Confessions of a Japanese Temple Gardener: (P.S – Who's from London, England)

by Ben Stevens

  She is barely joking.

  夏

  Caught by the Fuzz

  I’ve had a nice meal with some friends at an izakaya – a traditional Japanese eating-joint that’s full of steam and smoke and cries of ‘Kampai!’ (‘Cheers!’) – and am now taking a brisk walk in the direction of the ‘Crazy Horse’ live music bar, a favorite haunt of mine that’s close to Nagasaki train station.

  I say ‘brisk walk’ because I’m starting to realize that I should really have used the toilet, prior to leaving the izakaya…

  Of course, it’s now that I get a little lost down the poorly-lit, winding roads that lead to the ‘Horse, the foot-deep gullies on either side of these roads threatening to break the ankles of the poorly-sighted. (Or in my case, the partially-pissed.)

  I’m beginning to consider that I might have to take a discreet leak in one of these gullies, when a brightly-lit car suddenly pulls to a halt beside me.

  Desiring to empty my bladder, and so really wanting this taxi just to drive on, I start to ‘wave it by’. For some reason, it seems, the driver must have thought I’d just flagged him down.

  Then a siren sounds. It’s not a taxi but a police car. Yep, I’ve definitely had a few… Out gets the driver and his passenger: two male police officers, both of them about my own age.

  ‘Stay where you are – hands against the wall,’ says the driver – or as I now christen him, ‘Starsky’.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ says ‘Hutch’, walking around from the passenger side, hand hovering ominously over his pistol.

  I’m worried now. Not that I’ve any reason to be – I’ve done nothing wrong, other than consider urinating in a public place, and you can often walk down a busy road in broad daylight to see some ‘refreshed’ old man stood merrily tinkling away, waving with his free hand at passing mothers and young children.

  But as a gaijin living in Japan, you get to hear stories about the police…

  Story #1:

  This was recently in a Japanese newspaper – albeit one written in English for the ‘foreign community’.

  The article described how a thirty-something American ALT (‘Assistant Language Teacher’), living in Osaka, returned home from a night out to discover that he’d lost the key to his apartment.

  So he ‘quietly called up’ to the bedroom window facing the street, in the hope of awakening his sleeping Japanese girlfriend. Said girlfriend proving unresponsive, he then ‘quietly called up’ some more.

  According to a neighbor (interviewed by the article’s writer), this American had something of a habit of a) losing or forgetting his apartment key, and thus b) ‘quietly calling up’ to his sleeping girlfriend in the early hours of the morning, upon his return home from the pub.

  This time, the police were called and the man arrested and taken to the police station for ‘causing a public disturbance’.

  ‘I really thought they meant to kill me – I’ve never been so scared,’ he was quoted as saying. (The article featured a photo of him looking suitably crestfallen, while also sporting a rather impressive black-eye).

  ‘I was screaming at them to stop,’ he went on to say, describing how several Osaka police officers allegedly participated in enthusiastically bouncing him off various hard objects in the ‘interview room’, such as the walls, desk and door.

  The article concluded with the ‘victim’ stating that he was considering taking ‘further action’.

  The moral of the story, meanwhile, was obvious. Namely, a) never forget the key to your apartment, and b) if you do, quietly retire to the nearest ‘cyber café’ – where you can remain, hopefully free of police assault, until morning breaks.

  Story #2:

  This one actually comes from a friend of mine, who would like to remain anonymous. So we’ll call him ‘Tim’.

  Several years before, in Nagasaki, Tim was driving home with his Japanese wife in the early evening. They stopped outside a hamburger place, and Tim’s wife went in to purchase their takeaway dinner while Tim remained in the car.

  There were two drunken Japanese men sat at a table near the window; and as Tim’s wife attempted to leave with the food she’d just bought, they accosted her, blocking her way and pushing her.

  Tim was able to see what was happening through the window, at the same time as he hurriedly got out of his car. When one of the men slapped his wife in the face, Tim ran in and knocked the man down.

