/11... soon all these glorified images are going to replace any kind of rational fact they might have held on the complicated issue of 9/11. Overseas campaigns, world trade wars, oil, the history between warring nations, cold wars, genocides, and economics will be replaced with black and white, good versus evil, Skywalker and the Light Side versus Darth Vader and the Dark Side.

This ABC mini-series, called The Path to 9/11, is "scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC (owned by Walt Disney Co.) has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary." And therein the problem lies. For, the people who are complaining (including the Clintons) about the entire concept of this show, protest that "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely." The last sentence hits the crux of it all on the head, for, when history is classified as a dramatization, facts are pulled, corners are rounded, words are tweaked, time-lines are changed, and in fact, history is re-written.

Instead of ending with my own sentiments, I'll leave you some quotes by two of head chair members of the Clintion Foundation, who put it more succinctly then I can: "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known... While ABC is promoting The Path to 9/11 as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans.

Check out the article here.

Golden Week in Tohoku: Day 1

2006-05-23T23:55:00.000+09:00

She got out of the car wearing a half-way done up lime-green cardigan, the white of her t-shirt seen underneath. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what her face looked like until she stepped out of the car, took off her massively round sunglasses, kicked up one of her feet in a gangly figure-skater pose and gave me a hug. Just seeing how her body moved in these elongated actions—which called to the mind the unconscious movements of a twelve year-old girl combined with the grace of a professional model—made me want to freeze the moment, frame it, and gawk like a schoolboy. For some reason, a lime green cardigan on this woman made absolute sense. But, the flow of doesn’t stop for such observations, and we had places to go. So, I did my best to keep in step with the ceremonial small talk, stumbling along to the best of my ability in my own naïve and boyish way. As I grabbed my backpack and camera bag, tossed them into the back of her car and got in, I thought I was doing pretty well so far; my new traveling companion was smiling, the sky was a shade of baby blue on par with a Simpson’s episode, I had just arrived to a previously unvisited destination, and I was about to hit the road once again.

鳴子温泉　Naruko Hot springs

Location: Just under two hours north of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture by car (and train); one of the most famous hotsprings in the Tohoku Region, with more 旅館 (ryokan, or traditional Japanese style inn) than you can ask for. Located between a river and a mountainside, it's not only a recommended onsen town, but a good launch off point for other day hikes, waterfall-viewings and small road trips if you have the time. Oh, it's also highly recommended during the Autumn season for 紅葉 (Kouyou, or Autumn color-watching).
How to get there: Regular Train: Take JR Rikuu-Tosen line from Sendai and transfer at 小牛田 (Kogota) to 鳴子温泉　(Naruko Onsen); around two hours traveling time. Shinkansen: From Sendai Station, transfer at 古川 (Furukawa) to 鳴子温泉 (Naruko Onsen); around 1 hour and 15 minutes travelling time.
Contact numbers: Takinoyu (the most famous spa found in Naruko and over 1000 years-old); open every day from 7 a.m.to 10 pm. Phone: (0229) 83-3403.

I had arrived at the onsen—what the Japanese people call hot springs—village, Naruko, the night before. Naruko is a small hot spring resort town known as one of three finest in Japan’s north-eastern Tohoku region (the other two being Iizaka and Akiu). This small town gets more than 200 visitors a day apparently—so if you come here, don’t expect too much of a retreat from civilization. Naruko onsen has so many different minerals in its waters that each ryokan is said to have aits own specific active ingredient with its own therapeutic effect. But Naruko isn’t simply known for its onsen. It’s also known for the colors its leaves turn in autumn, and like any good old Japanese town, it’s known for its local food, and overall traditional Japanese atmosphere. In my impression, Naruko is peaceful and serene, but is like any other traditional onsen town: it is built into the side of a mountain, there are pockets of steam rising from the street gutters, the smell of sulphur and the noise of hotel patron’s wooden sandals clanking down the roads as they walk from bath to bath in their yukata—traditional Japanese style housecoats—provide the ambience. Although, I should mention how none of this was noticed until the morning after, for when I rolled into the town the night blanketed everything but the lantern-lit areas, and besides that nothing but the faint noise of water from nearby and hidden streams dripping down the mountain sides were noticed. If you find yourself near Sendai-the biggest city in the Tohoku area—and want to experience a traditional Japanese hot spring or just get away without having to drive put in the distance, Naruko is definitely a good (but touristy) choice.

After transferring twice and riding the local train for about two hours from Sendai, I was definitely in the mood for travel—to hit the streets and see where I ended up. In Japan, every May yields three days off, where one gets to not only loosen but take off their tie, roll up their pants and venture anywhere they want. It comes in the name of Golden Week and it is one of three times in the country where the government and thus the companies not only let its overworked masses spend some free time with their family, but nearly goes so far as to force them out on holiday; the banks shut down, the post office closes, almost everything deemed necessary for “daily life” gets put on hiatus and the populace hits the streets in some sort of mad economy-supporting frenzy. Cars line-up on freeways, campsites turn into metropolises, the metropolises like Tokyo, in turn, empty, hotels are booked, ferries are full to the last foot passenger, and the entire country has a buzz of movement. After putting in countless hours of overtime, the Japanese salary man finally is given the chance to dirty his traveling shoes. And so, at this time every year, you can’t help but throw yourself into the momentum of it all and see where the traveling masses spit you out by the time the work week rolls back in.

I left work the day before—a foreign language college—by 5:30. I had changed out of my shirt and tie into my casual clothes in the bathroom, ran into a student who needed some help with the difference between “I have -ed” vs. “I have been -ing” tenses in the English language, helped her as well as I could with a limited time frame, got on my bike, caught the 5:50 train and ended up in Naruko by 8:00ish PM. It was dark and I had no clue as to where a possible camp site may be. I ended up pitching my tent under the nearest bridge. Nothing but rocks, water, dirt and “this is not the way the locals would be doing it” written all over the location. Ah well, I needed my sleep, and hitchhiking dictates no premeditated beginnings and endings. You simply need to make do with whatever you get. And under some bridge with traffic above it, by some paved waterway, opposite of some gravel grinding mill was what I had. Who knows what I would get the next day.

