Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan (43 page)

You haven’t really lived until you have seen a Japanese salaryman sing the Frank Sinatra ballad “My Way.” It is one of those quintessential sad sights that seem to define Japan. What an odd and yet common spectacle: a tousled salaryman, living a life of bows and stifling conformity, a man married to the company, a man who—in the thousands every year—works himself to death for the sake of the corporation, a man who has to eat shit and smile every day, a man who fuels the economic engine yet remains unsung, unacknowledged, and often openly mocked. A man like that, standing up and singing in heartfelt English: that the record should show, he took the blows and did it his way! This is something you don’t soon forget.

The men were crowded along a plush couch, toasting themselves with whiskey-tinted water as they cheerfully ignored their colleague up on stage, who was quavering away about how he chewed whatever up and spat it out, and not in a shy way. Rodney Dangerfield should have toured Japan. I have no doubt he would have become a star among salarymen as he tugged on the ubiquitous, symbolic necktie.
I get no respect! No respect
.

When their compatriot sat down, another man got up to sing a spirited version of, what else, “Diana.” “‘I so young and you so old / Zis my darling, I been told.’”

“He wrote that for his babysitter,” I said to the man nearest me. The man turned and, seeing me in the seat beside him, jerked his head back in shock. The only thing he could think to say—the only sound he could think to make—was a long, breathy
“Waaaaa!”

Soon the entire table had noticed me and they welcomed me into their fold, insisting I sit beside their section chief, who, I quickly surmised, was top dog, so I made a point of chatting to him excessively and, when he used a few words of English, I complimented him to high heaven on being such an internationally minded chap. That was all it took. Free beer and food.

Of course, I had to sing for my supper, as is the custom. But crooning your way through “Love Me Tender” is a small price indeed for all the cold Sapporo and free snails you can eat.

My presence signalled a shift of topics. From inter-office jealousies and who was incompetent and who was not (as always, the ones who were hopelessly incompetent were also the ones, by strange coincidence, who were not present), they began to discuss violence in America. This is one of the all-time favourite topics in Japan.

The section chief was a frowny-faced man, bald, with a tight toupee. He kept plying me with beer, and then whiskey water, while the conversation took a familiar turn.

Several years ago, a young Japanese exchange student had been shot and killed in the U.S. because he went to the wrong house. An American homeowner, seeing the boy prowling around his yard, came out brandishing a gun and yelling “Freeze!” The Japanese boy, apparently thinking the man in the shadows had yelled “Please!,” took a step forward and received a bullet through the heart. It was a shot heard round the world. The killing made front-page headlines in Japan—at about the same time that another killing took place: a Filipina hostess, held captive by her Japanese employers, was beaten to death. A Japanese doctor dismissed it as an accident, and no one was ever charged or convicted. The first-degree murder of a Filipina lady, and the massive cover-up that followed, were relegated to the back pages in Japan, while the death of a young Japanese boy—dead because of a tragic misunderstanding—prompted rallies, angry protests, and a public plea by the boy’s parents.

My circle of Akita businessmen was also concerned, in a pornographic sort of way, with violence in America. They all had their pet
theories about the matter, several of which were real eyebrow-raisers. In wit and insight, this group was not quite on a par with the Algonquin Round Table. One man declared that the problem was that all white people were, oh, what’s the word, racist—a statement that was so ludicrously self-contradictory I didn’t know how to respond. Whites were racist against blacks, but Japanese were not. Why? And here I quote, for it was such a memorable statement: because “our skins are slightly darker, so we can understand both white people and black people.”

Another man immediately chimed in: “That’s why blacks in America always riot at night. It makes them harder to see. It’s very clever, don’t you think?”

In the middle of witty repartee such as this, two more men arrived, and from their wobbly stance and unfocused gaze it was easy to see that they were already halfway looped. There were more introductions. A clammy face, a leer, a drunken flabby handshake. He was the Senior Vice Supervisor and he introduced me with hushed humility to the Vice Senior Supervisor, who clearly trumped everyone else at the table, and the seats were rearranged appropriately, with me sandwiched between the two men. “I have heard so much about you,” said the Vice Senior Supervisor enigmatically. “Please keep up the good work.”

