INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS
INTRODUCTIONWhile travelling in Japan I decided to recount some of the impressions and more memorable experiences of the visit for anyone interested to hear them. The account has been written in mind of family, friends, ex-teachers and colleagues, so for the parts of this summary of disinterest to one or more groups, my apologies. Also, for this reason, I will use romaji in preference to kanji and kana. Incidentally, one group I didn't have in mind when I wrote the document was WWW readers. Therefore all the prices are converted to British Pounds and measurements given in feet and inches... sorry about that.
As for my experiences, they are recounted only as my personal impressions. Many visitors to England will have widely differing reactions, experiences and impressions. I am substantially concerned that nothing recounted below should be taken as the ultimate truth. One of many objectives of my trip was to discover for myself the reality or break the myths I have been told about Japan by various visitors to Japan, commentators on Japan and Japanese nationals. Throughout all I have done my best to keep my mind open and to balance all points of view on the subject. That said, the resulting account must be candid, otherwise it would be better to leave all unsaid. My account is 'as I see it', with no punches pulled, and with no praise withheld. In that case I should give my summary conclusion before beginning: my chief attraction to Japan has always been a love of Japanese people, and that is so more than ever following my visit. It is now my purpose to return to Japan for an unbroken 12-months to study Japanese language, beginning at the end of next year.
A few words are due before beginning, to thank those who have taught me something of Japanese language and culture prior to leaving for Japan. Greatest thanks also to the friends in Japan (and their parents) with whom I stayed and who accepted me so warmly as part of their family, tolerated so well my poor language ability and helped me so much through the travels.
REACTION TO FOREIGNERSThe population of Europe would be considerably diminished if the Japanese visiting population were extracted. By contrast I saw very few westerners in Japan. Those there are generally stand out significantly. Whilst in Britain there a great diversity in appearance - noticeable particularly terms of in hair colour and of height, in Japan hair is black unless dyed or bleached otherwise, and not only is the average height less, but my perception is that most adults are closer to the average height than in Britain (ie. the standard deviation of height is lower). None of this is news to anyone reading this account, but imagine in that case, how comparatively singular must be an encounter with a fair-haired Westerner, a good 20cm higher than most Japanese, particularly as my journey regularly took me well off the tourist trek to places where few foreigners have wandered.
I have often heard it said that Japanese ostracise foreigners, and upon my enquiry to such speakers, it generally emerges that this ostracisation generally manifests itself in being stared at, and a general lack of enthusiasm of Japanese to interact with them. Since my experience differs greatly I am particularly keen to record it here. (Please excuse my amateur psychological profiling!)
Firstly regarding staring: given the human tendency to examine that which isn't commonplace, I felt it should be very understandable that Japanese people stare at foreigners. But even in my case, I felt that this was definitely not so, and thus set about tackling reasons why this false perception could have come about. It occurred to me that if a foreigner believes people are staring at him, that probably means he's staring at them. He may well be. It is not just cultural differences but ignorance and concern over whether a difference exists that cause nervous glances from both parties: what are the rules on eye-contact, on acknowledging another's presence, and what are appropriate responses to acknowledgements. This creates a sense of insecurity and self-consciousness which I fought hard to resist.
Secondly about the reluctance to interact with foreigners: one of the features of arrogance amongst British and Americans is the knowledge that practically everyone visiting Britain speaks their language, and if they don't then the problem belongs to the foreigner. Conversely, Japanese have discovered from bitter experience that most foreigners do not speak their language, and that the problem is about to become theirs any second now! With the exception of language, it is my firm conviction that the island races of Japan and Britain are very similar, and failings probably go in both directions. I think both races not so much see their own cultures as superior, but rather as the only form of cultural behaviour that could conceivably exist. The slightest smigeon of 'Englishman abroad syndrome' could then leave a negative impression. For myself I was at great pains to blend in as carefully as possible to Japanese society, being aware that there was a very careful balancing act to be played if I was to learn by observation without appearing to copy or mimic, and to copy selectively without becoming dull by losing personality and individuality. The effort frequently left me mentally and physically drained by the end of a day, but as far as I can gather it was largely successful.
Incidentally, I have found two ways to be sure of obtaining an honest and frank opinion from Japanese people: one is to wait until they're satisfactorily inebriate and then sidle up to the question with the skill of an experienced market researcher and questionnaire designer. The other is to have a friend among those very rare Japanese who wouldn't know tact if it jumped out and bit them squarely on the nose. I used both methods frequently. Although I give the above suggestion to some extent seriously, I speak as a male speaking with other males. I would never attempt to extract a blunt response from a female - if not offered freely, that's completely outside my expertise in any culture whatsoever!
LANGUAGEJust to clear up any doubts that may have lingered in anybody's imagination, although nearly all Japanese learn English at school, and must pass English examinations of reasonable proficiency when entering university, Japanese people do not speak English. My experience was that with a few exceptions, only at my inconvenience to Japanese have an oral ability in English (such as when having a candid conversation with a friend about the suitability of a particular product which was being sold to us in an electrical shop)! They are shy of conversing in 'foreign' as English people are since they have no little practical experience in foreign languages. I recognise all the same symptoms in Japanese that Britains' exhibit in contrast to our mainland European neighbours, for whom a foreign language holds little mystique or angst. That said, with only one exception I never tried to speak English except with friends, and I would not have been thankful for losing the opportunity to practice Japanese.
Anyway, with regard to notices and leaflets in Japan which are multilingual, I should point out that with one exception I could find, there are two languages in Japan - Japanese and Foreign, and Foreign equates with English. My advice to anyone with neither Japanese nor English ability would be to take a serious course in Japanese before going to Japan, or never be without a guide.
One subject on which many a weighty volume could be written, yet if it was covered by more than a passing comment in my lessons, it was on a day when I was absent! It's a section which those of weaker constitution may wish to skip, but included here for the benefit of those who have never been to Japan, and for the possible amusement of those who have. In any case, I'll limit myself to a couple of paragraphs.
For any visitor unprepared for the experience, Japanese loos are quite a surprise. As with so many things in Japan, there are two extremes: on the one hand so many public toilets are pot-made flush versions of a hole in the ground, and in older buildings the same without any flush. I would have to confess to those readers who are well-enough acquainted with these contraptions to be rolling around with mirth and merriment at my reaction that my difficulties were related not so much to their existence, but the finer details of whether my guess of precisely how to use them was correct! Even now I can only trust that I got the right idea. My other surprise was that even in places where I would have expected a more modern device, such as the shinkansen "bullet train", the "Toilet - Japanese Style" (as the English translation on the doors proclaimed) still prevailed.
