Tokyo Sunset

An intensely orange sunset plays out across the sky. Tokyo’s traffic-fugue floats upward into the high-rise canyons. The city’s 24-hour, open-throated roar—akin to a fog-horn blast—plays pedal tone to random pizzicato horns. Three-beer laughter from the salary men at the corner izakaya riffs over a siren’s yowl, and bicycle bells jangle as Tokyoites leave work.

Tokyo transforms after the sun slinks into night. Now burnished with neon and noise, previously shuttered bars and restaurants glow invitingly, their menu boards pushed onto the sidewalk. Music pulses up from subterranean caverns accessible by steep, narrow stairways. Shops lining the streets sport a jumbled pastiche of merchandise.

Seagull-voiced girls and raw-throated boys call out: Irasshaimase! Welcome, come! Blaring tunes and megaphone announcements smear into a wild discord that fights for dominance over garish signs. Even the sidewalks underfoot buzz against the feet.

Of course, the night-character varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.

None of Shibuya’s or Akihabara’s racket will do for Ginza. There the purr of money hums in throaty engines of luxury vehicles. Ginza’s clerks—in immaculate maquillage—bow and murmur irasshaimase like acts of contrition. Sumimasen. Our fine manners may have inadvertently disturbed you. Behind them the luxury brands stand like temple icons with the same aura of otherworldly promise and false hope.

Asakusa’s is a more constrained and sedate bustle.

Tokyo, Asakusa by Night. Video by Warren den Engelsman. Used with Permission.

Back of most main thoroughfares no high-powered thrum of night life reaches the narrow streets. Bicycles lean unlocked against walls.  Potted plants cluster near doorways and under shuttered windows. Laundry hangs from balconies. Power lines knit the rooftops overhead. Here at day’s end is the familiar place of family and repose: home.

Drawn in by bright red posts festooned with crimson maple leaves arching over a covered street, I decide to follow wherever it leads. Japan has many shotengai like it, covered avenues filled with tiny shops of every sort. From inside proprietors call out irasshaimase! That’s welcome with the underpinning imperative root, come!

Here on Asakusa’s Hisago-dori I serendipitously discover The Edo Shitamachi Traditional Craft Museum. Also known as Gallery Takumi, the elegant two-storey building of wood and glass showcases numerous traditional crafts of the Taito region.

As I mount the stairs I remove my glasses to study the textiles lining the stairwell more closely. Three smartly-dressed Japanese women following me discuss the samples. I wish I understood them. I could learn much. Their eyes meet mine and I nod in acknowledgement. Sugoi ne? I say.

Immediately their eyes brighten, and one asks whether I speak Japanese. Alas, no. I’m reduced to saying that I don’t speak or understand well. Do they speak English? No. They ask where I am from. That I can answer. After that we’re stuck. My few phrases aren’t up to this.

Right there on the step, smiling at each other we all share a palpable regret. Unable to communicate about a common interest or engage in the mutual curiosity our chance encounter has aroused, all I can say is I’m sorry. After numerous smiles and bows on both sides we move along.

Now I carry a companion I didn’t have before—a hollow heavy with longing.

A little break from themes Japanese today. A few days ago I received an apologetic email informing me that Leaf Press had selected my poem “Final Round” to appear in The Wild Weathers: a gathering of love poems. The anthology will be released in time for Valentine’s Day.

A few months back I’d received the nicest rejection letter ever. Now the note saying there had been a mix-up, a mistake. My poem had been chosen. Somehow another author’s name had been put on it.

Some things in life don’t change. Recalling those days in elementary school when teachers selected two (usually) popular students to choose teams, I think about how agreeable it is to be picked. Even if last.

Click here to view the cover and list of contributors.

By Roger Dahl in The Japan Times, 20/11/11. Used with permission.

While chatting at breakfast with a career diplomat on leave from Kabul, he says: It’s nice to be back. It’s so safe. No worries about suicide bombers.

You’re right, I answer. You’re more likely to get killed by a bicycle.

Pedestrians beware! Tokyo cyclists share the sidewalks with pedestrians. Correction. Cyclists rule the sidewalks.

