Travel

“Moshi, Moshi”

 

 

 

The hard road turns the traveller into the same dust

that he has to swallow. ~ Japanese Proverb

 

Remember the reverse culture shock in Oh, the Places You’ll Go?  Well, our solution at the time was to take the first job that came our way. That turned out to be in Osaka, Japan.

We knew very little about Japan before we went. At university, I had really admired the precision of Hokusai’s work and had gone to an exhibition of his paintings at the Royal Academy. We had listened to Kodo, a drumming ensemble, performing dramatic and mysterious sounds with taiko drums. I had written about the film Ai no korîda /In the Realm of the Senses (1976).

We flicked through a couple of travel books, signed the contract and off we went. Another new place. Another leap of faith.

We didn’t know what to expect. But I had secured a job, which came with an apartment. It offered some stability, after a period of flux.

There were so many surprises and differences in Osaka; so much sophistication and so much shock factor.

Students explained about cultural activities like learning the art of calligraphy or tea ceremony. So many actions were executed slowly, deliberately and with extreme care. So refined. By stark contrast we would pass through arcades in the city, where you could see grown men in business suits banging drum kits and hear loud, amplified singing from karaoke bars.

For a conservative society, surprisingly, sex was everywhere. In the centre of Osaka there were the ‘love hotels’, where you could go for a rest (hourly rate) or a stay (overnight), in the themed room of your choice. It was a place where young couples and others would go to keep their private affairs away from the family.

Teenage boys would openly thumb through their sexually explicit manga comics on the train ride to Namba station. Vending machines would indulge a whole range of other, at times, bizarre adult trends.

And nothing prepared me for the maze of underground shopping arcades under the railway station. It was a concealed series of tunnels; a retail rabbit warren. People loved to shop in Osaka.

Returning from the city by train, women would sit alongside their Takashimaya department store bags, along with other parcels from various designer stores. Other people would have to stand, as there were not enough seats. After all, one couldn’t place the posh purchases on the floor.

All this materialism co-exisited alongside Buddhism. During our time in Japan we visited a few Buddhist monasteries, where monks lived a life of simplicity.

Buddhist teaching states that nothing is permanent, including wealth. And because everything in life is temporary, we are encouraged not to value material things.

In most parts of Japan, Obon is celebrated in August, which is called Hazuki 葉月 in Japanese, the “Month of Leaves.” Obon is an important Buddhist festival in Japan. Colleagues explained the custom, a time when many people believe that the ancestors’ spirits return to be reunited with family. For most people in Japan, it’s a family time.

At Obon, my boss invited us on her yacht for a trip. It was a three-day trip. Three long days. You might have heard the cliché, ‘you never know someone until you travel with them’? Well, they were an interesting few days.

We had visited the expat shop before boarding the yacht, and bought a few bottles of over-priced, award winning Australian wine. We presented our gift to our host. She took one look at the bottles and said “Ah, Australian. We only drink the best. That’s French you know”. She placed the Australian wine in a cupboard and pushed the door firmly shut. She instructed her husband to “get my wine” and he produced a set of perfectly frosted wine glasses along with a vintage Bordeaux. Chilled Bordeaux. Super cold!

Later on that trip, I had discovered the solace of sitting at the bow and watching the waves and porpoises; small toothed whales that are similar to dolphins. It was idyllic.

Mine-San followed me outside and asked what I was doing. I told her I was sunbathing, and she watched with horror as I slipped my top off my shoulders to get a bit more sun.

She went back into the yacht for some time, then returned in what I can only describe as something resembling a beekeeper’s suit, complete with veil and full length gloves to protect her from the sun.

We sat together. We chatted. And when it was time for mooring in the harbour I witnessed a spectacle. I remember it as ‘The size of the yacht mania’.

As we were manoeuvring towards the yacht’s berth, my boss commanded her husband to ‘park’ next to a smaller model. He diligently complied with her wishes. She saddled over towards me, nudged me and giggled, saying “look, our yacht is bigger than that one”.

Competiveness was rife. It started in the classroom, where young students were vying against each other; rewarded with ‘casino chips’ for correct answers, which would be counted up to see “how many, how many?” The ultimate goal was to be ‘ichiban’ (number 1). This aim permeated through society. For someone who does not have a competitive bone in their body, this was strange to understand.

I observed my boss’s behavior. She was consumed by her consumerism…big house, big yacht, big deal. She was probably one of the richest people I have ever met and she was thoroughly unimpressive. She worked hard for her riches. She died young.

Something else that was surprising in Japan was the throw away culture at the time. Hopefully that has changed. After the endless recycling and re-using that we saw in Zambia, what we found in Japan was very unexpected.

TVs, DVDs and all kinds of electronic items were thrown out on the sidewalk each week, put out on the street for garbage collection; replaced by newer and funkier models.

The expats would say that they could kit out their homes with last season’s electronics from the trash!

And sadly some people were often just as disposable. In the centre of Osaka we witnessed wiry old men living out of supermarket trolleys and cardboard boxes; disused company men. They were ‘turfed out’ of their homes after redundancy, no longer of use to their wives or their corporations. Perhaps they were replaced with a newer and funkier models too.

Something did not sit well. This was not our place. KP joined me and stayed for three months. He flipped out, punched a hole in the wall and left. I was alone.

For the first time in my adult life I realized that I was living completely on my own. There was no room mate of any description, just me. I had time to think.

We had entered the land of Hello Kitty, a nation where so many things were cute and fluffy. Truly, we were neither!

I never felt comfortable with all the rules. And there were a lot of rules; “don’t sneeze in the classroom”, “don’t wear your shoes inside” (never quite got used to teaching in slippers), “remove your shoes to put on plastic bathroom shoes when going to the toilet”, “hold your chopsticks like this”, “walk on this side of the street”. You didn’t feel free.

Even catching a train could annoy me. While waiting on the platform, piped birdsong could be heard. Every train was on time, and as we have said many times since, there were no stories in that. Everything was so damn efficient. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Everything just worked.

In Zambia, people were the most important thing. It seems we had swapped one country where everything was about people, for another where everyone seemed to be about work and money. The work ethic in Japan was incredible.

The best illustration of this was a visit to Okunoin Cemetery in Koyosan. We enjoyed a pleasant weekend walk though the beautiful forest around Mount Koya, a sacred mountain. And there we found Okunoin Cemetery, the largest in all of Japan, with company graves; CFOs, MDs and CEOs were buried with each other, not their families.

It wasn’t all bad. I found many things that I liked; tofu, mushrooms and edamame, aesthetic values, sake, the Shinkansen (bullet train) and heated toilet seats. But it was not for us.

Maybe things would have been different if we had just gone on holiday. You would see the best aspects of the traditional culture, stay at a ryokan and luxuriate at onsens (hot springs). Living and working in Japan was very different.

Have you ever travelled to somewhere, that you just didn’t really like?