Recently, I’ve got myself hooked on a popular home renovation programme which is on every Sunday night at eight on Asahi TV. Called Before/After , it’s a Japanese variation on all those fix-it shows that have been on for years in English-speaking countries (and probably others, but how would I know?). I learn things from it that the producers did not intend, and for that alone it’s worth checking out.

The programme follows a rigidly set formula (Japanese TV shows either meander pointlessly for hours or you can set your atomic clock by the predictability of their format – nothing in between). The programme uses the loan word “renewal”, which in Japanese usually means remodeling or renovation. More often than not, though,the houses on Before/After are simply gutted, leaving only the barest frame, which has a new house built around it. We are first introduced to a family who are living in cramped, unhappy quarters and are shown in uncomfortable detail the full crappiness of their lot (doing the laundry outside, then climbing onto the roof to hang out the wash; bathing in a tub the size of a sink, in a tiny, rotting bathroom; a front door opening out onto traffic, so that exits must be planned very carefully indeed; people literally climbing over piles of boxes because there is no storage space in the house – none; and on and on). They are then packed away, their home is quickly ripped up, and a new living space installed on the ashes of the old one; comparisons of before the renovation and after are made; the family is whisked back (minus, suspiciously, all the junk they were seen packing away in the beginning); gratitude (often tearful) is expressed to the designer, who personally shows them around their new home; finally, the happy family is seen having their first meal in the swanky new pad. Back in the studio, the host thanks the designer (renovator?) then he (or another member of the renovation team) is then assigned next week’s project.

The rule of the programme is that the architects have to work within the original dimensions of the house. Considering the size of a city lot in Japan, that’s (literally) not a lot of elbow room. Last week’s house was said to be 8 tsubo (坪,the traditional unit for measuring the area of land and floor space – it’s the size of 2 tatami mats, or 3.5m², or 38ft²). In other words, the entire house had the same amount of floor space as my apartment, roughly 43m² or 463ft²). I’m trying to imagine a family of three (with one on the way) functioning amiably in my apartment. I can’t. This programme tells you a lot about the assumptions of people here. And mine too, I suppose (incidentally, when I tell anyone Japanese the size of my flat, they invariably ask, “and you live alone…?” as if it were the penthouse suite at the Sheraton).

It must be said that some of the space-saving innovations shown on the programme are remarkable: drop-down fire-escape style staircases; drawers under beds that become night tables; intelligent shelving, which employs the height of the  wall space but makes everything within reach with a simple crank; a real attic – which, remarkably, few Japanese houses have – at the top of the house; retractable counter-tops in the kitchen. Last week’s featured a brilliant ventilation idea to keep the house from heating up in the summer – so simple that you wonder why it never occurred to anyone before (it’s not as though Japanese houses don’t need it – they’re stiflingly hot in the doldrums of summer).

But it’s the early segments which are morbidly fascinating – the lengths to which people will go to keep up the middle class ideal of owning your own home. The families portrayed on Before/After are not destitute – a Japanese audience couldn’t or wouldn’t relate to them if they were (a programme which did this work as obvious charity would only inspire envy, which is no recipe for success here). Although the TV families have got it rough, there obviously has to be enough familiarity in the situation to spark some fellow feeling in the audience. So, although the average Japanese family might not live in something as squalid (the only word for it in many cases), they mustn’t be living in a situation too far removed.

A word comes to mind, one that is used ad nauseum here : gaman (我慢). It’s always defined as “endurance” in the dictionary, but really means something closer to “putting up with.” This is considered a great virtue in Japan (as it used to be in my country – how else would those prairie settlers have survived in the middle of ice-block nowhere?), but this programme shows, unwittingly, how even the greatest virtue can be taken to the silliest lengths unless, miraculously, like Mito Komon, the TV channel appears out of nowhere and fixes your life. Watch it if you can (NB: or if you can’t, look at some of these clips which someone posted on You Tube They tend to show more After than Before, but they’ll give you a good idea of what the show is like. Warning: if you watch too many, the theme song will be stuck in your head for days).

