Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan Read online

  Praise for Will Ferguson and Hitching Rides with Buddha

  “With a facility in the Japanese language that seems capable of coping with, if not quite solving, all obstacles, our savvy young Canadian travel guide is ever ready to deflate conventional sentimentality … Quick to cavil, self-deprecating, Will Ferguson seems eminently trustworthy.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “Ferguson is certainly a sprightly writer, blessed with a sense of the absurd in everyday life but with an empathy for strange and exotic things.”

  —The Province (Vancouver)

  “[Ferguson’s encounters] are fleeting, yet vivid, like the blossoms he followed.”

  —The Hamilton Spectator

  “[Will Ferguson is] a wickedly witty travel guide, with a knack for dropping absurdist, out-of-left-field remarks that raise a smile or a belly laugh…. Hitching Rides with Buddha brims with acerbic humour, informed observations, and lively stories. Ferguson is one fine Land of the Rising Sun tour guide.”

  —Winnipeg Free Press

  “A fantastically offbeat odyssey brimming with irony, poetry, and insight.”

  —The Scotsman

  “What a wonderful book. Like Bill Bryson, Ferguson is often at his best (and laugh-out-loud funniest) when most annoyed, but he is fundamentally sympathetic and his tale, at one point, may even move you to tears.”

  —The Irish Times

  “You trust both his humour and his insights…. An admirable pair of eyes through which to see contemporary Japan.”

  —The Observer (UK)

  “A mild stroke of genius…. Savagely hilarious.”

  —Sunday Herald (UK)

  “The road book of the year…. A warm-hearted account with a generous helping of satire.”

  —The Daily Telegraph (UK)

  “[Ferguson] writes about the Japanese and their unfathomably wonderful country with depth, warmth, and affection.”

  —The Australian

  “Loaded with insights and highly original observations, this is overall an outstanding piece of travel writing. That so much of it is side-splittingly funny helps.”

  —Insight Japan

  “Beneath that thick skin lies a poetic soul: he may drink too much, and end up sweaty and alone in sad ‘Love Hotels,’ but he can write about Shintoism, history, nature, and architecture with real sensitivity.”

  —The Sunday Times (UK)

  “What makes this book so appealing is Ferguson’s unpredictability. Stylistically, he never sits still… [H]e seems capable of writing in pretty much any mode that occurs to him, and has opinions on everything…. And though he’s frequently and savagely ironic, he is also not afraid to declare his feelings—which means you trust both his humour and his insights.”

  —The Guardian (UK)

  “Funny, observant, irreverent too.”

  —Time Out

  “Ferguson masterfully presents many of the differences between Japan and the rest of the world, making for some excellent—and often hilarious—storytelling.”

  —The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)

  “If Douglas Adams and P.J. O’Rourke ever had an extra-terrestrial Satanic love-child, it would probably write like Will Ferguson. That is, it would be observant, attitudinal, occasionally offensive, and funny.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Ferguson’s dry sense of humour portrays an insider’s view of Japan. For anyone thinking of going to Japan, this will be an invaluable read. If you’ve already been, you will find yourself laughing out loud in recognition.”

  —Geographical (Magazine)

  “Funny and revealing…. It is a relief to hop into a stranger’s car with Will Ferguson.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Sometimes touching, sometimes amusing, and always true … As a wordsmith and a traveller, Ferguson knows where he is going.”

  —Boston Globe

  ALSO BY WILL FERGUSON

  The Penguin Book of Canadian Humour (editor)

  Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw

  Happiness™

  How to Be a Canadian (Even if You Already Are One)

  with Ian Ferguson

  Canadian History for Dummies

  Bastards and Boneheads: Canada’s Glorious Leaders

  Past and Present

  The Girlfriend’s Guide to Hockey

  with Teena Spencer and Bruce Spencer

  I was a Teenage Katima-victim! A Canadian Odyssey

  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Japan

  Why I Hate Canadians

  All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world—those who stay at home and those who do not. The second are the more interesting.

  —RUDYARD KIPLING,

  as quoted in The Honourable Visitors

  CONTENTS

  Note on the Canadian Edition

  1 THE DEVIL’S WASHBOARD: Southern Kyushu

  2 TURNING CIRCLES: Shikoku and the Inland Sea

  3 CROSSING OVER: Central Honshu

  4 COLD WIND: Sado Island and Tohoku

  5 INTO A NORTHERN SEA: Across Hokkaido

  6 ON RISHIRI ISLAND

  NOTE ON THE CANADIAN EDITION

  This book was published in the US and the UK under the title Hokkaido Highway Blues. An abridged British pocketbook version was also released. The full version has been restored for the Canadian edition, along with the title I always wanted: Hitching Rides with Buddha. (That title was nixed by the American publisher on the complaint that it sounded too religious. Sigh.)

  The photograph on the front is of a wooden folk toy I brought back with me from northern Japan. It depicts one of the namahage, the red-faced, wild-tempered demons who terrorize children and are placated with saké. It is said that the legends of these namahage originate with shipwrecked Russian sailors who were washed ashore. I can think of no better emblem for long-term Western residents living in Japan. Hitching Rides with Buddha is the tale of one such namahage and his journey across a country that has held him captive for years.

  W. F.

  THE DEVIL’S WASHBOARD

  Southern Kyushu

  1

  CAPE SATA 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 wh
at 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

  EVERY 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:

  PHENOMENON SEASON PROPER WAY TO VIEW

  Cherry blossoms Spring Drunk on saké

  Wildflowers Summer Drunk on saké

  Harvest moon Autumn Drunk on saké

  Autumn leaves Autumn Drunk on saké

  Snow on ancient temples Winter Drunk on saké

  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.”