From the Judges: “This piece deftly and succinctly describes a location as well as a period of extended time and suggests how perception evolves as one becomes more familiar with a particular place and oneself. Here the theme is wanderings in the ancient capital of Kyoto and the surprising things one can discover, including many ways to be lost. A desire to lose one’s way in a foreign culture provides a novelty repose from issues which plague the heart.”
＊ ＊ ＊
map
I lose my way in Kyoto for the first time that spring. Sensei swings his cheap umbrella like a dance cane and tells us it’s all part of the adventure. Finally reaching Fushimi-Inari, the rain is gentle; it slips through the spaces in between endless torii.
At the shrine, I pore over the wishes people have written on wooden boards, scanning for the few words that I can read. My wish? There’s someone who won’t ever love me back. Strangely enough, I no longer care.
400 days. It is summer. My brother wants us to move without agenda. We venture into the dark womb of Zuigudo Temple, find an old carpet, miraculously identical to one from our childhood home, within a dusty curry shop, watch a master archer pull back the bowstring and strike his target–again. Again. One more time, again.
My brother leaves all the words to me. We roam around like strays. He loses his wallet. We talk it over outside a palace with nightingale floors. Things work out in the end.
1100 days. Winter. My words to my parents feel unfamiliar, my native tongue unwieldy. The cold creeps into our bones. We gather around that gold pavilion as if we might find warmth. My mother’s eyes remain fixed resolutely upon everything remotely like it, everything that shines. My father? Every time he coughs, I try not to flinch. He is pleased with any mention of the old gods.
In the night, when they slept, I slipped outside. I tried to get lost somewhere in Kyoto. Somewhere I’d never been. There must be somewhere like this. Somewhere yet unknown to me. Somewhere to swallow them up, my words and prayers and screams, swallow them whole.
Image provided by Hayley Noel Wallace
＊ ＊ ＊
Hayley Noel Wallace is the published author of over a dozen short stories. Her fiction has been featured in Deep Magic, Liquid Imagination, and many other anthologies. One of her short works of horror, ‘White Cat,’ has also been adapted for the No Sleep Podcast. You can find her collected works at www.noelwallace.com.
For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.
From the Judges: “It is often said that class differences are largely kept invisible in Japan, and negative feelings suppressed, for the sake of overall harmony. Dave Tampus Pregoner’s musings about a homeless Kyotoite who happens to help a wayward tourist are effective in lifting the curtain on this social phenomenon. His winning submission underscores the humanity of Kyoto’s homeless residents, reminding us that no one can escape the whims of fate which determine those who progress in life, and those who do not.”
＊ ＊ ＊
What Remains to be Seen
You didn’t want to be called a tour guide. You were a local ― a native of this thousand-year capital who pulled the attention of tourists like me until you could draw to yourself our liking.
You spoke with ease and grace―your words were history and pride and honour, because what else could you say but the things we wanted to hear? So, when someone looked disinterested in those temples and shrines, you couldn’t afford to show a revolting presence because you were simply a nice person.
You limned your city’s image to be as inviting, even if it meant you had to witness how we looked with pleasure at the very things that made up the banality and boredom of your day-to-day life.
As you pointed to the rays of sunlight passing through the towering bamboo trees in Arashiyama, I couldn’t imagine the days when you walked down the busy streets of your flourishing city, but no one ever saw you in light.
You said thousands of tourists made offerings and prayers to pay respect to the gods at a shrine situated beyond the wooded forest of Fushimi. But how awful it should be for natives like you to go unnoticed by the same crowd of people who make you feel alone each day.
Why are you homeless? I asked.
You lifted your glass of beer―an attempt to bottle up your thoughts on a rare night off between a visitor and a native―and yelled kampai!
After the spree, I got lost in the middle of Kyoto Station. I called you and asked how to find my way back home.
We’re all homeless in ways we didn’t know, after all! You laughed.
I wondered if that drunken joy was your only way to rise from your everyday ruins.
Images provided by Dave Tampus Pregoner
＊ ＊ ＊
Dave Tampus Pregoner is a Filipino Assistant Language Teacher based in Akita City, Japan. He writes poetry, children’s stories, and some random thoughts about food and travel. When bored, he practices speaking in Japanese around his lovely plants.
For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For this year’s original competition notice (with prize details), click here.
Host for the event was Robert Yellin, owner of the Yakimono Gallery, seen here giving instructions from on high (photo J. Dougill)
Sunday, May 19, WiK had the great pleasure of welcoming the prolific Allen S. Weiss back again on one of his annual visits to Kyoto. Covid had prevented him from coming for two years, so it was good to hear he would be revisiting. He has confessed that he never joins clubs or societies, but would make one exception by joining Writers in Kyoto. He has not only presented on several occasions, but has contributed a lot to our website. On previous visits he has talked about his Teddy Bear and publication of his Kyoto-centrerd book, The Grain of the Clay, which focusses on ceramics. This time Allen talked about his forthcoming book Illusory Dwellings: (Stone Bridge Press) which is due out in the autumn. The subtitle Aesthetic Meditations in Kyoto tells of the content.
