This dramatic scene is a detail from a 1942 propaganda painting by Goro Tsuruta. Since the end of the Great East Asian War (which you might know as World War II) until this month, the painting had not been shown in public until this portion of it wound up on the cover of the September 4th issue of the Japan/Korea edition of Newsweek. The headline read: “The Art of War: A New Exhibition Challenges the Japanese to Face Their Painful Past.”

This is a perfect example of overblown headline writing. On the one hand, the exhibit was significant because it was supposedly the first time that a collection of Japanese war propaganda art has been shown publicly here since the surrender. On the other hand, it ran for only six days in a one-room basement gallery on a quiet Tokyo side street. When some friends and I visited it last week, we found a small group of old men who were apparently hanging out there all day. We stayed for about an hour ourselves. During that time, the exhibit had only two other visitors, a pair of Japanese men in their twenties who stayed for only a few minutes. Hardly a nation-changing event.

There were only about 30 works on display, and the first ones we saw were a collection of ten pencil sketches of soldiers by a guy named Kuribara Makoto. They were tattered around the edges and some were grease-stained, so we all assumed that Kuribara was a soldier himself, and that he made these sketches to kill time in the trenches. Most of the soldiers are sketched either from behind or in rear quarter-profile. All of them are stark figure studies, showing a man and sometimes his gun; there is no background at all. The usual pose was a man lying on his belly with a gun held in front of him and the soles his boots toward the viewer, or casually crouching against a rifle with its butt on the ground and barrel in the air: exactly the attitudes you would expect to find weary soldiers in if they were guarding a piece of ground somewhere on a day when nothing was happening. It was easy to imagine Kuribara on such duty himself, taking the afternoon to sketch his view of the guys ahead of him.

This was the most surprising thing about the works on display: only a handful portray any violence. None of them seem to even show a dead body (although my friend Tony and I had an argument about whether a certain figure in one painting was dead or just lying down). Aside from Kuribara’s rumpled figures and a few gore-free battle scenes, most of the paintings show plain or handsome young men looking clean and neat and calm in their new uniforms. The intended effect was to inspire confidence and pride, but today’s viewer can only regret that so many of those guys never got much older.

As for the battle scenes, it is interesting to note that only one of them (”Kota Baru” by Nakamura Kenichi) showed soldiers on both sides of the fight. This is an ink-wash drawing that shows a group of uniformed Japanese soldiers dramatically slashing into the enemy ranks with long swords. No blood appears as the faceless enemies (British or Malaysian) fall off to the sides, and the only gun in the picture is unused in the background. It’s kabuki in khaki. A few tiny planes in one corner of the sky offer the only confirmation that this is indeed the 20th century.

Only one other painting shows enemy soldiers. It depicts the British defenders of Hong Kong as seen by the Japanese attackers. It is apparently just before sunrise, and the viewer is charging a hilltop machine gun nest beneath a canopy of camouflage netting. The city lights and glimmering harbor of Hong Kong are just within sight over the shoulder of the hill. Judging by the panic-stricken expressions on the two visible British faces, the goal is attainable.

There is only one picture of the home front, a rather melancholy scene in which three generations — grandmother, mother, and little boy with war toys — huddle on a tatami floor while the mother opens a scroll that was delivered along with a military medal in a small box. The medal is the telling detail. It wouldn’t have been sent to these three if the man of the family were alive to wear it. It doesn’t seem to fit the theme of pro-war propaganda.

Nearly all of the paintings are artistically realistic. One of the exceptions, which was probably the largest picture on display, is an impressionistic portrayal of some traditional Japanese comic dancers entertaining the troops in China. The artist’s thick brush strokes are perfect for the large and deliberately silly figures of the performers who dominate the left side of the painting, but they reduce the audience of soldiers on the right side to a sea of grotesque and clownish smiles. At first I wondered if perhaps the artist was deliberately subverting his own message by making the soldiers so ugly, but then I decided not. The audience (not the performers) is lit from above by a bare light bulb in a metal hood. The cone of light cast by this bulb, bright white at the top and fading into darkness below, looks exactly like Mount Fuji topped with snow. It dominates about one third of the canvas. The soldiers are smiling so wildly because, as the Fuji-light symbolizes and the dancers attest, this part of China has BECOME Japan.

In addition to the paintings, there were also twenty or so official photo portraits of the artists themselves. In most cases, the guys (and of course they are all guys) don’t look military at all but rather like stereotypical artists with pointy goatees, disheveled Trotsky manes, and dangling cigarettes. Most of them are posed in front of their work. One guy is slumped over a table as if exhausted. His chin rests in the crook of his left arm while his left hand fingers the hair on the side of his head. His right hand rests on the table with a cigarette smoldering between his knuckles. The table is practically buried under dozens of paintbrushes, pencils, and artistic tools. The entire wall behind him is covered by a mural he seems to have just completed. It looks like a busy highway after a strafing. Vehicular wreckage is everywhere and people are dashing about in a panic. The artist’s large, innocent eyes are turned up toward the camera beneath his bushy brows. Look at me, his expression says. I’m sensitive. I’m bohemian. I’m Imperialistic Japan.

The only one whose photo didn’t fit this pattern was Kuribara, the pencil-sketch artist. He is shown in the field, standing with a large sketch pad balanced on one arm as he draws a row of three soldiers who are seated on the ground in front of him. He wears the same uniform that they do. The top half of his face out of the picture, as if the photographer were more interested in the three men sitting on the ground. The bottom half of his face is obscured by the shadow of his hat. This visual anonymity was oddly fitting, since we were left to wonder whether Kuribara was an official war artist from the start, or a talent discovered in the ranks. There’s no way to know, since the show included no biographical or historical explanations and the only information offered about each painting was title, artist and date. Perhaps the exhibitors thought that too much editorializing would be risky.

As an interesting postscript, the exhibit concluded with a pair of postwar street scenes by an artist whose simple and humorous style resembled a grungy version of that of Sid Hoff, the American children’s book illustrator. Hung side by side, these two wide canvases at first seem to represent one continuous street. That may be the intention, but closer inspection reveals a time difference between them. The first picture is immediately after Japan’s surrender, and the second is during the early days of the Occupation. The first picture shows thoroughly beaten Japanese soldiers trudging home, while the second shows robust and cheerful American soldiers entering the scene. One is entering a bordello. Everything is in ruins in the first picture, but the second has a new building under construction in the background even while most of the people seem to be living outdoors. In the first picture, people are lining up at a wooden shack to receive rations. In the second, there is still no grocery store but fish and grilled squid are being sold on the sidewalk. In the first picture nobody is working, but the second picture shows a tiny spark of industry in a group of men who have opened an outdoor shoe-repair shop. The first picture shows a few people shirtless and barefoot, but in the second picture everyone is fully dressed — although fully dressed in rags for the most part.

Life is far from perfect is either picture, but the direction of progress is clear. These last two paintings tell us that, despite the brave images in the rest of the exhibit, things began to go right only after Japan lost.

Yes, the cat zoo. You already knew, of course, that there is a cat art gallery here in Japan, so why not a cat zoo? In fact, this country boasts at least two such zoos. One of them, in the Kinugawa area of Tochigi-ken, is called Wan-Nyan Mura (Woof-Meow Village). The other, more conveniently located in southern Tokyo, is called Nekotama (Cat-Tama, so named because it is just a few blocks from the Tama River).

A Japanese cat fancier of my acquaintance put me onto this place, and she gave me a coupon for 200 yen off the 700 yen (US $6.54 or 6.80 euros) price of admission when I said it sounded interesting. Like many cat fanciers here, she does not actually own a cat. Her apartment is too small, and there are rules against pets. The relatively high rate of three-generation households also cramps the style of some would-be pet owners. I know a guy who still doesn’t have a cat at the age of 40 because his mom won’t let him have one.

Those who are catless but wish they weren’t can get their fix of cooing and cuddling any day of the week with a visit to Nekotama. There’s a bulletin board just inside the entrance covered with snapshots of recent visitors holding cats. One of them was a stocky guy in a black leather vest with no shirt on underneath it. He was wearing a bandanna on his head, mirrored sunglasses, several days worth of stubble, and a goofy grin as he cradled a Tabby in his massive arms. It goes to show you never can tell.

Most of the visitors on the day that I was there were young women on their own or with boyfriends in tow. Exclamations of “Kawaii!” (Cute!) could be heard on a fairly steady basis. Cute is big in Japan. Of course, no one said “Kawaii!” in front of the display case housing those horrid and unfortunate Canadian things.

They, and several other distinctive breeds, were housed in glass-fronted pens that were meant to resemble Western-style living rooms, complete with chairs, tables, and (non-functioning) fireplaces. The largest of these was occupied by a pair of nearly identical Turkish Angoras called Silky and Milky. A sign helpfully explained that one of them had blue eyes and the other one had green eyes. Both of them kept their eyes closed. There was also a cute creature called a Scottish Fold whose ears are folded over, and a pair of odd-looking pug-nosed cats. My own personal favorites were the dark and velvety Russian Blues, who would have made lovely pets or lovely gloves.

And then there were the Sphinxes. The female of the pair had such bright yellow fur that it looked synthetic. She had very little of it. Her gray and heavily wrinkled skin was showing through so clearly that her hide had the look of a much-trampled carpet that should have been replaced years ago. Her mate was even more grotesque. He had no hair at all except for an electrified-looking crewcut between his radar-dish ears. He had a lot more skin than he really needed, and most of the excess was hanging from his neck or draped around his shoulders. I couldn’t help noticing that his scrotum — which I overheard other visitors commenting on as well — would not have looked out of place on a considerably larger animal. A Great Dane, perhaps. Worst of all was his tail. Long, gray, lumpy, and totally hairless, it resembled nothing so much as a misplaced section of intestine. The effect was particularly shocking when he sat upright with his tail coiled over his abdomen. It was as if he had just committed seppuku with his own claws. Yuck.

I wish I could say that I spent more time gazing at the elegant Silky and Milky, but that just wouldn’t be true. I was surprised to learn that the Sphinx, in spite of its name, is a Canadian breed. The land of polar bears and arctic hares, of mink and beaver and Mike Myers’ chest wig, has given the world a hairless cat. How unpatriotic can you get? The voyageurs must be rolling in their graves.

Eventually I did tear myself away to see what else Nekotama might have to offer. There were two enclosures where visitors could actually encounter cats in person to stroke and hug them to their hearts’ content. The visitors’ hearts, that is. The cats themselves were kept on leashes and seemed a bit harried by all the attention. I also found these rooms a little too crowded myself, and since I was not on a leash I left.

My last stop was — of course — the Nekotama gift shop. As one might expect, this is a vast emporium of cat coffee mugs, cat calendars, cat paintings, cat stationery, cat cookies, cat keychains, cat toys, toy cats, cat refrigerator magnets, cat lamps, cat umbrellas, and so on.

