J-Term Diaries: Matthew Roberts

So.  Toys are amazing, especially when they're weird puzzle-y thingies and/or pinball without electricity.

We went to a museum and were given a guided tour by a very grandmothery type, who used the word "conflagaration" correctly in a setence, meaning that she has better English skills than 95% of college students.  The second floor of the museum had toys.  That's basically when the class stopped functioning as we were all too busy playing with the toys to pay attention to the rest of the museum.  For two hours, we played games of chance, threw round thingies at pointy thingies, assembled, disassembled and reassembled puzzles and played this crazy pinbally thing.  Chris Blenderman bragged about his high score of 120; my average is 155, and he can stick that in his morning coffee, because I am great.

We also went to an art museum, which was cool.  Brittany Wampler won a gigantic squirrel stuffed animal at an arcade.  A former student of Todd-sensei's came by and introduced Brittany, James and I to a food which is like pancakes and like omelets and like pizza but not actually anything at all like any of those things.  It's weird; I can't describe it or even remember the name, but it was really really good.  She works for the JET program in Kobe, so I'm basically going to have to ask her about seven hours of questions.  Todd-sensei made several ridiculous jokes, called several of us names and was generally awesome.  Going home is going to suck.

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It snowed today!

Oh yeah, and we went a woodblock museum and drew pretty pictures.  But more importantly, snow!  In Tokyo!

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    There are a couple things that really come to mind, I think, when people think to themselves about Japan and its culture.  Two of those things are theatre and fat men in diapers pushing each other around.  In the last two days, I've taken in a play at the Kabuki-za Theatre in Ginza and watched a day of sumo proceedings in Ryogoku.

The play was Sukeroku, which was originally staged in 1713 and was adapted to its current version in 1716.  Think about that for a mo, if you will.  I watched a play yesterday that has gone virtually unchanged since more than fifty years before the formation of our entire freakin' country.

The Yoshiwara district in Edo provides the setting for the play.  Yoshiwara was the licensed pleasure quarters which, in part, provided the inspiration for the Ueki-yo woodblock prints, so most people who have had even the slightest exposure to the culture of Japan have seen it in some manner.  The play is set in the spring, and the action opens with Agemaki, a high-ranking courtesan and Sukeroku's lover, who is given a letter from Sukeroku's mother.

Sukeroku's father, we learn, was murdered, and his sword was stolen.  The remaining family has sworn vengeance upon his killer, but they cannot truly begin on their vendetta until they discover who has their father's sword.  In order to discover the location of the sword, Sukeroku pretends to be a wastrel and picks fights with anyone who has a sword.  Sukeroku's mother has heard of his deeds and asks Agemaki to abandon him, that he might get back on the straight and narrow.

In an elaborate precession, the villian of the film enter.  Ikyu is an elderly samurai with a long, exaggerated white beard.  He also has a lump of money the size of a small moon and no morals to speak of.  (By the by, I shan't lie to you; I wouldn't have understood any of this without the aid of a very nifty radio which provided some English dialogue and commentary.  That was quite helpful.)  After walking roughly forty feet and sitting down, a process which takes a good eight or nine minutes, and exchanging some small talk and offers of patronage with Agemaki, Ikyu launches into a tirade about Sukeroku, calling him a thief.

Agemaki explodes into an angry speech, one of the more famous in kabuki, comparing Sukeroku to her fine silver pipe and Ikyu to her little finger.  Despite not understanding either the customs of the theater or the language in which the words are spoken, I was certainly able to understand the meaning and the mood.  Angry, she repudiates Ikyu forever.

Sukeroku's entrance comes immediately afterwards and is one of the most Japanese-y spectacles I have seen ever.  The actor dances towards the stage on an extension which protrudes thirty feet into the audience.  He poses every few steps, holding out his umbrella, in poses which reveal Sukeroku's character: intelligent, arrogant, cocky, fearless, in short, the ideal Edo commoner.

Kabuki theater was originally designed, like Shakespearean theater, for the lower classes.  Samurai would have found it beneath them, so it's no surprise that the hero of the play constantly needles and outfights the samurai.  When Sukeroku enters, the courtesans flock to give him their pipes as signs of their affection.  Ikyu is angry and asks for one.