Went to the Louvre exhibition at the Osaka National Museum of Art in Higobashi today. It explores the theme of childhood, motherhood and families in art. An interesting (and perplexing) mish-mash of stuff from the Louvre (much of it from the storage cellars, I think), it would have been better as a two-part show {note: it is a two-part show – the other half is being shown in Kyoto; I guess I meant it would’ve been better as a four-part show}. As it was, one got to look at Egyptian terracotta, hieroglyphics and all, next to ancient toys found in present-day Iran (the tiny, 2000-year-old hedgehog pull-toy was worth the price of admission!), next to sentimental 18th-century French paintings, next to Roman statues of child satyrs. There was one beautiful Valezquez painting of a young princess, some sketches of children at a crepe stall by Rembrandt, some fat Rubens babies, a 14th-century brass (?) Madonna and Child. There was an Egyptian sarcophagus, made of wood, showing the inscriptions along the side for the tomb of a child (the mummy of the child, mercifully still wrapped, was still in the box, which was in a climate-controlled plexiglass case). It was a bizarre bazaar, of uneven quality. But it was all from the Louvre, and that’s all Osakans need to hear: the place was pretty busy for a Tuesday. It’s still worth going to see, however, and you should give yourself more than a couple of hours because most the stuff you’ll want to spend time with is, oddly, jammed near the end, and you’ll find yourself running out of time to enjoy it if you arrive 90 minutes or so before closing time, as I did.

While I was taking my time to get a good look at some tiny Ancient Greek figurines, I was beside a couple in their 30s. The man, goateed, wearing Sarah Palin glasses (they are, after all, made in Fukui) was muttering something about Hellenism (or “herenizumu“) and saying “yappari” (of course, naturally) a lot. She was muttering variations on, “kowai, kowai. Kao-ga kowai. Mecha kowai” (Scary. Scary. The faces are scary. Really scary). She kept saying it, all down the line. I held back and let them move on, afraid that I eventually would have bopped her on the head with one of the heavier marble bits if she’d said it one more time. How did those poor Greeks build a whole civilization without Hello Kitty? Beats me, honey.

At the exit, there was a bottleneck as a crowd admired the biggest, most camp canvases there (over 8 feet tall): two paintings of fat French cupids frolicking on puffy, 18th-century clouds. She was there again, Kowai Lady, but this time she was in her element. “Kawaii, kawaii!” (”Cute! Cute!”) she chanted, as did everyone else. This was the Real France, of Versailles and Marie Antoinette (whom everyone loves here) and Takarazuka musicals (actually, I find them a bit kowai). I, the big gaijin grump, went back for another look at the Medieval tapestry of children at play, which nobody else was paying much attention to, and sumimasen-ed my way out the door.

There’s so much about Japanese food that I love, but natto (納豆, fermented soybeans) is a culinary minefield. I can understand its health benefits and could probably even get used to the taste of the stuff, but (and this is no doubt a personal failing on my part) I can’t get past the fact that it smells like a foot infection. I’ve been here long enough to know that plenty of foreigners love natto and plenty of Japanese can’t stand it. The default opinion, though, is that “we Japanese love natto, and foreigners can’t eat it.”

It wasn’t always the case, at least in Kansai. In fact, when I first started working in Osaka, c.1989, the standard answer to the textbook question, “Do you like natto?” was “No – that’s Kanto food. We Osakans can’t eat it.” A bit of clever marketing in the early 90s changed that, nearly overnight. Dissenters, of course, still exist, but they keep their opinions to themselves.

Fifteen years on, it’s available in every supermarket or convenience store in Osaka, and it’s on the menu of many a diner, especially the lunch counters that cater to salarymen. I stopped by a gyudon  shop for lunch the other day (gyudon is a bowl of thin-sliced beef and green onions on rice), and while waiting for my order to arrive, I looked around to see which of the  tired-looking, middle-aged men in the shop had taken off his socks. Naturally, it was just the man on my right stirring up and tucking into his side-dish of natto and raw egg. I didn’t enjoy my lunch.

An import shop in Tennoji tried to popularize Thai tempeh a few years ago, but since I was apparently the only one buying it, they gave up. Tempeh is essentially the same food as natto (although I don’t know the difference, if any, between the fermenting agents used); the extra step, however, of pressing the tempeh into flat blocks during fermentation seems to take away the pong for which natto is so justly famed. I’ve only met one student who had ever eaten tempeh, and she complained that the smell and taste were too mild for her, and it felt funny in her mouth (unlike say, a bracing mouthful of tofu?). A dwindling number of old Kansai folk still audibly complain that natto stinks, has too strong a taste and … feels  funny in their mouth.

