Osu Kannon

Okay, we now have an apartment.

I’m actually a bit worried. After our initial struggles, it sounds almost too good to be true. Masako has me half-convinced that it’s haunted. But a bit of blood leaking down the walls or a little white-faced, lank-haired apparition is better than living out of a hotel.

It’s a reasonable commute from my school. It’s an easy walk to public transportation. And it comes fully-furnished with items that would cost a mint to buy, ship, and install here in Japan… including an air conditioner and washing machine.

It’s smaller than we would have liked, and a bit more expensive, but it’ll do nicely for home. We move in Tuesday.

 

That crisis out of the way, Masako and I (still here at the lovely Kanayama Plaza Hotel in Nagoya) went out for our daily jaunt. We walked a few klicks up to Osu Kannon, dominated by the Osu Kannon temple. The temple is known for its flocks of very aggressive pigeons. For a 50 yen donation (50 cents), you get a plate of feed, and you’d best be prepared to quickly resemble an extra from The Birds. The pigeons are not afraid of humans at all and will gladly perch on you, pecking madly at the feed the whole while.

 

Osu Kannon is also a cool shopping area. About twenty blocks or so of the area are roofed over, forming pedestrian-only shopping streets. It’s a magnet for young people and a variety of international small businesses. Clothing stores, toy stores, eateries of every description (Japanese, Mexican, Brazilian, Indian, American, etc.), video arcades, secondhand book shops, tea merchants, cutlery shops, folks selling vegetables out of the backs of trucks, little stands selling trinkets, you name it… colorful paint, murals, and banners abound. The roof encloses a pair of shrines, lit with paper lanterns, and music wafts and darts on air filled with the smells of cooking. Osu was the first place I ever went in Nagoya, when I first arrived in Japan eleven years ago; it remains one of my favorites anywhere.

 

A new business in Osu was “Dear Alice”, a tea shop with an Alice in Wonderland theme. The first thing you notice is the tiny door and the giant fake flowers; once inside, there’s a checkered floor, checkered ceiling, Victorian furniture, and looking glasses everywhere. It is also cosplay central; the five girls running the place were all dressed in variations of Alice dresses, accented with striped stockings and plenty of lace, with little top hats or flowers pinned to their hair.

Did Masako drag me there? No. I wanted to go. I love goofy, fun places where the themes are taken to the nth degree. But could I, as a guy, possibly go into such a frou-frou situation alone? Well, of course I could, but it was wonderful that Masako accompanied me and gave me an “excuse” to be in there…

It was the best tea (Assam, served in a pot) I’ve had in a long time, and the cake was good too. The girls were very cute in their costumes. I got to read a bit of annotated Lewis Carroll. What more could you ask for? Besides the single young Japanese guy who did come in by himself and spent his time pounding down a delicate slice of cake while casting shy glances at the girls…

 

I also found Capsule House near Kamimaezu subway station… an entire store filled with nothing but vending machines selling toys and character figures in those plastic capsules… you know the sort that are at the front of every grocery store in the States, right? Here in Japan, they’ve taken it to a higher plane.

Among the things one can get in a capsule, usually available in a series of five or six different ones (collect ‘em all):

-Exceptionally well-crafted plastic figurines of characters from various animated shows and films, from classic television shows, or from comic series. Some are all ages and some are very adult in nature.

-Museum-quality miniatures of dinosaurs, bugs, cars, trucks, and other vehicles, extinct animals, various types of koi (ornamental carp), food items, school backpacks (?), etc.

-Mini plush toys of all sorts.

-Mini electronic games, noisemakers, and keychains that say stuff when you press a button.

The capsules are priced from 100 to 500 yen each.

Highlights:

-The mini gold-plated toilet keychain.

-The half-naked-angel-girl-tied-to-a-cross figurine (I have no clue, really)

-The “Ann of Green Gables” figure collection

-A chibi capybara

-The “endangered large birds of the world” line of figurines

-The half-naked girls in maid uniforms collection; combine all five and you can make them have an orgy or a wrestling match or something (as helpfully illustrated on the ad placard displayed on the machine).

