Last Cat.

Fair thee well, Nawa.

Well, it's been a very fast year. I arrived in the August heat, which turned to the beautifully colourful Autumn, a fantastically cold winter, and a very welcome and gorgeous spring. I have learnt so much in these past twelve months.

Two months ago, I made the decision to move to a different part of Japan, to have a different experience and to learn more about Japanese culture. I will be moving to Hikone-Shi in Shiga-Ken at the end of the month, to teach English in an academy for children.

I will miss Nawa. I love the countryside, the houses, the mountain and the sea. I'll miss playing with the kids, and playing with the adults too. Working at the school has become a normal part of my life, and I am very happy to have spent a year here, among these honest, warm and smiling people.

I will miss you all, you fantastic people you.

Another message for Cat.

Sometimes, I want to take these kids home with me. They're incredibly cute. I love to watch the differences between the groups, as the children get older.

In the first two grades, the kids are fearless and have no concept of embarrassment. When they change into their bright orange swimming costumes and matching caps, they'll happily run though the corridors, exulting in the feeling of running through the school wearing only a swimming costume, shouting, jumping, screaming, giggling. They keep all the adults that work here young. In grades three and four, the kids develop distinct personalities. They are more aware of the world around them and how their actions can affect others, though they're still happy to roll around on the floor and giggle. By five they begin to be a little shy, and act like older children until they begin having fun, at which point they forget about trying to be anything other than a child. By six they have become boys and girls, and have begun the separation that will last until adulthood. I can no longer entertain them by simply jumping about and being a token Gaijin, as I can with the grades below, it is with the sixth grade more than any other, that I wish I could speak Japanese well enough to communicate.

But, most days, I want to take all the kids home with me.

A message for Cat

It's English time at Nawa primary school!

Nawa is very lucky to have a beautiful, newly built primary school, which is just entering its second year. The students here have regular English lessons from a native speaker and their home room teacher. The emphasis is on having fun while learning the building blocks of the language, which allows much faster learning at later levels.

I teach the alphabet, numbers, phonics, basic verbs and vocabulary through games and activities. My name is Chris Harper, and I am the current ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Nawa. I'm 27 years old, and I moved here from England in September 2007. I like the countryside very much, and often enjoy hiking around Daisen, or cycling even further.

Some of my favourite pastimes include cooking, reading, writing and Frisbee. At Nawa primary, I enjoy playing Frisbee and Oni with the children every day. I also love to make music, and will often bring instruments to school.

The Japanese culture is very different from the English, though also similar in many ways. I have never known any people talk about the weather more than the English before I came here. I think it must be the sheer abundance of it. The Japanese are at once very open, frank and easy-going, and also secretive and shy. They are very generous, and will routinely go out of their way to help, but can sometimes try to help a little too much, and can confuse well groomed, western-style individuality. Overall, I am having a wonderful experience here in Japan, and I think if I ever retun to my home country, it will be more of a shock than when I arrived here.

Some things about the spring....

Some things about the spring....

So, it came.

After countless long nights, and many months of penetrating cold, shivering beneath blankets, reading in front of kerosene heaters, and breathing vapour between paper-thin, poorly insulated walls, and single paned glazing. After the snow, the ice, and the wind - thrusting its fiery hand into the freezing depths, like a hero rescuing a blue skinned child from an icy, watery death in Hollywood-land – the sun returned.

And everything changed.

Amidst the dripping icicles and snow drifts, life began to emerge quickly from the soil. Within weeks, brilliant injections of spiralling pink candy floss were appearing all over Japan. Cherry blossom (Sakura) season was upon us. For two sweet weeks, nestled inside the short Nihon spring, these clouds of delicate beauty explode into the warming air, bright fireworks everywhere the eye can see. People picnic beneath them, lovers love, arm in arm along the night paths strung with lanterns, the birds gather materials for their nests, and winter's people emerge from the long night, into a glorious morning. Hanami-Matsuri (Lit. Flower viewing festival) sees families, corporate groups, lovers and friends sitting on sheets beneath the floodlit blossoms, indulging in all kinds of food, music and alcohol. As the sun continues its meteoric rise into the sky, the temperature increases exponentially.

