God is Catholic

A few years back, I was watching the penalty shoot out between Greece and Costa Rica and found it amusing to see members from both teams praying—praying to the very same Christian God, mind you—in the hope that He was supporting their team rather than the other guys and would guide them to victory. 

Indeed, one of the first things Costa Rica's Navas did after he successfully blocked the third penalty kick was to point towards Heaven and say, "Gracias!"

While 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians—79% of them saying that they "believe there is a God" and another 15.8% describing themselves as "very religious", the highest figure among all European countries—a nationwide survey of religion in Costa Rica found that 70.5% of "Ticos" are Roman Catholics, 44.9% of whom are practicing.

Clearly this says something about the nature of God that has been in dispute since the Great Schism, the medieval division of Chalcedonian Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches one thousand years ago. Namely, that God is, beyond a doubt, Roman Catholic.

(That is, unless those heathen Dutch win the whole shebang.)

Band of Brothers

After watching the HBO series Band of Brothers half a dozen times over the years[1] I finally bought the book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose upon which the series was based. Although it has taken me about six months to get through it—hard to read with a young child in the house—I found Easy Company’s tale even more engrossing in print than it had been on TV. The odd thing about a book like this is that you almost feel sad that the war and the saga come to an end. You want to go on having adventures with the guys. (View the route Easy Company took here.)

Reading Band of Brothers, I was struck by a number of things that are worth mentioning.

One is how so many people volunteered to fight in the war. If I am not mistaken, all of the original members of Easy Company were volunteers. What's more, their story was one of constant shortages. When fighting in Bastogne, for instance, they had little ammunition, no winter clothing, very little food, and yet had to contend with a major counter offensive by the German Army. The shortages were not only endured by soldiers on the front, of course. Back on the home front, all sorts of things from sugar and butter to nylon and gasoline were rationed, limiting what people could buy even if, and this is important, they could afford to buy more, meaning everyone was, to some extent, feeling the effects of the war.

Contrast that with the situation today in the U.S., where in our two most recent wars the general population was never really called on to make sacrifices. Rather than reintroducing conscription which would not have been unimaginable considering America was involved in two wars,[2] members of the National Guard and reservists were instead sent to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Guardsmen who often joined up thinking they’d only have to put in one weekend a month, two weeks a year were now being mobilized for twenty-four months. During the height of the Iraq War, some 28% of troops were Guardsmen or reservists. (In the meantime, their homes were being foreclosed upon. Utterly shameful.) And, instead of, say, raising the tax on gasoline at the pump to help pay for the wars, Bush (What me worry?) pushed through a second round of tax cuts. Almost as unthinkable, the government continued to give a tax break to businesses which bought gas-guzzling SUVs, thanks to a tax loophole so big you could drive a Hummer through it. (And many did.) Were average Americans asked to sacrifice? No, they were told to “get down to Disney World in Florida”. Unbelievable.

The second thing that occurred to me is how little time had passed between the end of the war and my debut on this planet of ours. I was born in the mid 60s, a little over twenty years after the end of the war in Europe. I’ve been living in Japan for longer than that now and it seems like only yesterday when I first arrived. The war, I imagine, must have still been very fresh on the minds of those who had fought it. By the 1960s, many of the veterans would have been in their mid forties, my age at the time of writing this.. (Easy Company was made up of kids when they jumped from planes into Normandy.) They would have witnessed the U.S., which had once been a reluctant entrant into that most destructive and deadly of wars, become an enthusiastic dabbler in other nation’s affairs.[3] I wonder how they felt about that.

Although my father was only fifteen when the war came to an end†, two of my uncles on my mother's side did serve. One of them was only 14 or so when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, but the war would drag on long enough for him to become old enough (17)  to enlist. Imagine that. His brother who was nine years his senior was drafted and joined the US Army Air Forces. 

Born in the 1960s, I grew up watching a hell of a lot of TV dramas and movies about World War II. On the boob tube there was Hogan's Heroes, one of my favorites, Combat, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and so on. Hollywood produced classics, such as The Dirty Dozen, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Kelly's Heroes, The Great Escape, A Bridge Too Far, The Bridge over River Kwai, The Longest Day, Patton, From Here to Eternity. . . And these are just the ones that I can name off the top of my head. I even played with plastic toy soldiers that were modeled after WWII soldiers and a replica machine gun. So, even though I had been born two decades after the war's end, it still felt close, far closer than what was happening in Vietnam, oddly enough.

The proximity in time of the war hit home again when as a teenager in the mid 1980s I lived in Germany. It was not unusual at the time to find buildings that showed evidence of damage due to the fighting or to see men in their fifties and sixties who were missing limbs. The grandfather of one of the families I lived with in had been a tank driver on the Eastern front and had lost an eye. Some six to eight million Germans would die in the war, that's 8 to 10 percent of the country's 1939 population.[4]There were Germans, believe it or not, who were still bitter at what the Americans had done to them. I recall one old woman giving me an earful as she recounted the “cruelty” of the Americans forcing her to bury the dead at a concentration camp. (No, I am not making this up.) Looking at the map, the closest concentration camp to Göttingen, the city where I lived the longest, was the notorious Buchenwald camp fifty miles to the southeast. At the time, it was located in the DDR, or East Germany.

Despite the hardships, many Americans endured before and during World War II, the so-called “Greatest Generation” lived through some of America’s darkest and brightest days. Sons of the Great Depression they saw a country, which had been down on its luck, muster the strength to stand up to and eventually defeat two of the most awesome military powers the world had known. They would return victors, start families, and enjoy a prosperity that expanded the middle class, making the American Dream readily available to so many people. They would go on to retire in the mid 1980s when Reagan declared that it was morning again in America. They sacrificed much, but gained much in return. I wish the same could be said today.

---

[1] The series was released on DVD in Japan in 2002. I am currently rewatching it for the nth time.

[2] I have long been an advocate of conscription without deferments (period) as a way to prevent war. It’s very easy to say you “support the troops” or back this military action or that if you don’t actually have skin in the game, so to speak. If it were your son who was going to be shipped off to a foreign country to fight in a war that is based on questionable grounds, you might be inclined to demand more evidence before jumping on the bandwagon. The sons and daughters of America’s congressmen should also be forced to serve in conflict zones at times of war.

[3] First Indochina War (1950-1954); Korean War (1950-1953); Second Indochina War (1953-1975); Laotian Civil War (1953-1975); 1958 Lebanon Crisis (July 15 – October 25); Bay of Pigs (1961); Cuban Missile Crisis (1961); Cambodian Civil War (1970-1975); Invasion of Dominican Republic (1965-1966). And that’s just before I was born. Sheesh!

Interestingly, there was a lull of about ten years between the end of WWII and America’s intervention in East Asian/SE Asian conflicts. There was another lull of about ten years from the end of hostilities in Vietnam until Reagan’s Grenada and other follies. Is this merely a coincidence or is roughly ten years the amount of time needed for the American public to start forgetting about the most recent war?

†He would, however, join the Navy reserves upon graduation from high school at the age of 17. He drafted and entered the Marines (don't know why) in his second year at Boston College. He would spend the next decade or so in the Marines, including one year in Japan and a stint in Korea during the war there. An injury to his hand the day before being shipped out probably prevented him from having to do any fighting in Korea and may have saved his life. Dumb luck.

My paternal grandfather ran away from home, or so the story goes, and joined the Army at the age of sixteen or so by using someone else's ID. He served in Europe during WWI. I recall seeing a picture of him once standing next to one of those massive cannons that were moved around by rail. Now that I think about it, there were quite a few vets on both sides of my family. None of my brothers, brothers-in-law nor I ever served, but a number of my nephews have. One even graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis a few years back and is currently training to be a fighter pilot. He's one very driven young man. 