What caught my eye was the Nekotama brand of herbal tea that includes catnip as its main ingredient. I had heard that this is an herb that is supposed to affect cats in the way that champagne affects people. Since then, I have been told by a couple of cat owners that it makes their pets roll around on their backs and drool, so perhaps champagne is not a sufficient analogy. Whatever catnip is, though, everyone agrees that felines love the stuff.

Hmmmm.

I stood around for a while thinking about how I should ask my question, and then approached the cashier when no one else was nearby. “Can only cats drink this?”

She was very quick to correct me. Cats CAN’T drink catnip tea because they have an aversion to hot beverages. I should have known. After all, the term “neko-jita” (cat tongue) is how the Japanese describe a person who doesn’t like their food or drink too hot. In any case, Nekotam’As catnip tea is intended primarily for human consumption. The cashier went on to say that if I drink it while my cat is in the house, the smell will make my cat love me very much. She then did a convincing pantomime of a cat cozying up to someone who smelled irresistible. She added that if I poured a little of it into a shallow dish and let it cool, then my cat would probably join me in enjoying the tea.

I decided not to tell her that I didn’t have a cat.

So, my plan now is to wait for my next free and sunny day, brew a pot of tea, and enjoy it on the outside steps of my apartment building. I’ll bring a shallow dish and an extra cup and share it with whatever human or feline neighbors happen to come by. As long as no Sphinxes show up, I’ll count the experiment as a success.

Wish me luck.

Likewise, a sumo wrestler strikes dramatic poses when he confronts his opponent before a bout. Squatting with legs akimbo and arms spread wide, his body language says, Behold! I’m huge! You haven’t got a chance.

Then he draws himself up to his full height, which in the case of one of the current champs is 204 cm (6′8″). Leaning his enormous torso to one side, he raises his opposite leg high into the air. The message is clear. My bulk may be equal to that of your whole family, but I’m still agile enough to balance it on one foot! Prepare to lose!

At least, that’s how I’ve always interpreted the posturing of sumo wrestlers about to fight. On a psychological level I’m sure it actually works that way — the glaring titans certainly make the most of it — but I recently learned that the historical purpose of these gestures was to make the combatants look LESS threatening.

A dozen centuries ago, sumo was a form of dueling. Noblemen with a dispute would send a couple of their bodyguards into the ring to sort things out. The original purpose of the arm-spreading and leg-lifting routine was to show that neither fighter had any weapons concealed on his person. (This may also explain why they fight in a state of near-nakedness.)

I learned this interesting tidbit last month when I attended a sumo basho, or tournament, for the first time. There are six basho every year, and half of them are held in Tokyo at a venue near Ryogoku station on the Sobu Line. The others are held in different regions of Japan. Another interesting fact I learned — the hard way — is that the cheapest seats are the best. The others get you only slightly closer to the action for a much higher price. Luckily, the arena is so small that even the nosebleed seats offer a pretty good view.

At 2,100 yen ($19.80 or 19.80 euros), the cheap seats at a basho may be the best entertainment value in Japan. The first match among the lowest-ranking rikishi (wrestlers) is at 8:00 in the morning, and the fights don’t stop until the yokozuna superstars do their thing at 6:00 in the evening. You may stay for as long as you like, but if you leave the building they won’t let you back in.

Fortunately, there’s no reason to leave. There’s a small restaurant in the building, and the two snack bars provide a decent array of munchies that can be washed down with the available beer, sake, and whiskey. You can also buy a wide range of “sumo-nirs”

– thanks to my friend Tony for that awful pun — including autographed posters, framed handprints of big-name rikishi, and even a set of chocolate sumo dolls. I found sumo to be fun from the very start, but I couldn’t help noticing that my own enthusiasm increased after I had polished off a bottle of sake and a bag of shredded squid. After my sumo companions and I finished a round of salami and beer, we were well primed to root for the yokozuna.

Rikishi are divided into numerous ranks, with yokozuna being such an exalted one that there are times when no one holds it. In the past three centuries there have only been about 60 yokozuna. Currently there are four, which has led more than a few observers to conclude that the sport is top-heavy at the moment, and that perhaps the rank is being awarded too often. To become a yokozuna, a rikishi must win two consecutive basho and display certain intangible qualities to impress the authorities of the sport. A decade ago, modern sumo’s most beloved figure (and the fattest rikishi ever), the American-born Konishiki, complained that racism was behind his failure to attain yokozuna status despite the numerous tournaments he had won. He may have had a point at the time — no gaijin had ever made it as far as he had, and some officials were openly uncomfortable about it — but this is no longer the problem it was. Two of the current yokozuna, Musashimaru and Akebono, are hulking Hawaiians, and the prestigious ranks just below yokozuna include another American, an Argentine, and two Mongolians. Meanwhile, Konishiki has gone on to become a very successful television personality.

Sumo is sometimes derided by Westerners as fat men in diapers shoving each other, but anyone who actually sees it and pays attention soon discovers otherwise. Some matches are decided by mere shoving, but most involve an array of techniques such as feints, holds, and throws that are much more interesting to watch. The loser is the one who is forced out of the dohyo (ring) or who touches the ground with any part of his body other than his feet.

Sometimes a rikishi is forced to the very edge of the dohyo, which has a slightly raised border. Gripping the border with his toes, he can make one last effort to save himself from being shoved out, and he sometimes succeeds. The crowd goes wild when this happens. Another technique for a wrestler in this desperate spot is to deliberately fling himself backwards out of the ring, pulling his opponent with him. Executing a twist as he falls, he tries to make his opponent hit the ground first. Most matches are over in seconds, but others go through several reversals before being finally decided. One match that my friends and I watched was so close — the wrestlers hit the ground side by side at the exact same moment — that the judges ordered them to start over.

The notion that sumo wrestlers are fat is largely true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. In moments of exertion it is often possible to see muscles rise out of the fat like great fish rising to the surface of the water — and then submerging again. This is especially true on the arms. Also, it is surprising how often the belt of a rikishi’ s loincloth looks a surreal dividing line between two completely different people. Since the most strenuous part of sumo is propelling a heavy opponent away from oneself, rikishi often have impressively muscled buttocks, hamstrings, and calves, regardless of the fat that may be riding around their top halves.

Ten years ago, during my first period of residence in Japan (I’m in my second now), it seemed as if sumo wrestlers would soon be muscular all over their entire bodies. The biggest star of the time, outshining even Konishiki, was a guy named Chiyonofuji. He had dislocated one of his shoulders several times, and had taken up weightlifting in the hope that larger muscles would shield the joint from further injury. As a result, he had a truly distinctive physique gave him more in common with bodybuilders than with his fellow rikishi. Everyone back then wondered who would represent the future of sumo: the ultra-fat Konishiki or the ultra-buff Chiyonofuji?

The jury is still out on that question, but the Konishiki camp has the definite edge. Most of today’ s rikishi are simply enormous, especially in the top ranks. Takanohana, one of the reigning yokozuna, is like many of today’s rikishi in that he has characteristics of both types: a roundish belly but powerful shoulders. Several others, though, are clearly in the Konishiki mold. Fellow yokozuna Musashimaru and Akebono, for example, weigh 224 kg (494 pounds) and 235 kg (518 pounds) respectively. Musashimaru looks like a bear getting ready to hibernate, and Akebono had large breasts that flow around to form silhouette-altering rolls of fat under his armpits. The up-and-coming Miyabiyama, who has scored several amazing upset victories lately, weighs 177 kg (390 pounds) at the age of 22 and has a pear-shaped body topped with a pear-shaped head.

The one wrestler in the elite division who clearly follows in Chiyonofuji’s footsteps is Terao, who is 111kg (245 pounds) of nearly solid muscle. He’s a big favorite with the crowd. He’s one of my favorites too because he’s still going strong at the age of 36, making him the oldest active rikishi by far. Terao looks like he’s 25. In contrast, the 28-year-old Musashimaru looks like he’s in his 60s and will probably have his first heart attack before his reaches Terao’s current age.

One possibly hopeful sign for the future is that the anonymous wrestlers of the lower ranks who fought in the early hours of the tournament include a many more who are muscular than who are fat. It will be a good thing, in my view, if these are the ones who move up in the seasons to come.

TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK

“What I’m looking forward to is getting back to the States and reading a newspaper with a REAL sports page,” said a loud voice about a dozen spaces behind me in the check-in line. “They’ve got lots of basketball coverage here. The Japanese are crazy about basketball, I don’t know why, nobody plays it here. But they just ignore football. There’s nothing in the newspapers about football. They just don’t care.”

Yes, Americans are loud. At least some of us are, and I’ll admit that I’m one of them. However, it seems that a lot of Americans will get loud with anyone, whereas I prefer to talk to people I already know. I believe that Japanese newspapers do have REAL sports pages because they cover baseball, soccer, sumo, and other sports that the Japanese public is actually interested in, even if American football isn’t one of them. However, it never crossed my mind to say so to the man standing behind me in line because I don’t know him.

Whoever he was, he was less constrained than I, for the next thing he said to his companion was, ” So, you’re flying from here to…?” The two were obviously total strangers, but the second man’s monosyllabic replies didn’t keep the first man from gabbling on and on.

In Japan, I get chatted up by total strangers about twice a year, and it’s usually some drunken old man on a late-night train who wants to practice his Occupation-era English. The fact that I’m a big scary foreigner might have something to do with it, but I never see the Japanese grabbing each other’s lapels for surprise conversations either. During my week in the US, though, I was conversationally approached by at least ten different people. For example, I rode several buses, and three of the drivers wanted to talk to me.

Sometimes this talkativeness was uncomfortable. One day while my father and I were shopping at a large discount drug store in Colorado, he asked me to look for some lip balm. An old woman spun around suddenly and exclaimed in our faces, “Floor mats, that’s what I’m lookingfor! I need some floor mats for my car, and they don’t have them here!”
On a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco the woman sitting next to me was full of questions which I answered as briefly as possible. She had dirty hair, baggy eyes, swollen lips, and a large protruding glob of what might once have been bread stuck in her upper teeth. I’m afraid I may not have been successful in controlling the expression on my face, so she soon turned back to her traveling partner. He was a pale, thin young man with large eyes, a large Adam’s apple, and an NRA (National Rifle Association) baseball cap which had a swatch of Episcopalian rainbow ribbon safety-pinned onto the side. Despite his near-total silence, she kept up a steady stream of chatter across half a continent. She clearly had a case of what the American writer Michael Chrichton has described as “verbal incontinence.”