-the change machine, which will accept a 10,000 yen bill and dispense ALL OF IT AS 100 YEN COINS (got a pillowcase, or at least a large, reinforced pocket?), which is what the machines accept.

I got a dinosaur ball and a couple of character keychains. No half-naked girls, sorry.

More to come…

 

Homeless for the Moment…

When I talk about my experiences in Japan, one thing I will always come back to is the wonderful instructiveness of experiencing discrimination.

As a white male-type creature, the only way I have experienced racism in America is through the experiences of minority friends. I shook my head. I raged against the injustice. I was sympathetic. But I could not really know firsthand.

In Japan, as a minority, I can, and I have, in the past. I’ve had cops stop me for no reason, had people cross the street to avoid me, been turned away at blood drives. In Japan, they’re often not subtle about the reasons why, either.

It’s been the greatest, most instructive lesson of my entire life. And it continues.

In Japan, is is perfectly acceptable for a landlord to refuse to rent to a foreigner because they are a foreigner.

In Toyota City, where I will be based for my work in Shimoyama, there are a lot of foreigners looking for apartments. There is also, as the name would indicate, the Toyota motor company, which buys up a lot of the available apartments to offer them to their own workers as well as expat guests. Thus, it’s hard for a teacher like me to find a place to live.

So much so, that as I write this, I am still homeless. I have a job. I have a company car and phone. But Masako and I are living in a hotel in Nagoya (paid for by the company, thankfully). We hope to have something very soon. But there is the very real possibility that I could have to start work and not have a place to live.

The hotel isn’t bad, per se. It’s a business hotel, spartan but clean. We’ve moved right in and have drying clothes hanging from the air conditioner. It has a nice assortment of vending machines, including beer, instant noodles, and dried squid strips. There is a Circle K across the street. It’s a five minute walk from a major station. Not bad, but not home.

The good news is that my company is fighting tooth and nail to find us something. More news to come.

…And We’re Back

Impressions of the first few days back in Japan, after an absence of five years:

Some things have changed.

-We landed at a brand-spanking new airport that did not exist five years ago, built in a sleepy little town that I remember fondly and which would seem to be the last place one might think to locate such a thing.  We landed at night, and I couldn’t see all that much; I sure hope that something remains of the sleepy little town I remember.

 

-The area around Nagoya Station has two more new skyscrapers (big ones, too) that were not there before.  One is an office / shopping center (with the world’s tallest open-air shopping plaza occupying the top few floors) and the other is a self-contained university (design and medical) with a striking, soaring, twisting glass wrap around an inner frame; pictures to come soon.

 

-More train lines, and an expanded subway system for Nagoya, makes getting around easier than ever.

 

-The students I’ve seen walking around the city look younger than ever, which of course just means that I’m older than ever.

 

-Hopping aboard the train, bound for Masako’s parents’ place from Nagoya, I stepped into the lead car, which is fun because you can watch the driver drive the train.  There was something different, though… this driver was a woman. 

When I left Japan in 2003, the very first female train driver for the JR line (The biggest railway in Japan) had just been certified.  Apparently, there are more now, which is nice to see.

Her uniform was just as severe as the men’s … apparently, it’s not enough that you wear your hair back in a very tight ponytail … you have to cover it with a net, too.  The same driver’s cap, navy jacket, and white gloves … with a long, loose skirt.  

 

Some things have not.

-Our favorite restaurant, a little hole in the wall sushi joint called Maruhachi, is not only still there, but looks as though time has not touched it at all … down to having the same crates stacked near the front window, the same hand-written menu on the wall, the same smear of dirt under the air conditioning outlet.  

 

-There is the same haphazard ugliness to the architecture (post 1950s) that there has always been … the odd, ultra-practical, communist bloc building still abounds.  Unfortunately. 

 

-There are still cutesy mascots everywhere, for everything. 

