humans are funny

Category: Tokyo

  • I saw Bush in Tokyo!

    I was once in an airport bathroom on the way to Brasil when I heard an abnormally raucous fart emit from the stall to my left. My instinct immediately led me to lower my hovering squat in order to see what type of shoes belonged to the person or animal who created such a wonker. The dainty feet of the noisemaker were capped in soft ecru pantyhose and an equally delicate leather shoe. An old lady. Figures, I thought and went on with my usual pre-flight purchasing of nuts and water. I forgot about the incident.

    But low and behold, I saw the same dainty feet and ecru hose not an hour later, seated across the aisle from me on my 8-hr flight. They were connected to a short women in her sixties who wore a matching ecru pantsuit and bright red lipstick. Though I slept, ate, diverted my attention with books and trips to the loo, I could not stop seeing those shoes in my peripheral and remarking to myself about the vociferous ass of the lady beside me.

    I don’t know if the Japanese heard about people like me, who actually take the time to glance at a farter’s shoes. Or if they just don’t want to admit their bodies are even capable of making any such noises. But they have gone to great lengths to install a noise machine in every bathroom stall of Tokyo that creates a bubbling brook or fake flushing sound as soon as a body passes the sensor on the way to the seat. It is just one of the ways the Japanese take care to be clean, polite, and discreet.

    The toilets also have warmed seats and hi-tech bidet capabilities. And this isn’t just in fancy shmancy places. The bubbling brook played in the toilet of the subway, which was also impeccably clean. Like the bathrooms, the streets, the parks, the people are all perfectly groomed and litter free. They have even devised a tray system that ensures any cashier does not have to touch a tourist’s dirty hand when giving him change. Speaking of dirty hands, they offer nice-smelling towels to wash with before every meal no matter what sort of restaurant you may find yourself in.

    And… they wear dust masks. Some say it’s allergies. Others claim they have a cold and want to protect others. I think it’s just plain neurosis. Whatever the reason, I’d say at least 30 percent of the people wear dust masks. All the time! Inside. I saw a group of school children taking a picture on a fieldtrip. Half had masks covering all but their eyes. When they look back at pictures from childhood, they’ll never get to see what they looked like!

    Even so, I wanted to get a taste of this cleanliness, so I went to a traditional onsen. It’s a public bath very popular among the Japanese. I went on a Sunday night along with half of Tokyo. People were there on dates; families were there together; groups of girls were there to gossip. All naked. In the co-ed areas, you must wear a traditional Japanese robe and, of course, take off any footwear. But afterward, it’s all nudity all the time. It’s very intimate yet it’s shared with a hundred women in a bunch of pools.

    Wrapped in my fancy robe, I headed through the maze of restaurants, carnival games, and shops to the pre-bath area where I was given a towel and sent to a seated shower room where I had to get clean before getting clean. Then I hopped from pool to pool, each with a different purpose. The main pool was a tea color and supposedly piped in from a sulfurous hot spring 1400 meters underground. Then there were bubbly pools, cold pools, open-air pools, pools in oak barrels, and calm square pools. Of course I tried them all.

    Then, after pooling myself out, I headed to this outdoor path where men and women can walk together and massage their feet as they go. It was about a half kilometer of knee-deep warm water full of little pebbles that were supposed to massage but felt more like daggers ripping through my skin. When I got to the end, I found a most ironic gathering. Back in October I posted about these funny humans who were letting fish eat the dead skin cells off their feet. Well now I’d come face to face with them, and for just 1500 yen, I could even be one. I jumped right in.

    I guess I had an exorbitant amount of dead skin on my calves and feet because the fish instantly abandoned all the other dangling feet and attacked mine. It took all my strength to keep my dogs in the pool throughout all the tickling. Feet are ticklish anyway, but hundreds of little gray fishers giving fish blow jobs to my toes was pretty much unbearable. But I lasted the entire 15 minutes, and I haven’t stopped marveling at how smooth my feet are. I am honestly thinking about getting a tank of feet-sucking fish when I get back. Who knew? Oh yeah, the Japanese.