Sukeroku, nice guy that he is, offers him one... holding it between his toes.  Ikyu is, politely, furious.  He refuses to rise to the bait, though, and avoids Sukeroku's anger.

His retainer Mombei is not so lucky.  He comes storming out, furious at the treatment he has received from the women.  When a hapless, though witty and cheeky, noodle vendor bumps into him, he refuses to accept his apology, causing Sukeroku to step in on the commoner's behalf.  When Mombei pretends not to have heard of him, Sukeroku delievers another of the most famous speeches in kabuki, proclaiming to be supreme in both fighting and lovemaking.  Mombei and his servant attack in a rage, but are beaten by a weaponless Sukeroku.  Ikyu, however, does not step in and draw his weapon, choosing instead to withdraw into the tea house.

Sukeroku is confronted by a group of ruffians after he dispatches Ikyu's men.  Among the ruffians is his brother, disguised as a wine peddler.  His brother has heard of Sukeroku's behavior and wishes to confront him, believing that Sukeroku has abandoned his oath.  Sukeroku explains the plan and his brother agrees to go along with it.  In the hilarious scene that follows, Sukeroku tries to teach his brother to fight.

First, Sukeroku and his brother waylay a samurai from the hills.  Sukeroku checks his blade, then forces the samurai to crawl through his legs.  The scene is full of improvisation and ad-lib. The samurai, after seizing Sukeroku up and deciding that he can't win, remarks that Sukeroku looks like someone: the actor, who is playing the character.

In the second of these scenes, the victim is an amusingly effeminate merchant.  The merchant again references the actor playing Sukeroku, by saying that he is sure he saw Sukeroku in Paris being honored by the French government.  The joke is that the actor playing Sukeroku had appeared in a Parisian theater exposition, where he had been given awards by both the French and Japanese governments.  Before crawling through Sukeroku's legs, the merchant sprays him with perfume and dons a headband bearing the kanji that represents the actor's family name.  When the merchant reaches Sukeroku's brother, he remarkes that he doesn't wish to be late for the Kabuki-za's 120th anniversary celebration, which the theater is celebrating in 2008.  He also makes several puns based on the word for shore, which is also the word for award.  The actor playing Sukeroku's brother has also received several awards.

Having successfully taught his brother, Sukeroku tries to waylay a samurai coming out of Agemaki's tea house.  To his dismay, the samurai is his mother in disguise, played by Shinkan, an actor who has been declared a living national treasure.  Again Sukeroku explains his plan, but his mother is not as easily convinced as his brother.  She takes his old kimono and gives him a new one, made of paper, and warns him not to rip it.

Immediately thereafter, Ikyu exits the tea house, and Sukeroku hides behind Agemaki's skirts.  Giving in to his mischevious instincts, he pinches Ikyu's leg.  Ikyu, furious, chops the bench in half in order to get at the irritant, which he believes is a rat.  Sukeroku is revealed, and Agemaki shields him from Ikyu's blade, which, in the end, is the very weapon Sukeroku has been seeking.

In a postscript, Ikyu is ambushed by Agemaki and Sukeroku and killed, thus recovering the blade and ending the vendetta for the family in one fell swoop.  Sukeroku and Agemaki flee over the rooftops of Edo, but are run to ground by Imperial troops and are forced to take their own lives.

Kabuki is a very Japanese-y expression of intellect and culture.  Next: Sumo!

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Sumo wrestling is considered to be a modern martial art by the Japanese.  The sport is regimented and traditional; wrestlers live in stables (ironic) where everything about their lives is controlled by tradition.  Many of the traditions come from Shinto, most notably, the sipping of water to purify the body and the throwing of salt to purify the ring before a match.

The group today watched the top tier of wrestlers today, in addition to a few bouts by the lesser fighters.  The lower groupings (think the minor leagues), went first, ending at roughly four pm.  After the underlings cleared the floor, the upper tier of wrestlers made a ceremonial, colorful entrance.  They entered in an east group and a west group, presumably so as not to see their opponent for the day until match time.

