Since leaving America August 2006, I have traveled to sixteen countries. A great deal has happened. This site is to share my thoughts, photos, music, writings, travel experiences, and developing political/social commentary with you. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
Above is the annual sports festival at a local junior high school here in Sasayama. These much-anticipated events take place at every school in the country around the middle of September — even pre-school and kindergarten!
To say they’re popular is an understatement. They are as much part of the fabric of social life here as eating rice and fish.
The events at a Japanese sports festival include some “normal” sports contests, e.g. relay races, tug-of-war, team rope jumping. But they as well have quite an assortment of unique, and I have to say, quite amusing activities I wouldn’t expect to show up in the Olympics anytime soon. There’s the hacky sack basket toss, the three-legged kick-the-ball then shoot-a-hoop match, a relay race carrying a tennis ball on a tennis racket while running at full-speed around the circumference of the field.
Sports festivals are not restricted to just students. Villages compete against one another, meaning full-grown adults also participate in the action. I can’t say the village I live in does very well in these competitions. We may have the most geriatric team in all of Japan. But we have a great time, which is mainly what these all-ages competitive events are all about.
Here’s a mercifully short video of my legendary performance at a recent community sports festival. If it’s not entirely obvious, my challenge — for which I trained with the best coaches east of Nagasaki — was to inflate a balloon, pop it by sitting on it, then scramble back to the starting line, tagging my next teammate in line, who we hoped would repeat my gold medal-level performance, and lock in first place for this epic showdown.
What can I say? It seems no matter what the season is, there’s always something going on here, and whatever it is is typically is built around some excuse for people to get together, have a good time, and simply enjoy the company of those living in the community.
The sub-title of my newest book begins “Anecdotes on the People and Culture of Contemporary Japan …”
Here are a few anecdotes which will give you phenomenal insights into the remarkably high ethical standards and general character of the Japanese people.
• • •
A friend of mine, originally from New Zealand but who lives in Japan, left her latest model Macbook Pro in a train station ladies room. For two hours! She had left it on the counter while she washed her hands and forgetfully walked out without it. By the way, this was one of the busiest hubs in Japan, the Umeda JR Station in Osaka. That restroom has hundreds of people going through it every hour. She got quite a ways along on her trip back here to Sasayama, remembered, jumped off, and immediately got on a train back to Osaka. She found her laptop right where she left it. Yes … two hours later!
• • •
Every year in October, we have here in Sasayama the Festival of the Portable Shrines. It’s one of my favorites!
A gentleman arrived here from Kobe, which is about an hour away. He came to purchase black beans, an item my home town is famous for, but when the moment came to pay, he discovered his wallet was missing.
There are no pickpockets around here, so obviously he had dropped his wallet somewhere in town.
He went to the nearest Koban. There are several here in Sasayama, as there are all over Japan. A Koban is a mini-police station. In Japan, it’s considered an integral part of a functioning community. The Koban is to make sure there are friendly cops in the neighborhood to address problems which come up in the local area, situations just like this.
The policeman on duty took a report, then got on the phone. He called all the other Kobans in the immediate area, anywhere close to where the gentleman had parked his car, before walking into the main part of town for the festivities.
He passed along the man’s name and a description of the wallet. Now get this …
While the officer was on the phone with another Koban, someone walked in with the wallet and handed it to the policeman on duty there.
The gentleman from Kobe then walked the short distance to the other Koban, and retrieved his wallet. The contents — credit cards, ID, cash — were intact. Not a single item had been taken.
• • •
One Sunday many months ago, we went to, Rurikei, our favorite local onsen. This is one of the great joys of living here in Japan and we try to go often (see next section).
Anyway, I left my hair brush in the mens locker room. This was not a family heirloom. This was an 89 cent piece of plastic, dirty and full of my hair from use over many months. The only thing it had going for it was that it was a pleasant shade of lavender.
Five weeks later, we returned to the hot springs. On some impulse — my synapses tend to fire randomly at times — I asked at the counter if they had a purple hair brush in their lost-and-found box. Stupid me. I was thinking they had a cardboard box behind the desk. The clerk asked when I thought I had lost it. That was easy. Maybe four or five weeks ago? He stepped into the facility’s main office, consulted with someone, then returned with my 89-cent hair brush, safely contained in a sealed plastic bag with a label. On the label was the date I left it in the locker room.
