My Town - For Now

And so, the harum-scarum nature of my blog continues by finally introducing the town I live in - the one I've resided in for some two years, and will soon be leaving for the bright lights.

Welcome to Namegawa.  It's a small, laidback town that lies about 40 miles north of Tokyo.  Now, as you perhaps know, being 40 miles away from 'Tokyo' doesn't mean anything, and indeed, I could walk from my house to central Tokyo without leaving an urban area.  But Namegawa sits on the very edge of the city scape, where it bumps into the mountains.  To say it has the best of both worlds is something of a stretch, but there is definitely an element to that.  Because Namegawa's trump card isn't what it has, but where you could be in a very short space of time.

But first things first, Namegawa itself.  It is very much a town of two halves.  In the south, surrounding the train lines, is the built-up area.  Not too built up, though: it's mostly suburbia and some low-rise depots, but it is very pleasant.  The area where I live is especially pleasant, because it is a band new area: even in my short time here, I've noticed at least a couple of dozen new houses sprout up, and one school.  The downside?  There is nothing else here.  Okay, so you've got the train station, supermarket and home centre within easy reach, but by and large it's a largely featureless grid of houses.

To the south, it's very much the 'inaka' (countryside).  The grids of houses give way to grids of paddy fields, with only the occasional wooden house, and the gentle hills are topped with thick mops of trees.  While I wouldn't call the settlements here rundown as such, you definitely wouldn't mistake which area was newer.  It's all very charming in it's own way, but it's remote, and there's not much to pull you out there.  With one very big exception - Shinrin Park.

Shinrin Park is a huge quasi-national park that takes up at least a quarter of the town.  It is huge, full of features too many to count (including a bouncy castle that looks like a weird mountain, but the best thing about it is the sprawling network of cycle lanes, running through the park like a web of mini-roads just for bikes, and my word, is it fun.  With friends barrelling along beside you, it's many-times over as entertaining.  Is it worth travelling far and wide for?  Yes.  Absolutely.

There is one more feature to mention of Namegawa (and, sadly, it really is only one more).  That is the observation tower, which sits atop a wooded hill in the middle of the town.  While not as essential a visit as Shinrin Park, it's definitely worth a look if you have the time, especially on a clear day, when the views are spectacular.  You can see all the way from the mountains of Gunma to downtown Tokyo.

Which leads me neatly onto Namegawa's trump card.  You see, Namegawa doesn't really have a lot going for it beyond the basic aspects for getting by.  At night, I despair as I watch my area basically turn into a ghost town.  Seriously, the blackouts that blanketed Japan after the earthquake last year made minimal difference in Namegawa.  There's much to be said for the slow, relaxed pace (indeed, after a hectic weekend, returning here can be a very soothing experience), but as it sits on the edge of the city and countryside, it can't really boast to be either.  What it can boast, however, is insultingly easy access to both.

Hop on a train and you can be in Tokyo in one hour.  Go in the other direction and you can be in Gunma in one hour, too.  And properly big cities and malls lie only half an hour away.  And, if you live in the southern suburbs of Namegawa (which most are likely too), then a train station lies only a 5-10 minute away.  Not many places can boast such a proximity to a train station with a line that can have you in either the urban jungle or, err, rural jungle in no time, and with a low fee to boot.

It's not a perfect town by any means, but I have seen far worse, and when I leave it, I will miss it.  It may be a bit too sleepy and featureless for my liking, but my life in Japan, whatever it will amount to, started here, and it will always be precious to me for that.

Small-Minded

"Japan is a small country."

You hear this phrase with surprising frequency in Japan, often with no context at all.  It leaps out of nowhere like some kind of stealth proverb.  It made me wonder why it's such a big deal to the locals.

First of all, my own answer to this phrase is "NO IT BLOODY ISN'T!"  Plonk Japan in the middle of Europe and it would be the 5th largest country, bigger than either Germany or the UK, and by head count, there would be no contest.  Europe's most populous country is Germany with 82 million.  Japan is 128 million.

The trouble is, Japan doesn't compare itself to European countries.  For you see, Japan has it's very own World Map that provides a cunning optical illusion.  Instead of the World Map we're all familiar with, which has GMT 0 down the middle, the Americas to the left and Asia and Oceania to the right, the Japanese World Map places Japan in the centre of the world, with the Pacific Ocean squatting right over the proceedings and pushing all of the land masses off to the edges, like the fat kid pushing everyone else out of focus in a family photo.

