Nielsen, Richard, Shaun Gleason, 2021 . 2021 [Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas. 23.5"x 35"] Taken from a larger body of work in progress for Richard's upcoming multi-media show, 'Homecoming'. The show is tentatively slated to open on November 27th for a two month run at the former Granville Island site of the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, 1399 Johnston Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Image used by kind permission of the artist.
...and just like that, it's autumn again here in Deadbeat City. This summer was remarkable only in that it actually exceeded the joylessness and drear of the last one. There were no meaningful pauses. No trips. Not a single brief pleasure seeking foray out of the city, or valiant but doomed attempt at a 'beach day'. No bin digs at the local used record store. No bike rides or walks out to the local gardens. No live music events. No trips to the cinema. No dining out. Nothing. In our mutual bid to avoid getting or spreading the virus, we stuck to the mundanity of our daily, weekly, monthly routines. Instead of participating in life, we've become spectators. We scurry out to do our bidding, hunt and gather, pay the bills, then hunker down. Not much in the way of any joie de vivre going on in these parts. On a positive note, everything we're not doing seems to be working like a charm. A year and a half in, and several PCR tests later, we've both managed to avoid the plague. Of course, we've had a few scares and false alarms...but so far, so good.
Like my daily runs up the Horikawa promenade, our outings are all well planned and deliberate. Local and finite.
Spontaneity? A thing of the past.
When I start on the whine, Mina is fairly quick to add that we should just be thankful for the absence of sickness, and integrity of our home. That we are together, and have what we need. The important things. The rest is all garnish. We aren't the only ones having our lives curtailed, after all.
"A lot of people have it much worse than we do..."
Of course, she's right. Her sister's family went through hell last year. They're still sorting through the aftermath. The knock on from that tragic episode continues to affect all of us in different ways.
I suppose I was just conditioned to always want a bit more out of life than a perpetual 'blue plate special'. Even those tend to change on a daily basis. "Chicken on Monday, pork on Wednesday, fish on Friday". Obviously, this makes me sound a bit spoiled. When I would go on the whine as little kid, I remember my Mum shoving a newspaper clipping of some naked, fly covered Biafran kid with a distended belly in my face.
"He'd love to have your life!"
This was the first time that I can recall having been forced to confront my relative privilege.
Talk about traumatizing. I can still see it now. What a shitty thing to do to a five year old kid. I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only mom to pull this stunt. Back in the day, this type of parenting strategy wasn't all that uncommon. It was all 'for my own good', of course.
Fast forward a half century, and instead of counting our abundant blessings, I'm grousing over a lack of summer fun. If Mum were still around, she'd no doubt be shoving a newspaper clipping of some poor, intubated COVID victim in my face. My late brother-in-law comes to mind.
"He'd love to have your life!"
Indeed.
I feel guilty for being such a malcontent. I guess that's where we're at these days. At risk of being called out and shamed if, in our minor gripes and quibbles, we seem to overlook the fact that other people have things a lot worse than we do.
I know how lucky I am. I don't need to be reminded. As I've said many times, a 'good day' is a day relatively void of disaster or misfortune. I'm full of appreciation for the simple blessings of tragedy free days.
That doesn't mean that I don't like to get my whine on every once in awhile. Force of habit, I suppose.
On a positive note, I suppose that I'm learning to dial down my expectations. It's finally got to the point that I've started getting excited about whatever the streaming services are dishing up on a weekly basis (kudos to my old friend Jack back in Vancouver for so graciously adding me to his Plex server). Cabin fever has long past set in; I crave almost any type of escapism. That we have the luxury of such services - and the devices that provide them - seems pretty bourgeois.
I'm sure the 'higher minded' Shaun of twenty or thirty years ago would be suitably unimpressed.
Back then I had that luxury. I knew everything about everything.
Nevertheless, It's like I'm 12 again... circling movies in the newspaper TV guide, or waiting for a new batch of comics to hit the racks over at Ella Louie's corner grocery. At least I could get on my bike and go finger the merchandise without worrying about picking up the 'plague du jour'. My biggest worry back then was the hyper-vigilant Chinese shopkeeper giving me the hairy eyeball and shouting,
"This not library!"
"You touch, you buy!"
Having put my grubby paws all over anything of interest, I'd inevitably get run out on a rail. As soon as Mum needed a carton of milk, though, I'd be back..., 'fingering the merchandise', and inevitably getting 'the old heave-ho'. Again.
As it is now, even the used CD shop up the hill seems a bit too risky to hang around in for any more than five or ten minutes at a time. No meaningful or rewarding rummage through the unsorted piles of stuff in there can be undertaken in anything less than an hour. Their predominantly late middle-aged Japanese male clientele also seem decidedly hit and miss over observing anti-virus protocols. Social distancing and proper mask wearing aren't really a thing in there.
