Back Home

Home-stay, that is. After my various hijinks in Wakayama, I had plans to stay with my old home-stay family in Aichi for a few days. The Yamamoto family has always shown me the utmost kindness in every regard, even when I call them up short-notice and beg for a place to stay. I think they remain in awe of my ability to survive despite being clearly incapable of anything they consider responsible care or self-reliance. I don't really blame them.

When the time came to leave Yasuhide's he was going to drive me to the train station. My luggage was still quite overwhelming, even after giving away plenty of omiyage, so I off-loaded even more stuff to Yasuhide to lighten the load a bit more. It's always hard to say goodbye to beef jerky, but we are often given so few choices in these matters.

Saying good-bye to Yasuhide's parents, I was confronted by some unexpected waterworks. I mean, I know I'm a nice enough guy, perhaps even walking that fine line towards likable, but Mrs. Ueda was just about bawling at my leave. What can I say? Cultural and linguistic barriers crumble before the devastating embrace of my endlessly blue gaze (not quite the shock and awe of the Napalm, but really, what is?). Casualties strewn here and there, I made my exit.

Keiko Yamamoto, my okaa-san, picked me up at the station in Okazaki, Aichi, and brought me back to the Yamamoto residence. You've all probably heard me talk about this house before, but it always bears repeating. This place is off-the-wall awesome Japanese goodness. Tatsuo, the father, is a carpenter and basically built the place himself in traditional style. Right when you walk in is the genkan (where you take your shoes off) of polished stone, and dead ahead is an interior garden scene complete with stone fountain. Not quite like coming home to a puppy but still an exquisitely calming experience. On the right side of the main entry is Tatsuo's office and the master bedroom next to that. Bedrooms are understated affairs in Japanese homes, so it's really just an empty tatami room, but then again that's part of the beauty. Needless to say, for being "just" a tatami room it exhibits quiet perfection with brand new mats and walls structured out of natural woods and perfectly integrated futon closets and such. From the left side of the genkan is first the parlour (for lack of better name) where Tatsuo entertains house guests and clients. This room is decked out with all sorts of traditional art and, for a special few days, was the lucky recipient of Kevin's luggage due to its fortunate proximity to the front door. Next to that room is the living room with TV, massage chair, and wall unit which I'm proud to say displays a nearly empty bottle of Glenfiddich I gave to Tatsuo a while back. In the center of the room is a low table with a hidden indent for western-style sitting. Word. Back in the hallway is my favorite two parts of the house: the downstairs toilet and shower room, and the staircase.

The staircase is awesome because the banister is a gnarled piece of natural wood that Tatsuo worked right into the frame of the house. I've tried to take a million pictures of this, much to the bemused curiosity of my hosts, but I can never quite capture it the way it should be. Come to Japan and I'll do my best to introduce you to the coolest staircase banister anywhere, ever.

The toilet and shower room are technical wonders that also manage to remain aesthetically pleasing. The toilet is also composed of natural pieces of wood and all the equipment have motion sensors which gives the room a nice minimalist feel. Despite its minimalism, its clearly so lavish that you finish your business and half expect a man-servant to be ready and waiting with a warm towel for you on the way out.

The shower room is just that: an entire room devoted to the art of showering. After a primary cleansing you hop in the perfectly heated (read: 42*C; that's hot) bath and soak for a while. Finish up, dry off, get dressed and as soon as you open the sliding door Keiko is on hand kindly insisting on your evening's ice cream. I love Japan.

Upstairs are some more rooms, mostly for their children. Two of the sons I never really met except on a single occasion three years ago, but the youngest son, Masao, and the daughter, Sachae (Sa-chan), were both living there when I stayed there originally so I know them. Their rooms are both similarly traditional Japanese in style, complete with tatami mats and sliding doors. Masao's looks like any 20-year-old guy's room would: a mess, and Sa-chan's takes after Keiko's style of near-perfection in all things.

The room where Kevin stays, which they all refer to as "Kebin's room" (probably just for my amusement) is ironically (or not) the only room in the house with a western door (opens and closes with a knob). It's got a desk in one corner (when I was supposedly studying) and a mini-fridge in the corner, always stocked with water and orange Qoo (a child's drink). There are futons and pillows in the closet and, with the bathroom and sink right outside, it's a perfectly self-contained little section of the house.

Something about the Yamamoto home always makes me sleepy. Perhaps it's the subtly permeating sense of harmony, but I sleep like a baby in that house and after several days of insomnia I was more than happy to return to a normal sleep routine. Conversely, however, I believe the powers of torpor than the Yamamoto household grants me adversely affects their already skewed view of my laziness. The first night I think I slept a good 14 hours straight.