The sheets and parties are cleared away, and the Sakura blossoms fall in eddying whirlpools of incandescent pink petals, littering the streets, collecting in the corners and flowing in the rivers. Children shake the cherry branches, and dance, picture perfect in their innocence among the pink snow.

After a few more weeks of pleasantly warm weather, the islands begin to sweat and steam, the mountainous landscape throws up great clouds of moisture in sacrifice to the heat. Suddenly, almost overnight, the cicadas and crickets return. The evenings, which have for so long been quiet and windswept, become active soundscapes, accented by gentle, moist breezes. In the countryside, the sheer walls of sound generated by countless thousands of singing insects doppler around you as you travel through their midst. Now that the cicadas are back, the farmers clean out the many concrete channels that allow fresh mountain water to flow past the patchwork quilts of dormant rice fields.

They turn over and fertilize the soil, and then open the little wooden hatches to allow the water in, flooding each field in turn, and creating a world of mirrors. Everywhere you go, you can see the sky reflected on the ground by thousands of beautiful, shining squares. This next change complete, two other groups arrive on the scene to join in the chorus.

The Japanese Cranes are in their element, with the whole country covered in shallow ponds, teaming with food. They glide effortlessly on the thermal packed, humid air, wings curved like Gothic banisters, busying themselves only with eating and enjoying the most pleasant time of their year. The conditions created by the staple crop farming are also suitable for frogs, whose population explodes, like the cicadas, almost overnight. The chorus is a massive, ribbet filled orgy night after night, in all of the thousands of square kilometres of shallow, rich water. Walking down a street after dusk, with paddy fields either side, will result in the frogs in each successive field you pass suddenly falling into silence when they perceive you, and restarting their bickering as soon as you've passed, as lampposts do in eerie suspense movies.

In the daytimes, the farmers now start to plant the young rice crops. Doing this in a field flooded with twenty centimetres of water is achieved by using a rice planting machine, resembling a Victorian steam car – all spindly metal wheels and wooden seats. They have a tray at the back for the plants, and a mechanism that inserts them from the contraption into the giving soil in neat rows.

Once planted in such rows, the riclings begin to poke out of the surface of the water, and turn the field from mirrored sky to green. Because they're planted in such accurate intervals and straight lines, as you move past a field it will change before your eyes, from a mirror reflecting to the sky, to lush greenery - the plants polarising the water's surface. As Japan is so mountainous, many of the fields are created in tiered levels, it is not uncommon to drive down a road and view the paddy from a variety of heights as you pass.... the observers' eye starting from five or ten meters above, and finishing at or below the level of the water. The effect of this is somewhat like watching Luke Skywalker fly his X-wing across the surface of the Deathstar.

The summer now in full swing, the trees sigh in the breeze, and a cornucopia of ridiculous insects are out wandering around. Massive spiders spin huge webs, moths the size of my hand fly into the classroom, and bats scour the dusk air. The heat continues to rise, and as night-times begin to become a relief from the heat, people doze on their tattami (reed mats) floors, doors and windows are flung open to the fragment, song filled night air, and iced tea is drank. The insect-screens stay closed, preventing all but the most industrious little bastards access to our homes. Now, the month of June approaches, and with it, a month of heavy rain, misty mountains and more umbrellas per person that any other country in the world. As the torrents of rain crash down onto the roads, the warm water evaporates almost at once, creating a strange and mysterious world to drive through. For those people who played MarioCart, back in the long dead days of the Super Nintendo (also called the Super Famicon), the effect of driving after dark is something like Rainbow Road, which was the level in the game where players drove through the cosmos on a track made from glass......here, with the absence of street lighting, all of the high visibility fluorescents at the sides of the express way are reflected into infinity in the water on the road's surface, the result being one of flying a car above a valley of bright pillars.