That’s when I got the e-mail from Kayako. All huddled up inside my one-and-a-half-man tent, my cell phone lit up as the e-mail came. She wondered if I had something “interesting” to do during for holidays. After debating whether hitchhiking up north, living like a quasi-bum/hobo, pitching tents anywhere I could, and going about it in a half-hazard way qualified as interesting, I told her what I was doing and said she could come soon she was welcome to join me. And within a moment’s time, she said she’d do just that. To be honest, it kind of took me off guard. I don’t think, in all of the three years of living here, I met a single female who simply got up, packed her gear together, got into her car and drove off to meet some random guy in the process of making his way up north to camp outside in still rather frosty weather with undisclosed destinations along the way. It’s not that my Japanese friends were unadventurous; it was just that there was always a correct and incorrect way to do something, and my method of traveling was definitely the foreigner’s way. And so, after she said she’d be there in two hours, I raised my eyebrow, made a slight shrug of the shoulders in a manner that said “wow, that’s pretty cool”. Well, that was what I thought as I stepped out of the tent, stretched and welcomed the sun. I then packed my tent, climbed the hill, crossed the highway, and hiked my way back into the centre of the village. The sun was out, the wind felt fresh, and I could tell this trip was about to begin. Not with my thumb, as was the plan, but with the addition of a car and a girl who I met briefly the week before, at night, when I was rather tipsy from sake. I hoped she was cool.

So here we are, in her car, headed north. Sitting in the passenger seat, I feel like I was just given a big wad of cash in a confectionery store and told to buy whatever I could within five minutes; I didn’t know where to start, what I wanted, or where to go from here. Everywhere around me was stimulating—I could hear the dancy house music beat coming from the speakers as we started to get to know one another; I had the map on my lap as we talked about where we would be making camp; I could see new sites passing us by through the window of the car, I noticed CDs scattered on the back seat and those in-car scents that come to you like wafts of personal stories once read but lost in time. Our conversation dipped in and out of personal subjects to light banter, just as it moved from Japanese into English and back and forth. She told me how this was her very first time—in her entire life—that she was going camping. I nodded, not really registering what that really meant, noticing how she drove with her car seat back, her arms outstretched as she held the steering wheel while driving no more than 40km—a speed which called out anything but being in a rush. Our next destination was Onikoube Onsen and the neighbouring mountain.

鬼首温泉　Onikoube Hot springs

Location: Twenty minutes north of Naruko, two and half hours north of Sendai with campgrounds, heaps of onsen, lakes and small mountains nearby; it’s ideal for a weekend getaway or stopover on your way somewhere else.

How to get there: Car/Hitchiking: Route 4 north from Sendai to Furukawa. Route 47 North-West to Naruko. Regular Train: Take JR Rikuu-Tosen line from Sendai and transfer at 小牛田 (Kogota) to 鳴子温泉　(Naruko Onsen). Hitchike or drive north on Route 108 for about twenty minutes; around two hours and a half traveling time. Shinkansen: From Sendai Station, transfer at 古川 (Furukawa) to 鳴子温泉 (Naruko Onsen). Hitchike or drive north on Route 108; around 2 hours and 40 minutes traveling time.

Contact numbers: 吹き高原キャンプ場 Fukiage Kougen Campsite: 0229-86-2493

On the map, Onikoube lies about three hours from Sendai station, but it can’t be reached by train, giving it a more-than-average off-the-beaten-path feeling. Looking at it on the map, it is distinguished by many of the hot springs symbols as well as the black topographical curves that mark the presence of a mountains—my two favourite combinations while hitchhiking in Japan—hot springs and mountains, which means campsites and pockets of nature. Onikoube is not particularly famous but is known well by the locals. It sits next to the neighbouring mountain, Araodake, which has an elevation of 984 metres. When we drove up to the campground and found dozens and dozens of people already set up, and had to wait in a bit of a line to register Kaori’s car and grab a site, I realized we hit a pretty popular destination spot for campers in the region. By nightfall, hundreds of people had arrived and the campsite resembled more of a concert’s reserve parking lot (the pavement being grass) than some pristine outdoor getaway. But, that in itself lent the campsite a special atmosphere; we met people from the get go (whom we ended up having dinner with) and I suppose that’s what hitchhiking is all about—the encounter (even though I wasn’t hitchhiking anymore).

In Japanese there is a word, deai （出会い）、which is the noun form of the verb deau, which means “to encounter, to chance upon, to meet”. It is made of the kanji "to go out" and "to meet." This one word encompasses entire sentences used in English to describe how you met someone. The word is fundamentally different from the verb “to meet”, carrying nuances of unexpectedness and chance, but which speaks of an encounter that leads to a blossoming friendship. If, for example, you met someone along the way somewhere, on route, or on some mountain in a hut as you prepare dinner for example (like how one of my closest friends and I met), instead of explaining the circumstances of how you met coincidentally and it all started from there, you can simply use this word and the nuance is understood. It is a word that speaks novels for a country that has more than four times the population of Canada in a space that is about 25 times smaller—where brushing up against someone is something that can’t be avoided, that not necessarily liked, but often leads to some of the most bonding friendships. Deai. My Japanese friend once told me that it is these friendships that create the strongest bond—the ones where a chance encounter had the upper hand due to respective—but unknown at the time—interests. And it was something that happened to Kaori and I the week before at a park in downtown Sendai, and now had us now making a road tip up north together. The nuance of this word is probably the main reason why I venture off into the unknown during holidays like this, probably why I hitchhike, and to be honest, is probably the fundamental reason why I’m still living overseas.

