I’m almost two months behind now, but I’ve not been inspired to write a lot. It’s been busy, and at times I’ve felt very low and uninspired.

 

After my last letter, I was asked if I had seen any more interesting examples of “Engrish” lately. I think I’m kind of getting used to the frequent, well-meant abuses of English in Japan, but there are two notable ones that keep me giggling. One is the children’s clothing store in Yonago that is called ‘Kid’s Pooh’. The other is the beauty parlour in the north of Matsue called ‘The Hair Saloon’ (it’s a comedy sketch just waiting to happen, folks…). And the label on the second-hand sweater I just bought reads thus: “Using the material which is refined It keeps making our highest ones RimLimit Those which we see and hearing The image which is born with the facts that among other things you feel your skin If that is transmitted to you We are accustomed to a part of your everyday life, probably will be.”

 

I still, very occasionally, get that reminder in the mornings when I step out of my apartment: “Oh, yeah, I’m in Japan!” In the late winter and early spring, when I had been in Matsue for about three months, I would follow my morning routine in my apartment, then bam! As I stepped outside, the first businessman I saw, or the first flock of uniformed schoolchildren on bicycles, would hit me with a sense of wonder that I was in this place, at this time, far away from the familiar. I actually wasn’t homesick very much then; I felt the most homesick at the end of August and onset of September, which is a favourite time for me at home. And right now, at this minute, I want diner-style bacon and eggs!

 

All summer and fall, I have been watching swarms of sparrows in the ten trees near the train station, across from AEON. As the sun sets, hundreds of sparrows wing their way back home, swooping and dipping in groups of ten or more, to take up their perches in the trees. Then with a great cacophony of chirping and trilling, they begin jostling for the best seats, or greeting each other, or whatever it is that they’re doing up there. It’s a huge clamour, and it startled me when I first heard it. They remind me of the chimney swifts in Wolfville during the summer. I’m not sure where they will go when all the leaves drop off, as they are beginning to now.

 

So on a Friday at the end of September, I went to Kaya for ‘kayaoke’. Seiji introduced monthly karaoke in the summer. This night was very quiet and very few people came out. I met a girl named Emi, and Jennifer and one of her students came, and a couple of foreign teachers dropped by, and later on Hari, a guitar player I had met at the previous blues night, came by too. Jennifer and I regarded it as ‘practice night’ and made the most of it. I sang a lot, and sang many different songs that I had never sung before. Some of them crashed and burned, but others were really good! It’s great fun, and I think my singing is improving. Cleve is having a karaoke contest in December and I’m going to enter. I think I’ll dress as Evita/Madonna and sing ”Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. So where am I going to find a (cheap) white strapless ball gown in Japan? Cleve is looking.

 

I also said good-bye to some of my students that same week. Classes changed in October, and some students went to other teachers, and others left the school. Tomoko, a high school student who I’ve been teaching since I got here, left to concentrate on her university entrance exams. I’ll miss her a lot. And Keiko Sakamoto, who treated me to such a lovely lunch at her home once, left as well; she is taking care of her aunt, and she and her husband are cutting back on expenses as he retires. And Yuko apologized, but she has moved up to Odyssey class with John, so I’m not teaching her anymore either. It’s great for her, but I’ll miss her. I gave John some advice about her, while trying not to sound like a fretful mother. I am reminded that all of these busy, full, interesting lives are swirling around me, and I am just brushing against them for a time. I want to make the most of our time for them. 

 

And on October 1, we finally climbed Daisen! After four thwarted attempts in the previous month, we set out from the Lawson convenience store on Kunibiki Street at about 11:30. Seiji was driving, and Martin joined us first, armed with his massive, highly technical-looking digital camera. He busied himself recording our trip, starting with Seiji and I in the parking lot, and capturing Jennifer and Yumi as they arrived together. As the two of them crossed the street, he mused, “Don’t they make an interesting pair?” It’s true. Jennifer stands close to six feet tall, with a long-legged gait and pale white skin. Yumi is small –shorter than me small – and very slender, and dresses comparatively modestly. To top it off, lanky Jennifer had a tiny backpack on while petite Yumi shouldered a bulky satchel.

We loaded up and headed off. After reading Dogs and Demons; the Fall of Modern Japan, an unrelenting critique of Japan’s economic and environmental policies, I was very sensitive to the presence of the apparently useless (and destructive) construction projects rampant all over Japan. Every river runs in a shaped, dammed concrete river bed at some point, every hill anywhere near a road is plastered in concrete, every beach is littered with giant concrete caltrops. I’m not exaggerating. The countryside is still beautiful, don’t get me wrong, and here in Shimane, a very rural area, I think we have been spared the worst. But there is a neurotic need for control over nature in evidence here. Not unnatural in a place like Japan, where nature is inclined to give earthquakes, volcanic activity and floods to the inhabitants, but Japan is no worse than, say, Italy or Mexico when it comes to seismic activity.

So why this excessive reaction? The Japanese for hundreds or thousands of years have been experts at controlling and manipulating their natural landscape. For example when Yoshiharu Horio decided to build his castle in Matsue, the location he decided on was on the last hill of a small mountain range. He had the next mountain removed, so that Matsue Castle would stand on a solitary hill. Matsue is also a city of canals, most of which were manmade, designed to water the rice fields AND thwart enemies attempting to storm the castle. (All the roads were designed to be crooked, too, to confuse attackers; they’ve confused me a couple of times, too!)