And so the contrast of which I spoke was what I shall call the European-style loo. They are indeed plentiful: indeed these were fitted in all the houses which I visited. They were regularly far more technologically advanced affairs than we know in Britain, fitted with warmlets (variable temperature seats) and/or washlets (three-in-one toilets, bidets and dryers!). I was well acquainted with these in conversations with Japanese friends in Luton, but one really has to experience some things to get the full picture! I should say that even some European style loos were impossible for me to use, due to some over-optimism on the part of the architect who believed people of my height could sit down with 6 inches between the toilet and wall. Anyway, one piece of sanitary advice I would like to pass back to British architects is the built-in wash hand basin with which I should say must Japanese toilet cisterns are fitted. Instead of (and occasionally as well as) having a wash-hand basin fitted, the cistern lid is concave with a small hole at the bottom, and after flushing, the cistern is refilled via a pipe above this kind of integral basin, thus creating an automatic "tap" for the washing of hands. Superb!
We learned something of Japanese bathrooms in Japanese lessons. For those who don't know about them, I'll afford a brief description. The bathroom is normally two rooms, typically each of around 6' by 4'. The outer room is often shared with a washing machine, and is for the taking off of clothes. The inner sanctum, or bathroom proper, is tiled throughout and roughly evenly divided between the deep bath (maybe 3'x3'x3' wouldn't be far off the mark), sometimes sunk into the floor, sometimes sitting on top of it. The other half of the room is for washing and showering - either as an end in itself or as a prelude to taking a bath. It is impossible to flood a Japanese bathroom, there being a kind of grid on the floor, but nevertheless, being English I was at first cautious about spraying water everywhere to the extent of holding the shower an inch or so from my body, and puzzling the family with whom I was staying as to whether I'd had a shower at all! One observation here: you might expect that a bathroom where water can so freely be splashed around and left to dry itself would have problems related to condensation. In fact, Japanese bathrooms regularly do.
I've stayed in half a dozen houses in Japan, and there have been half a dozen systems for heating water. I believe all have been spontaneous water heaters, although with the modern ones computerised controls it is difficult to tell (as well as difficult to read their Kanji-written controls).
It is of fairly basic cultural knowledge that washing is done outside the bath, and that in Japan a bath is for soaking; bathwater being shared by the whole family. Halfway modern baths have a reheating system, taking water out of the bath, reheating and jetting it back in again. Truly modern baths have also a filtration system for cleaning the water en route. All baths have some sort of cover, helping to keep the bathwater warm whilst the bath is not in use.
Site-seeing has never been one of my chief delights in life, and I am far more interested in people and culture than in ooohing and aaahing my way around popular tourist areas. That said, I was taken to Nara, where I enjoyed meeting the shika (deer) which plentifully occupy the big grassy parks in the centre of Nara. Unlike deer in Britain they are very tame, and seem to like being approached and stroked. I went on New Year's Day, when the city was positively heaving at its seams. Many people were selling special biscuits for the shika, but for the most part the animals seemed thoroughly bored by this food, and were far more interested in anything else on offer. There is a big temple which is the central attraction of Nara. I hadn't personally the interest to go in, but was fascinated by the stalls, food and games which lead for, I should say, half a kilometre up to the temple building on this particular day of the year.
My one major concession to site-seeing then was Kyoto. It was the only time during my five-week stay that I found myself in a hotel. I was quite impressed with the cost of the accommodation: I stayed for four nights in the Dai-Ni Tower Hotel, mere metres from the central station in the most popular tourist area in Japan, for around \8,200 per night, including service charges and tax (that translated to about ￡53.00 per night at the prevailing exchange rate). The room was adequate, if a little small (but then of late I have been spoilt by staying in the Brussels Sheraton of twice the size and thrice the price). The bath, however, was definitely not made for one of my size. I'd reckon that I needed only a litre or so of water in the bottom of the bath to fill it to overflowing after I got in! Slippers were ready for use in the room, and a yukata was supplied daily, as were slippers and green tea.
Whilst in Kyoto I visited Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple, with the second and third levels entirely coated in gold leaf. The building is immediately behind a lake, and the reflection of the temple in the lake was very strong. My sense of humour encouraged me to take a photograph of part of the temple, the reflection in the water, and the goldfish swimming in the lake! I was glad to see this, after having read Mishima's "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" in England, and so often seen the structure on TV. Just down the road from there was another, much publicised place: Ryoanji, incorporating the famous Buddhist "rock garden". For any uninitiated reader, this is a garden of small speckled pebbles, which look like sand when shown on TV. Apart from the pebbles, there are 15 rocks, of various sizes. Many people are able to imagine these rocks into different shapes (animals, objects, etc.), and the "garden" is intended to provide a focus facilitating meditation. I would have to say that it rather put me in mind of the Japanese National Anthem. The things that struck me about Ryoanji were about its size. Firstly, the rock garden itself - the only part to be shown on TV - was very much smaller than expected. Conversely the whole site was far more than I had anticipated, being set at the far side of Kyoto against the mountains, with a lake, footpaths, gardens and other buildings.
I guess here would be an ideal place to say what a privilege I felt to travel in Japan during January. Although Japanese people, like the English, are never happy unless complaining about the weather, the area around Kyoto was a mild 17 or 18 degrees while I was there, so without the intense heat and humidity of summer. Also, I was able to have Kyoto almost to myself. I imagine the teaming masses which must descend on the city during summer and autumn; yet I could enjoy the area with barely a soul in site. I commend to everyone this time of year for visiting Japan!
KYUSHU Kyushu is the third-biggest of the four main islands of Japan, and is situate just across on the East of Japan, about an hour and a half's shinkansen journey from Osaka. I was travelling to Miyazaki, which is near the coast, about as far around Kyushu from the shinkansen entry point of Kokura as it is possible to go. Whilst Kokura to Miyazaki is much less than half the distance of Kokura to Osaka, it took five hours to reach by limited express train. However the effort was not wasted. Apart from meeting the cutest little Japanese ten-year-old in the world, with whom I had a super conversation during the journey, I was able to see a markedly different Japan to that which I had seen in Honshu and Hokkaido. Many more of the houses were built to a semi-traditional style (traditional-ish, but of concrete rather than wood). In Miyazaki-ken there were lots of palm trees and sandy beaches, giving an appearance not too dissimilar from Miami, stripped of all its pretension.
Whilst on Kyushu I was able to see volcano Ebino at close quarters. It was quite fascinating to see smoke issuing from holes in the ground. I had insufficient time to go right to the top, and to look into the crater. Furthermore it was rather foggy, and freezing cold so high up. The points that struck me were the strong sulphurous smell, and the yellow powdery evidence of sulphur on the igneous rocks and boulders around the area. The total effect was, in places, of a baron and rocky desolation, as of another planet.
Transport makes quite an interesting subject, and there are definitely things to say about cars, buses, trains and planes (I did not have the opportunity to travel by ferry).