Onikoube’s campsite feels like sitting on someone’s front lawn with a panoramic snow-capped mountain fresco being held up as the view. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sight was indeed picturesque. Looking up from your tent and having to tilt your head that little bit extra to find where the sky hits the mountain tops makes you feel just that much smaller—just that bit further from the city. The grass was also a bonus (it’s something to be appreciated when found in this land of concrete and gravel-ridden parks and school grounds). Just a bit north of the campsite lies Araodake mountain. As it’s under 1000 metres it can be hiked within four hours at a leisurely pace. You leave the main exit of the campsite, walk for about twenty metres to the right and take your left up a road and follow that for a good hour. Soon you’ll see a sign on your right-hand side, pointing to your left with an arrow marking the trail head. It’s an easy hour and half or so to the top. I do have to admit that the sight from the top wasn’t the most breathtaking one I’ve ever seen, but it was a nice day for a small hike—especially if you have company. It also made the onsen (at the campsite, although they charge you another 570 yen for that as well) that much better.

That night Kayako and I had dinner with the elderly couple camping beside us, drank some red wine, chatted about local foods, and enjoyed being out among it all. Sooner than later though, we felt the cold fingers of the mountain air creep up from our toes, which was the signal to call it a night. I slept fully-clothed in the tent while Kaori did her best in the back of her car. Tohoku in the Spring on a fine weather day brings a chill with a temperature that is still playing on old man winter’s team.

Boards of Canada

2006-04-08T14:36:00.000+09:00

The name has nothing to do with snowboarding, although it does have something to do with Canada. Inspired from The National Film Board of Canada, Boards of Canada (BoC) is made up of two blokes—brothers actually—named Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison. BoC being the critically acclaimed, more infamous than famous, electronica duo who—whether you have heard of them are not—have made themselves known throughout all reaches of the world. Their second-to-last release (Geogaddi) premiered in the number two spot in the charts in no less than London, New York, Tokyo, Edinburgh, Paris and Berlin. This fact alone attests that this group’s sound has struck a chord with the world’s collective unconscious.

To try and track the musical roots of the Sandison brothers is like someone with really bad vision searching for their lost pair of glasses—partly because the group is not prone to doing interviews (the two only publicly acknowledged the fact they were indeed brothers last year) but also because Marcus and Mike started making music together when they were about six or seven years old. They first began to record their own music when they were only ten years old. To put it simply, tracing these guys’ musical roots goes back to toilet training, building-blocks, and bedtime stories.

To make things easy on us in the public, it is officially said that BoC came about in 1995 with the release of their first album on their Music70 label, Twoism. Twoism hit the shelves as a limited release (a mere 100 pressings) and quickly demonstrated its effect on and popularity among the masses when solitary copies were sold for more than £800—that’s more than $1,500 dollars). At the time and understandably so, this caught Warp’s attention (BoC’s current label), they re-released the record in 2002 and it’s now hailed as a cult classic. Twoism is also viewed as the launch-off point into BoC’s ensuing more professional releases (Music Has the Right to Children, Geogaddi, The Campfire Headphase).

On a basic level, BoC is a broken-beat driven, melodic and meticulously engineered electronic music. But BoC’s true trademark is the amount of production, attention to detail, samples and a seemingly endless array of sounds that are the metallic bones of each song; to put it succinctly and in the words of one of their track titles: The Devil is in the Details. Although categorized as electronic music, one shouldn't let that genre pigeonhole the artists. Within seconds of your first listening, you'll notice immediately that Hi-fi sounds are not used sparingly; the two Scottish brothers include everything from pianos, flutes, guitars, field sounds, beeps in shops, sounds of vehicles, to drums and percussion in their songs. In the end, not only does all this crafting of sounds distinguish BoC as a band, it is also ultimately distinguishes who their listening audience is.

Although the feeling of each song does somewhat range in mood and emotion, due to the fact that nearly every tune in these guys’ repertoire contains a heavy and flowing melodic over-layering to it that blankets the edgier rhythms, each album is definitely not dance music, nor is it uplifting in the sense of one pressing the play button and being hit with a dose of energy. This is not only due to the basic “sound” of each song, but because samples of children speaking, sounds reminiscent of waves rolling on a beach, humming, praying and the addition of even subliminal messages of all kinds are prevalent, the soupy content of each song can get pretty deep. Indeed, some songs have so much depth to them that "some critics refuse to listen to their music on account that they are positive the band is trying to brainwash their listeners for unknown motivations citing references to David Koresh and occult symbols as proof" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boards_of_Canada).

And so, with all this depth and attention to details, BoC can dip perhaps a bit too far down into the void of morose contemplation. BoC have expressed some concern regarding how critics and fans alike were taking this aspect of their music. "People were understanding things from our music that we didn't put in there and were saying there was an evil undercurrent to everything. And we are not like that at all. It was a theme that we wanted to pursue on that record [Geogaddi] but people have understood from that that we always put secret, dark, sinister, and satanic things in our music”. And it’s true, with the addition of guitar rifts on their The Campfire Headphase album, BoC have tried to lighten the mood of their sound. And it seems this step away from the dreamy BoC-esque sound has been received with mixed reactions. Even so, and whether it is an unwanted undercurrent or not, it is undeniable at times that BoC run the danger of creating too much of a murky vibe which can suffocate the listener.

Yet, luckily, this is where the beats often come to the listener’s rescue. For, before the listener's mind lapses into complete inward reflection, the broken beats laid as the foundation of most songs keep you from completely succumbing to the often over-contemplative vibes. The beat of their songs-if present at all-are well-crafted, metallic, heavy and crisp; more often than not it's the beats that keep BoC's music accessable. And so, it's here-in this beat-propelled nostalgia-where the fans of BoC are made or broken.

In the end, like threads woven into an your grandmother's hand-made quilt, what is created is a soundscape that taps into the human collective subconscious and recalls a time that would otherwise seem personal to the listener—no matter what part of the world he or she is from. Boards of Canada is a band everyone should at least give one proper listening to. I bet it’ll find a place somewhere in your collection of childhood memories tucked deep down inside.

For an in-depth review of each album, peep out allmusic.com—a wicked online database of information on almost any single artist you can think of.

Discography

Twoism (Music70 1995)
Music Has The Right To Children (Warp/Skam 1998)
Geogaddi (Warp 2002)
The Campfire Headphase (Warp 2005)

What the critics are saying:

"This is pure machine soul, reminiscent of some forgotten Japanese animation soundtrack or a rusting Commodore 64 just about to give up the ghost” (allmusic.com)

“The Campfire Headphase is one of the best-produced records of the year. One surprise is that, finally, a BoC track evokes another artist rather than standing alone: "Satellite Anthem Icarus," the third track, sounds like it could've emerged from the mixing desk of Nigel Godrich as he worked on Beck's Sea Change.” (allmusic.com).