I’m with the old folks on this one, although it’s ironic that young Osakans (who live in an eternal present) assume it’s a sign of my foreignness that I can’t stand the stuff.

The day after speaking to the cheerful old man on the train who just had to know how much I weighed (in an admiring way, because he liked sumo), I went to my gym and, since I seem to have hurt a tendon in my shoulder (and can’t swim very well anyway), I opted to go for a long march – 2000 metres – in the walking lane of the pool (most pools in Japan have these). Imagine walking steadily for 2 kms in chest-deep water: a good low-intensity aerobic exercise and a good wind-down after work. Well, I was happily striding away (sometimes backwards, sometimes crouching, always looking ridiculous) when I noticed a woman about my age in the beginner’s swimming lane, next to mine. She had cap and goggles on, earplugs in, and was looking at me.

– Why are you walking?

I had never seen her before in my life. Taken aback, my Japanese evaporated.

– I can’t swim (suiei ga dekinai), I eventually blurted out, ungrammatically.

– So why don’t you learn?

– My arm hurts. Hurt it. Upstairs (the gym). I turned and kept walking.

Fifty metres later, there she was again.

– So you’re just going to walk. That’s all?

– I exercised and now I’ll walk (I was not in a chatty mood).

– Why?

– It feels good.

– Yes, but why?

I pretended I didn’t hear, turned, walked another lap. She bobbed up from the water and and smiled triumphantly.

– I know! I know why!

She pointed to my belly.

– Metaboli (メタボリ)!”

Metaboli is the trendy new word, short for “metabolic syndrome”, which has entered the language via the media here in the past year. It just means you’ve got a beer belly, but because it’s got a foreign faux-scientific sound to it (if you’re Japanese), it’s become the cool new way of calling someone a fat-ass. I don’t think she was being malicious, but she was certainly being insensitive (not that Osakans are accused of that very often…), and was probably a bit snapped (my turn to be insensitive).

Sadly, there’s only one way out of a situation like this without causing a scene (which would be blamed on me). I made a self-deprecating joke and moved on.

– I like Japanese beer too much, I said, over my shoulder (and so did your mother when she was carrying you, honey, I failed to add).

This seemed to satisfy her, and she laughed, continued swimming for a few laps, then mercifully left. I kept at my routine until I’d reached my goal, then went for a shower and sauna, where a naked old Japanese man relentlessly tried to speak to me in French until I fled. Je pense que vous aimez la cuisine japonaise, he remarked, pointing to my gut.

No wonder I drink.

I’ll say this much for being overweight in Japan, a country where fully 25% of all women in their 20s are officially underweight but whose media only talk about the danger of beer bellies: you’ll have no trouble starting conversations in public places. Now if only I wanted to.

On the subway this morning en route for Umeda, a seat opened up for me at Tennoji, a great rarity. I sat, settled in, and then I caught sight of a man well into his 70s (at least), stooped, thin, tallish (for a Japanese man his age), in a well-kept old suit and horn-rimmed glasses, strap-hanging in front of me, to my right. He looked a bit unsteady on his feet, so I immediately got up and gave him my seat (you never just offer, because old people here always politely say no supposing they can barely stand up). He bowed his head quickly, sliced the air vertically a few times (meaning “excuse me” or “much obliged”) and sat down. There was still a bit of of space next to him (he didn’t take up very much), and he gestured insistantly for me to sit next to him. I smiled, told him it might be a bit narrow for me, but he persisted and after other people shifted over a (resentful) little, I squeezed back in.

–  Sumimasen, I nodded.

He looked me up and down. Wow, you’re big, he said good-naturedly.

– Soudesunee, I conceded.

– “You could be a sumo, couldn’t you?” he said, which I realized, after a split-second of resentment, to be a compliment on the old man’s part.

I smiled and nodded, as you do, reaching for my earphones. But he wasn’t finished.

– You must weigh about – what? A hundred kilos?

– Oh, I don’t know really, my smile probably getting a bit more strained around the eyes at that stage.

– But still (demo-ne) – I’m half you’re size and I’m only 50 kilos. Look! Look at that leg! And look at yours!

– But you look well, I said, trying to get him off the topic of my avoidupois.

– Oh, I’m all right. But honestly, you’re what? 100?

– Must be about that, I answered.

