Hell is empty and all the devils are here on holiday


18th August 2007


Hot. Urngngh.

Must. Do. One. More. Post. Before. Melting -

* Ice cream intermission *

There're other places in Japan recording higher temperatures but the important point is, I'm not there. I'm in Kyoto and every time I open the front door, a blast of hot air slams into my face.

It makes me wonder if the folks in Hell have decided that it'd be nice to take the kids to Kyoto for the summer.

But the silver-lined cloud in all this is the evening sky. Yesterday's had clouds scattered like sand, turning the sky into a summer seaside.

So I could go to the beach just by looking up on the street where I live.

The worlds you carry


11th August 2007


Here's another column restored to its full length.

And no, I am not too lazy to do proper posts. This is a proper post; it's got punctuation and everything.


...


I didn’t mean to keep my summer vacation a secret; it was just too much work to explain.

To the few I did share my plans with, I would start by saying that I was going to help a Japanese friend who wanted to offer a lomi-lomi, or Hawaiian massage, experience at the inn run by his family.

But it seems a bit bizarre for lomi-lomi to suddenly appear in a traditional inn so I would add that the event was targeted at visitors arriving for a Hawaiian festival in town.

And then I’d have to explain why a small Japanese town was holding such a festival in the first place.

Better known for its hot springs, Ikaho has been twinned with the Hawaiian city of Hilo for a number of years. But even before that, back in the days when Hawaii was still an independent kingdom, one of its ministers had a summer home in Ikaho. The building remains standing to this day and has been converted into a museum.

Still, if you feel obliged to bring up historical links when someone asks you about your vacation plans, it just seems easier not to talk about them.

Even knowing about the area’s ties with Hawaii, it feels odd getting off the bus in Ikaho, about two hours away from Tokyo, to see people in aloha shirts and leis.

But when I meet the other bodywork participants, it becomes clear that this is a Japanese event. For starters, everybody does things together, very close to each other.

Though not all of the 18 people taking part stay for the three days of the festival, our rooms – doors slid back to make more space – are lined from wall to wall with futons at night.

Communal living takes on new meaning when you have to share a bedroom with about 15 people and individual snoring patterns come up for group discussion the next day.

Most of us know each other from past massage courses and between the work and the catching up, it is well after midnight before we go to sleep each day.

But we don’t turn in at the same time; some of us topple over earlier. Those who do, however, have to learn to sleep with the lights on and through the sounds of people talking and giving each other massages.

And we all have to sleep in the summer heat. One night, I lie dozing off, having pushed the futon cover to one side.

As if from a long way away, I hear a voice say, “Should we cover her?”

I don’t hear the answer but gentle hands pull the quilt over me; it feels warm.

Not all the bodywork graduates can spare the time to help out but some make it at least for the reunion. Katsu-san, a ski instructor turned massage therapist, is one of them.

He shows up with three boxes of grapes – an unexpected extravagance given the price of fruit in Japan.

“You know, it’s kind of wasted on us,” says one participant.

“It can’t be helped,” says Katsu-san. “When I went to buy fruit, this was all I could find.”

He stays with us, chatting well into the night. Unable to contribute much and reeling from the lack of sleep, I decide to go bathe while I still have the strength to stop myself from drowning.

A friend soon joins me in the women’s bath but before we can get into the hot water, a participant we call Nee-san (Big Sis) sticks her head in.

“Katsu-san’s leaving so we’re taking a group photo,” she says then disappears.

I look at my friend. “Does this mean we have to go too?”

“I think so,” she says.

I start rinsing off.

It turns out to be a nice photo – people look tired but so happy you’ll hardly notice the two in bathrobes clutching towels.

Then everyone carries on talking some more. At least, we do until Katsu-san notices something odd.

“Nee-san,” he says. “Why are you holding a sandal in front of your face?”

She blinks, looking surprised as she realises that she is, indeed, holding her slipper inches away from her nose.

It is clearly time for everyone to say goodnight.

Nee-san presses the button for the lift and when it comes, gets in to hold the door for Katsu-san.

But leaves without him.

Yes, clearly time to say goodnight.

We work together, rest together and when it’s time for the evening festival performance, well, of course we have to watch it together.

Hoping to catch up on sleep, I try to get out of it but am somehow cajoled and nudged along until I find myself standing in front of the stage.

I should’ve known. After all, these are people who make sure you don’t get left out, even if it means gatecrashing your bath.

Billed as the highlight of the festival, Halau I Ka Wekiu came in overall champions this year at the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hawaii, an annual event culminating in a competition that’s been called the Olympics of hula.

Still, so much of the hula I’ve seen has been the lukewarm tourist version that I am less than optimistic as I stand waiting in the crowds.