“At times BOC invite you to stand with them as they gaze out over the majestic, Scottish highlands surveying an early sunset as it explodes across the horizon. At others they leave you stranded in your flat at 3am wondering whether that strange noise is your speakers on the blink or the mayonnaise growling at you from inside the fridge. Either way, its unlikely you will have heard anything quite like this. Essential.” (BBC).

“[The Campfure Headphase] moves like a daydreamed walk through your old junior school, and while it fails to surprise it doesn’t disappoint” (BBC)

James W. Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji I: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters"

2006-01-30T15:16:00.000+09:00

“漢字 Kanji: A Japanese system of writing based on borrowed or modified Chinese characters.”

50,000 kanji exist.

1,945 of these kanji are known as “jouyou Kanji” which were “established as the standard by the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1946” and which represent a sixteen year-old’s fluency in the literary world. (Heisig 8).

The Japanese writing system also uses hiragana, katakana, and sometimes romaji (Roman Alphabet letters). These characters are distinct from, though commonly used in combination with, kanji. Furigana are also added sometimes.

Nearly each character has a Japanese as well as Chinese reading, which changes depending upon the combination of two or more kanji that is being used to form a word.

It’s no surprise that the endeavor to learn how to read and write Japanese—especially for the native English speaker who is used to the 26-letter Alphabet— is at the very least an intimidating and seemingly life-long challenge. I definitely ran into this wall more than once, and still do, while studying the language.

I first came to Japan in the winter of 2002 and I took to studying Japanese immediately, or more poignantly, I took to speaking Japanese immediately. I showed signs of progress, but knew that, without any literary skills, I was far from being on the road to true language mastery. When my mind drifted to the written word, I often asked myself “what is the best way to become literate in this language”? Is it to write, write, and re-write each kanji over again? Should one study the Chinese and Japanese readings of each kanji, and then move from there? Which Kanji should I study first? Should I simply read kanji in context and forge ahead? Among all of these questions—which is an entirely different issue in itself—I wondered: “How do native speakers raised in Japan internalize the 1,945 general-use kanji?”

Professor Laurence M. Wiig of Hiroshima University, answers the question: “The process involves starting Japanese first graders with the most readily grasped symbols such as 一 one, 二 two, 三 three, 犬 dog, 見 see, 木 tree and 森 forest. Some three and a half years later, by the end of fourth grade, Japanese children have mastered a total of 640 kanji including 200 kanji presented during the fourth grade such as 好 be fond of, 松 pine tree, and 胃 stomach.
During fifth and sixth grade they are introduced to easy kanji such as 机 desk and 句 phrase as well as complex (but frequently encountered) symbols like 警 police and 塾 cram school.
By the end of 4,380 days (365 days/year x 12 years = 4,380 days) of Japanese education, kanji literacy training is complete” (http://www.kanjiclinic.com/reviewheisigwiig.htm).

4,380 days? Not to mention, during this time, the students are writing love letters, seeing kanji hung up in classes, on posters, written on desks, arriving on paper in the mail, and doodled on notepads; in essence, during this time kanji works its way into all facets of daily life. So, of course, for a foreigner studying Japanese, such a method is obviously not an option.

This is where James Heisig’s book “Remembering the Kanji” comes in. The book covers the 1,945 jouyou kanji, giving the reader the ability to remember and write each kanji, but no idea how to read them. The book has as many critics as it does admirers, and has been around since the 1970s. Hesieg, a university professor at The Nanzan University Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan, is very well-known in the field of Japanese language study. In his book, Remembering the Kanji I: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, Heisig likens the study of kanji to looking through a kaleidoscope. You hold it up to the light, trying to fix a particular pattern in your mind. After you do this for quite some time, thinking you have the pattern frozen in your memory, you close your eyes, tracing the pattern in your head. You check the pattern against the original image, and swear you’ve got it. Then someone walks by and jars your elbow. The pattern is lost, and in its place a new one appears. Your mind then, scrambles to remember what you had just memorized, but to no avail. The reason it is so difficult, according to Heisig, is because there is “simply nothing left in memory to grab ahold of. The kanji are like that” (Heisig 6).

So what is one to do? I, for one, have sure felt this way while studying kanji. The answer to this learning impasse is what Heisig calls “imaginative memory: the faculty to recall images created purely in the mind, with no actual or remembered visual stimuli behind them” (Heisig 7). What this does, in theory, is provide the student with the ability to recall kanji by using concrete images, instead of visual memory. “It may surprise the reader casually leafing through these pages,” says Heisig in the introduction, “not to find a single drawing or pictographic representation. This is fully consistent with what was said earlier about placing the stress on imaginative memory… the pictograph should be discovered by the student…” (Heisig, 10).

In essence, Heisig helps the student create a set of imaginative pneumonics (in this case, stories, or plots), starting with the first kanji in his book, which soon act as “primitive elements” that make up the more complex and higher-level kanji discovered later on. The book then, starting from the first simple kanji, helps the reader create a series of imaginative stories that create a base of images that can be later used to help piece together each kanji as the reader comes across them; it’s like creating a massive visual spiderweb where each image created in the learners mind is linked in some way and therefore can soon be used to create another image to learn each new kanji he or she comes across.

