March 12, 2004
During the two weeks I stayed in Kyoto and Nara I could not help but draw some similarities between the British and the Japanese. Just like in England (where I used to live for nearly three years) the sunshine is bright, they drive on the 'right' side, the houses have no heating in winter, they have lunch boxes and the people can be friendly to a certain point but very very distant and reserved after the initial politeness. Of course, there are differences which I chose to show you in a manga (the so popular japanese cartoon) fashion.
episode 1: You step out of the plane and walk straight to the information desk. You ask where you can take the train and for how much to Kyoto. She smiles and tells you that you should find the train station and ask there because it is not her job to tell you (even though she obviously knows the answer).
episode 2: You are on the train already after the 10 minutes frustration of trying to buy the right ticket. You wonder how people can leave in such densely populated areas which pass by so closely to your window. It seems it is one big city from Osaka to Kyoto. Then comes the polite conductor who speaks no English but somehow you figure out that you need to pay extra because the train you travel with goes staright to Kyoto (you don't have to change) and you should have noticed it when the seats turned around by themselves before the usual cleaning of the train.
episode 3: You marvel at the beautiful and so many layered kimonos of the tea serving 'Maiko's (apprentice Geisha) at the plum blossom festival of a Buddhist temple. Their kimonos are tightly secured around their neck and the beautiful long 'obi' (belts) are in full glamour at their back. In contrast, at the afternoon you visit one of the the local 'onsen' (bath) where you realize how small and thin the women look without their amazing dresses. (There are a large number of old people with bent backs and legs due to osteporosis? Also, I don't really understand their choice of western clothes which they actually wear like the kimonos: they walk the same small steps except they would look better in traditional kimono.)
episode 4: You are at one of the main shopping centres on the street. You hear the same music all along the street outside the shops. You stare at the phone box with LCD monitor and the housewife standing next to it in traditional kimono and slippers. She was out shopping with her girlfriend waiting to be picked up by a big black car with tinted windows.
episode 5: You stand at the corner of the famous Gion district (full of traitional teahouses for Geishas) and watch as the Geishas rush by from one appointment to another. It is already dark but that does not stop the important man of Japan from wearing black sunglasses on the street! (By the way, near here there is a shrine which has a srange cat resting ALWAYS at the same lion statue night and day!)
episode 6: You enter one of the most visited castle in Kyoto with a ticket in your hand. Soon you realise that you will have to pay more at the next gate to see the squeaking nightingale floor and the golden painted sliding doors of which you are not allowed to take a picture. At the next garden you are not even rurprised to pay once again but when you leave you do get the last drop in your glass by seeing the sign at the gate for English guided tours for 'a little' extra. No wonder there were no proper signs in English anywhere in the castle! (The same applies to the zen gardens of any Buddhist temples. You pay for each subtemple separately.)
episode 7: You observe how the people who go to the special flea market queue up in a long nice and tidy line at the bus stop. When the bus arrives you also observe how they raid the bus all in one elbowing their way up the stairs.
episode 8: You are in Kyoto main train station. You are very aware of the fact that this is actually the city which gets the most visitors in a year in Japan and also one of the most visited in the world. You ask the man at the information centre a very simple question. He gets angry in less than half a minute for he does not understand you even though you are very patient (but persistent).
episode 9: It is - 20 Celsius. You are about to lift your leg and place it on the first steps of a wooden staicase leading up to an outdoor tearoom restaurant. Suddenly the calm waitress starts to shriek at you and move her head vigourously in a frenzy! When you recover from your heart attack she tells you that you should take off your shoes to respect their custom even outside in the cold.
episode 10: You are on the train to Nara. It is snowing. Every time the train stops it leaves the doors open for 10 minutes minimum. You are trying not to hybernate while the girls in front of you all wearing the same boots and mini skirts with the same red coloured hair obviously having a good time with their mobiles taking picture of each other and thereby showing off the rattling lucky charms collection of popular 'Kitty' they have from each prefecture.
episode 11: You are in front of one of the Shinto shrines in Kyoto. Sudenly a taxi stops at the gate and a man rushes out of it to through his money, clasp his hands, ring the bell and make his wish (for business obviously because he is at the Inari (fox who likes the sweet tofu) shrine) before he rushes back to the taxi. (The Japanese seem to use Buddhism for after life while all the different Shinto spirits of nature like water or animals supposed to help them in this life. So much that they sell lucky charms for everything at the shrines from easy delivery ensurers to 'Kitty' decorated blood group horoscopes that are supposed to keep you healthy.)
episode 12: You are about to view the purification ceremony of the north and south at a Buddhist temple in Nara. It is pitch dark you cannot see anything. Long before the monks bring out the fire balls to perform, thousands of people who are standing as sardines take photos of the big dark nothing srictly with the aid of modern technology: using the flash, of course, or their sound making mobiles. When the actual thing is going to start you become bewildered at how well the people synchronize their 'oooooh's and 'uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh's. You try to take a photo but after the 10th time you give up becouse the constant pushing makes it impossible.
episode 13: You ask for directons on the streets of Kyoto. The women obviously is very helpful for she does not speak a word in English but even more in Japanese. You try to figure out what she has just said (was it her life story or what you asked for?) and then thank her and get lost again.
episode 14: You are about to miss your plane so you choose to take the more quick option to the airport (not express but rapid only - and nowhere it is written that it will cost you more).You have no more Japanese money, only US dollars which are not accepted by the conductor. A couple offers you they pay the extra money for you and at the end you trade your 10 dollar with them. You arraive to Kansai airport (through the long sea bridge) 15 minutes before your flight departs. You ask a good looking middle aged Japanese man who speaks English !!!(the first of this kind you see so far) to help you find your way at the 'so well- signposted-in-English check-in complex. He is himself in a hurry but he still makes sure you get to the right place so he actually walks (runs) you there.