American chattiness is not necessarily a bad thing, though. Had I been thinking more clearly, I could have turned it to my advantage. My first few days in the US were spent in Minnesota, the state whose governor is former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura. I am currently trying to sell a review of Ventura’s autobiography, and I easily could have could have pumped the Minnesotans I met for their opinions on the job he has done so far. Unfortunately, I was so taken aback by the idea of strangers talking to me that I brushed off some people who could have been helpful. In Colorado, I saw my father make a potentially useful business contact with someone who began talking to us at a bus stop. About rocks, of all things. And then a few of the loquacious strangers were just plain interesting, such as the septuagenarian skier who spoke to my parents and me on a chairlift.

This sort of thing must have happened to me in America before, but I never noticed it. After three years in quiet Japan, it came as something of a shock.

COLISEUM-STYLE ENTERTAINMENT

One person who didn’t speak to me was a Minneapolis taxi driver who was more interested in listening to his morning radio program. When I left America three years ago, the comfortable and usually intelligent humor of radio acts like Harden and Weaver (older Washingtonians will know who I mean) was already a thing of the past. Morning radio had come to be dominated by jarring, lowbrow, short-attention-span ” morning zoo” programs that were sometimes zany but often just obnoxious. The taxi driver and I were listening to one of those.

The hosts of the program were having a contest. Whoever called in from the most unusual location would win a pair of tickets to a New Year’s Eve extravaganza. The caller on the line during my taxi ride said she was phoning from Dennis Green’s house. The hosts immediately got very excited, but it took me a few minutes of listening before I realized that Dennis Green was the coach of the Minnesota Vikings football team. The caller was the baby-sitter for Green’s three-year old daughter.

Feigning disbelief, the hosts told the baby-sitter to put the child on the line to prove it. They proceeded to interrogate her about her father. Most of the questions (like “What’s your daddy’s name?”) left her sounding very confused and slightly frightened. (To a three-year-old, daddy’s name is Daddy. Even I know that.) When she finally admitted that her favorite color is purple, apparently the team color, they left her alone.

I hope the baby-sitter got fired. I was shocked that someone entrusted with taking care of a child would show her off as some kind of freakish curiosity. I was also disturbed that the radio hosts didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with what they were doing. I was even more disturbed by the idea that a large chunk of the public regards this kind of thing as legitimate entertainment.

However, this problem is not limited to the United States. Here in Japan, on July 23rd, 1999, a domestic airline flight was hijacked by a man with a knife shortly after it took off from Tokyo’s Haneda airport. The pilot was stabbed to death. Television reporters immediately raced to the pilot’s home to ask his wife what she thought of this, and that is how she learned what had happened to her husband.

About fifteen years ago, a video called ” Faces of Death” was controversial in America because it showed film footage of executions, suicides, and fatal accidents. These, days “reality TV” programs showing much the same thing have become commonplace in both the US and Japan. It is true that most of these programs are produced in the United States, but the fact they have found an audience in both countries is a bad sign for everyone.

FUNNY MONEY

Before going to America, I had read that the paper currency was being redesigned. I had even seen a few of the new $100.00 bills in Japan. However, upon being handed several crisp new $20.00 bills at the currency exchange desk I was surprised by how weird they felt. I don’t know if the US is now using of new type of paper or if I had just gotten used to the feel of Japanese currency, but they felt stiff and a little rough. It was odd.

Odder still was the fact that I actually flinched the first time an American cashier handed me my change. My first purchase was an 80-cent postcard. Handing over a dollar, I received two dimes. They were so tiny that after three years away my sense of touch no longer recognized them as coins. They felt more like collar buttons or watermelon seeds. Even the Japanese one-yen coin, a small aluminum disk of almost no value, feels more substantial in the hand.

On top of that, there are now at least six different versions of the US quarter in circulation. The quarter is a 25-cent (25 yen, or 0.25 euros) coin that has George Washington on one side and an eagle on the other. Usually. In 1999, the US Mint issued five different versions of the quarter. The Washington side has been slightly redesigned, and the eagle is gone. In its place you can find one of five different designs representing the first five states to join the Union: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. In 2000, five more quarters will be released, representing Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Virginia. This will continue until every state has one. Ten years from now, there will be over fifty different 25-cent coins in circulation, and still more if the occasional drives for DC or Puerto Rican statehood have succeeded by that time.

The Pennsylvania coin is dignified enough, with a goddess of some sort extolling ” Virtue, Liberty, Independence.” Can’t argue with that. The Georgia coin looks like a video arcade token, with a plump, deeply cleft peach framed by a map of the state’s borders. Perhaps when Iowa’s turn comes around, their coin will carry a diagram of an ethanol molecule.

Before I get carried away, I should point out that a similar thing is happening in Japan, though on a smaller scale. This year will see the introduction of the first new Japanese paper currency in decades, and a new coin as well. Japanese coins have floral designs, while paper money has portraits of intellectuals. The 1000-yen note, for example, carries a portrait of Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), the author of many famous novels including ” Botchan,”
“Kokoro,” and ” I am a Cat.” The 10,000-yen note features Yukichi Fukuzawa, (1835-1901), a Meiji-era Westernizer who wrote over 100 books. In between is the little-used 5000-yen note, bearing the likeness of the little-known Inazo Nitobe, who was a bigwig in the League of Nations.

The newest intellectual to join this lineup is a woman, but it’s revealing to see how far back in time they had to reach to find her. She’ s Shikibu Murasaki (c.978-c.1026), author of ” Genji Monogatari” and star of the soon-to-be-released 2000-yen note. ” The Tale of Genji,” as it is often called in English, is widely considered to be the supreme masterpiece of Japanese literature. Given that, and considering that her nearest modern competition would probably come from the insipid Banana Yoshimoto, I’d have to say that she’s an excellent choice.

As for coins, the large and heavy 500-yen piece is being redesigned this year, but for reasons more practical than esthetic. The 500-yen coin is worth $4.90 (4.88 euros) but it has the same size, shape, weight, electrical conductivity, and general appearance as the Korean 500-won coin, which is worth only 45 yen (44 cents or 0.44 euros). Criminals have been taking advantage of this similarity in increasing numbers by importing large quantities of Korean coins which they use to dupe Japanese vending machines. Many of them don’t even bother making a fraudulent purchase. They just drop 500 won into the machine, hit the ” cancel” button, and receive back over ten times as much money as they put in. It’s a very quick and profitable but totally dishonest procedure which the owners of vending machines don’t like. As a result, nearly all of the machines have been equipped with coin slots too small for the large coins to fit into. This is inconvenient for the public and vexing to the government, which understandably doesn’t like to see its coinage rejected. This is especially true in Japan, which probably has more vending machines per capita than any other country on earth.

Hence, the new coin. The biggest difference in its appearance will be a slightly yellowish color due to the use of a new metal that will change the coin’s electrical conductivity, thereby helping machines to recognize it. There will also be a new feature inside each of the large zeroes in the number 500. It won’t exactly be a hologram, but the newspapers says that a ” hologram-like” design will appear in each of those spaces.

TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS

After washing my hands in a public restroom in the US, I discovered that Americans are still drying their hands with a type of hot air blower that I have come to regard as old-fashioned. It has a big round nozzle that emits a jet of warm air. You have to stand in front of the machine for the better part of a minute rubbing your hands in the stream of air before them are reasonably dry. The newer Japanese machines don’t use a round stream of air at all. Instead, they shoot out a very thin and highly concentrated SHEET of hot air that is so powerful that it actually produces a dent where it touches your skin.

My parents found this concept disgusting when I tried to describe it, but I persist in thinking it’ s pretty cool. Once or twice though the sheet of air is usually sufficient, but I like to put my hands in again and again so I can watch the dent move up and down my skin. I know it makes me look weird, but people think that about me anyway, so why worry?

Another technological breakthrough that was absent in America was fully automated ski lift tickets. In the US it is apparently cutting edge stuff when the lift attendant uses a scanner to read the bar code on your ticket. In Japan, though, the lift attendants never bother with your ticket because the gates to the lift area can read a magnetic card in your pocket all by themselves. If your card is valid, the gates will open and let you into the lift area.

Thinking about it now, it occurs to me that neither of these systems is much of an improvement over the old-fashioned way of having a large date stamped on your ticket in ink.

Slightly more practical is the “Wax Boy”
service available at some Japanese ski resorts. It’s a coin-operated ski-through hut located right on the slope that will wax your skis while you wear them.
To those who view the US-Japanese relationship primarily as a rivalry I say: don’ t let Wax Boy and the souped-up hand dryers get ou down. There are still some areas in which Japan clearly lags behind. For example, despite all their vaunted techno-prowess and alleged service-mindedness, the Japanese still haven’t discovered how to make an ATM work on holidays or after 9:00 PM on weekdays.

It seems we still have a lot to learn from each other.

A BLIZZARD OF POSTCARDS

While most Anglophone Westerners will soon be filling out stacks and stacks of Christmas cards to mail to friends, relatives, and acquaintances, the majority of Japanese will be doing something very similar with nengajo — New Year greeting cards. In years past I have done both nengajo and Christmas cards, and I am here to tell you that nengajo are better. Here’s why:

First, they’re cheaper. A nengajo is the size and shape of an ordinary post card. They don’t require envelopes and cost less in postage than Christmas cards do. Also, you can buy nengajo with the postage printed right on them so you don’t even have to lick a stamp. Best of all — at least according to a certain friend of mine — is that there’s nowhere to insert a form letter.

Second, they come in more variety. Nengajo themes change annually on a twelve-year cycle. That’s because each year in Japan is related to an animal of the Chinese zodiac. For example, 2000 is the Year of the Dragon, so everyone will be sending out dragon-themed cards this year. Last year was the Year of the Rabbit, so the available nengajo were adorned with cartoon rabbits, watercolor rabbits, woodblock print rabbits, and photographed rabbits. Because 1998 was the Year of the Tiger, I saw one nengajo on which a tiger in running shorts was handing off a relay baton to a similarly dressed rabbit. So, the rabbit may also come back for a curtain call this year, but all of the nengajo I’ve seen so far feature only dragons.

Another source of variety is the fact that although most people buy their nengajo at stores, a large minority makes their own. (This is true with Christmas cards, too, but I think it is more common with nengajo.) A postcard may not sound like much of an artistic canvas, but people do make the most of it. Some draw their own designs, others carve their own printing blocks, and many show off their calligraphy. Family photos are not unusual, especially if there has been a new baby during the year. A small number of families even have their kids do the designing

Third, nengajo can make you rich. The Japanese post office runs a lottery every year based on the serial numbers of pre-stamped cards. The winning numbers are published in every newspaper during the first week of the year. The only prize I’ve ever won was a booklet of commemorative stamps from the last Year of the Horse, but that was thrill enough.