TRAINS As a general introduction to the section I would like to make the observation we all know in practice or by repute, that Japanese trains run on time, usually to the minute (the latest I've known was one minute and fifty seconds in leaving, though none have arrived late at their destination). An academic knowledge of this punctuality didn't prepare me for the full reality. You can plan a twelve-hour journey with half a dozen changes and three or four minutes changeover time for each, and be completely confident of catching each connection. Contrast British Rail in which a journey with one change giving half-an-hour cannot be counted on. In fact I've noticed that BR trains with less than seven or eight minutes connection time are not usually advertised as connecting services.
There are many classes of trains in Japan, but it seems fair to categorise most under the headings shinkansen, limited express and standard express trains. My comments on the latter two are brief: contrary to my intuition at least, limited express trains are faster than express trains (they are limited in their number of stops, not limited in their expressness!!). I don't want to sound ungracious to the service, but express trains give me the impression of stopping at every street corner. On busy routes, these trains often have only sideways facing seats, leaving plenty of room for standees. Many of the 'standard' seats on regular trains can be made to face either way by pulling the seat back one way or the other.
The Japanese equivalent of the Intercity is the Shinkansen or "bullet train" as it is often called in the West. These are of three types. The fastest and ludicrously expensive type is called nozomi. It travels between Osaka and Tokyo just half-an-hour faster than a regular shinkansen (chiefly on account of having fewer stops) but the cost is several times higher, making it cheaper to travel by plane than by nozomi. I really cannot see where their market lies. The trains seem generally to be sparsely occupied, and then only in standard class. To me and seemingly to most Japanese, nozomi is no go! The next shinkansen down is the hikari (I always remember hickory dickory dock!). This really is a super way to travel. Most hikari (except at rush hours as far as my observation can make out, when slightly poorer relations are drafted in) have electronic displays giving the destination, stops en route, and the next stop in both English and Japanese. Some displays also count down the minutes to the next stop. Announcements even say on which side of the train the platform will be. The poor relation in the shinkansen family is the kodama (I remember kodama through similar sounding kodomo (child) which much often stop to rest!). The kodama stops at every shinkansen station, and take much longer to reach their destination. I only went on one kodama, but it had no electronics, and few announcements.
Several points interested me about shinkansen. All have seats facing in the direction of travel: cleaners going through the train between journeys change the direction of the seats by means of a lever under each seat. Consequently there are no tables on shinkansen (or, in fact any other Japanese trains I've been on), and probably for that reason the seats are rather more widely spaced and
Shinkansen are more expensive than normal trains (even discounting the nozomi). They travel on different rails, and often have different rail stations (eg. Shin-Yokohama, Shin-Kobe, Shin-Osaka), and hence it is necessary to transfer stations by a kind of metro to continue the journey by normal train. Where shinkansen do share stations with regular trains (notably at Tokyo, and also at many of the smaller stations) there are always separate ticket gates to go through, often as well as regular gates.
My parting comment about shinkansen, together with some limited express trains and all internal plane flights is that they have a constant traffic of stewardesses (no stewards that I saw) plying their wares through the cabins. If it weren't sandoichi, hotto koohii (sandwiches, hot coffee, etc.) it was bento de gozaimasu (boxed lunches) or aisukuriimu de gozaimasu (ice cream). On planes the stewardesses would be patrolling incessantly up and down trying to sell (I am tempted to say modelling) one or two items of duty free type goods. In fact I guess they couldn't have been duty free on domestic flights. This occurred to me as being captive-market abuse, and a little trying, at times.
Non-Japanese tourists, and exceptionally those Japanese who have been outside Japan for more than ten years are able to purchase a JR (Japan Rail) Pass, which allows unlimited travel on JR trains, shinkansen (except nozomi), and a few miscellaneous JR buses and ferries. As a point of detail, an exchange order for a pass must be bought outside of Japan, and swapped for a JR pass at certain designated stations. Foreigners with any stamp inside their passport other than three-month entry visas will not be able to complete the exchange. One, two or three-week passes are available, and they are not cheap: a three-week pass currently costs around \42,000 (about ￡265), but they can be good value for tourists making extensive use of shinkansen. My caution would be that they are only valid on JR lines, and since Japanese rail is privatised and JR is merely by far the largest company, I often found myself on lines where the JR pass was not valid (most of Kansai region, for example, where a company called Nankai (difficult? how many times? what floor?) ruled supreme. I would estimate having spent at least \15,000 (about ￡95) on train fares as well as having JR passes covering the whole period of my stay. However the JR passes are well known, and nodded through most ticket inspections with the most cursory of glances (it seemed to me that the validation glance wasn't to check that the dates on the pass were valid, but that I was a foreigner!). Two final and consequent advantages of the pass are being able to wander through shinkansen gates to closely examine on the where trains are stopping (otherwise shown in full only on timetables), and not having to get involved so often in the language-intensive business of buying tickets (cheating?)! BUSES AND PLANES I haven't a lot to say about buses and planes. Entrances to buses are often at the rear, and payment is made on leaving. Where buses are not operating a fixed price journey, a display at the front of the bus will give what seems to be the current price from the station. In that case tickets will normally be taken on entry. How to judge payment from half-way round the route I remain uncertain... I never needed to know. The strange thing is that paying the bus driver is done by dropping coins through a hole onto a mini conveyor by his side. I don't think there is anyway he can count whether the money is correct. The system is quite unlike that of British buses implementing a drop-money in the slot system. Change is available from a machine at the driver's side which accepts \500 pieces as well as \1,000 notes. Unlike trains, buses may well be delayed - either by traffic, or - especially in the case of Sapporo - by weather. (Digression: taking a taxi can be quite an adventure in Sapporo - although the taxi driver has the complete intention of driving forwards, his car often slips backwards on the sheet of ice covering the road. The drivers take this as the normal course of events, and seem completely unperturbed. Their 'confidence' in driving in such slippy conditions had me clutching every available hand-hold with admiration!)
Planes flying domestic routes (often only two companies - JAL and ANA) charge extortionate prices for their flights, and could do with some more competition, in my view. A one and a half hour flight from Tokyo to Sapporo costs about \50,000 (about ￡315). There is no student discount, and no cheap return deal, although a 30% discount is available if the flight is booked and paid for a month in advance. There is no realistic competition by other transport (the train journey takes about 15 hours from Tokyo, with three changes, and the ferry journey takes 40 hours, I understand). Flights by ANA and JAL leave for Sapporo three or four times daily from Tokyo, with five minutes or so in between the departure times of the different operators, and prices are the same (fixed?) for both companies. Japanese I spoke to were looking to April when deregulation (heard that word before??!) should introduce greater competition. However my personal view is that deregulating will worsen the situation, for fairly complex reasons I won't take the time to explain here.
Taxis are quite expensive on the whole, more so in places like Tokyo and Osaka, of course. However for myself, I should reemphasise that I've been working in Belgium, and have become almost immune to exorbitant taxi fares. There are a couple of points I want to mention about getting a taxi though. The first is about getting in and out. We were taught that the opening and closing of the taxi door was operated by the driver. However I discovered that whereas two people in Britain getting into the back of a taxi on a drive would probably use both doors, it is usual only to use one door in a Japanese taxi, and trying to 'go round the other side' will probably confuse the taxi driver.