The result of this bizarre reshuffle reveals Japan to be surrounded by largeness:  the USA, Canada, Russia and China loom around poor lil' Japan in the vast ocean like circling sharks.  Poor old Greenland is either cleaved in two or, in this case, ceases to exist altogether.

But let's look at facts, not perceptions.  Japan is in the top third of the world for countries by land mass, and it's the 10th most populated.  Now, some of my American friends may side with the Japanese here and back up the claim that Japan is indeed small by a size relative to which they're familiar.  But there's no avoiding the fact that smaller and less populous countries the world over rarely, if ever, hoist up their smallness as a banner to rally under.  If anything, they're more likely to be beating their collective chests and talking themselves up.

So where does this insistence on smallness come from?  I think part of it might be to do with the population density: you can't help but think small when there is so little space to go around.  Even I have to admit that my refusal to recognise Japan as 'small' isn't the whole story: a large portion of the land is mountainous and therefore impossible for the urban sprawl to gobble up.

The other explanation is that Japan doesn't like to appear outwardly aggressive.  This relates back to points I made in my 'Kawaii!' post.  Japan doesn't like to inflate it's own ego, but rather humble itself, to the point of being churlish.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "If they don't want to appear egotistical, why push their country front and centre of the map?"  That is a very good question, and one I don't have a straight answer to here.  The Japanese have a curious mixture of a superiority/inferiority complex when it comes to comparing itself to the rest of the world.  On one hand they will point out something they cannot do "because they're Japanese," and on the other they will point out something you cannot do "because you're not Japanese."  It's a bewildering contradiction, one that I am yet to understand.

Still, no biggie, eh?  After all, Japan is small...

Show Me The Money

The image of Japan as a tech-driven, sci-fi wonderland is in some ways absolutely true, especially in the big cities.  Towers drenched in neon leap over you, vending machines scan your face and recommend a drink for you, and bullet trains zip you from one end of the country to the other in no time at all.

But there are just as many examples of the lesser-developed Japan that may just surprise the uninitiated.  I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but some things we may take for granted in the West are rare or even non-existent in Japan.  Radiators, for instance.  And insulation (if you hadn't guessed, I'm feeling cold right now!).  But nowhere is this more evident than with money.

Before I left the UK, I'd grown used to reaching for the plastic when paying for my goods.  Even the most tumbledown, backwater shop has a creaky card-reader they can dust off these days.  Not so in Japan.  It is still by and large a cash-driven society.  You want to buy something?  You will be paying by cash, my friend.  Only in the biggest chain stores are card payments a sure choice, but even then, if you're paying with an international card, it can be more awkward than you'd think.

It can be a real pain when ATMs are so few and far between.  A Japanese person would be shocked to see that our ATMs are out in the open, as in Japan they are all indoors, which can make looking for one harder than it should be.  And even then, you need to look out for the time and day: you could be charged for the privilege, even if it's your bank's own resident machine (as if there are little people inside who demand the extra pay for the inconvenience of working the ATM pulleys and levers on a Sunday...).  Worse still, the ATM could be closed altogether.  Therefore, you get into the habit of taking advantage of a free ATM whenever you can, so it's not uncommon to be walking around with huge wads of yen in your pocket, something you could only get away with in Japan.

In some ways, though, I kind of prefer it this way.  You feel more in control of your own finances, and you will always have a good idea of what you have in your account.  And because you never pay by card, you don't have to worry about rogue card payments you'd forgotten about suddenly plunder your balance dry.  It also encourages you to be more sensible, too, and less prone to impulse-buying.  If you go for a night-out, you'll be pegged by the money you pulled out for the occasion.

The system is inconvenient, yes, and it is steadily changing.  And it needs too: Japanese people find it WAY too easy to save and aren't spending enough to keep the economy ticking over, apparently.  Maybe removing these bottlenecks is a good start.  But, for now, I'm glad I don't have my money on tap 24/7.

"Demons out! Luck in!"

 

Today, February 3rd, is the day of a delightful little Japanese festival/custom known as "setsubun (節分)".  It literally means "season partition", because it signifies the end of winter and the start of spring (at least, that's what the calendar likes to think.  There are many more cold weeks ahead!).  But it's perhaps better known as the bean-throwing festival.

It's closest Western relative is Spring Cleaning, only that is a physical clearing of the home, whereas Setsubun is a spiritual one.  The tradition is for a member of the family to adorn the mask of demon (or a full-on suit if they're feeling up for it), and dash around the house while everyone else in the family pelts them with beans.  The beans, called "fukumame (福豆)", which means 'fortune beans', and throwing them at a cosplaying relative while chanting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (鬼は外! 福は内! "Demons out! Luck in!") signifies the purifying of the house of all the badness built up over the past year, giving room for, hopefully, some good luck for the year to come.

