Springtime in Japan is marked by the annual Sakura Festival, a celebration
of the blossoming of the cherry trees. The Sakura Festival is grounded in
centuries of developing historical significance and yet, the only ritual is
sitting under the cherry blossom trees and stuffing yourself with food and
drink. This is called a hanami party. As with many things in Japan, its
simplicity is its brilliance.
Cherry trees are only
in bloom for several weeks of the year. Sarah and I, not wanting to miss the
opportunity, decided to have ourselves a hanami.
On a warm Spring
morning we began our preparation. Sarah packed wine, sunscreen, card games, and
a blanket to sit on. I packed water and beer. As we left the apartment, I
suddenly remembered that one of my Japanese students had told me that sake was
a necessity of the Sakura Festival. We made a detour to our local liquor store.
Our next stop was
Osaka Castle where Sarah and I paid 300 yen to enter their cherry blossom park.
Through the gates we found a bustling park the size of two football fields. At the center of the park was a large rectangular lawn and the cherry blossom trees
were planted in a thick border on all sides.
This area was clearly quite a popular Sakura
spot and many people were beginning to prepare for their hanami parties.
Parents unpacked pastries and sweets for their children. Parents unpacked sake
for themselves. Children ran played across the field, ignoring the requests of
their parents. And here and there was a lone Japanese intern, standing watch
under the cherry blossom tree his company had sent him to stake out at six in
the morning. Among all these,
one oddly familiar eyesore stood out. The blue tarp:
Blue tarps are an
omnipresent reality in my family, both cherished and cursed. They are prized
for their many applications. They can be used for rain protection, storage,
slip and slides, and car covers. But in my family, a blue tarp's most apparent
and common purpose is to cover unsightly things.
To be fair, the blue
tarp is only the most visible symptom of a problematic genetic disorder. This
disorder can be defined as an inability to recognize when personal possessions
have lost all value, usefulness, or have become otherwise unnecessary clutter.
This disorder occurs on my paternal side and most strongly afflicts the Y
chromosome. In advanced stages the males of my family lose entire rooms to old
crap and have no recourse other than to cover it all with blue tarps.
Perhaps you are
thinking to yourself that this is not a condition, but a voluntary indecision.
You may be right, but I want you to imagine it from my family's perspective for
a minute:
Imagine that you
are a fan of electronics. But now I want you to also imagine that you are
clinging to the belief that electronics never become obsolete. Imagine the
implications of this. You can't just throw out that cassette player or that
VCR-to-Camcorder cable. What if every Radioshack, Fry's, and Best Buy in the
tri-county region suddenly go under? What if cassette players suddenly become
retro-vogue?
That pack of AA
batteries that has been sitting in your garage since you remodeled? Sure they
were made by an off-label company no longer in business, and sure one of them
is almost certainly oozing, but that blue tarp in your TV room, with its light and heat blocking
protection, could give those batteries another ten years.
Sure others may laugh
at you now, but you can be satisfied knowing that the greatest minds of modern
times are simply laying the groundwork for a future where scientists have
perfected the process of restoring expired AA batteries. Someday, when the
world's electricity has run dry, your friends and neighbors will cry in anguish
during their iPod's final moments of life. But you'll simply smile at the
treasures beneath your tarp and shake your head in vindication, tuning them out
with your 1979 Sony Walkman.
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| Cryogenic Sheet and Interior Decoration in one? |
So given my
affliction, you can imagine my surprise when I saw blue tarps simply being used
as a barrier between the lawn and the pants of hanami-goers.
Perhaps instinctively,
I made the decision to seat Sarah and I next to the largest blue tarp in the
entire park. It was seating an entire company's hanami with forty or so
revelers. I assumed they had just come from work as the men were all dressed in
suits and the women in conservative blouses and calf-length skirts. While their
attire was all business, their attitude was all party.
As Sarah and I got out
our wine and sake, we realized that we'd forgotten to bring plastic cups.
However, our adjacent company appeared to have an excess of party
paraphernalia.
I used my translating
app to find the word for "cup" in Japanese. Kappu.
Next, I nervously
edged towards the company party, unsure of which individual to approach. As I
got closer, a woman on the edge of the blue tarp looked up at me. I lost my
nerve and kept walking, hoping they'd think I was just passing by. I
unknowingly walked right into the set-up for a photo of seven or so salarymen
with their arms round each other, smiling.
The salaryman taking
the photograph raised his head from the camera's viewfinder as if to confirm
there was a foreigner walking through the frame. All of the subjects swiveled
their heads in curiosity to find me. Instead of being mildly irritated or
politely waiting for me to finish crossing through their photo, they laughed
and smiled warmly.
I offered to take the
photo for them by miming snapping a photo and then gesturing to myself. This
was met with nods and more laughter. The photographer handed me the camera and
joined with the seven or so other salarymen.
"Alright," I
said, "one....two....thr-"
"Cheese!"
cried out the salarymen. They were very amused by their appropriation of our
Western custom.
I handed the camera to
its owner, before I could even say "kappu?", he threw an open
palmed hand in the air and used his other hand to point at it.
A different salaryman
called out, "HIGH FIVE!", which was partly instructions to not leave
my new friend hanging, and partly an unbridled exclamation of the man's
enthusiasm for the idea of high-fiving a Westerner. After high-fiving the owner
of the camera, this man was next in line. And a line did form.
Soon, others were petitioning me for high-fives. Many of the
other salarymen from the company party began to take notice of our side show
and began to crowd around. Soon there were two dozen salarymen upon me.