There could hardly have been a better setting than Robert Yellin’s Yakimono Gallery’s collection of ceramics. (photo by Yellin)
A cosy setting surrounded by exquisite ceramics (photo Yellin)
The presenter checking his notes (photo by Larry)
Long-term member Allen Weiss has a particular interest in the aesthetics of Kyoto, a city which he considers his second home. A lecturer and researcher for New York University/Tisch School of the Arts, he counts amongst his specialities aesthetic and performance theory; experimental performance; landscape architecture; gastronomy; and sound art. He has written several books touching on Kyoto, and his new publication is inspired by the city. For an account of a previous talk for WiK, please see here and for more about his books click here or here. To learn more about Robert Yellin’s gallery, see here.
Mid-May has arrived, and the judges of the Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition have come to their very difficult decision of selecting the top prizewinners. We were delighted to receive numerous submissions from individuals comprising 29 nationalities, located both within Japan and in a total of 24 countries across the world — an indication of just how much the enchanting city of Kyoto touches us all, even from a vast distance.
The results of the Ninth Annual Kyoto Writing Competition are as follows, with brief comments from the judges. The full text of each top prizewinner will be posted on this website in due course. In the meantime, let’s join together in congratulating the winners. We are deeply thankful for everyone’s participation this year.
The original competition announcement and explanation of prizes can be found here.
It is often said that class differences are largely kept invisible in Japan, and negative feelings suppressed, for the sake of overall harmony. These musings about a homeless Kyotoite who happens to help a wayward tourist are effective in lifting the curtain on this social phenomenon. Kyoto’s homeless residents — like those everywhere — are often invisible, and this piece underscores their humanity. The line, “We’re all homeless in ways we didn’t know, after all” is particularly striking, reminding us that no one can escape the whims of fate which determine those who progress in life, and those who do not.
This piece deftly and succinctly describes a location as well as a period of extended time and suggests how perception evolves as one becomes more familiar with a particular place and oneself. Here the theme is wanderings in the ancient capital of Kyoto and the surprising things one can discover (including many ways to be lost). A desire to lose one’s way in a foreign culture provides a novelty repose from issues which plague the heart.
The vivid and beautiful imagery of this piece was striking, and its ambiguity left the judges wondering whether the elderly woman described is actually Kyoto personified in its feminine aspects.
Ruminations on scenes along the Kamo River. A skater flies with the wind, finding freedom along this picturesque artery flowing through the city. The river’s banks attract all sorts of people, and in this piece one with physical challenges wistfully envies the fluid motions of the other. And yet, thoughts transcend envy and energy is absorbed. Age finds hopefulness in youth.
A discourse on the likely passing of a traditional art. So much of what makes Kyoto special is fading away, with every machiya demolished and every craftsman who retires without passing on his skills. This piece highlights that sad fact by describing the ubiquitous lacquerware for sale at the city’s flea markets, all of it genuine, because “Why replicate what they believe to be worthless?” Yet, these remnants continue to inspire deities and mortals alike.
<USA Prize>
“Basho in Love” by John Savoie
A series of seasonal haiku verses which conveys an entire narrative within its delicate descriptions and easily evokes images of Kyoto’s enveloping nature and pastimes while recalling the 17th century master of this poetic form.
Honorable Mentions
“Fait Accompli” by Daniel Eve
“Throw Me Back” by Matthew James McKee
“Tea House” by Erin Jamieson
“The City of Flowers” by Amanda Huggins
＊ ＊ ＊
Thank you very much to the judges for their time, insights, sharing of feedback, and cooperation in the selection process.
For the official announcement and submission details of our next Kyoto Writing Competition (#10), please be sure to check our website in the middle of November 2024. If you have not yet shared your work with us, we encourage you to do so in the future. In the meantime, please return to our website in the coming days to read each top prizewinning piece from this year’s competition.
Sometimes it’s the unexpected detours that provide the greatest pleasure.
Last week, I spent the afternoon with PhD student Ran Wei, who has been in Osaka on a Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. We had planned to meet at Kyoto’s Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, tour the garden, and then enjoy a long and luxurious meal discussing her dissertation on Japanese prose fiction set in the city of Osaka.
I checked on the garden schedule, she searched for good restaurants near Kitano Tenmangu and made a reservation at the Sakurai-ya. We arranged to meet at the shrine entrance at 10:30, walk around the garden, and then head to the restaurant by 1:00.
Kitano Tenmangu Shrine June 23, 2023. Credit: Ran Wei
Ran and I met right on schedule and enjoyed working our way through the shrine grounds to the garden. We stopped to rub the noses of the bronze oxen statues and to pay our respects to Tenjin-sama, the God of Learning, his spirit resting augustly in the shrine depths. We both were looking for some divine intervention, Ran for her dissertation, me for my second novel.
It was the season to celebrate the summer maple leaves, ao momiji. We purchased our tickets and entered the garden expectantly.
