Bye, IMS

Today is the last day of the celebrated IMS, aka "The Golden Phallus". Lots of "memories" were started here, lots of money spent as well, but that's less important.

I'm going to miss Elizabeth Muffin, which is only one of two outlets in Japan. They will not be reopening again, so fans of the shop were lined up--I counted over 50 people winding out the building and up the stairs--hoping to get a taste of Elizabeth's dusty muffin one last time. The shop had a sign that I think said, "30 Years. Thanks fuh Nuthin', Losers!" and a balloon shaped like an outstretched middle finger. Coming soon: Crowe's Schweddy Balls.

The Mitsubishi Artium, a small gallery that had some pretty avant-garde exhibitions will also be missed. Not sure if it's going to relocate. Correct me if you know.

Tsukimiya, an import toy store will be moving, fortunately. I have dumped quite a few Marks on German holiday decorations there and picked up a Nutcracker for 70% off today.

The shop I visited the most was the former Sony Plaza that changed its name to Plaza a few years back. They have another shop in Solaria, so I'll still be able to find my overpriced Euro candy.

I always liked the upper floors with all the bars and restaurants. Can't say that I have been in years, though, so that big middle finger is pointing at me, too.

I still can't believe the building is going to be torn down. Yes, by all means get rid of the Aigan Building, but leave IMS. All it needs is for the interior to be upgraded.

Tsuyazaki Walkabout

Several years ago, I started translating professionally. While I had been rendering into English the odd document here and there over the past decade, I had never seriously considered pursuing a career in the field. Itchy feet, however, had me go against my better judgement. 

The theory behind the career move (if you could call it one) was that if I could make a living by translating, why then, I wouldn't need to stay in Japan all year long. I could work wherever I had a power supply and a good Internet connection. I pictured myself in a French town, sipping a café au lait and nibbling on a croissant, as I hammered away one translated sentence after another and earned twenty to thirty yen per character. Six months into it, I did manage to realize a small slice of that dream--albeit at the modest rate of only ten yen per translated character--working at the dining table of an apartment in a seven-hundred-year-old building in Rome's Trasvetere district and four months later on the deck of a condo in Sunriver, Oregon.

The thing is, I had never cared much for the work when I did it casually, and now that I was doing it all the time, I was beginning to hate everything about it--the deadlines, the selfish demands of clients, the pittance earned vis-à-vis the effort invested. Jobs piled up, and I went for a stretch of three months not having a single day off. There aren't words in the English language to describe how exhausted I was. In Japanese, however, there were plenty: kuta kuta, heto heto, guttari, and so on.

The biggest disappointments, though, was the nature of the material I was translating. Most of it was tourism related. I'd say ninety percent or more had to do with enticing tourists to visit this place or that, a lot of which was pure fabrication.

One lie, in particular, appeared invariably in everything I was asked to translate: shizen-ni megumareta (blessed with beautiful nature). Every time I came across that line, I would look up from my keyboard and ask, "What nature? Where the hell is this nature they speak so glibly about?" Blessed with power lines and vending machines, perhaps, but nature? Who you trying to fool?"

Before long, my conscience got the better of me and I gave up pursuing translation as my ticket out of Japan. I still do the occasional job, but only on my terms and only if the material is interesting. 

 Every now and then, curiosity has me actually go to the trouble of visiting the sites I have written about in translations to see if there is any meat to be found in the spam-like gunk of my translations. A few weeks ago that curiosity brought me to a sleepy fishing village called Tsuyazaki.

The photo above how Tsuyazaki likes to promote itself. White-washed walls made of clay, gray undulating roof tiles, the green patina of copper finishings, an ancient sake brewery located at the end of a narrow cobbled road that is still producing quality rice wine a hundred years after its founding, and so on. The reality, unfortunately, is yet another dying town that is clutching at straws to reinvent itself before it gives up the ghost for good. 

That said, I must admit that I was genuinely impressed by the Toyomura Sake Brewery, which is well worth the visit if you are in the area (and whose sake I am drinking as I write this), the rest of Tsuyazaki, I'm afraid, is rather dreary. (I extend mea máxima culpa if my translated copy motivated anyone to visit the town.)

Tsuyazaki, which merged in 2005 with Fukuma to form a city with an affliction of a name--Fukutsu -shi--likes to boast of its sengen, (literally, 1000 houses) that were built in the so-called "machiya" style. Unfortunately, most of these houses are either in a bad state of repair or, as is so frustratingly common throughout Japan, covered with ugly fiberglass siding. These are san'widged between uninspiring houses and shabby apartment buildings.

The town was apparently the number one producer of sails in Japan back in the day when fishing ships were powered by the wind rather than Yanmar outboard motors. It's hard to say what industry the people of Tsuyazaki engage in today. There is some farming and fishing, yes, but not on a scale large enough to provide steady employment for young people. Until a few years ago when the Nishitetsu train still ran between Kaizuka and the town, an army of beach goers would descend upon Tsuyazaki on the weekends. But sadly no more. 

Rape blossoms.

A tailor shop. Kinda makes you wonder how business is doing.

The former residence of the Kozuma family, an ex-dyer, the Ai no Ie, was built in 1901. Today it houses the Tsuyazaki Ethnological Museum.

A small shrine located between the Ai no Ie and Toyomura Sake Brewery.

This home is suffering from an identity crisis.

Japanese radishes drying in the sun.

An old farmhouse.

Fresh Coat

Went running around Fukuoka Castle to check on the cherry blossoms—not yet—and noticed that parts of the castle have been given a fresh coat of paint recently. Seems the city is finally putting some money into park maintenance. The arched bridge just below this yagura (turret) is also being rebuilt as is the iris garden.