A Misty and mysterious land I find myself in. The two words feel so related in these steamy valleys and cloud covered landscapes, that you'd think that they were related. But they aren't. Mysterious comes to us from the Greek word mysteria, meaning “secret rite or doctrine”, and mist from the old German word mikhstaz, and that from the Sanskrit word mih, meaning “cloud or mist”.

Hats off to the people behind the free Etymology dictionary..... such wonders the Internet brings us......

Thar's gold in them thar tepid waters boy!

This morning, on the BBC website, I read an article named Trying to head off an Arctic gold rush.

Four or five large nations are posturing like apes around the waterhole that is the rapidly diminishing lump of ice we know as the North Pole. According to the Beeb, “The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic could contain 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.” Hence all the fuss. Thar's gold in them thar tepid waters boy!

The countries, Russia, Canada, the US and Norway, are trying to make a claim on the “sovereignty” of the sea bed beneath the polar ice, on the basis of the UN Law of the Sea convention, which states that a country can claim rights on the seabed, providing the location is within 200 Nautical Miles (370Km) of its continental shelf.

It can't be just me that finds this entire concept ridiculous. Here we have these rich countries dividing the surface of the planet up like a Risk board, devising entirely arbitrary rules and regulations, not to decide if we should, but who gets to dig up the remaining oil and gas.

Russia recently used a submarine to plant a metal flag beneath the North pole, to illustrate the fact that her continental shelf extends all the way beneath the ice. The BBC quotes former Canadian foreign minister, Peter MacKay, who responded by saying:

“This is posturing. This is the true north strong and free [a line from the Canadian national anthem], and they're fooling themselves if they think dropping a flag on the ocean floor is going to change anything. There is no question over Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic... You can't go around the world these days dropping a flag somewhere. This isn't the 14th or 15th century.”

Can anyone enlighten me as to Canada's “sovereignty” here? Of course, the only reason any of this acne ridden chest beating is even occurring, is entirely due to the Arctic's rather sad and rapid demise. The mineral drilling is going to be so much easier as all the ice melts, and as we all know, it's melting because of a direct and proven correlation between human activities and the various gasses we are releasing into the poor old atmosphere.

Industrialised nations are like Heroin addicts, who know that they are destroying everything around them , but just keep plugging away regardless, feeling vaguely guilty for what they're doing.

Does anyone else feel a bit of MadMax in the air?

Letter to a cheap hotel in London

Dear hotel Lilly,

I stayed at your hotel around six months ago, on the night of Tuesday the 22^nd of August, 2007.

What follows is a request. It is a personal one, and in no way involves money or business. It is preceded by a background story that explains the motives for that request.

If you feel that you don't have time, or simply don't want to read it, please skip the story and read the request at the end.

Many thanks,

Kurisu Niwatori.

The Story.

It was August, 2007. I'd been offered a job in Japan, and was due to depart in a matter of days. For the first time in years, I was staying with my parents in Sussex, and had been for about four weeks prior to my visit to the hotel.

Lou, a well-off friend of my father's had employed me for those weeks to work in his large garden, building climbing-frames, cleaning roofs and building flowerbeds. It was pleasant work, the August sun beating down on the empty garden every day, the owner was away on his honeymoon, having married a young Russian woman. I was to have free reign of the property, with access to the house. It was an enormous favour to my father, and a mark of Lou's generosity. He is a very kind man, who always reminds me of the Walrus from Alice in Wonderland. He always smiles and has intense pale blue eyes, framed within hundreds of smiling crinkles of brown flesh. The walrus theme is continued with the ample belly, a constant brown moustache and regular, guttural laughter.

