Comments: 2
A PUTT PAST PURGATORY EAST
BY
KENNETH WRIGHT
PART I
FRUSTRATION
CHAPTER ONE
Lost in the 1970s
“John, I'm beginning to think I've had it with Japan. And get this. Just to really spoil my day, when I got off at Umeda a student from that idiot English language school chain zips up and zaps me with that damned 'Oh-you-look-lost-May-I-help-you' bit!”
“Ah yes, the wonders of the 'memorize these dialogues word for word and you'll become a fluent English speaker' method strikes again.” John turned and waved at the sushi chef standing behind the refrigerated counter, “Unagi mo futatsu chodai!” then turned back to me. “And what train did he try to shove you on when no matter what you told him, he mechanically recited, ‘Oh-here-is-your-train'? "
“A limited express train going right back to Kyoto that doesn't even stop at my stop! And I'd just told him in Japanese that I'd gotten off my train and knew damn well and good where I was going. Maybe I should have said, 'Oh, thank you, I'm trying to get to Takarazuka,' or whatever the hell the response is in that damned textbook their teachers jackhammer into their brains.”
John laughed, shook his head. "Wouldn't have done any good, Dave. That's all he could say. Understanding what the other guy says is totally irrelevant to their way of teaching. Note he tried to put you on a train to Kyoto, not Takarazuka. Be glad you're teaching at a direct method school where we and our students have to understand each other or we can't continue with the lesson. At least we can have quasi-conversations with our students instead of just leading them in choral response drills all day long like automatons.”
We watched the sushi chef finish broiling our slices of eel before squeezing them onto his hand-rolled rice for a moment.
"Damn it John, I'm sick and tired of being nothing but a foreign, outsider gaijin! And the crazy thing is the more I learn to speak Japanese and learn the customs here, the more of a gaijin I become. When I first got here I had all these Japanese begging me to be their friend. Now they treat me like I’m a leper or something.”
“Hai, omachido!” the sushi chef chanted as he slapped our dishes of unagi sushi down on the counter.
I envied the way John picked up one of the two pieces of his sushi with his chopsticks and stuck it in his mouth without dropping the slice of eel or getting any of the sticky molasses on his hands. “Hmm, let's see, Dave. You've been here about a year now, right?”
“Almost. It'll be a year three weeks from tomorrow."
“Ha, if you've got it that exact, it sounds to me like you've crashed headfirst into that brick wall of a crisis most of us gaijin splatter against.”
“What crisis?” I asked, trying to pick up a piece of my sushi with my chopsticks and as usual having it disintegrate halfway to my mouth.
“The one that happens when you've been here long enough that Japan stops being the quaint Oriental Wonderland you dreamed it would be and turns into the drab, dreary, everyday place where you live and work. First you notice only the good and totally miss all the bad. Then the bad hits so hard you forget all the good. It'll balance out, though. You'll make new friends using Japanese this time. Real friends. Not people who pretend to be your friends just so they can get free English lessons off you and then dump you as soon as your Japanese becomes better than their English. You just have to give it time, that's all.”
“I don't think I want to give it time,” I said trying to pick up the splattered pieces of eel and rice with my chopsticks and end up having to eat the whole sticky mess with my fingers again, making my frustrations that much worse. “And what's the good of commuting all the way down here to Osaka from exotic Kyoto when I'm sick and tired of shrine and temple hopping up there? I think I'm going back to Chicago.”
John nodded as he poured what was left in our sake bottle into my cup and ordered another one. “Yeah, that's what most gaijin do when they slam into the crisis. They pack their bags and hop the first jet home.”
I took a sip of my warm sake. “But not you. You've been here what, six years now? Didn't you go through the same thing?”
“It's seven years and yes I did. I'd get up at the crack of dawn, take an ungodly packed train ride to school, teach eight to ten hours of classes, go out eating and drinking with some of the other teachers, endure another ungodly packed train ride home, watch a few programs on the tube in Japanese that I only half understood, get at best four hours of sleep, then drag myself through the same routine all over again the next day with an even bigger hangover. Sound familiar?”
“Well now that you mention it. Yeah. So how did you get out of that rut? By becoming an exec?”
“No, I only got promoted three years ago.”
“So what did you do?”
“I bought myself a used, stupid, ugly, little Honda putt-putt, that's what.”
“A what?”
“A Honda cub. A small 50cc motorcycle. Like the ones the postmen and delivery boys drive here. They may be small and ugly but they're really sturdy and reliable and will get you where you want to go eventually. And even with the oil shocks, you can pay for all your gas with pocket change. If your U.S. car driver’s license is still valid, exchange it for a Japanese license that will let you drive one and buy yourself a cub. Living here in Japan, believe me it'll change your whole life.”
“You know what, John? You're crazy!”
The mechanic-cum-used motorcycle salesman gave me a look of disbelief. "A cub? I haven't had anybody ask me for one of those things in I don't know how long.”
“Well, that's what my friend told me I should get. Don't you have any?”
“Oh yeah, I've got one. Over there against the wall.” He pointed. "Sure you don't want one of those fancier ones? They're only 50cc too, so you can drive them with your car driver's license.”
I spied the drab, olive green heap of scrap metal timidly peeking out from behind the rows of much bigger, brightly-colored, self-confident, real-looking 50cc motorcycles that John warned me not to buy. “Hmm . . . . Well, let me take a look at the thing anyway.”
Stale gasoline fumes biting my nostrils I squeezed over to where it huddled, just a tiny tattered seat and a grimy white leg guard drooping down over the whole front end and nothing in between except where the bottom of the leg guard covered the engine near the footrests.
Then I noticed the extra-large luggage carrier covering the rear fender John told me I'd need and my fingers confirmed its body was still sturdy and thicker than the others. I rubbed my hands on the rag the mechanic tossed me, looked from the beat-up strange looking cub to its much flashier competitors, back at the cub again.
“How much?”
Submitted: November 05, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kenneth Wright. All rights reserved.
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B Douglas Slack
Ah. I can see we're off to another whizz-bang adventure here, Kenneth. Having been there ... and done that ... makes the ride all that more enjoyable.
Wed, November 7th, 2018 9:21pmBill