[4] 30% of Germany’s troops were killed in the War as opposed to only 2.5% of American troops, which seems awfully low by comparison. I think this points to the large number of Americans, some 16.6 million people who were mobilized for the war effort. If my calculation is correct that comes to 11.8% of the population in 1945, or roughly 20% of the male population.

Good and Bad

This was unexpected.

I read years ago that about 80% of the most commonly used English words have their origin in German. Point to something on your body or in your immediate surroundings and it may have a German cousin. Commonly used, everyday words, too, have German origins--eat (essen); go (gehen); have (haben), etc.

How about adjectives? The same is true there.

The English word "good" has its roots in the German "gut". Good's irregular comparative and superlative forms come from German as well. Better in German is besser; best, is best.

What about "bad", then? Does that also come from German? Nope. Bad in German is schlecht. schlecht, schlechter, schlechtest. So what's the etymology of "bad"?

Well, here's where it gets intersting. Middle English. It may stem from the Old English bǣddel which means "hermaphrodite, womanish man".

Toru Howaito Moka

I've been in Japan for over twenty years and have not only passed the first level of the Nihongo Nôryoku Shiken and a host of other proficiency tests, but also have a masters in the bloody language. Nevertheless, I still have trouble making myself understood from time to time. 

This morning's visit to Starbucks is a case in point.

With about ten minutes before I had to head out to work, I popped into the neighborhood Starbuck's and ordered a "Tall white mocha to go." (O-mochi-kaeri-de, tōru howaito moka)

The girl turned around and started to reach for a mug cup.

"It's to go," I reminded her.

"I'm sorry."

"No worries."

But then, she grabbed a paper cup and filled it with the the house blend.

"Um, I wanted a white mocha," I said, stressing the "ho" in "howaito", which begs the question of why the Japanese insist on pronouncing "white" with a ho. They don't pronounce "what" "howatto", "why" "howai", or "water" "howattah".

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"Quite alright."

But it wasn't really. Every time these incidences of miscommunication happen to me, my confidence in the language takes a hit. 

"That'll be four-hundred and twenty yen," she said. "Your drink will be waiting for you at the red lamp."

"Thank you."

And so I waited by the red lamp.

In the meantime two more customers had come in, ordered their drinks and were now waiting beside me.

Before long, the barista placed a drink on the counter and said, "Starbucks latte."

There were no takers.

"Starbucks latte," he said again.

I looked at the other customers. They looked at me and shrugged. The Starbucks latte remained unclaimed.

The barista then went about making two more drinks which the other two customers took, leaving me and the unclaimed Starbucks latte both feeling stupid.

I asked the latte if this happened to him a lot. "Every now and then," he replied. What do they do with you, I asked. "Sometimes the staff drinks me, but usually they just toss me out. It's awfully humialting." I bet it is, I replied.

After a minute or so, it finally dawned on the barista that something might be wrong. When he looked at me, I suggested, "Ho-white mocha?"

He looked towards the girl who confirmed my order, and with a heavy sigh removed the unclaimed Starbucks latte and busied himself with making my drink.

Live and Burn

A few months into this expat thang, my friend "Blad" and I went to an izakaya and, equipped with a few phrases and a working knowledge of hiragana and katakana, ordered "Yakitori!"

The waiter made a funny face asked a few questions we couldn't understand, so we said, "Yakitori KUDASAI!" and felt triumphant.

About 40 minutes later, the waiter brought out two skippy skewers of chicken.

"This isn't going to do it," I said to my friend and suggested ordering some more.

He replied, "Let's just go home."

Two months later and now equipped with a few kanji and a few more phrases, we went to a proper yakitori-ya and I'll be damned if we could read even 5% of the menu.

On one of the boards, there was something written in katakana, which HAD to be something western, so we ordered that.

15 minutes later a black, winged animal with a skewer through its head and eyeballs staring back at us was brought to our table.

What the hell is this?!?!

In that great democratic tradition, we jankened to see who would be the jackass who had to eat it.

Blad lost.

As he bit into it, I asked how it tasted.

"Crunchy."

Defeated, we returned home where I consulted my dictionary which informed me that スズメ was not bat as we suspected, but sparrow.

Live and burn.

Despite losing limbs every time I stepped on a landmine like that, I miss the adventure. You learned something every day, or you went home.

Bombs Away

Wayne—BoomBoom—LaDerrière, the head of the National Bomb Association, lobbed a verbal grenade at critics following the bombing at the Boston Marathon and calls for tougher bomb-control laws. We have included an excerpt of LaDerrière’s speech here:

"As spectators, we do everything we can to keep our athletes safe. It is now time for us to assume responsibility for their safety at sporting events. The only way to stop a monster from killing our sports heroes is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a bomb is a good guy with a bomb.

"Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: 'More bombs,' you'll claim, 'are the NBA's answer to everything!' Your implication will be that bombs are evil and have no place in society, much less in our sporting events. But since when did the word 'bomb' automatically become a bad word?

"A bomb in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the President isn't a bad word. A bomb in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass shattering in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a bomb in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

"So why is the idea of a bomb good when it's used to protect our President or our country or our police; but bad when it's used to protect our athletes in their sporting events?"

"I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put police officers armed with explosive belts or suicide vests at every major sporting event - and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of Semtex is in place when our athletes return to their next game, match, or race."

"Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over legislation, regulation or anything else, as soon as our sportsmen and sportswomen return to the field, court or pitch, we need to have every single stadium, gymnasium, court and racetrack in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work - and by that I mean security armed with grenades, mortars, and plastic explosives, embedded with nuts and bolts and nails.

"Right now, today, every stadium, gym and aerobics club in the United States should plan meetings with instructors, coaches, administrators, team owners, and local authorities - and draw upon every resource available - to erect a cordon of destruction around our athletes right now."

"There'll be time for talk and debate later. This is the time, the clock is literally ticking, this is the day for decisive action.

"We can't wait for the next unspeakable crime to happen before we act. We can't lose precious time debating legislation that won't work. We mustn't allow politics or personal prejudice to divide us. We must act now, never forgetting that bombs don’t kill people, people do."

Unemployment and Welfare in Japan

While this is old news, it is still interesting. (I will try to find more up-to-date stats later.)

The upper graph shows the persentage of people in each prefecture who received welfare benefits (生活保護, seikatsu hogo) in 2010. Starting from the left, the rate for the entire nation (全国) is 15.2%. Next is Hokkaidô (北海道) at a whopping 29%. Aomori, 20.8%. 19.5% of the residents of Tōkyō (東京) are on welfare; 15.3% in Kanagawa (神奈川). Ōsaka (大阪) has the largest number of welfare recipients at an unbelievable rate of 32%, meaning some 2.8 million people in the prefecture are receiving benefits. Kōchi (高知) on the island of Shikoku has a rate of 26%. In the prefecture of Fukuoka, where I live, 24.1% of the population is getting government aid, the fourth highest in the nation. Interestingly, in neighboring Saga prefecture (佐賀) the rate is only 8.7%.

The red line indicates what the rate was in 1997. In every single prefecture the rate went up, in many cases doubling.

2010 was not a bumper year in Japan. Thanks the what the Japanese call "The Lehman Shock" (and I call "The Panic of 2007-2008"), the official unemployment rate was at its highest level since the 2002 recession following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It has since come down and now hovers between 3.5% and 4%, or at about the same level that was seen in 1997 when the Asian financial crisis threatened a global economic meltdown. (So many economic crisises are bad for the heart.) I would think that the percentage of those who are receiving welfare benefits today has also come down. (I'll have to look into that.)

