I work from home. I’ll
never complain because there are more advantages to that arrangement than I can
even count, but there is one down-side: I don’t get out much. So on those occasions
where I do leave the house to visit people or get away for the weekend or pick
up a loaf of bread, it opens the door for
AUTHOR’S NOTE: You may recall that this is the 20th anniversary of my year in Japan.
The following (lightly edited) dispatch is from almost exactly 20 years ago
today.
I’ve been down-right ornery the last few weeks. A lot of it
had to do with my wondrous time in Hokkaido and the poverty that ensued but I
was shocked to discover that even after pay day, my pissiness didn’t fully
subside.
I finally put my finger on it last week: Things started going
sour when I traveled to a nearby school to help out for the day and encountered
the most hideous woman. It was 45
minutes of just me and the rudest, most passive-aggressive student I’ve ever
had by a long shot. She had extensive knowledge of English and the school’s
system – enough to make her very difficult to handle. I don’t think I’ve ever
had anyone push my buttons the way she did, and I snapped. No, I didn’t lose my
composure, though I did break my pen in my hand from squeezing it too hard.
Instead, I sped up my speaking and used increasingly obscure vernacular to help
remind her who was the native speaker in the room.
When I was asked an hour before my start time the next day
if I would return to that school, I politely refused. Hell, anyone from my school could’ve gone, and
I was being asked. The head teacher
didn’t quite see it that way and gave me a bunch of grief. I was livid. The one
time I’ve said no to management… Time for a breather.
So I ran away from home the next morning. It was my weekend and I didn’t have to be anywhere in particular. I wasn’t even sure exactly where
I was going, I just packed up a bag, kidnapped my roommate’s copy of Lonely Planet, and took off.
My first thought was to go to Chichibu National Park, a
giant wilderness wonderland, but en-route, changed my mind. There was an area
south of Chichibu that featured stalactite caves, which sounded really cool. So
instead I got off the train at Mitake station, which is exactly nowhere.
The loveliest nowhere I’ve ever seen. I felt ten times better just being there,
looking out to the misty mountains and listening to the water rushing through
the gorge below. I grabbed some maps at the tourist office and started walking
in the direction of the nearby youth hostel.
Funny thing about maps in this part of the woods... none of them are to
scale. After walking about an hour, I began to suspect that maybe – just maybe
– I was... er... “disoriented.”
So I strolled over to an auto shop to ask for directions. Really,
all I wanted them to do was point the way. They wouldn’t. Instead, the
receptionist took me into the back office, where two men were talking. The
older one, probably in his 60s, took one look at me and said in nearly-perfect
English, “How can we help you?” They offered me a seat and gave me some iced
tea. I told them that I was looking for the ropeway to Mt. Mitake (the youth hostel was next to the ropeway at
the top). They asked me about where I was staying, and when I told them I’d
probably stay at a youth hostel, the younger man (the owner of the auto shop)
had the receptionist make reservations for me at an inn. We chatted for a
while, mostly the older man and myself. Turns out he’s a retired Delta pilot
who’s been pretty much everywhere in the world.
“Where are ya from?”
“The States.”
“Yeah, of course the ‘States.” That response was a first for
me. “Where in the States.”
“Connecticut.”
I was about to add that it was near New York City, slipping into teaching mode.
I didn’t have the chance.
“Oh, near Hartford?”
I was shocked. “Yeah...”
"Yeah, Bradley Airport. Whaza matter, you looked
surprised?"
“Well, it’s just that not many of my students have heard of
Connecticut, let alone Hartford. It’s not -”
“Popular?”
What the hell? It was like he was reading my mind. “A common tourist destination,” I finished. He
laughed. He ended up driving me to the ropeway, saving me another hour of
walking. A great guy.
And the inn... simply amazing. It was a traditional Japanese
inn with the most amazing view of the mountains and Tokyo in the distance. A quiet place, the
kind with a certain old coziness to it that I immediately loved.
The inn was
run by a couple in their 30s, and as far as I could tell, I was the only tenant
for the evening. The wife could speak some English, so I arranged to have a
Japanese bath and then dinner. The bath was very soothing, and the dinner!
Tempura, sushimi, baked fish, bamboo rice, mushroom stew, miso soup… the food
kept coming and coming.
After dinner, I was invited to join the couple and their
three young kids (ages two through six) for hanabi: summer fireworks. We spent
a good hour lighting off the biggest sparklers you’ve ever seen. These would
never be allowed in the U.S. – some dumbass kid would burn his eyebrows off and
there’d be a huge national scandal, probably even pass a Constitutional
amendment. When the fireworks were finished, I was left alone with the kids.
The girl, only about four years old, started in first.
“Scotusan!”
I squatted down to her level. “Nani? (What?)”
She pointed to my eyebrow, and then gave it a yank. This
gave the two-year-old the courage to approach me. He marched right up to me,
grabbed my cheeks in both of his tiny hands, and pulled. I spent the next hour
or so being accosted by these two kids. They tugged every bit of my face, we
played catch, I did dinosaur impersonations... it was absolutely wonderful.
Over breakfast the next morning, it occurred to me that I
could go back to Kita Urawa immediately after breakfast, and the trip would
have been worth it. I didn’t, of course. I went to the stalactite caves instead,
which were very cool and nowhere near as memorable, but that’s not important.
What was important is that I remembered why I came to Japan: Not for the money,
not for the job, but for the adventures.