  It was at this precise moment, of course, that the police happened to show up.

  So what they saw was a burly gaijin (Tim is quite ‘built’) striking a poor drunken Japanese man hard in the face. Even when the two staff and owner of the hamburger restaurant spoke up in Tim’s defense, telling the police exactly what had happened, Tim was still arrested, handcuffed and taken to the police station.

  (The two drunken Japanese men were merely told to go home and sleep it off.)

  It was at the police station that things got a little nasty. Tim was sat down and had several sheets of paper placed in front of him. He was given a pen and told to sign at the bottom of the end sheet of paper.

  Not being able to read Japanese, he of course had no way of knowing exactly what he was supposed to be signing. So he refused. Which was when a police officer spat in his face (yes, really), and told him that he would get in real trouble if he did not sign.

  Again, Tim refused.

  He was kept at the station all night, and not allowed to sleep. Whenever it looked as though he was about to nod off, he was roughly shaken awake.

  He was told to sign the ‘admission of guilt’ – for Tim was certain this was what it was – any number of times, but he continued to refuse…

  At last, when Tim’s wife threatened to get a lawyer involved, Tim was released from custody – unshaven, disheveled, and more than a little shaken by the whole experience…

  It would, of course, be completely erroneous and deeply wrong to suggest that any more than the tiniest minority of Japanese police officers routinely behave as described in the two examples above.

  (The second example, especially, I have no reason to disbelieve.)

  But still there remains the somewhat entrenched belief among many Japanese, and certainly most gaijin, that involvement with the law is best avoided, if at all possible.

  Something to do with Japan’s fabled ‘99%’ conviction rate, perchance…

  …In any case, the police officers who have stopped me are reasonably polite, but very stern. They’re not fooling around. My hands placed against the wall, I’m patted down.

  Then I’m instructed to stand as normal. My bladder is really bursting now.

  ‘Do you have a knife on you?’ asks one police officer – not the one who just patted me down. Clearly, he doesn’t have much faith in his colleague’s ability to perform a ‘stop and search’.

  Nah – just the trusty old six-shooter strapped down by my right ankle, you know I consider quipping, but don’t.

  I’m asked several questions – name, age, what I’m doing in Japan, etc. When they learn that I live here, staying on a spousal visa, I have to show my ‘alien registration card’, and, shining a torch upon it, they note down its details.

  I give a mental sigh; I am now on ‘police file’.

  ‘We stopped you because there have been reports of a gaikokujin (the longer, more ‘polite’ way of saying ‘gaijin’) who’s carrying a knife in Sasebo,’ Starksy now informs me.

  Hutch’s hand no longer hovers over his holster. Clearly, I’m not suspected of being this knife-carrying menace. Small wonder, really, given that Sasebo is some forty miles distance from where I’m stood now. There’s an American military base there.

  ‘OK, thank… you,’ says Starsky, for some reason now speaking in broken English as he prepares to get back in the patrol car. ‘Have a… enjoy night.’

  ‘Yes,’ choruses Hutch, returning back around the side.

  I bid a polite farewell to them, in Japanese, and pretend to tie up my sho
elace while they drive off…

  And then I take a long and very, very satisfying pee into the gulley at the side of the road…

  Monkey Man and Back at the Doc’s

  My black-belt test for judo (AKA the ‘gentle way’ – ha ha, good joke) is just over two weeks away.

  It’s due to take place on a Sunday morning at a centre near Nagasaki train station, and Ozaki-sensei has some slightly-tougher-than-usual training in mind for me this evening…

  We’ve endlessly practiced the desired kata, waza and a whole host of other things with funky-sounding names that I’ve already forgotten. I know – sort of – when to step onto the mat, what foot to favor first, when to bow and who to…

  Now all I have to do is to win three ‘fights’ out of five, which is probably when the major problems will start...

  So tonight, just to toughen me up a bit – in case being frequently paired with Oddjob wasn’t tough enough – they’ve brought in the Monkey Man.