• • •
Masumi reminded me of this story, one I had forgotten. One day we went to Japan Post to mail a package to the U.S. — I think it was one of my novels, sent off for a review. Shortly after we returned, the phone rang. It was the clerk who had waited on me at the post office. She first apologized. She had made a mistake and overcharged me. She was so sorry this happened! It was an honest mistake and would be happy to refund the money. How much was it? 10 yen. Unbelievable! Do you know how much 10 yen is at current exchange rates? 9.44 cents!
What did I do? I did what any red-blooded American would do in the face of such incompetence! I went to the post office with my AR-15 and shot the place up. I didn’t kill anyone, though obviously I could hardly be blamed if I had. But when I got done, the place looked like one of the Twin Towers on September 12!
Okay. Obviously, I made that up. The truth was, I was speechless. 10 yen? After I stopped laughing — pleasant, joyful laughing — I had Masumi tell the clerk all was forgiven and she could keep the 10 yen. I think you can probably buy a lollipop somewhere for 10 yen.
• • •
I could go on and on. For example, in the news several months ago, there was the story of a person who had found a satchel on a park bench with over 5 million yen (that’s $50,000 cash) and no identification of any kind in or on the bag. It was promptly turned into the police.
I’m not going to moralize. Draw your own conclusions.
But by seeing such extreme honesty here, I see what has happened to my own country. I’m not pointing fingers. I see it in my own thinking. It’s been quite an adjustment for me. After all, I grew up in a tug-of-war between what I was taught at home, school and church, and real world a prioris: ‘Finders keepers losers weepers.’ ‘It’s every man for himself.’ ‘If I don’t take it someone else will.’
As a kid, often it wasn’t a question of right or wrong, but a question of whether we’d get caught.
I will say that dishonesty, regardless of how minor or seemingly insignificant, is a slippery slope. The Japanese have chosen to avoid taking even the first step.
I openly admit, it’s resulted in a huge paradigm shift for me. It’s required an enormous adjustment. But an extremely rewarding one. Just imagine … being able to trust other people. What a concept!
Understand: This extreme level of honesty and respect for the property of others I’m describing here is not an anomaly. It’s the norm. And it’s nothing new.
My American friend, Scott Burley, recently emailed me about his brief but rewarding experiences visiting Japan. He included this story:
My girlfriend who I met sophomore year … went on a student exchange program to Tokyo for her junior year and went to school over there. She was 1/2 Japanese and 1/2 Czech and her parents were both Japanese — her mother must have married a Czech before her step father. So around Christmas I flew to Tokyo when she had Christmas break and we spent three weeks traveling by train … my girlfriend left her purse at a bus stop. I went back to look for it and it was gone. After we got back to Tokyo, one day her purse arrived in the mail. Only in Japan!
That was back in 1973. Some things don’t change here.
Granted, it took me sixty years to figure it out. But yes, it was worth the wait. I say . . .
The onsen is the greatest invention in human history!
Salad Shooter™
Okay . . . okay . . . maybe that’s a bit extreme. After all, there’s the wheel, the combustion engine, the computer. The salad shooter!
Having said that, the onsen still has to be somewhere up there in the Top 20.
An onsen — 温泉 — is a hot spring for bathing. And I have to say, I had no idea what I was missing until my first visit to Japan in July 2007. That was in Nagano Prefecture, where I was a WWOOFing volunteer at an organic farm/restaurant called Canadian Farm.
A little history: My first introduction to the onsen was a chapter in a hilariously funny book by one of my favorite humor writers, a volume called Dave Barry Does Japan. I can still feel his discomfort, his utter humiliation, sitting in a pool of steaming hot water with a bunch of strangers, naked except for folded towels draped over their heads. In fact, I can still recall my discomfort and humiliation my own first time in Nagano! Of course, that was purely the result of my own narrow conditioning, my being uptight, self-conscious, squeamish, and completely ridiculous, the product of growing up a pathetic urban hick in the hypocritically Puritan anti-culture of the American Midwest.
But enough about me and growing up in the shaming buzzkill of Detroit, Michigan.
In 2007, I quickly discovered that onsens are as much a defining characteristic of Japan as sushi, geishas, tofu, Mt. Fuji, and sumo wrestling.