One thing that struck me, actually several things did, but one thing that impressed me is how larger, vibrant cities like Fukuoka had such high welfare rates, while places like Saga which, I'm sorry to say, don't have a whole hell of a lot going for them—the same could be said of Hokuriku (Toyama 富山, Ishikawa 石川, etc.)—have such low rates. My theory for this is that the younger stratum of the population has left for bigger cities to look for work, lowering the welfare rates of their home towns, but raising them in the cities. (Visit Saga city on a Sunday afternoon and I challenge you to try to find a person in his or her 20s. They just aren't there.)

The second graph shows unemployment rates on the X axis and welfare rates on the Y axis. As one might suspect, there is a positive correlation between the two: the higher the unemployment rate, chances are the welfare rate will also be high. Fukuoka (福岡), again, had the fourth highest rates in the country in 2010. 

Here is information from 2018:

Literal Translation of Japanese Prefectural Names

北海道

Hokkaidō: literally Northern Sea Circuit or Road.

In the Ainu language, it is called アイヌ・モシル, Aynu mosir, which means "Land of the Ainu [people]". Hokkaido was formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso. Six names for the region were proposed in the Meiji Period, including Kaihokudō (海北道) and Hokkaidō (北加伊道). Hokkaidō written 北海道 was chosen, one, for its similarity to 東海道 (Tōkaidō), and, two, because the Ainu called the region Kai.

青森

Aomori: literally “Blue Forest”

The Japanese word for blue (青) can also mean dark green, so Aomori could be translated as “green forest”. The name Aomori comes from the village of Aomori to which the capital of the newly established prefecture was moved in September of Meiji 4 (1871). The name Aomori had been given to a newly constructed port in the Hirosaki Han (feudal domain) in the early Edo Period (1624). It is said the name originated from the dark green forests that could be seen from the sea.

Ao(i) (青い) is used for a number of things in nature: 青葉 (aoba, “green leaves”, 青りんご (aoringo, “green apple”), 青々とした新緑 (aoao toshita shinryoku, “lush new green leaves”). Green traffic lights (青信号, aoshingō; lit. blue signal) reflected the color found in nature.

秋田

Akita: lit. “Autumn Rice Paddy/Field”

Probably named after the military settlement called “Akita Jō that was built in 733. The fort was the base from which operations to colonize the region and subdue the native Emishi people (lit. “shrimp barbarians”), an ethnic group, possibly distinct from the Ainu and Jōmon, who lived in the Tōhoku region.

岩手

Iwate: lit. “Rock Hand”

Several theories about the origin of the name "Iwate" exist, but the most well known is the tale Oni no Tegata, which is associated with the Mitsuishi or Three Rocks Shrine in Morioka. The rocks are said to have been thrown down into Morioka by an eruption of Mt. Iwate. According to the legend, there once was a devil who tormented the local people. When the people prayed to the spirits of Mitsuishi for protection, the devil was immediately shackled to these rocks and forced to make a promise never to trouble the people again. As a seal of his oath, the devil made a handprint on one of the rocks, thus giving rise to the name Iwate.

山形

Yamagata: lit. “Mountain Shape”

The name comes from the name of a town, Yamagata (山方), meaning near the mountains.

宮城

Miyagi: lit. “Shrine Castle”

The name was taken from the centrally located Miyagi Gun (county or district) when the name changed from Sendai Prefecture in 1872.

新潟

Niigata: lit. “New Lagoon”

Named after the capital of the prefecture. The city itself was named after a place name that was recorded in 1520. The reason for the name, however, was not written, but several theories exist. One, there was a kata or lagoon at the mouth of the Shinano River. Another theory states that in the Shinano River a new island built up naturally over time and was the site of a hamlet called Niigata, but spelt with a different kanji, 新方. And so on.

福島

Fukushima: lit. “Lucky Island”

The prefecture is named after Fukushima-jō, a castle that has undergone a number of name changes over the years. Originally called Daibutsu-jō or Osaragi-jō (大仏城, lit. “Great Buddha Castle”), the Date Clan called it Suginomejō (杉目城 or 杉妻城). In 1592, the area was conquered during the Warring States Period in the late 16th century and became the center of the domain. It was renamed Fukushima as this was considered a more auspicious name.

群馬

Gunma: lit. “Herd [of] Horses”

Originally Kuruma no Kōri, where Kuruma was written with a single character (車, wheel or vehicle). In the early Nara Period (710-794), it became popular to name counties (郡, kōri) or and countries (郷, gō) with two kanji. Gunma, which means “horses herd together”, became the new name. From ancient times, the area had been known as a place where valuable horses roamed.

栃木

Tochigi: lit. “Japanese Horse Chestnut Tree”

Tochigi Prefecture is one of three prefectures, the other two being Yamanashi and Okinawa, in which the capital is located in a city with a name different from the prefecture’s. In the case of Tochigi, the capital is located in Utsunomiya. Tochigi City, however, did serve as the capital city for a spell during the Meiji Period and the prefecture was named after the capital at that time. The name of the city is believed to have come from Japanese horse-chestnut trees that were located in the center of the land that became the city. Another theory is that the name actually means “ten chigi” (十千木, pron. “tōchigi”). Chigi are forked roof finials found in Japanese and Shinto architecture.

茨城

Ibaraki: lit. “Thorn Castle”

There is a lot of confusion as to how to read 茨城. Many people, including myself say “IbaraGI”. The problem was so common, the prefecture conducted an online campaign to teach the correct pronunciation “IbaraKI”, but sometimes you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks. There are three main reasons for the mistake. For starters, that’s how they say the prefectural name in the local dialect, so, um, what’s the problem; two, IbaraGI City in Kansai, which is spelled with the same kanji; and, three, the prefecture MiyaGI which uses the same kanji (城). The name Ibaraki comes from Ibaraki District (茨城郡) in the center of the prefecture. There are two theories regarding the name. One claims that a warrior from the imperial court named Kurosaka no Mikoto destroyed the indigenous tribes wielding thorny branches as weapons. Another theory is that a castle of thorns was built to protect people from bandits. Both stories are similar to other legends that were promoted to establish the authority of the Yamato race as its influence spread throughout Japan.

富山

Toyama: lit. “Wealth/Prosperous Mountain”

The name has its roots in the Muromachi Period (1336~1573) when the area was called 越中国外山郷 (Etchū no Kuni Toyoma-gō), or the “Outer Mountains of Etchū Province”. Toyama spell 富山 was first seen in the Sengoku (Warring States) Period (1467~1615). By the Edo Period (1603~1868), both spellings were being used.

長野

Nagano: lit. “Long Field”

May be a reference to the Nagano Basin of the Chūbu Region. Following the Meiji Restoration, Nagano became the first established modern town in the prefecture on April 1, 1897.

埼玉

Saitama: lit. “Cape Gem”

The name come from Sakitama Mura (埼玉村) in Saitama District, modern-day Gyōda City, and is believed to have originated from the Sakitama Kofun in the city and may have come from the name Sakitama (埼魂), meaning the action of the gods to bring fortune. Another theory states that it comes from Sakitama (前玉 or 佐吉多万) which are mentioned in the Nara Period collection of waka poetry, Manyōshū (万葉集) which was compiled after 759. The pronunciation of Sakitama predates Saitama and reflects a ki→i shift, known as the i-onbin. Examples include:

• 「埼玉」 サキタマ → サイタマ

• 「大分」 オオキタ → オオイタ

• 「次手」 ツギテ → ツイデ 「ついで」

• 「月立ち」 ツキタチ → ツイタチ 「朔日」

• 「咲きて」 サキテ → サイテ 「咲いて」

• 「急ぎて」 イソギテ → イソイデ 「急いで」

• 「高き」 タカキ → タカイ

• 「久しき」 ヒサシキ → ヒサシイ

This same shift can be seen in the dialects of western Japan where しないで is often pronounced せんで or せいで: (セズテ → センデ → セイデ). If I am not mistaken, the shift took place in the Heian Period. (Still trying confirm this.)

