Three: Turning Japanese
Lorraine, before I get to the point, I’ve got to tell you this one: I’m in Osaka now, at Starbucks, across from my hotel, the Hotel Monterey. Hold on, it gets better (worse?): I’m sitting in a courtyard-like area, at the edge of a plaza in the center of four or five flashy skyscrapers. The Monterey is the aging granddad among these upstart punks, but it has a bit of character, where they’ve got flash (and size!). The environs here look like one of those plaza areas at the base of the skyscrapers in L.A. or Seattle or I guess a lot of other cities west of the Rockies. The climactic conditions now (8:00 p.m.) are perfect, the calibrated waterfall spilling its guts into a symmetrical hole in the ground behind me, the polished granite facades of the skyscrapers, and the ... how can I say? ... oh, I don’t know ... the periphery of the station area ... are humming like a fecund beehive after dark on a hot summer night, all making for an excellent circumstance for lonesome little me. By the way, by the looks of this neighborhood, the Japanese economy isn’t doing all that badly, despite what you might read in the newspaper.
I just got back from a great day in Kyoto. Maybe you read about it? And since I have a reasonably drinkable cup of joe and a solid writing surface before me (cascading water behind), I am now going to do something which occurred to me earlier today: introduce you to our good friend Andrew. Here goes: Lorraine, this is Andrew; Andrew, this is Lorraine, Colleen’s mom.
Andrew is one of the first humans I met in The Burg – on campus to be specific. I walked up to him and introduced myself, which is definitely out of character for shy (unsociable? private?) me. I did in fact accost him because he looked like a hippy: long hair and beard, handmade accessories, tie-dyed shirt, Birkenstocks, and a hemp shoulder bag. I was looking for some pot (ganja? reefer? weed? – I didn’t know what the locution in those parts was at the time); I like a little puff every now and then, and living in Japan I hadn’t sampled any in a particularly long time. He probably thought I was a criminology major (doing research or looking for a snitch), given the number of such students on campus, also because of my buzz cut and otherwise all-American wardrobe: Levis, T-shirt, and sneakers. It didn’t take him long to figure out that I wasn’t as square as I looked and me to learn he wasn’t as loose as he looks (for one, he didn’t have any Mary Jane). He is a complex, kindly person. And elusive. And moody! And like me, he’s one of those paradoxically outgoing yet private people – maybe that’s the glue that binds us.
Andrew is a tall man – 6’3” I think – with a good sturdy build, healthy though not muscular per se. Dirty blonde hair, sometimes kept very short, like mine, and sometimes on the long side, and a very fast growing beard; he can go from a close shave to a bushy beard in about a week. I’m telling you, his beard will grow right before your eyes. Sometimes when it’s long, he’ll put a braid or two in it, which suits his demeanor well, which is, among other things, fun-loving and adventurous.
The summer before we moved to Japan this time around (August 1999, to be precise), the boys and I made a trip to New York to hang with the family there for a few weeks. Colleen had to work or had some other obligation to attend to in Ellensburg (or she didn’t want to come—I forget), so it was just us men. We had red-eye flights. Andrew drove us the 100 miles back and forth to SeaTac on the other side of the Cascades, because Colleen was definitely not interested in making that long mountain drive at three in the morning. At the end of the return trip, we come stumbling off the plane in the wee hours of the morning, and who do you think is waiting for us but a 6’3” clown in full regalia, holding a colorful placard saying “Welcome Home Zakary, Adrian, and Tommy!” Zakary and Adrian barely flinched; ironic little smiles flickered across their faces, which communicated something to the effect “Oh, Andrew’s here.” I squirmed then almost cried to have such a friend do such a thing for us. The boys responded so casually to Andrew because they know him well, like family. For one, he was their nanny one summer, when Colleen was working and I was taking an intensive Spanish class at U-Dub. He’s the one who said, “I don’t baby-sit. Number one, they are not babies. Number two, even if they were, I wouldn’t sit on them.” Just for the record: no, they are not babies, though I do believe he has sat on them one or two or three times.