There not being much space in my parents' house, combined with my lack of friends, having not lived there myself for many years, and no interest in the television, gave me little to do in the evenings. The house, equipped with a swimming pool and sauna became my evening retreat; swimming and reading under the stars. At first I was very cautious, although I had permission to use the pool, I was worried that the neighbours might think me a burglar, and contact the police. After a while though, I was more relaxed, I started making tea in the kitchen, and even began taking beer from the fridge, though I always replaced it. Three days before I was due to leave for Japan, having finished all the work in the garden, I went out for dinner with the only friend remaining in the town, my ex-girlfriend from ten years ago. Conversation was pleasant, and combined with food and wine, we soon hatched a plan to have a late night swim in the pool. This we did, picking up more wine along the way. A beautiful evening was had, swimming naked beneath the sky, the only light coming from the submarine lights, casting shimmering pattern on the surrounding trees. The problem began here. Inevitably, we got to rekindling our old passions. Unfortunately, due to the large amounts of wine we'd drank, and the knowledge that the family were out of the country, we made the decision to enter the house, climb the stairs and make love on the large, luxurious bed.

The next morning I was due to make an early trip to London to collect my Visa from the Japanese embassy. This hadn't occurred to my befuddled mind as the sunlight spilled onto our faces and we slowly stirred from our drunken slumber. Just as I began to form coherent thoughts, the terrible, terrible sound of a key in the front door and the latch being opened cut through the silent, fluffy dream like gunfire. Who ever was entering would know immediately that someone was in the house, as I'd deactivated the alarm. I leapt out of bed, my head spinning with the residual red wine, and dragged my trousers on. Approaching the bedroom door, I came face to face with the owner's daughter, whose face moved from concern, comprehension to full-blooded anger in seconds. She had just discovered her father's friend's son in her father's bed with a woman, whom she proceeded to hurl insults at. We were ejected in a rage, not before being subjected to phone calls both long distance to Russia, and short distance to my father. Having knocked on the door to retrieve my friend's handbag, we stumbled down the road in the midday sun. Unable to see clearly, my eyes damaged by the time spent in the chlorinated pool, I was struck with the gravity of my actions. That evening, I was to go to dinner with my family, the head of which, I had just angered and hurt more than he thought possible. By betraying his best friend's trust, I had betrayed my father.

In my still drunken, sleep deprived and disbelieving state, I followed a foolish course of action. I hurriedly returned to my parents' home, blindly packed a suitcase, called a taxi and headed to the train station. My flight was due to leave at 13.00 the following day, which meant a trip to Green Park to collect the Visa at 10.00, and a rush the Heathrow to arrive within the stringent three hour window imposed by BAA. Another stringent imposition was a weight limit on luggage. And here we come, finally, to the point.

That evening, my vision still blurred so that it was an effort to read, an emotional wreck, hungover, exhausted, and dismayed with my actions, I was faced with a problem. Heathrow levee a weight limit of 20KGs on international flights. In my stupor, I had easily packed more than that. I had to lose some weight from the luggage. In the small, single room, while I should have been bidding fair well to my family in an intimate restaurant somewhere, I rifled through my creased belongings through blurred tears. I made two piles, one to take and one to leave. I couldn't face talking, explaining myself to a member of the hotel staff, it was hard enough for me to book the room itself. Such was my emotional distress and shame.

The Request.

I took the pile I was to leave, and I put it in the easiest place. I put it in one of the draws in the room's dresser. They're never used in hotels, there only for aesthetics, only for show. Atop the pile, I placed a note, saying something like, Should you find these things, please dispose of them.

Ridiculous, I know. The memories of that night are scarce for me, it's more of the knowledge of events rather than full-blown memory, like a tale passed down through generations of fathers and sons. Six months later, having stopped drinking to excess, and having worked in rural Japan, I have been afforded much time to reflect. The reflection is, of course, not one of pride. I damaged the relationship with my family, and I damaged myself.

Never the less, one of the many realisations that have occurred in the intervening months, is that, amongst my discarded possessions, my shirts and books, possibly laying in that very draw for half a year, is my camera. It's not the best camera, but it is fairly good. Having been without it for six months, I'd sort of settled on viewing it as a fitting punishment for my behaviour. Japan is such a beautiful place, and I am being exposed to so many beautiful things, and I cannot photograph them, or afford a replacement camera.