I assured him I would and we shook hands with great sincerity. Drinks kept arriving as if on a conveyor belt, and soon the room began to sway.

I was trying to steer talk toward Akita bijin, but none of the men were interested. “It’s a myth,” said one. Another disagreed, but the topic wasn’t pursued. Instead, the conversation, having delved into such popular topics as “America and What’s Wrong With It,” now moved, predictably, to “Japan and Why It Is So Wonderful.”

“Japan is a small country,” said one man. They all agreed.

“A poor country.” They agreed.

“A poor, small country.” Again, unanimity.

Japan is a poor, small country. From which they deduced that Japan is therefore “the number-one country in the world. Japanese companies are very strong. Japanese products are the best in the world.” It is an odd syllogism, especially that rather tricky leap from premise to conclusion, but it is nonetheless a world view that was heartily endorsed by my hosts.

“Japan is unique,” said one man, and again they concurred. “Yes, yes—unique.” And they nodded their heads up and down in that unique way Japanese have, as if to say, “I agree,” and then they straightened their unique neckties and adjusted the collars on their unique white shirts and drank unique whiskey on unique rocks. It was all very unique.

True, in many ways Japan is a unique country, but like a woman who
knows
she’s beautiful or a man who
knows
he’s handsome, it can be bloody annoying.

An older man elbowed his way in and grinned at me. Teeth. Bad teeth, like broken china. “Japan is not perfect,” he said, without much conviction, “but it is good that you are here. The thing about Japan,” he said, “the thing is—what you have to understand—the thing is—” He had lost his train of thought. He tried to sort it out as the conversation proceeded, then came back in with a sudden declaration: “The thing is—you can never understand Japan. Never. You’re a foreigner, see? And foreigners can never understand Japan. You can’t. You just can’t.”

Certainly not when you’re pissed to the gills.

“Japanese beer,” said one man. “Number one!” Which precipitated an endless list. “Japanese cameras. Number one! Japanese automobiles. Number one!” And so on. It was rapidly becoming tedious. Having drunk my fill and entertained the troops, I got up to leave. A hand clamped down on my shoulder and forced me back. “We are not through.”

“Yes, but—”

It was like Zorba all over again. “Look at his biceps,” they cried, squeezing my arms like fresh bread. “The gaijin is strong. How much do you weigh? What is your blood type?”

I set out to find Akita bijin and I end up boxed in between drunk salarymen. Could the evening have gone more awry than it had? By now I was sloshing my consonants so badly, all I could produce was a silly “I hafta go” type of noise which everyone ignored.

They had, by this point, decided that I was their new best friend. (The Vice Supervisorial Whatsit was convinced that I worked for the company as well, which didn’t help. Mind you, he did promise me a raise next year, which I found very encouraging.) There were more drinks, more songs, more backslaps, and endless, pointless
handshakes. I tried to leave several times, but every time I did, I was dragged down, liquored up, and mauled some more. They drank beer from mugs the size of rain barrels, they smoked fistfuls of cigarettes, they pried open my jaws and poured gallons of whiskey down my gullet. When we left, I staggered out as though fresh from a pummelling, ears ringing, head spinning, eyes raw red from tobacco fumes.

“Well,” I gasped once we got outside. “Good night—”

But they were just warming up. They grabbed my arms and marched me down the street like a prisoner caught trying to escape. “Help me,” I said weakly to people I passed. “In the name of God, help me.”

My tormentors led me through a series of bars, each smaller and seedier than the last, until we found ourselves scrunched together in a piss-soaked packing crate wedged into a closet that was stuffed into a breadbox. The karaoke machine, naturally, had a microphone and an amplifier. Even worse, because they were all in a very patriotic Japanese-salaryman sort of mood, the bars they chose had traditional tatami-mat floors and low tables, which aren’t a problem if you have space to sprawl, but with half the Akita male population crowded in around me, I was forced into contortionist positions, my elbows in and my legs folded up in a pretzel-shaped figure eight, much like a Yogic flyer. And oh, how I wished I could have levitated out of there. By now they were ordering Japanese gin, Akita saké, Hokkaido beer, and Suntory whiskey straight up, mixing them in my belly like Taoist alchemists seeking the elixir of life and—probably—almost certainly—death.