For example: About three-hundred kanji into the book, you learn that 高 means “tall” and you also learn that, when 高 is used as a primitive element (is found in the creation of a different kanji) above another kanji it loses the bottom five strokes. At this point, you also know that 子 means "child", 土 means “ground” and 太 means “fat”. So when you find 享, (made up of the kanji at the top, for “tall” and the kanji at the bottom for “child”) the story goes: “tall children grow up to make better football receivers” (Heisig 122). The meaning of this kanji being “Receive”. You then, visualize this little “story” and once it is in place, you move on to the next kanji, which happens to be 塾. The meaning of this seemingly complex kanji is “Cram School” but since you have the visual elements already in place, you can create a story easily enough to cement how this kanji is written, in your mind. Here it goes: on the top left is the kanji we just learned for “receive” or “tall children 享”, on the top right is the kanji for “fat 太” and the bottom is the kanji for “ground 土”. This is what Heisig writes to accompany the kanji in the book: “cram schools are after-hours educational institutions where kids can cram for coming examinations or drill what they missed during regular class hours. The exception are the tall children who are also fat and therefore need to be out there on the school grounds burning off calories (Heisig, 123). It is then up to the reader to create any sort of image (the more vivid and ridiculous, the better) that matches these primitive elements, and then move on from there.

Whew! It may seem complex, but remember this kanji appears nearly 300 into the book and isn't taught in the japanese system until the fifth or sixth grade. Heisig gives you a method to remember it in less than two weeks. If you check the book out on your own, you'll realize how simple the method really is. After taking a look at what is involved in remembering the kanji, it becomes apparent very early on that the order of learning the kanji is incredibly important, as Heisig says, “the method is simplicity itself” (heisig 9). And this is where Heisig pedagogy shines and fails: It shines in that it is laid out wonderfully, helping the student maneuver through the thousands of kanji in a way where each “primitive element” is learned then called upon to remember the new ones. Yet, it fails in the eyes of many of its critics as it requires the readery to go through the entire book, one-kanji-by-one-kanji, regardless of how frequently each character appears in every day reading.

Heisig himself acknowledges this characteristic of his book: “The method presented here needs to be learned step by step, lest one find oneself forced later to retreat to the first stages and start over. 20 or 25 characters per day would not be excessive for someone who has only a couple hours to give to study” (Heisig, 10).

Among the biggest arguments against this book, besides the one outlined above, is that it does not give the reader any skills in actually reading Japanese. But, one must keep in mind that this is not Heisig's intent; it's purpose is to give the learner of Japanese a massive set of tools to break apart any new kanji that comes his or her way--to be able to recall and write each kanji based on a personal image already created, then go on to learning each kanji's various forms of reading from there.

This is a a method which tests dedication, routine, and creativity. But, it is indeed simple—it just takes time and patience. Therefore, if you’re studying for the JLPT, it may require more time than you have. I took the 二級 (Level Two) exam last December, not passing due to insuficient reading skills. I now have another year before I can take it, and therefore I have made the decision to give myself a proper base to learn and remember each kanji as I come across them in my studies. I have spent countless hours studying kanji, and although I have retained scores of them, I only can recall each character passively, lending me no ability to actively write or remember them. If I run across a kanji in a body of text, I have a good chance of remembering it, but even that can be a tad sketchy. And so, if you are like me, where you are learning on your own, have a strong visual memory, and have spent countless days studying kanji only to have them vanish in your head all the while feeling as though there has to be a better way for you, this book is probably your best choice.

I am currently studying 30 kanji a day while also continuing ahead with in-context kanji reading--the traditional way. The thirty kanji a day is a bit fast-paced, and I may knock it down to 25 so I can fit in a proper amount of reviewing. But, if you have some time and dedication, (which I do have at the moment, living in the boonies of Japan) you can definitely get through this book well enough (three months being reasonable). Each kanji that I do come across now during my own reading, becomes locked in my memory (visual memory, as Heisig would say) which gives me the skill to recall them actively at a later point.

There are as many critics of the book as there are admirers. I just look at this book as an investment… if you are thinking about studying the language for years to come, want to be armed with a set of skills to tackle any kanji that comes your way, need something more than just the visual kanji to anchor them in your memory, and have the time and dedication to stick with the book from the beginning to the end, then Hesig's Remembering the Kanji I: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters very well may be for you (you can download it in its full form here).

References:

Heisig. W James. Remembering the Kanji I: A complete Course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese Characters. 1977. Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo: Japan. Japan Publications trading Co. Ltd.

Some pertinent links to check out:

http://www.kanjiclinic.com/riverainterview.htm (A great interview with Heisig about his own personal kanji studying experience).

http://www.omoshiroigame.com/_sgt/m1_1.htm (An interesting resource of online Japanese language learning games).

http://www.kanjiclinic.com/index.html (The Kanji Clinic: a column of the Japan Times which publishes a lot of helpful Japanese studying resources among interesting food for thought)

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html (one of the best online Japanese grammar/kanji dictionaries out there)

http://www.polarcloud.com/node/39 (for those of you already studying Remembering the Kanji Vol:1, here’s an online and printable set of flashcards, which are coordinated with the book, and appear in the proper order).

http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/ (Studying for the JLPT and need a good set of flashcards without any romaji and which are geared towards the test itself? Go to White Rabbit Press

http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/ (Rikaichan: A wonderful add-on to FireFox which enables you to simply hover your mouse over any kanji that appears on a website to learn its reading).

Sanbei San

2006-01-23T21:51:00.000+09:00

I wake up with an insatiable urge to get the hell out of my house, out my apartment, out of my small town—away from the frozen rice paddies, gravel parking lots and ringing train-crossings—and simply go somewhere, anywhere. This feeling comes and goes for me, some days stronger than others. Although it has been nearly three years, I still get hit with the realization that I am in a foreign country (no matter how familiar it has become) with an uncountable amount of new and different places all within my fingertips. It's like a smack upside the head reminding you of why you left your country to begin with; it is a reminder for you to shake off the dust of routine and 9-5 jobs, outstanding bills, and year-long working contracts. This is how I woke up on this any-old Saturday morning in Japan.

I turn on the kerosene heater, step into my slippers and open up the curtains. Sunshine floods into my apartment, giving me the extra boost of motivation that I need. With my breath visible before me and my skin tight from the cold, I walk through my tatami mat bedroom, which is littered with clothes and books, and undergo my usual morning routine--drink some freshly ground coffee, eat a bowl of granola and a piece of toast with jam and peanut butter for breakfast, and quickly check my e-mail. I eat in front of the computer—the portal to the outside world—for a little chunk of time, then I go about getting all my gear together for a camp-out on one of the only mountains in Western Japan (or what is called the 中国地方Chugoku Chihou, meaning "central country" region of Japan, although it's more to the left and down a bit on the Japanese map).