  I know that seems like quite an offensive thing to write, but… Well, I can’t help it. Because he just is the Monkey Man. Everything about this gentleman, from his facial bone-structure and cheetah-like grin, right through to his crouched, bow-legged and long-armed gait, is positively simian. I can put it no better than that.

  He’s a third dan judo expert – only one dan below Ozaki-sensei, I believe. He’s barely five and a half foot, and not especially built; but his strength and speed seem almost superhuman. He also has the large, calcified knuckles common to a dedicated karate or kendo practitioner.

  (Serious karateka get enlarged knuckles from their habit of punching their way through such objects as bricks and wooden boards. Kendoka, meanwhile, just get rapped hard and often across their knuckles by their swords of bamboo and wood – and the padded gloves they wear only absorb so much of the impact.)

  Also worth a mention is the fact that the Monkey Man farts continuously. Upon his arrival and bowed entrance into the dojo, while warming up, and then right until the end of the lesson.

  I’m ordered to be his ‘partner’; and as he proceeds – with various lightning-quick throws – to hurl me hard onto the tatami mats several hundred times over (or so it really does seem), he keeps up a running monologue concerning my lamentable lack of technique, punctuated by the stunning array of noises being emitted from his backside:

  ‘…I-notice-you’re-trying-parp-to-push-me-there-toot-what-you-should-be-splutter-doing-is-pulling-me-pfffft-off-balance-and-quack-quack-quickly-using-the-pump-inside-of-your-left-foot-to-trip-me-honk…’

  I start to feel really ill after about… Ooh, five minutes of this. The dojo’s sloping ceiling with its long fluorescent lighting strips keeps spinning round every time I’m thrown; and each time my body impacts with the mat, there’s a feeling as though a grenade’s just gone off in my skull…

  It doesn’t help matters that, as it’s summer, the dojo is absolutely boiling. There are no fans.

  After half an hour, I’m shaking and really feeling quite sick. One of my legs (the left one – not the one damaged before) has also taken repeated knocks, and is beginning to hurt rather a lot…

  Come the end of the lesson, I can barely limp off the tatami. Sensei takes my arm, makes me sit down, and gently berates me for not telling him how I felt earlier. Then he tells me just to get home, and quickly. I need no further encouragement.

  Back home, I first shower off and then put my sweating, shaking carcass in the bath. (In Japan, it’s the custom to shower first, before entering the bath. It’s usual for all members of a family to use the same bath water.)

  In the water, I observe my lower left leg almost visibly start to swell.

  Oh shit, shit… I’ve been here before…

  …Back at the ‘bone hospital’ the following day, the same doctor as before observes me with faintly sardonic amusement.

  ‘Have you ever considered that judo may not be quite for you?’ he enquires, while gently prodding my by-now very swollen, blue-yellow-and-purple lower leg.

  ‘What do you suggest is best for a man like me, then?’ I demand, wincing with the pain.

  ‘Hmm…’ murmurs the doctor, as he considers his answer. ‘Origami?’

  Of course, I made that last bit up. Although I do suspect that the doc considers me to be a bit of a weedy gaijin, and is warning me against practicing judo purely for the sake of my own good.

  The depressing thing is – he’s probably right…

  We take X-rays, just to be totally sure that my other leg is this time full of ‘infected pus’.

  Yep, it sure is. Happy days.

  So down come the pants, and in goes the small prick. I can’t pay and get out of there quick enough, past the men in their pajamas with their crutches who are crouched smoking by the hospital entrance.

  I’m perhaps becoming a little paranoid, but I suspect that even they share a quick smirk as I limp by.

  I phone Sensei to tell him I’ll be off again for a while. He tells me that he’s already cancelled my black-belt exam; he’s even managed to get back my deposit, although it was strictly speaking non-refundable.

  What a nice man, really.

  He tells me to take it easy, and we finish the call.

  There won’t be another black-belt examination test, held in Nagasaki, for six months.

  So I’m looking at early next year before I can try again.