Usually helmet-free, students of all ages, salary men and seniors alike navigate the sidewalks on two wheels. Mothers with two, even three toddlers strapped to their backs and plunked into baskets along with the groceries push past on sturdy legs. Well-heeled and immaculately coiffed matrons ride ramrod-backed. When it rains they hold umbrellas. Sometimes texting on their mobiles or weaving in and out between pedestrians, cyclists routinely clip little tykes and hapless shoppers—or worse—as they cut in and hurtle past.

Although many streets are simply too narrow, it seems only sensible to have designated bicycle lanes on the widest Tokyo sidewalks. Unfortunately, most cyclists fail to comply with existing laws and rarely stick to their side. Sometimes their bells jangle warnings to those on foot. Often they do not.

Local pedestrians seem fearless; whereas, I repeatedly freeze in place until the two-wheeled bombers pass.

However, I’m not likely to be killed by a bicycle. While fatality percentages for cyclists are increasing alarmingly, Tokyo ranks nineteenth world-wide for all pedestrian fatalities. Not even 2 persons per 100,000 and well behind major US cities, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London and Paris.

Still, in a city of more than 13 million, that stat adds up. Pedestrians, be aware.

In seconds it’s possible to become disoriented in Tokyo’s snakes-and-ladders streets. Sometimes it’s much easier to haphazardly wander than  find a specific location. Doorways often aren’t numbered in Arabic numerals. Outside the major tourist hot-spots, signs are primarily in Japanese.

Guidebooks provide instructions that read: Take the east exit and walk 5 minutes. Left? Right? Around in circles? (Believe me, I have. Some of those stories will be coming in future posts.) That’s why locals have GPS on their phones. Not surprising then, that Tokyo, as well as Japan in general, intimidates at first.

Often streets look like alleyways. But frequently that’s where the interesting stuff is—tucked away in back of the major streets or in shotengai (local, covered commercial thoroughfares usually near railway stations).

Every traveller has her own style. Frantic scrambles through multiple attractions day after day are not for me. Much as I wish to, I can’t see it all, which is why I like to settle in one hotel for several days and explore by foot, transit or taxi from there.  Since I don’t understand Japanese I must remain hyper-mindful. Keeping track of the sun and counting side streets, memorizing landmarks, maintaining a mental tether to the noise of larger thoroughfares, I build a spatial understanding of my map and the character of the district.

I prefer to be in Japan not buzz around it.

Every time I enter a crowded elevator or the hotel breakfast room it happens. Immediately everyone shrinks slightly and turns away from me, a subtle but noticeable shift. As a non-Japanese travelling most mostly among nationals I’m not sure how, but I immediately understand the situation.

My body, on the other hand, responds with visceral shock. When I tell the story Westerners respond the same way: How horrible. Yet from the moment it first happened my intuition understood something else.

The gesture is a lovely and touching gift. In a crowded society where personal space is at a premium, people demonstrate their good manners by making themselves a little smaller and turning away.

By doing so, they tacitly say: Hai dozo. Please come in. There is room for you. See? We’ve all tightened a little to fit you in. Please, don’t worry; we won’t intrude on you. Please, be at ease.

How easily I might have mistaken their readiness to include me for rejection.

On my way to Sensoji I had noticed the simple display: a pot of bushy, russet-coloured chrysanthemums and several bottles of sake on the stoop. This spot, a few steps south of my hotel, is fixed on my highly reliable restaurant-radar. I hesitate. There is no picture menu posted. No English. With no idea what I’m in for I take my chances.

Kika no Mori on Kokusai-dori Tokyo

Sliding the door open, I stick my head through the noren curtain and bow to the couple inside. I’m the first customer. Let’s see how far I get with my minimal Japanese: For one please.

To the rapid-fire answer that greets me I respond hesitantly. I’m sorry. I don’t speak Japanese very well. I don’t understand well. Do you speak English? No. No English.

That’s fine; I say still managing in Japanese. I remove my shoes, face them in right direction and unbutton my jacket. The proprietor hurries over to put my shoes in the cupboard and hang up my coat.

I can eat everything, I say. That gets a laugh. I settle in, request some sake (or Nihonshu as it’s called in Japan), ask for their specialty and put myself in their hands. For the rest, I don’t need conversation. But we try anyway, passing a translation machine back and forth all evening. More frequently we shake our heads and hiss through our teeth. That’s nonverbal Japanese meaning it’s very difficult.