This type of social ignorance and self-perceived exceptionalism is fairly typical amongst a broad swathe of Japanese men around my age, or a bit older. No one loves rules (and seeing them applied to everyone but themselves) more than these guys. While they're always the first to point out when someone else has run afoul of the boundaries...they don't hesitate to hop those selfsame boundaries themselves if the opportunity presents itself (and they think no one's looking). Caught in the act or questioned, they'll invariably have a litany of excuses as to why they thought it was alright for them to ignore the rules that everyone else was expected to follow. They are always 'the exception'.
I wonder if this is a generational thing?
The virus really came into its own over here this summer. As expected, the ne'er do well suits running the show in Tokyo pushed forward with the postponed Olympics/Paralympics...despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the folks who pay their generous salaries were diametrically opposed. Two days before the proceedings kicked off, a participant from Peru tested positive for the deadly 'Lambda variant' at Tokyo's Haneda airport. As is wont to happen in these parts, safety protocols weren't followed, and half-assed attempts were made to cover it all up. In other words, there was no contact tracing. The other passengers on the infected woman's flight were simply allowed to disappear into the wild.
Amid the consequently surging numbers, we haven't heard a peep about it since.
On August 18th, we had almost 2400 cases in the these precincts alone. That figure just accounts for a single day's tallies. Shortly thereafter (as if by pure coincidence) a new viral strain also made its debut... this one being 'particular to Japan'. I suppose it'll be christened 'The Olympic Variant' once it moves from the category of 'variant of interest' to 'variant of concern'...that is, if 'the powers that be' deign we should be privy to any of this information.
Curiously, an item in the news a couple of weeks ago reported that a particularly wily, recently identified COVID variant of 'Japanese origin' had reared its head in a Kentucky nursing home, of all places. With large swathes of the American South still avoiding vaccination, this has to be pretty bad news. Olympic participants aside, travelers from all but a small handful of regional countries have been banned from entering Japan for almost a year and a half. How on earth could a newly discovered variant specific to Japan have made it into a nursing home in Kentucky? It wouldn't have anything to do with THE OLYMPICS...would it? After all, the IOC and Japanese government were quick to claim that their 'COVID Games' had been nothing short of 'a triumph of the human spirit'. According to the filtered mainstream Japanese news media, 'they' had prevailed against the odds, and held a safe, hermetically sealed event - effectively preventing the further spread and propagation of the virus (while Thomas Bach and his cadre of IOC elites and no-goodniks - somehow exempt from the strict COVID safety protocols everyone else is expected to adhere to - made off with the king's ransom in broadcast licensing fees they'd been promised, like proverbial thieves in the night).
The domestic media's been conspicuously hush-hush about all of the above, not to mention anything that might stir doubt, create a panic, and/or interrupt the nation's all important 'economic activities'*.
*('Economic activities'. The way they frame this always make it sound akin to some kind of Satanic ritual.)
It's almost as if they've been forbidden to talk about anything of real importance (which they have). Less than a month after the Paralympic's closing ceremony, it's almost as if it none of it ever happened. It seems that the entire Olympic debacle has been relegated to the government's 'Fukushima Daiichi' category of unmentionables - topics that are considered 'taboo', as they have the potential to upset the apple cart and disturb the nation's 'beautiful social harmony' and 'spirit of compliance' (not to mention those sacred 'economic activities').
As you may have gathered, press freedom isn't really 'a thing' over here anymore. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made sure to put the kibosh on all of that when he embarked on his fateful second term in office in 2012.
According to Reporters sans Frontieres https://rsf.org/en/ranking, while Japan had come in a respectable 11th out of 180 countries ranked in 2010, as of April this year, it ranked a dismal 67th...bested by Côte d’Ivoire (66), and just edging out Mongolia (68).
With a single, unchallenged political party essentially running everything, all it takes is one morally unscrupulous leader with a tight enough grip on power to order the lights dimmed and curtains dropped on media organizations that persist in pursuing 'taboo topics', and asking 'problematic' questions.
I found it amusing watching the Japanese government's former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato attempting to level meaningful criticism at the Chinese government for shutting down Hong Kong's Apple Daily on June 25th.
"In Tokyo, Japan's top government spokesman called the paper's closure a "major setback" for freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Hong Kong and voiced "increasingly grave concerns" over the situation.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference that Japan will continue to work closely with the international community to strongly urge China to respect these rights".