– Ah. Well there you go. Big man.

Is this going to go on for the next 20 minutes? I thought. Then he paid me another backhanded compliment:

– So where are you from? England? France? The usual one-word question is “America?”, so although I don’t think I look either British or French, it pleased me for some reason.

– I’m Canadian.

– Ah! Canadian. English and French. Yappari (I knew it/ might have known)! And are you here on business?

– I’m a teacher (using the modest word kyoushi for teacher).

– Ah! Sensei desuka! (he used the more respectful term, which a teacher should never use when referring to himself). This seemed to please him, and he smiled and nodded and looked ahead. I did the same.

As it turned out, he got off after only eight minutes, at Shinsaibashi. Shitsureishimasu (excuse my rudeness, which you always say to you excuse yourself and leave first), he said, nodding in my direction, and he tottered off the train.

It’s odd – although the W word is the big taboo to ask anyone you don’t know well (and most people you do), his good-nature and obvious lack of malice about it made it  seem not so bad. Also, just to have someone (more to the point, someone sane) chat with you out of the blue on a train is so rare nowadays that it put me in a good mood. I felt as though I were seeing a bit of old Osaka which has all but disappeared.

God help the next person who asks me that, though.

Cherry blossoms bloom all over Japan from late March to mid-April. They are the stuff of cliché here, but I must admit that they really are beautiful and the custom of  Blossom Viewing (Hanami, 花見), that is, sitting and picnicking and drinking (or not) under the trees with your friends is very enjoyable. Enjoyable, that is, in the right venue, with the right people. In recent years I’ve been turned off by the loud, drunken, karaoke-blaring crowds (swarms, really) jammed under and around the trees of the largest, most famous parks and gardens. Last year, other than from the window of a train, I didn’t even bother looking at them at all. This year, though, I got the urge and acted upon it, afraid that I was growing too jaded. My friends and I chose a few smaller, non-touristy areas and had a pleasant, somewhat nostalgic week or so.

Click here to see what all the fuss is about.

Sumiyoshi-ku (ku means city ward) is at the bottom of Osaka City, geographically. It borders the Yamato River, which has the dubious distinction of being both the most historical and the filthiest river in Western Japan. On the other concrete-covered bank is Sakai City, famous for knives and swords (in some circles). Nagai, the neighbourhood where I’ve lived for 6 years now, is in Sumiyoshi-ku, although curiously Nagai Sports Park, the only thing for which Nagai is famous, is not (that side of the street is in Higashi-Sumiyoshi, the adjoining ward). Regardless, Nagai is where I live, so Sumiyoshi-ku is where I’m registered as a foreign resident of Japan and where, every now and then, I must make my presence known to the authorities.

My work visa expires in May and needs to be renewed for another 3 years. In  the 90s, you had to take a day off every year to sit in the Immigration Office in Temmabashi (in a Ministry of Justice building) until they finally stamped your passport – you couldn’t leave once they’d taken it. For the past 8 or 9 years,though, the system was becoming fairly streamlined. Until recently, you went to the office, took a number and submitted your documents and passport, waited 30 minutes or so until your name was called, filled out a self-addressed postcard; when the postcard arrived at your home, some days later, you went back, got your visa stamp, and were free for another 3 years. I expected the same this time, but was unpleasantly surprised.

My company usually mails me all the paperwork (duly translated), which I fill out and take down to the Immigration Office, and this year was no exception.This time, along with my usual package of documents there was a checklist. All of the documents were there except a newly-required one, a kazei shoumei (課税証明,City Tax Report), but a handwritten note on the checklist read: “You can get this at your ward office.”

Now, the Sumiyoshi Ward Office was, until recently, a dumpy old building, which looked as though it had been built in the 50s (which probably meant it had been built in the 70s – postwar Japanese government architecture being mostly glum and Stalinist until fairly recently). It was nowhere near a subway station and the old Nankai Line train station nearby was not of much use to anyone who wasn’t going to Wakayama. It was one of those government buildings seemingly put up in an inconvenient place to give bus drivers something to do. On my day off, I bicycled down there. And promptly got lost.

Something was different – there used to be at least signs pointing to the general area of the office. But nothing. After 25 minutes or so, I realized I’d overshot the runway. I made the mistake of asking a resident for directions.  When I asked her where the Sumiyoshikuyakushou was, she gestured and said “mukou (over there somewhere), about 10 minutes that way.” The first part of her sentence was vague enough to be correct, but the rest was just her imagination (is there any other place where people know as little about their own city as Osaka?).