The other thing to know about
taxis is related to Japanese addresses. Except in Kyoto,
and in the famous streets in the centre of other big cities,
there are no street names... areas have names, but I found signs
giving these areas to be few and far between. The subject is
actually quite complex, and would take a long time to explain
as fully as I've gathered, but as a generalism I have to tell
you that small towns away from big cities often don't have an
exact address at all! Anything up to a hundred houses may have
the same address, and the only distinguishing feature is the
name plate. My advice to anyone thinking about moving to such
an area is to think very carefully if their name is Tanaka
or Sato (example translation: Smith or Jones)! Anyway,
it emerges that if one finds oneself in an unknown place, very
likely in the centre of some metropolis or other, and one's intentions
are to ring for a taxi, the only way to explain one's location
is by describing landmarks (nearby petrol stations, shops, etc.).
In spite of the detailed explanation I received from Oracle of
Oracles, Toshihiko, as one with poor navigation even with
the best of aids, I still find it very very very very difficult
to reconcile myself to the Japanese address system, and no amount
of money would ever persuade me to be a postman in Japan. CARS
So
then, the one remaining mode of transport yet to cover is the
car. Sapporo taxi drivers excepted, the sobriety of most car
drivers, to judge from the speed they drive is quite remarkable
(all the more so after experiencing Belgian drivers), that in
spite of the fact that they generally exceed the painfully low
speed limits. Travelling by car takes a long time, because the
roads are either too bendy, too narrow or to congested to travel
quickly. The solution is to take a private toll road, and these
really jack up the cost of travelling: a four-hour return journey
from Ak to Hiroshima cost \12,000 (about ￡75) to add to the car's
running costs, the general road tax and the miscellaneous and
fairly frequent tolls of \100-200 a time.
Cars in Japan are predominantly Japanese. Toshiba commands nearly 50% of the market; next comes Nissan, with Suzuki, Honda, Mitsubishi and Mazda some way behind. There are very few foreign cars in Japan, and most of what there are made by Ford. However the Ford badge belies a car actually made under licence by Mazda of Japan*. Two of the reasons for Japanese people buying home-produced cars is that they believe, of course, in their reliability; and that such manufacturers have a very wide service network: two good confidence factors. I found two significant exceptions to the general rule of cars being made by Japanese manufacturers. The first is BMW, which is simply an executive status symbol, and the second is the Mercedes-Benz which is generally preferred in the colour black, and I understand is driven almost exclusively by the yakuza (Japanese mafia).
One point of interest is that many cars have a camera-detector fitted to their passenger sun-visa, which beeps when it detects a traffic camera. These are not illegal in Britain and hence unavailable - at least from high-street distributors. In Japan there is a constant battle of technology between the cameras installed as speed traps, and the cameras that detect them. I believe I can answer questions on this subject to the last detail if asked personally, but this is unlikely to interest most readers, so I'll leave the subject at rest here.
* Since my trip, Mazda has been taken over by Ford
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OK, to finish the section on transport, and reward time taken to read it, I'll relate the most embarrassing mistake I made during the trip to Japan. To begin with the moral of the story: if you want to take advice on which shinkansen to take to a particular destination, don't - I repeat do not - ask the cleaning lady!
Travelling from Ako (an hour's drive from Himeji) to Sapporo by train would be considered a daft idea by most Japanese. But nevertheless, by setting off from Ako before 5:00am to catch the first Tokyo-bound shinkansen therefrom, it is possible to reach Sapporo in one day, by the last train. The itinerary involves travelling directly from Himeji through Osaka, and a further three hours further to Tokyo, changing to another shinkansen bound for Morioka (the shinkansen's farthest north point) and changing train to go to Aomori at the top of Honshu island, again in Hakodate on Hokkaido island, before arriving at about 23:30 in Sapporo.
On my arrival at Tokyo I had about forty minutes wait before taking the Morioka shinkansen. I had my itinary written very clearly of what train I should take to which point, times and names of trains, etc. However I decided to check it out for good measure by looking at the shinkansen summary table of times of shinkansen leaving Tokyo. As it happened, there were two shinkansen leaving within fifteen minutes of each other for Morioka from adjacent platforms (10:30am and 10:45am). The platform display clearly gave the destination of each train (both hikari, and its departure time. I knew that I should take the 10:45 train, but just to make absolutely sure before it was too late to rectify an error, I decided to ask a member of the station staff. On reflection, I recall this particular member of the station hand had a mop or some such thing in one hand, and a bucket in the other! I practised the question carefully in my head, and elocuted in Japanese "For Morioka, should I be taking this train", pointing to the 10:45 train? "No," came the reply, "the one over here." Now I mentioned that hikari generally have electronic displays inside saying where the train is going and via what stations. So did this one, but it didn't start until after the train was leaving... and this train was indeed bound for Morioka... via Osaka! Now I don't want to give undue credit to British Rail, but if there was a train from York to Edinburgh which goes via London, I am convinced signs outside the train would leave me in little doubt of that. I asked the advice of a guard who, startled when I asked him if this was the right train to Morioka, directed me to get off at the next station, ten minutes down the track from Tokyo: Shin-Yokohama. I felt it important that I got to Sapporo the same day, and resolved that no problem was being solution if enough money were thrown at it, and that I should therefore take the plane.
At this time, I didn't realise that Tokyo station was but one, and not divided into Shin-Tokyo and Tokyo proper (mistake two). So I asked a gate-based ticket inspector (mistake three) the way to Tokyo station. Of course I should have got on a shinkansen the ten minutes back to Tokyo, but instead I was directed to go to part-way to Yokohama main station, and then change for Tokyo. That was entirely correct, and nearly one-and-a-half hours alter I arrived at Tokyo station, having seemingly stopped - as per my comment above - at every street corner on the way.
I knew that there were two airports in Tokyo - Narita airport was chiefly for international flights, Haneda for domestic flights, and so I resolved to travel to Handa. However (mistake three) since there were plenty of signs for Narita, none for Haneda, and I knew that my employee had caught a connecting flight at Narita when travelling from London to Sapporo, I changed my mind. A place on the Narita Express requires a booking, so I went to make one. In the course of conversation, having made a booking, I revealed my intention to travel to Sapporo, and the booking clerk promptly crossed out my booking with some utterance completely unintelligible to me. I eventually got the idea that he was keen that I should go to Hanada, and I took directions - take this line to such a station, and from there take a monorail to Haneda airport. I obeyed to the letter, and with several confirmatory requests for advice en route (you'd have thought I'd have learned my lesson about asking advice) I caught the Haneda bound monorail. Incidentally, monorails in Japan are practically indistinguishable from train carriages from the inside, apart from the disturbing rattling noise every time they leave a station.
