Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan (38 page)

“He is just like a kid,” said Hot Sushi approvingly.

At Senkaku Bay we stopped to visit an aquarium, with listless fish and giant mutant crabs and stir-crazy sharks turning cramped circles. The bay itself was a deep turquoise inlet of sea amid jagged rock formations and overspills of green. We walked along a narrow footbridge onto an observation deck perched on an outcrop of rock.

Say Ya looked around and said, philosophically, “Good place for a barbecue.”

As we continued up the west coast, we passed a sign near a beach:
CAUTION: WATCH OUT FOR BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
.

“Next week,” Abo assured me. “Next week and the beaches will be filled with beautiful women.”

Story of my life.

From the Senkaku Bay area, we turned inland toward a place called Kinzan, “the Gold Mountain.” This was no hyperbole. In 1601, the very year that Lord Tokugawa unified Japan under his rule, gold was discovered at Kinzan. It was a rich vein, near the surface and easily separated from the bedrock. This discovery on the fringes of
Tokugawa’s realm proved fortuitous indeed, for the gold of Sado funded the coffers of the Tokugawa dynasty and kept them in power for the next two hundred and fifty years. The gold of Sado outlasted the shōguns themselves. It helped fund the Meiji Reformation and it supported Japan’s imperial adventures in China. Sado gold helped pay for the planes and ships that attacked Pearl Harbour, and it helped fund the winged bombs of the kamikaze pilots. Gold was still being mined at Sado right up until 1990.

At the height of the gold rush, the main site was near the boom town of Aikawa, the Klondike of Japan, a brawling community of gold miners, samurai overlords, imported prostitutes, wealthy wine merchants, assorted mountebanks, and thousands upon thousands of slave labourers. It was a major, albeit makeshift, city. Today, little is left of Aikawa to remind you of its once reckless past.

As we drove inland toward the old gold mines, the ragged green peaks called Doyu-no-Wareto rose above us. They were formed, it was said, by a gold miner enraged with greed who struck the mountain so hard with his hammer and spike that he split the peak in two. The mountain
was
split, but not by any mythical figure. It was the ceaseless mining activity of thousands that cracked the mountain.

The mines have since been turned into a sort of Disneyland of the Oppressed, with walkways built deep into the wet, chilled depths. Mannequins dressed in ragged clothes are arranged in mini-dioramas, reminders that it was grunt work, performed by slave labourers, that made the gold mines viable. The mine shafts, now a tourist attraction, were a kind of mass grave. Thousands of slaves died in these mines. Their average life expectancy, upon arrival at Aikawa, was less than four years. Meanwhile, on the mainland of Honshu north of Tokyo lie the baroque, extravagant mausoleums at Nikko, burial place of the shōguns. The contrast between Nikko and the mines of Aikawa, between two tombs, is so vast as to be obscene.

There was an awkward moment outside the Mine Museum when Hot Sushi pulled me aside and said, in a hushed voice, “Hey, man. It costs six hundred yen to enter. If you can’t afford it—I mean, if you need some money, or—”

“No, no—” I waved his offer away.

Michelle eyed our exchange warily.

From the gold mines, Hot Sushi decided to follow the O-Sado Skyline Highway along the spine of the isle and then down into the port city of Ryōtsu. When Hot Sushi began to yawn, lion-like, Michelle became concerned. “Are you sure you aren’t too tired to drive?”

“Tired?” said Hot Sushi. “Who—me? I never get tired. Never.”

Again Michelle tried to catch him in a contradiction, and again he managed to elude her. “But yesterday you told me that you always feel sleepy.”

“Sleepy
, yes. But tired? Never.”

I liked Hot Sushi. I liked the fact that you could never pin him down on anything. He reminded me, in his slightly ironic outlook and breezy goodwill, of the French Acadians of my home country. And his understanding of English nuance was remarkable as well. There
is
a difference between being tired and being sleepy.

The air was clean and alpine crisp. Sloping away on either side were heady vistas that were so absolutely spectacular we almost considered waking up Say Ya. Abo finally did, as we snaked our way down toward the eastern shore of the island.

“Yeah,” he said groggily, peering out the window with one eye. “It’s Sado all right.”

Some towns seemed to have blown onto the shore like flotsam. Such was the case with Ryōtsu, with its shaganappy patched-up, tumbledown, falling-in-on-themselves houses with their rusting corrugated-metal roofs and sea-bleached walls. The colour of Ryōtsu was the same silvery grey of old temples and driftwood.