I like Setsubun.  It's a fun little tradition that isn't obtrusive, and sits just right on the balance between fun and meaningfulness.  Shops everywhere sell cute little demon masks for kids to wear, and supermarkets sell big bags of beans and nuts for throwing and eating.  Even my school lunch today had a little packet of fukumame with it.

In the West, I feel that we are sometimes over-cynical of traditions, for being pointless, meaningless or just an excuse for shops to make money.  Japanese traditions aren't necessarily any deeper or significant than other celebrations around the world, but they're definitely approached in a more pragmatic way.  Do the Japanese seriously believe throwing roasted beans at a family member in dress up wards off evil spirits?  Of course not.  But they might see it as a harmless bit of fun that can tighten family bonds.

Flu season

 It seems a bit backward to talk about something very specific about winter-time in Japan without really mentioning the season before.  But trust me, I could be here forever and a day talking about Japan's relationship with the weather and the changing seasons (even now I'm bursting to talk about the legendary 'Japan Has Four Seasons' slogan), and besides, winter ain't going nowhere for the time being.

No, in Japan it is now 'flu season'.  I remember this period all too well last year.  The second one student slouches off to the nurses office and shows the signs of インフルエンザ (Influenza, so terrifying it is referred to in full name here, like Voldemort, only the other way around) then the school launches into quarantine/siege mode.  Tables with hand sanitiser sprout up on every corner like some kind of Red-Light District for hygiene, the windows are bolted shut, and a Whiteboard Memorial chart tallying the fallen students goes up under the school schedule.  It's a teacher's grim duty to erase a '2' and write a '3' sometimes, as though sending a telegram to the parents.  Then, of course, sanitise their hands after.  Dirty, dirty whiteboard marker.

 I can't speak for other schools, but in our staff room, stoves are wheeled in.  You see, Japan doesn't do radiators.  If there was anything I could introduce to Japan, it would be a toss-up between radiators and Dandelion and Burdock.  But stoves are the next best thing.  They do the job reasonably well, except they can often befoul the staff room with the stench of oil (this includes classrooms too).  This, however, I can deal with.  What I find hard to abide is how the tops of our stoves have hulking great bowls of water boiling away on top of them.  This, combined with the lack of air-circulation due to everything being shut, means that some 30-plus adults sit in a stew of each others exhalations for several hours each day, which is a recipe for catching the flu if ever there was one.  That, and the humidity makes me feel oddly giddy.  Add to this the tea-lady's well intentioned serving up of hot lemon, and I even I wonder if I'm already ill.

I don't mean to come across as though I know better by default, but I have to admit I find the 'flu season' in Japan fascinating, not just in how it copes with it, but how it prevents it.  Everywhere you look, for kids and adults alike, are signs encouraging you to wash your hands, gargle and mask up (see above).  No doubt, Japan works harder than any other nation to avoid falling ill, and yet just as many students seem to tally up on the flu board as I recall during my own school days, if not more so.  Make of that what you will.

Mountains!

The swell of Scafell Pike, the highest point in England at 978m.

 Anyone who knows me knows I love to walk.  I've been known to walk for multiple miles at a time, out of sheer boredom or time to burn.  And when I begin to plan something, that's when I'm a danger to myself.  In 2007, I mapped out a 100-mile hike around the UK's Lake District, over a span of 8 days.  The reason?  Absolutely nothing beyond needing something to do in my time off.

A ntaural progression from hiking is scaling mountains.  But the UK, while it has what you could technically call 'mountains', aren't really Mountains.  Even the highest point, Ben Nevis, is 1,344m above sea level - not to be sniffed at, for sure, but most other countries eat that kind of altitude for breakfast.  And while I am well aware there is some good rock climbing and scrambling to be had in the Lakes and Cairngorm and the like, that wasn't what I was after: I wanted some good, honest one-foot-in-front-of-the-other heights to scale, to feel that slow-burn sense of progress as the world shrinks away below you, until you look back down upon what you've achieved.  In that sense, living in the UK was a bit like being a pyromaniac in Atlantis.

Fast forward to Japan, though, and I suddenly felt like an over-sized fish in a goldfish bowl thrown into the ocean.  I'd always known that due to it's birth along a crossroads of tectonic lines, Japan was always going to be rockier than the UK's rolling green hills.  What shocked me was just how much rockier it was.

           The Chichibu mountains seen from Namegawa.