In the first match of the day, Yoshikaze narrowly avoided defeat not once but twice, eventually pulling an upset by acrobatically twirling (not words often associated with sumo) and flinging his opponent out of bounds.  Despite the relatively poor records of both wrestlers, Japanese companies had put a fairly hefty sum on the match, and, in exchange for the colored banners which were paraded around the ring, Yoshikaze collected perhaps five or six extra mon, or ten thousand yen bills.

In a pair of comparatively unexciting matches, Kotokasuga beat Tamanoshima and Iwakiyama beat Tosanoumi.  Ichihara lost to Kasugao, then Wakanoho beat Kaiho, neither result what I had predicted, though not exactly surprising.  Kyokutenho, a Mongolian, beat Tochiozan to go to 9-1, a very good record.  I thought for a while that Tochiozan could pull the upset, as Kyokutenho was clearly off his game, but it was not to be, and Kyokutenho took advantage of a single mistake to win the match.

Futeno beat Kokkai, Kakuryu beat Takekaze, Toyohibiki beat Hamasho and Kakizoe pulled a stunning upset at the last second to beat Hotukoriki, concluding the first half of the action.

After a break, my picks started going sour.  Wakakirin, Tochionada, and Goedio all won.  Kisenosato beat Toyonoshima in a fairly exciting match and Tokitenku beat Dejima.  Next, my favorite wrestler, a Bulgarian who has reached the second highest rank in sumo, that of ozeki, wrestled and beat handily Asasekiryu, who despite his superior record did not look particularly impressive.  Kaio, one of the longest-tenured sumo ever, then defeated Aminishiki.  Kaio, in March, will celebrate his 20^th year of sumo, an astonishingly long time, and he’s still putting up good performances.

After Kaio’s win, the first yokozuna wrestled.  Yokozuna is the highest rank in sumo, having only been awarded 69 times since 1600.  Once a wrestler has been acknowledged as a yokozuna, he cannot be demoted and must retire from the sport if his game slips at all.  He makes a ceremonial entrance after the rest of the wrestlers and performs a brief dance routine.  Hakuho, the first of the two yokozuna, is Mongolian, and wrestled Ama.   Ama is a fairly fast wrestler and is known, according to the Britisher doing English commentary on the match, for beating better opponents and losing to inferior ones.

In a great match, Ama defeated the yokozuna, giving him his first loss in the competition.  When the underdog Japanese wrestler beat the favored Mongolian, screams and shouts filled the arena and seat cushions flew through the air like snow.  Hakuho did not look happy.  In an anticlimactic finale, the second yokozuna, Asashoryu, defeated his opponent with ease.  We left the arena during the brief bow ceremony which concludes the action.

Seeing sumo was a ton of fun, and I regret not being able to watch it in the States.  Since I’ve been here, I’ve tried to tune in to the sumo broadcasts on NHK daily and it’s been much more exciting than American wrestling or boxing.

The only sour note was buying tickets.  We were given a group discount, from 3600 yen to 3240 yen each.  We each paid Munson-sensei because the man at the register wanted to take our money in a single lump.  After each of us had given the Todd 3300 yen, we found that we were just over six thousand yen short, or exactly two tickets.  Since no one copped to having skipped the bill, as it were, the remaining 20 of us had to make up the difference, putting in another 500, while the professor threw in another 700.  Someone watched for free, at the expense of the rest of the group, and, given his behavior on the rest of the trip, I have a sneaking suspicion that I know one of the people who didn’t pay.  There’s something about running around with a wooden sword all day and purposely paying 150 yen admission fees with a 10,000 yen bill that just bugs me.  I remember almost everyone handing the professor their cash, and I never saw him make a move.  Perhaps my memory is wrong.

Perhaps not.

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"Sale!  Super Price Explosion!" accompanied by a picture of the initial test of the hydrogen bomb.  Is it any wonder I love this country?

Let's be honest with ourselves for a minute.  As nice as the temples, shrines and museums in and around Tokyo are, what we're all interested in is wandering around the city, finding trouble.  Today, that's basically what we did.