Let me digress for a second. Japan has mountains over it like pubescent teenagers have pimples. They're everywhere, and they jut out of the terrain, not giving a second thought to the country's inhabitants. As a result, the Japanese people have to either build around them or simply demolish them (like was done during the construction of greater Tokyo and other metropolises and is still being done to this very day to aid rampant public works projects). But anyway, unlike the slanting, slow-rising mountain chains in the West that one can build on the sides of, it's nearly impossible to build anywhere on Japan's mountains due to the severe angles in which they protrude from the earth. This causes Japan to be way greener than one would suspect with large amounts of undeveloped land, and also creates a spider web-looking network of cities covering any even surface in-between these tectonic folds. But, even so and to my surprise, Western Japan--especially Hiroshima Prefecture--has next to nothing when it comes to mountains. Sure there are a lot of jagged hills rubbing shoulder with rugged terrain, but there are only two mountains that are taller than 1000 metres (the bare minimum of height for a hill to be able to call itself a mountain in my opinion). These two mountains are: 三瓶山 (Sanbei mountain; 1126 meters) and 大山 (Daisen mountain; a decent 1729 metres). So, not having much to chose from anyway, and not wanting to drive for too long, I decide to tackle the former.

Considering that it is mid January, I grab my snowshoes, my winter gear (made up of hand-me-downs and inexpensive sweatshop-made clothing bought from Japan's trendy Uniqlo clothing store chain), a day or so worth of food and water, gas, cooker, and get into my three (maybe four) cylinder Suzuki and head Northwest--my i-pod connected to my old tape deck and blaring away. It's just me, my music, sunshine, and the excitement of being destination-bound.

Sanbei-san. I arrive just after Noon, driving as far as I can on a closed road that happened to have the road block moved aside, until, due to snow and a huge truck stuck in a ditch, prevents me from going any further. Perhaps I should take the truck and its driver, who is trying to fit chains on the back tires with frozen fingers, as a bad sign. But, after checking to see if I can help or not (and not being able to, but getting heaps of bows in thanks for "my generous and wanting-to-help feeling") I park my car on the side of the otherwise abandoned road, dawn my snowshoes and backpack and treck the two kilometres to the base of the mountain, look up towards the summit (now cloudy) and make my way into the white forest.

I've been told not to go hiking by myself. But you have to understand that hiking in Japan is an altogether different sport/activity than it is in other parts of the world. Who knows, maybe Japan can lay claim to a version of this sport that is entirely theirs (as all those professors of Asian studies out their groan at me for calling Japan "unique", but it's true). Here’s a list of five reasons to back up Japan’s hiking-uniqueness: 1) on almost every mountain in this country you can get away with using your cell phone. 2) the paths have been so worn-in from centuries of use by monks, priests, and now sports enthusiasts, that it's nearly impossible to get lost 3) there is a constant drone of people hitting the trails at all times of the year 4) due to this country’s love of concrete, you can reach nearly any trail head as long as you have some yen in your pocket 5) there is a lack of wildlife (especially any dangerous ones, except for the random boar or snake, which I have never seen), so there's nothing to worry in that department (unless you go up to Hokkaido and that's an entirely new ball game). All of these reasons and more make heading into the Japanese wilderness so accessible and carefree that I oftentimes don't even consider myself to much of a mountain hiker. And I say that even though I've hiked and camped in some of the most hard-to-get-to and highest mountains in the country. So, anyway, I set off alone to hike this mountain. Hell, I think, it's only about an hour and a half to the summit, what could go wrong?

Well, after all this being said, I discovered winter is still winter and it can throw some curve balls at you—or at least some heavy duty wind, clouds, snow and an overall mass of grey that cuts down the extent of one's vision to about one meter in any direction. And considering that there is snow on the ground—hence no path to be seen and white in all directions anyway including up and down—that is one hard curve ball to hit. Luckily, this storm (which got tossed in from the Japan Sea) didn't hit until about ten minutes after I reached the summit and safely got into the mountain hut on top.

The hut is small, two levels, has some extra blankets (thankfully so) and is essentially all one needs. I crawl up to the top floor, set out my bed and boil some water--eat some instant noodles, drink some tea, and have a banana and rice. That’s when I look out the small window and see nothing but a void of swirling grey. I suddenly realize that I am in limbo, in a state of complete helplessness, at complete mercy to Mother Nature. It was the frozen version of Dante’s purgatory. It was a rather surreal feeling. I didn't feel like I was in any immediate danger, but that feeling of Jack Kerouac "lets hit the road" type of thing I had early this morning was replaced by a lurking, nauseating feeling. I realized I only had about two days worth of food (if rationed), no compass, no map, and really, no winter experience behind me to lead me in such a situation. But, to be honest, it all sort of felt like a massive feint or test, because I could still use my cell phone (remember the Japan unique-hiking factor?), so I knew if worse came to worse I could call someone to get the local rescue team to save my white ass. But this story isn’t about life or death. It's about finding yourself completely helpless in a freezing bubble of raging snow and wind, with no one near to give you a helping hand. Although, I knew I could ask for help, I also knew that if I tried descending the mountain at the wrong time—regardless of its low height—I could easily lose my way and, well, face the risk of freezing to death. That put a rather sobering aspect on my little weekend getaway.

Your mind goes through some interesting thoughts in such a situation. My mind drifted to my, as of two weeks ago, ex-girlfriend. I felt like phoning her up and crying like a baby. But, I didn't think that'd help her any (nor our remaining friendship). My mind thought about my family, why the hell in the first place I even thought snowshoeing in the winter in uninhabited terrain would be fun, and what it would be like not be able to see where you were going on a mountain, within a couple kilometers of civilization but with death still a very real possibility. That night I dreamt of my family. We were part of some crazy life and death futuristic game (like the movie The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger here you're put through a series of grim death-defying tests as people watch, enthused by bloodlust). The game in my dream was a massive mountain-shaped town, with the highest level--the summit--being the start, and the last level--the base of the mountain--being the end. And in order to make it to the next level we had to overcome great odds, enemies and such. I guess I was a tad worried that the weather wouldn't clear up before my food ran out.

