Saturday, APRIL 3
7AM - Wake up in Hachiman. Run 6 miles beautiful miles. Poop somewhere by a stream.
8AM - Wiley wakes everyone else up. Kim drives us 1.5 hours to the Gifu train station. From there, 2 hour train to Toyota City to watch our friend Cynthia Barboza in the Semi-Finals of a professional Japanese Volleyball league. When we arrive, we follow Cynthia's impeccable directions to the stadium. The place is swarming with people, all of them delirious with Cynthia fever. Having expected something along the lines of a small Ford Center-like facility (Stanford gym) at which we could partake in some good old-fashioned heckling with our KA brethren, we were a little overwhelmed. In summary, I was disappointed and shocked not to have been greeted by Calen in a giant Kermit the Frog helmet.
Our Japan volleyball experience was very different from the above portraits. As it turned out, there was a slew of events happening at the Toyota City Stadium that day- high school games, college games, ribbon dancing, etc. It was at this moment in time that we realized we had no idea what team Cynthia played for, or any information, for that matter, about the match we were hoping to spectate . I'm guessing our plan was to ask the ticket vendor, who, as a citizen of Toyota City ("the Detroit of Japan"), has and will never again have any need to know English, "Hi, our names are Wiley, Nick, and Casey. We'd like to purchase three tickets to watch Cynthia Barboza play volleyball?" I know, I know- one week into the trip and we are already the savviest of travellers.
While Casey and Nick watched our luggage, I wandered to the information booth and explained to them our situation. While I am confident they understood not one word of our plight, they did nicely assign us, in a epitomically Japanese gesture of hospitality, someone to follow us around until we found what we needed. Since he had no idea, however, what it was that we needed, his only purpose ended up being explaining to each subsequent person I asked for help that he had no idea what it was we wanted and that persons X, Y, and Z didn't either. After accumulating an entire alphabet of people who couldn't help me, but were thoroughly informed on the history of my helplessness, I gave up. On our way out, we kept our eyes peeled for life-size posters of Cynthia that we could rip down and show to the ticket window.
In one last act of desperation, we half jokingly and half forlornly started yelling out Cynthia's name. In a moment of sheer luck, we found someone sitting at a promotional tent who recognized the name. Delighted and dumbfounded, we asked, "YES! Cynthia Barboza! Do you know what team she plays for!?!" She then, in perfect English, answered, "She plays for the Toray Arrows. Are you her friends? Allow me escort you to your seats." Cynthia, you are as clutch as we are undeserving of your friendship.
2PM - We are led to the Toray fan section and presented with complimentary vests and cones for amplifying our cheers. EVERYONE in the stadium is staring at us. One of our favorite games to play here in Asia is, "How far are we from the nearest gaijin (white person)?" In this circumstance, we felt very very far. To smooth things over, I used my favorite pick up line, "How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice. Pleased to meet you... Wiley Birkhofer." This did not go over well, so we started hooting and hollering in support of the Torays which earned us a few friends. The initial hostility we perceived turned out just to have been alarm that we were cheering out of turn. Japanese fanfare (and volleyball) is the most organized thing I've ever seen. The cones we were given, for example, were not used for yelling. This was in fact frowned upon. The cones were props for an elaborate choreographed celebration the Toray fans would perform after every point. Business men, without any discernible interest in the sport of volleyball, would participate in the cheer with absolute synchronicity. There were even cheerleaders distributed throughout the bleachers to instruct and assist those who, like us, hadn't arrived early enough for the walk-through. We eventually caught on, but of course couldn't help but yell out of turn everytime Cynthia got a kill.
The interesting thing was that although the fans clearly enjoy their routine, they were also undeniably amused and intrigued by our spontaneous outbursts. Time and time again in Japan, we've wondered to ourselves if Japanese feel at all suffocated by the conservatism which dominates their existence. I know it is deeply ingrained in them to be rule-abiding, but it seems to me that all cultural differences aside, human beings have evolutionary impulses to be emotional and impulsive. Do they suppress urges to laugh hysterically, dance wildly in the privacy of their own abandoned wherehouses, or hold their girlfriends' hand in the park? Do they talk themselves to sleep when they arrive at home after a day of relative quietude? The man whose tie we removed at the rave felt unquestionably empowered, and I sensed the same yearning in the Toray volleyball fans... so I streaked at halftime.
