Global Adventure Series
TOKYO
by Jackson Blair
Global Adventure Series, Part XI
TOKYO
As I headed to the airport in Bangkok this morning, I remembered the awfully small seats on the Thai Airline plane that brought me here!
Happily, I found I was flying Japan Air Lines from Bangkok to Tokyo.
One thing General MacArthur taught the Japanese after the war when he was running Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) was that Generals, and most Americans, need a little width in their seats. And since he was always carrying that baton with him, he could wrap a few knuckles if they didn’t pay attention.
I am pleased to inform you that Japan Air Lines recognizes that Americans are frequent travelers and they have provided appropriate seating. Of course the Japanese passengers think they are sitting on a sofa they have so much room, but American are very comfortable in the seats.
Oh happy day!
After a ninety-minute bus ride from Narita Airport into downtown Tokyo, I arrived at my hotel. Those of you who read my first column in this series know exactly what I was hoping to find.
Sure enough, right there in the bathroom, the very special toilet that I so indelicately described in an earlier column. Let it suffice now for me to say:
Oh happy day!
After all these weeks of eating essentially Chinese food, I had prepared myself now for an onslaught of Japanese food. When I went to the restaurant in my hotel, I was shocked to see a “cheeseburger!”
Oh happy day!
I made every attempt to hold all my meetings in the hotel and I enjoyed quite a few cheeseburgers. It was like finding the Promised Land, or at least the promised menu. People would come to join me for a meal, and they would look at the lavish buffet set out before them, grab a few dozen plates and dig in.
I would stay seated and order one cheeseburger from the menu. They were happy. I was happy. And the special order cook out back was happy. Don’t worry. I am not going to insert another “Oh happy day” in this paragraph. I will just say that happiness abounded.
This is the season of Sakura in Japan. I have no idea what it translates to but it means the cherry blossoms are in bloom! Why don’t they just say it is Cherry Blossom Time?
The whole city is covered in white and pink. Although I have read often about this beautiful season, it is breathtaking to actually be here to see it.
Late one night some friends took me to the Imperial Palace part of the city. Cherry trees surround the palace on all the walkways. Across the water from the walkways, on the palace grounds, there are even more cherry trees in blossom. All of these are floodlit. It was a surreal sight. It was wonderful to see the people enjoying the walk, taking pictures, young people sitting on the ground gazing at the trees, and tourists trying to capture the picture of a lifetime.
As I walk under the trees I can almost hear Madame Butterfly singing her famous aria to her lost love in the opera of that name.
Fortunately, I do not almost hear any songs from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado!
Many of you know that the wide silk band worn around the waist in a traditional kimono is known as an Obi. If you didn’t know that, you know it now. Who else would tell you these things?
I happened into an antique shop and saw some Obi (yes plural is the same as singular-these are a people wanting to make things easy). Much to my surprise, they are quite heavy. They would not be easily worn, especially by women known for their graceful movements.
Also, these “babies” cost a good bit more than a Gucci belt! The ones I was viewing ran into the thousands of U.S. dollars. Of course, I was looking at Obi that were more than two hundred years old.
The manner of displaying these beautiful pieces of fabric is to have them folded, hung over an ancient piece of dark bamboo, and placed on a wall as you would a painting. Tradition suggests that these Obi are handed down from generation to generation. They become prized possessions and, over years, develop some real monetary value.
There is an old husband’s tale (some don’t believe it, which is why it is not called an “old wives’ tale”) that the women in Japan were growing quite rotund and the men were worried. When the women began wearing what fashionably became known later as Mumu’s (“Moo Moos” in the Midwest) the men revolted.
They went to a Chinese tailor in a neighboring country and said, in so many words: design us something very pretty but really heavy, something to fit around the waist of our ladies. So in the back workroom of a Chinese tailor shop, the Obi was born.
The Japanese men went back to Japan and told their wives that a new fashion had arrived in New York and Paris called the Obi. It was very expensive they were told (and that caught the interest of the ladies), very fashionable (now they really had their attention) and could only be worn by truly aristocratic women of great taste (and that did it). They Japanese ladies fell for it- hook, line and sinker.
So heavyset Japanese ladies began wearing what we would call a “weight belt” every day. Sure enough, off came the pounds. And now almost all Japanese women are small waisted and graceful.
