Kyoto - Osaka, Japan, Sunday 29th of April, 2001

For some funny reason in the morning, the TV picture would wobble and shiver, then finally settle down and be quite suitable for watching. My morning fix was in jeopardy. Japan has a system where some of the TV’s have a bilingual function so that you can listen to certain English-language programs and movies in either Japanese or English. There is a nightly bilingual news report and sometimes you can catch fairly decent Hollywood movies with a simultaneous bilingual broadcast. Not that you need much language ability on the Pay-per-View channel. Actually, the biggest challenge was figuring out what you did that took you in to it, and then deciphering the symbols on the remote control to try and get out of the channel before you have to pay. However, the content seems to be universal in appeal and if you understand highly aspirated sound effects, you will do fine. Still, it is only a TV, and way out there is Life and more to see and do.

Yesterday’s visit to the Temple of the Big Buck yielded far more than originally intended. And what a joy it was! The place was jammed packed, so without an invitation I sat myself down next to a guy, sitting alone, smoking. He didn’t say a word. Just puffed and stared a thousand miles away, as if transporting himself on nicotine. It wasn’t long before his friend joined to take the last vacant seat. Kosuke was something else – fluent in American having just returned after graduating from a college in Pennsylvania, and big. We are talking six feet two, two hundred and fifty pounds big, and with warmth, and an open spirit and personality to match.

That is when the day changed.

Conversation and coffee are a good combination, and before long we were all making comments on the passing parade. It was cultural anthropology on caffeine.

Every so often a skitter and clacking of stilettos would pass by, accompanied by exuberant giggles and wonderment. It is not really a question of how do they walk in those shoes, but more of how do they propel themselves forward at all when being so fantastically remote from their bodies. And what is so enthralling that they all have to do the Japanese equivalent of a very frothy and breathy high pitched “gosh – how could that possibly, possibly be? (Followed with lots of tittering in reverb)” Neither Kosuke or his friend Shingo could grasp what the chatter was about. But the sight of these uniformly pink clouds of nothingness kept us transfixed for more than an hour. It reminded me of candyfloss on a stick – or those inane little black insects that fly in square patterns around fruit. No matter what you do, you can never swat them away.

We counted ‘blondes’, then ‘almost blondes’, and finally any kind of ‘close to wanting to be a blonde with mobile phones stuck to their ears’. There was even a significant smattering of schoolgirls (often non-blonde) in navy blue uniforms with big chunky white socks scrunched up around their ankles, almost no skirt, and a coquettish air about them that really made you wonder, “so this is the tease – baby dolls or school girls or both”? The guys that shadowed them (all variations of camouflage blonde), seeming to stalk and maneuver for contact, were slouchy and scruffy in the new cool way. They looked like they had slept on the streets for years, with a matching uniform of dark and crumpled, and always hung precariously low. From the back all you saw was acrylic orange duster hair, sloppy clothing and shoulder blades like shark fins.

Sometimes a swarm of sleek Salarymen would cruise by. All very non-blonde in their uniformity, sporting an all-seasonal skin of a sleek, tight fitting black suit, with spare but distinctive markings of a white shirt and silk tie. Their prey, or vice versa, are Ojosan; young women that are often college graduates, under employed but middle class, conservatively dressed, and looking for marriage – to a Salaryman. Starbucks and Salarymen were meant for each other. It is a feeding ground. And that is like nectar for the hummingbird Ojosan. The more foreign the flower, the sweeter the nectar. And hum and patter and flit and purr they certainly do!

Wandering down the covered shopping mall led to many funny comments – after-all, the three of us are deliriously unemployed without any real concern for moving to the next job either! A photo booth presented itself so we jumped inside and made a batch of instant stickers with our images on them. It is just like printing your own stamps. We were definitely ‘in the moment’ and it felt good. Kosuke and Shingo posed with Colonel Sanders (who had rather Asian looking eyes) while I snapped, and in turn had our pose snapped by another foreign couple. “Hey Honey-bunch, look what the locals do for fun…you sure don’t see this in Florida!” A quick turn left took us past the sex shop, up from the veggie stand, and into the cinema where anime films are shown.

Entertainment is expensive and even offering to pay half price to only see half of the film did not gain me any discount. ‘Anime’ films are a definite Japanese thing and encompass all genres in stunning and sophisticated technical fortes of animation. They are often breathtakingly realistic, with obsessive attention to detail, complex and elaborate plots and expressive characters. And there is always a dark side, often exploring social issues or beliefs, the sublimation of women and numerous forms of violence. The bizarre fantasies are the best and always the darkest – Disney and Princess Mononoke it is not!

Instead, we met up with Seiko, Kosuke’s long time girlfriend, and all headed to a local cinema. Seiko wears sensible shoes and does rock climbing for a sport. No risk of nothingness there at all. (And she is tall, and we all know how smart tall women are!!) The choice was a Thai film with Japanese subtitles telling the story of a volleyball team made up of Transvestites, rather tall Transvestites actually, and how they overcome life, society and more life, to triumph at the championships. It was enjoyable to watch – and having the language factored out made me focus on the screen in so many other ways. Sitting in front of such a big screen was like a little piece of bliss. Seeing their true story reminded me of living in Italy, when I would ride the 9:20 Number Four bus home with the Brazilian ‘girls’ as they went from their day job to their night job, hanging out in bus shelters waiting for their clients. Often we were the only passengers, and after a while, the familiar routine became our family. They would always try to convert me, and I would always promise to try their makeup tips. Then I would get off at my stop, stand and watch them disappear in to the dark, until the next night when we would meet again. In the years since, there have been many times when I had wished that just once I had followed them to see where they went to.