At every turn we walked deeper and deeper into a tunnel of green—of many greens: emerald, cyan, fern, moss, and malachite. The maple leaves, glistening with the morning dew, were splendid, but they were not alone in their lush glory. Standing in small clumps here and there, tall stalks of bamboo rivaled the maples for attention, the newest shoots were a rich Persian green, nearly teal. A vermillion bridge and ornamental balustrade stood in stark contrast to the greens making both colors all the more vibrant. The graveled pathways were surprisingly unkempt, with vines and brambles stretching out to snatch at passersby, who were few—a small blessing in the normally crowded Kyoto. We agreed that the tangled atmosphere of the garden only enhanced its charm.
Vermillion Balustrade. Credit: Rebecca Copeland
After we had bathed in the eddies of green for what felt an extraordinary amount of time, we emerged to discover we still had nearly two hours before our lunch reservations.
We decided to stroll to my lodgings in the middle of the Nishijin area, famous for its production of exquisite brocades. Occasionally when I walk through the streets on this or that errand, I’ll hear the sounds of weaving, the click, clack of the looms, the soft thud of the shuttle.
“What’s this?” Ran asked, pointing to a sign on an old machiya row house we were passing. It read in English:
Soushitsuzure-en Textile Studio
Off to the side another sign announced in Japanese kengaku, which means “observation” but literally reads “look and learn.”
“Let’s try?” Ran suggested.
We followed a long, covered walkway that opened into a sunny courtyard. We were not sure what to expect. We noticed another kengaku sign and followed it to what looked like the door to the studio.
We rang the bell and within minutes a young woman appeared. When we asked if we might kengaku, she pulled two pairs of slippers from the shelf to her left and placed them on the floor before us.
We stepped out of our shoes and entered a very cluttered space full of seven or more looms, walls of thread, and lots of papers with illustrations stacked upon almost every flat surface.
“Irrasshai.”
A thin, bespectacled elderly man with kind eyes emerged from one of the looms to greet us. The young woman disappeared. The man introduced himself as Mr. Hirano.
Image of Mr. Hirano, Rebecca Copeland, Ran Wei
For the next hour Mr. Hirano told us about the weaving process. He showed us a short video narrated in English that explained each step. Mr. Hirano stopped the video regularly to explain the processes himself, in Japanese, elaborating and allowing us to ask questions.
We watched the way the weaver prepares the loom, first selecting the thread, twisting two different colors of threads together to make elaborate hues, spinning the thread onto spools, different spools for different colors. It can take weeks just to load the thread, depending on the pattern to be woven.
Mr. Hirano, we learned was born into a weaving family.
“I’ve been weaving for 70 years,” he told us.
Later, when we learned he was 78, we imagined him as an eight-year-old boy twisting threads onto spools.
“It takes at least 40 years before you’re really a full-fledged weaver.”
Ran turned to me and quipped with a smile, “I guess writing a dissertation isn’t as bad as I thought!”
When the video ended, Mr. Hirano spread a beautiful museum catalogue before us and pointed to the photograph of an elegant Buddhist figure. We thought it was a painting until he revealed it was Nishijin brocade. He had led a team of six weavers, all over the age of 50, in the project. It took them over three years to complete the weaving, which unfurled at over three by six feet. The piece is now in a museum in Shiga Prefecture.
“We keep these covered, you know,” Mr. Hirano explained as he led us to a wall of spooled and bundled threads. He turned on the overhead light, allowing us to appreciate the amazing array of hues.
Image of threads: Credit: Rebecca Copeland
“Excessive light can fade the dyes.”
Next, Mr. Hirano showed us the piece he was currently working on and the way the weaving is done “backwards,” that is to say, the front of the piece is face down as the weaver works the loom. They need to carry a mirror to check the underside of the loom.
Tall but limber, Ran crouched down under the loom to photograph the underside, then held her camera out for me to see.
So much of the craft is done by instinct and inspiration.
“Tsuzure-ori,” he explained, “is the oldest of the Nishijin weaves. Weavers use their bodies in harmony with the loom—their feet to move the heddle, their hands to set the loom and pull the shuttle, and especially their fingernails to slide the threads tightly in place. Nowadays so much of this weaving is done by machine, so this studio was founded to help preserve the old techniques.”
Image of workspace with papers and looms. Credit: Rebecca Copeland
In addition to the young woman we met at the door—who retired to a corner of the studio to work on a computer, perhaps keeping the accounts—there was only one other person in the studio, a woman working quietly at her loom in the other corner.
“We cater to local artists and to people who weave as a hobby.”
Aside from the large museum piece, most of the other items Mr. Hirano showed us were small.
“Hardly anyone orders obi sashes and kimonos anymore,” Mr. Hirano explained. These had been the mainstay of the Nishijin industry. A few businesses still produce the sumptuous robes used on the Noh stage, but smaller operations like Mr. Hirano’s have had to become more industrious to stay in business.
Not that Mr. Hirano was much in business anymore. His interests now were mainly in preserving the art form.
For a small fee, visitors could make their own accessory: a lampshade, a coaster, or a small item like a keyring.
We decided not to. Our restaurant awaited us.
But we did purchase a small piece of jewelry each, to commemorate our visit, and took a few photos with Mr. Hirano.