One of the few drawbacks, however, is that regardless of how early the cards are mailed, the post office saves them all up to deliver in bulk precisely on January 1st. So, if someone mails you one and you forgot to send one to them, you will have no time to cover up. You’ ll just have to send them one late. Another potential pitfall is that families inmourning should not be sent nengajo. But just in case you didn’t realize that the mother-in-law of a casual acquaintance had died during the year, mourning families usually send out their own black-bordered postcards in early December to ask you not to send any nengajo, and to explain why you won’t be getting one from them.

OSECHI-RYORI

Almost every worthwhile holiday on earth is associated with its own special foods, and New Year in Japan is no exception. Soba is especially popular because the long noodles remind people of long life. Eating soba during the holidays therefore supposedly increases your chances of surviving the coming year.

More distinctive than soba is osechi-ryori, or “New Year Cuisine.” This “dish” is actually a three-day supply of food served in a stack of lacquer boxes. It includes numerous small servings of many different items, each carefully prepared and pleasing to the eye. Like soba, most of them have some symbolic value. For example, golden candied chestnuts express a wish for wealth — or at least a more prosperous year than last.

Most osechi items are dried, pickled, candied, or otherwise preserved. In this way, the box can be left unrefrigerated in a household’s living room for several days for everyone to nosh on. With mom freed from her usual kitchen duties, the whole family can spend a few days together at home in an atmosphere of complete relaxation.

Of course, preparing the osechi in the first place was a huge project in itself for the traditional Japanese mother, and it required culinary skills that are no longer common. For this reason many families these days enjoy commercially prepared osechi. It has to be ordered in advance and can sometimes be quite expensive, but at least it fulfills its intended purpose.

THE ONE-EYED LIMBLESS WISH-GRANTER

The start of a new year is always a good time to reflect on what you want to achieve in the next chapter of life, which is why Americans like myself make (and break) so many New Year resolutions. Japanese with wishes to fulfill often invoke a higher power … in the form of a roly-poly egg-shaped doll.

His name is Daruma, and centuries ago he was a Buddhist monk who spent so much time absorbed in meditation that his arms and legs were said to have melted away. His eyes are very round, very white, and very large. They occupy most of his face, which in turn occupies the upper half of the ovoid dolls that represent him. The lower half is usually covered with red and white stripes. He’s basically just a giant head.

People often buy Daruma dolls at the beginning of some big project, or at the beginning of the year. When making their wish, people paint a black pupil in one of the doll’s empty eyes. When the wish is granted or success is achieved, they paint in the other eye. Until then he remains half-blind.

Kita-in temple in Kawagoe, Saitama is famous for its annual Daruma festival during the first week of the year. People from far and wide come to turn in their old Darumas and buy new ones. The old ones are burned in a bonfire, along with a variety of last year’s other good-luck charms. I went to the festival one year in the company of a bilingual friend to interview random strangers who were dropping off their old dolls. What had they wished for? Did they get it?

Almost everyone had wished for the exact same thing:

“Happiness for my family.” Only a few had asked for something more specific, such as that their adult children would finally get married or that their family would have a safe vacation in Hawaii. With only one exception, everyone said that they were satisfied with the results. The single dissatisfied party was a woman who complained that the Daruma had failed to bring her luck because a fire had destroyed half of her house. But who knows? Without the Daruma, maybe the other half would have burned down, too!

RELIGIOUS FOR A DAY

I can predict with a high degree of certainty that nearly every man, woman, and child in the entire Japanese archipelago is going to visit at least one shrine or temple during the first week of 2000. I can predict with nearly equal certainty that very few of them will be back again before 2001. This is a little ironic because the practice of visiting a temple or shrine at this time of year is called “hatsumoude,” which means ” FIRST temple visit.”

Christian churches usually save their most elaborate services for the high-attendance days of Christmas and Easter, but shrines are the same at Shogatsu as they are the rest of the year. At temples the only added frill is that the bell is tolled 88 times around midnight on New Year’s Eve. Each reverberating tone is meant to drive off one of the 88 evils that are said to beset mankind. The typical temple bell is a bronze object the size of a phone booth. When struck with a stout log, the result is a divine din.

Other than that, it’s the usual drill. You approach, you toss some coins in the offertory box, you clap your hands together, you bow your head for a moment of silent prayer. You leave. Normally the whole procedure takes less than two minutes.

If this takes considerably longer at Shogatsu — hours, in other words — it is only because of the crowds. When I paid a visit to Hikawa Shrine in Omiya, Saitama two years ago, there were about 30 police officers on hand for crowd control. This probably worked out to one policeman for every 1,000 visitors.

A crowd that large tends to be slow-moving and tightly packed. It’s not easy to drop your coins right into the collection box, so a lot of people just hurl a fistful of change in its general direction when they think they are within seven or eight meters of it. The temples and shrines try to provide larger targets by rigging up temporary lumber-and-canvas baskets the size of small cars, but people in the front ranks of the crowd feel an intermittent hail of coins bouncing off of their heads and shoulders.

One of my Japanese friends told me what I hope is an exaggerated story about his impious brother. The brother wore a sweatshirt to hatsumoude, pushed its hood back, and then stood for a long time at the front of the crowd in a pose of intense prayer. By the time he left his hood was bulging with money.

I hope that you enjoy your New Year holidays however you observe them, but this is one form of celebration that I don’t recommend. Aside from that bit of advice, you’re on your own!

Happy New Year.

Kotoshi mo Dozo Yoroshiku.

APPENDIX: Animal Years, 1901-2020 by Tom Baker

1901 Ox –1961
1902 Tiger 1962
1903 Rabbit 1963
1904 Dragon 1964
1905 Snake 1965
1906 Horse 1966
1907 Sheep 1967
1908 Monkey 1968
1909 Rooster 1969
1910 Dog 1970
1911 Pig 1971
1912 Rat 1972
1913 Ox 1973
1914 Tiger 1974
1915 Rabbit 1975
1916 Dragon 1976
1917 Snake 1977
1918 Horse 1978
1919 Sheep 1979
1920 Monkey 1980
1921 Rooster 1981
1922 Dog 1982
1923 Pig 1983
1924 Rat 1984
1925 Ox 1985
1926 Tiger 1986
1927 Rabbit 1987
1928 Dragon 1988
1929 Snake 1989
1930 Horse 1990
1931 Sheep 1991
1932 Monkey 1992
1933 Rooster 1993
1934 Dog 1994
1935 Pig 1995
1936 Rat 1996
1937 Ox 1997
1938 Tiger 1998
1939 Rabbit 1999
1940 Dragon 2000
1941 Snake 2001
1942 Horse 2002
1943 Sheep 2003
1944 Monkey 2004
1945 Rooster 2005
1946 Dog 2006
1947 Pig 2007
1948 Rat 2008
1949 Ox 2009
1950 Tiger 2010
1951 Rabbit 2011
1952 Dragon 2012
1953 Snake 2013
1954 Horse 2014
1955 Sheep 2015
1956 Monkey 2016
1957 Rooster 2017
1958 Dog 2018
1959 Pig 2019
1960 Rat 2020

May be? What are they supposed to do if they see a criminal now?

SHALL WE TRY FOR FIVE?

Earlier this year I saw a puzzling headline in my morning newspaper. At first glance it didn’t even look like news: “Fourth Female Mayor Elected.”
The fourth female mayor of what? I read on out of mild curiosity as to which Japanese city had elected four different women as its mayor. The story was about some obscure burg in western Japan that I had never heard of, and the woman in question was not its fourth mayor, but its first. However, she was the fourth female mayor in ALL OF JAPAN. Ever.
I never cease to be amazed.

MOSTLY MEN

In terms of opportunity, Japan is a man’s country. The opportunity to arrest criminals, the opportunity to run a government, the opportunity to control a corporation, and the opportunity to urinate in the street are all male privileges — although it is the last that is most commonly acted upon by the rank and file. If a guy wants to be on top while living in a non-theocracy, he can’t do much better than Japan.

Or can he? It has been argued, and with a fair degree of reason, that a sexist social system is as harmful to men as it is to women. It is predominantly men who spend hours of their day, and years of their lives, packed like sardines into long-haul commuter trains. It is predominantly men who miss out on seeing their children grow up because they are never at home. It is predominantly men who are literally warehoused like surplus merchandise in “capsule hotels” after they work too late into the night. It is predominantly men who die of karoshi and job-stress suicide.

The flip side of sexism is that when one gender is belittled, the other is overburdened. But even this flip side has a flip side. Those capsule hotels, for instance. I’ve spent the night in two of them, and I was surprised to find that they were both actually nice places.

SLEEPING IN A BOX

The price of a night in a capsule hotel seems to average about 3500 yen (33 dollars or 31 euros) — not bad for a night’s lodging in a big city. Customers pay at the counter on their way in and receive a towel, a locker key, and a yukata or set of pajamas. After securing their wallets, briefcases, or other valuables in the locker, it’s time to take a bath.

Though I can’t say if it’s typical, the New Leisure Center capsule hotel near Akabane station (in northeastern Tokyo) has an excellent bath. There are several different tubs with water of varying temperatures, and the coldest of them is fed by a large dragon’s head carved from granite. The water in the largest bath is a vibrant lime-green (infused with what, I don’t know) and a stone nymph sits on an island in its center. There’s a large sauna with a television in the wall, and the services of a legitimate masseuse are available for an additional fee.

The bath at the Capsule Inn near the east exit of Kawagoe station (in Saitama) is less spectacular. There are two tubs, hot and cold, and a TV-equipped sauna. One drawback of this bath is that the floor is made of a slick black stone that is treacherous when wet — which is always. It’s difficult to truly unwind when just walking across the room entails the risk of a slip and a skull fracture.

The baths at both places are connected to lavish dressing rooms. Long rows of marble sinks — probably fake marble — face wall-to-wall mirrors. Each sink has a chair, a hair dryer, and bottles of hair spray and hair tonic. Off to one side is an eerily glowing ultraviolet cabinet where shelves of hairbrushes and combs are supposedly sterilized continuously. Complimentary disposable razors and toothbrushes are also provided. This is truly the place for the lodger who shows up with nothing.

Finally, it is time to retire to a capsule. Here is where things get spartan. There are usually two tiers of capsules, and I prefer to take one on the top because I like the idea of climbing a ladder to go to bed. Each capsule is one meter high, one meter wide, and two meters long. A small mattress covers the entire floor. A radio, alarm clock, and reading light are set into the wall. A small TV is suspended from the ceiling. A blanket and a pillow are folded up at one end, and that’s it. There’s nothing else.

Not even a door. At first this omission surprised me. From the outside, a bank of capsules looks like a wall of microwave ovens, and I expected them to have doors that swung open in the same way. After climbing inside and seeing that the capsules are molded from one solid piece of plastic or fiberglass, I realized that a capsule with a door would probably suffocate its occupant. Both places had little curtains or blinds to provide visual privacy, but you’re probably out of luck if you neighbors snore.