Hanada is about a dozen stations down the track, and I gradually got used to the forthcoming station being announced before we came to it. The problem was that as far as I could tell (mistake four), three stations before Haneda kuukoo (aiport), the announcement was made "Haneda Kuukoo". Just to make sure I was at the right place, I asked the train carriage occupants in general, and one woman of about my only age in particular "Sumimasen, koko ha Haneda kuukoo desuka" (Excuse me, is this Haneda airport?). The woman looked horror-struck at this unrequested interaction, and remained silent. Only one man further down the carriage gestured to me in that characteristic Japanese style which could be interpreted to be 'come here' or 'go away'. I decided that in the balance of probabilities it meant 'get off', but upon my motion the gestures became more vigorous and I understood that I should remain aboard. I encountered the same problem at the next station and eventually arrived relatively safely at Haneda airport, bought a ticket, beeped in the metal-detector machine, was fairly comprehensively body-searched and arrived at the boarding gate, which was changed about two minutes after I arrived there. But there was no fooling me any more - I was ready for that ploy and soon found my way to the new gate, and with little more excitement to Sapporo. The hostess on the plane recognised me straight away as foreign, and attempted to engage me in some kind of conversation in English, but it was not many words before we reached some sort of unspoken conclusion that it would be better if the conversation were kept simple, and in Japanese. Eventually, but some five hours before I would have arrived by train, I got to Sapporo airport, and so ended a chapter of my adventure.
To judge by my own experiences, customer service in Japan is the biggest positive misconception Westerners have about Japan. I have heard many things about the 'Customer is King' concept, illustrated with practical examples. I don't want to say that they are untrue: most likely they are completely right. However such illustrations do not paint a full picture, in my view. I will give three examples from my own experience from which readers can make up their own mind.
Two weeks before leaving for Japan I had to transfer ￡700.00 to my employee in Sapporo. He had no bank account, only a Post Office account, but I was assured by my bank in England this would not prove a problem: they would make the transfer via the Bank of Tokyo, who would then transfer the money to the post office account. When I got to Sapporo, no money had been paid into his account: he simply had a letter from Tokyo Bank to say that they had the money and he should come and collect it. We went together, with the letter, each with a passport for identification, and each with our hole-in-the-wall cards for our respective post office accounts.
Tokyo bank were very polite. They apologised for not being able to give us the money but, they explained, some other identification was necessary with his address, such as an electricity bill. In fact fuel is included in my employees rent, and he has no such identification. We had, however, the letter which had been posted to that very address, concerning that very transaction, and a passport, and the post office card of the account into which the money should contractually have been paid, and additionally they had the director of the company which sent the money with similar identification, so we were convinced that having explained this very carefully once more there would be no problem. We were wrong. It was a problem which would be simply impossible to overcome. Very politely and patiently they explained again that the only possibility was to have such identification as they require. I should say that my blood was beginning to boil, and I explained the position we would adopt candidly to my employee. He paid minimal attention to my comments and gently and patiently persisted in his persuasion. In fact after at least three quarters of an hour his tactics paid off, and a phone call was made to Tokyo Bank's head office to request authority for this 'irregular' transaction. An extra form had to be filled in giving extra (unverifiable) addresses of my employee's parents and other information, as a face-saving measure in my view, and the money was converted to Yen and dispensed. Tokyo Bank politely assured us that they were in no doubt as to our identity, but they had their rules. It would be much easier for us if we opened a bank account. Why didn't we open an account at that branch? I knew exactly why we wouldn't be opening an account with any branch at all of Tokyo Bank, and we went down the road to open an account with Sakura bank.
My employee explained to me that this was a representative experience of the real Japan, but went on to advise me that we were dealing with humans who would, if the situation were explained politely and persistently enough, through their humanity find some way of reaching an accommodation.
Sakura bank were exceptionally friendly in satisfying our highly regular request to open an account. We were each given a passbook to take away with us, and a choice of bank cards. We were told that our bank cards would arrive by registered post the following Thursday or Friday. Unfortunately they did not arrive by that time (possibly because of the new year post), and our schedules required us to be in Osaka region on Friday, so we had to leave before the cards arrived. With the bank account set up, I arranged for ￡1,250 to be transferred to my account from the UK.
My next experience of customer service was in a computer shop in Nagoya. Accompanied with a friend I went to purchase a copy of WordPerfect/J (the Japanese version of a certain word processor). Unlike the UK, there are two types of PCs: those made by NEC and those made by any other manufacturer. NEC machines are completely different and have software specially written for them. We bought a copy of WordPerfect which made no reference to NEC at all on the outside of the sealed box. However, as you'll guess, on unpacking the program at his house we discovered that only NEC disks had been supplied. It was a clear case where we had been supplied with incorrect goods. The disks were not even accepted by my friend's Fujitsu computer, and we returned the package, packaging and receipt to the shop the next day for a refund. With a level of politeness uncommon in Britain it was carefully explained to us that we couldn't have a refund due to the shop's policy. They could however offer us a replacement with exactly the version we wanted on our preferred format of CD (Compact Disk, as opposed to the more old-fashioned floppy disk). That arrangement would have been satisfactory had the proposed package been in stock, but it would not be delivered until Thursday, and I was to leave Nagoya on Monday; so I thanked them for their consideration, but because of this I would be happy to take the refund. But a refund was still unfortunately impossible due to the point about company policy. My friend organised that he would return to the shop the following Thursday and post on the package, and explained to me that the law is loaded in favour of the shop. I should say that I believe him to be wrong in this: I know British contract law and its year by year history. I also know that post-war Japanese contract law to be one area which is very closely modelled on the same branch of USA law, which in turn is based on the British system. The shop would give a refund, and I was prepared to wait all day if necessary. The shop had a change of mind, and my money was refunded in full. Relying on the advice from my employee following the previous encounter I was completely confident throughout in securing a successful outcome. However my friend was very surprised by my success and told me that I had only succeeded as a foreigner: for a Japanese the answer would have remained no.
As mentioned, on the Monday we left Nagoya together for a meeting of ex-students at Luton University (!) in Osaka. In a phone call to Sakura Bank in Sapporo I ascertained that my money had arrived and could be withdrawn without a problem from the Osaka branch. (There is a Sakura Bank in Nagoya, but the head office is in Osaka, and there is a main branch just outside of Osaka Station.)