We thanked Mr. Hirano, slipped into our shoes, and off we went to our lunch reservations.
Over a delicious meal of seasonal vegetables and fish we reflected on what we had learned—Mr. Hirano’s patience, his focus and diligence. Good lessons for both of us as we face down our various writing projects.
Our impromptu kengaku was the high point of our very wonderful Kitano Tenmangu adventure. Tenjin-sama clearly heard our prayers.
Image of Author and Ran Wei enjoying lunch at Sakurai-ya, June 23, 2023. Credit: Sakurai-ya staff member using Ran Wei’s phone.
＊ ＊ ＊ ＊
Rebecca Copeland is a writer of fiction and literary criticism and a translator of Japanese literature. Her stories travel between Japan and the American South and touch on questions of identity, belonging, and self-discovery. Her academic writings have focused almost exclusively on modern Japanese women writers, and she has translated the works of writer Uno Chiyo and novelist Kirino Natsuo. Copeland was born to missionary parents in a Japan still recovering from the aftermath of war. As a junior in college, Copeland had the opportunity to spend a year in Japan, where she studied traditional dance, learned to wear a kimono, and traveled. Afterwards she earned a PhD in Japanese literature at Columbia University, and she is now a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The present work, The Kimono Tattoo, is her debut work of fiction. More information may be found on her website, rebecca-copeland.com.
Click “Add Attendance”. Then enter your name and be sure to click the check mark before clicking “Submit”.
Your participation will not be counted if the check mark is not selected.
Once the number reaches 20, even though it is still possible to input names on the signup page, it will not be possible to participate.
If your name is included in the first twenty people on the list with a check mark, your spot is secured.
◆Venue: Robert Yellin Yakimoto Gallery
(Robert’s gallery is located near Ginkakuji, close to the start of Philosopher’s Walk. For access see the following link, the bottom right corner of which is headed “Download Our New Location Map”. https://japanesepottery.com/about-us/gallery-tour/)
Long-term Writers in Kyoto member Allen Weiss has a particular interest in the aesthetics of Kyoto, a city which he considers his second home. A lecturer and researcher for New York University/Tisch School of the Arts, he counts amongst his specialties aesthetic and performance theory; experimental performance; landscape architecture; gastronomy; and sound art. He has written several books touching on Kyoto, and his forthcoming publication also features the city.
Sara Ackerman Aoyama first went to Japan in August, 1976 as a member of the Associated Kyoto Program (AKP). It gave her just a bare taste of Kyoto and after she graduated from college, she returned to Kyoto in the summer of 1978 with no plans other than conquering the Japanese language.
In the late 1970s you could often find me at a counterculture hangout called Kyoto Demachi Kokusai Kōryū Center. In English it was grandly translated as the Demachi International Exchange Center.
Much of my time at the center was spent doing small tasks for Professor Nakao Hajime and the antinuclear power movement. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania had alarmed him and other activists. I wasn’t calling myself an activist, but there was plenty of opportunity for me to get involved, be it translation or transcriptions of English interviews. I kept myself busy and gained an impressive new vocabulary in Japanese. I’d draw diagrams of nuclear power plants trying to understand terminology in both English and Japanese. In some ways, the Japanese was easier because the kanji themselves would give a clue to the meaning.
But it wasn’t always activism and there were times for conversation, meals, and relationships. A steady stream of visitors would come in from Tokyo or even further away. The core group was almost always there for dinner. I’d sit there trying to keep up with the conversation but it was so rapid that much of it would get by me. I had to be content to catch what I could.
Akira Matsumoto was a married man with children that I’d met previously at Honyarado. He was a carpenter and had built the small darkroom down the hall from the kitchen. He was a regular at the center like I was and he’d drop by just to hang out at the end of his work day or between jobs. He did not seem to have a regular schedule and it didn’t seem like he ever ate dinner at his own home. He took an interest in me and was often amused at my bumbling attempts to fit in. He never hesitated to give me language corrections. I lived for those moments, desperately wanting to fit in and understand more of the conversation happening around me.
You see, at that time, most Japanese would hear me speak Japanese and politely or gushingly comment on how well I spoke. That was practically de rigueur:
“Nihongo wa jōzu desu ne!”
(How many thousands of times have I been told this, I wonder, even today.) But my very first Japanese teacher at the University of Kansas, Professor Richard Spear, had covered this scenario. He was the kind of teacher who taught language hand in hand with culture. He instructed all of us that there was only one conceivable response to this:
“Iie, mada heta desu.”
That meant, “Oh, no. I still speak very poorly.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced and put forth a number of challenges.
“What if your Japanese has gotten really good, though?”
“Same answer,” he replied. Hmmmm. I went a little further.
“What if you’ve lived in Japan for ten years and can even read a newspaper?”
“Yes. Same answer.”
And my last push was, “What if you end up living in Japan for over thirty years and you’re really really really fluent?”
He thought about it and gave me this:
“Mada sukoshi shika hanasemasen.”
(“Oh, I still only speak just a little bit of the language.”)
And as the years passed, I realized what an important lesson this was. If someone tells you your Japanese is very good and you respond saying “thank you” then you’ve just proved that you don’t really get Japan at all.