Eventually, I turned what I thought to be a wrong corner and drove right past it. It looked even more desolate than usual, more fences up. The gate was locked. I looked around for some explanation, and then I noticed a small, hand-drawn note on the fence. It turned out to be directions to the new ward office, but might as well have read, “Hey, Kenji, if you read this, we’re at the pub round the back – just follow this map – Toru”. By this time, I was getting cranky.
I followed the zig-zagging directions and finally found a huge, new, modern-looking complex. According to the sign, it featured the ward office, a kumin sentaa (区民センター,an auditorium for cultural events), and the Sumiyoshi public library. All inconveniently located at a neighbourhood nowhere near you. {Addendum, June 23rd, 2009 – that was a bit unfair. I got lost because I was coming from the old ward office and was disoriented. I’ve since realized that it’s not all that far from my place, and the new local library is small but very good, and the staff is helpful. The following comments about the ward office still stand, though.}

Anyway, there I was. I parked my bicycle. I made my way past a phalanx of furiously smoking civil servants at the entrance and entered an oddly empty atrium (there are always people milling about an entrance to a ward office – mostly old men who look confused because they saw all the wickets and thought it was a betting shop). Around the atrium were numbers and names of departments in Japanese and (surprisingly) correct English. I found the one I was looking for (ominously, number 13), and followed the arrow down one corridor.
I soon realized that the structure was the latest triumph of that great architectural firm, Kafka and Sons. The corridor curved, and along it were many locked doors. One office (water works?) with glass doors and peach-coloured walls, featured a desk, with a man in his fifties sitting in a chair, staring into space (when I left, he was sitting in another chair, observing space from a different angle). There did not appear to be anything or anyone else in the room.
I wondered what was behind all those closed doors in the corridor, but feared I’d turn into a cockroach or something if I looked, so I gave up wondering.
I rounded a corner at the end of the corridor. It opened up into a large hall. Now, in the old place, all the civil servants’ desks were jammed together behind a counter and supplicants stood in line waiting to be served. Here, in this great, expensive new building I saw…all the civil servants’ desks jammed together behind a counter while supplicants stood in line waiting to be served. It was as though they’d lassoed the whole lot of them and just rolled them down the road together.
I bypassed the reception desk and saw Section 13 (a sign along the counter). A man in his 50s (they all looked to be men in their 50s, even the men in their 20s) was staring vaguely into the middle distance, simulating thought (but probably just waiting for his co-workers to come back from their smoke break so he could go out for his). I asked him if this was the place to get a kazei shoumei. He gestured vaguely to some yellow forms on the counter. “Go fill it out over there,” he said, and gestured to the taller counters behind me. To my left, about fifteen people sat or stood watching a large TV, which had been placed there to placate the masses as, forms submitted, they waited for their number to be called (the motto of this country should be “Take a Number”).
I looked at the form. I could read exactly 1/3 of one side of the double-sided, kanji-filled page. I was able to find where to write my name and address and state that I was the head of my household. The rest would have taken me an hour with a dictionary. I looked up imploringly at the city officer, but he was in a reverie or self-willed trance. In fairness, since I didn’t know exactly what I was asking for, he couldn’t have helped me anyway. I grabbed a few copies of the form and skulked out, day wasted.

Next day, I went to the personnel section at my company headquarters to get the form translated and to sound the alarm before the next poor sap had the same experience. The woman in charge of foreign employees’ visas looked at the form, ticked three boxes, said, “Sign here and here, and write the date,” and handed it back to me. “That’s it?” I asked, stunned. All I’d had to know was which three boxes to tick (but I’d have to be able to read it all to know that). Amazing.

A few days passed. I went back to the ward office, eventually finding it after a few false starts (pigeons and ferrets having eaten the trail of bread crumbs I’d left on the previous occasion). I handed it to the same city officer (distracting him from his dreams of samurai glory), he called up the requested form on his computer, printed it out, took my 400 yen fee, and out I went. Time elapsed: less than three minutes. Feeling empowered, I decided to continue on to the Osaka Immigration Office. This had also moved since the last time I renewed my visa. Now, however,instead of a leisurely subway trip to Temmabashi, fifteen minutes away, I got on the train at Nagai, changed at Daikokucho, changed again at Suminoekoen to the New Tram, and chugged along the man-made island in Nanko (南港, southern harbour). It took me an hour, and it would take nearly anyone an hour. But I didn’t mind too much – I was on a mission, documents in hand. I’d turn them in, wait a few minutes, fill out a postcard, and go have a cup of coffee.