 There's a line of mountains visible from my town (seen above), for starters, each peak instantly taller than all but the highest points of the UK.  These form part of the Chichibu National Park.  On the very end is a prominent, pyramid-like peak called Kasayama (on the right in the photo, just to the right of the intruding phone-pole), which I resolved to conquer the very moment I saw it on my very first train journey.  When I eventually did in May 2010, it was a very humbling experience.  It was much, much taller and further away than I thought.  More than that, Kasayama is a comparatively gentle bump by comparison to what else Japan has on offer.

During the Golden Week of 2010 (a bunch of bank-holidays in the spring that effectively make a whole holiday), I went on a road-trip with some friends from Gunma to Kanazawa, and we crossed some beautiful country.  And those Mountains!  Jagged peaks pierced the skies, the powder-snow discernible from the clouds, torn like cotton woll across their moody faces.  It was awe-inspiring, and slightly scary, to look at them.  I'd never seen Mountains like that in my life, and new that my tepid beginnings in the UK had made me big-headed when it came to them.  There would definitely be a sense of achievement from atop these Mountains, but it would never be as simple as the step-by-step I'd grown used to.  They were at once forebidding at inviting, basically saying "Come and have a go if you think you've got the legs!"

Kamikochi, a prime mountain-climbing spot in Japan.

I've climbed some Mountains in Japan since then, but that's another story.  For now, I just wanted to share that sense of wonderment (and, I have to admit, fear) at what I was seeing far exceeding anything I'd imagined.  I've had many moments like that since I've come to Japan, but because of my love for hiking, this was one of the strongest, and will always stay with me.

The Medusa Stare

Oh boy.  I'll need to tread carefully on this one, as it's a subject that people can get, perhaps understandably, irate about, because it's quite contentious and not even I know what my own feelings are on this.  It's about staring.  But wait!  I'm not talking about the rampant stares you receive from the natives, but the stares from one's fellows minorities as a 'foreigner' in Japan.  In fact I don't even mean staring, but the polar-opposite: the anti-stare, something that I dub the Medusa Stare.

Let me explain what I mean.  Japan is a very homogenous country, with 98.5% of the population being native Japanese.  Even from that remaining 1.5% we still have some 2 million foreign nationals.  However, nearly two-thirds of these are of Asian appearance (ie. Chinese and Korean), and don't physically stand out.  Which is not to say they get an easier time of things - anything but - but that's a whole other blog post.

Those of a non-Asian appearance, however, do physically stick out, and the presence of a foreigner in even the most cosmopolitan areas is still unusual.  What's rarely appreciated, however, is that from our point of view it is also an unusual sight.  I'm not saying it's right, but I cannot help it if my eyes fall on the only other westerner on the train.  Likewise, it's perfectly fair if his or her eyes land on me.

Of course, it's natural to feel awkward if you accidentally make eye-contact.  Most people look shyly away at that point, and again that's a normal reaction - two strangers lock eyes and they quickly break the stare - it's not an ethnicity thing.  You just increase the chances of it by your comparatively unusual appearance.

That's fair enough.  What winds me up is the 'Medusa Stare': when someone forcefully keeps eye contact away from someone, even though it's obviously the only thing you're paying attention to.

Anyone else who has lived in Japan or even stayed on a long-ish holiday has surely experienced this.  Another foreigner passes you by, their gaze fixed pointedly in the middle distance as they march stiffly past you.  You can palpably feel the tension on them.  I'm no expert in body language but I know when someone isn't looking at you and when they're not looking at YOU.

 It shouldn't be a big deal, and in the grand scheme of things it isn't.  But it still winds me up the wrong way.  As I said, in Japan, you will be unusual to behold.  For some people, this is a real kick (even I have to admit getting a guilty buzz from it from time to time), but for a small handful of people, this superficial recognition is like some quick n' easy celebrity status, instead of real, earned popularity.  They relish the idea that they're special, of being The One that stands out from the crowd so effortlessly.  And, as another foreigner crossing their path, you ruin their fantasy.  You serve them a living, breathing reminder that their illusion of being so special is just that: an illusion.  So what do they do?  They blank you out completely, as if to say "Get out of my Japan, this is my special place, not yours."

I'm not saying all people who look determinedly away are like this.  Some people are just trying to be achingly polite, as if to say "Look, I'm not staring at you!  Your unusual appearance hasn't grabbed my attention at all!".  But some definitely are.

It's for this reason that I hate the Medusa Stare more than the actual stares from the Japanese.  The latter is just amazed at your existence, and the former wishes you didn't exist at all.