Both of my capsules were surprisingly comfortable, and I slept like a baby. At the Capsule Inn I woke up like a baby, too, and spent a leisurely morning watching the Teletubbies on my little TV.

For me, even the second time, staying in a capsule hotel was a pleasant novelty. However, if I had a family waiting at home and had to stay there fairly often, the thrill would wear off in a hurry. Still, if you’re a Japanese company employee who is consumed by ambition, it’s nice to know that such places are available. They make it possible to work loads of overtime, and to do plenty of after-hours politicking while drinking with the boys. If you want to make it to the top, you’ll stay in a few capsule hotels on the way up.

ONE QUARTER OF ONE PERCENT

Few women make it to the top.
The Daily Yomiuri recently reported that there are 40,111 executives in publicly traded Japanese companies, and that just 99 of them are women. (The term “executive” was not defined.) This works out to 0.25 percent, a negligible improvement over the 0.19 figure of two years ago. Of those 99 women, nearly a third were the founders of their own companies, or the family members of founders. In other words, these women had the gumption create jobs for themselves, but they are not people who were promoted because someone else recognized their value. Of the remainder, an undisclosed number were lawyers or accountants who actually worked as independent contractors for the companies that listed them.

Thus, it would be only the slightest exaggeration to say that Japanese companies never promote women to the highest positions.

Both of the capsule hotels I stayed in were all-male, and at one of them I saw a group of men who were apparently co-workers lounging in their yukatas, chatting and smoking long into the night. If these men had a female colleague, she probably had gone home immediately after rinsing out the office coffee pot. I wondered if this kind of situation — along with who knows how many other social structures — might have something to do with women’s failure to thrive in the Japanese corporate world. If a woman wanted to work very late, she would have nowhere to stay after the trains stopped running. If the boss had to assign an overtime project, would he give it to her? If the boss had to promote someone, wouldn’t he first consider the hard-working guys he’d gotten chummy with over a long history of late-night drinks?

When I asked a handful of Japanese people if there were capsule hotels that admitted women, I did hear about one — but only one. The more typical response boiled down to something like “Of course not. Why would there be?”

This goes a long towards explaining the feminine brain drain that Japan has unconcernedly suffered from for years. Talented Japanese women who study overseas often decide not to come home. A woman couldn’t work herself to death in this country even if she wanted to.

And that’s just not fair

Though this story can not be confirmed, it is possible to find concrete evidence of Carter’s foolhardiness in Japan. A cement hut near the top of Mt. Fuji has a framed Jimmy Carter autograph on the wall. It’s frightening to think that a man who once had his finger on the nuclear button was crazy enough to have pitted himself that horrible mountain.

If you want to see it for yourself, all you have to do is climb Mt. Fuji.

MALICIOUS BEAUTY

The words “all you have to do” are highly misleading, but the illusion of ease is part of Fuji’s mystique. Countless people injure or humiliate themselves every year because of the myth that climbing Fuji is a breeze.

The mountain can be seen from nearly everywhere on the Kanto Plain, including Tokyo, Yokohama, and even humble Kawagoe. I personally have seen Fuji on a clear day from as far away as Chiba City, even though Tokyo Bay, the city of Tokyo, and a number of smaller peaks occupy the intervening 130 kilometers. Pollution usually keeps Fuji hidden, but it must have been an everyday presence in the days of cleaner air. It appears to be very close, when in fact it is just very big.

Another deceptive aspect of Fuji is its shape. From a distance, it is a perfectly smooth and gently sloping cone that has been immortalized in countless artworks. Close up, though, it is just a big old nasty volcano.

Also, Fuji is the only mountain with its own propaganda brigade. There’s a persistent myth, repeated in countless travel books, that Fuji can be climbed in about five hours. The more brazen of these publications even describe diminutive grandmothers with dried-apple faces who achieve the summit with a spring in their step.

The “ideal” climb, everyone says, is made at night. This way, the barely-winded climbers on top of Mt. Fuji can be among the first in Japan to see the following day’s sunrise as it emerges from the Pacific.

STARTING AT THE BOTTOM

The first time I fell for this line was ten years ago, when I was young and strong and foolish. With very little advance planning, I just took a train to Fujiyoshida — the town nearest the base of Mt. Fuji — and set out on foot. Only later did I realize that the five-hour figure I had heard so much about applied to travelers who took a bus halfway up the mountain and then began to walk. I left Fujiyoshida Station at 4:00 PM, intending to arrive at the top around 9:00 that night so I could get plenty of sleep before viewing the legendary sunrise the next day.

As it happened, I didn’t reach the summit until 6:00 AM, two hours after sunrise and fourteen hours after I began my climb. I missed the sunrise because I was on the north-northwest slope of the mountain at the time. However, the thin air at 3776 meters above sea level brought me as close to the sun as I ever care to be. I got such a ferocious sunburn that one of my Japanese acquaintances later remarked in all sincerity that he had never seen a human being of that color before.

Still, I had made it. My bragging rights were secure, and they would be safe as long as I remembered the Japanese proverb that everyone should climb Mt. Fuji once but only a fool does it twice.

DOING IT TWICE

This summer I found myself to be ten years older, fifteen kilograms heavier, and every bit as foolish as I was in 1989. So, when a friend asked me if I’d climb Mt. Fuji with him, I agreed to do it. After all, I thought, I had learned from my mistakes the first time, and this time we could do it right. For one thing, viewing the Fuji sunrise was out of the question. I could stay up all night or I could climb the tallest mountain in Japan, but I was not about to attempt both feats simultaneously at the creaky old age of 32.

Taking the Fujikyu bus seemed like the best way to start. It leaves from a terminal in Shinjuku, Tokyo (just outside of the west exit of the train station) and goes directly to Gogome, or the Fifth Station, halfway up the mountain. The drive is just under three hours long. Taking the day’s first bus at 7:45 AM would have us climbing before noon. We’d have enough daylight left to make the five hour climb and then come back down in time for dinner in Tokyo.

As high as it is, the Fifth Station is still just below the tree line. It probably took us an hour just to clear the trees, in part because the path away from Gogome is mostly horizontal and actually descends at first. The Sixth Station, Rokugome, is only slightly higher than Gogome. This reinforces the illusion that climbing Mt. Fuji is going to be easy.

At the Sixth Station, we met a beagle wearing socks. This was to protect the pads of her paws from the abrasive volcanic gravel. Her owner told us that the beagle had climbed as far as the Eighth Station. Hey, if a goofy little dog could make it that far, then two healthy guys like us were going to have no problem.

From there, the path begins to zigzag lazily up the mountain. At this altitude it is no longer a trail through the woods but rather a broad gravel lane held in place by retaining walls. It is only moderately steep. This part of the climb can be a little tedious, but it’s not rough.

Somewhere above the Seventh Station conditions begin to change. The straight-aways between switchbacks become shorter and less straight. There’s less gravel and more rocks. There’s less walking and more climbing. The summit is still very far away. In other words, the trail begins to get difficult just as most people are beginning to feel tired.

It was here that we encountered an angry-looking woman heading downhill against the flow of traffic. (Most of the paths on Mt. Fuji are officially one-way.) She was followed a moment later by her embarrassed-looking husband or boyfriend. When he caught up with her on a ledge below us, the two of them were backlit by the sun and silhouetted against a misty view of the smaller mountains around us. They would have made a beautifully romantic scene if not for the fact that she had her arms stubbornly folded and her head tucked between her shoulders and his pose looked imploring. It wasn’t hard to guess whose idea this climb had been, and who had had enough of it. As we left them behind, their conversation didn’t sound happy.

Fuji had claimed its first casualties of the day.

THE SEASONS CHANGE WITH THE HOURS

One thing I had learned on my first climb was to dress lightly and to carry additional layers of clothing in a backpack. What had been a warm summer day below the treeline felt like late autumn now, and the landscape was becoming appropriately more desolate. The rocks that we had to clamber over were getting larger and larger, and in some places the path through them consisted of little more than a chain or some spray-painted arrows. At this point, a cloud suddenly enveloped the mountain, and us with it.

Now it was winter. For the next two hours we were very cold and very wet, and I wished I had thought to bring gloves. Still, we were better off than the next Fuji casualty we witnessed. Although he at least had the good fortune to be dressed in rainproof climbing gear, the poor man was vomiting large amounts of ramen onto the trail while a friend patted him sympathetically on the back.

The five-hour mark came and went. With visibility down to a few meters, we had no idea how far we were from the top. There were no altitude markers for the last few hundred vertical meters. The climb got steeper, and the rocks became larger and more jumbled. We were exhausted. We were soaked by freezing rain. We seriously considered turning back, but having come this far we couldn’t do it. We decided to climb for another ten minutes and then decide. Ten minutes later, we decided to try another ten minutes.

After climbing for six hours, we finally made it.

At the summit, we found a small concrete building where a man was heating canned drinks in a pot of water over a gas flame. I bought one just to hold it against my right hand, which had frozen into a claw. (I’d kept my left hand in my pocket.) After about ten minutes I could move my fingers again, though stiffly.

The drink I chose was amazake, a thick white beverage made from sweet sake dregs that is often served to children. Containing carbohydrates, sugar, and trace amounts of alcohol (about one percent), it was just what I needed.

THE DESCENT

By now we were well behind schedule. As before, the five-hour prediction had proven false. We realized that dinner in Tokyo was out of the question, but we thought we could make up for some lost time going downhill.

Wrong again!

Most of the descent is made along dozens of identical switchbacks. You walk for about two minutes, turn around, and walk for two minutes in the other direction. Every turn looks exactly the same as the one before it. This goes on and on for hours until you think that you must be caught in some sort of spatial anomaly straight out of Star Trek.

Unfortunately, time continues to pass even while space misbehaves. We learned this when the sun went down while we were still halfway up the mountain without flashlights. The darker it got, the slower we walked. The path is very uneven and rocky, and a sprained ankle would not have been the most enjoyable experience to have on the side of a large cold mountain at night. I began to think that it was going to take us the whole night to get down.

Just as it got completely dark, we were rescued by an old Japanese man with a flashlight. It was slow going with the three of us trying to walk in the beam of one small light, but without his help we wouldn’t have made it down until daybreak. Along the way, we met a woman who really had sprained her ankle, and who was making painfully slow progress by leaning on the shoulder of a man who was much smaller than she. Luckily, an official rescue squad arrived a few minutes after we met her, and we left her in their hands.

The Fuji casualties were continuing to mount.

When we reached Gogome sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 PM, the place was nearly deserted. The souvenir shops had closed and the last bus back to Shinjuku station had already left. The old man who had guided us this far seemed unconcerned at this state of affairs because it was his intention to keep on walking. It was from him that I learned the secret of those dried-apple grannies. Old people who climb Mt. Fuji are able to do it because they first went up when they were young — and have been doing so every year ever since.