Hilarity. I almost keeled over when I saw him make that proclamation on the English language dub of the NHK evening news. Not to mention the fact that Kato has the demeanor of a silver screen butler from the 1930's, and looks like the bastard lovechild of Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist puppet and a fifty kilogram sack of rotten cooking onions.
Back in the real world, Japan's vaccination drive has been going in fits and starts. The second week of August, staff at several vaccination sites across the country reported that tiny, dark coloured 'foreign objects' had been observed floating around in a number of vials of the Moderna vaccine...but not before scores of doses from batches that were later labelled 'tainted' had been administered at locations across the country.
As if by some sort of dark coincidence, it was also reported that a couple of middle-aged men had failed to fully recover from their post Moderna jab malaise. Both ultimately died within two days of receiving their second inoculations.
Shortly thereafter, the news media confirmed that the Moderna vaccine doses administered in both cases had serial numbers linking them to the tainted lots; but that it was, 'premature to suggest that there was any connection between the men's deaths and the vaccines administered'.
Right.
In an attempt to allay panic and diffuse the situation, the government sanctioned media reported that all of the unused vials of vaccine from said problematic batches had been promptly identified and withdrawn. The affected lot numbers were then quickly publicized, and recent vaccine recipients were advised to check these against the lot numbers on their certificates - and promptly seek medical counsel if they felt 'dangerously bad', or if the side-effects they were suffering seemed prolonged or excessive.
Nice.
Apparently vaccines from said tainted lots had been distributed to and used at several vaccination sites in Nagoya (and other cities) in the exact window that I'd had my second jab. Mina wasted no time in cross referencing my vaccination certificate to be sure that I hadn't received a dose of some dubious shit.
Bullet dodged, fortunately.
Mr. Insecthead over at the kindergarten had done me a solid in mid-June, by putting me on his staff list for so-called 'priority workplace vaccination' - despite my lowly part-time status. Shortly thereafter, the government announced that due to a 'suddenly noticed' (ahem...really?) shortfall in the amount of vaccine available, they were going to be curtailing or deferring all priority workplace vaccination appointments made after June 25th. Fortunately, the ever efficient Mr. Insecthead had been on the ball, and managed to get the kindergarten's vaccination list in just under the wire.
Safe!
I got my second jab on the evening of Wednesday August 11th, exactly four weeks after initial shot (as-per Moderna's rules). The first jab was a piece of cake. A bit of a sore arm for about a week; but I was out running the Horikawa the very next morning.
Unlike jab number one, the second shot knocked me on my ass. This was not unexpected. Beyond that, I was over-joyed and relieved to have been able to get vaccinated before November or December, which is when I thought my turn would roll around.
Post jab #2, I initially felt alright. We got home from the vaccination venue at around 7:30 pm, and ate dinner. I felt fine. I slept alright, and got up early the next morning to see Mina off to her sister's place. It was high Obon, and they had a full day of praying to their ancestors lined up. Anticipating that I might not feel so hot, I'd already had her relay my apologies for not attending. Around mid-morning I started to feel sort of bad. By 2pm my temperature was 38.4 C, and I was out for the count.
By noon on Friday the fever had broken; but I pretty much felt like garbage until the following Tuesday. I mean, we went out shopping and did things, but I felt shitty. Like I had the worst hangover ever.
Fortunately the news had yet to break about the tainted vaccines, or the two guys dying. If I'd known about that stuff, I definitely would have been freaking out a bit more.
Apparently Mr. Insecthead had got off scot-free, and felt fine after his second jab. He attributed that to being 'old' (he's sixty two). He said that only a few of the forty employees over there had experienced any side effects outside of sore arms after their second jabs. Strange. Most of them are in their twenties, and younger people tend to get hit harder by vax side-effects than oldsters. Either they're an extraordinarily lucky bunch, or he actually had no idea. I suspect the latter.
Regarding the two dead guys, there hasn't been any further news regarding either the results of their autopsies, or the nature of the contaminants found floating around in the vials. Smells like yet another cover-up.
As all Moderna vaccines in Japan are produced on contract by Rovi Pharmaceuticals in Spain, the Japanese media wasted no time in sending an investigative reporter over to said facility to check it out. The place is apparently in a scummy, industrial area of Granada, housed in a dilapidated looking factory building. Unsurprisingly, security was tight, and staff coming and going from said dubious looking facility had been instructed to keep their mouths shut.
The reporter came away with little more than the unimpressive images he could snap on his smart phone camera.
As they say, 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.
With all the talk of third round booster doses being made available six to eight months after our second jabs, I would hope that the Japanese government either starts sourcing their Moderna supplies from a different manufacturer, or finds a suitable alternative.
