The island of Shikoku, Japan, Sunday, the 20th of May, 2001

Noboru-san and I had spent most of the day walking the 30 Km together, more by coincidence than anything planned. And because of our late arrival, getting to the Temple that night was not going to happen. It would be an early morning uphill walk, before heading further along the coast the next day. In the last couple of kilometers we were in a small village when all of a sudden the Public Address system blasted itself on, and a voice was rousing the local residents to do something at 3pm in the afternoon. In mid step, Noboru-san stopped, dropped his backpack and started doing calisthenics! Whup-two, sree four, he was chanting; whup-two, sree, four.

At that precise point, I knew that I had a live one behind me.

Our horizon point was Drive-In Hotel 27. It should have been called ‘Dive-In Hotel 27’ because it was so bad that it was almost cool. The actual reception area has a restaurant and a bar, both of which have seen better days, as has the Wife of the Owner. But she is the Boss and everyone obeys. There is a Husband too, but the only time I saw him move was when he needed to reach across the table to find the lighter for the next cigarette. So when we walked in to the accommodations, seeing two very skinny men run out of the dorm area in their very big white underwear (on equally knobby chicken legs), just seemed to add to the quaint and homey ambience. (I wondered if they were chasing each other.) But we did all have one thing in common. We were Henro! And that is a club membership all unto itself. For a moment there I thought that the Boss thought that I was a boy! My concern was that she was putting me in the Men’s block, but as it turned out, that wasn’t the case. It was more about available rooms, I think. So with the Boys, I settled in.

We did the usual arrival routine. Find the room. Find the Toilet. Find the bathing room. Find the teapot. Find the bedding. Find out what time Dinner is. Find out what the price is, etc., etc., etc. I had a bonus this time because there was a very strong chance that some laundry could be done. So while the boys warmed up the TV set, I went off in search of something modern – a washing machine.

Voila! I found one. I could hear the TV being channel flipped, the volume turned up, and the beer cans being popped open. I wasn’t going to do their laundry — just my own, but still, I couldn’t help thinking about how we are trained from a very young age to do gender related things. I wanted to have clean, fresh clothes as often as possible. It is hard sweaty work doing the walking thing. The guys just wanted to have a beer and watch some sports — perhaps thinking that someone magically somewhere else would be doing their washing for them.

Everything I had was in my arms, ready for a good wash. Undies. Bras. Trousers. Socks. T-shirts. Thankfully, the Boss had provided a nicely pressed yakata jacket. And so the little domestic scene started to take shape.

Until I realized that there was no washing powder for the clothes.

“No worries”, I thought. “I can improvise”, and squirted something in that looked soapy, kind of.

The next challenge was to get water in to the machine.

“No worries”, I thought. Just turn the tap on and that should do the trick, except there was no water. It had all gone in to the bathing room in to the tub, in which tired little Henro’s have a tendency to sit in and soak to take care of their aches and sprains. “I can improvise”, so I started a little fetch and carry routine, while balancing on the perennially too small little wooden slippers, with a small pink plastic tub, to get the hot water from the bath into the washing machine. It did the job. Lastly, the sweet moment to make it all successful; Turn the machine on.

“No worries”, I thought. “I can figure this stuff out. I’ve done this before and it all kind of worked it self out.”

So methodically I tried a series of options to get the machine to go. It wouldn’t. Just as I was walking away to go get one of the guys to help me, the machine started doing its thing. So I walked back. And it stopped. So I walked away again, and it started. And I began to think that someone is playing tricks on me! So I would turn to face it and it would stop. And when I turned away it would make a noise! This was too much!! So I went over to it, and turned the knob a quarter turn. That started the spin bucket off in a fury. And the clothing just stayed there in the main tub, dead in the water. Then I tried another quarter turn, same result. The spin bucket just kept going faster and faster. With another turn, and still the same result, I wondered if NASA was aware of this technology. So finally I thought, “No worries”, “I will just put the clothes straight in to the spin bucket, send them through three galaxies, and be done with it.”

So I did. Loaded up the spin bucket, and nothing happened. I turned the knob — still nothing happened.

“What happened to the intergalactic space travel?” I wondered.