Then the troupe strides onto the stage and the audience breaks into a cheer. Call me a cynic but I think their enthusiasm has something to do with the fact that the dancers are all male, sculpted and wearing nothing but loincloths and leis.

I wonder briefly if they’re going to be the hula Chippendales then the chanting starts, the men surge into the dance and I forget tourists, fatigue and my aching feet because it is hula kahiko that they dance – hula in the ancient style.

Gods and goddesses, chiefs and heroes are danced alive again, the legacy of a people who had no written language but who did not want to forget.

Chants and hula became their pen and paper; this is history written into the body.

And it is more than history – the dancers go beyond recounting events to recreating emotions.

When they tell the story of a chief who lost a game to a goddess and the dance she claimed as a forfeit, they do more than string the movements together; they lay bare the feelings of a man offering himself through his dance, down to the beating of his heart.

The goddess, bound by a promise she’d made to her sister, turned him down. But if he moved anything like the men on stage, it couldn’t have been easy.

The dancers perform on each night of the festival; we watch all three shows and I eavesdrop shamelessly on the audience’s conversations.

Of course, there’s speculation on what exactly the crowd will see if a loincloth flips up during a turn but there’re also comments on technique, the background of the songs and their composers.

And I am reminded that the number of hula dancers in the country has been recently estimated at more than 500,000.

In an interview with The Honolulu Advertiser, respected hula teacher Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, who has been holding workshops in Japan for years, said: “Their love is very intense; their dedication is very intense.”

I can believe it. In the lomi-lomi group alone, I see one person studying a Hawaiian-Japanese dictionary in between clients and another practising chants before bedtime.

Yumi-san, who contributes regularly to online forums about all aspects of the culture, also takes the trouble to bring a bowl of poi with her.

A Polynesian staple, the taro dish is often compared to library paste. It doesn’t taste bad but first-timers probably won’t go back for seconds.

Despite this, we all sit in a circle and take it in turns to dip a finger into the paste then pass the bowl on. This could be the next big thing for cults around the world.

But pinballing back and forth between the lomi lomi, the hula and the Poi Secret Society, I start to wonder exactly where the Japanese love affair with Hawaii comes from.

There is no one answer that will fit a group numbering over 500,000. Some may have been drawn in by the music; others by the movements.

The stark difference between the two peoples may also explain it. One of the most formal and ritualised cultures around, Japan seems a world away from the easy warmth of the aloha spirit. Perhaps that distance is the attraction.

But when I pose the question to my friends, all of them focus on the ways in which Japan and Hawaii are alike, not apart.

One person points out that both peoples historically lived in constant awareness of nature, seeing the world around them alive with spirits.

Others raise anthropological theories about biological and cultural links; DNA is mentioned more than once. For them, their love of Hawaii is, like hula, inscribed in the body.

In reaching across the ocean to another island people, they are not searching for a world apart but simply expanding their own.

And perhaps the best way to enjoy another people is to appreciate your own because when you no longer seek what you think your culture lacks, you are free to see what really lies in another.

What lies there are not the answers you need because you already have them – all you will ever find in the Other are mirrors to help you see them better.

And if the mirrors are held by men in loincloths, well – we should all be so lucky.

And now we are 42


9th August 2007


Countries are, of course, fictions but there's no reason why you can't grow fond of a story or hope it will find receptive ears.

Happy birthday, Singapore.

When I grow up...takoyaki!


8th May 2007


It's funny.

When I was living in the dormitory and without a TV, I missed it more than any number of living relatives.

But when I moved into my new home, which came with a set, after an ecstatic reunion, I settled into a daily rhythm which managed fine without television.

Still, I did catch the news the other day while having dinner at the noodle shop across the road (they sell something called Chinese soba. What the...?).

The broadcast ended with an item about an event organised to give kids a taste of working life.

The camera panned over a field of children trying out jobs. Then it was time for interviews.

"So," said the reporter, "What did you do?"

"Sell ramen," said the boy in front of the mike.

"How did it feel to earn money?"

"Good!"

"And what will you buy with the money?"

He looked blank for a minute.

"Flowers maybe. Or takoyaki."

Cut to another kid.

"What was your job?"

"Policeman," said the bespectacled boy.

"Was it hard?"

"Yes."

"And what does a policeman do?"

"Dunno."

Give that boy a takoyaki.

Scatter, a thousand cherry trees


9th April 2007


Three things will make me wake up at 4 am: an early flight, a bladder about to explode and sakura.

I set the alarm for 4 am the night before because I want to catch the cherry blossoms in town before the crowds swarm onto them or the flowers fall, whichever happens first.