There are hundreds — maybe thousands — of onsens scattered across the volcanic landscape here. Americans go skiing. Or to the beach. Or Disneyland. Japanese go to onsens, often for an extended holiday. There are whole towns full of resort hotels catering to this ritual.
Onsens come in all shapes and sizes. Some indoors, some outdoors. Some are spartan. Others indulge in lavish aesthetics and connecting with nature.
Our favorite local onsen — there are three relatively close to town — is on the way to Kyoto, maybe a twenty-five minute drive. It’s called Rurikei. While the attached resort is relatively fancy, the baths themselves are purely functional. Mostly indoor but a few outdoor pools.
Rurikei has no stunning mountain or rocky river rapids vistas. But it’s very functional, with a decent-size swimming pool, steam baths, saunas, refreshments, even massages.
One of the main reasons we really love this place is that, unlike 99% of other such facilities, it’s co-ed! Yes, it’s a family affair with males, females, moms, dads, kids, all ages, all sizes. Of course, everyone wears a bathing suit. On the other hand, if a person prefers a more traditional setting, each dressing area has bathing pools, men only and women only, where everyone lets everything hang out as they hang out in the hot water together. There are even huge flat-panel televisions, so there’s no excuse for missing a favorite sporting event or cooking show.
I marvel every time I go. I leave feeling renewed, relaxed, refreshed. And clean! I’ve never ever felt so clean, as when I walk out after an hour or so at a Japanese hot spring.
By the way, it’s not just us humans who are totally enamored with relaxing in the steamy hot, therapeutic water of an onsen.
We have camped all over Japan. And the campgrounds are always clean, well-organized, properly-equipped, friendly, quiet. If I have any complaint, it’s that many of them have few trees, thus the campsites have no privacy.
The notable exception to that is FBI — which stands for First-class Backpackers Inn — our favorite campground within easy driving distance of Tambasasayama.
FBI has a view of Mount Daisen, the highest volcanic peak in the area.
It’s in close proximity to Hiruzen, a town famous for its exceptional dairy products. The soft serve is to die for! So is their incredibly popular yogurt.
If you’re really in luck, you can pet Lovely, probably the most famous cow in the Eastern hemisphere, recognized and acclaimed for the white patch on her forehead in the shape of a heart.
For a complete change of pace, it’s also less than an hour from FBI to the Sea of Japan beaches. On our most recent trip, we walked along the shore and visited a still-operational lighthouse.
There is a whole range of camping options at FBI. We of course prefer to do the tent thing. But cabins and teepees are also available.
The cabins are the height of luxury for this type of facility, making me wonder why people just don’t stay in a hotel. Not quite sure how this is “camping”. In fact, there’s a term for it here in Japan. It’s called glamping — glamor camping.
I guess we do slumping . . . which would be slum camping.
FBI is very family-friendly with plenty to keep everyone occupied. There’s a trampoline, a swimming pool, restaurant, bar, hiking trails, kid’s treehouse, frogs, snakes, foxes, insects, everything needed to guarantee a splendid time for all, in the tamed wilds hunkered in the foothills of Mount Daisen.
For the maraschino cherry on top of this delicious camping experience, every evening they have a giant bonfire, very handy if you happened to bring along a 50 kg marshmallow.
Friends not familiar with Japan always express surprise when I tell them that camping is one of our favorite ways to tour the country. I have to remind them that Japan is not just cement and tall buildings with giant flat-panel displays advertising cafés, pachinko, and novelty shops. 70% of Japan is covered with forests. And we have an array of topological features which offer both stunning natural beauty and incredible variety: rivers, oceans, seas, mountains, valleys, hills, volcanoes, ponds, lakes, sand dunes, tropical rain forests (Okinawa), hundreds of kilometers of beaches, by golly even one semi-parched desert, finally, last but certainly not least, hundreds of islands. After all, Japan is an island!
Let me leave you with one last image, a side of Japan you don’t typically see . . .
Gender roles are sharply defined in Japan. The simple truth is, men rule the roost here. Yes, folks, it’s a highly patriarchal arrangement. For example, the idea that marriage is a partnership, one that requires empathy, fairness, consideration, diplomacy, mutual respect and generosity, is more the exception than the rule. The man is the head of the household. His tyranny is regarded as absolute and accepted as normal. Women do his bidding, cook the meals, clean the house, take care of the kids. The man is the primary breadwinner and that fact is never forgotten.