It was the end of the line for me. Hot Sushi dropped me off near the ferry port and gave me a pamphlet for the Pacific Island Club in Guam. “I’m in the picture,” he said, pointing to a faintly recognizable dot. Diminished to a few pixels on a compugraphic imprint, Hot Sushi’s smile was still visible, like the Cheshire Cat’s grin, the last of his features to fade. I wished Abo the best, I shook Say Ya’s sleepy hand, and I gave Michelle one of those awkward half-hug/half-handshake—type farewells that are so popular among North Americans. The four of them then piled back into the car and set off in the pursuit of experience and a never-ending present. God, how I envied them.

5

T
HE TOWN OF
R
YōTSU
, indeed the entire island of Sado, was gearing up for its spring festival of drums and horseback archery, performed at full gallop in medieval garb. The art of the Noh mask was turned into burlesque above Ryōtsu Port, where a four-metre mask was hoisted up atop a tower as a tourist attraction. “It celebrates the life of Zeami,” said the man at the information desk. “And the fact that we have more than forty Noh theatres on this island, making Sado the centre of Noh in Japan.”

“Do you go to the theatre?” I asked.

“Noh is very popular on Sado.”

“Yes,” I said, “but do you yourself attend?”

His voice dropped to the hushed tone of a dissident criticizing a military regime. “Noh is a little slow,” he said, and then with a wide smile, “I prefer pro wrestling. Do you know Giant Baba? I met him once. He was very nice. I was surprised.”

“But pro wrestling is fake.”

“So is Noh,” he said. It was one of the most reasonable things I have ever heard regarding public entertainment.

Sado Island is also home to the internationally renowned Kodō Drummers. You may know them. These are the drummers you see stripped to loincloths, muscles sheened in sweat, torsos like washboards, headbands twisted around foreheads, and a wild grimace of battle in their faces as they hammer out a war cry, the drumbeats raw and primal, until your head swims and your chest tightens as though a tourniquet were tied around your rib cage and you have to step back, head reeling, from the fire. That is Kodō.

The Kodō Drummers of Sado Island have taken drumming to an intense, almost cultish level. The drummers perform high-speed, overlaid rhythms, and to effect this union of spirit and sound they eat together, cook together, clean together, and live together. (Most members of the troupe share communal living quarters.) If it sounds vaguely counterculture and hippyish, it’s because it is. The roots of the Kodō movement go back to the late 1960s, when the Japanese youth movement opted out of mainstream consumer society and sought to reconnect with the past. Being Japanese, their approach was anything but lackadaisical. Joining the Kodō Drummers is like joining the Marines. It is a tough regime: up before dawn for a ten-kilometre run, near naked even in the howling depths of winter. (Long-distance running teaches you the rhythm of the human body. It also builds stamina.)

Kodō Drummers play to the point of exhaustion, and stamina is crucial. They often perform leaning back, like a man in mid-situp, and it made me ache just to watch. They can make the drums tremble as softly as rain falling on a leaf, or come crashing to a head like sudden artillery. The drumming builds up, in waves, a hailstorm of drummers—relentless—reckless—unchained—and it rolls across the audience in volleys and echoes back again. The largest of the drums, the ō
dai-ko
, weighs more than half a ton and is wheeled out like a creaking god at the climax of the performance. It is large enough, as they say, for a man to drown in. The drummer stands, stripped to loincloth and headband, his back knotted in exertion, and—wielding drumsticks the size of baseball bats—he pounds out a punishing rhythm, a deep reverberating
boom-boom-boom
that rattles the rib cage and alters the heartbeat.

After a demonstration of drumming at the town’s public hall, I walked through a deep blue evening in Ryōtsu. The hammering heartbeat of the drums echoed in my chest all through the night.

I took a room in a ramshackle harbourside inn, where I had to wrangle with the lady of the establishment for half an hour before she would consent to renting to a foreigner. She tried to tell me she was “all full,” a common-enough ruse pulled on foreigners in Japan, but an easy one to disprove. The entranceways of Japanese inns are
where customers’ shoes are stored, and if an inn truly is filled up, the entrance should be stuffed with shelves of shoes. In this case there was not a single pair in storage. When I pointed this out she changed tack, saying that I would have to sleep on a futon and as an American I would be more comfortable on a bed in a hotel.