At some point a heated discussion broke out about my quest. “You understand the true heart of Japan,” said one man, the same man who told me earlier that, as a foreigner, I could never understand the true heart of Japan. They raised their glasses. A younger member said loudly,
“This
—this is the true heart of Japan! Drinking. Singing. Friends.” Which provoked an immediate response. “That is not so. We must take him to a temple, to see the plum blossoms by night!”

Soon we were back outside on some nameless side street. They were determined to show me the Real Japan. Unfortunately, they couldn’t agree just what that was. One man insisted that a topless
cabaret was the real Japan, another man was equally adamant that I visit a public bath, and another wanted to drink saké under the stars and compose haiku. The group dissolved into factions, and I slipped away during the confusion.

I reeled down the streets of Akita, ricocheting from one side to another, narrowly missing a plunge into one of the metre-deep gutters that plague drunkards across Japan, and finally, after exhaustive staggering, I found myself right in the centre of who-the-fuck-knows-where. The Hotel Hawaii might as well have been in Hawaii for all the navigational skills I then possessed. I wandered blindly through the city, seeking some kind of salvation.

I saw it before me in liquid purple and pastel pink, a neon oasis in a night of assassins. The name read Hotel Elegance, or Hotel With, or something along those lines. Either way, I was glad to see it. It was a Love Hotel.

Love Hotels are a bargain. For couples travelling together, they are the same cost as a business hotel but with far more space and entertainment. No reservations are necessary, though Love Hotels do often turn away
single
travellers (masturbation apparently being the only sexual act that is unacceptable to the proprietors). Lost and luckless, I decided to stumble in and try my luck.

Love Hotels are designed for people who feel that Las Vegas is too restrained. The rooms are spacious and luxurious, and shamelessly kitsch. They can be rented by the hour or by the night. When I was travelling through Japan with Marion, I became something of a connoisseur of Love Hotels. In Okinawa, we stayed in one where the entire building was shaped like a battleship (there was a large American base nearby) and the bed was a shuttlecraft. Above it, in blinking command-phrase capital letters, was the message:
ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!
In Kagoshima, we stayed in the Mickey and Minnie Room, filled with cartoons of the famous rodent couple—which was not exactly conducive to sustained physical passion, if you know what I mean. In Beppu, we stayed in a round room with a seashell bed and silhouettes of starfish and mermaids pinned on the walls, meant to evoke an adventure on the bottom of the sea, but which induced a chest-tightening, suffocating feeling. I woke up several
times and felt like I was drowning. This too was not conducive to sustained physical passion.

Still, for all their endless variation of rooms, the hotels themselves come in only three basic styles, which I have dubbed: the Park ’n’ Ride, the Peekaboo, and the James Bond Secret Hideout.

The
Park ’n’ Ride–style
Love Hotels are usually out on the highway or on the outskirts of town. Each room has its own entrance and its own parking stall. Couples drive in, park their cars below, and walk up the stairs to their rooms—all without having to face another person, anonymity being the prime attraction at Love Hotels. Once a couple has settled in, the phone rings, they state whether they are spending the night or just “resting.” Payment is made through a slotted door, like you might in a Chicago speakeasy, again without any face-to-face contact.

The
Peekaboo-style
Love Hotels are almost like real hotels. Some even have lobbies, though no one ever seems to hang out in them. The distinguishing feature of the Peekaboo is the front desk, which is shielded with a pane of frosted glass—only the clerk’s hands are visible—so that the monetary transactions are again done anonymously. These are the ones that most often turn away foreigners, simply because it is harder to slip in unnoticed.

The
Secret Hideout
style is the most common and the most fun. Everything is automated. When you walk in, an electronic voice greets you and guides you to a display panel of illuminated photographs. These are the pictures and prices of the different rooms available, from the Leather Bondage Den to the Little Bo Peep Sheep Room. Rooms that are not occupied are lit up. You pick your temporary suite of passion, press the button below it, and then go to your love nest. It will be easy to spot: a light above the door will be flashing.