My three days with the Yamamoto's was great fun. On one day I went with Tatsuo and Keiko to a nearby hydrangea garden. I'm not much of a green-thumb but it's those flowers that my mother loves so very much and never forgets to mention when we see them blossoming on good ole Vineyard Lane. I thought my mother would have appreciated this little excursion much more than I did because the garden was simply overrun with these flowers in full bloom. Every conceivable color was represented, from oranges and pinks and red to the blue-purples that we have back home.

The place was milling with old Japanese folk who were quite surprised to see a young person in their midst, let alone a foreign one. I think Tatsuo and Keiko experience some awkward mixture of pride and embarrassment whenever I go out in public with them. The experience is jarring to their homogenous instincts yet they can't help but in relish in the attention and aura of worldliness. The occasional old folk would make brief conversation venerating my Japanese abilities and appreciation for Japanese culture, and I would acknowledge the compliments with silent smiling nods and not mention that earlier that morning I had conquered no less than 4 Orcish hordes and looked forward to subjugating many more as soon as we got home. Yes, I'm a real cultural sophisticate.

The best outing I had with the Yamamoto's was going on a bus tour with Tatsuo to Shizuoka. Bus tours are famously boring affairs because you are carted from tourist trap to tourist trap and kindly expected to buy outrageously priced omiyage for your friends and family. Furthermore, the theme of this particular bus trip appeared to be "Death and Tuna" because all of our stops were to temples and cemeteries. Well, I suppose the tour operators know their audience. What better way to spend your Saturday than scouting potential permanent resting places and enjoying local delicacies?

Two points in my journey were noteworthy. The first happened before we even left Okazaki. The tour group met in an event hall lobby and at the appointed hour we were all gathered at the front door and given our honorary member badges. I figured we were getting on the bus I could see waiting outside so I headed for the door (cool kids always sit in the back, after all) but was stopped but a guide who was politely directing me to the elevator. Of course, we were taking the chopper. Confused, I shuffled into the elevator with my aged companions and I was, for once, far and away the tallest person in the room. We stopped off at the top floor and were further herded into a room with tiered landings. How very odd. I followed my new friends into this room, curiosity piqued, and saw yet another guide at the front adjusting lighting and directing tourists here and there. Yes, we were taking a group photo. I realized immediately with true sincerity that I would in fact want to remember this day and support it with photographic evidence for the rest of my life.

We took about four shots, and I managed my most overwhelming shit-eating grin in about three of them, but the photographer was more wily still and ultimately developed the one photo in which I look mostly normal. As normal as I could be smack dab in the middle of this photo with forty stoically unsmiling grandparents.

So anyway we got going and it turned out that for a group of about 40 tourists we needed almost 10 tour guides. I won't conjecture about whether this is for reasons of personability or for, um, care for the aged, but there certainly were plenty of them to make sure we had no strays. Quick note on the bus for a second: in the aisle there were fold-in fifth seats which I had previously seen only in Ghanaian public transportation and which momentarily clenched my heart in paralyzing fear until I remember what country I was in. Still, I rode with a slightly heightened sense of awareness.

En route the guides took turns doing what must pass for stand up. Three hours of Japanese-style Vegas showmanship to a chorus of charmed obaa-san chuckles and the wheezing laugh of ojii-sans. I think the lead man might have taken a knock at foreigners at one point because everyone looked at me and I gave them the I-have-no-idea smile-and-nod and everyone had a good laugh. He went on with his bit and I quietly plotted an unfortunate accident.

The real hi-light of the day, however, was lunch. After the first few sites we finally stopped at an all-tuna outlet/supermarket. If it can be made from tuna they sell it here. When we first got off the bus there was a guy sharpening a knife in front of a massive table covered in ice and a huge piece of tuna. So good. We all gathered around and he proceeded to slice and dice it to pieces with amazing speed. Slice slice, off comes the head. Slish slash, out comes the spine. Apparently there are at least four or five distinct parts of fish meat that represent varying degrees of quality (and, of course, cost). The butcher separated all these pieces and quoted some possible prices. The expensive part of the fish could probably have bought a decent new car. The part we were offered (yes, the fish he had just cut up) was the chuu-toro, the second best cut. Having received a taste, we were led to the cafeteria upstairs where the tables were laid with platters heaped with more maguro sashimi (raw tuna). In addition there were individual sets with tuna prepared in every conceivable way and other Japanese cuisine mainstays like rice and miso. My eyes were glued to the sashimi platters. Each platter was centered in front of four individual sets, and so presumably was capable of feeding four people. Tatsuo and I, however, were among the last to sit down at the end of a table so we had only one other companion to share the platter with. Not only did we only have to split it three ways, but our new friend was probably the oldest guy on the tour and happily pat his stomach after a just few minutes. Holy crap did I eat a lot of maguro that day. And it was glorious. The staff was so amazed by my appetite that after I inconceivably finished the platter they brought me out yet another plate and quietly mentioned that it was a few slices of the best cut of the fish. All hail the power of the gaijin license. I ate like a king that day, and just remembering it puts a smile on my face.

