I wanted to get some geta (traditional Japanese wooden sandals) as a gift for someone. Being December these are at least 6 months out of season. There is a shop on Teramachi-dori called Yamanaka (established 1909) that specializes in this unique footwear. I'd passed it dozens of times before. I was hoping it wasn't a seasonal shop, or that they would now be selling snow boots.
It was open and a full range of geta and zori (traditional Japanese sandal for women worn with kimonos) were on display. A kindly old woman wearing a work apron greeted me and after explaining what I wanted in Japanese she wasted no time showing me a variety of styles.
The geta in Yamanaka are something like a made-to-measure suit. They are not completely bespoke (custom-made), but they are not ready-to-wear either, that is, a single manufacturer's standard. Geta are made from a single block of wood called a dai. One can select the shape and style of the dai here. The hanao, or thongs, are also customizable with a variety of cotton fabric patterns to choose from.
After I selected the dai and the hanao pattern the proprietress told me it would take about twenty minutes to assemble the geta. In the 21st Century where it seems everything is instant, it is unusual to wait for anything. I found this was not an inconvenience, but a pleasure. It is a joy to watch someone work that really knows his or her craft. I imagine this woman could probably assemble geta blindfolded.
Sitting on her zabuton (cushion) she worked with a set of well-worn specialized tools. The hanao was secured to the dai with a hemp cord using a variety of attractive knots - no glue! The geta were finished with a small Yamanaka logo which she tapped into the heal with a brass stamp.
I was listening to "Japanoise" bands like Mono and Boris long before I came to Japan. Japanese musicians are particularly good at this kind of super sonic, non-vocal, experimental rock, and these groups have a small but global fan-base. But music sung in Japanese is by and large not exported to the West. Some of the most popular groups of the last 20 years - artists like Ayumi Yamasaki, AKB48 and Arashi - that have sold more than 30 million records in Japan are completely unknown anywhere else. While American and British musicians tend to be bent on world domination, Japanese artists seem to be content with an audience that doesn't reach beyond their shores.
I have made feeble attempts to discover Japanese music since I arrived almost three years ago. I like the traditional music played on the shamisen and flute, but finding recorded music in a record store is near impossible because of my lack of knowledge and my poor Japanese. From time to time I happen upon interesting contemporary musicians performing here in Kyoto, but these occasions are few and far between.
Last month my friend Aki in New York (better known as the musician/DJ AKA SUGA) released her new album "No Label". On one of the tracks she references a Japanese singer Maki Asakawa. I looked her up. I was fairly blown away.
Miss Asakawa began her career as a cabaret singer in Tokyo in the mid 1960s, frequently performing at the social clubs on American military bases. However, unlike other female singers of the time she shunned the exotic eroticized image of the Japanese woman and dressed in ankle-length black dresses, wore her hair long with bangs and sang blues and jazz covers in Japanese. Perpetual cigarette in hand and a passion for black American music as well as French literature and film, Asakawa was the ultimate cool for the intellectual university crowd of the 1970s.
But it is her voice. A beautiful, dark, melancholic contralto that is both Japanese and not at all Japanese. East meets West. It is sometimes the sorrowful moan of a solo singer in an odori (traditional dance), and sometimes the sultry croon of an American lounge singer. It is a voice that somehow transcends language altogether. A sublime musical instrument, rather than a mundane oral mechanism for transmitting information.
I've found the blues in Japan. To it and dig!
Maki Asakawa "Blue Spirit Blues"
It's still possible to get lost. This requires stepping out of one's routine. For me, now, this means going beyond the Kyoto city limits. I still enjoy the feeling of being slightly (or completely) lost. Adventure begins when you leave the trail.
I was headed to Omihachiman, a small city in Shiga Prefecture about 40 kilometers northeast of Kyoto, for the the 7th edition of the Biwako Biennale contemporary art exhibition. I took the wrong train. This was corrected after a few stops. Then I took the right bus, but got off at the wrong stop. 7 kilometers wrong!