I probably should have written this letter before, but somehow, I couldn't. Now, the draws in the rooms in your hotel are never used, so, there is a chance, a small chance, that the things I abandoned there are still exactly where I left them. I would dearly love to have my camera once again, and there was probably a few good books in there too.

I am very sorry for leaving my things in your draw. If you have it in your hearts to return them, I have a friend in London who is willing to come and collect them in person.

Thanks for reading this,

Kind regards,

Kurisu Niwatori.

Some things about a positive frame of mind.

Greetings and salutations, as a certain spider once said.

Well, it's been a little while since I last wrote a round robin Email like this one, and having recently re-read some of the stuff I've posted in the last few months, I feel moved to apologise a little. I think I have an innate ability to write in great detail about negative things, and often skim over some of the thousands of positive things in a flourish to render the opposite. Damn. Perhaps my parents were too good to me, perhaps I'm just too English, perhaps I'm a loser. Regardless, I shall attempt to get through this particular rant without any negativity whatsoever. (A little bit perhaps, just to keep things moving, Yin and Yang, Darth and Obiwan, Pepsi and Coke etc.)

I've decided to attribute many of my previous attitudes to what I am coming to perceive as a great big, smelly dose of culture shock. A shock so invasive that it pushed well past my concious senses, and burrowed deep into my mind. I honesty didn't think that I'd suffer from culture shock, and I don't think I've suffered from what I thought culture shock was.
I had always defined it as a sort of home-sickness that was generated by not being able to eat chips, have a pint in a beer garden, or watch the bum cracks of builders as they toil over cups of tea and cigarettes. Though I have obviously pined for such situations (I do love builders' bums), I haven't suffered as a direct result.

I'm now able to make a better definition of what I think Culture Shock is:
It's the complete and continued absence of all the things you didn't know you'd need or miss. Living in the midst of a culture that you cannot comprehend or understand, surrounded by signs you cannot read and swimming in speech you cannot decipher. A place where you're constantly afraid of offending someone or something, and where you are simply unable to learn at a reasonable pace with feedback, because there is none. The culture is not one that feeds back, and even if pressed, the compatible language around you lacks the complexity to communicate any complex ideas. Unable to communicate on any meaningful level with the natives, you'll find yourself, quite naturally, seeking social interaction with people who share your own tongue. They'll quite probably not be from your country of origin, and, the chances are, the only thing you'll share in common is that language.

Reduced to a state of slight helplessness, you're unable to complete simple tasks like telephoning the gas board, explaining the problems with the car to the mechanic, requesting food in a restaurant, or explaining anything to anyone apart from those other foreigners who you might not get on that well with anyway. Day in and day out, what starts as an adventure, a challenge, a character building, perspective stretching learning experience, ends up infiltrating your sleep and depressing you. Many strange dreams of being chased by strange neon signs of Asian typography haunt the small hours. Daily communication with colleagues if often reduced to mime, and the possibility of misunderstanding and paranoia is increased ten-fold on both sides. At the same time, of course, you'll be enjoying yourself.

That is what I think culture shock means. It's a condition of insulation and uncomprehending solitude. When faced with such adversity, I think it's only natural for humans to find a few things to have a bit of a moan about. Regardless, that culture shock (or, at least the first wave of it) has passed. I begin to understand some of the things being said to me, I can read some signs and order some food. I've staved of my hunger for builders' bums, and replaced it and many other wants with local product (for example, watching the Japanese women who follow a fashion of wearing heeled shoes that are two sizes too big, (they look rather like the home alone children of a high-powered business woman who've been at her wardrobe) and which therefore have to be carefully dragged across the ground, is more entertaining than watching builders). Friends have been made, and fears of offence have been assailed. I still miss bread and whisky though.
While I still can't understand so many things about this culture, having spoken to some people back at home, I realise that I have learnt an awful amount about it too. I expect that I probably shan't be aware of just how much that is until I leave.