Back to Akira.
Akira really wanted to get me naked. Since the center was originally a residential home, it had a Japanese bath that got heated each night. Akira regularly issued an invitation to me to take a bath, preferably with him. I ignored those invitations. The public bath was just fine for me and I was living nearby in Hyakumanben and had my choice of a few of them. From Akira’s point of view, he’d invested considerable time in schooling me in Japanese language and relationships. To my chagrin, he’d even once introduced me to his daughters as “your future mother” right in front of his smiling wife. This was after he’d had surgery and I’d self-consciously made a visit to the hospital with a colorful bouquet of flowers for him. He was much amused and pointedly remarked to his wife (also amused) that he’d never ever gotten flowers before.
Fruit, dammit, I thought to myself, as I looked around the room. Apparently that’s what I should have brought, but it was too late. His daughters were eyeing me with interest and I wanted to melt into the ground.
Inviting me to bathe with him was more of a challenge to himself and a way to tease me. He’d pegged me as an uptight wanna-be cool girl. I got used to his teasing and mostly brushed him off. I valued our friendship, though, since he’d patiently correct my Japanese and throw in a few examples of how to use words I was struggling with. So when he started bugging me to take a bath with him, I’d just roll my eyes and put up with it. Until one night a year or so later when I was visiting after I’d moved to Tokyo.
After I moved to Tokyo, I’d often go “home” to Kyoto and stay for a few days or longer. When I did, I would stay at the center. There was always room for overnight guests and I’d just pull out a weathered futon and make myself at home. For the first time, I began using the bath at the Center. It was right off the roomy kitchen.
So one spring day, I was visiting as usual and after dinner I went in to take my bath. Akira was in the kitchen washing up the dinner dishes. Everyone else had wandered off.
Suddenly there was a frantic knocking at the door of the bath, and Akira called out to me to check something with the gas. I rolled my eyes. I knew what he was up to and told him to go away. He became even more frantic and started talking about the gas valve again. Something about the setting that he wanted me to check.
Back then the gas valves were every American’s nightmare. We hadn’t grown up with gas valves near our water outlets. We knew that the very first tremor of an earthquake meant that you had to immediately turn off the gas valve. My homestay mother wouldn’t even let me use hot water because she feared I’d make a mistake with the valve. Gas was scary and dangerous. You could start a fire, blow up a kitchen, or even sicken a whole household.
Meanwhile, Akira was adamant. I needed to check the gas valve in the bath and turn it a certain direction or make sure something was working properly. I started to get a little nervous. I was already submerged in the bath. Could I handle this situation? Did I really want to cause an explosion? Or was Akira kidding me? The house was a very old wooden structure. I got more nervous. Akira was demanding that I unlock the door and let him in if I didn’t understand his instructions.
I capitulated. It seemed too risky to doubt him any further. I rose from the bath, quickly unlocked the door and scrambled back into the bathtub. And Akira burst into the room.
By that time I was shrieking at him to fix the gas situation, but Akira himself was quickly ripping his clothes off and climbing into the tub with me, sending the hot water splashing. Laughing of course. I’d been had.
It was like bathing with a sister. Nothing untoward at all and he was just happy to be in the bath with me and happy to have completely fooled me. I rolled my eyes again and admitted he’d pulled one over on me successfully.
**************
Postscript: In 2016, when I visited Kyoto for the first time in many years, I asked Nakao-san about Akira. Sadly, he told me that Akira had passed away a few years before that. So, I told the professor the story of how Akira got into the bath with me at the Center. He laughed uproariously and thought it was a great tale. And it remains now as a warm memory. Oh, those gas valves and the havoc they wrought
*************** For Sara’s previous posting about photographer, Kai Fusayoshi, click here.
***************
About the Center1
In the early 1970s, Friends World College established the East Asia Center in Kyoto under the direction of Nicola Geiger, who had traveled to Japan with her husband and spent time previously in Hiroshima. The East Asia Center was housed in the old home of a Kyoto University professor who had since moved to Nara and had made it available to rent. Somewhere around 1974, Jack Hasegawa took over the leadership of the center and around 1978, he moved the East Asia Center to a location close to Tōji in Minami-ku. Nicola, who was still living in Kyoto, moved into the first floor of the rambling old home, but as she was unable to afford the rent on her own, she reached out to Nakao Hajime to see what could be done. By that time, America had withdrawn from Viet Nam and the counterculture movement shifted directions towards democracy movements in South Korea, the antinuclear power movement etc. To support these movements and publish flyers and newsletters an office was set up at this center, which was located in Tadekura-cho near Shimogamo Shrine and not at all far from Honyarado. The home was newly christened as the Demachi Kokusai Kōryū Center and though it never lived up to the rather ambitious name, it became a drop-in center for activists and any number of residents as needed.
The Demachi Kokusai Kōryū Center was not destined to last very long and the lease ran out during the summer of 1983 effectively bringing the center to a close.
1 Nakao, H. (2024) Based on a personal email to Sara Aoyama January 6, 2024, and translated from the original Japanese
Sea kayaking isn’t an activity you hear much about, yet Japan’s coastline is made for travel-by-paddle.