  Ashes to Ashes and Yankee Doodle

  During Japan’s tsuyu or ‘rainy season’ (which starts around the beginning of June, and lasts for several weeks) there is clearly not a lot of opportunity to work outdoors.

  Instead, Unki-san and I turn our attention to the interior of Daionji temple, cleaning the various wooden floors, tatami mats, windows etc until everywhere is spotless, while also looking for anything that needs to be fixed or mended.

  One ongoing maintenance job, when the weather is not so clement, is to replace all of the shelving belonging to the ohaka (tombs) that are in the temple’s nokotsudo, or mausoleum.

  This mausoleum is located at the back of the temple, behind the main hall. It has several long rows of narrow tombs, constructed from stone and marble and often garnished by visiting relatives with whatever the deceased was partial to during his or her lifetime.

  Such gifts commonly include cans of beer, cups of sake, cartons of cigarettes, boxes of chocolates and bags of potato crisps.

  Far more poignant an offering is the toy fire-truck placed on the shelf of one tomb, directly below a photograph taken of a young boy.

  As might be expected, it is extremely quiet inside the mausoleum. It smells both of the joss sticks that are lit by visitors, and also slightly of damp. There are several persistent leaks in the mausoleum’s wide flat roof, which Unki-san and I have repaired a number of times, only for them to reappear a while later.

  Really, the whole roof needs replacing. After all, it dates from 1959, when the mausoleum and main hall were rebuilt following a major fire – but that will be both an extremely expensive and time-consuming job.

  The mausoleum’s narrow and rectangular-shaped tombs contain urns of ashes – as do many of the tombs that are located in the temple’s outdoor cemetery.

  Alternatively, the urns containing the ashes and bits of bone that are left following a cremation might just be scattered on the floor inside the tomb. Such a thing only takes place in those tombs that are situated outdoors, however.

  The tombs located in the indoor mausoleum are much smaller than those outside, and thus a lot cheaper for a family to rent.

  ‘Plots’ both indoors and out are commonly rented, and are returned to the temple when the family who is paying the annual rent either moves away from the area, or just sees their ‘lineage’ come to a natural end.

  When a tomb is judged to have been ‘abandoned’, a notice is placed on it, which declares that it will become temple property after one year, if no one makes a claim on it. When twelve months has elapsed with no claim being made (as is almost alway
s the case), the tomb – frequently in poor repair – is then leveled, and a new one constructed in its place.

  The indoor tombs, meanwhile, possess rectangular-shaped, heavy marble doors with a brass handle. These doors have to be lifted up and out of their grooved ‘slots’, when it is time for a family to inter a new urn of ash.

  So far I have not encountered any of these tombs running out of space for such urns (narrow as they are, they are still tall and have three separate shelves inside), but then this mausoleum only dates from 1959.

  The plywood shelves installed at that time are now rotting, however. So when it is impossible to work outside because of the weather, and we have run out of other things to do inside the temple, Unki-san and I continue slowly replacing these shelves with ones made from wood.

  Frustratingly, every shelf is slightly different in size – width, length or both – and so has to be measured and cut especially to fit.

  We also have to be extremely careful when lifting up the heavy doors for the first time. Because some of the shelves are in such poor condition that they have already partially collapsed – meaning that one or possibly more urns of ashes are now ‘propped’ at an angle against the interior of the door.

  Lift up the door too quickly, and the urn falls onto the floor in front of the tomb and deposits its contents upon the thin carpet.

  This happens to Unki-san and me as we work today.

  I lift the door… and with a cry Unki-san attempts to catch the large, heavy urn as it falls towards the floor.

  No dice. Ash and small bits of bone – the largest piece looks as though it was once part of a skull –spill out as the urn impacts.

  (It doesn’t break, but the lid is knocked off…)

  …Incidentally, the first time I attended a funeral, I was shocked when, following the cremation, the still-hot bones of the deceased – my mother-in-law’s uncle – were wheeled out on a trolley for all to observe.