It is 7-something in soft light when I reach Gion, possibly the most famous geisha quarter in Japan. But the geisha being night-shift workers, they are nowhere in sight and I share the streets with only a few photographers.

I stand beside a little canal that runs beside wooden houses, watching sakura drift into the water from the trees hanging over it. I’m not sure how long I stand there, tuning out the crows and the conversations that come and go.

“Nee-chan!” An elderly photographer has appeared beside me. He is clearly expecting a response but what sort?

I hastily replay the last words I tuned out. They turn out to be: “Nee-chan, warui kedo doite kureru?” (“Miss, you mind moving?”)

I don’t and let him take the shot. When he is done, he nods at me. I return to my spot and space out again to Planet Sakura.

Still on a different planet, I float to the other side of Gion. But my bladder is turning into a pressing matter and my back makes it clear that it wants a break from floating.

So I find a café where I can take care of my bladder and my back – and have a second breakfast.

I set out again with a vague plan to see the famed cherry trees of Maruyama Park but before I can cross the bridge over the Kamogawa, I spot a white-pink stream running down a narrow street beside it.

So I dive in. It is a working street with shops and restaurants so I have to watch out for motorbikes and delivery trucks. There’s also a place called Pink Office. I don’t know what kind of business it is but I’m fairly sure it has nothing to do with flowers.

But the sakura of Kiyamachi-dori are mentioned in no guidebook I’ve seen, which means I’m spared the masses that flock to Kyoto at this time of the year.

There are a few people there for the flowers, though, including a woman wearing an orange skirt cut in the style I call, unhelpfully, “ethnic fashion”.

I note her bony, masculine features in passing then go back to the sakura. It is only when someone else strikes up a conversation with Ethnic Skirt that I realise that the reason she looks masculine is because she is a man.

I think I need to pay more attention to these things. They could be helpful when dealing with other human beings.

But who needs skirt-wearers of dubious gender when you have sakura in full bloom?

The trees line one side of a canal, the water so shallow it will cover nothing higher than my ankles.

And I was right not to put the outing off for another day because the petals are falling – a false, gentle snow. So many land in the canal that they look no different from the sunlight freckling the water.

But more than flowers are in the air; voices ghost in from the past and hover on the edge of hearing like words from another room. I catch the thought of a man long dead: “Another year’s sakura… Another year’s passed.”

None of the joy I see so often with the cherry blossoms, only a mind worn down by time. But his voice slips away and I do not hear it again.

I finally make it to Maruyama Park and if there are ghosts there, they are drowned out by the din of the crowds. I’m happy that the picknickers are happy but, within minutes, I decide to go because I can’t hear myself think, let alone the ghosts.

Besides, if I’m going to take photos of sakura, I’d rather not do it where the population of Greater Tokyo and a yakisoba stall will also get into the frame.

As I head for the bus stop, I recall the hanami party I went to the previous day. Organised by the manager of the rooming house I’ve moved into, it was held under a cherry tree beside the Kamogawa.

But between the food and the banter, it was hard to remember that hanami means “flower viewing”.

The afternoon really was fun and any picnic that comes with a portable barbecue pit used to produce grilled meat and veg as well as yakisoba is a serious contender in the picnic leagues.

Still, it is not the party I will revisit when the season ends, not even the salami with breath-defying garlic, but a narrow street of wooden houses where flowers have gone adrift.

Because this is the way I prefer to meet sakura: with a high wind to shake them, running water to take them and voices that fade with the falling till next year’s flowers come – once again – to wake them.

Death gods and fashion victim ninja


3rd-4th March 2007


Kyou nite mo
Kyou natsukashii ya
Hototogisu

(Even in Kyoto,
I long for Kyoto...
The cuckoo cries)


I don't know what prompted Basho to write that all those years ago in the 17th century but there is much in Kyoto - stage of an era, a mood, a dream - that draws out natsukashii.

It is a word heard a great deal elsewhere in Japan too. You say it when you see something that brings back memories; you say it when you long for something in the past.

But even though I'm now in a city thick with memory, my first natsukashii moment had nothing to do with it. It did, however, have everything to do with a young ninja in an orange jumpsuit.

The name's Naruto; the premise, a wildly popular manga and anime series that drives a merchandising juggernaut. Sorry - the premise, a wildly popular manga and anime series about a boy who, despite terrible skills and unfortunate fashion choices, wants to become the head honcho of his ninja village.

The series, also called Naruto, runs on adventure, friendship and fights that sprawl over a couple of chapters (or episodes). In other words, it's a typical shounen work. Here's the plot in a peanut shell: hero goes on adventure to save friend. He fights. A lot. He makes friends. They fight too. A lot.

