I could tell I was going to get into another fight when my host mother moved me from their large and spacious room to their spare guest room. Here is a picture of that room:
“This is stupid,” I told her. "I'd have to curl in four places to actually lie down."
She laughed. She said that it would only be for tonight, because her daughter was inviting friends over.
“Whatever,” I said. “Anyway I’m going.” My plan was to call a friend of a friend of my mother’s that night. He was apparently living in Japan, and my intention was to call him and ask if I could spend the remainder of my Japanese stay at his house instead of the hell I was in.
I caught a train and met Trevor at a McDonald’s in Kobe. It was great to see him again. It was always great to see my friends again.
It was the first time I’d been to Kobe, and I instantly liked it. It looked like a mix between Tokyo and Osaka: there were large buildings and imposing crowds, but there were also trees and parks and a certain peaceful calm that Tokyo could never hold still.
“Dean,” Trevor said, “check this out.”
He brought me to a Konami arcade game place and showed me the types of machines they had. One arcade machine was a giant robot you could actually ride in and virtually control. Another consisted of a giant screen displaying a soccer game, and the players, who were sitting in front of electronic desks, would place cards on these desks and then stare at the screen. I walked around and looked for free tokens.
We then met a girl who gave us a map and started looking for a giant Buddha statue from the map that looked interesting. We walked for some time and found a dockside area with a live band playing instead. There was a large structure of something undefinable in the distance, and for a while Trevor kept nudging me as I kept staring at the statue and thinking of nothing. There was a small market nearby that sold fake clothing and cheap bracelets. I bought a bracelet and walked up to a girl and asked her if she could put it on for me. My Japanese was improving, so I asked her what colour she liked more: red, or yellow? And she smiled and we hugged and Trevor asked for her email and we left. We found a giant dog and patted it and took a photo of it; its owner was a short woman with red hair. We found a shrine hidden behind some trees and walked around while a monk constantly watched us. We continued our trek to find the giant Buddha but found ourselves heading towards a temple instead
And as I walked up the quiet path and as the evening began to rise I rang a giant bell and watched a wedding take place. Trevor told me that there are certain things you should do when ringing a bell in a temple in Japan: donate money, pull a rope that rings the bell, bow, pray, clap twice. Trevor then said he might be wrong. I looked at the woman, at the priest, at the priests, at what they were wearing. We then left and spotted an adult DVD store. Trevor tried to get in but it didn’t open so we headed to the central city area, to a Seven Eleven and bought beer. We found someone singing and playing the guitar and selling his CDs and we drank and watched him. Trevor pointed to a hostess bar, I pointed at a hostess. Trevor told me about the first girl he ever loved, the one from high school. I told him about Eva, about how I was still in love with her even though I hadn’t seen her in probably two years. The imperfect sky above us and the endless stream of people reminded me that time was worthwhile. It was supposed to be cold but I was quite drunk by then so I didn’t feel it.
The week went by miserably. The longer I lived in the house, the messier I realised it was: underwear hung from everywhere, there were piles and piles of things occupying every free space besides the main entrance, they had no pantry – every bit of food and bottle of sauce and bit of leftover and piece of rubbish was left on the sink. My presents from Australia lay on the floor, unwrapped. I’d have fights with my host mother because I’d always come home late. I’d also have fights with her because neither of us could understand what we were saying. She took me to the groceries once and repeatedly asked me what the hell I wanted and I kept shrugging and saying,
“Nandemoii,” which I thought meant, “Just buy me whatever," and she’d look at me for a few painful minutes with an expression I couldn’t read.
Saturday came and I didn’t want to spend it with my host family, so I walked on over to Natalie’s house. She was eating katsudon with her host mother and another girl from our group, Celine.
“I’m spending the day with you guys!” I yelled at the lot of them, and to my surprise, they immediately agreed.
After taking us to a twelve storey, incredibly packed factory outlet in Osaka, Natalie’s host mother drove us to a sake souvenir factory that she loved to go to. She led us in and showed us all the bottles of sake. She went up to the girl behind the counter, and, after a few mumbles here and there she turned around and grinned at us. She pointed at the girl behind the counter, who was now pouring us unlimited shot glasses of sake to taste test. Ten minutes later we were all completely drunk.
“Party!” Natalie’s host mother yelled before kissing me quickly on the lips.
“That’s not right. That’s not right at all,” Celine slurred.
We then stumbled over to a nearby restaurant that had a largish statue of an ice cream cone in front of it. A lot of restaurants seemed to have a largish statue of an ice cream cone in front of it, and the ice cream would swirl upwards in the same way shit would swirl upwards. That particular restaurant sold everything made out of sake. They had biscuits made out of sake, cookies made out of sake, ice cream made out of sake. We ate the ice cream made out of sake.