I don’t discount that part of my own reaction was a response not only to having our close family friend welcoming us home at this ungodly hour wearing a clown suit, but also to the kind of clown he was: not your two-dimensional, unambiguously hilarious, slapstick, rib-tickling, fumbling clown, nor your pitiful send in the clowns, tears of a clown sort of sad clown; rather, he was ironic and brooding if not outright perverse looking. Frankly speaking, he was a bit scary. Like I said, Andrew is tall, certainly taller than your average clown. But not untypical was his clown suit – colorful, checkered, and satiny, though his was a bit grimier than the one your paid professional wears. And those weren’t oversized floppy clown shoes he was wearing but a pair of seasoned Birkenstocks. Yes, an earring or three, but no makeup or bulbous red nose. And he looked worn out from driving and wired on coffee. Of course he needed a shave. Yep, he was a little scary looking. But still, the hesitancy in Zakary and Adrian’s step on the way over to give him a big fat hug was barely detectable.
November 8, 2003, 8:30 a.m., Kyoto bound. On the Rapid Express, which takes just under 30 minutes from Osaka; not bad. Seeing as how it’s a Saturday morning, one might expect to get a seat. But, oh no, instead it’s hot and crowded in here. A reminder: yesterday, the weather was lovely: clear blue skies – not especially humid, as this part of Japan is want to be during certain seasons – and warm. I wore shorts and a T-shirt all day. Well, it looks like another shorts day today. Yes! Yesterday I changed out of my jeans in a Kyoto Station men’s room handicap stall; beyond being impeccably clean, it was roomy and un-awkward, unlike the regular stalls, which for starters have a hole in the ground where you’d expect to find a floor.
Andrew visited us two summers ago with his girlfriend Karen. The lovebirds and the Jaques family did not tour Kyoto, as they would have liked to, due to monetary constraints, I believe. Andrew is a historian (he has a B.A. and is working – and working and working and working – towards his M.A. in Japanese history), so he would have loved visiting Kyoto. I’m really sorry we didn’t. If we had, we likely would have visited some of the places I am going to today. Speaking of which, today I am like one strong young backpacker, moving at the speed strong young backpackers like to move. I don’t have a tour group today.
Andrew and Karen met at the Ellensburg Rodeo, in the beer garden behind the shoots. The country and western band was swinging, and the couple in question met then and there on the dance floor. On the one hand, it is quite hard to imagine a less likely pair of people line dancing to country and western music at a rodeo; on the other hand, knowing these two, it’s harder to imagine anyone more likely to be kicking it up in such a venue, given their dispositions: extroverted, kinesthetic, a tad exhibitionistic, and iconoclastic.
Karen used to be a model; this is what she says – often – at any rate. To my eye, she is what you would call good-looking but not stunning, though I can imagine that she might be photogenic given her coloring and height and so on. Now in her mid thirties, age and gravity have done their thing to her hips. Still, you can picture here being thin – long and lean – ten or so years ago. She’ll tell you that she’s big busted (which I thought wasn’t supposed to be a good thing for models), though to my eye she ain’t no bigger than average.
Now at the Konichi-in temple. It’s 10:00 a.m. I came here because my Lonely Planet tells me it is the home of a lovely Zen garden. 300 yen gets me in. The fellow at the ticket booth was soft spoken and kind. We chatted for a few minutes in Japanese and English. He didn’t look like a Zen monk, but he was about as mellow and unassuming as one. (He had short bushy hair and was smoking a butt.) Now standing at the entrance gate to the garden, Akechi-mon. “This gate represents Chinese style architecture of the Momoyama period; built by the General Mitsuhide Akechi (1528-1582) in 1582 for the repose of his mother’s foll [sic.] with a donation of one thousand gold pieces at Daitokuji temple. It was dismantled and reconstructed here in 1868” (sign in front of gate). It has a curvaceous, woody roof, which suits my taste just fine. Through the opening, a wall of shrubs and trees burst with autumn coloring. This is the peak of the autumn color season in Kyoto, by the way. In the foreground, at the base of this wall of flora is a lily pond with a single arched stone bridge at the far end. Unparalleled beauty and I didn’t even enter the joint yet.