千葉

Chiba: lit. “One Thousand Leaves”

There are a number of theories regarding the origin of the prefecture’s name. One of them comes from a sakimori no uta (防人歌), a poem in the Manyōshū collection (Vol. 20, 4387), penned by a soldier who was sent to protect the northern coast of Kyūshū. The conditions under which a sakimori traveled and lived were often harsh and their poems reflected this. Ōtabe no Tarihito was one such soldier from the District of Chiba in Shimōsa Province and he penned the following poem:

Original written in man’yōgana:

Original written in man’yōgana:

知波乃奴乃

古乃弖加之波能

保々麻例等

阿夜尓加奈之美

於枳弖他加枳奴

Transliteration:

千葉の野の

児手柏の

ほほまれど

あやに愛しみ

置きて高来ぬ

Romanization:

Chiba no nu no

Konotekashihano

Hohomaredo

Ayanikanashimi

Okitetagakinu

Modern Japanese: 千葉の野の児手柏（このてかしわ）の若葉のように、まだ初々しくて可愛いいあの子を置いてはるばるやってきた。

Interpretation: 千葉の野の、児手柏(このてかしは)の(花のつぼみの)ように、初々しくってかわいいけれど、とてもいとおしいので、何もせずに(遠く)ここまでやってきました。

English Translation: I’ve come from far away, leaving that pure and innocent girl behind like the young leaves of konote oak of the Chiba meadow,

東京

Tōkyō: lit. “Eastern Capital”

Originally a fishing village, named Edo (江戸, lit. “bay/inlet entrance” or “estuary”), the city became the de facto political center of Japan in 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa Shōgunate. When the shōgunate fell in 1868, the imperial capital of Japan, along with the imperial family, was moved to Edo and the city renamed. The addition of the kanji 京 (kyō) was in line with the East Asian tradition—Beijing (北京, Norther Capital); Nanjing '(南京, Souther Capital), etc.

福井

Fukui: lit. “Lucky Well”

The name of the prefecture was originally written 福居 and refers to the castle that was built on the ruins of Kitanoshō Castle in 1601 by the second son of Tokugawa Ieyasu following his victory in the Battle of Sekigahara the year before. The castle was renamed "Fukui Castle" by the third daimyō of Fukui Domain, Matsudaira Tadamasa, in 1624 after a well called Fukunoi, or "good luck well", the remains of which can still be seen today.

岐阜

Gifu: Wanting to be considered not only the unifier of Japan but also a great mind, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) named the region’s capital Gifu, after Qishan (岐山), a legendary mountain in China and Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius (曲阜).

愛知

Aichi: lit. “Love and Knowledge”

Aichi was the name of the gun (district) which was located where the downtown of modern-day Nagoya City is located and was originally written ayuchi (年魚市) and refers to the Ayuchigata Inlet, mentioned in the Manyōshū collection of classical Japanese poetry of the Nara Period.

「桜田へ鶴（たず）鳴き渡る―潮干にけらし鶴鳴き渡る」

〈万葉集•271〉

意味・・桜田の方へ、あれあのように鶴が群れ鳴き渡って いく。 これで見ると、年魚市潟は潮干したものと 見える。 だから餌を求めて鶴が、あんなに鳴いて 羽ばたいて行くよ。 鶴は干潟に降りて餌を漁(あさ)る習性があるので 年魚市潟の方に飛んで行く鶴を見て潮干になった と想像して詠んだ歌です。

静岡

Shizuoka: lit. “Quiet Hill”.

Named after the Shizuoka Domain that existed in the area from 1869 to 1871 and was centered at Sunpu Castle (駿府城). Prior to that, the feudal domain was called Sunpu-han. The name Shizuoka was decided in 1869 by the political reforms of the hansekihōkan (版籍奉還) royal charter of July 25th of that year. The area around the prefectural office was known as fuchū (府中). Due to the similarity with the synonym fuchū (不忠, lit. “disloyalty”), the Meiji government suggest three other options: Shizuoka (静岡), Shizu (静), Shizujo (静城). The roots of the name “Shizuoka” itself is derived from Shizuhata-yama (賤機山), a 171-meter high mountain in the prefecture. Another word for 賤 (shizu) is iyashii (卑しい) which can mean “greedy”, “vulgar”, “shabby” or “humble”, as in a person of humble birth (卑しい生まれの人).

山梨

Yamanashi: lit. “Mountain Pear”.

From Yamanashi-gun, which was named after a famous ancient pear tear in the mountain behind the Yamanashi Oka Shrine in the Kasugai district (春日居町). There is a tendency to believe that the name derived from the mountain peaches that grew in the area, but according to the Fūdoki (風土記)—ancient reports on provincial culture that were presented to the monarch, and are considered to be the oldest written records from the Nara Period (710-794)—Yamanashi was formally written 山無瀬, 夜萬奈之, and 山平らす (Yamanarasu) in reference to the lack of hills and peaks in the Kōfu Basin (甲府盆地). Over time, Yamanarasu became Yamanashi. In the year Wado (和銅) 6 or 713 AD, the Wadokanrei was passed whereby the names of the provinces had to be written by the most commonly used version in existence at the time. Yamanashi written 山梨 was chosen.

滋賀

Shiga: lit. “Where there are many rocks”.

When the han system was abolished in 1871, eight prefectures were formed in the former Omi Province. A year later, they were unified into Shiga Prefecture. The name "Shiga Prefecture" came from "Shiga District" (滋賀郡) because Otsu, a city on the western coast of Lake Biwa and the capital of the prefecture today, was part of it. As for the origin of the name, there are several theories. The most dominant one claims that it comes from shika (シカ, 石処) which means “place with many stones”. The abundance of other “rocky” areas similarly named Shika have given this theory credence. Another claims that the name comes from suka (スカ, 砂処), meaning wetland or shoal (tidal sandbar).

Finally, there is some conjecture that the name derives from Shika no Shima (志賀島) in Hakata, Fukuoka, which was ruled by the Azumi people (阿曇氏), a seafaring warrior tribe in northern Kyūshū.

三重

Mie: lit. “Three Layers”.

The name Mie is believed to have been taken from the final words of Yamato Takeru (日本武尊 or 倭建命), a semi-legendary prince and son of the 12th Emperor of Japan who died in the Ise Province. As he was traveling from the region of modern-day Kuwana City (桑名市) towards Kameyama City to the south he passed through Mie district, where according to the Kojiki, he said:

Classical Japanese: 吾が足は三重の勾がりの如くして甚だ疲れたり

Transliteration: Wagahai-ga ashi-wa Mie no magari no gotokushite hanahada tsukaretari.

Modern Japanese: 私の足は三重の曲り餅のようになって、とても疲れた。

Translation: My legs were exhausted like twisted Mie magari-mochi.

Notes: まがり餅は米をこねて曲げてあげたお菓子。果たして「まがり」が「まがり餅」だと直結できるのかはよくわかりませんが――まぁ「三重のマガリのごとく」という文章から言うとまがり餅というか「三重のまがり」という造形のお菓子があったという方がすっきりしますね。それだけ「ヘトヘト」という意味でしょう。 ちなみにネットで見ると三重では鉄工業が盛んでその公害で足が曲がった人が実際にいた、という話を見かけましたが、うーん、まぁ、ねぇ。

京都

Kyōto: lit. “Capital City”.

Kyōto was originally called Kyō (京, capital; metropolis), Miyako (都, the capital), or even Kyō no Miyako (京の都) until the 11th century, when the city was renamed "Kyōto" (京都, lit. "capital city"), after the Middle Chinese kiang-tuo (or jīngdū in Mandarin). When the imperial palace moved from Kyōto to Tōkyō in 1868, Kyōto was briefly known as Saikyō (西京), or Western Capital, contrasting it from Tōkyō, the “Western Capital”.