While it's doubtful that there will be any timely, meaningful information on either of the two deaths, internal investigations by Moderna and it's Japanese partner, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, claim to have identified the contaminants as particles of stainless steel that had come from the machinery used to put the tops on the vaccine vials. They assert that 'human error' was to blame, and that the introduction of a 'new precision tool' will help prevent any recurrence. The companies and Japanese Ministry of Health added that the particles of stainless steel found floating in the spoiled lots, "...did not pose any additional health risk".
"Additional?"
While I don't find any of this particularly reassuring, you'd best believe that come April, I'll be queueing up for my eight month booster - unless the forthcoming sixth wave convinces the powers-that-be to allow us to get them a couple of months earlier. It's pretty clear that whatever antibodies I have now will have all but evaporated by January.
It's funny how one thing leads seamlessly into the next over here. Two days before the Paralympics wrapped on September 5th, 'cadaver-in-chief' Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made the 'shock' announcement that he would be stepping down at the end of the month (the conclusion of his first term in office) - and not seeking a second term. While his ministers and party insiders feigned surprise and disappointment (the arse-licking, political neophyte son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi even going so far as to start blubbering and weeping on TV - a spectacle both nauseating and hilarious to behold), I don't think his gutless retreat really surprised many of the garden variety denizens of these islands.
With approval ratings hovering at a historic low (around 30%), one would be hard pressed to find a prime minister in the post-war era that had actually been more inept, devoid of empathy and utterly detached from any sense of duty to effectively lead his people than Yoshihide Suga. He struck a dour, insincere and thoroughly unsympathetic figure. From the onset of his tenure he dithered, fumbled and dodged queries like someone with a defective earpiece or broken teleprompter. Afraid to go off script and inadvertently betray the fact that he either didn't have any idea how to respond, or had no intention of answering a given question, he'd doggedly repeat himself or attempt to obfuscate matters by going off on a tangent, and completely skirting the issue at hand. Some politicians can do this so well that you barely notice what they've pulled until the press conference has wrapped.
In Suga's utterly hapless attempts at wile and opacity, he was painfully transparent.
One almost felt embarrassed for him.
On April 28th, 2020, when the scandal ridden and legally embattled former prime minister Shinzo Abe cut and run before his term was up (ostensibly due to 'ill health'), his trusted lieutenant, the ambitious and mean spirited Suga, had stepped right in. From the start, it was obvious to anyone with even a grain of intuition that this wouldn't end well.
Abe loved the limelight. Beset by a hubristic belief in his own 'divine' entitlement, it seems that he considered himself truly exceptional...akin to a kind of contemporary Shogun. When Heisei emperor Akihito abdicated due to age and ill health in 2019, he was finally permitted to do so only with the reluctantly granted permission of the Abe administration. It had taken his government since 2015 to accede to the Emperor's request...in the meantime, ultimately forcing him into the unprecedented position of having to take his appeal directly to the Japanese people.
The Emperor had been a staunch opponent of Abe's attempts to repeal war renouncing Article 9 from the post war constitution, and had been a constant thorn in his side. He would be doing the troublesome old man no favours. It was only after the Emperor had successfully made his predicament known to a largely sympathetic Japanese public that he was grudgingly permitted to assume the title Emperor Emeritus, and step down. This entire episode had surely stoked Shinzo Abe's ego. It's certain that to this day, he considers himself a historic figure. Someone whose exploits and achievements will be chronicled in history books that will ultimately refer to him as 'the father of contemporary Japan'.
No Japanese prime minister had held on to power as long or stubbornly as he had. He had cowed the media early on, and carried himself in a way that had made it seem he was untouchable. Like some class of latter day feudal Shogun. Beyond reproach.
As is won't to happen in these types of situations, his hubris and arrogance caught up with him.
Suga, diminutive in posture, with the pallor of a ghoul, the demeanor of a sheet of drywall, and all the charm of a cold bowl of rice gruel, was a hard sell from day one.
Born to a family of strawberry farmers in rural Akita, it's said that in his student days he'd been well liked and charming - the most popular boy in his graduating high school class. I find that hard to believe. It's been suggested by some that perhaps the unenviable shit-mess that he'd inherited from Mr. Abe had sucked the life and charm out of him. I sincerely doubt it.
He was just as wooden, shifty and unlikeable when he was delivering weekly proclamations to the press and media as Abe's then Chief Cabinet Secretary a couple of years ago.
He comes across like a less charming Lurch, from The Addam's Family. It's almost comical. For a public mouthpiece, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had gone from a Lurch-like figure, to a Charlie McCarthy-like sack of rotten cooking onions. I guess they figure that's all the charm the general public deserves.
They may be right.
At what point do the J-natives get restless?