The end of the bus line is Chomeiji on the edge of Lake Biwa. I have long wanted to see this lake, the largest in Japan and apparently one of the oldest in the world. It is a popular destination for Japanese vacationers in the summer months.
As long as I am here, I thought, I might as well have a look around. There is less despair, less exasperation now in these transit mistakes. I am more comfortable in my abilities to navigate a situation in Japanese. I found a cafe and had lunch. The place was empty, the summer tourists long gone.
The cafe was at the foot of Mount Ikiya leading up to Chomeiji Temple. There was a sign at the bottom: 808 steps to the top. I should have taken that as a warning, not an invitation. I started up the large, uneven stone steps. After about 60 my heart was racing. I continued to climb, counting as I went and pausing every so often to catch my breath. The stairs twisted through the dense forest. Because the temple does not come into view until the last 70 or so steps I did think I was perhaps climbing to nowhere.
The view of Lake Biwa was spectacular. Looking north from the temple the lake spread as far as the eye could see and shimmered in the afternoon sun. The hondo (main hall) of Chomeiji was covered in senjafuda (stickers bearing the name of visitors). It being particularly remote and difficult to access would account for the significant number of these commemorative stickers. Chomeiji translates as "temple of long life". One might feel a long life is a just reward for conquering the steep stairs.
After a beer and a good rest on the waterfront I caught the bus back into town, to Osugi-cho, the historic district where the exhibition was centered. The theme of the biennale was "Eternal Dreams." Artists from around the world were given carte blanche to transform long neglected Edo era (1603 - 1868) houses and factories into site-specific art installations. As with any biennial, there were hits and misses, some artists creating an interesting dialogue between these unique spaces and their art, and others clumsily placing their work in rooms and spoiling the otherwise historic beauty of the architecture. To be sure, I would have enjoyed touring these buildings without any invitation, the wonderful atmosphere of pre-modern Japan reason enough to look and linger.
I've learned that sometimes when the schedules and systems we live by are interrupted other experiences and opportunities present themselves. Let's get lost.
Back to Uji. A pleasant Autumn afternoon, windows open. The river's wrinkles burn a bright gold and white in the sun, already in its descent. Shadows stretch across the tatami mats. The waiter looks like a movie star from another era with his neat moustache. Two old women talk in hushed tones, almost whispering. Kansai secrets. A bumblebee bumps into the window; a dragonfly alights on the fence. My heartbeat slows. There is a different pace here, a different volume. Everything more fluid, more graceful.
One must return to the past from time to time.
I remember Japan.
It's easy to spot them. The slightly rumpled sport coat, the haircut from 1957, gray, thinning, the sunglasses with just the faintest tint (because they never come off), the furrowed brow. The dead giveaway is the newspaper folded into a quarter, long columns with lots of numbers, no photos, and pencil circles drawn around funny, often poetic names. The race fan.
I was on the Keihan Line, on my way to the Kyoto Racecourse to see the 77th Kikuka Sho, the so-called "Japanese St Leger", and the last leg of the national Triple Crown. (Established in 1776, the St Leger Stakes is England's oldest and longest horse race at 1 mile 6 furlongs.) At every stop the train picked up more of these characters.
I am not a gambler, nor am I a big horse-lover, but I do love the track. I've been going to the races with my family since before I was gambling age. My grandfather was a race fan, so perhaps it is in my blood.
It is the atmosphere. The brilliant green of the turf contrasted with the dull gray-brown of the dirt, trimmed by the thin white rail. The (traditional) dress code: jackets, dresses, hats, sunglasses. The acceptably immoderate smoking and drinking. The extraordinary and decidedly difficult combination of research, analysis and luck. The exhilarating combined effort of animal and man. The jockeys - diminutive humans dressed in colorful silk with bold, graphic designs. And of course the horses - beautiful, idiosyncratic creatures, the epitome of power and grace.