When I went into Sakura bank, armed with passbook and passport there was a big queue (or at least a ticket-controlled queue of the kind we most usually find at supermarket delicatessens). I was welcomed as a foreigner in English, but thanked the receptionist in Japanese, since I make it my policy to use only Japanese if at all possible. She asked the nature of the business. My friend took over the conversation at this point, and it proceeded too quickly for me to grasp. He told me that my request was impossible because I had no bank card. I suppressed the feeling of deja-vu and asked him to translate the situation carefully. But unfortunately it was completely out of the question. My friend assured me that the receptionist was very polite, but there was simply no way my transaction could be completed without a bank card. I could see that there was no path to progress along this road, and decided to make an exception to my rule. There is no way I can win an argument in Japanese, so relying on her English greeting asked her (in Japanese) whether I could explain to her, myself, in English. Unfortunately when she told me 'Good morning, welcome to Sakura bank' she had exhausted her English vocabulary, but this was the principal branch of Sakura bank, and she went to find someone who could accommodate my request. The clerk explained to me how impossible it was, since there was no way to validate my signature. I had my doubts how easy it would be to validate my signature if I were in possession of the card, but I kept these to myself and explained the situation in detail, with a degree of gentleness I would have found it impossible to achieve in Britain, exactly why it was essential to withdraw this money today, and why it was quite out of the question that I go to Sapporo to make the withdrawal. I went on to address her question of identification, suggesting that she could phone the Sapporo branch and ask them to fax down my signature; and finally added a face-saving clause that I understood what a difficulty it was and that I was quite prepared to pay an administration fee if that were necessary. It was only five more minutes before my whole passport arrived through their fax machine and the money was dispensed.
"You're brilliant!", exclaimed my friend, in complete disbelief at my success. But he repeated his assertion that the exception had been made because I was a foreigner. This view was supported by more than one Japanese to whom I related the story; although when another friend, sage, and oracle of all things Japanese and non-Japanese heard the story he nodded knowingly, turned his head to one side and remained silent. The tentative conclusion I draw from this is that the difficulties I experiences were by no means surprising, and the outcomes depend on the individual involved... I challenge anyone to act unreasonably to the latter friend, and leave the experience without capitulating, or with their intellect intact!
FOOD AND DRINKHow would those who know me imagine that I can summarise food in Japan inside anything less than a dissertation of its own? Well, I guess I'll have to give only the juicy bits! One thing to note: this is the only sentence in this document which mentions the word McDonalds: it may be unfathomably popular in Japan, but I was at personal pains to avoid even stepping inside one.
To begin with I want to say how interesting I find the disparity in the relationship between restaurant food and other consumables in Japan. It is not unusual to spend \450 (about ￡2.80) on a cup of coffee, and yet \1,000 (about ￡6.30) at a Chinese restaurant spent on a set meal, can buy you a starter of some kind of pasta-wrapped meatballs, big bowl of chicken fried rice, a huge bowl of ramen (noodles and sliced pork in a kind of spicy soup), a bowl of miso soup, sweet and sour chicken and as much green tea as you can drink. I would say that was the best value meal I ate, but to give some further idea \450 could buy a plate of karee raisu (curry and rice) and snacks in izakaya (Japanese style pubs) average out at around \350 (about ￡2.20) per plate.
Food in Japan has the reputation of being quite daunting to those unadventurous enough to try raw fish. Debbie and all others in this position can rest assured that there is truly plenty to satisfy the most cautious palate. Apart from the apparent fetish for Italian restaurants and burger bars, some of the most popular dishes seem to be 'cutlets' - meat dipped in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and fried; ramen (thin noodles); tempora (battered vegetables) and many meat dishes.
When staying with Japanese friends, I noticed almost without exception, that mothers would always be fascinated to discover whether a foreigner could eat sashimi (raw fish dish) to the extent of giving it to me for the first meal in their home. In fact they were always delighted to find that I enjoyed such food.
I'll just mention a few of the things I enjoyed in restaurants, and relate one or two stories going with them.
Yakiniku (lit. grilled/baked meat) is originally a Korean dish, but very popular amongst Japanese. There are many many such restaurants in Japan. Yakiniku is cooked at the table, by those dining. Special tables have a circular grate, with a flame underneath to make something similar to a barbecue. Meat, sweetbreads and vegetables are cut, usually into thin strips are placed onto the grate where they cook quickly before being removed, dipped in a soy-sauce-based sauce and eaten. I guess it's true to say that there are two types of yakiniku restaurant - those cooked with Japanese beef, and those cooked with American or other imported beef. The former is dreadfully expensive and the second cheap enough often to be offered on an 'eat as much as you like' basis. Yakiniku is also a popular meal to enjoy at home with family or guests.
A short story - I went to a yakiniku restaurant in Sapporo which served 'eat and drink as much as you like' for \3,500 (about ￡22.00). In Britain, restaurant owners have several devices by which they apparently attempt to limit how much people like to eat on such a basis. The most popular seems to be creating long delays between courses. This isn't so at all in Japan. In fact this restaurant, as many others, had a conveyor belt which carried lots of different types of yakiniku ingredients. On the inside of the oval-shaped conveyor the food was prepared and from there drinks were served, whilst diners' tables were set around the outside of the conveyor. We could pick off as many dishes as we liked, with the penalty that if we left any dish we must pay for it at the individual dish price. Dishes were at various prices, and these could be recognised by the size of plate and colour of the printed band around it, the sizes and colours being referenced on a key on each table. You might imagine that I got my moneys worth at this restaurant. I mentioned that the deal was to eat and drink as much as you like. After a couple of beers I decided to finish off with a measure of whisky. I discovered that Japanese whisky (made, for example by Suntory) is very comparable with scotch whisky, and is nothing like American whiskey (bourbon) at all. Apparently Suntory representatives went to Scotland to learn how to make it. It seems that all Japanese have whisky served with ice and water, normally in glasses around the half-pint size. I, however, prefer whisky neat, and when asking for whisky with no ice and no water I was given around half a pint of neat whisky! Naturally I had to drink it, because of the penalty clause. But having managed to drink the whole glass full my friend promptly ordered another round! As a matter of fact I did manage to walk home in a straight line!
Another meat dish along the same lines is shabu-shabu. This is also thin strips of meat (very very thin strips) which are cooked at the table by being dunked in a pot of boiling water. Of course the meat is picked up with hashi (chop sticks) and the dish is so named because, at least if the meat is Japanese beef, it can be cooked in just a couple of sweeps through the water (shabu-shabu and it's cooked!) After cooking the meat is dipped in a choice of two sauces before eating. Vegetables, rice noodles, Japanese style long, thin mushrooms and t f may also be cooked in the same way.
Having mentioned a difference between Japanese and American beef twice now, I should give some explanation. Whilst American beef is nothing special, as you might imagine, I am quite prepared to accept that Japanese beef is the best in the world. Japanese cows are fed on beer, and reputedly rubbed with wine (on the latter claim I have failed to gather sufficient corroborative evidence to confirm for sure). If humans drink a lot of beer they tend to get a 'beer-belly'. One effect on cows seems to be that instead of having lean meat next to fat, the fat on a Japanese cow will be streaked through the meat in tiny speckles. The practical outshot of this is that the meat cooks very quickly, is very succulent, and in fact, very tasty. It is also horrendously expensive, and for a big juicy steak of the best cut of Japanese beef you may well find yourself paying around \10,000 (approx. ￡63.00) at a good butchers. Actually I found this price to be exceptional, and one can normally find quite an acceptable quality of Japanese beef steak for half that price (!). As a throwaway piece of information, I understand that many Japanese cows are naturalised Australian cows. If they are imported to Japan live to Japan, and reside alive in the country for more than six months they can legally be called Japanese cows. Anyway, probably only in one place in Kyushu , famous for Japanese beef, are you likely to find Japanese beef dishes on an eat-as-much-as-you-like basis.