Throughout Eastern Asia in ancient times, the city where the Tenshi (天子) or emperor lived was called Kyō (京) or Keishi (京師), meaning the “capital”. During China’s Jin Dynasty (266-420), however, the character 師 was often used in the “temple names” of emperors, so to avoid confusion—i.e. is this the name of a city or is it someone’s name—都 was adopted.

When Heian-kyō was first being established as the new capital, there was no consensus on how to call it and so the city was called by a number of names: Kyō, Keishi, and Kyōnomiyako.

奈良

Nara: lit. “Flat Land”

A number of different characters have been used to represent the name Nara, including 乃楽, 乃羅, 平, 平城, 名良, 奈良, 奈羅, 常, 那良, 那楽, 那羅, 楢, 諾良, 諾楽, 寧, 寧楽 and 儺羅. The most widely accepted theory for the name of the prefecture (i.e. “Flat Land”) comes from a 1936 study of place names by folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962) in which he wrote, “"the topographical feature of an area of relatively gentle gradient on the side of a mountain, which is called taira in eastern Japan and hae in the south of Kyushu, is called naru in the Chūgoku region and Shikoku (central Japan). This word gives rise to the verb narasu, adverb narashi, and adjective narushi." Other theories argue that the name is derived from from 楢 nara, meaning "oak”; that it means “to flatten or level (a hill)”; or that it comes from the Korean nara (나라: "country, nation, kingdom").

兵庫

Hyōgo: lit. “Troops Storage”

Named after the castle Hyōgo-jō that belonged to the Amagasaki Domaine and stood at Nakanoshima, Hyōgo Ward from 1581 to 1769. During the Edo Period, it became the seat of the jinya (陣屋) or an administrative headquarters for the province and housed the head of the administration and grain storehouse. Domains assessed at 30,000 koku (4.5 million kilograms) or less of rice had jinya instead of castles. The name itself dates back to Emperor Tenji (天智天皇, 661-672) when there was a tsuwamono (兵) gura (庫), or a place to keep warriors and weapons.

大阪

Ōsaka: lit. “Big Slope”

Wiki: Ōsaka means "large hill" or "large slope". It is unclear when this name gained prominence over Naniwa, but the oldest written evidence for the name dates back to 1496. By the Edo period, 大坂 (Ōsaka) and 大阪 (Ōsaka) were mixed use, and the writer Hamamatsu Utakuni, in his book "Setsuyo Ochiboshu" published in 1808, states that the kanji 坂 was abhorred because it "returns to the earth," and then 阪 was used. The kanji 土 (earth) is also similar to the word 士 (knight), and 反 means against, so 坂 can be read as "samurai rebellion," then 阪 was official name in 1868 after the Meiji Restoration. The older kanji (坂) is still in very limited use, usually onlyin historical contexts. As an abbreviation, the modern kanji 阪 han refers to Osaka City or Osaka Prefecture.

和歌山

Wakayama: lit. “Poem Mountain”

「和歌山（わかやま）」の語源・由来は、「和歌浦」の和歌と「岡山」の山との合成語とされている。住所表記での「和歌浦」は「わかうら」と読むために、地元住民は一帯を指して「わかうら」と呼ぶことが多い。狭義では玉津島と片男波を結ぶ砂嘴と周辺一帯を指すのに対し、広義ではそれらに加え、新和歌浦、雑賀山を隔てた漁業集落の田野、雑賀崎一帯を指す。名称は和歌の浦とも表記する。

『万葉集』にも詠まれた古からの風光明媚なる地で、近世においても天橋立に比肩する景勝地とされた。近現代において東部は著しく地形が変わったため往時の面影は見られないが、2011年にようやく国の名勝に指定され、また自然海岸を残す西部の雑賀崎周辺は瀬戸内海国立公園の特別地域に指定されており、それぞれ保護されている。岡山城（おかやまじょう）は、紀伊国（和歌山県和歌山市岡山丁）にあった日本の城。岡城とも呼ばれる。

沖縄

Okinawa: lit: “offshore rope”

In his Okinawa: The History of an Island People, George H. Kerr writes: “‘a rope in the offing’ . . . is an apt enough description for the long narrow island which dominates our story. On a map the island chain itself suggest a knotted rope tossed carelessly upon the sea. The southernmost island (Yonaguni) lies within sight of Formosa on an exceptionally clear day; the northernmost, severn hundred miles away, lies just off the tip of Kyushu Island in Japan." Between these two points are 140 islands and reefs, but only thirty-six now have permanent habitations on them.” Locally, the name of prefecture is pronounced Uchinaa.

Why was Setsubun on February 2nd?

Many people on SNS have noted that Setsubun, the eve of risshun (立春), or the first day of spring according to the lunisolar calendar (tai'in/taiyō reki, 太陰太陰暦), fell on February 2nd for the first time in 124 years. The last time this happened was Meiji 30 or 1897.

But why is this?

Like many “uniquely" Japanese traditions, risshun is actually one of the 24 solar terms of the Asian calendar which originated in China, but spread throughout the East Asian cultural sphere. In China, it is known as Lìchūn and begins when the Sun reaches the “celestial longitude of 315° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 330°. It should be noted that each of the 24 solar terms are spaced 15° apart along the ecliptic, or the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

It takes the Earth 365.2422 days to orbit the Sun and because of that 6 hour difference, the exact time at which the four annual setsubun (yes, four) occurs differs from year to year. Today, we add one extra day to the year every four years, or every leap year. The leap year in Japan is called urūdoshi (閏年). Before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, each month in Japan lasted 30 days, with the year lasting only 354 days. In order to make up for the loss of 11 days a year, an urūtsuki, or “leap month”, was added every three years.

Incidentally, each solar term is divided into three pentads, or (候, hòu in Chinese; kō in Japanese), meaning there are actually 72 pentads or “micro seasons” in Japan, rather than the exalted four. The present micro season or kō is Harukaze Kōri-wo Toku (東風解凍, also tōfū kaitō) and means “Spring (or Eastern) winds thaw the ice."

The next solar term is Usui (雨水, yǔshuǐ in Chinese, ushii in Ryūkyūan) will fall on February 19th and refers to spring rain.

If you would like to know before hand what day Setsubun will fall on, divide the year by four. From 2021 to 2057, if 1 remains, Setsubun will fall on the 2nd; if two, three, or zero remains, Setsubun will fall on the 3rd. Because of this Setsubun will fall on the second of February every four years from 2021 to 2057.

Vacation Pay, Then and Now

When looking into the value of a hundred yen at the end of the Pacific War, I came across a number of interesting comments and anecdotes. One person claimed—and I have yet to fact check this—that a junior high school graduate’s starting salary in 1945 was about 100 yen. An employee in those days would be expected to work ten hours a day, and would be given only two days off a month. Paid vacation did not exist seventy years ago. By 1946, starting salaries rose to four or five hundred yen due to the effects of the post-war inflation and shortages. 100 yen in 1946, could be said to be equivalent to about fifty thousand yen today. 

A week ago, I was talking with a woman who worked for a company that runs a number of fashionable hotels and restaurants throughout Japan and in LA and Manhattan. She was on holiday at the time, explaining that she was entitled to take a total of twenty-two days paid vacation every year. Many companies in Japan give lip service to paid-holidays, but few actually let them take so many days off. The woman had taken off eleven days in order to travel to Kansai. She said she was going take another eleven days off in the summer and travel to America.

When I first came to Japan, most people, including me, worked six days a week. The Prime Minister at the time, Kiichi Miyazawa (yes, that long ago), declared that he wanted to make Japan the world’s leading country regarding lifestyle and leisure. It made me laugh at the time. Even if companies offered their employees paid vacations, none of them could actually take time off. If you wanted to use the benefit, you normally had to resign from your job first. Masao Miyamoto wrote of this in his highly-recommended Straightjacket Society.