Shounen, or boy, is the tag usually stuck on stories like these because they're seen as male-oriented. Who cares if some of the most popular series are written by women or if a large chunk of the audience is female? The tag saves us from thinking and that's all that matters.

I suppose I should use the freed-up brain cells to think about exactly why I spent so much time watching Naruto. After all, I like only one character, I'm not amused by most of the humour and the heavyhandedness makes me wince ('This Is The Moral Of The Story! Look, We've Done It In Neon CGI!').

But I followed the series for about 145 episodes, stopping only because it had descended into filler hell. Fillers are what happens when the anime storyline catches up with the manga's and to stall for time, the anime team comes up with its own material.

Despite their F-word reputation, fillers aren't always bad. Naruto's, on the other hand, sparked outrage on a scale not seen since the ending of Evangelion was aired (Evangelion: mind-bending anime classic with giant robots and a penguin. Evangelion ending: controversy and viewer screams heard all the way over on the Korean peninsula).

After more than a year of fillers, Naruto: The Return Of The Manga Storyline was aired. More widely known as Naruto: Shippuuden, it started running last month and I went warily over to see if I should give the relationship one more try or move on.

And they were all there - the hooks that had kept me watching for so long. The action, the occasional humour that works so well you hang about hoping for more, and plenty of screen time for my favourite character: a top-ranking ninja who teaches while reading racy books.

Natsukashii naa...

But happy and hooked as I am, I can't help doing what I always did whenever I watched Naruto: compare it with Bleach.

According to the Bleach author, heaven is a place called Soul Society and the ones regulating the flow of souls between heaven and earth are the shinigami - death gods. One of them ends up transferring her powers to a 15-year-old boy while on a mission to earth (as will happen when you're out in the field) and the two have to work together to function as one death god without attracting the attention of the head office.

You don't have to look hard to find the similarities with Naruto. For starters, both are long-running series built on familiar shounen lines. In Naruto, the hero goes on an adventure to find and save a friend who's embraced the dark side of the Force. Fights ensue. In Bleach, the hero goes on an adventure to save a friend who's been jailed by the dark side of the head office. Fights ensue.

Both manga are also animated by the same studio and share voice actors ('Naruto, I've found Sasuke! He's in Bleach!').

Even though I watched close to 150 episodes of Naruto before giving up, I knew within 10 episodes that if it came down to a fight between the ninja and the shinigami, I was squarely in the camp of the men (and women and giant furry beastie) in black.

They're dressed so much better in Bleach - the death gods wear black kimono and hakama (traditional Japanese pleated trousers). It's a look which fits the job; you certainly wouldn't confuse a shinigami with the postman.

Naruto, on the other hand, is togged out in orange while his female sidekick has opted for red. It'd work if they were supposed to be two thirds of a traffic light but they need to hand out sunglasses if they want to make it as masters of stealth. (Another ninja in Naruto goes about with a giant gourd of sand on his back. How inconspicuous can you be if you keep toting a mini beach?)

Bleach also scores because the jokes are actually funny. And because I'd rather spend time hanging out with the death gods than the ninja.

Besides, the shinigami all carry swords. Known as zanpakutou, the swords reflect their owners' personalities. For example, a character so regal he makes the Queen look like a fishwife has a zanpakutou that scatters into sharp fragments which encompass the enemy. Because the fragments look like a shower of cherry blossoms, the zanpakutou is called Senbon Zakura - a thousand cherry trees. Impossibly elegant and very, very cool.

Yet the zanpakutou are more than extensions of personality; they are personalities in their own right and the shinigami can unlock their powers only if they can hear the names of their swords.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent ages playing 'If I had a zanpakutou, what would it be like?'* even though it was time I had set aside to work on my first novel.

But then, the stories I want to tell are like Bleach. There are no swords in my novel and the ideas about salvation are very different but it aims for a world which, like Bleach's, makes the reader want to hold on even after the last word on the last page says, let go.

Some books I admire for language, others for ideas or technical pyrotechnics but a work becomes a story only if it makes me want to stay.

It's stories I want to tell.

That's all.

Not quite all - make that stories which find their way to an agent and a publisher because rejection slips are like death by a thousand paper cuts.

I have made a zanpakutou of a story - a zanpakutou waiting to see if its name will be heard.

If, after the last word lets you go, would you stay a little longer? If, after you leave as you will eventually have to, would you return?

- I hope -

A bird of mine calls; you know its name, memory gives you wings back and -

Natsukashii naa...





* What is my zanpakutou like? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Not that I'm making excuses but... Okay, I am


6th February 2007


This is an announcement for those who follow this blog regularly (yes, all four of you).

After reading the adventures of onehandwaving, the editor of The Straits Times' Review section kindly offered me the chance to do a fortnightly column for the paper.