Still...ever adept at finding something redeeming about even the most loathsome character, Mina pointed out that for the average Japanese, perhaps Suga's most enduring legacy would be that he initiated and forced change on the nation's cell phone service providers...in effect forcing them to lower their prices, and allow customers the freedom to opt out of expensive and un-competitive contracts without having to pay a fortune in cancellation penalties, or buy pricey new phones.
Point taken, I guess.
Mind you, none of this trickled down to benefit me in any way all. I still don't have a cell phone...or any plans to acquire one in the near future. I'm sure the day will inevitably come when I'm forced to buckle under and join the rest of humanity; but until then, I'm happy enough to save the ¥10,000 ($80) a month. It adds up...and at least I'm able to walk down the street without being glued to some infernal handset like a drooling zombie automaton from an old episode of The Twilight Zone.
Sunday, September 12th marked the one year anniversary of my brother-in-law's untimely demise from complications of COVID. Mayumi arranged for the family's priest to come in from okasan's village in Shiga to do the Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō (南無妙法蓮華經; sometimes truncated phonetically as Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō) chanting ceremony at her late husband's butsudan altar in the family home. This was to be a one hour affair, after which the whole crew (Mayumi and her group, okasan, the priest and ourselves) would adjourn to have lunch at Houraiken https://www.houraiken.com/english/ a famous (and pricey) barbequed eel (unagi) restaurant up in our neck of the woods, adjacent to Jingu Shrine.
With plague numbers still firmly in the red over here, I had my usual reservations about the wisdom of arranging a group eating thing; but Mayumi reassured Mina that it would be safe. She'd gone all out and booked an expensive private room, so we wouldn't be coming into contact with anyone but the servers. We were finally all double vaccinated, as well.
We drove across town to Mayumi's place, arriving about two minutes ahead of the priest, who was behind the wheel of a brand new Fiat compact. The last time we had one of these gatherings (in December, I believe) he was driving either a Land-Rover or Mercedes SUV. I can't recall which. Some class of high-end 'chariot for the well heeled and privileged' far beyond the means of lowly folk like us. Way to fly the buddhist flag, I guess.
People who drive expensive foreign cars over here are almost always total assholes.
While I'm polite and deferential, it's no big secret that I'm not a fan. He must be a few years younger than me, and seems to have made his way into the lucrative priesting game by way of his wife - the 'original' priest's daughter. When the old guy passed away several years ago with no hereditary male successor to take up the family mantle, he assumed the position.
He comes across as condescending and insincere...and he sucks his teeth.
Mayumi had her living room set up with enough flat zabuton cushions for the group to kneel on while the priest did his chanting routine at the altar. They were short one member, as Number One Surly Sumo Son was laid up in the hospital recovering from a hernia surgery the week before. Everyone sat and kneeled on the zabuton with the exception of okasan and I, who sat on the couch at the back of the room. Prayer beads were clutched and the hour of chanting and bell chiming began. I was grateful that Mayumi had elected to excuse us from dressing formally, at least. It was still a bit hot and humid to have to deal with a black suit and tie.
The ceremony wrapped in just over an hour, and we all drove back across town to the Jingu unagi place in our separate vehicles. We drove okasan out there with us. As she'd taken up what would finally become permanent residence at Mayumi's place late last December*, she would go back with them when it was done.
*( It was almost a week before Christmas last year - and against everyone's best advice - okasan had decided to go out and shovel snow, as she'd done every winter. They'd got a big dump out in Shiga, and she couldn't resist the temptation. To make a long story short, she ended up virtually immobile after fracturing a disc in her spine, and we had to drive out to her place in the black of night to bring her in to Nagoya, where she could get medical attention. After a few days at our place, Mayumi generously offered to host her while she recovered. She had a spare room, so okasan would be able to have her own space. Seasons passed, and what was initially going to be an interim arrangement until she mended up, became permanent after an ill-fated summer trip out to the old homestead this July made it obvious that she wasn't going to be able to manage out there on her own any more. It hasn't been an easy road for anyone; but she finally seems to have resigned herself to the fact that she isn't going back, and is trying to adjust to family life over at Mayumi's place. There will be more on all of that drama in a future installment.)
When we arrived at the unagi restaurant's parking area, an attendant approached, waving for Mina to roll down the passenger side window so he could come right up, pull his mask off, and start spraying his potentially infectious aerosol mouth exhaust all over the three of us. I did my frantic best to duck and cover. It seems that he wanted to know if we had a reservation. Perhaps he didn't think we'd be able to hear him through his face covering? Mina, slightly annoyed, wasted no time in telling him to put his mask on, which he quite unapologetically fumbled around to do. Older guy, probably in his mid-late sixties. Clueless, We had a similar experience when we went to the vaccination venue to get my first jab.
