Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan (2 page)

1

C
APE
S
ATA
is the end of Japan.

When you turn your back to the sea and look northward, all of mainland Japan is balanced, sword-like, above you. It is a long, thin, volcanic country: a nation of islands that approaches—but never quite touches—its neighbours. It is a land that engenders metaphors. It has been likened to an onion: layers and layers surrounding … nothing. It has been described as a maze, a fortress, a garden. A prison. A paradise. But for some, Japan is none of these. For some, Japan is a highway. And Cape Sata is where it ends.

A road winds its way in descending squiggles toward the sea. Tattered palm trees and overgrowths of vine crowd the roadside. Villages flit past. The road twists up into the mountains, turns a corner, and ends—abruptly—in a forest of cedar and pine. A tunnel disappears into the mountainside.

From here you proceed on foot, through the unexpected cool damp of the tunnel, past the obligatory souvenir stands, onto a path cut through the trees. Along the way, you come upon a hidden shrine. You ring the bell and rouse the gods and continue deeper into the forest green.

A faded cinderblock building is perched at the edge of a cliff, clinging to the last solid piece of ground. Inside, a tired-looking woman is selling squid that is skewered on sticks and covered with thick, sticky soy sauce. Somehow, you resist the temptation. Instead, you climb the stairs to the observation deck and, through windows streaked with dust and nose-smears, you gaze out at the majesty that is Cape Sata.

A few tourists mill about, uncertain what to do with themselves now that they’ve seen the view. They buy some squid, look through
the coin-operated telescopes, and frown thoughtfully. “So this is Sata,” they say. The end of the world.

Sata feels like the end.

Here, the mainland meets the sea. The coast tumbles into boulders. Pine trees lean out over dead-drop cliffs, waves crash and roll—almost soundless in their distance—and jagged rocks and sudden islands rise up like shark fins from the water. There is a perpetual wind at Sata, a wind that comes in from the open ocean and billows up the cliffside.

“Look,” says Mr. Migita, herding his children before him as he comes. “Look over there.”

He points back toward the mountains to a faint pink smudge in among the evergreens.

“Sakura,”
he says. And the heart quickens.

The cherry blossoms have arrived. Now the journey has begun, now the race has started, now the challenge met. “Sakura! Do you really think so?”

He looks again. “Maybe not. You want some squid?”

2

E
VERY SPRING
, a wave of flowers sweeps across Japan. It begins in Okinawa and rolls from island to island to mainland. It hits at Cape Sata and moves north, cresting as it goes, to the very tip of distant Hokkaido, where it scatters and falls into a northern sea.

They call it Sakura Zensen—the “Cherry Blossom Front”—and its advance is tracked with a seriousness usually reserved for armies on the march. Progress reports are given nightly on the news and elaborate maps are prepared to show the front lines, the back lines, and the percentage of blossoms in any one area. “In Shimabara today they reported thirty-seven percent full blossoms.”

Nowhere on earth does spring arrive as dramatically as it does in Japan. When the cherry blossoms hit, they hit like a hurricane. Gnarled cherry trees, ignored for most of the year, burst into bloom like fountains turned suddenly on.

The coming of the sakura marks the end of winter. It also marks the start of the school year and the closing of the business cycle. It is a hectic time, a time of final exams and productivity reports. Budgets have to be finalized, accounts settled, work finished.
Karōshi
(death by overwork) peaks in March. Deadlines, school graduations, government transfers—and then, riding in on April winds, come the cherry blossoms. And in one of those extreme shifts that seem to mark Japanese life, the nation swings from intense work to intense play. Crowds congregate beneath the flowers, saké flows, neckties are loosened, and wild spontaneous haiku are composed and recited.

These cherry blossom parties, called
hanami
, are a time for looking back and looking ahead, for drowning one’s sorrows or celebrating
another successful year. Toasts are made to colleagues, absent friends, distant relatives, and to the sakura themselves. Then, as quickly as they arrive, the cherry blossoms scatter. They fall like confetti, and in their passing they leave the dark green shimmering heat of summer, the wet misery of the rainy season, the typhoons of late August. At their peak—at full blossom and full beauty—the sakura last only a few days.

During their brief explosion, the cherry blossoms are said to represent the aesthetics of poignant, fleeting beauty: ephemeral, delicate in their passing. The way to celebrate this poignancy, naturally, is to drink large amounts of saké and sing raucous songs until you topple over backward. It is all very fleeting and beautiful.

It is also oddly formalized. In what other nation would you find a memo posted on a company’s cafeteria notice board that reads:
KEEP THIS AREA CLEAN. FINAL REPORTS ARE DUE FRIDAY. AND DON’T FORGET, WE ARE GOING CHERRY BLOSSOM VIEWING AFTER WORK TODAY
.

In addition to the usual public parks and castle grounds, cemeteries are sometimes chosen as suitable spots for cherry blossom parties—as a counterpoint to the celebrations, and as a reminder that this beauty, this joy, like all things will pass. We live in a world of impermanence, a world of flux and illusion, a world brimming with sadness—so we might as well get pissed and enjoy ourselves. (Or at least, that’s how I read the underlying Buddhist theology.)

In addition to Cherry Blossom Viewing, you have Moon Viewing, Snow Viewing, Wildflower Viewing, Autumn Leaf Viewing, and Summer Stargazing. All are formally engaged in, and all follow set procedures and seasons. As a service to readers, I have prepared a handy chart listing each phenomenon, the season in which it appears, and the correct manner in which to observe it:

In the late nineteenth century, a British scholar noted that if one could just reconcile the lofty heights of Japanese ideals with the earthy limitations of its people, one would truly understand the essence of this beguiling nation. Not surprisingly, he left Japan a bitter and frustrated man. Me, I don’t even begin to understand the countless contradictions of Japan, but when the cherry blossoms come every spring I am swept away nonetheless.