The pieces will be much the same as the entries in this blog - though probably with fewer elephants - but they'll appear under a different byline because, for some reason, people don't believe that onehandwaving is a real name.

Unfortunately, because of the crossover in material, I'll be blogging less.

Okay, less than before.

I don't want to stop onehand from waving - and that second novel really needs to be written because the characters are threatening UN sanctions if I don't - but the demands of a fortnightly deadline will mean less time and fewer working brain cells for other forms of writing.

To be honest, though, the column hasn't started running yet and may not get off the ground because:
1) Review writers focus mainly on political and economic commentary
2) My proposed topics for the column include beans and bicycles.

I'm not the editor and I'm worried.

Still, if the column doesn't work out, there's always the novel and this blog. Who cares if they don't pay the rent?

To those of you who've sent me encouraging messages, many thanks. You've stopped me from feeling like I'm phoning a black hole when I blog.

What I'd really like to do is introduce you to the people in the second novel. They're sweet, funny, tragic, struggling for grace... And one of them is really hot, even without taking his shirt off.

Scotch that last comment. I'm a Serious Author and I have no interest in the body temperature of my characters.

Still, it'll take a while before the novel becomes more than a handful of notes and clamouring characters and, in the mean time, you may see me waving from the pages of The Straits Times.

If you do, come over and say hello.

An important clarification


29th December 2006


L. has found out that only one of the two Swedes living next door plays the guitar. The other just plays with it.

But as if to make sure that we do not lack for guitarists, the universe has given us another one - a Russian in the flat on our other side.

And the other night, I heard someone playing the trumpet.

At times like these, I think of my fiddle and my decision to leave it in Singapore because I thought it would disturb the neighbours.

I do not think these thoughts with bitterness, nay, not even a smidgen of it.

After all, I can always play my DVDs - the ones with gunfire and histrionic actors - at top volume.

May the forcing be with you


8th December 2006


And then the mid-term exams were upon us.

Mine began on a Friday; L's on the Monday after that. On Friday evening, she was in despair.

'I can't go out because all my friends want to study!' she cried. 'I don't care - tonight I'm just going to relax. I'll start studying tomorrow; it's going to be a very stressful weekend for me.'

The next day - Saturday - I began studying at 9 am over breakfast and kept at it until bedtime. L's day was more varied. It sort of went like this:

- Noon. L. wakes up, putters about.
- L. goes shopping.
- Late afternoon. L. returns from shopping. She has bought Christmas decorations.
- L. puts up Christmas decorations.
- L. begins cleaning the kitchen counters.
- L. begins cleaning the stove.
- L. takes a pair of scissors and cuts up sheets of yellow plastic. She removes all the food from the food cupboard, puts in the plastic liners and rearranges the food back into the cupboard.
- L. begins lining the fridge.
- I suggest to L. that she may be in denial about Monday's exams.
- L. admits that she has a problem.
- I escort L. out of the kitchen to her room. Hopefully, this means that she will look at a textbook or two.
- I open the fridge to discover that L's fridge-lining has extended to laying a neat strip of plastic under the egg tray. I decide that while it was tempting to see if L. would have scrubbed the kitchen floor and cleaned the bathroom and toilet if left undisturbed, I was right to intervene when I did.

Besides, the kanji for "benkyou" - Japanese for "study" - reads in Mandarin as "mianqiang": "to force". So I did the right and culturally appropriate thing.

On Sunday, L. found some friends of the non-studying variety and escaped. I carried on revising. But the crucial question is, when did I start?

To be honest, about a week before the exams - unthinkable by Singapore nerd standards.

I guess I was in denial too.

Postcards from the edge of the English language


15th November 2006

I swore I wouldn't do it.

Before coming to Japan and starting this blog, I promised myself that I wouldn't make fun of Engrish - English wrung dry by the Japanese mangler - because, for most people, it's not easy to learn another language. Besides, the Japanese should be lauded for their willingness to use English (on clothes, stationery and lunchboxes, if not actually to foreigners).

That's what I thought. And that's what I still think.

But today I went to the handmade goods fair at Chion-ji and there were these postcards and on the postcards there were these words and... Oh, hell. Look, I'll behave in some other post, all right?

For the next little while, let me remember some of the postcards I bought today and laugh again:

1) Bamboo shoot caught in morning
I will be tall bamboo at once, too.
If I'm not eaten by human...

2) KYOTO
Town enclosed by Mt. Hiei and Mt. Daimonji
The japanese-style confection is delicious.
Scenery in Kyoto is delicious too.!
Let's enjoy it until becoming a full stomach.