In addition to that awesome meal, the Yamamotos treated me to some other great food during my stay. Keiko had innocently asked me about my favorite Japanese foods the first day (as if she ever forgot anything) and mysteriously each of the foods materialized at our meals the next few days. We had yakiniku (literally: burned meat) one night and another we went out to have my favorite Japanese cuisine: unagi (barbequed eel). I've always said, and I still stand by this, that there are three levels of cuisine here in Japan: there are bad restaurants, there are good restaurants, and there is Keiko Yamamoto. She never hesitates to pull out the stops, and I never hesitate to display my gratitude with a healthy appetite. What can I say? These twin blue stimuli capture the imagination and demand culinary excellence. I try to use my powers for good, but fortunate accidents are bound to happen.

Follicle Fortunes and Follies

So it's taken me a while to shoot off this first email. I've been alternately busy and lazy, and the unfortunate consequence is that a few charming anecdotes will have likely fallen through the cracks. However, there have been plenty of good times since I arrived here in Japan, more than enough to adequately realize the beginning of the hi-light reel I present to you today. Let us begin.

I arrived back in the old stomping grounds of Iwade, Wakayama, on the evening of June 6^th. My home-boy Yasuhide Ueda did me the great favor of taking me in for an extended weekend when I first arrived. This deed is twice as admirable considering that he suffered all the pains of Kevin-the-house-guest with none of the compensatory advantages of living with Kevin-the-cheerful-charming-American. Alas, jet-lag had rendered me a surly barely-cognizant shell of my effervescent self. It took me a couple days to start sleeping normally again and most of those days were spent staring at cracks of sunlight torturing me through the window blinds in a corner room of the house.

Despite my sad state of half-being, this did not stop us at all from accomplishing all those shenanigans I'd been eagerly awaiting since deciding to return to Japan. I ran around Iwade a bit, visiting my old neighbors Mercedes and Rich, old bosses Dan and Masaya, and returning to the old dojo to see Suzuma-san and practicing a bit of Aikido with the kids. I can still whoop all their asses. Saturday night was the glorious return to Osaka night-life, but not before a special gift from Yasuhide and the focus of this email.

Yasuhide is an incredibly accomplished man of diverse passions and remarkable skills. He is, barring some of the more intricately nuanced slang, perfectly fluent in conversational English (fan-f*cking-tastic, you might say). He is diligent student of both Spanish and French. He is a master of the Japanese tea ceremony and learned in the art of ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement). But most of all, and of great importance to me, he is an extraordinarily talented and award-winning barber.

Yasuhide's gift to me was an exquisite haircut ("the better to meet girls with, Kevin"; how could I refuse?). Before you all guffaw, hold your breath a moment and embark on a journey of follicle enlightenment. As with most things that enter Japanese culture and industry, the seemingly mundane is broken down, analyzed, improved, synthesized and re-engineered into an impressive new product. Sure, Japanese barbers are marked by those familiar twirling red-and-whites outside dilapidated buildings sentried by measured old men with envious coifs, but that's as far as the commonality goes.

Yasuhide's joint is in the bottom road-side corner of his house. It's a family-run operation where he and his father cut hair and his mother specializes in shaves. The salon is an older place with an 80s vogue style. The service chairs are these unremarkable faded red leather dentist-chair look-alikes… that is until Yasuhide flips the switch, powers up, and its game on.

A Yasuhide haircut is no simple hack and slash affair. Even an unremarkable hair-style like my own is given its due consideration. Back home, when I used to go to the barber, it was a simple zip zip zip of the electric razor with some scissor work to even out the rough patches. When I figured out the real ease of the process (well, to give credit where credit is due, my brother Mike is the first one to have invested), I went out and bought my own razor and started cutting my own hair, occasionally calling upon some familial assistance for trustworthy straightening at the back of my noggen. I informed Yasuhide of this sort of simplicity and he swallowed a knowing chuckled, avoiding condescension out of friendship. Razors, apparently, are for amateurs, and even beneath any serious amateur. Professionals (samurais? ninjas? Leon, anyone?) use the blade.

I lay back and Yasu puts on a utility belt that would make Batman jealous. The belt contains an arsenal of shears and combs, powders and puffs. Lastly he unwraps his prized master's shears from their felt cloth resting place and inserts them into their dedicated belt compartment. To give a little perspective, these shears are worth at least 300,000 yen and are, I think, registered with the government. Lock and load.