Things, I'm happy to say, really have improved for many workers in Japan over the past two decades. There have, no question about it, been a lot of losers, too—part-timers, contract workers, and the like—but that’ll have to wait until another post.

Maybe you can buy love

  According to the Tokyo Reporter, police in Fukuoka arrested seven suspects on Tuesday for registering non-existent users on an Internet matchmaking site. “Officers from the prefecture’s anti-cybercrime division took Keiichiro Yokomizo, 37, the former president of Garage Inc., and six employees into custody for defrauding 45 members of the deai-kei (or encounter) dating site Deai BBS out of 85 million yen.”

“Deai BBS had 120,000 male and female members on its books. Since its establishment in 2005, the site generated over two billion yen in revenue. According to police, the majority of its users consisted of sakura, or fake, profiles fabricated by company employees.”

120,000 members!!!

2 billion yen!!!

About ten years or so ago, a young university coed told me that she had recently interviewed with a company that ran one of these so-called “deai” (encounter) sites. She had been looking for a part-time job, something to do in the evenings after school and came across a want-ad seeking young women with “computer-related experience” for “clerical work”. She called them up and arranged an interview.

As soon as she had entered the company’s office, she suspected that something was not kosher.

There was a large room with banks of computers, she told me. A small army of young women were typing away on keyboards or sending text-messages from cellphones. All of them were the sakura, women hired to send messages to the male subscribers to entice them to reply (for a fee, of course) in the hope of eventually setting up a date that would never, ever take place, not even if pigs flew and hell froze over.

The manager, a flashy young man of only twenty-four years of age, tried his best to sell the student on the merits of the job: good pay, hands-on experience using computers and business software, and the chance to have fun “role-playing”.

“Um. I don’t think I could ever . . .”

“Sure you can!”

“No, it just doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Think of it as helping these guys. You’re giving them hope, a dream. You’re putting a skip in their step.”

“I would be deceiving them,” she said and stood up to leave.

“Well, if you ever change your mind . . .”

The TR article continues: “One victim, a 25-year-old male from Fukui Prefecture, was allegedly defrauded out of 160,000 yen ($1,539) between February 5 and March 24 of last year. A Kanagawa man, over the age of 70, was swindled out of 10 million yen ($125,000), while a woman in her 30s from Aichi Prefecture lost 20 million yen ($192,000).”

You’d think that a person would start to wise up after losing only 10,000 yen ($125), but guess again. Fools and their money, the saying aptly goes, are soon parted, much faster and easier than I thought.

“Saki”, another woman I know, confessed to me the other day that she had registered with a matchmaking service in November. While she has no trouble meeting or dating men, she has reached the age where she wants to settle down with someone and start a family.

Late last summer, Saki had seen an interview on TV of a woman who ran a successful matchmaking business in Tōkyō. The key to the woman’s success, she claimed, was her selectivity in choosing clients. Saki immediately called her up and made arrangements to meet with her the next time she was in the metropolis.

As the matchmaker deals mostly with clients in the Kantō area [1], she said couldn’t make any promises to Saki, whose first priority was finding a partner who lived closer to Fukuoka.

I was curious how much the service cost. The sign-up fee, Saki told me, was 100,000 yen ($960)—though she was able to get the price knocked down to 30,000 yen ($288) because she didn’t live in Tōkyō. There was also a “modest” fee of 10,000 yen ($104) for arranging an initial date with a prospect, which Saki has already done—she will meet Mr. Goodbar this Sunday. And, in the event that this or another one of these encounters actually leads to marriage, she will have to pay the matchmaking service a final fee of 300,000 yen. ($2,885).

“What if you just don’t tell them about the marriage?” I asked.

She replied that a friend of hers also suggested doing the same thing, but then added that she would be so happy to have finally found someone that she probably wouldn’t mind paying.

I hope everything works out for Saki.

 Follow up: Seven years later, Saki is still single.

The photos above are from the Twitter account of a Thai woman named ViennaDoll who shares Ideal vs Reality photos that are a riot. Have a look.

[1] The Kantô region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa.

Worm's-Eye View of Tokyo

The End is Nigh

Two thoughts occured to me when I saw this photo.

One, the end is not as nigh as some would like; and, two, we've clearly got plenty of time to repent, so go ahead and enjoy yourself.

If anything is true, God is not in a hurry.

Head of the Class

This was originally posted in the spring of 2013.

With my wife in the hospital suffering from exhaustion (she's fine now) and Grandma out of town, I was left with two options: take the day off or bring my three-year-old son to work. (If a Member of Congress can do it . . .)

Anyways, I sent the above photo to my family and all everyone wanted to know was why the girls were wearing surgical masks. (Now that we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, only red necks would ask a question like that.)

Could be a number of things, I wrote back:

1. They may have a cold and don't want it to spread. (Thoughtful.)

2. They don't want to catch another person's cooties. (Paranoid.)

3. They have hay fever and are trying to keep it from worsening. (Probably too late.)

4. They are trying to avoid breathing in the smog that China exports to us along with other low-cost, high-externality crap. (Understandable, but most likely meaningless.)

5. They have herpes. (Gotcha. Keep the mask on.)

6. Or, they have merely overslept and didn't have time to put their faces on. The girls are too embarrassed to show their face. (Now, you'd think it would be more embarrassing to wear a silly mask like that in public, but what do you know, you silly gaijin?)

A few days later, I asked the two girls in the photo why they had been wearing masks that day and learned that it was, as I expected, because they hadn't been wearing make-up. "What's the big deal," I said. "I'm not wearing make-up myself!"

This is a fairly new phenomenon: young women in Japan didn't use to do it, say, five years ago. You may read into that what you like.

Not Quite Lavish, But . . .

Two of my works, A Woman's Nails and B-Sides received some nice reviews from, I believe, a complete stranger. 

   On A Woman's Nails, Wasatch Range writes, "It's too bad that more of the author's brilliance, discipline and classroom observations couldn't have been interspersed throughout the book. The story appeared to be one horrible grief-stricken viewpoint of what it was like to be left by the love of his life in Japan. I realize that such angst would overtake one's soul at such a point when one is 26 or 27 years old, but he actually did observe a lot of other things that were worth reading about. Some wisdom finally came out in the last 10% of the book. I think this book is best read at top speed. Then the total presence of that grief and the repetitiveness of his trying to get out of it, plus the few minor editing errors don't appear so strong. Anyway, the last 10% of the book is worth it. All the characters plus their characterizations stay with you."

   On B-Sides, she wrote, "This is a quite insightful telling of what it's like in Japan from an American's point of view ... who has been there for decades and certainly knows his way around Japan, and can represent its quirks well. For that, it's funny.

"But the major flaw is that Crowe is really, really, really out of touch with the way men in the public eye refer to their wives in the US these days. Crowe's humor about his wife is sooo 30 years ago. Men in the public eye, who want to connect to connect to their audience DO NOT REFER TO THEIR WIVES DISRESPECTFULLY these days! IT IS NOT FUNNY!

"A very good example of how nicely men are referring to their wives in public currently, is Paul Rieser's book, Familyhood. Another set of very good examples is how the married chefs refer to their spouses on the popular TV show The Chew. It may be an accurate description of the male tone in Japan, for an author to still joke disrespectfully of one's wife, but for a reader in the U.S. these days, is a real turnoff.

"Edit (at a later time): I bought Crowe's other Kindle book, A Woman's Nails, because I otherwise really like his kind of humor, his outlook on life, and his niche. I hope, by reading his other book I'll find it possible to like his work anyway, despite what I said before.

"2nd edit: I finally finished A Woman's Nails. It was tough reading the first 90% of that book, because I kept thinking he verified my original opinion of him. It wasn't until the last 10% that I realized that this was an author I really could respect, that he had a brilliant side to him (or he wouldn't have captured the reader all the way through, and he was disciplined towards women as well, despite his own natural urges). It did change my opinion of the author, so I'm putting the deserved stars back on my review."