My friend and I, however, were too tired to accompany him the rest of the way. Instead, we caught the last bus of the night to the town of Kawaguchi-ko and took a train from there to the town of Otsuki, which is as far as we could go before the rail system shut down for the night. At this point we had the choice of sleeping in the street or paying for a hotel room. After what we had been through, the idea of soft beds and a shower was very appealing.

On the bus, we met an American high school teacher who was leading students on a class trip, and who had taken two of them on a side excursion to Mt. Fuji. The class was staying in Yokohama, which has a clear and tempting view of the famous mountain. It looked so close and so easy. The teacher had lost one student — an athlete who raced ahead — and the other student didn’t seem very happy about the prospect of sharing a hotel room with him. (I can’t say I blame her.) It would have been best for all concerned if he had chosen to spring for two separate rooms for the sake of her peace of mind and his good name. Instead, the two of them chose to spend the night in the street.

THE TOTAL DAMAGE

So, in the course of a single day, Mt. Fuji ruined a romance, a lunch, an ankle, and probably a career. And that’s just the part I witnessed. I guess I’m lucky to have escaped with only a sunburn and a limp, both of which disappeared in a few days.

To sum up my Fuji-climbing advice….

Don’t.

BOOM AND DOOM

Foreigners began trickling in after Matthew Perry’s visit in 1853, and poured in after the new Meiji government declared Yokohama an official foreign port in 1869. By the turn of the century, it was one of the busiest ports on earth, and its growth had included Japan’s first bakery (1860), first public toilets (1871), and first railroad (to Tokyo in 1872). It was a national showplace.

However, that all came to an end with the great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which in Yokohama alone killed 20,000 people and destroyed 60,000 buildings.

But Yokohama didn’t give up. Over the next twenty years it rebuilt itself as a major industrial zone.

However, that all came to an end in World War Two. Approximately half of the city was destroyed, much of it during a single air raid in 1945 that involved 700 B-29 bombers.1 But Yokohama didn’t give up. It again rebuilt itself on the strength of its port.

However, that all came to an end over the next several decades, with the rise of international air travel. Without a major airport of its own, Yokohama’s significance as a cargo-handling center steadily shrank, and its passenger traffic all but disappeared.

But Yokohama didn’t give up. In the 1990s it tried to make a name for itself by erecting the tallest building in all of Japan: the 69-floor Landmark Tower. It is nearly fifty percent taller than the previous record-holder (Tokyo’s 48-floor Metropolitan Government Building) and a lot prettier too.

However, no one outside of Japan noticed, and a number of people inside Japan seem unaware even now. Perhaps this is because Yokohama made its move at the same time that Malaysia was constructing the Petronas Towers, purportedly the tallest buildings on earth.

But Yokohama didn’t give up. When Japan and Korea were named as co-hosts of soccer’s 2002 World Cup, Yokohama made a successful bid to host the final game. The eyes of the entire world are going to be on this neglected city at last.

However, that too may come to an end before it even starts. Last month the Asian delegates to FIFA (soccer’s governing body) walked out of a meeting en masse in order to protest what they see as the unfairly small number of playoff berths set aside for Asian teams, as opposed to the larger numbers for European and South American teams. A FIFA spokesman rather tactlessly condemned the protest as “ungrateful” on the grounds that FIFA had paid the delegates’ hotel bills. If no compromise is reached, the 2002 World Cup could move to London.

But Yokohama hasn’t given up. When I paid a visit last week, I found the main roads and railroad stations cheerfully adorned with World Cup banners. Yokohama ganbatte!

THE RAMEN MUSEUM

I began my visit at Shin-Yokohama station, which is served by the shinkansen (bullet train) as well as the JR Yokohama Line and a municipal subway. Gourmand that I am, my first objective was the Shin-Yokohama Raumen (sic) Museum. It is the only museum on earth devoted to the history and varieties of ramen noodles.

To get there, take the large pedestrian bridge leading out of the bus plaza at the north exit of the station. At the bottom of the steps, proceed straight ahead on a street called Renga-dori and make the first right after Starbucks. Then, make the first left, and you’ll be standing in front of the ramen museum half a block later. If you stay on Renga-dori for another three blocks, you’ll come within sight of the soccer stadium. It can be reached via a grassy park along the banks of a small river. Even if there is no game on, you may want to visit Sports Community Plaza, a public swimming facility beneath the stadium. It includes a water slide and charges 500 yen admission.

The Raumen Museum might have been better named the Ramen Theme Park. Its main attraction is a re-creation of an urban residential area from the year Showa 33 (1959). It is four stories high with a painted sky arching over a collection of real building facades. There is laundry hanging from the windows, crooked TV aerials on the roofs, and nostalgic billboards advertising movies and products of the day. There is also a cast of about twenty actors in period costume, from the local cop to the neighborhood granny, who circulate among the visitors to add further verisimilitude to the time-traveling experience. One of them was 73-year-old “Ryutaro Nemoto,” the proprietor of a candy store. Beneath his gray-dyed hair and wrinkle makeup, I’d guess that he was really about 20. He tried to strike up a conversation with me as I browsed in his shop, but my Japanese wasn’t good enough to get very far. Too bad. It could have been fun.

Most of the buildings house actual ramen shops, each specializing in the ramen of a particular region of Japan. An available English pamphlet explains the distinctions among them. There are seven permanent shops, plus an eighth that changes periodically to showcase the products of real-world ramen joints that the museum management has discovered and approved of. There is also a back alley to explore, which includes an operating shot bar.

The top floor is the one that most closely resembles a conventional museum. It has a display of over 100 ramen bowls of various designs, and hundreds of instant ramen packages from around the world. Many of the flavors represented, such as “Oriental” or “Texas Beef,” are not well-known in Japan. There is also an exhibit about notable ramen shops of the past, complete with several generations of family photos.

The most entertaining aspect of this floor is the continuous videos of old TV commercials. I watched about a dozen of them from the early 1960’s, when mass-produced food was still novel enough that an advertiser could proudly show scratchy black-and-white footage of chicken parts tumbling down an assembly line to the accompaniment of xylophone music. In another ad, construction workers took a break from building a modern highway overpass from concrete beams. As they slurped instant ramen and nodded seriously at one another, a bass-voiced narrator declared, “New men for a new age are eating new food.” A third showed the changing times more sharply when an old man in a kimono was served a bowl of ramen by a daughter in a beehive hairdo.

Admission to the museum is 300 yen, and it is open daily from 11:00 to 11:00. The last admission is an hour before closing time.

GAIJIN GRAVEYARD; CAT HEAVEN

My next stop was the Yamate neighborhood (alias Yokohama Bluff) which can be reached by walking uphill from Ishikawa-cho station on the JR Yokohama Line. This has been a major foreign enclave since the days of the black ships. A number of 19th century foreign diplomats had their residences here because the Japanese government of that time wasn’t comfortable having them any closer to the capital. Today, the neighborhood is still full of Western architecture, including a number of Christian churches.

Most of the residents are Japanese these days, but some of the original foreigners never left. The oldest graves in Yokohama Bluff’s International Cemetery contain members of Perry’s crew. This cemetery has been billed as a tourist attraction in the past, but it is currently off-limits to anyone who isn’t there to visit a specific grave. Fortunately, the graveyard occupies a long and relatively narrow strip of land, and it is possible to read many of the inscriptions over the low fence without actually going in. Now, in the heat of summer, it serves as an unofficial sanctuary for dozens of cats who sunbathe on the monuments.

There’s a speaker with a button located in the corner of a bulletin board at one of the entrances. It looks like it might provide some recorded narration, but in fact it is an intercom to the caretaker’s office. Learn from my embarrassment and leave the poor guy alone.

Incidentally, there’s a beer garden on the lawn of a restaurant directly across from the cemetery’s uphill entrance. It has a view of the Yokohama skyline to the north and Mt. Fuji to the west. It’s a nice place to be at sunset.

A number of the houses in this neighborhood have been converted into museums. The Yamate Museum is devoted to the history of the neighborhood itself, and Toys Club is a three-house collection of antique toys. There’s also the brand-new Yokohama Yamate Tennis Museum on the grounds of a club that claims to be the “Birthplace of Tennis in Japan.” It was founded by British expatriates in 1878, but only much later were Japanese accepted as members. It must have been a slow birth.

The most charming museum in Yamate, as far as I’m concerned, is Yokohama Neko no Bijutsukan, officially translated as the “Art Museum of Cats.” The name says it all. This small but impressive gallery houses Saori Tsuboyama’s eclectic collection of feline-themed art. It ranges from Edo-era prints to abstract metal sculpture. There’s even a sketch of “What’s Michael?” by the manga artist Makoto Kobayashi, who autographed it to Tsuboyama-san. I was given a detailed tour by her nine-year old granddaughter Mariko, a very polite little girl who speaks excellent English. She explained that her grandmother purchased one of the works — a panoramic harbor scene in ink — only after the artist agreed to add a cat to one corner of the picture.

CHINATOWN

Downhill from the Bluff and across the Nakamura River you will find Chuka-gai, or Chinatown. Yokohama has the largest such neighborhood in Japan, and I spent a good portion of my evening searching for a nice dim sum restaurant. There were plenty of them, but I think I’d have had better luck at lunchtime. Something that seems to be constantly available throughout Chinatown is chuka-gashi, or little Chinese cakes. Though their colors and shapes are lovely to behold, chuka-gashi tend to be dry and crumbly and are not especially sweet by Western standards. The rare exceptions are the ones stuffed with candied fruit or nuts.

Chinatown is a rectangle, several blocks on a side. In the southwestern corner I happened upon something that looked like a temple. As is typical, there appeared to be someone in a booth collecting admission. When I approached to pay, the old lady in the booth addressed me in English and said that I was free to look around as much as I liked, but that the interior of the temple was a sacred space. I couldn’t set foot in it unless I burned incense there — and she just happened to be selling incense sticks at 500 yen a bundle.

Since the front wall of the building was nearly nonexistent and I could see as much as I liked without going inside, I declined. The basic design was very much like a Japanese temple except that every available surface had been rendered incredibly ornate with painted or sculpted designs. Even the columns supporting the roof were swarming with small statues of people, animals, and flowers. There were a number of iron pots in which you could burn incense, and I noticed that the people doing so bowed in front of the pots before putting their incense inside. Perhaps it was because I still hadn’t eaten at this point, but I swear that the incense smelled exactly like sweet and spicy tomato sauce. My stomach began to growl irreverently, and I thought it best to leave.