Who knows? Maybe they're happier than I could ever know. Here is the video you've all been waiting for, video proof that their souls aren't half as tortured as I've made them out to be:
The game was a blast, as was learning the cheers. I've decided I want to be Japanese when I grow up. Halfway through the match, we noticed that every time Cynthia made a kill, everyone would chant in unison, "Cindy Cindy, Volleyball!" It turns out they were actually chanting, "Cindy Cindy, Mo Ipon! (Do it again)", but hilarious in it's own right. The Japanese struggle to pronounce soft c's and 'th' , so Cynthia has changed her name to Cindy to avoid being celebrated, "Shinshia Shinshia, Volleyball!".
6PM - From Toyota City, we took a handful of trains, planes, and automobiles to Osaka, where we waited a few delirious hours for our rave rendezvous. When the rave started at 12AM, we had been awake for 17 action packed hours. When the rave ended at 5AM, we sleptwalk to the subway, took a 2 hr train to Kyoto, and made it to bed by 10AM the following day, 27 hours after having woken up in the remote village of Hachiman. Before passing out, we swore an oath to sleep through S. Korea and wake up in Vietnam.
Our stay in Kyoto was rejuvenatingly beautiful. The ubiquity of cherry blossom trees in full bloom made navigating a nightmare, but we savored every moment of it; cherry blossom season lasts only two weeks out of the year and we happened upon it. The parks teem with Japanese teenagers who celebrate by laying out massive tarps on which to drink and be merry. In Tokyo, Rise, Czarna, and I were walking through a park and followed our ears to some commotion in the distance. Our first encounter was an young Japanese man chugging Oolong tea out of a gallon bottle to the applause of his friends. "How cute," we thought. "A picnic!". "My, their faces are sunburnt," exclaimed Rise. The tea wasn't tea, and boy was it flammable...
The bottom line: the Japanese know how to get down. And all it does is make them extremely happy and a little red-faced. The same business men who won't even acknowledge you on their way to work can often be sighted in the wee morning hours, still in their suits and ties, recalling the night's revelry with their coworkers or sleeping with their faces in a bowl of soup. We literally saw a waitress rescue a passed out man from drowning. In Japan, you never pour your own drink, so everyone's desire to be hospitable, combined with everyone else's desire to accept hospitality graciously, in addition to a scarcity of socially acceptable alternatives for releasing stress (or emotion) contribute to a culture of binge drinking. I googled it and learned that Japan is the most alcoholic country in Asia and the #1 consumer per capita of spirits in the world.
Nevertheless, we loved it here. I'll leave you with these funny pictures so that your last impression won't be my shamelessly ignorant dogmatism:
"Pirikura"
We suspect they are called pirikuras because that's how an Asian would pronounce the spanish word for movie, "pelicula". Pirikuras are high tech photo booth salons that are wildy popular with little girls and Casey. The camera automatically enlarges your eyes and whitens your face (two qualities that define attractiveness in Japan). Contact lenses and eyelid surgery (and eyelid tape if you can't afford the alternatives) exist to accomplish this same effect. It worked wonders on Nick...
More translation hilarity
The chicest Japanese products usually contain, for the same reason that white skin and round eyes are popular, English words. Below is a mock-egg cookie whose description has been seductively written in English:
Caption (in case you can't read it):
Sable Which imagined eggs.
Very2 petit and cute confectionary.
It is surely nice!
If that isn't a haiku, I don't know what is.
Sweet irony. Notice the unorthodox spelling of 'reading' and the creative use of a period after 'and'. Japan, we love you. Everyone else, we miss you. Scroll all the way down to see a newly uploaded fish market video if you like.
Con amor,
W
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