Many thanks, Wasatch, whoever you are. I really appreciated the time you took to write the review then and still appreciate it, today.

Yamaguchi Go Go Go

Few things conjure up images of the lost romanticism of olden times quite like the steam locomotive. Something about these magnificent mechanical contrivances—the way the whistle howls, the steam hisses, the fire burns within their bellies, and the heavy black smoke billows out--that make them seem alive.

When a friend of mine told me that he had recently been to Tsuwano on business, I looked the town up on GoogleMap and, seeing what I liked, immediately made plans to go there myself. And, discovering that the isolated town was connected to civilization by steam locomotive made the decision to go even easier. I had never traveled by "SL", as the Japanese call them, so I would be killing two birds with one stone.

The Yamaguchi-gô (山口号), travels daily from Shin Yamaguchi station (Yamaguchi prefecture) to the small town of Tsuwano in neighboring Shimane prefecture. The trip to Tsuwano takes just under two hours; the return, a little over an hour and a half.

One thing nice about this particular train is that they have done their best to make you feel that you are traveling back in time. Each of the cars is designed to match a past era.

The Meiji Era (1868 - 1912) car, for instance, looks like this on the inside:

The Shôwa Era (1926 - 1989) car we were assigned to looked like this:

The Taishô Era (1912 - 1926) car had this interior:

The funny thing about actually traveling by steam locomotive is that you soon learn why these trains have almost completely been replaced by diesel and electric trains.

First of all, the train jerks constantly as if the wheels are not quite gripping the tracks. For those who suffer from motion sickness, traveling by conventional train is recommended. 

Secondly, steam locomotives are not fast. At one point, I looked out the window and noticed that our train was being passed by a Toyota Prius of all things.

Thirdly, they are dirty. Very, very dirty.

Throughout the trip thick clouds of black smoke and ash passed by the window obscuring the view. Early on in our journey, we passed by many homes which had laundry and futon hanging out in the sun. I wouldn't be surprised if it all had to be washed again after our train passed. 

And the smoke is not only outside. The inside of the train, thanks to passengers—including myself—opening up the windows, smellt like a barbecue as thick smoke drifted through the entire length of the train.

In spite of all that, I still recommend riding on this train if you are ever in the area. The only caution I would add is that if you take the SL both to Tsuwano and back to Shin Yamaguchi, you won't have much time to see the town. (Less than three hours which passes much faster than you'd think.) Better to ride the Yamaguchi-gô to Tsuwano and then return on one of the express trains that depart later in the afternoon. Or spend the night, and return on the SL on the following day.

Row! Row!

If you think your boss is unreasonable, listen to this:

A woman I know who was working for the PR section of a fashionable hotel here in town told me that she was so busy it was not uncommon for her to have to work weekends on top of all the overtime she was putting in every day. After a period of two months without a single day off, the woman decided to stay home one Saturday and rest rather than head in to work as she had been doing.

Shortly after nine in the morning, the head manager of the hotel called her, demanding to know why she hadn’t shown up for work.

I'm not sure what she said in her defense, but the long and short of it is that she was fired, or, more likely, was forced to resign.

In her boss’s jaundiced eyes, the woman may have appeared selfish and lazy. I, on the other hand, find it astonishing that she could have endured working so long for such an unreasonable bastard.

What is work supposed to be, after all? An end in itself—work for work’s sake? How fortunate the man who can honestly say that he loves his work. Regrettably, for the majority of those of us rowing like galley slaves, work is little more than a means to provide them with the time and money to do what they really want to do.

Pinching Yennies

 Life just seems to be getting harder and harder for the beleaguered Japanese salaryman. According to a June 28th article in Mainabi News, the average monthly allowance for salarymen today has fallen to ¥38,457, the lowest since the asset price bubble burst in 1991. This is also the second lowest amount since the annual survey started being held in 1979.

While salarymen in their fifties saw a modest gain in their monthly pocket money--up a miserable 56 yen to ¥41,331--those in their twenties and thirties found their allowance dropping by 2,743 yen to ¥38,480 and 2,976 yen to ¥37,093, respectively. Men in their forties had the most meager of allowances at only ¥36,924, a slight improvement of 469 yen over last year.

Among the younger generation, single salarymen had an average monthly allowance of  ¥46,175 (down 4,219 yen from last year). Their counterparts with children, however, had a mere ¥29,552 in pocket money every month.

The above graph provides some historical perspective. It shows the change in pocket money from 1979, when the average allowance was ¥30,600 to 2003 when it was ¥42,700. The most generous allowance (¥76,000) was seen in 1990 at the height of the bubble when the Nikkei average peaked at ¥39,915. The drop seen in 2003 is attributed to a number of factors: the start of the Iraq War, the SARS epidemic, restructuring in the banking industry, and the Nikkei average falling to ¥7,909.

You can file the following under "Articles I do NOT want my wife to read".

The survey mentioned in yesterday’s posting detailed the spending habits of salarymen, finding that the average price for lunch, while up eight yen, was only ¥518, suggesting that the “one-coin lunch” [1] trend was as strong as ever. 30.7% of salarymen’s lunches consisted of bentō brought to work from home, up from 28% last year. 24.9% of lunches were bentō that had been purchased (down from 25.2%). 19.2% of lunches were eaten out (up from 17.3%). And finally 17.2% of lunches were served by their company's canteen or shokudō.

When out drinking, salarymen in 2013 spend on average ¥3,474 (up 614 yen), bringing the amount up to the 2011 level. This, however, is the third lowest amount since 1999 when the survey began inquiring about spending habits.

40-year-olds are spending an average of 905 yen more this year when out drinking (¥3,525); 50-year-olds, 1,284 yen more (¥4,114).

On average, salarymen go drinking 2.2 times per month (down 0.2), spending ¥7,689, an increase of ¥746 over last year, which witnessed the lowest amount spent on drinking outside. This year is the second lowest.

Of those salarymen who control the family finances, only 6% said they intended to increase their own allowances. 5.5% replied that they would lower it. The remaining 88.5% said that they didn’t expect to see any change in the amount of pocket money they had.

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I wrote the piece above back in 2013. (I am in the process of transferring my old blog content to my new website.) Curiosity had me look for more recent data. The following graph is from June of 2020. I suspect that as the pandemic has worsened, so have the circumstances of those poor salarymen.

Pocket money by age and sex.

As of June 2020, the average allowance/pocket money of male company employees was ¥39,419 a month, the highest level in the past five years, according to a study by the Shinsei Bank. This represented an increase of ¥2,672 over the previous year. Those in their 20s had on average ¥41,377 to blow every month. Meanwhile those in their 30s had ¥37,874; those in their 40s, ¥36,449; and those in their 50s, ¥41,987.

Female company employees had on average ¥33,854 in pocket money every month, or ¥585 more than the previous year.

When comparing men at different life stages, single men had on average ¥46,714, while their married counterparts had to get by on about ¥30,000. The older the salaryman’s children, the smaller his allowance and the less his wife and children like him.

As to why there has been an increase in spending money, 76.1% of salarymen reported that their salary had increase. 19.3% had taken on side jobs. 14.8% made money investing in stocks. While 53.3% of women said that their salary had increased, 15.6% said that cost of living had fallen, giving them extra money to spend on themselves.

Among those who saw their allowances fall, 40.2% said it was due to a fall in their income; 28.0%, an increase in the cost of living; 17.8%, increased cost of children’s education. Similarly, 44.8% of woman who had smaller allowances said that it was because their salary had been cut; 30.4%, due to increased cost of living; and 14.4% because of increased costs related to their children’s education.