My first two years in Japan were spent teaching English in high schools on the remote Amakusa Islands. The job had its perks. An absurdly large salary for one, and the camaraderie of my fellow teachers for another. The students, however, were another story. They studied English—or I should say, English was taught in their presence. Nothing ever seemed to sink in. Years of classes and endless tests and
still
they couldn’t master the intricacies of a simple “How are you?” When I tried to have the most elemental of English conversations with them they looked at me with blank expressions, shrugged their shoulders, and said
“Wakaranai.”
(“Huh?”) They did this, I believe, just to annoy me. Don’t get me wrong, these teenagers were polite and studious and well-mannered, but they were still teenagers, and teenagers are pretty well insufferable anywhere you go on this planet.

It was after school that I enjoyed myself. In Japan, teachers, priests, and policemen are traditionally the most lecherous, hard-drinking segments of society, and the teachers I worked with certainly lived up to their part of the bargain. The highlight of the year was the Faculty Cherry Blossom Viewing Party. We would crowd in under a stand of cherry trees, officially to view the flowers and reflect on the transience of life, but in reality as an excuse to blow off steam, spread malicious gossip, quaff great quantities, and flirt shamelessly with each other. At least, that’s why I went.

The parties were always great fun—or until you sobered up the next morning and discovered that somehow you had managed to run up a two-hundred-dollar tab the night before. (That absurdly large salary came in handy at times.) The best parties were held at night, with the spray of sakura lit up by spotlights and with dozens of competing parties camped out beneath the trees. I even composed a
haiku of my own while I sat, inspired by blossoms and beer, as all around me revelry and madness reigned. When I recited my poem, my Japanese colleagues were deeply moved:

Early spring—
Blossoms fall like rain.
Pass me another beer, eh?

A fellow exchange teacher named Bill Robinson lived in a nearby town, and he wrote a haiku about school parties as well. His haiku is so subtle, so complex, so
deep
it actually requires footnotes. Heck, it even rhymes:

School
enkai
^*
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry—
Kiss
ichi-man en
^†
goodbye.

One year, drunker than usual, I announced to my circle of Japanese teachers that I was going to follow the Cherry Blossom Front all the way to Hokkaido, at the northern end of Japan. Or rather, that is what was reported to me. I don’t recall making this vow exactly, but I was repeatedly reminded of it. My supervisor, for one, constantly fretted over my plans.

“If you follow the cherry blossoms it will take at least a month. You should arrange a rail pass.”

“Ah, yes. About my plan. When I said I would
follow
the blossoms, I was speaking figuratively. What I meant was—”

“The Principal is very impressed with your resolve. He says that you understand the True Heart of Japan.”

These kinds of compliments are meaningless of course. Japanese lavish hollow praise on Westerners. If a Westerner masters the art of chopsticks he is complimented on his skilful hand-eye coordination; if he catches a lazy pop fly in left field he is complimented on his sports prowess; if he learns how to say
hello
in Japanese he is praised as being fluent, and so on. The phrase most often encountered in
these situations is
Jōzu desu ne!
which means, “Boy, are you talented!” but which might be more accurately translated as, “Not bad for a dimwit.”

The best illustration of what
jōzu desu ne!
means is the way my next-door neighbour taught her five-year-old son to ride a bicycle. Eschewing training wheels, she simply put him on a bike and pushed him off, down the driveway, where he inevitably flipped over or hit a tree or skidded to a stop on his face. After a few of these lessons, the kid was a wreck: his knees scraped, his elbows bruised. But he kept getting back on and trying again and again, sniffling back the tears as he went. It was all very entertaining, and it provided me with hours of amusement as I sat at my kitchen table, sipping my coffee and charting little Taro’s progress. I applauded his more acrobatic flips. Without fail, every time he set out on another foray, his mother would shout—in the brief moment he was in control—“
Jōzu desu ne!”
After which he would crash. Again. And again.

Whenever someone in Japan compliments my second-language skills with the exclamation “Jōzu desu ne!” I think of little Taro on his bicycle, barely in control and heading for disaster. Keeps me humble.

Anyhow, I had committed myself to discovering the True Heart of Japan. “William is going to follow the sakura all the way to Hokkaido,” my supervisor would tell people at random, and I would grimace in a manner that might easily be mistaken for a smile. I stalled for three years.

When I finally did set out to follow the Cherry Blossom Front north, I went armed only with the essentials of Japanese travel: a map, several thick wads of cash, and a decidedly limited arsenal of Japanese, most of which seemed to revolve around drinking or the weather. (“It is very hot today. Let’s have a beer.”)

Japan is not a small country, no matter what the Japanese themselves may think. The main island of Honshu alone is larger than Great Britain. Were Japan in Europe, it would dominate the continent. Japan is larger than Italy, larger than Norway, larger than Germany. A journey from Cape Sata in the south to Cape Sōya at the north covers three thousand kilometres. In North America this would be a journey from Miami to Montreal—and at roughly the same latitudes.

So why this persistent image that Japan is a tiny little place? One reason is due to a cartographical optical illusion. On a map, Japan looks small because it is surrounded by the largest nations on earth: China, Russia, Canada, the United States, and Australia. But there is more involved than this. Japan is small because Japan
prefers
it that way. It supports the image Japan has of itself: the beleaguered underdog, small but mighty, the little engine that could. If you tell the average Japanese person that their country has a larger population base and a far bigger land mass than that of Great Britain, they will either resent it or refuse to believe you.