3) (Postcard shows two white rocks connected by a red string.)
Dose my feelings reach him?
Love prediction
This is game to confirm love

4) This is a mysterious small bag.
Please enjoy the various smells and colors.
(Postcard shows mysterious small bag.)

5) KYOTO
Machiya knows various things.

6) Ichijyouji
Fierce battle district of ramen
Let's go to eat ramen this evening!

7) OZOUNI shiromiso
Delicious that melts!!!
You will also eat at the New Year.!

8) The face of Kyoto peeps.
(Postcard shows... God knows what the postcard shows. There's a vista of some kind and a bit of snow falling.)

9) Arashiyama Chikurin
Road of light enclosed by tall bamboos.
Let's feel the minus ion.

And the answer to your questions is: http://www.tomide.com

Let's feel the minus idiom.

And the heart gave up words


3rd November 2006


We were looking for the bus stop but found a little tea ceremony house instead. Coming after the crowd crush of palace visitors at the Gosho, it came like a gift, unexpected, miraculous.

We stepped onto a bridge, glanced to the right and were caught.

'Do you think we can go in?' asked K.

Then we spotted two people at the upper level of the house and hurried to find a way in.

We took our shoes off, knelt on a cushion to put 100 yen on a tray and accept a pamphlet from an old woman in a kimono, then drifted into the dream that is Shuu Sui Tei - a dream that began about two hundred years ago when it was built for an aristocratic family.

We began by going through the rooms, studying the bulb-like lamps and the way trees seemed to have been grafted onto the wall edges and firefly glow painted into the walls.

But we spent the longest sitting by the sliding doors, staring out at the garden and the pond.

I looked out - bright sky, bright water and a shining bridge between the two.

I looked out - the blinds and doors caught the dim of the house and ran dark around the world outside so it glowed.

I looked in - everything quiet - everything empty -

Filled.

Elephants overhead!


31st October 2006


So thin walls are, as you have learned in the fountain of cross-cultural education that is this blog, an ancient Japanese tradition.

And, no doubt in his zeal to maintain old folkways, the owner of my dormitory has taken this tradition in a new direction: thin ceilings.

When the people living upstairs walk about in their flat, I know. If you gave me a very long toothpick, I could probably poke them through the heel while they did it because every time their heels land on their floor, a 'thhhuuddd' reverberates through my ceiling and walls. Sometimes, my ceiling light shakes.

It wouldn't be so much of a problem if they shuffled rather than walked but I can't very well knock on their door and say, 'Hi, I'm from downstairs. Elephants are lovely animals but I'd rather not live under them so would you mind shuffling instead of walking?'

I can't say that, right? Right?

Just checking.

But the elephants upstairs aren't any old elephants; they're elephants in training for the World Furniture Rearranging Championships. And I have a feeling that the one living right above me is going to do really well because it trains even past midnight.

I can hear the television announcer now: 'And to those of you who've just joined us, let me welcome you to the World Furniture Rearranging Championships, held this year at the headquarters of Ikea.

'Things are really hotting up because we're down to just two contestants - Heelsofsteel, the only elephant ever to make it to the finals of this competition, and Whatyoudoaftergoinga-Vikingisbanned, a Swede who's obviously got the home ground advantage.

'Now, before the break, we saw Whatyoudoaftergoinga-Vikingisbanned rearrange a wardrobe, a leather armchair and a bed with a cast-iron headboard in a very demanding arena. The indoor koi pond gave him a bit of trouble - the bed got stuck and the bolster rolled off, stunning a koi - but he still managed to finish with a respectable time of 1 minute 48.3 seconds. He might have done better if he hadn't tried to play the guitar at the same time but that's all in the past.

'So - will Heelsofsteel manage to beat that time? We'll have the answer soon enough - I can see it at the starting line, a judge has raised the flag and...it's off!

'A good start there and it's clearly decided to go with the wardrobe first, unlike Whatyoudoaftergoinga-Vikingisbanned, who went with the bed.

'Some difficult manoeuvres there but with a bit of nice swivelling action, the wardrobe is...in place! The armchair shouldn't give it any trouble after that... Round the conversation pit, past the ornamental fireplace and in it goes, into the designated spot under the reading lamp.

'It's left the trickiest bit - the bed - for last. Will its gamble pay off? Off it goes and, oops, the bed's nicked a bookcase - the judges are bound to take points off for that but it's recovered nicely and is just charging ahead, even over the tricky tatami stretch. On to the split-level flooring - oof, careful with that leg - and up the bed goes on the dais. A quick repositioning and the bed is under the ceiling mirror! The time? 1 minute 1.3 seconds! Even with the penalties for knocking into that bookcase, Heelsofsteel is well in the lead and the winner of this year's World Furniture Rearranging Championships!

