Tag: All Nippon Airways

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Notes from Japan

The Cat Stationmaster of Kishi

Narrative and photographs by Suzanne Kamata

My daughter Lilia and I were in Wakayama Station, on our way to see the cat station master in the small town of Kishi. Because Lilia uses a wheelchair, we had to ask for assistance getting on and off the train.

“What time are you coming back?” a Japan Railways employee asked. They would have to prepare for our return later in the day.

“We want to come back on the Tamaden,” I said, referring to a train with a cat theme. I had taken a photo of the train schedule, and I opened my phone to check the time. It was now about twelve-thirty. Although there were trains every thirty minutes – the Animal Train, the Plum Train, the Cha Train – the Tama Train (aka Tamaden) only ran from Kishi twice a day. The next would be at 2:38, which wouldn’t give us much time to see everything. We didn’t want to rush. The final one would be at five fifteen.

“Five fifteen,” I said.

The man gave me a dubious look. “There isn’t very much to do in Kishi,” he said. “There’s nothing there. Are you sure you want to stay that long?”

What about the café? The museum? The shrine? The cat? We had come all this way, and we would only be there for a couple of hours. If we ran out of things to do, we could go for a walk. It was a lovely day, after all.

“You want to ride on the Tama Train, don’t you?” I asked Lilia.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What if we change our minds and want to come back early?” I asked the JR attendant.

He told me that would be difficult.

“Okay, then. Five fifteen.”

After showing our tickets, we were given Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line postcards. On the platform, there was a rubber stamp featuring a cartoonish Tama, with Wakayama Castle, and citrus fruits in the background. Little blank books meant for collecting stamps from various places were sold in gift shops. We didn’t have such books, so we stamped our postcards. A clock with cat ears – one black, one brown, like a calico – hung overhead.

I deduced that the train on the tracks, decorated with colored hearts, illustrations of dogs and cats, and the letters JSPCA, was the Animal Train. Other than the banners featuring cats clutching flowers and a white dog holding a bone, the inside of the car was ordinary. Like most Japanese trains, it was clean, with plush benches along each side, and an orange ticket dispenser at the entrance and exit.

Lilia marveled at how empty the train was. Now that she lived in Osaka, she had become a city girl, used to being squished between passengers on her morning and evening commutes. I was pretty sure that most of the people getting on board were tourists on their way to see Tama.

During the thirty-minute ride, the train swayed on the tracks, past rice paddies, and orange orchards.

“Maybe in the future they will make it easier for people in wheelchairs to visit,” I said.

Lilia frowned and made the sign for money. Yes, it might cost a lot to add an elevator in the station, but was it really too much to ask?

At the end of our journey, which was also the end of the line, a young man wearing white gloves laid out the ramp. Again, we conferred about what time we would go back. He gave me a paper schedule, folded into the size of a credit card, and showed me the phone number at the bottom.

“If you change your mind about what time you want to go back, just call this number,” he said.

“Thank you.” I looked around. We were indeed in the middle of nowhere. Yes, there were many houses, but I could already tell that the station itself was quite small, and, as the attendants in Wakayama had said, there weren’t any shops and restaurants around. But there were quite a few people, many from abroad. I saw a young woman in a pink hijab, and a group of Chinese tourists.

We paused before the shrine to the original cat station master, Tama, on the platform, then went down a ramp, and to the front of the station. By now, we were hungry. But first, the cat.

On this day, Yontama, a calico like her predecessor, was in a little room behind glass at the side of the station. She was napping on the wooden floor, next to a soft, plush mat. Many people were taking photos of her, but no one was bothering her. She wasn’t wearing the hat or suit of a stationmaster or doing anything special. She looked – and I say this with love – like an ordinary cat.

To the left of the window stood a fortune dispenser. Lilia dropped a hundred-yen coin into the box and extracted a rolled-up piece of paper. She unfurled it and showed it to me: “Very happy!”

“Great!” I gestured to the café behind us. “Now let’s go eat.”

We entered the Tama Café, which also seemed to function as the museum. The original cat station master’s hat, decorated with a strawberry emblem, a lace-trimmed blue velvet cloak worn by Tama, and various framed documents were displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet.

I ordered two Hot Cat Sets for us — fish sausages on hot dog buns, strawberry sodas, and cookie wafers printed with Tama’s image. We topped that off with green tea floats, with a scoop of green tea ice cream with almond ears and chocolate chip eyes.

After we had finished our meal, we visited the gift shop next door. From there, we could see Yontama from a different angle. She was awake but still lolling about. I bought little Yontama towels, which are always used in Japan for blotting your hands dry after washing them in public places. Then I paid for a fortune of my own. “Very happy,” it said. I wondered if all of the fortunes in the box were exactly the same.

