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Published: November 27th 2008
Floor-level culture
This is the living room of the first hostel I stayed in. I can't kneel for as long as I used to be able to since the ankles incident, though a few weeks in Japan should improve things.Politeness and the culture clash
I've been a sucker for all things Japanese since I was at school. The TV broadcast James Clavell's
Shogun and Akira Kurosawa's
Kagemusha in rapid succession and I was rather taken with the place. So I am a little disappointed in myself that it took so long to come here. I think I know why this is though. To a large extent, writing about Tokyo or Japan is easy: without fail, all travel writers point out how a westerner's first few days in Japan are thoroughly alien, dislocated and bewildering and Sofia Coppola's
Lost in Translation only made it worse, so I guess I found the idea intimidating. It was also a trip I was going to have to make alone, since no-one I've known has ever expressed much interest in coming here. So I finally made it, and I'm giving myself 6 weeks if I can stretch the money that far.
And surprise: its not as difficult to get by as I thought. The metro system is easy to figure out and several times a local has spotted me looking lost and in broken english, asked if I needed help. My Japanese
Senso-Ji Buddhist Temple: main gate
It is true about the face-masks. I don't know what they think they're protecting themselves from out here (smell of a gaijin?), but I found Tokyo to be one of the cleanest places I've ever been. is pretty shocking, maybe 30 words, which is a disgrace given how much I wanted to come here. Getting food is easy: I just point at the thing that I want - the plastic food in the windows and the pictorial menus are a godsend. There's nothing I haven't been able to solve with a smile, a bow, a "
sumimasen", a faux-shocked expression, and maybe another bow. The politeness is easy to deal with and, being British, I am from a polite nation myself so that's one way in which I fit in. There are many ways I don't however, and so in many respects Japan is very much like I expected; here's a couple of examples.
Shrines, Temples and Japanese bath-house etiquette
The pictures of Senso-Ji Temple were taken just across the road from where I am staying. Its a Buddhist Temple (not a Shinto Shrine - no Torii gate) and I noticed near the entrance a stone basin with trough, equipped with little ladles. Because I did not want to offend I stood for a few minutes watching people to see what the washing ritual is: I pick up a ladle and wash my left hand
Senso-Ji Buddhist Temple Pagoda
Senso-Ji is dedicated to Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of Mercy. over the trough (otherwise I am dirtying the basin for others); dip again then wash the right; dip again and pour into my left hand and use this to wash out my mouth, spitting into the trough; finally rinse the ladle and I was clean to enter.
Inside the temple is another ritual I watched: Omikuji fortunes are little papers found in a small chest of drawers. In front of the drawers is a box containing sticks with numbers which are drawn ramdomly. The visitor presumably has a wish, or prayer they would like answered. The number on the stick corresponds to a drawer, which is opened and a paper fortune selected, and if the answer is good, it is kept. If bad, it is tied to a rack and left at the temple so the bad luck does not go away with the visitor.
I also visited a Japanese bath-house but I can't show you any pictures of that of course. My camera would have got wet, plus they're prohibited because in a Japanese bath house, everyone is naked. A couple of people have posted good guides to what you do at
Essortment and
Julie in Japan. But the
Grounds of Senso-Ji, shrine of Kume no Heinai-do
Kume no Heinai was a 17th Century samurai kenjutsu (sword) master. Legend has it he was appalled at the number of lives he had taken, so joined the Senso-Ji temple. Shortly before he died, he instructed his followers to build a stone image of himself which was to be buried and thereafter trodden upon by the people who walked past, to continue his atonement during his afterlife. short version is: take a towel and also a facecloth. Grab a stool to sit on and bowl to rinse yourself off with and sit at one of the taps. Use the facecloth to wash everywhere. That's
everywhere - you won't catch them at it, but you are being watched. For the guys, shaving is acceptable, I saw a couple of them doing so. Only when clean and free of soap do you go into the bath. About the tattoos thing: I read that in Japan tattoos are still thought of as indicating people with low moral character, the Yakuza being one example, whereas they are so mainstream in the UK now that you stand out by
not having one. Well on my first visit there was this guy with tattoos all across the back of his shoulders and arms, so I can only assume in some bath-houses they don't mind. Maybe if you were a Westerner they wouldn't object, or if you have a small one, maybe use a waterproof sticking plaster to cover it up.
Don't miss out on the bath experience if you ever come here, only by going to a bath-house will you understand the
Japanese fastidiousness, in fact almost an obsession, about cleanliness. I like saunas and steam-rooms and have learned through experience how to regulate my body temperature so I can spend a good hour inside. I didn't get it right first time here, going into the hot water for too long right at the beginning and overheating myself so I couldn't cool down far enough afterwards. More practice required.
In contrast to the quiet associated with baths and temples, there's of course the ultra-modern Japan we've all seen on TV as well: the area around Shinjuku and Shibuya stations are just like the opening sequence to Ridley Scott's
Blade Runner; I'm seeing mobile phones and electronic gadgetry I'm not recognising; people queue on the platforms exactly where the marks indicate, because the trains pull up with the doors at exactly those locations; there are people wearing face-masks, I'm not sure why - it is as the guidebooks say, a full-on mix of the old and the futuristic, side by side.
This week's Porsche count:
Tokyo: 6 in 9 days, every one in the embassy district around Roppongi.
Tokyo Drift
And whilst I'm on the subject of cars,
Hama-Rikyu Garden tea-house
Surrounded by the city on 3 sides and the Sumida-Gawa (river) on the 4th, is the Tokugawa Shogunate's private hunting garden, the Hama-Rikyu. And inside on the pond is this tea-house in which a cake and a cup of green tea costs ¥500, kneeling on the floor, and I received instructions in English on the correct etiquette (rotating the cup twice, each time through 90degrees, and all that) for my own solo tea ceremony. I wandered into Nissan's showroom on Tokyo's busiest shopping street. Three girls dressed identically standing next to the new Nissan Cube (ugly) on one of those rotating turntable things, each with a headset microphone and taking turns to talk about - well, it could have been washing, I don't speak Japanese, but: I was the only one in there, the girls were looking at me, the window had people pressing their noses up to see what was going on, and I was looking your typical confused
gaijin. Anyway; point of all this is, I smiled, bowed a goodbye and wandered off to a couple of touch-screens they had nearby and lo-and-behold: they're about to release the new 370Z and if they do one in that maroon/wine colour they did as a special edition in the States 3 years ago, I'm putting an order in and part-ex'ing my blue 350Z when I get home.
...and one very final thing: Ged and Sue get married this weekend. Best of luck to you both, hope you have a wonderful future together. Please accept my apologies that I couldn't make the Stag and the Wedding, but I was touched to have been asked.
Love Mart. x
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Betamax Pornstar
non-member comment
Tokyo
Those are library images of tokyo. £5 says you are hiding in your airing cupboard, living off lint and posting bogus trip reports.