'What a day this is - the day an elephant has won this competition for the very first time. I don't mind telling you, ladies and gentlemen, that I can feel a tear coming to my eye...'

And so on.

Hmm.

How on earth did I end up saying all that?

Oh yeah. Cross-cultural education, fountain of.

And with a bit of a nature programme and sports commentary thrown in as a service to my readers. Or as they say in Japan, 'saabisu'.

So think of this post as a jumbo-sized saabisu.

　

The memory of ease

15th October 2006

Are religion and commerce natural bedfellows?

How you answer will depend on your level of cynicism but in at least one instance in Kyoto, the two rub together happily, naturally - and with a generous helping of pickles.

The monthly market at Chion-ji is one of the fairs held regularly on temple grounds in the city; Chion-ji's falls on the 15th of every month and specialises in handmade goods. The 15th of October happened to be a Sunday so when the day of the fair came, so did lots of people.

As I stood at the main entrance of the temple, I watched visitor after visitor climb up the steps, mutter 'sugoi na'* if male or 'sugoi ne' if female and inch into the throng. I was waiting for K.**, a kindly Taiwanese classmate whose interest in food, kimono and other old things made her a natural partner for Kyoto adventuring. She bobbed into view, jumping above the sea of heads so I could see her. She did the mandatory double-take at the size of the crowd and then we squeezed in.

It was impossible to wander freely from stall to stall; all we could do was shuffle. But though it was a claustrophobe's nightmare, I didn't see anyone losing his temper. People just organised themselves into long lines and shuffled stoically.

But having to creep past stalls meant that you looked that much more closely at what was there. The words 'handmade goods fair' somehow conjure up the image of things hammered together on weekends in someone's garage and though there was some of that at the market, this is, after all, a city of craftsmen and even the amateurs - some of the stall-holders looked like students - know their way around paint, cloth, wood and clay.

The goods encapsulated the Japanese fondness for cute things (sake cups with a tiny pig peering out***), their sensitivity to the seasons (autumn motifs everywhere) and their love of cute things sensitive to the season (postcards with a squirrel clutching a red leaf in one paw and an acorn in another).

And at Chion-ji, 'handmade goods' also cover vegetables. There were vegetables bigger than my head, vegetables smaller than my head and vegetables pickled in more ways than could fit in my head.

The lines of stoic shufflers may lead you to think that the fair was a sober, orderly affair. But while there didn't appear to be any bartering, there was bantering. Though, for some reason, this seemed to happen mostly with the vegetable sellers. Perhaps handling giant pumpkins and Unidentified Phallic Objects of the vegetable kind puts people in a jocular frame of mind.

So - what did I buy? Beautiful things, of course. But among the items that made me the happiest was a box of warabi mochi. If Turkish delight had found its way to Japan years ago and been recreated with bracken starch and dusted with kinako powder, you'd get something like warabi mochi. It's a gentle sweet, nothing like desserts that come dripping with promises of death by chocolate.

But for warabi mochi, I stood in a long line under a strong sun because the flavours you remember are not just those that burst through in a blaze of fireworks but also those which slip in to sit beside you and, in their speaking silence, comfort. They'll leave soon enough - as flavours tend to do - but when they are gone, the memory of ease remains.


. . . . .

* Meaning 'great', 'terrible' or 'Woah! Lots of (optional insertion of noun here)!' As with many Japanese words and phrases, the meaning depends on the context.

** Names in this blog have been changed to protect the guilty i.e. me.

*** See http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~seizo/

Reeling with shock


4th October 2006


Picked up a copy of Kansai Scene, an events listings magazine, and made a mental note to get next month's issue too.

But as I flipped through, a box headlined, `Celtic Festival in Kyoto', made me choke on my dinner. It said: `The aim of this event is to celebrate the Celt world of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and introduce it to a Japanese audience. There will be music, dance, a parade led by bagpipes and more. Also, there will be a Noh workshop put on by actors experienced in the form.'

Remind me again - who's introducing what to whom?

To market, to market, to be a fat pig...


3rd October 2006


Only thing is, it'll take four weeks for my alien registration to be processed and until I get the card, all significant transactions are impossible. Can't buy a mobile phone, can't open an account at Citibank even though I already have two at the bank's Singapore arm.

But I can, at least, go to the market. Not any market either; Lonely Planet calls Nishiki `Kyoto's best full-time market'. Once there, let your eyes be a second mouth and feast on food pulled out of the earth, from plants, from the water, from the depths of the Japanese culinary imagination. Like the soyabean doughnuts. These were chopped up for passers-by and looked like nothing so much as pieces of yew char kway (fried dough sticks to people unfamiliar with Singapore grease sources).

