Small Change – Big Difference
Copyright © 2000 by Dave Badtke
The guttural caw, caw, caw of ravens awakens me before five on Monday morning, and I’m up with an early sun because Japan doesn’t "spring forward" in April. My wife and I are visiting my our older son, Lucas, who lives in Tokyo.
Jet-lagged and excited, I look out of Lucas’s third-floor window at a typically narrow Tokyo street peppered with 40-foot tapered cement poles, some leaning precariously, bent under a mass of transformers, support structures and thick power and communication lines that stretch heavily from pole to pole, each with its 1-foot diameter base immovably planted at curbless road’s edge, next to apartment buildings and homes, defiantly in the path of pedestrians and vehicles.
Assuming that narrow streets might conspire with concrete pillars to effect massive road carnage, during breakfast with Lucas’s accountant, Motohisa Matsushita, I ask him in English about traffic fatalities. He looks at me quizzically and then turns to my son for translation. After a staccato discussion between them, I’m given a number. Estimating the population of Japan and the States, I determine that the per-capita death rate is about the same.
Perhaps small change makes no difference.
On the surface, Tokyo feels familiar as we travel about on foot and by train: cell phones, automobiles, people everywhere moving quickly between tall buildings. I might imagine I’m in parts of New York or London, save for the signs that incomprehensibly blanket storefronts, seemingly more abundant than at home, though their garish colors increase their prominence. Interspersed expressions like "happy white", "life extra", and "calorie off", disorient me as I search for level ground along this tilted textual terrain.
We take the train to the Goddess of Mercy Temple in Asakusa where we eat soba and tempura at a small restaurant outside of which an old woman shining shoes displays a sign in English requesting that photos not be taken. We take a boat ride up the Sumida River under 13 bridges and sail across to Palette Town where we ride the Ferris wheel. At its 495-foot zenith, Tokyo and its port spread out hazily to the horizon.
Familiar corporate landmarks randomly intercept our meanderings – Century 21, Denny’s, AM/PM, Kodak, 7-Eleven and McDonalds. Lucas suggests we stop for KFC. All portions are much smaller, more expensive, but the grease is the same. On the train back home, our car is crowded with young office women, sitting rigidly, similarly dressed in dark suits and light blouses, returning from interviews.
On Tuesday we take the bus to a resort close to Lake Yamanakako at the base of Mount Fuji. After an exquisite traditional 7-course dinner in a room enclosed by angled glass, facing the Mountain, we go off to bathe at the local onsen (hot springs). Sleep comes easily, and later, near sunrise, I awaken to the ethereal glow of the moon descending behind Fuji.
Lucas departed for Japan six years ago after graduating in American Studies from UC Santa Cruz. He first taught English, like many other Americans, and began writing for English-language magazines and newspapers. Seeing opportunity in the dearth of quality bilingual, art-music-culture magazines, he decided to use his savings to start Tokion (www.Tokion.com).
His 16th issue, "New", includes lyrical pictures by Shoji Ueda. With a background of flat sky, Tottori Sakyu dune grass and sand, rigid, angular 2-dimensional people float on the surface like paper cutouts suspended on invisible strings. I think it’s his best issue.
On Wednesday, photographer Yoshiko Seino directs us during a photo shoot. We stand in a field of safflowers. A temple surrounded by trees abuts the field. Snow-capped mountains form a distant background.
Later, as we relax after another onsen, I ask Seino what one thing she would like to change in Japan. She hesitates.
Ask an American this question and he’ll rattle off a long list of grievances. Japanese struggle more with the question.
Seino finally says that she’d like to see sexual equality, adding that progress was being made prior to the recession that continues to plague them. I nod in agreement, wondering what price their culture will pay when equality inevitably arrives.
On our drive back to Tokyo, navigating narrow roadways before reaching the expressway, I’m perplexed by the lack of homeless given the long recession. As we continue to pass countless gray poles that have become familiar sentries, I realize that no one has responded to my question by suggesting that the poles be moved back from the road or at least painted fluorescent red at their roots.
Perhaps small change makes a big difference.
- Dave Badtke is founder of the developing Carquinez Review literary journal. Find him on the web at www.CarquinezReview.com.
Contact him at:
Dave@CarquinezReview.com or Dave@Badtke.com