Now in. Moss galore, bright red berries, and the most delicate Japanese maples in the universe. A number of large, docile koi (carp) leisurely lumber around the pond. They’re obviously Zen koi. This entire time the sound of a single drum beat and several tweety birds have been wafting my way. This next thing, I’m going to say, then I’m going to leave it alone, because it would appear to be relevant, though I’m not quite sure what that relevance might be; here goes: like my brother Mikel and your son Tim, Andrew is a drummer. The three of them seem to have a shared personality trait too, though I am not quite sure what it is. For one, they all march to the beat of an unconventional drummer. (And all four of us idolize the Clash.) There, I said it. Oh yeah, that would now be two arched stones which make up the bridge at the far end of the pond where I now stand. (Yeah, stand corrected!) We don’t get to walk over it, maybe so as we don’t ruin the lovely lichen and moss growing on it. The path winds around the pond, which ain’t round. Rather, well-rounded. A little waterfall adds a pleasant layer of natural noise to the moment. Now a gaggle of grannies who I can’t see punctuate the regular rhythm of the drum beat as if on cue from the other side of the wall. But there aren’t any benches or other dry places to sit down – and I want to sit down! I mean, I just want to sit down and soak it all in, for about like twenty years. Here before me presently is a pond "dedicated to the Goddess of Fortune on the island. Reflecting the yearly changes of scenery, the pond is lovely throughout the four seasons, particularly during the time of the falling leaves in autumn" (visitor pamphlet).
Oh my, every turn in the path brings another lovely view into site. I think I picked a perfect time to be here, because there is no one else around. I love it! A group now walks by. Ordinarily, I am one of the faster walking people you’re going to meet (I mean, duh, I walk about 10K a day); but this group of grannies blows right by me.
Presently passing through another curvaceous gate. This one has a mossy cypress roof. A koto or some other sort of stringed instrument and an occasional gong have joined the drum beat and the tweety birds. Andrew would enjoy this moment. Now at a medium-sized black shrine in a walled-in area. You don’t see many black ones. Above the front door to this black building, which we cannot enter but can see into, are three carvings: on the left and right are pheasants, in the center a dog-lion, all meticulously carved and colorfully painted, though time has caused the paint to fade. It is dark as hell inside the building. It looks like there’s some cool stuff in there; I wish I could go in. Oh, the back side of the shrine! The entire back is very colorfully painted – like those carvings up front. Interesting: the front part is black-black and the back is all color. Take the whole kit and caboodle and surround that by a clay wall topped with a mossy tiled roof, then you’d be here with me.
Now at the back of the Tosho-gu shrine, “the only building in the gongen style of architecture that still exists in Kyoto” (visitor pamphlet). Wow! Not like Sears Tower or Golden Gate Bridge wow; more like exposed roots and curvilinear trees and tall straight bamboo. Wow! All very green and undiminished in pulchritudity by the lush moss. Furthermore, given the season, splotches of vivid reds and yellows and oranges punctuate the light and dark greens and the baby blue sky.
Andrew would love it. He’s a real nature boy. He lived in a yurt for a year or maybe more alongside a river at the foothills of the Manashtash Ridge in Ellensburg. Cold river bathing in January and all. No electricity of course; just the nature around him. And his dogs and cats and bongos and accordion. And his girlfriend: at the time, a pretty young lass. She was maybe nineteen or twenty; he was maybe twenty-seven. Interruption: now the instrumentation has faded, a chorus of well-harmonized deep male voices begin chanting inna a Mongolian stylee; a chime gets tinkled every now and then. Funky monkey! Back to Andrew: he was taking care of Zakary and Adrian for us around those yurt days. I forget the lass’s name, but she was real nice. The boys liked her, and so did we. So did Andrew, but she left (for England, I believe), not because she and Andrew weren’t working out but because she was young and ready for adventure and he was committed to things in Ellensburg. Naturally, I have no flying idea why they didn’t get married and have two kids and a house like me and Colleen.