The Japanese do surely love the idea of the festival. They absorb things like Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's day (girls give to boys), White day (March 14th, boys give to girls), from other cultures, and they have a huge amount of their own, which have been passed down between families of inane, festival loving Japanese for centuries. Some are national, and others are local. The very small town in which I live had its annual "Cow Festival" in December. It's a very simple affair; the roads are all closed down, and farmers from miles around bring their cows to town to show them off. I didn't see any beanstalks. There is drinking and eating, and a few barbecues to finish the event. Charming, though sad for those cows that don't return.
One of the national festivals is known as "Setsubun", and celebrates the coming of spring and the start of the Japanese lunar calendar. There are various festivities that occur around this day. By far the most obscure to me, is the tradition of eating un-cut sushi (maki) rolls, while facing in a certain compass direction. (When Sushi is prepared, it's made in great big rolls, and then cut into small pieces.) I was first made aware of this by various old Japanese women, who insisted on miming the act of devouring a long, sausage like object, which they would hold with both hands. Terrifying. It's with the same set of ladies that I had amusing conversations about the (then) upcoming U.S elections. Many Japanese, of course, are unable to pronounce the letter "L", instead making blissfully unaware yet loaded statements like, "I am very interested in American erections." Priceless.

Anyway, the main tradition of Setsubun is to drive all the evil spirits and bad luck out of your house, and tempt loads of good luck in. This is achieved with the ritual of mamemaki, which literally means bean scattering. Yes, from any convenience store in the country you can buy your long rice sausage, a packet of soybeans and an Oni mask. You then throw all the shutters, windows and doors of your house open to the chilly February the Third air, and get one lucky member of the family to wear the demon mask, while another (usually the man or head of the house), launches beans at the devil, chasing it out of the front door shouting, "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!", which means something like, "Demons out! Good luck in!"

It's at times like this when I think there is so much that the west could learn from cultures like this. It is an outmoded tradition, and I'd be impressed to ever actually meet a person who believed that the actions alone actually achieved their overt goal, but that's not the point. The point is to bring the family together, and to focus their minds on the coming year, the change of the seasons and the possibility of good luck. It's about renewal and rebirth, and sharing an experience.... it's also about getting the shutters and doors of the house open to let some clean air in there. Due to the lack of insulation, central heating or double glazing, coupled with a very varied climate, the seasons here are very much in your face and inescapable. Modern life really leaves us as strangers to things like the seasons, simple rituals like this underline the change, and allow a family to hang out and chuck beans at each other.

In the first Emails I was sending out, I labelled the Japanese as being a "deeply unhappy consumer culture," and I also said something like, "they sacrifice their individuality for social unity," among other, rather scathing comments. While there are aspects of their society I do not like (as, no doubt, with any other society or thing), I can now see that what I first took to be a lack of individuality, a tendency to be robotic sheep, was partly a different norm of social interaction. The Japanese are not really extroverts, and their culture is one of extreme politeness and conformity..... until they know you. Once you are friends, many things change, not in the least the language style used, but also the kinds of things that are said and shared. Of course, getting to that stage may well take a while, especially for a Gaijin.

This can be seen as an admirable quality. They are unwilling to be extroverted, or trumpet their opinions, simply because they may offend a stranger. Instead, they wait. Once they are comfortable that you'll not get offended, or they're drunk, they'll cut loose. An unfortunate side effect of this is that it's very easy for people to become closed of from the world, and just float through life being polite and being been polite to. It is very easy to become lonely here.
Of course, that said, who could possibly make mention of a lack of individuality when confronted with the monster that is the Hadaka Matsuri, or"Naked Festival"? It's the same as Sesubun. While they are pursuing and following an old tradition, as a group, it's being in the group that is the function of the event. It's bringing people together and bonding them, which surely is one of the mainstays of society. Who wants to be a big fat individual and spend all their time alone anyway? Especially without clothes in the chill February air.......