I have lived in Hyogo for 26 years and bought my first sea kayak in 2001 — a folding Folbot Greenland II — and later added an inflatable Advanced Elements Dragonfly 2, both of which I can transport inside a car, on ferries, or even by train with ease.
For almost 16 years, a tight-knit, albeit motley, crew of two New Zealanders, two Americans and one Australian have comprised the ‘Salty Dogs’. Together we’ve explored the coves, uninhabited islands, sea caves, and secluded bays of Hyogo, Kagawa, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Tottori prefectures, alternating our trips between the Japan Sea and the Seto Inland Sea as the seasonal weather dictates.
A side hobby has been to record each of these trips in a journal. I call it The Dogs’ Logs, a document that has grown beyond 60,000 words and which I’ve shared with each member for their own nostalgic reading pleasure.
The following are edited snippets.
Ode to The Cove
Now and again, from the end of late June I call up the boys and whistle a tune. They know the sound, no words to be said, We pack up our kayaks, beer and some bread. And set sail north, To where a Tottori wind blows. And paddle our boats to a beach that we know. Perfect Cove! Where the water is clear and the sand clean’n pure The city’s what ails us but this place is the cure!
The Squall
A box-shaped cove with golden sand and tea-green water with rocks for leaping off is our home for two nights.
Around late afternoon the light wanes and the sea breeze strengthens. Purple monsters creep from the horizon. Strung beneath them are long veils of rain, harmless looking from a distance, like lace curtains, but approaching quickly.
‘That’s a squall coming,’ I say.
Thirty seconds is time enough for all of us to dive into our tents before a freight train of salt, sand, and cold hard rain slams into the cove. My tent pegs give way; only my body weight holds all worldly possessions earthbound.
I hear shouting; plates, tarps, bottles, cans, goggles fly this way and that, clattering against the rocks. J. shields the fire with his body, protecting a precious ember as rain pelts him horizontally. The squall has sucked all the light from the day and I struggle in the dimness to keep my tent from being blown away; it’s now upside-down. Someone’s hands help me bury it beneath sand.
We rendezvous around the sputtering fire, all members accounted for, a big blue tarp wrapped around all five of us, the fury of the rain still at our backs. From the sand I salvage a new bottle of awamori. We pass it gratefully, coughing on woodsmoke, until the yarns begin and we forget the squall and begin to enjoy ourselves.
Later, the camp hunkers down for a rainy night. Headlamps turn each tent into a glowing cocoon. Each nestled inside a sand berm, stretched skin-tight against the sea wind. Each one of us is now lost in his own thoughts, or book, or stash of alcohol known only to him and Buddha. But my attention is on the raindrops splattering onto my cheek. I plug the tear-hole in my tent with a shopping bag and lie back exhausted.
The Bat Cave
Somewhere between Igumi and Moroyose, a mousehole opening in the rocky bluff appears. Its entrance is swarming with sea roaches—millions of them. Big, dopey-eyed, unlovable critters with articulated body armour and long spindly legs. They scatter across the grotto walls at our approach. Must be mindful of the razor-sharp mollusks and barnacles which bristle at the water line. One mislaid paddle stroke, rogue wave, or lapse in attention, and my Dragonfly 2 will be turned into a noodle sieve.
Twenty metres inside, daylight fades. We turn on headlamps. The squeak and twitter of bats tells us we aren’t alone.
Calcite formations glisten, strange milky coloured ripples like the wet rib bones of some ancient monster, fossilised. Our headlamp beams travel the ever-tapering walls to a small beach in the distance.
The wavelets on its tiny shore glow with phosphorescent plankton. We beach our boats and fossick the sea junk for curios. But the flotsam-jetsam has been put through the mill, ground smooth—polished pieces of sake bottles, fishing buoys, and frayed anchor ropes—by years of wave motion inside the cave.
I glance over my shoulder. “Where’s your boat?” “What?”
J’s boat has disappeared into the darkness. He quickly wades into the black water, is soon up to his chest, with his headlamp raking the cave walls. We are at least 100 metres inside the cavern. A gentle surge has lifted his boat from the sand, and the outwash coaxed it away.
A rustling noise sounds above us.
Our voices have stirred the little creatures. They drop from their roosts in their dozens, screeching, urine-stinking, darting this way and that, raking the water with their wings.
J.’s headlamp beam locates his boat beneath an overhang. He swims to it and is quickly inside and paddling. My head burrowed into my knees, my straw hat pulled down tightly, and with thrusting paddle strokes, we make our escape.
Two fishermen have anchored their skiff at the cave’s mouth. They are startled to see two squinty-eyed white men in kayaks emerge from the hole in the earth with a swarm of irritated bats in pursuit.
A Kajiko-jima Camp
A living room fashioned from sea junk: a wooden cable reel for a dining table, driftwood stumps and polystyrene buoys for chairs, an old refrigerator door makes the perfect kitchen work bench. All of this under a shelter fashioned out of bamboo poles, fishing twine, and a homecentre tarp. Beneath its gently flapping eaves, there’s a smouldering campfire in front and a midden of empty wine bottles behind. A loungeroom Robinson-Crusoe would have been proud of.