Andrew has had a bunch of girlfriends over the years we’ve known him – always earthy, mindful people who like both music and dancing to the beat of a different drummer. And suave dude that he is, he goes for the pretty ones. I think Karen was his last, or at least his last live-together girlfriend, or permanent squeeze, or significant other, or whatever they’re called. I wonder if something is wrong. I wonder if he is thinking more about boys than girls and is not saying anything to us about that interest. This is not the "wrong" thing I’m thinking about, because nothing wrong there in our liberal opinion, and we wouldn’t love or like him any less if that’s where he was going. I’m talking this way, because he doesn’t seem to have had a significant other of any persuasion in his life for quite some time – and that just ain’t like him. Or he’s not sharing such personal aspects of his life with us anymore. "Oblivious me" never noticed that Andrew might lean that way (despite the painted nails, braids, accessories, sari-looking wraps, and whatnot), though a mutual friend once retorted something like, “Yeah, Andrew was saying he doesn’t know whether he’s Phil or Philomena from one day to the next,” indicating bisexuality, when once I said something like “Andrew is one funky banana.”
No offense, Andrew, but Karen wasn’t our type. (Good for us!) We were automatically predisposed to liking her – because she was your girl – but she always talked about her Ex, a moderately famous funk rocker. I mean, you’re like our favorite person in the world, and she keeps blending comments about that bozo into the conversation. It may not have bugged you, but we thought it was disrespectful and insensitive, not to mention the fact that it meant she wasn’t putting you on a pedestal at all waking moments – which is fucked up. Nuff said.
Time to walk, because I’m starting to get a little chilly, sitting on this damp stone in the shade, wearing shorts and T-shirt. The carved wooden Buddhas over here in this smallish shrine look Japanese. Well, I mean, to me they usually look Indian. A bunch of funeral mourners pass by, wearing modern black garb. Maybe they’ve got something to do with that ceremonial-sounding music that I can’t hear anymore.
Now inside the main hall at the Konichi-in temple, which smells of old wood and incense – and my sneakers! Yes, we have to take our shoes off and carry them when we come in, and I’ve been walking around all morning, getting the dogs nice and hot and sweaty. There’s one of those signs again: “No Photographing.” Ha, no problem for us writers. I’m getting a tad burnt out on gushing about how impressive and awesome and lovely these temples and related structures are. Well, now I’m on the viewing deck, sitting in quasi-lotus position, admiring a spectacular garden: a huge expanse of fancy raked sand in the foreground, rocks and shrubs and trees in the background – choreographed to a T. This Tsurukame no Niwa is “a beautiful, dry landscape garden also designed by Kobori Enshu. The white sand represents a treasure ship and the ocean in which it is sailing. The tsurukame motif of stonework is arranged between the flat stones. Along the border, at the far end of the garden, there are several large stones, which represent the Horai mountain range. Beyond this several layers of shrubbery rise, which symbolize steep mountains and deep valleys” (visitor pamphlet).
Now at the Sanmon gate, approaching the Nanzen-ji temple. I’m calling it a gate, but it’s like no gate you’ve ever seen: maybe sixty or eighty feet tall, a couple-a-hundred feet wide, made of timbers that must have come from something like giant sequoias. People are up top; I think I’ll join them. Yep, I just sprung 1,000 yen to go up the gate and then into the main temple building and a few other buildings in the temple grounds. Unlike Konichi-in, this is obviously one of the Kyoto absolutely must do things; Tommy the genius has deduced this based on the hordes of tourists in the immediate environs. OK, up top now. Oh my, it’s so big! A gate? Rather, you might want to call it a giant elevated building. And made to last, let me tell you. I don’t have the kind of superlative lexical items at the tip of my tongue at the moment to do it justice, so just believe me when I say it’s super duper bitchin’. And the view from up here: yowee kazowee! The boys and I came here with Mikel and Naomi a couple years ago; I had to come back. From this side, I can see the Nanzen-ji temple, which sits portentously at the foot of the Higashiyama mountain range, so I’m looking at those showy, autumnal mountains too. From the other side ... just a moment ... OK, here I am: oh, nothing special. Just kidding – it’s the entire city and the Nishiyama mountain range all spread out before us, autumnal trees separating that business from us oglers on top of this gate.