I don’t think the city would have bothered if inbound tourism hadn’t exploded as it has these past few years.

Konpira Shrine

At the eastern entrance of Minami Kōen, a large, heavily forested park that is almost always deserted, you can find this small shrine dedicated to Konpira Gongen (金毘羅権現), god of merchant sailors. The shrine, which like the park is neglected by visitors, looks like something right out of a Miyazaki Hayao film.

Running in Place

Years ago I moved from Arato (near Ōhori Park) to Daimyō. On one of my last nights in the neighborhood, I popped into my favorite koryōri-ya and told the master that it was with great regret that I had to say good-bye to them. "You see, I'm . . . moving away."

"Oh? Where to?" asked his wife.

"Daimyō."

"Oh? Daimyō where?"

"One chōme."

"Where in exactly?"

As luck would have it, I was going to be living in the very same building as the couple. So, we didn't have to say goodbye after all.

Fast forward ten plus years and my wife is at the neighborhood bakery where Mrs. I tells her that today will be their last day of business. They're going to close down the bakery and demolish the building. What they do next is up in the air. They may build an apartment building, but at the moment nothing is decided, nothing except that they will be moving. 

My wife who has been going to the bakery as often as three times or four times a week and chatting with the woman was sad to hear that they would be moving away. 

"Don't worry," the baker's wife replied. "We're moving into your building. We'll be right upstairs from you."

Fukuoka, despite its size, is a very small town.

28.4 grams of prevention

They say 28.4 grams of prevention is worth 2.2 kilograms of cure, or something like that, but my sons weren’t having any of that banal malarkey. Nope. The two refused to wash their hands or gargle or wear a mask, no matter how nicely I asked.

So, I pestered: “For crying out loud, would you wash your hands when you come home!”

“No!”

I tried reverse psychology: “Fine! Don’t wash your hands. If you want to get sick, then get sick. It’s your choice.” Unfortunately, that had, had the opposite effect because getting sick meant staying home from school.

I read picture books to them about germs and hygiene. But the boys remained unmoved, unconcerned and unconvinced.

So, I cajoled and bribed: “Hey, kiddo, I’ll give you ¥50 if you wash your hands… ”

“Only ¥50?”

“A hundred. I’ll give you a ¥100.”

“No thanks.”

“No thanks? That’s good money! Ungrateful little… ”

In the end, I gave up, bowing to the inevitable: a full-blown flu epidemic in our home.

Patient zero was my younger son.

All the kids sitting at his lunch table at kindergarten became sick at the same time. Kindergartens, I discovered quite early, cultivate not children’s curiosity and emotional wellbeing, but mostly their germs.

The 5-year-old would spend the next week and a half coughing and wiping his snot on every surface he could reach, like a stray dog marking his territory. In that first week, I beseeched my older son to keep his distance, but the rascal couldn’t resist tormenting his sick brother day in, day out. That’s what older brothers are put on this earth for, after all. In the end, he, too, came down with the flu and spent the weekend vomiting.

“See? I told you to stay away from your brother and now look at you.”

He stuck his tongue out at me.

“Do you enjoy throwing up?”

“Yes.”

Local school regulations in Fukuoka City require children sick with the flu to remain home for three days after a fever subsides, meaning my son would have most of the following week off. Lucky for him, he was feeling much better after only two bedridden days and was ready to par-tay. No sooner did he show signs of recovery, however, than my wife became sick, too. And, the next day as I was out of town on business, I succumbed myself. It was to be expected. When you sleep with your children like the Japanese do, the bedroom is a petri dish.

On my way home from the station, the taxi driver seeing my mask asked if I had the flu.

“I’m not sure yet, but it does have all the hallmarks of influenza.”

“They say Fukuoka’s in the best three,” the driver said.

“Best? Don’t you mean the worst?”

The driver was right. Fukuoka Prefecture had the third-highest incidence of the flu after Kagoshima and Miyazaki. Oita, Saga, and Nagasaki come in sixth, seventh, and eighth respectively. Nationally, children up to the age of 9 have been hardest hit, with almost 600,000 cases being reported so far.

The following morning, my doctor stuck a pool cue up my nose, tickled my brain and diagnosed me with the same strain that had already infected everyone else in my family: Type-B influenza. Symptoms include a slight fever, joint pain, fatigue, a sore throat, a runny nose and a cough. It’s not the worst strain of the disease, but you can expect to feel out of kilter for about a week.

Just as my older son was making a full recovery and set to return to school, we were sent an email informing us that because 10 of his 28 classmates were now sick, his class would be closed for a week.

“Hooray!” he shouted in triumph. “My second winter vacation!”

I suspect my son imagined a week filled with cartoons, DVDs and Netflix, picture books, board games, dodgeball in the park, ice skating and so on. But, no, this being Japan, his teacher paid our home a visit, carrying a nice fat packet of homework.

Six months pregnant with her third child, Sensei was once again going above and beyond the call of duty. Among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, teachers in Japan put in the longest working hours and earn much less than their more laidback counterparts in the U.S., Canada and Australia. It’s not surprising how teachers here can rack up the hours walking from house to house, making sure their charges have the necessary study materials. Seeing this dedication to the job in action, my wife and I thanked Sensei profusely through our surgical masks.

“Thanks for nothing,” my son shouted after his teacher left.

It was only then that the value of simple prevention finally hit home. When my son returned from soccer practice today he washed his hands without being asked and I nearly fainted.

The Blizzard of '16