So I walked away — just to tease it, and sure enough it started up. Like a fury!! But it was not the spin bucket in action, instead, it was the main tub which was still holding most of the water in it, that had decided that it could spin too, and share it’s contents all over the floor, walls and ceiling, along with the massive growth of bubbles that it was creating in the process, while my clothes sat in the spin bucket, dead, doing nothing! I raced back, hoping that my return would make it stop, but it didn’t, and I felt like I was in a bad sea-drama action movie, battling gale force winds and wave and foam, as I struggled to get to the machine, and then to clear the soap from my eyes to try and figure out what to turn to stop it doing what ever it was doing. Every time I ventured near the machine, it would slap me with a tidal wave and follow up with a dousing of froth. I couldn’t find anything else to turn or wiggle or pull out of the wall! So, with the little cotton yakata jacket sticking like a bad Grecian toga, I just crouched down and waited until there was nothing left to dump! And the clothes still sat in the spin bucket doing nothing, not even getting wet!

Finally, it all seemed to stop. I was wetter than the dirty clothing, and my yakata was revealing a very feminine form despite its printed pattern. Right at that precise moment, the boys emerged from the TV room, their chicken legs on wooden slippers, moving en-masse to the Toilet. (You never go anywhere alone in Japan — not even to the toilet!). Thankfully, there was no big white underwear to be seen, but those belts were hanging pretty low on them hips. The threat was there for sure. “Zen-san” they all said in giggling high octave chorus, balancing coyly on the girlie shoes — “In Japan, no yakata in bath tub, Zen-saaaan” It was something straight out of the Mikado, from the scene where the Three Little Maids from School are tittering together, as they are returning home! At which point I picked up a soggy sock to throw at them, only to hit the dangling light globe in the middle of the room, which then exploded and shorted out the entire building. It was one of those moments when you could hear the sizzle as the chords burnt themselves out, room by room. So, no lights in the Toilets boys! You will have to pee in the dark tonight! (And given what I have seen before, it is not like the lights make that much of a difference.)

With the washing machine declaring victory, I took the clothes to the bathing room, made them wet then hung them out to dry, pretending that they had been washed. Upon finding someone else’s yakata, I adjourned to the TV room, to have a cup of tea and share war stories with the guys!

Well, I should have known better.

It was Sumo night.

What can I say!

Sumo! With the Henro Boys.

Lots of big men with long hair and breasts, more hair and bigger breasts than mine for sure, so now is not the time to have an inferiority complex. I wondered if anyone would find me, a woman, attractive at such a size. And they are wearing thongs of all things! Now a thong on a Victoria’s Secret model is one thing, but on 400 pounds of bean paste belly. Well, let me tell you ladies; it is not for the faint hearted. (Think about it guys. If I was to describe to you, an athlete, with big breasts and beautiful long dark hair, wearing a thong….where would your mind go huh?!?)

And the beer rings are popping.

By this point, the two can screamers are giggling uncontrollably like kindergarten children, and the conversation is a bilingual mix of bad English and drunk Japanese, although I wasn’t sure which was which at various points. But the Sumo was good. So we watched.

Now, there is an esteemed tradition to this five hundred year old sport. But I was not in the right company to receive such an education of the intellect. What I did receive was a lot of belching and farting and “So des kar” which is like adding “Really, go on, you don’t say” to the end of every comment. It got worse as I remembered when I lived in Mountain View California for a short time some years ago, with a couple of really good friends. At one point two of us started to take Japanese lessons, with very different results. Andy was just doing it to try and score a date. I was trying to keep the language fresh. Andy became discouraged very early on, with both the lack of language adaptation and also with the lack of success with his sad social life, so he created his own mantra of saying “so des kar” with a lisp. And so it has remained that way for me too. With a lisp. Stho, when the Henro Boys were talking, obviously enlightening me as to the finer points of Sthumo, all I could say was “Stho deth kar”, with raised eyebrows and a very serious expression to boot. By then the beer cans were declaring victory too, and their lisp was as bad as mine. On the Boys, not the beer cans.

Now, another fine point about Sumo is you have to slap your butt. A lot, as it turns out. And squat, then, decide you don’t want to play, and stand up, face your cheeks to the cameras, slap them some more, and walk out of the ring. Another point worthy gesture is to stand spread eagled, then lift one leg up sideways, then the other. This is one sport where I would not be fighting to get front row seats. Can you imagine what it must be like under there? With all that heat and humidity. No way Honey, am I getting close to that thing. (If it were Tiger Woods on the other hand, now that would be another matter! You would have to bury me in my chair!!) It has to be the only sport I know of where you win points for posturing. (I kept thinking that Ketut the Houseboy would like the slapping bit for sure. He definitely had a ‘thing’ for blubber butts and the sound of cellulite.) At one point, with the yakata jackets becoming more casual by the moment, one of the Henro Boys got up, slapped his butt, and went to the fridge to get another Asahi. And then it was on.