Across the street was a tourist information center. Despite the JR employees’ skepticism, the people of Kinokawa City had taken the time to consider ways to occupy and engage the many visitors who would come to see the cats. Brochures in many languages were arranged in a rack. I plucked a few and discovered that a beautiful park dating back to the medieval period was within walking distance. The region also produced a lot of fruit, such as strawberries, figs, and oranges.

“Shall we go for a walk?” I asked Lilia.

She nodded. Using a map app on my phone, we set out for Hiraike Park Land. Part of the walk was uphill. Although Lilia’s wheelchair was electric-assisted, she still had to turn the wheels. Her arms started to get tired, so I helped her out for some of the way. We passed fields of cabbages, rice paddies, and groves of lemons, oranges, and figs. Unattended farm stands offered clear plastic bags of freshly picked persimmons and citrus fruits at bargain prices, much cheaper that those sold at the supermarket back home.

We finally arrived at the park. We stopped to observe the ducks and herons, the placid blue pond. According to the map, some ancient burial mounds, made distinctive by their key-holed shape, were nearby. I thought that we might be in danger of exhausting the wheelchair’s battery, however, so we didn’t go in search of them.

On the way back to the station, I stopped at one of the farm stands, put a couple of coins in the money box, and bought a bag of oranges. I would take it back as a souvenir for my husband and me to enjoy.

At one point, Lilia stopped, threw back her head and looked at the sky. “Ao,” she said in Japanese, drawing her fingers across her cheek in the sign for “blue.” She signed that there were no clouds. Indeed, it was a perfect autumn day.

When we were almost to the station, Lilia spotted a general store. She wanted to go inside, so we did. The lone woman behind the counter did not greet us, as is customary in Japan. I wondered if she was put off at the sight of a couple of foreigners. Of course, my daughter is half-Japanese, and has spent her entire life in Japan, but when she is with me, people assume that she is from abroad.

At the front of the store, school uniforms were displayed on mannequins Further inside, various goods were haphazardly arranged – a rack of flannel shirts, a shelf of liquor bottles, snacks for kids dropping in after school. It looked like the aftermath of a rummage sale. When Lilia started down a narrow aisle in her wheelchair, the woman drew in her breath. I could sense her fretting behind us, but she didn’t say anything. What must it be like for these country people to deal with the many foreigners traipsing through their small town? I was reminded of how people in Tokushima, where I live now, used to literally tremble when they saw my foreign face and thought that they might have to speak English.

Lilia decided to buy a packet of shrimp chips. The woman took her money, thanked her, and we got out of her hair.

Back at the station, we returned to the gift shop. Although Yontama was on the clock until four, and it was past four thirty, she was still relaxing in her little room. She probably didn’t mind. No one was tapping on the glass or otherwise harassing her. She had a good view of tourists buying cat themed T-shirts, cookies, and keychains. Lilia bought an ema, a small wooden plaque on which she would write a wish, and appeal to the cat deity, Tama Daimyojin.

We went onto the platform, and I tied Lilia’s ema onto a wooden board, along with wooden plaques inscribed by people from all over the world: “Wishing happiness and peace to animals all around the world.” “May all the strays and rescues get a good and loving home.” “May Pomelo, Walnut, and I live a long healthy life together.”

Dusk was already falling. The platform began to fill with other visitors, who apparently had the same desire to ride the Tama Train as we did. A young Chinese woman with flowing bleached-blonde hair in Lolita-meets-Little-Bo-Peep fashion – bonnet, and a tiered plaid dress with frills, eyelet, and ribbons — posed while her friends took photos. I wanted to take her picture, too, and post it on my Instagram account. She probably wouldn’t have minded, because she seemed to be some kind of influencer, but my daughter frowned and shook her head when I indicated my intentions.

As the train finally approached, everyone tried to get the best spot on the platform for the best shot. The front of the train was painted with a cat’s face. The windows served as eyes, and just below were a nose and whiskers. Cat’s ears were affixed to the top of the car. Pawprints and a cartoon version of Tama in various poses illustrated the sides. Inside, passengers could sit on colorful Tama-themed sofas.

Our friend from earlier showed up with a ramp, and helped us get onto the car with a space for wheelchair users. Lilia was delighted to find a bookshelf stocked with cat-related manga in the car. I handed her a stack of them to read over the duration of the train ride.