 

-My favorite restaurant in the whole world, Coco Ichiban (a chain of fast-food curry rice shops) is still around (though their menu has changed a little).  I practically wept the first time I ate there again.  Gooooooood.    

 

-Men still openly read pornographic magazines on the trains.    

 

Fun and Random Stuff:

-At a small shop on a side street of Nagoya, opening for the morning … a basket on top of a cigarette display, containing five cats, all curled around each other, all asleep.  The owner of the store shushed us as we quietly discussed how cute they were.  I wondered how we could be more disturbing than the traffic five feet away, but…

 

-The construction company, hard at work renovating a building … tough, burly men throwing the scrap out a window into their big manly-man dump trucks… which are all painted a bright, eye-straining shade of pink.

 

-Jet-lagged, I had a sudden craving at 4:30 AM for a can of hot corn soup.  So I wandered the streets around Masako’s parents’ house until I found a vending machine selling it.  Just plain corn potage in a wide-mouth can, heated to a comfortable drinking temperature.  An excellent comfort food for the winter and cool spring months. 

 

-Toilets now not only heat their seats, have multiple flush strength selectors, bidet and wash functions, and remotely-controlled lids and seats … some of them now talk to you.  Which I think might be the last thing you need, but hey, whatever. 

 

More to come!

 

 

 

This Time, I’ll Just Turn Left at Albuquerque

One week from today, I’m heading back to Japan.

It’s been an odd turn in a strange (but fun) sort of life. I originally went to Japan in 1997 as a wide-eyed but already somewhat jaded college graduate. I had planned to go for one year; I ended up staying almost six, I got married, I found a great job and a new calling.

I taught English at a junior high school in a small mountain town in central Japan, and fell in love with the people, the terrain, and the unhurried lifestyle. Then, thinking I had it all together, the wife and I left and came back to the states. It was April of 2003.

Not that I’m saying that was a mistake or anything… I own a very cool old house in Ferndale, Michigan. I got to hang out and do projects with old friends. I made some new friends. I tried my hand at a lot of trades. I came within six classes of being a certified teacher of persons with visual impairments.

But I made the mistake (if you can call it that) of coming home during a bad economic downturn for my state (wherever else you are, I sympathize with your plight, but it’s not as bad as it is here). I made the mistake of trusting a lot of hard work to someone in the TV industry who did not deserve trust. My wife and I (mostly my wife) were the constant victims of corporate America’s bait-n’-switch: You get benefits after three months! So we’ll fire you on month 2, day 29 for no reason! Bye!

It’s hard to build traction in a situation like that. One day, I came to the breaking point. I called up my old company and asked them if they had anything for me. They did.

So back I go.

Although it’s not 100% confirmed yet, I’m very likely going to be in another very small, very remote village, teaching at another junior high school. Back to the countryside. Back to the lifestyle I love. Back to the students I adore. Back to doing something I’m good at. Back to the dignity and security of a regular paycheck. Back to the civilized notion of national health care. Back to Japan.

When I first went to Japan, I published an irregular journal of my adventures, called “I Shoulda Turned Left at Albuquerque”. Besides referencing one of my favorite shows, this gave the impression that I didn’t really know what I had stumbled into. This time, I do.

Looking back on that journal, it strikes me just how much times have changed in a decade. I wrote that journal on a computer, yes… on an Apple Powerbook 140, later graduating to a G3. I printed it, then photocopied it, and mailed physical hard copies (with photos) to everyone on my mailing list.

All I can say is, thank goodness for the blog.

So, this blog will be about country life in Japan, about the funny, strange, and delightful corners of a country that many pass through but very few actually get to see. Over 70% of Japan is covered by forest. Japan is green and beautiful, for the most part, and very quiet, and a million miles away from the technogadget-festooned metropolises that most people think of first… though I’ll be covering those, too.

This is also a blog about writing. I’ve written a few books and my goal is to complete one per year while in Japan. More on this later.

This will also be a blog about anything else I think is cool or stupid, or anything in between.

Much more to come. Meanwhile, I have to pack.

Jeff “Wolfie” Lilly

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