I woke up many times throughout the night, my sleeping bag wet on the outside due to the condensation as I slept in the fetal position on the inside. My water bottle was half-frozen and the wind roaring. I didn't want to look out the window, for it made me want to whimper like a pup. So I slept. I woke up to my alarm clock. 6:45 AM. The moment of truth. I leapt up like someone branded me with a hot cow prod, my heart still trying to catch up to itself, and looked out the window. It was absolutely gorgeous.

One of my favorite kanji—characters borrowed from China that make up the Japanese writing system--is the word 雲海（unkai). It means "cloud sea" or "sea of clouds". I first learned it from a person I met while hiking Mount Fuji. We stood there, together, looking down at these beautiful cotton ball clouds and he asked me if I had ever heard the word before. That memory has stuck with me to this very day. And that is exactly what I was standing above now: tops of mountains peaking their heads through a sea of clouds, with Japan's iconic rising sun starting the day. If I wasn't thinking that now could be my only chance to get off the mountain, I would've been awestruck. I was amazed enough though, to take some pictures and gawk for a couple minutes before I scrambled everything together abandoned all hope in finding some sort of trail and simply ran to the nearest edge of the mountain and slid my way down the side until I reached the small village below. My muscles were screaming, my stomach empty, my heart pounding, and my head still half-asleep, but I found my window of opportunity and took it. And it did cloud over again, so I felt a tad relieved for my quick descent even with such breathtaking beauty to be appreciated left behind.

Once I reached civilization, it was like the slow motion button was hit. I could think again, I appreciated concrete more than ever, and the simple fact of being below the clouds made me want to recite poetry of old to maidens locked in towers. I felt, simply put, good to be alive. Or, perhaps more succinctly, good to feel safe. I meandered my way back to my car, stopping to take pictures, slowly drinking water, nibbling on food and just enjoying myself. My car was still in good shape, the battery still alive. I plugged my i-pod back in, and headed to the nearest natural hot spring (or onsen as they're called here). One of the main reasons I took up mountain hiking in Japan (although I already had an affinity for nature, as I grew up in a small mountainous town called Nelson in Western Canada) is that at nearly every mountain base there is a hot spring--each ranging in temperature, minerals, healing effects, as well as in facilities. It is the absolutely best combination: a long exhausting hike and a long hot soak in volcanically heated natural baths. Wow. That reason alone makes it worth being in this country.

At any rate, here I am, sitting in a make-shift barrel, big enough for one only, soaking in rust-orange hot spring water, reflecting on my moment in the clouds, at mercy to things bigger than I. As naked old men walk by, steam rising into the winter air, I find myself feeling good about getting out of my apartment on this any-old Saturday in Japan.

The Seidensticker in All of Us

2005-06-26T10:45:00.000+09:00

"They call it the Seidensticker Complex, after the American scholar and translator, and it describes the ambivalent feelings that torment long-term foreign residents in Japan, a pendulum of emotion, alternating between attraction and repulsion, affection and anger--back and forth. But the image is false. These feelings do not alternate. They are inseparable. As inseparable as the scent of urine and incense on the same wind. The same festival that beguiles you, also excludes you. One does not love and then hate and then love Japan like a metronome. One lovehates it, one wants to draw nearfar to it, to gostay.

-- Will Ferguson, Hokkaido Highway Blues.

It's coming up on the two year mark for me here in Japan. Two years, not including nearly eight months back home, grinding my teeth, racking my brain, sitting on time as my mind decompressed from the initial reverse culture shock. So many things had changed, or had I changed? Well of course it was a little bit of both, perhaps more of one than the other, but after deliberating, meandering, ranting and idealizing, I came back. And here I am, walking a very vague path that draws the middle line--never certain, never permanent. But it is a path that has been walked thousands of times before already, by the likes of true Japanophiles and long-timers like Seidensticker but as well as the JET Program Alt teacher who has practically single-handedly attached the verb "to bitch" onto every action taken by foreigners in Japan (a couple--and I mean two--rare ALT cases and gems of people I know excluded from that sentence).

But perhaps, this need to bitch, to pound one's head against the wall in frustration, to gather friends around you and develop the bond of common things that you can't understand and detest about Japan stems from something deeper, from, as Ferguson puts it--the Western's person relationship with Japan that is lovehate, nearfar, gostay. I had a conversation with some friends the other day about whether the JET Program breeds this sort of person, or if it simply manages to find people who minge, bitch, and moan on a massive scale, then imports them to their country, gives them an insanely good salary for (usually) doing next to nothing, subsidized living costs, an all-English pillow of support, as well as giving them with huge banquets where the ALTs can meet by the dozens/hundreds to, yet again, bitch.

Now, anyone who has ever lived in Japan finds, early on, the addictive nature to picking everything apart, creating an entire life of comparisons--"If I was vegetarian in my home country," "Well, our banks close at...", "it costs how much to do what?," "where does this piece of garbage go?" "There should be more lighting at night in my neighborhood!" All of these I've heard before, and that just scrapes the surface. But these are the light ones, the ones that you can joke about and leave at that. It can get deeper, more philosophical, the critique and analysis going into the psyche of the Japanese people, the make-up of the government, the public-works system, you name it. And, for me, I'm curious if this happens everywhere in the world to anyone who is slowly becoming an ex-patriot. Compare, contrast. It reminds me of all my English Literature essays I had to write throughout my degree. This sort of logic, this black and white breakdown of the world was burned into my mind. So, I have to admit that I can get caught up in this comparison thing as if I was writing paragraph eight of my essay that had to be handed in tomorrow. I literally need to run away, plug my ears and surround myself with no one or just get out there and do my own thing away from the bubble of caucasian civilization, or I can feel myself being sucked in by this relentless rhetoric of differences that seems to plague the minds of Westerners in this country. It's like some syndrome, or air-born virus. Improvement. Change. Reform. Democracy. I wonder if this is the colonizer in us? Is it a human trait--to seek out "negative" aspects of the running of a country, or a society, of a group of people, then compare it with your own?