“This is, this is the greatest night I’d had in a long time,” I said.
Natalie’s host mother pulled out these sunglasses from her purse. They were strange sunglasses: the white frames were covered with stickers of different coloured Pikachus. She told us to take turns putting the sunglasses on and looking through them, because apparently, when you look through them, you’d see Pikachus all over the place, jumping out of counters, looking through the pavement, attempting to hide behind your sake-laced food.
“It’s best to put them on when you’re driving,” she told us.
Everything slowed down when it came to my turn to try out the sunglasses. It was one of those moments when a noise in the background suddenly dies; a noise that you didn’t know existed until it actually stopped existing, like an air conditioner taking a break or a motor suddenly coming to a halt. My ears popped slightly and I suddenly had a feeling that there could be blood. I didn’t want to show them that things were trembling, something was forming. I looked at the sunglasses for a long while before finally putting them on.
Our first class was called “Japanese Culture” and it was introducing ourselves and it was running around and it was playing games with girls who couldn’t understand me. There was one game where I shoved the teacher and screamed,
“You’re it! You’re fucking it!”
And then I realised the game wasn’t tiggy.
The six of us Australian students sat within our own little group in the cafeteria, commenting on how good and cheap the food was. Once in a while Trevor would wink at a girl and make her blush. I don’t know whether if it was from a few dirty jokes being passed around, or if it was from Natalie complaining about something, or if it was the fact that I was slowly starting to remember everyone’s names, but I was honestly enjoying their company. Maybe I just didn’t want to return to my host family.
It turned out that the red headed waddling girl is named Lauren. “Hey guys,” this Lauren said, handing us all some candies, “try these Japanese candies. They’re Calpis flavoured candies.”
No one wanted to hang out afterward our classes – they all wanted to return early to their host families.
I frowned. “I’m going to miss you all.”
When the short day was over I caught a bus home with Natalie, who showed me the train we had to catch afterwards. She then showed me her black gloves and asked me if I liked them. She told me that it was cold in this area, so tomorrow, she wanted me to come with her to buy some ear phone things or whatever to protect her ears. As we exited the train station we noticed someone handing out free packets of tissue paper.
“Check this out, Dean,” she said, pulling something from her purse. “Black tissue paper. They were giving out black tissue paper yesterday. Isn’t Japan amazing?”
I didn’t want the day to end, I didn’t want the sun to come down. But the day did end, the sun did come down.
“What a prick,” I sighed.
I walked Natalie home, waved her goodbye. I really didn’t want to head to my home, so I walked around the block; I found a bakery and looked at some of the bread and asked the girl behind the counter if I could just sit around there for a few hours longer, just looking at the bread. She laughed and said no, please leave. I left and explored the block. It was quiet and peaceful and there were a few people on bicycles. An old, hunchbacked woman looked at me and smiled.
On the drive to my host mother’s house she told me a bunch of things I couldn’t understand, and I responded with things that she couldn’t understand. I’d always say, “What?” and she’d always ask, “Hm
What I first noticed about our host university were the girls. There were girls everywhere, and even if it was winter they loved to wear short skirts and carry designer handbags. They glanced at us and giggled. Some even pulled out their mobiles and began taking photos
It was night time and it was humid when we met the rest of the group. We introduced each other but I quickly forgot everyone’s names, so I remembered them by their appearances: the fatty with glasses, the high maintenance brunette, the tall pretty faced but slightly overweight girl, the red haired waddling girl from class, the one with the bad weight and height problem, the body odour guy. We all met at the entrance to Shinimamiya station in Osaka – they’d been waiting for Trevor and I for a few hours – and in the background from a tinny radio somewhere Bob Dylan sang his own version of The House of the Rising Sun. This guy in a business suit looked at us foreigners up and down and muttered something to his companion. They both laughed
There's nothing more effective than the word hate!
I was looking at writing competitions and stumbled upon a poetry competition you might be interested in. The prize is four thousand - you can go for another trip to Germany with that
If you haven't heard of it already, it's the "Wesley Michel Wright" competition, and if you google it I'm sure you'll find a link to the details easy.
I've since now returned and things have definitely changed. But I am recapping all the events that happened to me there for your literary entertainment, and also for me to relive it all.
I'm going to look at the David Sylvian song RIGHT NOW!
And the past few entries were just about one day! I wish I could describe the entirety of the trip with one entry, but so much happened I had to spread it all out.
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Comment by Always Eighteen
on The Communal Laundry Room
Always Eighteen: Japan Edition
Anyone ever give you any cheesy, or incredibly horrible pick up lines?
"Excuse me, but just like these machines, you simply wash me away."