It is no exaggeration to say that Japan is a “traditional” society in that respect, similar to what is seen across vast swaths of the planet’s inhabited surface. I include Africa, South America, and most of Asia.
Of course, there is push back for better treatment of women, equality in both the home and the workplace, for equal rights not just as a legal window dressing, but in all actual areas of the day-to-day functioning of society: economics, politics, social relations.
Progress toward equal pay is discernible but painfully slow. Women are grossly under-represented in leadership roles, especially in the corporate world. The majority of political figures are men. Women operate within this framework, don’t like it, merely tolerate it. Younger women are certainly promoting other options, so this will change over time. Frankly from what I’m seeing, this could take a very long time.
Having said all of that, while I as a matter of principle prefer a more “liberated” society, I’m not here to judge. I’m here to accurately report what’s happening on the ground.
What I see in Japan, then, in terms of the “battle of the sexes” is what we in the West would regard as garden variety male vs. female “conservatism”.
Extreme conservatism!
Now . . . try to imagine my surprise, amazement, total belly-laughing delight, when I discovered looking over my wife’s shoulder one evening after dinner, probably the most unconservative thing I could have imagined here or anywhere, something which is not just a common occurrence, but one that doesn’t prompt any reaction from Japanese people whatsoever. To them this is as normal as raw fish on rice.
I’m referring to . . .
TVs on TV!
(Translation)
Transvestites on television!
Mind you . . .
There are hundreds of brutal homicides, the result of homophobia in less the open-minded enclaves of the West, accounts of “redneck” men who completely lose it when confronted by gender-bending of any sort. Disputes about which bathroom a transexual should use sometimes scream out as the feature story on the nightly news hour. The world having 15,000+ nuclear bombs armed and ready to destroy the human race apparently is not something to be concerned about. But the idea that the person in the next stall in a restroom is a guy with eyeliner and silicone breast implants is the real threat.
But here in Japan, as conservative as this country is in some ways, having a guy dress up as a woman, at least from what I now often see, is an acceptable practice and regarded as normal entertainment fare anytime of day or night, even for family television. Astonishing!
I’ve seen a number of transvestites on various shows over the years. But Matsuko Deluxe — you have to love that name! — is hands-down the best known TV on Japanese TV. She’s everywhere! Comedy shows and advertisements are her main venues. But I see her on billboards, in magazines. Seriously. She’s everywhere!
Correct me if I’m wrong . . . but Matsuko Deluxe is not exactly a beauty queen.
But who can argue with success?
Uh-oh . . . I just realized. Maybe the title of this article — TVs on TV — is actually a little inappropriate, though I do frankly think it’s devastatingly clever. ‘Transvestite’ is a term rarely used anymore. With the new identity politics insurgencies in full swing, genders are proliferating way beyond the basic boy-girl binary I grew up with — according to some gender bender aficionados in the U.S., there are at least 64 and as many as 81 genders. As a result, the terms ‘transsexual’ and ‘transgender’ are the preferred nomenclature of the new woke stormtroopers — aka the PC Police — prompting many folks wonder if they should demand an induced coma, perhaps the only way of avoiding the minefield of attempting to formulate an acceptable sentence.
Truth is, the term I hear used most here all throughout Asia when referring to boys who are now girls — with or without a penis — is ‘ladyboy’. Ladyboys are not just “dressing up” or play acting. They are actually embracing all that it means to be a female. Frankly, many of them are more convincing females, than many females I’ve known over the years, especially in America, where feminism has savaged the whole idea of femininity. But that’s another whole topic.
The lady pictured on the right is also a ladyboy. She is used in an English teaching program here in Japan for explaining verb tenses. No,I’m not making this up. The lesson goes like this . . .
“This is Ms. Haruna Ai. She is a girl. She was a boy.”
And yes, the ‘Ms.’ is a nice touch. A nod to the legacy feminism of the 70s. Progress, no matter how you look at it, eh?
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen — and everything in between. A glimpse into gender blurring in post-modern Japan, where the man still wears the pants in the family . . . when he’s not wearing a mini-skirt.
Alright, folks!
Tell me you’re not amazed . . . shocked . . . astounded . . . speechless.