The process begins slowly, a muted crescendo of hygiene products. First comes the hair tonic. Then the face cream. A hot towel, to be sure. Face massage. Face wash. Hair wash. Now the cutting begins… a preliminary cut to take out the rougher patches, and then the main event. The master's shears come out and its hairmageddon on my cranium. The zip zip of razor-sharp blades buzzing in my ear is hypnotic and that tingly feeling on the back of my neck lulls me into a daze.

Yasuhide was slowing down and I was coming to, and I just about got out of the chair prematurely. Imagine, if you will, that old PBS bad-ass Bob Ross. Bob would come to the twenty-fifth minute of his hypnotic session with a perfectly pleasant painting. You were just about ready to close up shop and hang up yet another mountain landscape when Bob flippantly decided to plant a friendly little tree right down the middle of your masterpiece. No, Bob, don't do it. Too late. And yet, deep down you really knew to trust in Bob… and trust in Bob you did. When it was all said and done, you couldn't imagine your painting without that friendly little tree. Moral of the story: Bob knows. Likewise, Yasuhide knows. I thought the masterpiece was satisfactorily finished, but Yasu knew better. Once, twice, three times he perfected my neckline. Combing upon combing until strays were vanquished from sight. Sideburns even enough to level a table.

In my dreamy haze, Yasu eased in another hair wash, and finally an agonizingly satisfying head massage. The final death-grip did the trick when the sudden pop at the top of my spine released all the stress of traveling halfway around the world and not being able to sleep properly for several days and I just sat there dazed, looking in the mirror and admired my own beauty.

As if this treatment weren't enough, Yasu's mom insisted on a gift of her own: the perfect shave. My facial tissue has never received such careful indulgence. She operated with an old-school switchblade razor, the somewhat shaky hand putting my nerves on end. But this was another pampered journey of mind-numbing massages and revitalizing creams, exfoliations and relaxations, and I ate up every moment.

At some point during my shave Yasuhide's father walked over with a stack of manga, presumably for me to read. These types of manga are found everywhere in Japan: convenient stores, coffee shops, internet cafes, coin laundries, toilets in even the most far-flung locations. Anywhere a guy might be sitting around for 10 minutes or more you will find these iconic manga stacks. These biblical volumes always seem to be printed on faded yellow, pink, or blue tissue paper and bound together with a glossy cover featuring a scantily clad barely-18. I don't really understand the cohesion of this particular sub-culture much beyond that, except that it is clearly well regarded enough to completely permeate Japanese society. Narrative continuity in general is baffling – are these paper weights at all related or does each present some self-contained account of borderline adult manga archetype? If I had to make an educated guess I'd say the stories invariably involve some outrageously pumped ex-Yakuza-turned-good-guy whose girlfriend probably gets kidnapped for said Yakuza's betrayal and thus our questionable protagonist is forced to go renegade once again, inevitably tearing shit up and saving helpless girlfriend, ultimately enjoying all the, ah, fruits, that success entails. But that's just a guess, what do I know. What I do know is that given that men from the age of ten upwards seem to appreciate this particular genre it speaks volumes about Japanese gender relationships. And I digress.

Mr. Ueda brought me over a stack of these manga and I really had no interest in reading them, happy enough to bask in the service I was receiving, but when I picked one up to be polite he gave me the most quizzical look. Caught off guard, and I was mumbling a "no no no, I'm not actually into this stuff, I just… well, you just… but I thought…" and while that was falling out of my mouth and I realized he spoke no English anyway, he took the book back from me, stacked 3 high on each side of me and finally laid a plank around my lap. Confused and embarrassed relief flooded over me. He next brought out a steam machine, placed it on the plank and aimed at my face. A steam bath, of course, and why not.

Things had been great up until this point, to say the least. Now I was in heaven. The steam softens up the stiff facial hair and, combined with some magically warm shaving cream and a blade sharp enough to make Hattori Hanzo cry a single tear, gives a remarkably close shave with none of the searing burns that typically accompany such precision.

When it was all said and done I was finally able to stand up in a state of grace and examined the job in the mirror. It grieves me to write this, it grieves me to remember, that this incredible experience turned out to be an unfortunately uneven and jagged shave. Like seriously not even close. Shocked and perplexed, I could only and still do account for this circumstance in that the irregular contours of my foreign devil's jaw line were simply too overwhelming to properly accommodate.

Blame for this tragedy was entirely my own and, given the importance of the coming festivities (a night out in Osaka is no laughing matter), it behooved me to rectify on my own the situation with all expedience. Unwilling to hazard insult to my gracious hosts I crept down to the shower with pocket razor and shaving cream hidden in the folds of my towel. Treachery concluded, at long last I was on my way to Osaka for a night that was, unquestionably due to my new digs, entirely successful. Thanks again, Yasuhide. I'm back, woot.