I told you not everyone believed the tale!
I need to point out that the cost of an Obi to fit around the narrow waist of most Japanese women is high. Considering they only need to use about a yard of fabric to get around their waists, the cost seems too steep.
Now if they were wrapping one of these around the waist of more ample women, say in the Balkans, I think you could justify the price!
I will only mention in passing that Japanese men wear the Obi also. But I am sure the history of this has nothing to do with the need to loose weight.
On my last evening in Asia, a couple of friends took me to dinner in a restaurant with an incredible view. As you looked from the table out the window, you looked through a magnificent cherry tree in full blossom at a lighted tower shaped like the Eifel Tower in Paris, reaching high into the sky. And then beyond that was the moon.
WHOA!
Hold on Trigger!
There on the menu, right in front of my eyes: horsemeat!!!
I thought my hopes of a fine last meal might have been dashed. Fortunately, the rest of the menu held no surprises in the form of pets or unusual animals, and did hold one special item: ground beef. Now I admit that I accepted on general principle that the beef they were grinding was not “horse,” or “cat,” or “dog.” And I am sticking with that story!
It was a wonderful meal, enjoyed with entertaining hosts, and held in a delightful spot. After dining we went to a large hotel that had a cigar bar. It was a very large room, filled with people enjoying a Cuban cigar (men and women) and fine wine or port. What appeared to be a trio of Americans or Europeans was entertaining the group with some slow jazz.
I inquired of my host why non-Japanese seemed to be always involved in the entertainments presented. I was told that Asians really like American style music and there is a huge market in this part of the world for western musicians, especially in the big hotel lounges.
This is the last stop on my long journey and I must admit that I am eager to return home. No matter where I travel, I have always been glad to return to the United States.
A very famous Japanese writer, Junichiro Tanizaki, believed in always affirming our world in his writings. He refused to be sucked in to talking of life as a series of hardships and sadness.
In my travels, I find I relate more and more to his way of thinking. When you travel you are afforded the opportunity to see life in forms not common at home, to meet people with different experiences, hopes and dreams, and to briefly share in all this with them.
Every moment away from home is what I would call a “teachable” moment. There is an opportunity to convey an impression of our own culture and to internalize a feeling about another culture. More importantly, it is impossible not to be touched by these experiences and to grow in our own knowledge of the world.
I did not travel internationally until I was in my late thirties. My early travels were limited to the continental United States. I have now been to 43 of our 50 states and to 40 foreign lands.
I believe that this unplanned order of travel domestically for me gave me a much more extensive and firm foundation for observations when I began traveling internationally. I had a better understanding of my own country, as diverse as it is, and could not only interpret it for new friends in foreign lands with more accuracy, but also make comparisons between cultures with a little more experience.
I have seen the slums of India, the shanties of South Africa, the child beggars (and robbers) of Brazil, and the peasants living short lives in the jungles of Ecuador. I have also seen happiness and goodness in these kinds of places.
In every part of the world where I have witnessed what we would consider extreme poverty, there has been something shining or special in the people.
People are inherently able to adjust to their circumstances and to make the most of what life has provided. Rarely do you encounter someone living in what we would term bad conditions that fights daily for a change in circumstance. More commonly, you encounter people who have made peace with their lives and cherish the kind of intangible happiness that comes from religion, family, and work.
I have also seen the lavishness of royal life, the great gold hues of the Palace at Versailles, the stately inauguration of a president, and the multimillion-dollar yachts of businessmen. Actually, people in this category do not find it as easy to adjust to their circumstances, as they all seemingly want more. Perhaps that is the sadness in their lives.
The lesson I have learned from my travels is that the world is not too bad a place. The world can be, and should be, improved, and no one should expect everything to go smoothly all the time.
The key to enlightenment is to compare the world in which we all live today to the world we study from history. When we do that, we can see the steady movement upward in the circumstances of the human race.
When raising children, every effort to provide travel opportunities represents a huge contribution to their lives. To the extent that children can be educated in a global way, learning with students from many other lands, an enormous advantage is gained toward their future contributions in their chosen fields.
And while it is true we are living at a time when events and circumstances are changing almost too rapidly for us to digest, everyone I encounter, and I mean everyone, to one degree or another, still wants to come to America.
God bless America.