episode15: You hear a drum on the street. You find the source of it (a ceremony just about to start). You are welcome to observe the strange chanting, Thai Chi like slow dancing and the music. You are guaranteed to have never before seen something like this! After which a priest gives you info in Spanish (of all languages!?) and calls 'God' to give you the necessary permission to take a photo with the high-hat wearing priest. They talk for a long time during which you are requested to repeat your question to the head of the sect.
episode 16: You are on the bus travelling for a longer distance. Many of the people are wearing this strange but seemingly popular masks in front of their nose and mouth. They can even speak trough it! You wonder if it is thare becouse it is traditionally more polite to sniff your nose than blow it in public? You have time, so out of curiousity you try to count how many times the bus driver has to say 'Arigato Gozajmasta!' (thank you in the most polite form) in ten minutes. (He has to say it to everyone who gets off the bus and all day for as long as he is a bus driver! similarly to the man at the train exits who not only has to say it but bow low every time!!)
episode 17: You marvel at the beautiful wrappings and small artefacts made of wood and paper in all the so many shops of Kyoto and Nara. You wonder how many trees they have to cut yearly for the 170 million people in Japan to supply them with these beauties and the new and clean disposable wooden chopstics in the restaurants. Not to mention the amount of very healthy fresh sea food fished in foreign seas like the whales, octopus, trepang and who knows what else.
episode 18: You are standing at the corner of a big crossroad trying to find the small shop they so vagely pointed out in the morning at another camera shop. You finally manage only to find out that you are actually looking for something (a UV lens for a japanese made camera) that nobody has around here. You are disappointed but insist, so in another 5 hours you are able to find a shop where you happily purchase the goods you need for an exorbitant price.
episode 19: You are in a pharmacy repeatedly asking the pharmacist to look at your hair for the possible lice that causes itching. She would not touch it for all the money in the world! She gives you a shampoo for dandruff. Weekend comes and with it the fully developed insects in your hair. You go to one of the biggest hospital in Kyoto. After half a day of waitning they found you someone who speaks broken English. First she tells you you have no problem at all just wash your hair more often. Whan you actually show the crawling insect to her she tells you to wait a little to find someone else. After another hour there comes someone else who takes one of your 'pet' to the laboratory. Another hour waiting bears its fruit when they tell you that they looked up in a book and you have indonesian brown lice (not white japanese which they could recognise) so finally you get a prescription because they do not have it in stock. You also get 10 different creams for the insect bites on your body which are actually not making it better but creating a huge cyst out of one of them. (By the way, when you leave they still haven't really had a look at you...) You pay a little fortune and stare at your registration card which says you were born in year 49 but it is actually now year 14. (They count the ruling years of each emperor.)
episode 20: You are about to buy a discounted lunchbox at the supermarket after 8 pm. The number of man standing in front of the sexy magazines and manga books does not strike you any more. You are used to it now. As well as to the so many small stamplike stickers on the phonebox windows in the Gion district.
episode 21: You are in one of the central cafes in town just about to sit back at your table when an old women grabs you by the hand and starts to pull you while obviously saying something very rude to you which you cannot understand but everyone else seems so because some people stare at you in disbilief while others giggle. It turns out that the toilet (which is ground style but made of marble!, so no heated seats this time) was not flushed properly and she obviously contributes this offence to you alone...
After writing all this I just want to make sure you do not misunderstand me: I like the Japanese for a number of things (the amazing kimono designs and small thingies presented so nicely) but at the same time some things (like the treating of foreign-born Japanese as traitors, the hiring of detectives for checking whather the bride has any Korean origin - whilst the people of Japan and their art actually all partly come from Korea and Chine a long time ago! - or the present buying craze at the local train station for goods from abroad where you have not been but you told your boss you were) scares me. I think this collective obedience does have its drawbacks on the other side of the coin. Self opression in many ways can result in people taking turns one by one to have their photos taken in front of anything thay may feel important...
Actually, the longer I stayed in Japan, the less I could understand this so long closed up culture and the more alien I felt. Even in spite of the very friendly girl at my super cheap hostel (Japanese standard!, meaning more than in Europe for a hostel) with whom I tasted 'Umesu', the sweet plum wine which I like very much and who made me try many of the local specialties like the rotten bean salad that behaves like a glue...
The many amazing temples, shrines and zen gardens I saw in Kyoto (Ginkakuji, Kinkakuji, Sanjunsangendo with the stunning 1001 cypress tree sculptures and the 28 guardians, just to name afew) and the bowing deers of the park in Nara which is home to the endless rows of stone lanterns and the Huge Buddha (through whose nostrils you can climb for good luch in enlightment), the many dragon guardians and the frothy green tea servesd at the strange 'girl's festival' with sweet bean nibble I will never forget. (Also my new friends from Nepal, Santa Barbara and from America. I actually sang a Karaoke with one of the Canadian boy of 'Jesus to a child' by George Michael for the first time and enjoyed it!)
On the whole I can say I am glad I went to Japan. (I can not possible imagine someone telling me all this and understand what they talk about.) Also, it is obvious to me how much my Japanese friend who lives in Hungary and the one in Scotland are different from most of the people in Japan. First of all, they speak English! and they are more open-minded and direct.
(Just fyi: I did buy some used kimonos and obis at the flea market... along with a couple of small pretty things.;)
Right now I am already back from the not yet spring Japan to the nearly winter in New Zealand looking for the Kiwis in this amazing land of the 'Ring'.
Take care of yourselves and watch out for the spring bloom that is coming to the gardens of Budapest and San Francisco and... all the cities with gardens on the other hemisphere near you!
Tiglis