But after the banquet hall-sized bitch sessions, the frustration at one thing or another, between all the sentences that yell "I can't understand this place!" lies a simple fact: the foreigner is still here. He/she is still building a life here, is still engaging in society one way or another, and hasn't fled home to revel in all the familiarity and "right way to do things" that it has. lovehate. nearfar. gostay.

Among the thousands of other foreigners living here, the oddities and frustrations (as indeed, I do feel them as well), something over here has me wrapped around its finger. I find that it's so hard to think about leaving--partly due to all the sweat, time, adventures and self-discovery that has happened to me in this country. I've told friends and loved ones that it is not necessarily the lure of Nippon that has seduced something within me, but the lure of going through the same ropes that you did as a new-born child all over again; but this time as an adult and in a new country, within the constraints of a place with different ways of thinking, rationality, views and outlooks; when you first live in a different country, you go through all the loops (depending if you are bouncing on that pillowy English bubble akin to the one that the JET Program lays out for you or not) of learning how to communicate, to verbalize yourself, to understand the proper conduct of interactivity, the social quirks that transcend language--from the the way you play, the way you flirt, all the way to what you value. One of the most intriguing things about this interesting process of linguistics, behaviours, codes of conduct, is sussing out where you fit in it--how does one thing sit with you, how does this or that filter through your set of ethics, passions, priorities that you have received from your family/environment/culture.

My first Japanese boss, a 50 year-old Japanese woman who was borderline empirialist, racist, but simultaneously one of the best teachers I've ever had, used to tell me the story about an American man who lived in this really small village in Northern Japan. He would be out sweeping the front steps of his house bright and early like the his neighbours. He bought and lived in a Japanese style home, never stepping on the toes of anyone around him, buying from his local supermarket, hanging his futons out his window and fluent in Japanese; but he also left his culture and people behind, rejecting one for the other. She said that he was so "Japanese" you'd have to look twice to notice that he was indeed gai-jin (besides the fact that he was probably nearly twice the size of a Japanese male, blonde haired, etc, my boss was obviously making a point--one of the many she would also make). Yuko-san, my boss, would tell me this story and say "some people have the mentality. Some people have the common sense." It was what she didn't say which was the point she was making--I didn't/don't have it. But it made me wonder. It made me look back on the people here that represented my country and The West. It also made me ponder my boss, as she would say, on a much more frequent (almost daily level) that it was simply impossible for anybody who is raised in a Western Culture to share the Japanese mindset. Where did this American guy fit in, I wonder? Can a foreigner in Japan spend fifty years of their life here, sweep their steps on time, bow the proper depth, speak in a flawless accent, engage in relationships with the same outlook and set of values, work with the proper ethic, and ever lose the title "gai-jin" (foreigner)? Does one need to abandond one culture for another? Is the foreigner faced with a decision to make? Is there some sort of born-with-trait or gene that lets a foreigner feel accepted, and in turn puts his or her mind at rest? Or is the entire fact that Westerners even think about "being accepted" that prevents that exact thing from supposedly happening?

As Will Ferguson puts it, "for most Westerners, one urge or the other eventually wins, and instead of inseperable feelings you have only to go or to stay. But there are some who are caught in the middle, suspended by opposing desires. They are lost and not sure if they want to be found. They try to run in two directions at once and fail. Like deer on a highway."

Y-Generation's sense of free time.

2005-06-07T22:17:00.000+09:00

So apparently I make up the "older" posse of the so-called Y-generation. The Y-generation, rather obviously, is the generation following those baby-boomers that make up the X-generation. There is a lot of rhetoric on what the Y-generation kids are all about, and besides heaps of demographics like how we are "Born between 1981 and 1995" and how, in the U.S. alone, "generation y members are more than 57 million strong--the largest consumer group in the history of the U.S." apparently we differ in motivation, and mind-set from our predecessors.

It is said that this Y-generation is apparently lacking any real direction, concrete or tangible passion--perhaps due to a lack of threat of war or direct pressure that forces humans to take a particular stand and fight for something. Now, this would obviously put a "western" twinge on the whole Y-generation, and is indeed one of the arguments my Japanese boss would invoke about The West in general--how, due to its relative peace and lack of life-threatening situations combined with an importance put on modern day versus culture and tradtion, has created an youth saturated in affluency, where free time and hobbies reign supreme.

However ridiculous all this rhetoric is (and there is heaps of it on the Internet, especially found on Marketing websites--just do a simple goolge search), I've come across a rather main thread that weaves togeher some of my day-to-day thoughts; I've come to notice just how much foreign people working here in Japan value their free time, or play time. The setting, teaching ESL in Nippon, is the ideal scene to show just how different this mind-set can be though. For, the majority of ESL teachers (in my experience) are all fresh out of university, here to make a buck, travel, and experience Japan for one reason or another. But, the glue that bonds all these factors together comes from that fact that these teachers don't really know what next step to take. So why not come out here to teach (I do not disclude myself from such arguments). But, when one is using a profession as a means to an end ("I want to travel and I can speak English, so I'll go and teach"), of course "work" gets put on the back-burner. For me, the reason I am here in Japan (although to gain teaching experience) is to study Japanese, to see more of the country, and to meet more Japanese people. I can readily admit that it is not primarily because I want to pass the register of the past-perfect tense of the English Language to people who live in a different culture. I want to communicate, yes. I want to bridge cultural gaps, make human contact with people who would otherwise be represented by one sort of stereotype or another found on t.v., if I was to stay home.

But, is this emphasis on free time a negative element to the western psyche, if indeed, it does represent the an aspect of the western psyche? For, if one does not make "work" their "life" in the sense of making it their passion, their reason to be here, wouldn't one always end up cutting corners, waiting for tomorrow, looking at one's watch? Perhaps, this simply reflects the universal situation of what it's like doing something that you truly don't want to do--no matter where you're from or what country you live in.

For further info on the marketed generation y, you can check out this link:
http://www.onpoint-ma