Although many of those onboard were obviously tourists, like the young Chinese women continuing their photo shoot, I realised that this train was also used by the residents of the towns on the Kitagawa Line. Observing a man in a business suit who appeared to be among them, I wondered what it was like for him to share his commute with eccentric travelers. I suppose it would be entertaining. At any rate, I couldn’t help but be impressed by this small town’s ability to create a new identity for itself and capitalize on it.

We returned to Wakayama Station tired but satisfied at having completed our mission. When I reached home, my cats were there to meet me, yowling and needy.

.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

The Tent

By Suzanne Kamata

From Public Domain

Japan is generally considered a safe country with a low crime rate. I feel comfortable walking around our neighbourhood alone, in the dark. In fact, I usually go for a walk in the evening after dinner, when night has already fallen. My walking course is mostly along sidewalks, generally well-lit, and the roads are well-traveled. Part of my usual course goes through a tunnel which is across the street from a large shopping mall.

I’d never had any concerns until a couple of months ago when I discovered a tent in the corner of the tunnel. How odd! Once or twice, I’d come across skateboarding teens, but never anyone who seemed to be living there. I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, cuddled up within canvas. It was zipped shut, and malodourous. I hurried past, hoping it would be gone the next day, but it was still there.

While Japan is a very safe country, bad things sometimes do happen here. There was the guy who dressed up like the Joker and lit a fire on a Tokyo subway on Halloween. There was the woman who killed her neighbors by poisoned curry. Every now and then, some knife-wielding psycho starts slashing strangers in a crowd.

I mentioned the tent to my husband. He thought it was strange, too.

“But there is a camera in the tunnel,” I said.

‘It’s just for show,” he countered. “It’s probably not activated.”

“Maybe I should tell the police,” I said. After I had thought about it, though, I changed my mind. Maybe someone was fleeing an abusive home. Maybe an elderly person who couldn’t make rent was holed up inside. Even though I suspected the worst — some crazed criminal lying in wait — it was possible that there was a perfectly good explanation.

Nevertheless, I avoided going for a walk for the rest of the week. A few days later, I decided that it would probably be safe if I crossed the road instead of going through the tunnel. I set out after dark, as usual, but when I got to the crosswalk before the tunnel, I waited for the light. I saw a patrol car parked on the other side of the road, and two policemen waiting to cross. Maybe I should tell them about the tent, I thought. But I said nothing. We crossed paths without a word.

As I watched them, I realised that they already knew about the situation in the tunnel. That’s where they were headed. I observed as they made their way to the tent and peered at it. I felt sure that everything would be back to normal the next day.

But it wasn’t.

The next time I drove by, I noticed that the tent was still standing. Maybe no one had been inside of it when the police officers dropped by to check it out. Maybe they had left it standing out of consideration for the person who was using it for shelter. Or maybe it was more of a trap, so that they could catch the person when they came back.

At any rate, I was relieved that the police were aware of the tent, and that I no longer had to feel conflicted about whether or not I called them. I continued to cross the road instead of going through the tunnel.

A couple of weeks later, my husband and I had dinner with a friend who often went jogging. She knew about the tent, too, and remarked on how odd it was. No one seemed to know what was going on. I’d heard of out-of-work men sleeping on scraps of cardboard in a Tokyo park, but there were no homeless people in our small town. Not that I knew of, anyway.

Finally, my husband came back from a visit to the shopping mall one evening. He told me that he’d seen a police car and an ambulance near the tent. After that, it was gone. I scanned the local newspaper the next day and watched the evening news, but no one mentioned the tent in the tunnel. Maybe I would never find out what had happened.

I thought of other potentially scandalous events that had never been reported — a preschool teacher knifed by her ex-boyfriend on school grounds, a principal who’d hung himself in his office — and I realised that many things were kept under wraps.

I was reminded not to take my personal safety for granted. It also occurred to me that while people in small towns often complain that everyone knows everyone else’s business, the folks in the small town where I lived were good at keeping each other’s secrets, too.

.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

Of Peace and Cheese

By Suzanne Kamata

Here is my son, as a toddler, an ice cream cone in one hand, the other signing “peace.” Here is my daughter at five, posing in front of the Inland Sea, two fingers held up in the air. Here is my son, aged ten, sitting on a park bench in Charleston, South Carolina. Peace!

From pretty much the time that my Japanese-born children learned to say “cheese,” whenever they’ve found themselves in the presence of a camera, they stuck up two fingers in a “V.” Pick up any family photo from our children’s first ten years, and you’ll find someone making this gesture.

It drove my American parents crazy. “Be natural,” they’d say. “Don’t do that!” Candid shots were nearly impossible because as soon as my kids realised they were about to be photographed, those two fingers went up in the air.