I never win at the races. I have won just once in more than two decades. Besides my basic lack of knowledge, there is a reason for this. I rarely bet on the favorite. I prefer long-shots or horses that have a mostly uneven win record. There is a much better return on your investment with these types. I brought my friend Tomomi-san along to Kikuka Sho. She'd never been to a horse race, but her father follows Japanese racing. He gave us a tip for the main race. Tomomi-san translated horse and jockey names for me and other relevant statistics in the racing paper. Race after race I plunked down ¥200 and watched my horses come in well behind the winning positions.
Kikuka Sho is a 3,000-meter (about 15 furlongs), right-handed race on turf for 3-year-old colts and fillies. There are 18 runners. The total prize money this year was ¥248,400,000 (about $2,390,000).
Tomomi-san's father picked numbers 3, 6, 11 and 17 for this, the 11th race. French jockey Christophe Lemaire was riding number 3, Satono Diamond. He'd already had a couple wins earlier in the day. The racing paper pegged this horse as well as number 1 and 6 as favorites. But 11 (Rainbow Line) and 17 (Jun Vulcan)? Why them? I decided to "box" 3 and 11 on one ticket and 6 and 17 on another ticket.
Because I was trying to snap a photo of the horses as they crossed the finish line, I didn't really see who came in. The board showed number 3 in first and number 6 in fourth, but second and third were blank. A photo finish, which would require a judge's review.
After a few minutes the numbers appeared: 11 in second and 13 in third. I won! Unbelievable. My ¥400 bet paid ¥7,020.
Funny. I always feel just a little bit luckier in Japan. Looking forward to my next day at the races.
Time seems to move more quickly now. Three years is ten. How did I get here? The connection between points, the space separating beginning and end, the journey, grows dim. Rain on a dirty window. Dusk.
There is now. This quickly becomes yesterday. The colors fade as the distance increases. The same train line, the same stops, but everything has changed. Only my head and the direction of travel are the same.
The train seemed to have lost its will to continue, to carry me back to Kyoto. It stopped somewhere between Ayabe and Sonobe. Restarted. Paused again before reaching Kameoka. Then after crawling into the station at Kameoka it gave up. There were dozens of announcements. I could only make out, "Gomennasai" (sorry). Finally the conductor confessed, "We have no idea when service may resume". This was translated by my companion. A highly unusual admission by a Japanese railway official. Trains in Japan are rarely delayed. When they are, there are announcements and scrolling electronic messages confidently stating to the minute when the next train will arrive or depart.
The night was wet with rain, black ink running over the landscape. The storm had washed out the rails. The entire length of track through the mountain pass would have to be inspected. This station stop had become a dead end, a strange island of dim lights in the shadowy countryside. Stranded.
Katsura, my home, was less than 20 kilometers away. But between me and my destination lay the mountains of Arashiyama. Once upon a time, before trains and highways the only route through these mountains was the Hozu River. Skilled boatman transported goods down this narrow, twisting waterway in flat bottom boats. I've seen this gorge, the rocks, the rapids. At night? In the pouring rain? Not an option.
I bought a beer and soba from the station convenience store. A crowd of hungry, frustrated, but typically well-mannered passengers all converged at once on this shop fairly overwhelming the staff.
We waited. And waited.
Alternative transport was nonexistent. Buses never arrived. Calls to taxi companies were in vain. It seemed we may never leave Kameoka. I pictured living the rest of my life there. A Gilligan's Island.
We waited. And waited. Tickets were refunded.
An attractive woman with a limp, skirt too short, heels too high wandered back and forth through the ticket gates in a sort of daze. A group of local hip-hoppers rapped to beats from a boom-box under a yellow light. Just as my patience was beginning to fray and the night seemed to be teetering on the edge of bizarre, my friend spotted a Kyoto taxi.
The lights of the station and the little-train-that-wouldn't blurred into the soggy darkness as we drove away. A quivering reflection in a rain puddle. A dream.