In 1946, after the conclusion of World War II, the black market was in full swing in the Ueno district of Tokyo.  Ameya Yokocho, or Ameyoko, was tucked under the rail lines and sold illegal and stolen merchandise, especially sweets.  While Ameyoko isn't a haven for illegal activity anymore, it maintains the vibrant, earthy feel it must have had.  I wandered through the maze of side streets under the tracks today, looking for nothing in particular.  I bought a Cesc Fabregas Arsenal jersey for roughly 10 USD, a pretty decent deal, and ate a wonderful bowl of spaghetti and shrimp at Pronto, which seems to be a cross between an upscale Italian eatery and a seedy dive bar.

After Ueno, Trin Wampler and I went to Akihabara, the electronics district, in search of the Guitar Freak controller she had promised her friend.  We searched in tiny alcoves and massive, seven-story department stores alike, but came up empty.  Tonight, I either plan on enjoying some karaoke or wandering around a neighborhood where I might be knifed.   Either way, it should be a good time.

Mrs. D, Dan says hi.

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Today was set aside for wandering around the Yanaka district in the Taito ward of Tokyo, where our hotel is located.  Munson-sensei tasked each of us with finding the Tennoji Temple, the Shitamachi Museum, the Nezu Shrine, the Daiennji Temple, the Zensyouan Temple and the Asakura Chouso Museum, as well as a really squiggly street he called "Squiggly Street."

The Tennoji Temple is generally believed to have been established during the Muromachi Period, between 1394 and 1427, when Nichiren, a Buddhist saint, carved a statue of himself, which was then placed in a shrine by the local daimyo.  It's located near the Nippori train station, the closest to our hotel.  After purifying ourselves at the pool, Brittany Wampler and I wandered around the garden, listening to the chants of the monks and enjoying the statuary.

The Shitamachi Museum was quite disappointing, unless you really care, for some reason, about changes in shape in sake bottles over time.  The museum is located in an old sake store, which is an interesting example of period architecture, but there's really very little else of interest there.  A native speaker of Japanese would probably get much more out of the museum, but for someone with knowledge as rudimentary as mine, there really was very little point.

The Nezu Shrine was further from the Shitamachi Museum than I would have liked, but it was quite splendid.  Wampler-san and i walked through the red gates, directly off of the busy street, and were immediately surrounded by silence and a feeling of peacefulness.  Considering the location of the shrine in the middle of a blue-collar district in the largest city in the world, the amount of wildlife and greenery was astonishing.  Tame cats wound their way around scarlet pillars, posing long enough for us to take pictures, then sliding away like furry serpents.  A pair of long-necked turtles sunned themselves on a rock as a happy little waterfall gurgled behind them.  We paused on a bridge which arched over a long, narrow pond as an egret stalked along the banks, picking at a crayfish, before majestically disappearing under the bridge.  We walked up a series of stone steps to a shrine draped in purple cloth, but the shutters were closed, so we walked through a series of short, red-painted gates, each low enough that both Wampler-san and I had to duck to make it through without braining ourselves on the lintels.  More gates led to the bridge, which we crossed, then walked into the main portion of the shrine.  The decoration and architecture were spectacular.

Leaving the Nezu shrine, we walked along a narrow, winding street to two small Buddhist temples.  Each temple had a graveyard attached, so we didn't linger long.  Graves and long, narrow wooden markers crowded around statues of the Buddha.  One memorable statue was at least ten feet tall and covered in gold.

After the two temples, we visited a sculpture museum.  To be frank, I know nothing about sculpture, metallurgy or stoneworking, so all I can really say about the pieces themselves is that they were quite beautiful.  The highlight of the day, though, was on the roof, where the curators had cultivated a small garden.  In the world's largest city, in the dead of winter, in a barren garden, on a seemingly dead plant, a single rose bloomed.

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The best part about being in Japan is being in Japan.  The worst part is getting there.