One thing I notice is that I seem to be grooving on the little things – like the grain and texture of the wood, the materials these places are made of, and whatnot, more than your average tourist. I mean, on an up-close and personal level, where you can smell and feel the stuff, it seems to me no less impressive than it does at the macro level. Wow, looking into the building up here, which we can’t go in but can see through this here wooden grating, is a spectacular shrine: squatting praying Buddhas, and so on and so forth. The entire place, except for the floor and parts of the ceiling, are colorfully and delicately painted. The natural raw wood and the painted stuff juxtaposed side by side do each other a complimentary, esthetic favor. And the Buddhas are colorfully and meticulously painted too. Usually they are painted simply, or not at all, or maybe covered in gold leaf. I said that last bit like I knew what I was talking about – which gets me to thinking I might want to do some research (light research) on the topic. Research complete: The Sanmon gate of Nanzen-ji temple “symbolizes the three roads to Buddhist liberation. The original gate was destroyed by fire several times. The existing gate was constructed in 1628 by Todo Takatora. In the center of the gate can be seen a statue of Buddha with a jeweled crown. The statue is accompanied by 16 Arhat wooden statues. This gate is also famous for a Kabuki scene featuring Ishikawa Goemon and is well known as one of the three biggest gates in Japan” (backside of 1,000 yen entrance ticket).
Down for a break, about halfway to Ginkaku-ji temple (the “Silver Pavilion”) from Nanzen-ji, which along with its garden is really spectacular and really famous. I was enjoying a writing break, so you don’t get a description of these things. Today’s snack-lunch is the same as yesterday’s: an energy bar and a fill-up on water. You see, I am not eating a regular sit-down lunch because I am dieting (and economizing). I’m not fat, but I exercise a lot and I just can’t seem to flatten this gut as much as I’d like (who, me, vain?). Being away from home, I can avoid sit-down meals with the family. And thanks to your daughter's good cooking, a guy just can’t help taking seconds if not at least a large single serving. To her credit, Colleen cooks healthy dishes with lots of tofu, fish, and veggies, spiced with fresh herbs and so on and so forth. She didn’t used to be such a good cook, but since I became the full-time money-earning person and she the full-time house person, she has made amazing progress. Andrew is also a good cook. His specialty is baking, and he’ll make a couple of loaves of tasty bread every week and an occasional pie or quiche and other such goodies.
Andrew is quite smart and conscientious, bordering on the obsessive sometimes. He looks like a relaxed, laid back hippy, which he is, but he is also a studious, responsible community-minded individual. He is so community-minded and responsible in fact that he ran for city councilman this past election cycle. Andrew, Green Party candidate, took 43% of the vote, while his Republican rival took 57%. Remember, Ellensburg is on the conservative side of the Cascade Curtain; there is simply a preponderance of conservative, middle class white people in the Burg. And there are cowboys and cowgirls galore, as you know. A number of the overall population don’t care for people who are different from them, like the international students at the university (mostly Asian), the growing Latino community, and the few blacks and other people of color who call Ellensburg home. Forget about gays, artists, and other whackos.
And so Andrew and Karen met in the heart of enemy territory, as it were. Karen is bisexual – she said so anyway, I think five minutes after we met her. Karen shaves her head; she is pretty, so she can get away with it. And she is black.