As I said earlier on, as far as a lot of Japanese guys are concerned, 'the rules' are for everyone else. Mina contends that it's not necessarily deliberate; that they just do things without thinking. They aren't consciously out to break rules, because that would require some degree of thought. Thinking is an effort. They also aren't accustomed to being called out on anything, which makes it pretty easy for them to get away with whatever they like. The Japanese typically hate any type of confrontation. Instead of saying something to someone who's crossed the line, they elect to perpetually suppress their emotions and bottle everything up. This ultimately tends to make it dangerous to say anything to anyone, because one runs the risk of triggering some type of over-the-top release of what might be years of pent up negative energy. A 'Vesuvius moment' type of scenario. No one wants to set off some dormant psychopath and possibly get stabbed...hence, Mina freaks out when I get pissed off and start vocalizing my grievances.
"Shhhh! Shhhh! Please! Shoganai! (it can't be helped!) Let it go! No trouble!"
In her opinion, it's always much better to back down. To retreat. To me, it's weak. We've obviously been raised in very different cultures.
Today, I was going to be taking the high road. I bottled my temptation to curse the parking lot guy, and helped okasan out of the left rear passenger side door of our car. Mina came around and took her by the arm, and they followed Mayumi's group out of the parking and across the street.
I was bringing up the rear on our way to the little Japanese bungalow style annex building we were directed to. Mayumi's group went in first, followed by Mina, helping okasan along the mossy, narrow stepping stone path to the entrance. The restaurant annex is lovely, sitting framed in verdant greenery. In an attempt to be respectful, I'd let the priest go in through the small arched entrance gate before me. It was the usual lip service song and dance (in Japanese of course), with me stopping short of the gate instead of pushing past,
"Go ahead"
"No, please...you go"
At which point I bowed slightly and gestured with my arm,
"No, no. It's alright. Go ahead. I insist."
At that he gave me a shallow nod, and went ahead, as I made sure to maintain a respectful distance behind him. As I said, I'm not a fan; but it's Mayumi's husband's day, and I was determined to do everything right.
The weather was finally starting to turn. It had looked dodgy on the drive over, and now a light rain was starting to spit down. Just before the narrow steps to the dining room entrance, the priest stopped and resumed a conversation he'd started with the heavily made up kimono-clad head hostess that had met our group outside of the entrance. Something to do with his 'busy schedule', and wanting her to be sure that he could be served and out of there by a specific time so he could make his next appointment, and so on. They stood blocking the path to the entrance steps, yammering away in hushed tones. I stopped short a few metres back and bided my time. They were both fully aware that I was waiting to be let through. I expected the hostess to simply nod and gesture me through with a sweep of her kimono sleeved arm...but no. They seemed un-moved; even a little...annoyed? I couldn't believe it.
At that, they continued on as if I weren't there.
I contemplated simply excusing myself and pushing past....but no.
It was Mayumi's late husband's day.
I was going to 'take the high road'. I'd wait.
They kept talking. I don't know if it was my imagination, but they seemed to be dragging it out. It started raining a little harder. I looked around for somewhere to sit, slightly out of the rain; but there was nowhere. I half expected Mina to come out to see where I'd gone; but she had her hands full inside trying to get okasan situated.
Breathe deep. Count to seven. Breathe out. No one was going anywhere.
After a couple more minutes, they finally wrapped it up. I waited until the priest had his temperature checked, hands disinfected, and had gone in to be seated before I approached the entrance. There were no bows, lip-service apologies, nor any acknowledgement at all that I'd been made to wait on the path as it started to rain. The head hostess, face mask in place, even went so far as to shoot me a distinctly cold, blank look from under her cosmetic sculpted eyebrows as I approached the far end of the long table. I suddenly felt like I was trespassing - like I owed her an explanation as to why I was there. I guess she felt the need to send some kind of message. To remind me of my station, perhaps? Young woman, in her late twenties, I suppose. She had the air of someone quite hung up herself. How do people get like that?
What on earth was I doing there? I felt out of place.
The Japanese are said to pride themselves on their legendary traditional hospitality, or 'omotenashi'.
In any given situation, said hospitality may or may not be extended to gaijin. Any foreigner who's lived in this country for long enough knows this.
The levels of omotenashi afforded to any individual or group tend to directly correspond to said group or individual's level of prestige, wealth or influence. In short, their ability to bestow some sort of reciprocal benefit on the host. Or pay.
I'm sure that the bill Mayumi picked up for all of this was substantial.