Shorebreak dining
In Perfect Cove (Tottori prefecture): warblers wake me around 6 am. Breakfast is melted cheese and ham on toast grilled over last night’s smoking embers. This is followed by a can of apricots, and with the empty can to boil water, a freshly brewed coffee!
A Kajiko-jima breakfast (Okayama prefecture): gritty wok-fried bacon, ruptured eggs and blackened tomatoes with smoky-flavoured toast cooked over a pine-wood fire, all washed down with three cups of smoky-flavoured coffee.
On Shodoshima (Kagawa prefecture): sea kites wheel overhead and woodsmoke drifts out across the water, as a luxuriant feast of smoked salmon, water crackers, blue cheese, olives, and prosciutto materialises from our cooler boxes. It is the sunset hour.
Near Hamasaka (Hyogo prefecture): under torchlight, and on a makeshift work-bench of water containers and driftwood planks, I skewer onto bamboo stakes pieces of beef, eggplant, bell pepper, mushrooms, and onion, season with salt and spicy raiyu oil, then lay them over glowing coals. My face is streaming with sweat — a cold beer for Cookie, will you!
Sunset Beach
The man with mousy brown hair and a faded tall-ship tattoo on his right forearm sits down on the sea wall. He bends to tie up his shoelaces. ‘You fellas camping where?’ he asks without looking up. He ties the laces with precision, each bow the exact same length as the other, each aligned perfectly with its aglets.
‘Kitagi island,’ I reply. ‘Sunset Beach.’ ‘Never heard of it.’ ‘That’s because we named it ourselves.’ ‘Kitagi?’ ‘Long stretch of golden sand with a southwest aspect.’ ‘Aspect?’ His eyebrows rise. ‘You fellas in the real estate business now?’ ‘Banana-shaped beach, lots of sea junk …’ ‘Know it,’ he grins. ‘Good choice. Sheltered. No access road. And no rain for the next few days.’
He lifts his tall frame off the wall and returns to a makeshift bar he has constructed in the front yard. It faces the straits of the Seto Inland Sea. On the counter lies a toilet fan he has been repairing. Behind him stands a turn-of-the-century home with a newly tiled roof and an earthen genkan floor — the quintessential island homestead.
‘Well, just so you know,’ he says, ‘If you get into trouble, miss the last ferry, run out of money, beer, whatever, you can sleep here anytime. Got plennie of futons.’
Departure Leaving Kajiko-jima, like autumn itself, is a melancholy affair. The sun shines but the air is cold. Our bellies full of hot stew, bread, and beer, we kick out the fire, jump into our boats and begin the long paddle back to Honshu. The sea is as smooth as glass; I want to put my feet up and trail hands in the frigid water. But we are racing against the November sun.
*************************
Simon Rowe grew up in small town New Zealand and big city Australia when orange Fanta came in glass bottles and AM radio was king. Based in Himeji city, Hyogo, he has been penning travel stories, screenplays, blog posts, short and long fiction for well over two decades. His writing has appeared in TIME (Asia), the New York Times, The Paris Review, CNN Traveller, South China Morning Post, and The Australian. His short fiction includes Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere, as well as the 2021 Best Indie Book Award winner, Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere. His newest work, Mami Suzuki: Private Eye (Penguin, 2023), follows the adventures of a Kobe single mother private detective across western Japan.
Talk with Author Simon Rowe at David Duff’s home, April 14, 2024
Nine people gathered to listen to Simon Rowe talk about his phenomenal success in publishing and other things on April 14 in Kyoto. Thanks very much to David Duff for opening his home/library once again for an event. Due to the absence (by illness) of John Dougill, we didn’t have an emcee, but I asked Simon if he needed formal introductions etc. and he said no, so the talk proceeded in a very casual way, with participants inserting questions and comments throughout.
As most people probably know, Simon is a New Zealander by birth and also spent a lot of time in Australia (Melbourne)。This childhood, as well as access to National Geographic magazine, gave him a curiosity about the world and a sense of adventure. He became a travel writer with many articles to his credit in various publications, traveling and writing handwritten notes and taking slides with an SLR camera. He was successful, especially during the Bubble economic period when there was a lot of venture capital floating around and publishers were buying articles in bulk. He emphasized the importance of “hustle”, and said that if one thing goes right (you get a “break”) it gives you the confidence to follow it up and more things start to come in.
He also said that the effect of the Internet has been that travel writing as a literary form has declined due to the “information dump” of YouTube etc. with everyone getting into the act, and it is important to have an angle (“spin”) which makes popular places look different. He also stressed the importance of authenticity in writing, and the trust that the writer knows his milieu (cultural, literary, etc.) makes the reader engage with fiction that may have something unfamiliar about it.