Another stood up, squatted, almost lost his balance, then stood up again, where upon he did lose his balance, and the Sumo games were in full flight. The yakata jackets were off, and the competitors were down to their big white underwear. I was grateful for that. A thong would have put me off sushi for life. The posturing became more outrageous by the minute, with two strutting and squatting in front of the fridge, while the third did the running commentary. Four more Henro had since arrived and quickly joined the scene. Their yakata’s became very casual very quickly, and I was never quite sure where I should look or how to avert my eyes when in conversation with them. Still, they had joined the party. We had a tournament! One of the Henro was complaining that his yakata was mysteriously wet!

“Stho deth kar” I thought as I snuck off to a corner, quietly sipping tea.

Slap those butts — grunt and puff hard…all the while giggling and trying to hold a can of beer and not spill its contents. I had to laugh at these guys. They are scrawny for sure, play-acting out like the big guys. So scrawny in fact, that I think my backpack weighs more than two of them. It is kind of like watching World Championship Wrestling, Japanese style. Again, my yakata jacket was doused, this time with the compelling aroma of ‘Au di Beer’. So off I went in search of the third jacket, stolen from yet another room that wasn’t mine.

“Zen-sthan — dinner-time” was a welcome reprieve at this point. So we all assembled, to troop along the two blocks back to the restaurant where we had originally checked in. The yakata’s were back on, barely, and everyone seemed to have left foot wooden shoes. So, the cavalry of cackling chicken legs went to dinner.

Inside the restaurant, the TV was on, and guess what. It was the same Sumo tournament. The Husband hadn’t moved from the last noted position of three hours earlier. I checked. There was breathing. It was not a ventilator making the smoke rings. Dinner was tense as I waited for someone to slap their butt and grunt and puff. Thankfully, they were all well behaved, if not a little erratic with their chopsticks, and so with Dinner done, we all trooped back to the dormitory. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had nothing on this bunch. (Try saying that with a lisp!) And, Noboru-san was definitely the ringleader.

And that was when the farting took full force.

I wondered what it is that does it to them – the raw garlic on the sashimi perhaps, or maybe that suspicious fermented soybean stuff that looks like semen. (Not high on my menu list at all!) And have you ever noticed how it is only Westerners that are hung up about such an activity like farting. In Indonesia, we called it punctuation, and there were times when you couldn’t tell if someone had just added a comma or made an exclamation point in bold and underlined. That night though, those guys absolutely grammatically obliterated any sentence out of existence. It was like walking syncopation, so after every outburst, I would say “Stho deth kar?” and they would respond the same, in a very serious tone, “Stho deth kaaaar!”

And on those notes, the night ended. But I am sure I could see shoulders moving up and down in suppressed laughter. Or maybe it was the challenge of the wooden slippers with chicken legs after too much beer and Sumo.

The next morning, it was as if nothing had happened the night before. We struggled to wake up early enough to get to breakfast. One guy commented loudly that he didn’t have a yakata jacket at all! “Stho deth kar” I thought. At different intervals we all headed up the mountain or along the coast road to the next temple. It is rather disconcerting to walk next to a complete stranger who seemingly farts at will, with a look of total indifference, as if nothing has happened. I felt totally inspired to try it the next time I was back in the west. Like, who would know it was me, right? Just think of the acoustics in a shopping mall! At one point Noboru-san and I met at a rest point again, made our greetings, and settled in for a feast of banana’s, bread and chocolate. As he got up to leave, yep, it happened, so I said, “Stho deth kar”. As he was walking away, he turned and with an unmistakable twinkle in his eye, and a grin from ear to ear, he replied “Hai — stho deth kaaaar”. With that memory, I am still not sure if I should have been present the prior evening at all.

I also held a lingering suspicion as to what he actually told the group about me, and an equally lingering question as to what would have happened if they had asked me to take my yakata off. The confusing gender thing had obviously opened a doorway, but I could only think of the wonder of Sunday Night Sumo on television, and the amazement of what I experienced on e Very Special Pilgrim’s Night. You don’t get many nights like last night at all, anywhere.

Thankfully.

“Stho Deth Kar!!”

Zen