Aside from the decidedly sombre nature of the ceremony, I had been rather looking forward to eating out. We hadn't taken a meal outside of home since late February last year. To say that this had put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm would be an understatement.
I had even deferred to the priest in the most polite way I knew, and let him go through the gate before me.
No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
I was seated at the very farthest end of the table, opposite okasan and Mina, and a good four metres away from the priest and Mayumi's second son. Mayumi had ordered a kaiseki (course) lunch service, which consisted of a rapid succession of small, barbequed eel-based dishes, all of which were absolutely first rate. With the exception of Mayumi trying to make polite conversation with the priest, everyone ate in relative silence. The priest seemed to be doing his level best to feign interest, making half hearted responses as he attempted to poke as much of the expensive free meal in his face as possible - one eye perpetually on the clock as he waited for his exit cue from the head hostess. When it was finally time for him to leave, Mayumi and Number Two Son rose from their seats to him see to the exit. There was plenty of bowing and scraping as he put on his priest thongs and made his way back down the narrow stepping stone path, and out of the gate.
I simply nodded slightly, kept to my seat, and focussed on my eel.
With the priest finally gone, the atmosphere in the dining room brightened considerably. I don't get why they would bother inviting him. He's not a member of the family. He makes everyone uneasy. He's already been paid handsomely for the day's services. He was in no need of any type of charity lunch service, either. He obviously had other places to be.
Perhaps they think that all this glad-handing and arse kissing will lubricate someone's way into a better spot in the afterlife? It's hard to say.
The Japanese have a custom of deferring to those that they perceive occupy positions of power and influence relative to themselves. For instance, regardless of how feared or hated one's boss at work is, it's customary that he be afforded guest of honour status at one's wedding. There is no choice.
Weddings at my point of origin are highly personal events, reserved for family and friends; there is no obligation to invite outsiders, or workplace superiors.
On the topic of adhering to the custom of deferring to people in positions of power and influence, this summer there was quite a scandal here in Nagoya, involving ne'er do well Mayor Takashi Kawamura and Miu Goto, a local girl who'd made good netting an Olympic Gold medal playing for Japan's women's soft-ball team. Upon returning to Nagoya from her team's triumph in Tokyo, Miu was obliged to visit Mayor Kawamura's office at Nagoya City Hall, and present him with her gold medal for a media photo-op. The idea here was that she'd hang the medal around his neck, they'd both smile pretty for the cameras, the media would get their pictures and footage, and it would be a done deal. Custom would have been duly observed.
No one counted on Kawamura, mask hanging off his face, grinning like a smart-ass and sinking his teeth into the corner of the girl's gold medal as soon as the flash bulbs started going off.
(it's worth remembering at this point that we were at the height of the pandemic. Day-on-day infection rates were at a record high, and Aichi prefecture was under its fourth state of emergency)
Miss Goto had no recourse but to cover her mouth and giggle self-consciously at the perpetually disheveled looking old man's attempt to be funny, or 'cool'. Meanwhile, he'd just stuck her precious medal in his filthy mouth and bit on the corner of it, all the while grinning like some smug Cheshire Cat that had swallowed the proverbial golden canary.
When all of this hit the airwaves later that day, the level of public outrage was palpable. No one was impressed. After some deliberation on what to do to set this right, it was decided that the 72 year old Kawamura should offer Goto a formal apology, pay for a replacement medal (out of his own pocket), and forfeit two months pay. He had no choice but to agree. Unsurprisingly, his televised and hastily hand scrawled written apologies to both the girl and his staff seemed a bit less than sincere. He wasn't sorry. No stranger to controversy for his brash behaviour and ultra right wing views, Kawamura is just another arrogant, unrepentant oji-san (old man) going his way, clinging to his position of power and influence tooth and nail as the world swirls and transforms around him.
(interesting post-text here...less than a month after said incident, Kawamura was diagnosed with a breakthrough case of COVID infection. Karma works in strange ways. It seems that he picked it up from his personal secretary - at least that's the 'official' story. After isolating at home for the prescribed period, he was back up and at his post over at City Hall in fairly short order. Apparently the vaccine works. Lucky us.)
Amid all this kerfuffle, I turned to Mina over breakfast while this was playing out on the morning news program, and asked her why on earth the girl would have taken her gold medal to Kawamura's office in first place? He'd played no role in her training, wasn't a friend, acquaintance or family member. They were totally unconnected. Her answer? Simple and elegant.
"It's custom."
I can think of a few more accurate terms.
Anyways...
About half an hour after the priest hit the road, we wrapped up the gorgeous eel lunch. While it looked as if the light afternoon rain had almost sputtered out, a well meaning kimono clad underling server insisted on following Mina and I out to our car with an extended umbrella. I guess a bit of late game omotenashi is better than none at all. I wonder where she and her trusty umbrella were while I was stuck standing outside the entrance an hour and a half earlier?