We’ve had a few visitors here in Japan, from other parts of the world. It’s certainly always a welcome change of pace to have people come and stay with us. We have a guest room in a two-story house affording decent privacy for all, and four bicycles. Taking folks around our charming town is such a pleasure for us and usually a surprise for them. Most people’s preconceptions of Japan are like what mine were before I finally came to this fascinating country. Big crowded cities, tall buildings, lots of cement and bright lights. But the truth is, Japan is 70% covered with forest, and there is a breathtaking variety of landscapes: mountains, rivers, volcanoes, lush forests, beaches, valleys, lakes, and vast stretches of farm lands — some terraced — growing everything that can be grown here.
We are fortunate in that our traditional rural town, Tambasasayama, is situated within an hour-and-a-half of three major cities, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, each quite distinctive and offering unique charms. This affords easy access to the intensity of urban life, when we want a break from peace, quiet, fresh air, and the slow pace of a farm town. In fact, the train system in Japan makes it possible to travel just about anywhere in the country, except Okinawa which is separated from the main islands by almost 1000 km (620 miles). An auto isn’t necessary to see everything you might want to see, though the highway system is itself is spectacularly well-built, well-maintained, easily negotiated, and efficient.
Anyway, here are some of the good people who we’ve had the pleasure to host.
Gilly: My dear friend, Gilly, visited in 2012. She arrived from France, though I actually knew her from Portland, Oregon, my last hometown in the U.S. Very very sadly, Gilly has passed away, a victim of breast cancer. I’m so glad I got to see her one last time, and she got to meet Masumi. Gilly was an incredibly beautiful, highly evolved person, a respected teacher and skilled practitioner of an alternative health system called Body Talk. She was in Japan to give classes and offer treatment in Tokyo. She has certainly helped many, many people and spread a lot of love over the decade I knew her.
Owen: I met Owen at the Peace Stupa in Leh, Ladakh, in northern India. By pure coincidence, he has very strong connections to Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. He’s visited Japan a few times and we’ve buddied around. I met him in Osaka one time and we did the town. His last visit, he brought his fiancé Chi, a lovely Japanese lady, who he met in his native Australia. Owen is a very talented songwriter — another coincidence! — and in Ladakh, he and I jammed on keyboards and guitar with a Buddhist monk, a friend of the Dalai Lama. This sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s true!
Travis and Michelle: Travis and I go way back. Best friends when I lived in Portland, Oregon, he and I worked together, hung out, wrote songs, played in bands together, did a lot of recording in my studio, spent countless hours discussing politics and philosophy. Back in those days, he and I went to New York and Los Angeles on music business. Travis is a multi-talented, truly brilliant guy. He and his wife, Michelle, came to Japan spring of 2014. She is now a librarian at a public school in Vancouver, Washington, where they live. Travis is into many things these days, building buildings, renovating houses, creating a financial empire, teaching “pickleball” — a variant of tennis, mastering golf.
Alex / Alex and Corine: In 2010, I lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for almost six months. It was there I met Alex. For his last couple weeks in the country, we got to know each other and I got to know what an incredibly special person he is. We kept in touch. In fact, July 2013 Masumi and I visited Alex in Den Haag, Netherlands where he lives. He was a phenomenal tour guide and not only showed us around the immediate area, but introduced us to Amsterdam, one of the real highlights of that holiday in Europe. Then in 2016, he brought his girlfriend Corine for two weeks here in Japan. Alex was so enamored with the country, he returned solo December 2018. We talk two or three times a month via Skype. Alex is one of my all time favorite people!
Moose and Carmen: Masumi and I met Moose — his real name is Börge — and Carmen during our trip to Russia and Scandinavia, summer of 2015. We couchsurfed their place in Stockholm for three days. They were perfect hosts! Then they came to Japan to enjoy the blossoming of cherry blossoms in 2019, and we not only showed them around town here, but took them to Himeji to see the famous castle there. At the end of their stay here, they announced that they were expecting a baby, and little Joel became a member of their family later in the year. From Tambasasayama, Moose and Carmen headed off on their own to Koyasan, Nara, Kyoto, and to attend a sumo practice in Tokyo. Morning sickness and sumo wrestling? Does that sound like a good combination?
Masumi and I have talked about opening a B&B after she retires from teaching. We love having people stay with us, love meeting people from other countries. We especially enjoy having friends come to visit. I keep the bikes oiled and tuned, make sure the tires are inflated. Nothing beats being prepared.