Yoko

After a dessert of chilled amanatsu, jelly served in the half peel of the summer orange it was made from, Abazuré says she has to return to the office. Several others take the opening my boss has given them to say they, too, have to hurry home before their children come back from elementary school. So, I'm left alone with Shizuko and our hostess, Yoko. As Shizuko fills my choko with reishu sake, Yoko brings in a basket of cherries she says arrived from Yamagata just this morning.

"Did you try the sashimi, Peador?" Yoko asks placing a handful of cherries on my plate.

"Uh, no, I didn't."

"It's out of this world," she says. "Very fresh."

"I'm sure it is," I say.

"Where did you buy it, Shizuko?"

"I didn't. It was a gift from one of my husband's patients."

"You really must try it, Peador," Yoko insists, reaching for a fresh plate behind her.

"Please, I'm fine. I . . . I've really had quite a lot to eat already."

"Mottainai. What a waste. C'mon, just a little."

"It's, um . . . It's just that . . . " Should I tell her I'm allergic? That I am a vegetarian? No, that won't work; I've been eating meat all afternoon. On a Friday, no less. Religion? Nah, the only religious bone I have in my body is the asadachi (morning woody) I stroke reverently every morning. "I'm afraid I'm not that crazy about sashimi."

Yoko wags her finger at me. "Tsk, tsk. You'll never be able to marry a Japanese woman, Peador."

"Oh? And why's that?"

She takes a long sip from her wine glass leaving a dark red smudge on the rim before speaking. "I don't think two people can be truly happy together unless they grow up eating the same food. I know a couple. Oh, you know him, Shizuko, what's his name? The Canadian . . . " she says snapping her fingers as if to conjure him up.

"John," Shizuko says. "John Williams. Works at Kyûshû University."

"Yes, well, John married a Japanese girl," Yoko continues. "When he met the family for the first time, they served him sashimi. They asked, 'John-san, can you eat sashimi?' And of course he says, he loves sashimi, but actually he couldn't stand fish. Like you, Peador."

"I didn't say I . . . "

"So, the poor girl's parents think 'Yokatta, he's just like a Japanese!' After the marriage, though, this John won't eat a bite of fish and, yappari, now they're getting divorced." Keiko takes another long drink, leaving another red smudge on the rim of the glass. "No, if you don't eat the same food, you'll have all kinds of problems. And that's why foreigners and Japanese don't get along well. I mean, if they can't eat the same food, how do they expect to be able to do anything together, desho?"

She concludes her argument as she often does with a smug look and a broad sweep of her hand slicing through any disagreement.

After all I've eaten and drunk, I don't have the energy to argue. Besides, people like Yoko, who love dominating conversations, tend not to listen to anything but their own sweet voices.

"I really like these hashi oki," I say to myself. "I didn't know you could see fireflies around here."

"You know, international marriages are bound to fail because the cultures are so different," Shizuko says. "You know that JAL pilot, Barker-san, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," Yoko says putting her wine glass down. "I had him and his wife, the poor girl, over last week." You get the feeling Yoko's home is in a perpetual state of hospitality, inviting and feeding guests, then assuring them to come again. Once gone, however, they become the fodder for that red-lipsticked, tirelessly booming cannon of hers.

She picks up a cherry, removes the stem with her long bony fingers then sucks it into the venomous red hole in her gaunt face. "I didn't tell you, Shizuko, but while Barker-san and my husband were out getting a massage, I talked with his wife. The poor girl said she didn't know what to do with him. 'He always wants to do something on his day off . . . go out, jog or hike . . . All I want to do is stay home and rest.' And just as the poor girl was sighing, Barker-san and my husband came back. And Barker, he went right up to his wife, gave her a big hug and kiss and said, 'We're so happy together!'" Yoko fills my choko with more sake, and shakes her head. "I felt so sorry for her."

"So, the fireflies,” I say. “Know any good places I can see them around here?"

"The problem with young people today," Shizuko says with contempt, "is that they want to marry for love."

This surprises me enough to bring me back into the conversation, and I ask Shizuko if she loves her husband. The two women laugh at me, making me feel foolish for asking. I didn’t know the question was so silly.

"Love," Shizuko scoffs. "Tell me, Peador, why do half of all Americans get divorced?"

I could offer her a number of reasons. Many really. But, I'm really not in the mood to go head to head with these two half-drunk, half-bitter housewives.

"It's very important to know the person you're marrying," Shizuko warns. "Love confuses you."

"Do you want to marry a Japanese girl?" Yoko asks me.

"I haven't given it much thought, to be honest. Anyways, marriage isn't the object. It's the result. If I find someone I love, who also happens to be Japanese, who knows? Maybe I'll marry her."

"You'll never be able to marry one," Yoko says refilling my choko. "You have to eat miso and rice and soy sauce as a child."

Maybe I'm blind or a sentimental dolt, but, somehow, I just cannot accept the idea that what went wrong between Mie and myself was rooted in my dislike of sashimi.

"Everyone wants to marry someone funny and cheerful," Yoko continues, spilling a drop of wine onto her linen tablecloth. "Tsk, tsk . . . She's cheerful but she couldn't cook if her life depended upon it. She buys everything from the convenience store and puts it in the microwave. Ching! Boys want girls that are fun, but they don't understand that what they really need is a wife who can cook real food and take care of children. Young people these days!"

 It was almost as if she was speaking specifically about Mie. My Mie who woke early in one morning, and walked in her pajamas to the nearest convenience store to get something for our bento. She wasn't as hopeless as Yoko might contend; she fried the chicken herself, then packed our lunches and bags before I had even gotten out of bed. When I finally stopped knitting my nightly dream, put down my needles and woke up, everything for our day at the beach had been prepared.

"It's a shame what some of the mothers fix for their children at the International School. My daughter used to trade her tempura that I woke early to make because she felt sorry for her friends. They were eating sandwiches!"

It was an outrage.

When I woke, Mie was gently stroking my head. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her soft lips. She laid down upon me, legs to each side of me, then punched the remote to invite Vivaldi into bed with us. As the hot morning sun began to brighten up the room, we made love, made love throughout the Four Seasons.

Later that morning, we drove with the top of her car open, windows down and music blaring to Umi-no-Nakamichi, a long narrow strand of sand and pines that continued for several miles until it reached a small island forming the northern edge of the Hakata Bay. Pine, sand, and sea lay on either side of the derelict two-lane road. We arrived at a small inlet, which had been roped off to keep the jellyfish away and paid a few hundred yen to one of the old women running one of the umi-no-e beach houses. Passing through the makeshift hut with old tatami floors and low folding tables we walked out to the beach which was crowded with hundreds of others who had came to do the same.

By eleven the sun was burning down on us, burning indelible tans into the backs of children. The only refuge was either the crowded umi-n0-e hut or the sea, so Mie and I took a long swim, waded in each others' arms or floated on our backs in the warm, shallow water.

Although I'd eventually get such a severe sunburn that I'd lie awake at night trembling in agony, it was one of my happiest days in Japan. On the way back to Mie’s apartment with my lobster red hand resting between her tanned thighs, I sang along to the Chagé and Aska songs playing on her stereo, making her laugh the whole way.

"I love you," she'd tell me with a long kiss when we arrived back at her place.

"What men need," Yoko repeats, "is a woman who can cook and take care of the home. Someone like your Yu-chan in the office."

The absurdity of what Yoko has just said snaps me out of my daydream. Yu, grayest of gray, as cold and bitchy as they came, may make a suitable Eva Braun for an Al Hitler, but suggesting that she'd make a good wife for me, why, that was insulting.

Yoko, reading the disagreement in my face, says, "See, Yu-chan's gloomy and, well, she isn't much to look at, but she really would make a very good wife for you, Peador. You just don't know it yet."

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© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A Woman's Nails is now available on Amazon's Kindle.