My children were not exceptions, of course. I first noticed this practice when I arrived in Japan over thirty years ago. I have a drawer full of photos of myself and various Japanese kids making the sign. Me, I sometimes did it ironically. For Japanese youth, it seemed to be a Pavlovian response.

It hadn’t always been this way. An older Japanese woman friend told me that when she was a child, no one made a “V” when having their picture taken. She lamented that her own children had picked up the same habit, that her daughter signed “peace” even in her wedding photos. When I asked her how it all got started, she couldn’t tell me. However, theories abound.

According to one source, the trend originated in a baseball manga. A character made the “V” for Victory sign in imitation of Winston Churchill. The gesture caught on, and remains.

One of my foreign friends, hoping to break her kids of the tendency, refused to take their picture if they were making the sign. I was not quite so strict. The peace sign may, in fact, be the Japanese equivalent of the smile. In the United States, whenever someone has their picture taken, the photographer tries to get a grin out of them. I’m sure that many of us have faked a smile in order to comply with custom. I certainly have.

Here in Japan, however, smiling for the camera is relatively new. Back in the day, only the very vulgar would show their teeth. In school and other formal photos, gravitas is seemingly required. Thus, in the group portrait taken at my own wedding, the Japanese guests wear poker faces, better suited to a court date. My American relatives are all smiles, though their posed grins may be frozen in place. No one, I might add, is making the peace sign. My husband and I got married in Hawaii, so everyone’s hands are raised with pinkie and thumb extended, a gesture that means “hang loose” in the islands. Shaka shaka.

These days, thanks to the influence of K-pop artists in Japan, people posing for photos are likely to use another gesture. At a recent party celebrating graduating students at the university where I teach, we all got into formation.

“What should we do?” one professor asked. “Peace signs?”

“How about K-pop hearts?” I suggested. The others agreed. We touched our thumbs and index fingers, forming hearts. The picture was taken.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Notes from Japan

The Cherry Blossom Forecast

Photographs and Narrative by Suzanne Kamata

Nothing says “Japan” quite like cherry blossoms.

As I write this, the cherry trees on the campus of the university where I work are adorned with deep pink blossoms. There are several varieties of sakura, which bloom at different times. The earliest are the Kawazukura-zakura, which blossom as early as February in some parts of Japan. In a couple of weeks, the more commonly known frothy pale pink flowers of the Somei Yoshino will be seen. Usually, this timed to perfectly coincide with graduation ceremonies, and opening ceremonies welcoming new students. Every speech seems to begin with a mention of the ephemeral blooms.

Another kind, the Shidare-zakura (weeping sakura), is often found in traditional Japanese gardens.  There used to be a Shidare-zakura across the street from my house. I enjoyed seeing the flowers, garlands swaying in the breeze, but, unfortunately, the owner of the property cut the tree down

My family and I used to make at least one outing each spring to roam among the cherry blossoms. Now, it’s just my husband and me, but as I previous years, we will probably visit a park or mountainside, transformed into a fairytale landscape, and take selfies while pondering the impermanence of youth and beauty.

Many people will gather on blue tarp spread under boughs to partake of lavish boxed lunches and drink beer. The park surrounding the former grounds of Tokushima Castle will be thronged with merrymakers. During the pandemic, Hanami (cherry-blossom-viewing) was frowned upon. At that time, the park was eerily vacant. I imagine that for many Japanese, not being able to participate in this traditional event was one of the greatest hardships of 2020-22.

In February, TV announcers are newspapers begin to forecast the passage of blossoms across the peninsula. It goes something like this:

In northern Japan, snowflakes flutter and fall. Winter hangs on.

Cherry tree twigs stick out of bare branches like witchy fingers.

Every year meteorologists predict the appearance of cherry blossoms.

How do they know when the buds will release their blooms?

Well, from March, once a day, sometimes twice, someone checks on 58 designated barometer trees. One is near Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Most people don’t know where the rest of the trees are. It’s a secret!

People from all over Japan send in photos of cherry blossom buds. Team cherry blossom examines all the photos and tracks the progress of the trees.

Tightly clenched buds mean it may be another month.

About ten days later, the tips change color – yellow-green.

And then, a deeper darker green, like moss in a forest.

When the tips become pink, get ready for cherry blossom viewing.

After five or six blossoms have appeared, the Meteorological Agency announces the start of the cherry blossom season.

In Kyushu, cherry trees may bloom in March. Gradually, buds open, releasing frothy flowers all the way up to Hokkaido, in a wave of pink and white.

Cherry blossom petals flutter and fall.

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International