What can I say? That first you notice the crunch, then the sweetness and then the burst of oil? That the way all these wait patiently for each other to shine makes you think, probably inappropriately, of the Japanese ideal of harmony?

All I know is that if I'd been given beancurd in that form as a child, I'd have been a lot more enthusiastic about eating it.

The market is a freeloader's dream, with samples every few steps. Admittedly, a lot of what is on offer looks like pickled vegetables. Not being of the pickle persuasion, I kept an eye out for shops selling wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets.

Dango (glutinous rice balls, often stuck in threes on a stick) occupies the place in Japan filled by chocolate in other countries. Also not being a fan of food that needs more than the usual amount of chewing, I bought just one stick of kinako (soyabean powder; tastes a bit like peanut) dango.

I pulled one ball off the stick. I chewed. I swallowed. I went back to the shop to buy two more sticks and other things in the display case.

This was what I had come to Kyoto to find: food that makes you think, `Bloody hell, what did I just put in my mouth?' Usually, that thought is followed by, `Will anyone notice if I spit it out?' In Japan, however, that second thought is more likely to be, `!!! How can I lay in a lifetime's supply of this stuff?'

It had become one of my minor ambitions to eat my way across Kyoto - not something I tell serious people asking me serious questions about my reasons for moving to Japan, if only because it makes me sound like a termite.

Greetings, Earthlings

2/10/06


There is a piece of paper given out by immigration officials in Japan. It begins with this salutation, `To Alien Entering Japan', and issues this directive: `You must, within 90 days of your entry into Japan, appear in person at the office of the city, ward, town or village where you reside, and apply for alien registration, submitting your passport and 2 copies of your photograph'.

And so, I have registered as an alien. (Incidentally, 'Venus' in Japanese is 'Biinasu'.)

That piece of paper goes on to say, `In case you leave Japan within 90 days of your entry into Japan, you are not required to apply for alien registration'.

All you non-Earthlings making a pit-stop in Japan on your way to Alpha Centauri, please take note.

Are we there yet?

28-29th September 2006


...and Kyoto.

Not a long journey at all - about seven hours by plane then two by car - but it feels like it began years before. Still, the people who handle things like visas are not particularly interested in the length of the road behind you, only in what is prompting you to take the next step.

To them I say that I wish to go to Japan to study the language. This happens to be true. There are other reasons too, of course, but that's another post and will be posted another time.

However, a journey of a thousand miles sometimes begins with a single misstep. Mine came at the immigration counters of Singapore's Changi airport. At the entrance of the land into which those without boarding passes may not go, an officer looked at my passport.

Oh, new one. Why don't you try the machine? he said.

He guided me to a fare-gate-like contraption and laid a page of my new passport on it. The first set of gates opened. I went through and a message flashed on a screen telling me to put my thumb on it to open the next lot of gates. I did.

Press harder, said the machine.

I pressed harder.

Press higher, said the machine.

I pressed higher.

This isn't working, said the machine. Go find the human on duty.

Another officer climbed down from his post and let me out of the contraption, criticising my thumb-pressing technique all the while (`Don't press like that - you press like that, how to work?').

The first officer laid my passport on the reader again. I stepped through and presented my thumb. The second officer monitored my progress. Or rather, lack of. `You press so high for what?' he asked.

Because the machine told me to. Being Singaporean, I do not question orders, especially those issued by non-humans.

As I stood there trapped, he stared at the image of my thumbprint on a screen. `Why your thumb got so many cracks?'

I don't know; it came that way.

The machine remained unmoved.

`Cannot, cannot. See, your thumb got so many cracks.'

A charm offensive had been pushed through Singapore's service staff and officialdom for the recent IMF and World Bank meetings but this man had clearly emerged unscathed.

`You know what, I think I'm going to do this the old way,' I said. I took my passport back from the first officer. `I've got the wrong sort of thumb,' I told him. He looked blank.

I handed my passport over to a woman at a counter. In less than a minute, she handed it back to me. And with a smile.

In the walk to my departure gate, I wondered why the sheep-pen machines had been introduced. So that by enabling people to check themselves out of the country, less money and manpower would be needed?

But let's see. With the new method, one man had to guide me to the machine, another had to tell me my thumb was defective - and I still couldn't be read by the machine. Whereas the old way took just one human and less than one minute.

But what would I know? My thumb's all cracked up so who can say what state my mind is in?

New things do help sometimes but there are also times when the old ways are better. And now, I have come to a city full of them.

And a dormitory full of them. Is there really no way I can get an Internet connection in my room? Really, really?

But for now, let's leave Internet withdrawal symptoms aside because, for now, There has become Here and I am in Kyoto.

...tsuita.