Having toured Japan extensively, one of the subjects on which I now consider myself to be an expert is karee pan (a kind of curry doughnut). I first tried these in Yaohan in London, and having acquired some sort of passion for them I must have had over fifty in Japan. They really are very delicious, and should be widely on sale in Europe. I however, am now heartily sick and tired of them; and hesitate to guess whether I could stomach looking at another one in the next year.
In fact, Bakers in Japan sell a very wide range of bread products - much more than in the UK, and very nice it is too. I made the mistake of praising Japanese bakers to the mother of one of my friends, and then came to regret it when I got a big plate of sandwiches for breakfast every day for a week!
OK, food in Japan is a very big subject, especially for me who delights in it. I'll restrict myself to one more example: that of yakitori. Again, it's a similar kind of dish to yakiniku, but the tori is chicken or other birds. It is cooked in about the same way as yakiniku, but is actually generally served ready-cooked, and on skewers, both in yakitori restaurants, and also as a snack dish in izakayas (Japanese style pubs). One interesting and special type of yakitori is possibly similar to tripe and onions Britain, in the sense that whilst most people wouldn't touch it, others rave over the dish. This is suzume - two baby sparrows on a skewer. They are naked of feathers, but otherwise perfectly intact - beak, bones and all! I was fascinated to hear my friend crunch it up happily, but felt it would be selfish to limit his enjoyment by depriving him of the full portion!
Finally, I have mentioned izakaya (Japanese style pubs). These take both modern and more traditional forms, the latter being immeasurably preferred by myself. Unlike an English pub it's at least as much for eating as drinking. The menu contains lots of little dishes to be shared among one's group. Sake comes in two sizes: ichi-go (size 1, according to my practical experimentation about 20cm?, just under 7 fl.oz. or about 2/5 of a pint, depending on your preferred measurement); and Ni-go (Size 2: twice size 1). Service is the key, and a waiter or waitress will take your order. I enjoyed the experience most where one or two more dishes are ordered every time the food or drink is delivered, although this must be hard on the poor waiting staff. Izakaya was where I learned the word toreaezu (ex. trans. "up to now...").
A concept strange to me, but practised in most 'drinking houses' (of their different types) and restaurants was botoru kiipu or "bottle keep". The concept is that instead of buying drinks by small measure (of sake, whisky, etc.), a whole bottle is bought at a cheaper price, and 'kept' under your name. There is more to this concept than meets the eye... it's not just a way of getting cheaper drinks for 'buying in bulk'. Using bottle-keep shows the landlord that you are a regular (and hence valued) customer, and he may give discounts on other things, free dishes and the like. It is also a good way to bring friends for a drink and keep yourself in charge of ordering and instrumental in pouring. (You will never actually receive the bottle - at least in the case of a large sake bottle - but continually ask for another ichi-go, ni-go or whatever, warm or cold.
VENDING MACHINES AND CONVENIENCE STORESI believe that I had heard mention of vending machines being popular in Japan, but until the full verity had been witnessed, I was unprepared for just how many vending machines there would be. In fact the whole country is littered with the most unsightly array vending machines unimaginable. The more popular sell cigarettes, soft and (up to 11.00pm) alcoholic drinks. After that you've got vending machines for instant noodles, eggs... you name it! Often a battery of vending machines will have two or three cigarette machines, a couple of soft drinks machines, an alcoholic drinks machine and a bottle-of-whisky (and occasionally to my disappointment whiskey) machine. The soft drinks machines sell both hot and cold canned drinks. Most of the hot drinks are different varieties of coffee (I'm no great fan of black coffee, so I can't tell you what they taste like). They will also have (and I hope the Brits reading this are sitting down) canned milk tea. I really wanted to avoid cultural snobbishness but the thought of several month old tea, ready milked and kept warm for a week in a vending machine is enough to quench the very idea of a thirst. Anyway, my reservations on the part of the tea and the eye-sore element of vending machines aside, they are very obviously extremely popular, to the extent that if you buy a car in Japan it will most likely have one or more can holders ready moulded into the dash.
Convenience stores, on the other hand, really are convenient. They are twenty-four hour shops of the kind we see in big cities, at which one can pay most or all the bills we would take down to the post office. In my limited experience of no convenience stores I am prepared to single out, they are quite conveniently happy to sell bottles of sake at one o'clock in the morning in defiance of the laws which the vending machines see fit to obey.
APPEARANCE OF TOWN AND COUNTRYI think Westerners tend to have the impression of Japan as being very industrial, and as a consequence very polluted place, where the air is difficult to breathe and green places are few and far between. My experience was very different. The mountains which I know from Japanese lesson 1 "Geographical background to Japan" cover 85% of the country are densely covered in trees. On the whole it is only the sheerest of cliffs which have no (well, little) tree growth. As a result, the air in the majority of Japan seems to me to be cleaner than most of England: even in Nanba (down-town Osaka) I felt the air was relatively clear.
The cliffs to which I alluded are made out of very crumbly rock. It looks like some kind of metamorphic rock to me, perhaps of a silica nature. In any case, Japanese have found it necessary to hold such cliffs in place to avoid rocks and stones falling on cars on the mountain roads below. The thick concrete criss-cross structure laid upon the cliffs follow the contour of the cliff s with the semi-fluid style of a silk sheet. I puzzled for a long time over how a material such a concrete could have been so moulded, when the answer was given to me by such a framework under construction. Of course a strong wire mesh or else steel rods are put in place, in or around which the concrete is poured. This is stage one. Stage two may be filing the metre squared gaps amongst the framework with more concrete, and making it look again like a cliff face, or allowing plant life once more to take over, or to plant shrubs which eventually cover the concrete and further strengthen the ground with their root intertwining root systems.
Looking from any of the window holes in the top of Himeji Castle, or through the Windows of Kyoto tower, or from a mountain overlooking Osaka, the dense urban masses which are the cities is a breathtaking example of urban concrete jungle. In spite of this, in all but the centre of the biggest cities, small rice fields punctuate the buildings, ever turning up in the most unexpected places. Furthermore there are places like Nara where big areas of green exist on the scale of the bigger London parks or of the Harrogate Stray. I said earlier that Japan is a country of extremes, and the contrast of city and countryside is yet another example. The adjective 'dense' was truly the only word I could find appropriate to both.