Dinner was Korean, and our conversation was as sumptuous as the banquet we shared. My metal chopsticks made the pork knuckles fly right off the plate, across half the table without interference, past the ten yard line and onto the floor – “Score!!” and the crowd roared - while noodles slithered off their hooks, always to return to their bowl. Shingo flirted outrageously with the waitress, who showed no mercy, while we congratulated her on their impending marriage and life together. In between the banter and my bouncing food, we talked of contemporary concerns, like living together before marriage, cultural perceptions about weight and size, and AIDS and changes in the Japanese culture. Kosuke certainly understood the US and what it had given him, while Shingo and Seiko shared stories of their various travels to Thailand and China as well. Again, the dark side of Japan became a focus, as my hosts educated me on the extent of prostitution here, and how ‘lady-boys’ and ‘shims’ are much more accepted than homosexuals. They didn’t know anyone that was homosexual or had AIDS and I confessed that I didn’t know anyone that is a TV (transvestite) or Lady-boy. None of us knew where to find the nearest Love Hotel either!

With the pause button on while Kosuke was translating, my mind drifted back to an experience earlier in the day. Wandering between temple sites, I was lost in a back alley maze, only to hear a wooden clacking sound on the cobblestones. When I passed a passageway, there they were – not one, but TWO geisha, en-route to an appointment! I tried to follow, but the corridor was small with tight dark turns, which I am not, and with a swift ‘swoosh’ of a sliding door, they simply disappeared into somewhere else. Leaving just a vapor imprint – like an image from an anime scene - the shimmering colors in their kimono, the erotic glimpse of naked skin, white makeup and waxed black hair holding glittering gold ornaments – their disappearance held me fast to the spot for what seemed like an age. When I eventually emerged out into the sunlight again, its brashness hurt my eyes and I could barely believe what I had seen. And then I remembered to breath. It was as if my entire being suddenly deeply succored for air.

I had my sighting.

I needed a bathroom break and sought out the ‘Ladies’. No small accomplishment when you are relying on your memory of Kanji characters – but I was confident. This was it. And it was! Definitely, Absolutely, Positively, has to be The Ladies Bathroom.

And then She struck! A small grandmother sporting a punch perm gray ‘do’, rabid over something a miss, came at me like an armored battalion on legs, all four feet nothing of her, shaking her fist and waving an accusatory finger. Her conversation was as rapid as automatic machine gun fire. “Zis-zis-zis”. I was caught in slow motion – between frames and dodging bullets –when I clutched my breasts to demonstrate to her that I should be there and not where I think she was telling me to go! She didn’t buy the line about being a Buddhist Nun either. And I had to pee – but she was determined that, if she had her way, that was not going to happen on her turf. So I had to leave! Thrown out of a toilet before I even got inside – in JAPAN!!! By a four foot tall grandmother no less! All because of a lack of hair. I was humbled. And feeling a little confused. A shaved head was changing my identity and I hadn’t realized by how much. Yesterday, having no hair had me invited into a temple. Today, having no hair had me thrown out of toilet. And I still needed to pee.

The bill was paid, Shingo let go of his love, and as the night drew to a close, we made our goodbyes. Seiko and Shingo were taking the same subway home, and Kosuke and I walked a few blocks together. Street theater and music were just warming up, as were the Bosozoku, revving their motorcycles hard and fast as they screamed around the block and back, again and again. The Pachinko parlors were dark and quiet, while the disenchanted youth on the street were straight from the Blade Runner set. The Yamamba night species were emerging, with their witch like long white hair and makeup that contrasts with their salon tans, giving a ghost like appearance under neon. Every subway entrance greets you with an ominous and eerie pinball ping. It’s perpetual.

There is no chitter or stammer of steel stilettos. Just synthetic sound. The Yamamba and Bosozoku are drawn to each other. This is not the Starbucks scene. Kosuke joked that he would have to shave his goatee off when he got a job, and I joked that I would have to grow my hair back to get a job! And then we both went different ways in to the night.

Back at the hotel, I turned on the television, hoping that maybe one of the programs would be shown as a bilingual channel, and I might understand it. And then the picture tube went on the blink. Totally blank or scrolling wobbly, tempting you to hit the side of the box to make it go or make it stop.

It made me think of Ketut the Houseboy when he was in his Adventure-boy Phase and had decided to travel the world. He had a talent for Electrical Engineering, but he had been born pretty. Very pretty. More so than most of the females that we both knew. Once in America on Halloween he dressed up as a doll like girl and collected a lot of candy. When he went to a parade in San Francisco there was almost a riot because of his cute looks, flirty demeanor and long, long hair. He had memorized a certain chapter from the book, “Memoirs of a Geisha” that he could recite verbatim if you so desired. That led to an obsession with All Things Asian, and Ketut traveling to Japan not once, but twice in less than a year, to live his dream of that role learnt by rote. On the last occasion he went directly to Starbucks and managed to pick up something that not only satisfied his literary needs, but also matched his newly acquired Japanese furniture! When the language is factored out, and you can only focus on the screen, I have to give Ketut credit - he certainly knows his way around a TV.

Time to catch the night bus to the next destination.

Please rewind the tape before you leave.

Zen