Lotus Leaves Shinobazu Pond

This Western-styled, urban oasis forms a stage for museums, temples, a shrine, fountain, zoo and numerous other attractions. Set back into its dense shadows are the neat blue tarpaulins of its homeless guests. A black-suited man, his tie loosened, meditates on a low stone wall. Seniors who have traded the yellow hard-hats of primary school for the softer bucket-hats of fishermen mingle with tourists—their camera phones upraised like sceptres. And urban moms escape their apartments with toddlers in tow.

Clearly on a school trip to the capital, knock-kneed girls in pleated skirts and slouchy white socks together with boys not quite living up to their smart uniforms follow their grasshopper-coloured teachers up the steps of the museum.

Like them, I am reluctant. It’s crazy to trade sun-alive skies for antiquities and art, but.

From my hotel balcony I see the spire of Gojyunotou, Sensoji’s 5-storied pagoda, dwarfed between residential and commercial buildings. To its left the newest addition to the skyline, Tokyo Sky Tree ascends.

Joseph Campbell (in Transformations of Myth Through Time) suggests that people create structures which concretize the primary values of their society. Such structures, placed highest or rising tallest on the skyline, symbolize the culture which venerates them. Thus mountains, fortresses, castles, temples, cathedrals and bank towers have each supplanted the other over time.

Tokyo Sky Tree Under Construction 2010

Gojyunotou Pagoda, Asakusa Sensoji

The deity of the present age, Sky Tree’s digital broadcasting tower rises 634 meters and now is—for a little while—the tallest building in the world.

Current analog broadcasting will end–allowing greater choice, more channels, clearer pictures, superior sound, wireless broadband and telephony.

This tower of instant-babble also contains a four-level, town-with-a-tower development. Touted as a community where residents and visitors will meet, it’s tempting to speculate. When they do—eyes to screens and checking in digitally—exactly how will they engage?

Modes of communication and engagement are mutable, always have been. Though alarming to some when new, looking back over the historical arc all change seems predictable and inevitable. Blogging for The New York Times, Douglas Coupland observes: I note the moment you hear somebody say something’s over, it usually means something massive is about to happen.

Analog communication is over. Sky Tree presides over the digital show. Already we are wondering: What next?

And the venerable long-supplanted goddess, what might she be thinking? More apps, faster, more insistent interruptions and louder, larger-than-life reality TV? Mercy.

Seriously disadvantaged by my inability to read, tonight I find no cues. No open doors or window displays or menu boards. A sleek gray cat flashes yellow eyes. A lone cyclist creaks past.

Reaching a cross-street I decide to go one more block before backtracking. There it is! Sushi written on a bright red lantern. Though the place looks closed, I slide the door open (as I’ve seen my local friends do) and call out: Sumimasen. Konbanwa.

I’m somewhat worried. Will I be welcomed? Some establishments unapologetically post No Foreigners on their doors.

Mom in a worn brown sweater under her apron rises and bows. Irasshaimase. I bow and in Japanese politely request a seat for one. She points and nods to the empty counter with all of 8 seats. Hai dozo. I bow and apologize in Japanese. I’m sorry. I don’t speak or understand Japanese well. However (I smile broadly and wait for the beat), I understand sushi.

That breaks the ice. Pop, who looks as though his cuisine agrees with him, reaches behind a pillar, pulls out a plastic folder, bows, holds it toward me with both hands and reassures me in his best Eigo. No probrem. Engrish menu!

Relieved, I slip off my shoes and step up. It’s going to be a fine night.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.