My resting place here is on a stone bench next to the brook that runs along Tetsugaku Michi (Philosopher’s Lane), the famous walk my guide book suggests I take. I guess a lot of other people have the same guide book. Speaking of which, as you know, you don’t want to judge a book by its cover or people by the way they look. I say this because I am both thinking about Andrew’s appearance and was about to say something like: “Not very many of the folks strolling down Philosopher’s Lane look like philosophers to me.” Yep, another mouthful of water (after removing my foot), then off to Ginkaku-ji, because they may very well be more philosophical about life than me, who cogitates upon the subject fairly often.
No way, not now anyway. There are simply too many people. The crowd streaming up the hill to the temple looks like the rush hour crowd at the station. My guide book tells me that if I am feeling spry, I might want to take the 2.2 kilometer hike up the mountain behind the temple. I know there won’t be that many people and I am trying to shake the flab. OK, I can’t lie – well, not now anyway: I like hiking up mountains and I knew this one was here. Only, I thought I would give the temple the once over before climbing up. Hopefully, the crowds will thin out before I get back down.
It always happens this way: no matter how healthy I’m feeling – and I’m feeling strong these days – I always get puckered out going up a mountain. But there are old women and young children and a group of blind people (!) going up – and they give me no choice other than to make a show and pass them by straight to the top without resting. And let me tell you, the 2.2 kilometers are up, up, up – no level spots. Since we quit smoking a year and a half ago, I feel great. In fact, the lungs are rocking and rolling like a finely tuned machine – like the Triumph 900 cc motorcycle (!) brother Mikel is handing up to me when we move to Maine, and like son Tim’s Vespa scooter. I believe it was you who expedited that loan, so that I could commute from Balboa to UCI for classes and so that Colleen and I could buzz around Newport Peninsula like Roman Holiday-makers. We’re talking summer fun in Sunny Southern California. Thanks for that one, Lorraine.
The mountain climbing payoff is of course the view from the top. The climb itself is not intrinsically pleasurable. I mean, it is hard and it hurts and you sweat like a pig (me anyway). Colleen hates mountain climbing/hiking but she’ll go with me and the boys occasionally, mostly to contribute to bonding and doing family things together. And this is what an actively nurturing, concerned, responsible parent Colleen is: she charges up mountains with us to provide a certain model or image of women to the boys and to show them that there are really fun things that you can do in the great outdoors – because even though it may not be all that intrinsically pleasurable, it can be substantially more satisfying than playing video games for the tenth day in a row or obsessively engaging in other such lazy-ass indoor pastimes. To tell the truth, the boys will tell you they don’t exactly love mountain climbing either, though you wouldn’t know it if you saw them run up one – laughing and joking and looking for critters and back at me and Colleen.
Lovely, quite lovely! Well, it is a bit hazy today, so perhaps crispy clear yesterday would have been better. Still, it is like summer: hot and humid; you even come across those big fat summer insects – like spiders with four-inch leg spans – in these here hills. I am not lying, I’ve seen them. And I just gave myself the monthly buzz cut a few days before this trip. Uh-oh: what’s this going to look like going back to work after a week of being on a “conference trip” with a sunburn on top of my head? Andrew can be witty; I bet he would have a clever answer.
Well, here is a big temple and a big pagoda, and they aren’t even on the map. The sign here says ... “Kurodani Temple Japan
Andrew is moody – like Colleen. That’s not what attracted me to either of them initially, by the way. Lorraine, I don’t know if you are, even after knowing you all these years. But I suspect not as you are so circumspect. This is another thing that they have in common: Andrew is now teaching in the same department at the university that Colleen taught at for six or so years. He teaches American History and conversation skills classes to the Japanese students there. I’m making something of this issue of what things Andrew and Colleen have in common, because they do when we're all together. I think they do in part because they think it makes me happy; more likely, it is like an on-going joke or a game – like license plate spotting (spot the quirks and other personality traits Andrew and Colleen share.)
Back on the express train to Osaka and still can’t get a seat, though it’s 5:30 on a Saturday. And I'm pooped.
I love you,
Tommy
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