Depart Ashland: 4 in the AM.  Depart Richmond Airport en route to Newark, 6:25.  Depart Newark, bound on the new Triple 7 for Narita and points beyond, 11:10 AM, after a three-point-five hour layover.  Arrival, Narita, 3 P.M, after time changes and a fifteen-hour flight.  Immediately board the Kesei Line, bound for Tokyo and the Yamanote Line, which circles the nucleus of the city.  Arrive at the Nippori station at 4:30 PM, then stretch the legs with a 20-minute walk to the Annex Katsutara. 

After dropping off the baggage, the only things left to do are figure out the Japanese traditions involving shoes and find food, not necessarily in that order.

One must understand, the Japanese are very picky about cleanliness, and cleaning the tatami mats, which are made of woven straw and cover the floors, can be a gigantic pain in the rearward part of the body.  Shoes, obviously, bring dust, dirt and other detrius into the room and onto the mats, so the Japanese take their shoes off in an entrance area just inside the room, storing them in a cubby. 

The fun begins when you try to figure out the slippers.  One set of slippers is for general room use and another set is for bathroom use.  Our room, though, does not have the general-use slippers.  We were quite embarrassed when we tried to walk into the room in the bathroom slippers, only to be stopped by our scandalized hostess.

Several short bows and "gomen nasai's" later, we went in search of food, only to discover that much of Nippori closes up after the evening rush hour ends.  We ended up eating with several other members of the group in an all-night noodle shop, where meal tickets are dispensed from a vending machine and each table comes equipped with a basket of hardboiled eggs.

The miso ramen was delicious.  The sleep, afterwards, was even moreso.

The next morning was, again, embarrassing.  Picture the scene in your minds.

In front of you is the Bread and Cake Bakery.  The walls are plastered with posters depicting baked delicacies, which are completely foreign to you and practically unrecognizable, with the exception of the coffee cake.  Inside, a stone-faced man picks strange breads off a forest of shelves and places them onto a wooden tray.  He hands the tray to a smiling woman, who gives him a bill, and, using his tongs, places the items into bags and bows him from the shop.  You walk in and hear what your uncle describes as "the famous seven-second tooth suck," a hissing drawing of breath.  You turn and one of the people with you is snatching things off the shelves with his bare hands and piling them onto his arm.  After extricating yourself from the situation and paying for your food, you cart it back to your room and take a bite of some strange chocolate-coated thing.

Bliss.  The money for the trip was worth it, just to be able to eat here every morning.

Japanese food thus far has been a pretty excellent experience.  No disrespect intended to the cooks of the United States, but even the humblest meals here have been better than almost anything in the States.  I've had a better hot dog than the one I ate in Harajuku, but that was in Mexico and a once-in-a-lifetime thing.  I've never had better pasta than the shrimp and spaghetti dish I ate in Ueno (apparently, the Japanese eat a lot of pasta).  The ramen, of course, is wonderful and beyond compare.  Even the convenience stores sell what would be restaraunt-quality meals, a pleasant change from the $1 burritoes at 7-11.

The Meiji Shrine was our destination on the second day of the trip, which happened to be Coming of Age Day.  In Japan, 20 is the age of legal adulthood, and your 20th birthday is like an American's 18th and 21st birthday rolled into one.  Many Japanese who have celebrated their 20th birthdays in the past year, visit a shrine on the 14th of January to celebrate turning 20 (again).

The shrine still sported many of the decorations from the New Year's festivities, including marvelous ice sculptures.  Japanese women in startlingly pretty kimono wandered the shrine, being stopped at random by photographers, both foreign and domestic.  Solemn-faced men and women tossed five-yen pieces, which are considered to be lucky, into wooden boxes and clapped to draw the attention of spirits, who would look favorably on the donation and grant a wish. 

The temple was an austere monument of quintessentially Japanese beauty.  The streets of Harajuku, five minutes walk away, were a monument to abyssal taste in clothing.  Shops like "Sex Pot" and "Sexy Dynamite London" assaulted the eye with displays of punk-style clothing the likes of which are seen nowhere else in the world.  An American from the lower penninsula of Michigan sold hot dogs on the corner, and they were cheap and delicious.  Like the trip itself, the dog was worth it.

More to come.

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