Anyway, despite my thoughts, the drive was nice. It was a lovely day, with a few clouds in the sky. The lopsided peaks of Daisen drew nearer, and we began to wind up into the foothills, through a national park, and finally parked near a small town. We stopped at the information centre and signed our name to a register. Apparently they like to keep track of who has climbed the  mountain, in case they get lost or fall off. I also had the weird experience of using the fully automated washroom for the disabled. The door opens and shuts for you, the lights pop on, the toilet lid graciously opens itself, the seat is warm (and of course there are the usual nearly unintelligible bidet instructions), the lights and water at the sink turn on as you approach. Altogether unsettling.

So finally we set out on our trek. Daisen loomed above us to the southeast, with a shroud of mist rolling over its far ridge. Daisen is the largest mountain in the Chugoku region, spanning five prefectures. It is 1,729 meters high, and although it is volcanic, the last eruption was 10,000 years ago. There was, however, an earthquake 7 years ago which seriously damaged part of the mountain, so that it is now forbidden to climb the highest peak. There is a Buddhist temple on the mountain, and long ago you were not allowed to climb the mountain without a monk as a guide. For some, this is a holy mountain, and the trek is a spiritual one intended as a communion with nature. At intervals along the climb, we could hear the deep gonging chimes of the bronze bell in the temple being struck, a distant, almost otherworldly noise. After a brief hiccup as we took a wrong path, and a pause for Martin to photograph the gigantic spiders that had Jennifer cringing away in horror, we found wide stone steps leading up, up, up, to the top. So we began. We stopped for our first break at a plateau with two damp picnic tables beside an old, unused temple and graveyard and the overgrown remains of a shrine. We continued on a ways, and found the first marker: number one of ten markers. It gave us a sudden sense of the scope of the climb. After that, the climb became increasingly harder. The stone steps gave way to uneven log steps curving around trees roots, and the footing became more treacherous. I loved it, taking the lead and springing forward. I knew I was tiring myself out, but I didn’t care. I would pause and wait, and then go to the back again, where Seiji was struggling to keep up. He was having a hard time of it. We took many breaks, shouting with excitement each time we reached a marker and pausing for photo opportunities. We passed people coming down the mountain, many of them in their forties and fifties. They seemed a little surprised at meeting a troupe of gaijin and Japanese, but greeted us with ‘konnichiwa’ as they passed. 

After marker number four, we had risen high enough to catch glimpses of the great view behind us, below the mountain. As we turned to look back the way we had come, we could see directly to our right the long, steep slope of the next peak in the mountain range, its ridge enveloped in mist. Below us, the mountain dwindled to gentle foothills draped in green velvet, and beyond that, the long semi-circle of the coast, where the Sea of Japan began. In the distance the small city of Sakaiminato, pale and blue at the horizon, could dimly be seen. The sun was beginning to set in the west, where Matsue lay, and although we strained our eyes, we couldn’t see our city. Seiji decided after Marker Four to turn back and wait at the car. He couldn’t keep up. I gave him some more water before he began his descent. Then I caught up with the others, though it took some effort. And we made it to Marker Five! And Six! There was a rest stop with a concrete hut and a bench here, and I took a moment to imagine the workmen who climbed this mountain every day to build these steps and rest stops. The log steps had given way to steps held in place with chicken wire to prevent rock slides, but they were a little treacherous too, so our progress was slowed. And the sun was definitely setting then. At about that point, I realized we weren’t going to make it to the top. I had no intention of being on this mountain after dark. And I was guiltily aware of Seiji, waiting for us below. Jennifer and Yumi agreed, but Martin was in his element and good to go. We pushed on to Marker Seven and then decided to climb down. Martin, however, decided to sprint – sprint, I say – to the top and catch up with us on the way down. He promised to reach the peak in fifteen minutes.

Climbing down was still difficult. We had to watch our footing. But it was easier than climbing up. In about forty minutes of so, Martin reached us again. He had done it! I would have said it was impossible, but he had taken pictures of himself at the summit, with a timer showing he had done it in fifteen minutes (give or take a few seconds)! I swear, he is part mountain goat (although he tells me there are no mountain goats in Iceland – I learn something new every day!). He was immensely pleased with himself. We were all pretty tired at that point. Jennifer and Yumi had dropped behind to chat. I asked Martin how long he was staying in Japan. He had renewed until March of next year, but after that, he wasn’t sure.

At the place where we had taken our first break, Jennifer kept going down the stone steps, to meet Seiji. We took a short pause to explore the temple and the old graveyard beside it: a beautiful, still, reverent place, with massive trees creating a pillared canopy and the golden sunlight slanting in from the west. Flowers and containers of water were set before the tombs, and Martin noted an unusual symbol on most of the tombs that even Yumi couldn’t decipher.

We finally continued down the hill to meet Jennifer and Seiji, and treat ourselves to ice cream minutes before the shops closed. Seiji had scoped out the little village and talked to the foreigner he met there, a fellow on a bike who is here teaching English in nearby Yonago.

We took a last picture of Team Daisen, and I resolved to come earlier next time and climb to the top. It may have to wait until spring now, as Daisen will soon be topped with snow, and people will be skiing instead of climbing!