Then more cameras were out and photos were being snapped
rapidly. We posed, we threw our arms around each other, and of course, we
high-fived. With every new picture one of the photographers would shout
"CHEESE!" and all the salarymen would shout "CHEESE!".
Every new photo brought further high-fives and increased our fervor.
After several minutes
of posing as their token foreigner (gaijin as the Japanese call us), I felt I'd
earned my kappu. I made a drinking gesture to the crowd around to signal
for a cup. Several men simultaneously snapped into action and began giving
instructions to other men. Within seconds they had brought me several beers
from their cooler. But no cup. I was, of course, polite and graciously accepted
their hospitable gift.
At some point Sarah
noticed me drinking beer and high-fiving legions of Japanese salarymen. She
decided to document the encounter with her camera. She was quickly noticed by
some of the other salarymen and was quickly ushered over to join me. They
brought her several beers, as well.
I felt a bit sheepish,
drinking their beer, being a one-dimensional novelty for this company party.
Yet they were plenty friendly and the laughs came often and easily.
One woman did approach
me to ask me questions about where I was from and such. But her English was
lacking and the conversation couldn't advance past that barrier. No one else
spoke much English and I realized that the novelty of our interaction was
subsiding. Mingling was futile. There were nods and chuckles and few more
high-fives before Sarah and I returned to our blanket to enjoy the rest of our
hanami.
And in the end, we got
some party cups and roughly a six-pack in assorted Japanese beers. Later, one
of the salarymen even brought some food over to us.
So we sat there, Sarah
drinking her wine and me drinking my Sake and their beer, and both of us eating
their food. As the sun hung low we watched the company party slowly stumble to
their feet and pack up. Sarah and I watched as a group of ten or so of the
salarymen tried to fold a their giant blue tarp. It was large enough that under
normal conditions it would have taken at least four men to fold. However, due
to the intoxication of the folders and the rest of the company party's
increasing interest in their ordeal, there ended up being twenty or so
salarymen crowding around, shouting out advice, and occasionally grabbing a
piece of tarp, making the situation worse.
Sarah recorded their
trial and, at one point, asked, "how many Japanese salarymen does it take
to fold a tarp?". I am still not sure of the answer, but I imagine it is
roughly the same as the number of drunken football players it takes to fold a
paper crane.
Slowly, the salarymen
began to reacall how to alternate hotdog and hamburger folds. Finally stumbling
off for good.
As night settled, a
different crowd made their way into the park: young couples.
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| Pictured Above: The combination of beer, sake, meat, and excessive sun |
To enhance the
romantic atmosphere, the park's staff brought out large lights that alternated
through different colors. The white cherry blossoms were transformed into a fluid
prism, burning from orange to red in one minute and stained in deep indigo the next.
Beneath, the young
couples shared open-mouthed kisses. This was quite a shock to my expectations.
The Japanese consider most public displays of affections to be taboo, even ones
as harmless as a platonic peck or a man putting his arms around a woman.
I was doing my best
under the vibrant lights to appear tender and smoldering to Sarah.
Unfortunately the long day's combination of borrowed beers, sake, skewers of
meat, and excessive sun were beginning to ruminate in my stomach. The chaos of
the lighting situation was not helping.
I made an earnest trot
to the park's bathroom, only to find no toilets in the Western variety.
Unfortunately, traditional Japanese toilets are really just a porcelain oval dug
into the ground.
I stared into the Japanese
toilet with foreboding, sensing I had a problem. As I began to spew the contents
of my day, I realized that my problem was a simple matter of physics: a falling
liquid, unless undeterred by any solid barrier, will continue to fan out into a
wider and wider spray radius. That is to say, standing and puking into a hole
in the ground is like shooting the stream of a firehouse through a keyhole.
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| It's no Catcher of the Rye |
I thought I was
playing the whole bathroom situation cool, but apparently a foreigner with a
leg up in the sink, washing the legs of his pants is very unsettling to the
Japanese. Midst alarmed looks, I grabbed Sarah and informed her that it was
time to leave Osaka Castle park.
At the edge of the
park we happened across a small crowd that was gathering to see a performing
Capuchin monkey and its trainer. I stopped to watch. (I've long been interested
in having a Capuchin helper monkey. I'm not sure if Capuchin monkeys can be
trained to make a Ruben sandwich, but I am confident that given several weeks,
I could at least train it to grab a beer and throw a six-pack in the fridge).
I quickly began to
feel bad for the monkey. The poor guy was dressed in humiliating, little monkey
clothes and was bound by the leash his trainer held. People clapped and cheered
as the monkey did handstands and waved. Then the trainer put out a mini, monkey
stool and the monkey took a bow before sitting down. His trainer gave him a
cracker and prompted the rest of the crowd to clap.
Something in my heart
went out to that Capuchin monkey. I wondered if he enjoyed his routine or if he
was exhausted by endlessly performing his silly little act in his silly little
clothes. I wondered if he was able to understood why people crowded around him
or if he was just confused by the attention.
I told Sarah that I
had lost my interest and wanted to go. We picked up our bags and as we walked
towards front of the stage and past the edge of the crowd the monkey began to
stare at me. His eyes followed me for some time.
Thinking back now, I
wonder if that monkey took interest in me because he sensed some mutual
understanding between the two of us. Perhaps, he saw that I, too, was different
from those around me and that, I too, had been an entertaining novelty, at
least for a minute or two. Or, I wonder if maybe he showed interest in me
because he smelled the puke all over the front of my pants.