On my way out, I asked to lady in the booth to tell me the name of the temple. It’s called Yokohama Kanteibyou, but she sternly corrected that it was not a temple but a shrine. It was dedicated to the memory of the Emperor Quong, who was born 1,838 years ago. Soon — on August 5th — it would be 1,839 years, and a dance festival was being prepared to celebrate his birthday. Not only was Emperor Quong (my own romanization) a notable warrior, but he introduced a system of accounting to China, and this has made him a favorite of businessmen ever since. She said that the recent economic slump in Japan has led to an increase in shrine attendance.

LANDMARK TOWER … AND MORE

It is a tribute to Yokohamans’ optimism that even in this post-Bubble age they undertook to build the gigantic Landmark Tower, which is at least twice as big as anything else in town. Sakuragi-cho is the nearest train station. There’s a five-story shopping mall built around an atrium at the base of the tower. Architecturally, this mall is much like those in North America or Australia except for one nifty feature — curving escalators. A trip to the 69th-floor observation lounge in the world’s fastest elevator (45 kph going straight up) costs 1000 yen. You can see the Boso and Miura peninsulas, Tokyo Tower, and Mt. Fuji. To get your money’s worth, go just before sunset and watch the city lights come on.

I, however, went there well after dark. The most interesting part of my view was Cosmo World, a small amusement park at the foot of the tower. Its main attraction is the Cosmo Clock, which was the largest Ferris wheel on earth when it was constructed ten years ago. Though it no longer holds the title, it is impressive enough. Based on a visual comparison with nearby buildings, it appears to be a good twenty stories tall.

Alas, I was only in Yokohama for a day, so I didn’t have time to ride it this time. It is one of many things I will have to save for my next visit, such as the Wild Blue Yokohama water park or the nightlife of Noge-cho (also widely but incorrectly known as Sakuragi-cho). In addition, it is possible to go for a dinner cruise in the harbor, and there are two permanently moored ships that are open for tours: the Nippon-maru (a sailing ship) and the Hikawa-maru (a steamship). Yokohama’s Sankeien is said to be one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan. New shopping and dining areas are being added to the waterfront, and there are numerous museums that I missed.

Yokohama probably never will be as famous as Tokyo, but it is not for lack of trying.

Alas, we live in a fallen world. Beauty has its price, and the beauty of Japanese cuisine is no exception. In the past month I had two of the most dreadful meals of my life. Both of them were life-and-death struggles. Until next month, the weak of stomach should return to the other areas of Kota-sensei’s website. As for the rest of you….

Part One: HOW I TRIED TO KILL MY DINNER

The fish tank at Shoya is easy to overlook. It’s near the door, but doesn’t directly face it. It might draw more attention if it held something really large like a bream, or really unusual like a cat-eyed octopus. Some places have those. But not Shoya. It has only a school of a dozen or so nondescript fish about 20cm long. They’re silver with dark eyes and pointy noses. Their fins sometimes flutter as if they’re getting ready to bolt, but for the most part they just hang in mid-water, going nowhere.

The tank is strictly utilitarian. The front panel is kept clean enough for customers to have a good look at the fish, but the algae on the back has been wiped away only haphazardly, leaving clean streaks on a green background. Bits of fish dung drift and tumble slowly along the glass floor with no colored gravel or plastic shipwrecks to conceal them. The nearest thing to a decoration is a long-handled net which hangs on the back of the tank, in the kitchen. I hope that the fish don’t understand this. If you’re not at the top of the food chain, a chef with a net is always bad news.

I sometimes go to Shoya with friends, and we sit at a table far from the fish. One night, though, I arrived considerably earlier than anyone else found myself seated at a counter facing into the kitchen. I sipped a cold mug of beer and let myself be entertained by the hubbub of six cooks working in a room full of pots and pans and knives and flames. I was right next to the fish tank, and got to see one of the cooks use the net. He was an old man who reminded me of my grandfather. He had to reach up to get his hand over the tank’s rim, but it only took him about three seconds to catch a fish. He held it down on a counter with one hand and reached for a knife with the other. What happened next was out of my line of sight, but I assumed that I knew what was going on. I also assumed that the fish would be very expensive, but I decided that I’d like to try some of that very fresh sashimi for myself some day.

A few nights later, dining with my friends George and Gina, I asked the waiter the price of a fish. It was only 400 yen ($3.30 or 3.18 euros). Cool! I had to try it. After the waiter walked away, George crushed out his cigarette and nonchalantly remarked, “I just hope they kill it first.”

Uh-oh.

A few minutes later, the waiter reappeared carrying a small wooden bucket filled with crushed ice. On the ice, near the front of the bucket, was a small pyramid of neatly stacked bite-sized morsels of fish meat. White and gleaming, they were set off from the ice by a serrated green shiso leaf that was propped up behind it on a nest of shredded daikon. To one side of the meat was a dollop of wasabi and a dollop of ginger. I could use either one to flavor the soy sauce in which I would dip the meat. To the other side of the meat was another option for sauce flavoring — a small stem covered with buds. These buds could be stripped off and dropped into the sauce just by pulling the stem between two fingers. Their flavor is somewhere between pepper and clove.

Behind all of this, and presumably for decorative purposes, was what was left of the fish itself. It had been gutted and filleted, but the head and tail were still attached by the spine, a little meat, and the dorsal fin. It had been laid out neatly on a long, green, waxy leaf and then curled into the shape of a bass clef, with its tail in the air. A thin wooden skewer held it in place. While I was taking in the elaborate tableau, Gina had zoomed in on the one crucial detail.

“Oh, no!” she gasped. “It’s still alive!”

How could I have missed it? The gill cover was rising and falling, and the fish’s mouth was telescoping out and pulling back, telescoping out and pulling back, desperately reaching for something that wasn’t there. George’s nonchalance disappeared as he and Gina began to shriek, “Kill it! Kill it!”

“How?” I was asking the fish as much as I was asking them. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. “Have you got a knife?” We were eating with wooden chopsticks, and those obviously weren’t going to suffice. No one at the table had a knife.

I had a flashback to a time several years ago when I went fishing in a trout-stocked pond in the American countryside. The owner of the land was with me, and the first fish I caught was a “trash fish” that he didn’t want competing with his trout. He took the fish and tossed it into the middle of a nearby dirt road. As I watched it flop around, he casually said that one of his cats would come along and finish it off sooner or later. I didn’t like his attitude at all, but it was his pond and his fish and I was his guest, so I wimped out and said nothing.

As I returned to the pursuit of trout, I remembered a National Geographic article that I had read way back in elementary school. It was about piranhas. There was a tribe somewhere in the Amazon that actually fished for them, wading in and casting nets. A close-up photo of the leg of one tribesman showed two scars the size and color of silver dollars, each one the result of a single piranha bite. A more incredible photo showed a group of them standing in the water, dressed mainly in feathers and mud and carrying nets over their arms. One guy held a piranha in his hands, with his head inclined over it. The caption explained that he was biting the back of its neck to sever its spinal cord, killing it instantly and rendering it safe to handle. This was standard practice among the tribe. It looked like courage to me.

That day at the trout pond, I slowly began to wish that I had done the same thing to the trash fish that was writhing about in the dust. It would have put the little creature out of its misery, and it would have shown the pond owner a thing or two. It might also have made up, somewhat, for a significant failure of nerve I had experienced in my life at that time. But I did nothing.

Now, years later in an izakaya, I was face to face with another gasping fish, and this one was mine. No knife. I had to do something. I picked it up and put my mouth on what would have been the back of its neck if only it had not been filleted. My teeth sank into nothing but soft flesh. No spine. I was suddenly aware that I would feel very embarrassed if this didn’t work. I felt my face growing red from mere anticipation. “My God,” I thought. “What if they think this is some kind of stupid macho posturing?”

I worked my mouth further onto the fish, searching for its spine with my teeth. It was squirming in my hands. “My God,” I thought. “What if this really IS some kind of stupid macho posturing?” Finally I found it, and crushed the bones between my teeth.

I looked up at George and Gina with a sense of relief, holding the fish’s head in one hand and its body in the other. “I had to do that,” I said as calmly as I could.

They didn’t seem to hear me. “It’s still alive!” they wailed in unison. They were right. The head was still gasping horribly. I certainly wasn’t going to eat this thing, and now I was afraid I might lose the food I had already eaten. There was a greasy black string running from the head to the body. I had crushed its vertebrae without severing the nerves. I tried to pull the spinal cord out of the head, but it was too thin and slippery to grip. Finally, I just pinched it in two with my fingernails and placed the head in a bowl.

Where it continued to move. I draped a hand towel over it and George called the waiter to take it away. A few minutes later, the tail — just the tail — began to vibrate. By that time, the three of us had seen too much to be shocked any more. It didn’t look like it was going to stop, so I put a napkin over it. Still later, mellowed by more beer, I decided that if the meat were left uneaten the fish would have died in vain. I prefer my food to be humanely killed, but you can’t undo the past.

The fish was slightly bitter. I guess it had a right to be.

Part Two: HOW MY DINNER TRIED TO KILL ME

Takadanobaba is a neighborhood in Tokyo where three different rail lines intersect. Waseda University is several blocks away in one direction, and a large Asian immigrant neighborhood is several blocks away in the other. In the place itself, there is nothing of note except for dozens of bars. The name literally means “Takada’s Horse Field,” but this is an old name. Any horse living there now would need an appetite for asphalt. The small river that must have watered the pastures so long ago now runs between two vertical cement walls.

In my travels around Tokyo, I often stop at Takadanobaba to transfer from the underground Tozai line to the elevated Yamanote line. There are dozens of different stairways leading up from underground, and in the middle of May I made a discovery on one of them. On a subterranean landing there was an alcove about the size of a one-bedroom American apartment. This space contained five restaurants. There was one in each corner and one in the center of the room. They were basically lunch counters with limited menus of fast food like noodles, gyoza, or curry. The floor and walls were made of dingy white tile with something dark going on in the cracks. The ceiling was a mess of exposed pipes and wires. The stools along each counter were bolted to the floor, and although most of them were occupied the place was deathly quiet. All of the customers were men eating alone. There were a few university students with backpacks and shocking hair, but most of them seemed to be worn-out commuters, round-shouldered, baggy-eyed, and gray at the temples, eating in grim silence before consigning their tired bodies to the packed trains. The sullen cooks didn’t even bother to say “Irasshaimase” as customers walked in. It’s a greeting that is shouted reflexively by the staff of every other eatery I’ve ever been to.

“Wow,” I thought. “This place has atmosphere.” If you dimmed the lights and threw a little more water on the floor, most of Blade Runner could have been filmed in this room.

The counter in the center of the room was an oval, and the only available stool faced the back of the refrigerator in the cooking area. I had to lean around the refrigerator’s furry coils to get the cook’s attention. I ordered katsu-curry, a standard dish in which a breaded and fried pork cutlet is served on a bed of rice with Japanese curry poured over it. It’s one of my favorites.