It was aggravating, trying to convince this lady to take my money, and in the end I had to resort to what I call my “cousin routine.” Whenever Japanese innkeepers are reluctant to rent me a room—they are afraid of misunderstandings, improper taking of baths, sudden violent murders; all understandable fears—I simply introduce myself in the following way:

“Hello, I am the cousin of
[INSERT TOWN NAME HERE]’S
foreign English teacher.”

As a former exchange teacher myself, I can attest to the fact that Japanese schools are simply crawling with foreigners. Virtually every high school and most junior highs have a token gaijin on staff—be he or she from Australia, America, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, or Canada. We called ourselves GODS, that is, “Gaijins On Display,” and we were looked upon by townspeople with a mix of apprehension and affection. GODS are highly visible, and everyone in town, even if they have never been formally introduced, will know of them. So when I came up against a wall of Japanese xenophobia, I simply stepped inside the circle. As the cousin of the local GOD, everything changes. Often, the innkeeper’s children will materialize upon hearing this. “You are Smith-sensei’s cousin?” they ask excitedly. “Yes, yes!” I assure them. “Good old Smith, how is he/she doing, anyway?”

This may seem devious and rotten and dishonest (because it is), but look at it this way: Not once have I abused my position. Several times, especially when things were going really super, I had been tempted to skip out and leave the bill on Smith’s tab, but every time I have resisted the urge. After all, I may be a Travel Weasel, but I’m not some common grifter.

6

I
SPENT
the next day wandering Ryōtsu, its meandering streets and hard-luck homes. Some of the houses were truly remarkable: self-supporting jumbles of boards and patched-up planks that were piled like firewood. Remove one plank and the entire structure might collapse.

Late in the day, I hitched a ride out to Mano, where the exiled Emperor Juntoku lies buried. I rode with a taciturn delivery man who apparently picked me up by mistake and who seemed annoyed by my very presence. Once again I wished I was a ski instructor who summered in Guam, simmering among bodies, tanned and taut, and who was filled with hedonistic vitality. Sigh.

When you are feeling sorry for yourself, nothing perks you up better than visiting a gravesite. And if the gravesite also happens to be that of a disgraced and demeaned exiled ex-emperor whose life was far worse than your own, the experience is positively uplifting. All that was needed was a funeral procession to really top things off.

For the tomb of an emperor, Mano Goryo was remarkably understated, but then Juntoku, as noted, had been disgraced, a man who died in obscurity, far removed from his dreams of destiny and grandeur. The grave was said to be haunted by his homesick ghost, searching for an escape from this island of exile.

Not far from the tomb was the temple of Myōsen-ji, where a pagoda, centuries old, stood like an abandoned watchtower, its joinery creaking in the wind.

From the traditions of Sado, dry with dust, to the high-powered hormonal shine of latter-day technology. From the sublime to the
ridiculous. From the tatterdemalion towns and fallen-away fields of Sado to the slick velocity of a jet foil hovercraft. I loved it.

The jet foil rides on blades that cut across the water, slicing through like a razor. The ship had pretensions to flight—and indeed, riding the Sado Island jet foil was as close as you could come to flying without actually leaving the water. A voice asked us to fasten our seat belts prior to departure, there was a bowel-shaking rumble from the depths, and then, well, hell, we hit warp three and screamed toward the mainland like a villain in a James Bond movie. Waves rose up to stop us, but we crashed through. Across the horizon, another storm was growing, the sky bruise-blue and roiling in with biblical wrath. What did I care, I was riding a jet foil. Ten million dollars’ worth of yen for what? So we can fly a little faster, soar a little higher, and feel that extra squirt of adrenaline light up our synapses. It was well worth it.

“Jet foil, number one,” said the man next to me, a salaryman intent on starting a conversation. His necktie was too tight; his neck was bulging out like a boiled sausage escaping its skin. I smiled at him wanly in what I hoped was a polite but discouraging way.

“Japanese technology, number one in the world!” he said, his smile having grown into a big insecure grin.

I sighed. He was wrong. As luck would have it, I happened to know all about hovercrafts. They were invented by the Scottish-born American citizen Alexander Graham Bell—father of the telephone—at his Canadian home on Cape Breton Island, working from an earlier design by an Italian inventor. Hovercrafts aren’t Japanese; they are Scottish-American-Canadian-Italian. I considered trying to explain this to my sausage-necked friend, but what was the point? He wouldn’t have believed me anyway.