One feature which caused me to raise an eyebrow was the lack of distinction between residential and industrial areas. A mechanic setting up in some small way in a residential area in Britain may somehow and in some circumstances be tolerated, so long as it was not in a middle class neighbourhood. The very idea of a sawmill, or a scrap recycling centre, made of rusting corrugated iron and with all the soundproofing of your average cardboard box, placed in some provincial treey suburb would have any British planning officer of normal constitution seeking urgent medical attention. Yet that seems to be regular practice in Japan.
I spent a long time trying to tie down exactly what it was about Japanese residential buildings which brought to mind adjectives such as untidy and messy. I guess there are several points: firstly the buildings are often not so much in streets as in winding alleys, wide enough for a car, but not wide enough for two cars to pass. Another reason is that the styles of the buildings would be so varied in terms of roof colour (sometimes orange or dark red, often blue!), traditional or modern style and lack of consistency in placement of windows, house sizes, etc. of neighbouring houses. Close, gardenless proximity of neighbouring houses also contributed to this impression. The houses will also have air conditioning systems situated in rather unsightly positions on the exterior, with their thick electric cables somehow stapled to the wall.
These things, which I would only say make residential areas appear untidy to my eye, are a shame because they take attention from the fact that in the whole country (accepting that I have not been to Tokyo ) there is almost no litter, no vandalism that I found, and as near as makes no difference a complete absence of graffiti.
PACHINKOPachinko houses are a very well known symbol of Japanese-salaried-workers' favoured pass-time, by many Westerners. But for the uninitiated I give this description. Originally, the game was gachinko, and something like bagatelle in the UK, but with no flippers. Gachinko symbolised the noise made by releasing the sprung lever to fire the ball into play. When the game developed into Pachinko, the 'board' was taken from the slight incline of gachinko and placed vertically, the balls became much smaller (about half a centimetre diameter) and the whole process became automated, especially the making of money by pachinko house owners! Balls are automatically fired at a rate of about one per second, and the only control is how hard the balls are fired, before beginning their semi-random descent. For simplicity of explanation, the primary aim is to get balls into a particular hole which then probably starts some version of an LCD-one-armed bandit in the middle of the 'board' Getting three symbols in a row is a win, and 777 is the jackpot. That explanation will suffice to give a general idea to work with.
There are two types of pachinko machines. There are those which cost \100 (about 63p) for four or five minutes play, to be found in games centres, bowling alleys and the like are good fun. The operator never touches the balls, and the prizes are something like a cheap digital watch, a tiny cuddly toy, etc. And then there are the real pachinko machines... a whole different ball game!
I would say typical pachinko house will have about six isles, with about fifteen or twenty pachinko machines on each side. They will not all be identical, in that there will be several different themes (the one-armed bandit illustration I gave above is just one) and have various nuances inside these themes. There are machines to change notes for \100 coins, but that's not so important, because the machines themselves will take \1,000 notes (value of around ￡6.00). Unlike the cheap games-centre machines, you buy the balls from a dispenser by each machine. You are in fact buying the balls, priced at ￡6 (about 4p) each. The dispenser tube will let you take a handful of balls and load them into the pachinko machine. Think about the involvement here - one hand is tied up controlling the strength of fire of the balls (typically the right hand), whilst the left hand fumbles in the wallet for new notes, or (ten times as often) feeds \100 coins into the dispenser, or takes fresh balls from the dispenser to load into the machine. This is mostly done without watching, because the eyes are glued to the 'board' (either where the balls are heading, or whether - as the balls find their home - the central electronic lucky game will 'come up trumps'). The game is terribly addictive. I was interested to see the much heralded pachinko house during my time in Japan, and my friend took me there shortly after I arrived. He had just finished telling me that cinemas were too expensive for him to afford (about \1,500 or approaching ￡10) before proceeding to spend \2,000 (about ￡12.50) in six minutes on the pachinko machine. I have to say, it churned my stomach to watch the money enter oblivion. Many Japanese people sit for hours at these machines.
A hundred pages wouldn't suffice to tell you all the rouses and devices I have uncovered and unfathomed of pachinko house owners in extricating money from the punters. Let me name but a few, because I think the view that this is simply a mindless game played by zombie-eyed Japanese salary men should be scratched.
- These days all pachinko houses employ the use of master computers which will load the machines: one or more particular machines will get more prizes than others. This/these machines are changed regularly (daily according to some punters; soon after it becomes clear that such a machine is in use, according to the wiser).
- There are two different sounds in a (very) noisy pachinko house. Firstly balls dribbling down the 'board', and secondly (presumably much less often if the pachinko parlour is to make money) the swift crunch of pachinko balls being delivered to the trough under the feed tray as prizes. So I was interested to note that the latter sound is by far the more prominent on entering a pachinko house (presumably the noise is piped through speakers, or in some other way manufactured).
- There are no rules to be found in a pachinko house for any of the machines, and in fact the nuances to the rules change regularly. Avoiding a long description, I will say simply that how to win is rather more complex than how to play; and that trial and error is a much more expensive way to learn than by the reading of rules. Talking and sharing of rules is discouraged, partly by the noise which makes it difficult to converse, and partly by the very visible and somewhat intimidating supervisors constantly patrolling the aisles. I sensed that whereas in shops and restaurants, customers feel themselves to be in a superior position to the assistants/waiting staff, they seem unconsciously to perceive the position in the reverse in a pachinko house.
OK, that's enough examples: it should portray the general idea. I have heard from numerous sources that pachinko houses usually belong to either yakuza (Japanese mafia) or Koreans. I don't know exactly why Koreans come in for such stick in Japan, there nationality always seems to be mentioned in the negative, associated with big money-making activities, to which ordinary Japanese are subservient. I dare say I'll get to the bottom of that one eventually.
So, for my final remarks on pachinko. I understand that pachinko has become increasingly popular in recent years. I sometimes think about calculating the amount of real-estate tied up in pachinko houses... it must be a very significant proportion of total business property. Pachinko houses are often not marked as such on the exterior, but they are quite obvious as being the most modern looking buildings. Lastly, the commonly used name for a pachinko house in Japanese is pachinko paaraa (pachinko parlour): enough said!
CONCLUDING REMARKSI have barely begun to relate my experiences. Rarely in my life have I had the opportunity to learn so much in so short a period of time, and I repeat my thanks to all my friends in Japan for making that possible, and add an extra thank you to Chris Jones of Whitby who helped me on a couple of details. However this project had a lifetime of nine hours, and that is all but exhausted. Please excuse any mistakes herein... a shorter work could have been better checked, but quality pays the penalty of balance. I hope some of the above has been of interest to everybody, and thank you for your time in reading. If anybody wants to question me in more detail about particular events, please feel free to contact me: I am usually fairly easy to contact.
Finally, this is to pass best wishes to all who receive a copy of these ramblings. I wish you all good health and happiness for the future.