The Naked Man festival harks back to an ancient Shinto purification ritual, and has similar brothers (and sisters?) all over Japan. However, with around ten thousand participants and many more observers, the festival in Saidaiji, Okayama, is probably the biggest. The basic premise? Well, there's a great big square temple, raised up on a stone base, about ten foot-thick steps high. Inside the temple is a priest, and in the priest's hand, is a stick. The stick is called the Shingi, and is terribly important (and probably incredibly phallic). What else is there? Well, there are around ten thousand men, who are grouped into teams of various numbers and inclinations. There are barrels of Sake in their bellies, and ten thousand Fundoshi up their bottoms.

Fundoshi are, essentially, twelve foot long bandages, with which a very talented man will wrap around your naked waist, wedge up your bottom, and then safely lever your crown jewels deeply into your scrotum. Included in the deal are thousands of police officers and ambulance crews, and tens of thousands of spectators, vendors, hawkers, ravers and reporters, all milling around the temple, snowflakes in the cold, cold depths of the winter's evening.

The men get psyched up in their various changing places, before marching out in Sake clad droves, chanting "Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!", (Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!). They march through the streets with their bottoms out, they pass around the shrine, with police and well-wishers on either side, through cleansing dousings of ice-cold water, round and round the course they go, arm in arm, getting wilder, louder visibly steaming with each circuit, as their groups heat the night which hovers around freezing, Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!. The men vary in size and shape, some looking cold, others drunk, some with the torsos of warriors, others with the frames of small boys. Occasionally serious looking men who wouldn't look out of place on a battle field stride past sporting black Fundoshi, we are unreliably informed by each other that these are the Yakuza. This continues for hours approaching midnight, at which point there are literally ten-thousand almost naked, psyched up, steaming drunk men milling around inside the base of the huge shrine Washoi! Washoi! Washoi! A few minutes before midnight, most of the lights from within the temple are cut, and the naked men clamour and clamber toward the centre, some topping down the stone steps, some being dragged out, trampled and unconscious by uniformed men with sticks. At the stoke of twelve, the priest throws the Shingi from high in the rafters, and the race is on. There are no rules, but the idea is to get the Shingi, and put it in a pot filled with earth. If you can do this, the gods will smile on your team for the year to come. Needless to say, there are various accidents in the race to be the lucky winners, last year one man was trampled to death.

At times I can see so many good things about the way things are done in Japan. People are loaded with a deep respect for many things and for each other. This is achieved largely through a consensus society. People here like rules, and values and ethics are drummed into every person for most of their life. This could be considered a bad thing, but, at no point in such a large gathering of people am I ever threatened, crowded, worried for my wallet, or pushed. Crime is incredibly low here, and health is taken seriously. People are always polite. People will always try and make a place for you within their group. There is a sense of belonging, even if it sometimes comes at the expense of free expression.

A few weeks ago I went drinking with some friends, and we ended up in a late night restaurant. It was the kind where all the tables are locked away in secluded booths, inside which your group sits and eats. There is an area at the front of this building (and most Japanese buildings) where new arrivals remove their shoes, recent departees (not a word, but should be) put on their shoes and pay, and the live lobsters are displayed in their glass box. (Yes, most Japanese buildings have live lobsters in the entrance lobby.) There was also a man who was quite possibly the drunkest mobile person I have ever laid eyes on. He was so drunk that he didn't seem to know where he was, who he was, or what we were. He kept pawing at people like an absent minded, milk-filled baby might paw at a breast, and was constantly leaning against the doorman and dribbling slurred Japanese onto the poor fellow's shoulder. Each time this happened the doorman simply pushed him gently back into the centre of the room, with a barley perceptible grimace. The drunkard would then proceed to rotate and stumble around the lobsters, touching people and mumbling, as if he was a moth at the bottom of a large fish tank, with a lobotomy (not far from the truth no doubt), until he eventually reached long suffering doorman again, and warbled some more warbling into the dude's lapels. This went on while four of us split a bill, paid separately, put on shoes, poked him a little for fun, and eventually departed. When we were outside, he pawed at the window, like a puppy in a gas chamber.