Simon segued into his experiences creating the character of Mami Suzuki, first in Pearl City (2020) and now in his new successful Mami Suzuki, Private Eye (Penguin 2023), who is a detective with a day job in a large hotel in Kobe, a single mother who lives with her mother and daughter. (See review, below.) He described his difficulties with people in the US who were concerned about cultural appropriation and wondered why a foreign man was writing about a Japanese female protagonist. However, due to his years in Japan (presently in Himeji) he knows what he is talking about in this culture, and in the case of the latter book he got a cover blurb from a female Japanese author in the detective genre, Naomi Hirahara, which was like a “seal of approval” which negated murmurs of cultural appropriation etc.
Interestingly, the literary festivals in India where he recently took this character and book were delighted with Mami Suzuki and were not the least bit concerned with cultural appropriation. In fact he found himself very busy traveling around the country and attending various literary festivals and was enthusiastically received everywhere. His agent is an Indian lady in Bangalore who arranged for a lawyer to oversee (and edit) his publishing contract with Penguin books. (Penguin had taken a couple of years to get back to him about publishing his book, but eventually did.) Unfortunately, Penguin did not pay for his trip to India, but the contacts he made were worth it.
Some advice from Simon about the publishing world – bullet points I wrote down:
Importance of contracts and agents – to get help with this side of things and to keep things on an unemotional (business) plane
Contacting famous people for favors – they can only say no, and may say yes. Help becomes mutual once one has contacts.
“Catching the wave”, feel the energy and always keep putting more in
Royalties for books are NOT equivalent to your effort, don’t rely on them
He now is negotiating for film rights. We will eagerly follow his successes from now on.
Happily, Simon knows his way around Japan so didn’t require help with transport, etc. There were still a few people there talking to him when the meeting broke up around 6:15pm.
Thanks very much to Simon for taking the time to give us this very interesting talk.
Members Edward J. Taylor, Cody Poulton, Felicity Tillack, and Kirsty Kawano listen attentively.
REVIEW of Mami Suzuki, Private Eye (Penguin, 2023) by Simon Rowe
Review by Rebecca Otowa
On the cover of this book, it is written, “From the Kobe wharfs to the rugged Japan Sea coast, the subtropics of Okinawa, and a remote island community in the Seto Inland Sea, each new adventure ends with a universal truth – that there are two sides to every story of misfortune.” I resonate with this, as my own short stories often invite readers to witness epiphanies in the lives of the protagonists; and to arrive at an understanding of why they acted and thought as they did.
We first met Mami Suzuki as the detective in “Pearl City”, the first story in the collection Pearl City – Stories from Japan and Elsewhere (2020) and this story, with very slight changes, comprises the first part of Mami Suzuki – Private Eye. The author said that it provided the inspiration for the writing of the novel, due to the great positive feedback he received, particularly from female readers. This detective must find her way through the distractions of single motherhood, living with her young daughter and aging mother (who sometimes accompany her on her travels), consoling herself with a beer late at night as she mulls over her cases, which have come to her by word of mouth and which she solves in the moments she has free between her job as a hotel clerk in Kobe and the demands of her personal life.
Simon said to me, “Mami Suzuki is a ‘quiet’ read, and though the mysteries themselves aren’t that hard to solve, they place a lens over the human condition – a whydunit rather than a whodunnit”. I myself appreciated the compassionate tone of Simon’s writing in this and other works. This is not a “hard-boiled” detective novel with a body count. It is easy to imagine these “crimes” being perpetrated by ordinary human beings, who had pressing reasons for doing as they did. It is not the usual detective story, in which “right triumphs” as the criminal is brought to justice; it is much more complex than that.
Mami Suzuki has human problems and distractions. She is also appreciative of the finer things of life, from a good shot of whisky to designer clothes, as she juggles the mundane details of her life, and there is even a tanned, middle-aged fisherman to provide romantic interest and with whom she bounces the case details around. The stories move at a peaceful pace, with many small details sprinkled over the scenes, bringing them to vivid life and pointing up the author ‘s easy familiarity with the settings.
Mami Suzuki – Private Eye is a story which calls to mind travel writing at its best – it can transport you to many places, including a pearl-sorter’s workstation or the precincts of a sunlit shrine garden, and make the reader feel at home in all of them.
For Simon Rowe’s numerous works on the Writers in Kyoto website, please see this link.
This year’s Words and Music summer event is being organised by Rebecca Otowa.
The event will be held at Gnome Bar, Kyoto, near Kawaramachi Nijo on Sunday, June 16, 2024, 6-9 pm.
Since the staff at the bar have asked to be informed of the numbers of people, please RSVP to Rebecca before May 20 if you wish to attend. An email will be sent out to members before that as a reminder. There will be a menu list with options for ordering beforehand as has been the case previously.
WiK is looking for people to perform with readings or music at this event. People who wish to perform, please email Rebecca or contact her by FB Messenger if you are on that.
PS Dues for next year will be payable at this time, as the event marks the deadline for payments. If you wish to pay in person, please make sure to bring along Y3300, preferably in an envelope with your name.
Mark Richardson giving a reading of his poetry at a previous Words and Music event in The GnomeLawrence Barrow and other members of the audience listen to the wartime words of Zen masters
Your participation will not be counted if the check mark is not selected.
Recent Comments