The katsu-curry at this place was a disappointment. The cutlet was ridiculously thin. I’m accustomed to being served a substantial piece of meat. My disappointment grew as I began to eat. The meat had a bizarre, spongy texture. The curry itself was thin and had no personality. There was a jar of red pickles available as a condiment, so I used the tongs to pile lots of them on. My stomach felt a bit flippety as I left.

I lost three kilograms in the next three days.

Somewhere in heaven’s ocean a fish is laughing.

Talk to any foreign tourist who has spent a week here, and they’re sure to say, “if you’ve seen one temple, you’ve seen them all.” Temples are crashingly dull.

Who’s right?

Visitors to Japan tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time in temples partly because they are so clearly “exotic” (especially to the Western eye) and partly because so little else of Japan’s past has been tangibly preserved. Or maybe it’s just because there are so darn many of them. It’s easy to see how people can overdose after a while. If you want to avoid getting “templed out,” there are two things you should do.

First, chose your temples carefully. With so many available, you shouldn’t go out of your way to visit any that don’t have some special distinction. (A short list of my favorites appears at the end of this article.)

Second, know what you are looking at. Here are a ten things to look for at most temples.

1. SOMEONE IN A BOOTH CHARGING

ADMISSION. Believe it or not, this is pretty routine at any temple famous enough to be mentioned in a guidebook, and it does not mean that the place is not religiously active. Some temples charge admission only to their most interesting part, such as the collection of rakan (Buddha disciple) statues at Kita-in Temple in Kawagoe. Others charge admission to the temple itself and then again to the interesting parts. For example, at Engagkuji Temple in Kamakura, you have to pay to get in and then pay an extra 100 yen if you want to see the graveyard at the rear of the grounds. At Koutoku-in Temple, also in Kamakura, you have to pay to get in to see the Daibutsu (giant statue of Buddha) and then pay an extra 20 yen if you want to go inside the hollow statue. Some notable temples are free, such as Narita-san in Narita or Asakusa Kannon in Tokyo, but don’t count on it.

2. A WOODEN BEAM LAYING ACROSS THE THRESHOLD.

I’ve heard two explanations for this. One of them is that evil spirits which crawl, or slither along the ground can’t climb over the beam and thus can’t enter the temple. The other is that since you must consciously step over the beam, it serves as a reminder that you are know moving from the everyday world into a sacred space.

3. PAPER STICKERS ALL OVER THE ENTRANCE GATE AND ROOF EAVES.

These bear the names of pilgrims who have visited the temple in the past. Some pilgrims used to carry telescoping rods that could be used to place their stickers as high as possible in order to prevent them form being covered up by the stickers of subsequent pilgrims. Most of the stickers you see these days seem very old, which indicates either that leaving one’s mark in this way is a thing of the past, or that there just aren’t as many serious pilgrims as there used to be.

4. A PURIFYING FOUNTAIN NEAR THE ENTRANCE.

Strictly speaking, this is more likely to be found at a Shinto shrine, but Buddhism and Shinto have coexisted for so long here that they sometimes borrow one another’s accouterments. A metal dragon spits water into a stone basin. There are ladles available with which you may pour water over your hands and rinse out your mouth. Kiyomizudera in Kyoto is an example of a temple with a fountain.

5. INCENSE.

This is not a standard feature, but some temples have a large pot or urn with a small roof over it for the burning of incense. You can buy a bundle of incense sticks at a nearby stand, light it, and stand it upright in the ashes of previous sticks in the urn. Usually there are about a dozen bundles burning at once, which can lead to some significant clouds of smoke. You will often see people sweeping cupped hands through the smoke and directing it onto their bodies. It is said to be helpful if you have an injury or illness.

5. BUILDINGS THAT YOU CAN’T GO INTO.

Most temples, even those that charge admission, can be viewed only from the outside. You may go in if you are going to participate in a special ceremony, but the majority of visitors, including devout Japanese Buddhists, never get beyond the verandah.
They toss some coins into the outdoor wooden offertory box, stand for a moment in silent prayer, and then move on. It is possible to look into the temple buildings even though you can’t go into most of them. You’ll see elaborate statuary and perhaps a few percussion instruments. Of these, my favorite is a kind of bell that resembles a steep-sided metal bowl resting on a pillow. When struck with a wooden mallet, this kid of bell resonates beautifully, and for a very long time.

6. KANNON STATUES.

Those buildings that you can get into often house a larger-than-life kannon statue. Knowledgeable Japanese have described these beings to me in a way that reminds me of Catholic saints. A saint is a person who has achieved moral perfection and moved on to the next world. People still struggling in this world can pray to them for help. A kannon is a person who is perfect enough to achieve nirvana but who has chosen not to in order to stay in touch with people who are still trying to make it in this world. They also receive prayers to intercede in people’s earthly troubles.

Unlike a saint, a kannon has no historical identity. In fact, a kannon has no identity at all, not even gender. Perhaps in counterpoint to the male statues of Buddha himself, kannon are usually portrayed as beings with gracefully feminine physiques. On closer inspection, though, they often turn out to have faint mustaches. The contrasting sexual characteristics are supposed to cancel each other out. They are Everyperson.

Two types of kannon are particularly interesting. One is the many-faced kannon who has an interesting coiffure with several small heads poking out of it. These heads face in every direction. This is the all-seeing kannon, who watches and protects. The other is the many-armed kannon, who has dozens of little arms fanned out on either side. Most of the hands are empty, but many of them hold a variety of tools. This is the all-helping kannon, who can do anything.

Usually, though, kannon have only one head and just two arms. During the period when Christianity was suppressed by the Tokugawa shoguns, many Japanese Catholics kept statues of Mary in rather than crucifixes because Mary could be passed off as a realistic and particularly pretty kannon if the authorities came knocking on the door in the middle of the night.

7. JIZO STATUES.

Jizo is a minor deity whose job it is to escort the souls of the dead from this world to the next. He’s a short, bald guy who is built like a salt shaker. His statues are rarely more than a meter tall. As the “patron saint” of travelers, it is not unusual to see his statue at a crossroads, especially in the countryside. His main responsibility, though, is dead children, since their journey to the other side is likely to be particularly harrowing, and they need all the help they can get.

The parents of dead children often buy a small statue of Jizo to place at the local temple to ask him to take care of their little one. On repeat visits, they may decorate the statue with a bib or a knitted cap. People often leave a gift of a colorful toy pinwheel tucked into the bib strings. As time goes by, the bibs and caps begin to fade and decay in the rain and the sun. Some temples have literally hundreds of little Jizo statues in various states of dress. When a breeze stirs the pinwheels in the rotting bibs, the effect is downright eerie.

It may seem puzzling that there could be so many dead children in a first-world country like Japan, but I can solve that puzzle in one word. Abortion. The politicians who have banned birth control pills in this country for the past thirty years should visit these temples alone and do some long and serious meditating.

8. PICTURE HORSES.

Long ago, animal sacrifice was practiced at Shinto shrines, with horses being the first-class item. Because they were pretty expensive and out of the reach of most people, there gradually arose a custom of sacrificing artistic representations of horses instead of the real thing. These were known as “ema” or “picture horses.” At first, ema were large and expensive works of art, but through the centuries they became smaller and cheaper. They also became so popular that they are now used at Buddhist temples as well as Shinto shrines.

Today, the typical ema is a thin wooden board about 15cm wide with a picture of a horse stamped onto it. In addition to the original horse theme, you can also buy ema with the animal of the year on it. Because 1999 is the year of the rabbit, rabbits are more common than horses at most of the temples or shrines you may visit. There are also specialty ema such as the ones sold at Shoin Shrine in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward. This shrine is dedicated to Yoshida Shoin, an intellectual who was executed in 1859 because of his attempt to leave Japan and study abroad. The ema there bear a picture of him poring over his books, and they are sold to people who wish to pray for success in their studies.

After purchasing an ema, the petitioner writes his or her prayer on the blank area next to the picture and hangs it up on an outdoor pegboard. That’s all there is to it. Since they are on public display, you can indulge in spiritual voyeurism by reading other people’s prayers.

9. REVOLVING SUTRA LIBRARIES.

For a devout Buddhist, it would be a good thing to read and understand all of the sutras. However, some of them are so voluminous that only a monk could possibly find the time to complete the job. Some temples have a shortcut around this problem. They place all of the sutras in a giant cylindrical bookcase. This cylinder revolves on a post that runs from the floor to the ceiling of a small building near the main temple. There are a number of wooden beams projecting from the cylinder at about waist level. Grab a wooden beam and push it ahead of you as you walk around the cylinder. Make one complete rotation with a pure heart and — voila! — you’ve just achieved the moral equivalent of decades of study.
It’s kind of like buying an indulgence, except that it’s free.

10. THE ROOF.

When visiting a temple, look up! The roof is often the most beautiful part, and the ends of the rafters can be elaborately decorated. At temples in forests or steep valleys, like Engakuji, the elegant tiles harmonize beautifully with the surrounding greenery. This is at least as nice as anything inside.

MY FAVORITES

NIHONJI in Hamakanaya, Chiba Prefecture: This temple has the most impressive historical Daibutsu in Japan. It is31m tall and 200 years old. Furthermore, there are 1500 statues of Buddha’s disciples (rakan) scattered through the forest on the adjacent mountainside, and they have nearly 1500 different facial expressions. The temple grounds are accessible via a cable car that runs from the town to the mountaintop, which is a treat in itself.

RYOANJI in Kyoto: This is the site of the world’s most famous rock garden, the much-photographed three black boulders in a sea of white gravel. What isn’t so well known is that this garden is just one of many at the temple. Some of the others are larger and more beautiful (and less crowded with tourists).

HASE TEMPLE in Kamakura: This temple has it all. Kannon statues, about a thousand jizo, a sacred cave, ema with prayers in many languages, a hillside cemetery, a revolving sutra museum, and two ornamental ponds, including one shaped like a swastika. There’s also a view of the sea.

NARITA-SAN TEMPLE in Narita, Chiba Prefecture: Like Hase, Narita-san has a little of everything. A plus is that it is far more active than Hase, so you are more likely to see or hear ceremonies in progress or witness a procession of priests in colorful robes. A minus is that many of the buildings are quite new, which distracts from the historical atmosphere. However, it has interesting art and nice gardens including a waterfall. The town is known for eel, so there are good places to eat nearby.

KITA-IN TEMPLE in Kawagoe, Saitama: Admittedly, a big reason for me to include this one is that it’s in the town where I live. But if you happen to be passing through, stop for a look at the 100 rakan statues, indulging one who was sculpted in the act of picking his nose. The best times to visit are during the Daruma Festival in early January or the Kawagoe Festival in late October.