The snotty head hostess with the malevolent cosmetic sculpted eyebrows was nowhere to seen.
We thanked Mayumi, and bade farewell to the extended group. Okasan loaded in to the back of the family mini-van with Number One surly Sumo Son's two younger boys and fat wife, and everyone waved goodbye.
Mission accomplished.
A year on, my late brother-in-law's absence at these family gatherings is still hard to take. I'm sure he would have been unimpressed with the lack of alcohol being served. I'd tried to order a beer on his behalf; but the restaurant had apparently elected to completely suspend the sale of all alcoholic beverages until the extended State of Emergency has been lifted. It was my understanding that booze was permissible until 7pm. I guess each establishment has the freedom to interpret these government 'requests' in their own way. I ended up getting a de-alcoholized Asahi Zero. Close, but no cigar.
I guess he'd understand.
It strikes me how life just goes on after close friends or family members pass. The speed at which the empty physical and emotional spaces left by the deceased are filled is a bit disconcerting. I'm almost reminded of a perpetually scrolling Tetris board. How things just kind of move along without pause, all the while being re-arranged and rotated to fill in the gaps left by the deceased.
Before long, everyone's on to something new. It's almost as if the deceased party had never been there to start with.
Sometimes Mina wonders aloud what she would do if something happened to me. I tell her that she'd probably be sad for a week or two, then life would go on. The spaces and gaps that my demise creates would be filled and closed sooner than she could imagine. Her sadness would give way to acceptance, and before she knew it, it would be as if I'd never really been here. Like I was someone she remembered from a dream or a movie she'd seen. Like a fond memory from a summer past. She'd move on.
I don't think she liked hearing that very much.
It's all the same, I suppose. After we have a tangible experience, it's gone. Memories of people we've known, recollections of things we've done and places we've been. It all gets filed away. It all flows into the realm of concepts and ideas. Dreams. It's nothing we can touch, and nothing anyone can take from us.
It's sure that sooner or later, all of us will eventually give up our solid forms and fade into the ether. The best we can hope for is that whatever impression we've made figures into the domain of someone's conscious memories or subconscious mind at least once in awhile...and that the impression we left was a favourable one. When the last person that remembers us fades out, that's it.
When I think of my late brother-in-law, the scene that comes to mind first is of him offering me a can of beer early in the morning on New Year's Day, 2020. We'd all had supper together at okasan's place in Shiga the evening before, and before it got too late, Mina and I had cut out to our hotel in Nagahama while the three of them stayed up watching Kohaku (the annual Japanese New Year's music variety program) at the dining room table. He'd kept putting beers in front of me from the time we arrived in mid-afternoon. Never really said anything. Just muttered stuff I couldn't understand, laughed a bit, and drank. When we came back early the next morning, they were all up, and he already a beer opened. Funny. He wasted no time in waving a can at me. Feeling just a wee bit hung over from the night before, (and not being the prolific beer soak that I once was) I laughed, declined his offer, and had a cup of Earl Grey, instead.
If I'd known then what the year had in store, and that it would be the last time that we'd all sit together at the table in that house in Shiga, I'd have taken the beer.
I guess there's a lesson somewhere in all of this.
'Take the beer'.
How are we to know when 'the last time' is? I try to remember the last time I laid eyes on my Mum, and Gramma. I have a rough idea, but I can't bring up those exact images, or clearly remember what was said. I'm sure that there were quick hugs and pecks on the cheek. 'Love you's, and 'See you soon's. I was no doubt in a hurry to get on to the next thing. Maybe I was running away, afraid to look back...deliberately trying to avoid facing the uncomfortable realities of those situations. I don't think we ever consciously want to discount the possibility that there will be a 'next time'...even if we know that the possibility is remote, if unlikely. It's too hard.
The fact of the matter is that absolutely any time can be 'the last time'. Things happen suddenly. Mina and I make a point of recognizing that each day. We both make an effort not to extend arguments, or part angry - stewing on things that are largely pointless, or petty. Who wants what may be their last memory of a loved one to be some shitty, unresolved disagreement?
So, we at least make an effort to do things right. It's not always easy to swallow one's bullshit pride. To suck it up, and say,
"I love you".
With that, we're into autumn, and the end of another seasonal diatribe. Come winter, it's safe to assume that there will be more. A new serial, and a new start, as the sun enters the early spring cycle, and the days slowly start to stretch out, toward the coming spring.
Until then, it's worth remembering that...."no matter where you go, there you are".
There, and nowhere else.
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