The level of self control, respect and discipline shown by the doorman was huge. In almost any other place, that bleary-eyed voyager would have been removed from the restaurant with varying levels of violence and indifference, and deposited in a situation or container outside fitting that violence or indifference. The doorman obviously is of the mind that; Just because he's being a drunk ass doesn't mean he is any less entitled to respect. Which is precisly the reverse of what his opposite number in the west would be thinking. I think there are many aspects like this that the west could do with emulating.

At the same time, I feel sorry for many people. The kids go to school seven days a week, (Weekends are "club days", where they become incredibly good at sports through belligerent repetition.) it is rare to see kids of school age not wearing uniform. Their parents will work up to sixty hours plus a week. I've stayed late at work, sometimes as late as 7pm, and many other members of staff never look ready to leave. They've always been there for a while when I arrive in the mornings too. No one seems to question this. I'm working on the theory that they live there.

As far as religion goes, I think Japan is mostly secular. The country is recorded as being "Buddhist," and most people will tell you that they are, but I don't think that they really practice as such. When do they have time? Their belief, their dogma, seems to have evolved into the hard work and dedication in which they spend their lives. It's almost admirable at times too. My friend Mark has recently posted an interesting article about a book called Cosmic Trigger on his blog. Amongst other things, Robert Anton Wilson talks about how people seem to loose the ability to think in straight lines when they are embroiled in some form of belief system, be it religion, tradition or political ideals. It's interesting.

Not that I'm trying to suggest that the west is somehow superior to Japan, with our short(er) working hours and slapdash violence. Far from it. Regrettably, many of the young here are beginning, like young people everywhere, to idolise things about other cultures that they feel theirs doesn't possess. Which is a shame, because in this case, many young people in Japan are emulating and embracing Big Macs, Coke, Avril Lavagne, French Connection and Guchi. Doh.
If you pull into a petrol station here, an attendant will walk up to the window and ask you what you need. If you've left your headlights on, even just the parking lights, they will always reach in and switch them off, saying, "lights!" as if they're doing you a favour, and that the battery would have become flat in the intervening three minutes it takes to fill the tank. When I first got here, I thought that this was insane. Now, I think it's charming. Many Japanese cars do have battery troubles, they're often smaller than AAs and they're running in lawnmower engines.

The attendants do this, because, somewhere down the line, it was decided that it was the thing to be done. Japan is a place where the rules are obeyed, a place where traditions and rituals are followed unquestioningly, on the surface at least. It is easy to skate across that surface and live in a state of stasis, glancing occasionally at the weeds below. To get beneath it is challenging.
I am starting to see logic in many things that seemed patently absurd when I first arrived, and I am starting to appreciate the sense and beauty of many other things that I didn't really consider before. The removal of shoes at the front door, for example, undoubtedly keeps the house very clean, but also has many subconscious benefits. It creates a boundary for the home, it gives the body a small ritual to perform in order to cross that boundary. By performing the simple ritual, you are reaffirming something you already know, and making it stronger in your mind. You are crossing a boaundary, and entering a different world. We are still simple creatures, and I think, as we continue into this century ritual may once again become more important in our lives, as many of them are ceasing to have much meaning asides from the pursuit of material.

Hanami Matsuri is the next festival I'm looking forward to. It literally means "Flower viewing festival," and isn't so much a single festival as a time of year. The famous cherry blossoms are out in April, and, for only a few weeks, they light up the landscape, freshly delivered from the long, cold winter. Families picnic in the parks all over the country to observe the beauty together. This togetherness is a little two sided, as the families spend masses of time apart, serving the pursuit of gain, their companies, educational institutions etc. Does that make the time they do spend together more valuable?

I have no idea.