Observing that I fully appreciate their cuisine, they encourage me to sample various Nihonshu brands, too, pouring until the glass overflows into the bamboo box containing it. Before leaving I drink the contents of the box as well.

Tonight I can relax and imbibe without restraint. The hotel is mere meters away. I can safely do that distance on my hands and knees if I must.

My room is not ready. No matter. I leave my bag with the desk clerk and head out. The enticing light and warmth of the afternoon prompt me to visit Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple, Sensoji, the central attraction of Asakusa. A quieter and older part of the city with a long history, Asakusa is a former entertainment district and working-class neighbourhood west of the Sumida River.

Hurried along by a flag-waving tour guide, I visited Sensoji once more than a decade ago. Now, for no other reason than an ineffable command of the heart, I have chosen to stay nearby and experience it fully over the coming days.

Rather than navigate the crowded Nakamise-dori (a crowded avenue of shops and touristy tchotchkes) and approach through the imposing Kaminarimon Gate, this time I slip in through the back. As if I were strolling through the neighbourhood—as I might do on any sunny autumn day if I lived here.

Sensoji Pagoda

This approach adds a commonplace touch. Students cross the foot-tamped earth in lines behind their teachers. Seniors rest where they find spots, text or chat with each other and soak up the sun. Couples and families mill about taking photos on smart phones. After bathing in fragrant incense pouring from the cauldron outside, worshipers mount the steps to pray in the newly-renovated main hall.

Kikka-ten Chrysanthemum display at Sensoji (Asakusa Kannon) Temple, Tokyo

Today I don’t go inside. As the month-long Kikka-ten (Chrysanthemum Exhibition) is on, I linger among the flowers until lengthening shadows remind me it’s time to check in. Time to think about dinner.

Having found the correct train from Tokyo Station with surprising ease, I disembark at Ueno Station. I walk north alongside the overhead tracks on the station’s east side toward my hotel in Asakusa. Situated near the intersection of two major thoroughfares–Kototoi-dori and Kokusai-dori–I should be able to find it. If it takes longer than the guidebook’s ambiguous instructions to walk 12 minutes from the station, it will be good exercise. Bonus: It’s a glorious day.

The street’s dun façade is tired and faded. None of Tokyo’s stylish city-chic evident here.  Across the way, under a tree to my left a homeless man with his back to me is stripped to the waist. His freshly laundered shirt neatly pinned to a flimsy clothes-peg carousel hangs from a branch. A mirror hangs on another.  Using the laundry water in his blue plastic bowl, he shaves and washes his body. I feel an intruder walking uninvited through his residence.

I wonder about him. In elementary school did he push up his hand with ardour thinking he had the right answer? Or did he sit sullenly, always an outsider? What dreams did he once have? What life-arc placed him here on the street with passersby to witness his ablutions?

How much does either of us matter to the wider world? Both of us single souls among millions. Both of us alone. Both of us—though in very different ways—homeless in Tokyo.

After breakfast I board the hotel shuttle back to Narita Airport, validate my JR Rail Pass and follow the signs to the Narita Express (NEX) track for Tokyo. You’d think I did this every day—it’s that easy.

Nationals wait on the platform along with non-Japanese, many of whom lug hefty suitcases. Three Swedish women approach to ask whether I am Swedish too. No, Canadian. We chat about our travel plans. Surprised I’m brave enough to travel alone, they marvel that my single carry-on suitcase contains enough for 33 days. It does. Glancing at their monsters, I don’t tell them mine’s not full.

When the Express pulls in, the non-Japanese surge toward the doors creating a crush. Realizing the exiting passengers can barely move, the crowd inches back. They’ve yet to figure out how it’s done here.

Passengers about to board wait in orderly lines at points marked on the floor which indicate the front and back doorways of each car. When the train stops, passengers exit quickly. Only then do those waiting to board enter. The artless elegance of things Japanese.

When the crush is over I roll on, hoist my case into the overhead rack, and settle into my reserved seat. Every convenience is at my finger tips: reclining seat, adjustable headrest, large folding table, window blind, coat hook, mesh storage pocket and laptop connection. Overhead, a flat-screen monitor indicates the scheduled stops in four languages.

A minute later we glide out of the terminal into sunshine pouring gold over autumnal Japan.