    This is how I fold a plastic bag vs. how the Japanese fold a plastic bag.


    A very clean version of me after my 3-hr bath.

  • It’s a pagoda.


    It was both frightening and exhilarating to arrive in a country without a guidebook, with no knowledge of the city I was in, and with only a hostel address. It has become my routine, but this time was different. This time, nobody spoke English, and I couldn’t read the signs! I was able to ask some airport staff about where to go, but their limited vocabulary was confusing. The passengers waiting for the train with me had no idea I was asking them if I was in the right spot. I was lost. I was confused. I was frustrated. I could either burst into laughter or hysterics. I chose laughter.
    I decided to relish the moment. No plan and no idea about my next destination was such a big departure from the full schedule of classes and dinners and parties and meetings I had in LA. I felt like a feather, the wind blowing me wherever it thought I should land. Yippeeee!

    It was night when I found the correct metro stop and walked alone to my hostel through a gorgeous Zen temple. I knew I should walk through the red gate because the hostel website had described each landmark on my route from the metro stop. Since they don’t often use addresses or street names, ’small bridge’ and ’pastry shop’ work instead. I noticed some of the small Buddhas were dressed in clothing and red hats. I don’t think they would have been too excited about the fashion choices had they not been statues.

    I spent 5 days observing, walking, and mostly eating. I awoke each morning without a plan, walked to a bakery where an old Japanese man with a bandana tied around his head would make me a steaming Japanese sweet bread. It was huge. And sometimes I would eat 2. Just because! I spent days wandering the Tokyo streets, finding little neighborhoods with tiny shops run by old men with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. I got very lost in huge neighborhoods where the crowds of trendy teens put my muddy Nikes and tattered jeans to shame. And every time I saw some interesting food, I ate it.

    For lunch I would walk into a traditional noodle shop and say, “Gimme anything you got that is vegetarian.” The pair behind the counter wouldn’t understand, so I would have to say “vegetarian?” Then they would make an ‘ok’ sign with their hands, and I would say, “No fish. No meat.” Then they would say, “No fish? No meat?” and they would cross their arms in front of their chests to make an ‘X’. Then I would make an ‘ok’ sign with both hands. And we would all smile and nod as if we’d just found the last answer to the Sunday crossword. It was a daily routine, and I found myself looking forward to it. I don’t know what I ate usually, but it was always good.

    And then there were the pastries. Lordy, lordy, lordy the pastries. Who knew you could put red beans inside a dough and it would create a tiny explosion of weird sweetness? The Japanese knew, that’s who. I tried every pastry in sight: the ginger ones dipped in some brown stuff, the hard pink ones, the slimy ones. Never did I find myself disappointed. I usually teamed up my pastry exploration with a drink from one of the million vending machines strategically placed around town. You can get hot tea with milk from vending machines. And it’s good! They really think of everything, and I could not resist trying it all. With no labels that I could read, each time I put something new in my mouth it was a surprise. Would it taste like bananas or fish? Would I buy another or spit it out?

    I spent some time in the Tokyo-Edo museum. Tokyo was called Edo before it was “Westernized.” According to the museum, Japan was ruled by samurai who funded the entire town and kept everyone in check, adhering to a strict caste system depending on the job serving the samurai. I know nobody wants a history lesson, but I think it is funny what comes next. Japan was closed to other countries, only occasionally talking with China. Then, in the 1800s, Americans came over and bullied the Shogun into signing a trade agreement, starting an influx of Westerners into a completely Occidental world.

    This of course revolutionized the Japanese government and way of life– the style of dress, the architecture, the food. The Japanese even started to cut off their top knot, the ponytail they wore high on their heads, just to look more Western. Isn’t it crazy how contact with the white man changes everything? We are some dangerous people, we white folk. In a way, I am glad the Japanese don’t really speak English. They are keeping some of their culture sacred. And it’s fun to talk in hand signals.

    Japanese pancakes (and me trying to be Japanese trendy)
    on Valentine’s day with my dates, new friends from Australia.