In my dreams. The new immigration office has nothing –nothing – around it, but it’s another nice new building with an atrium full of natural light. I took the elevator upstairs, the door opened, and a man was standing there with his back to the open door. I instantly realized that he was behind another man, who was behind two women, and on and on. The queue started at the elevator. It wound around a corner of the corridor, leading to the processing room. Ten minutes later, I was standing inside the room, and five minutes after that, an officer took my application and documents, slipped them all into a ziplock folder, gave me a numbered slip (matching the one in the bag with my documents), and told me to place them in the inbox on the long counter. I sat down. There were about 150 other people in the large room, four or five caucasians, two African couples, two Indic guys, and all the rest Asians of various origins (which is pretty much the make-up of the actual foreign population of Japan as a whole). I heard a lot of Korean spoken, and some Mandarin.

Because the numbers of the processed applications came up almost randomly, I couldn’t really concentrate on the book I’d brought (Everything Is Illuminated). Also, periodically, someone would come out from behind the counter and call the number of someone they wanted to get some extra information from, so I couldn’t really enjoy my iPod either. So I sat and waited. I waited for two hours and ten minutes. I estimated from the numbers called out that there were about 65 other people in front of me when I arrived, waiting for the same thing. No idea what everyone else was sitting there for. Finally, my number was called, my postcard taken, my passport and gaijin card handed back, and off I went, without a fine or anything. I took the Chuo Line to Hommachi (where my train pass kicked in), then repaired to the big Starbucks there and drank a much-needed cup of coffee. (incidentally, the total train time, minus the coffee break, for this alternate route took me…one hour).

The postcard arrived in the mail today, so back I go, cash in hand, next Tuesday. Can’t wait.

This being my day off, I got up late, but eventually hopped on a few trains (I’m becoming very good at this) and wound up in Itami City, in neighbouring Hyogo. It’s a fairly nondescript bedroom community (in fairness, though, parts of it were severely damaged in the 1995 earthquake), but it does have a small, cosy museum (which, of course, I forgot to photograph) which occasionally hosts small, affordable shows (I don’t think I’ve ever seen the permanent collection). The one at present is a collection of lithographs by the French cartoonist, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), to celebrate his bicentenary.

Now, Daumier has been one of my heroes for as long as I can remember. What he does with charcoal and pens is amazing – and still funny. Some of the lithographs (for Parisian magazines of the mid-19th century) are over 170 years old, yet you still give a smile of recognition when you look at them. Not that I’ve ever seen many of these cartoons before (even online) – he’s more famous for his political cartoons, savaging whoever happened to be king or emperor in France at any given moment. This show is called “Daumier and the Human Condition” and deals mostly with his parodies of middle-class life in Paris (and that of the poor, whom these nouveaux-riches tried so studiously to ignore). The situations he portrays are universal – the exhausted new parents whose baby kept them up all night (some of the best stuff is the muttering of the put-upon fathers and husbands – “Babies? They’re a gift from the devil!”); the father who takes his son on an outing only to have the kid REFUSE to get into the pool (I note that in 1839, all the fat/skinny, bow-legged/knock-kneed men in the cartoons are wearing what look to be baggy, Ocean-Pacific-surferdood swim trunks, c. 2008, not the striped body-stocking they always show men wearing in the movies: was that introduced when pools ceased to be segregated by sex?); a very smartly-dressed young couple lounging fashionably in their supremely tasteful drawing room, both giving uncontrolled, wide-open yawns (caption: married six months).

(NB – This fragment was written in September, 2008, and was the first half of a review of a two-part exhibition. I was planning to go to the second half of the exhibition, which ran October-December, but went to Canada in October instead and completely forgot about it when I came back)

Saturday is the morning when I can get up exactly an hour later than any other workday.  I had laid out my clothes the night before, and, after a quick soak to make my hair less ostrich-like, a few trims to the beard, I dressed and packed two bags for the day. The first one contained my gym gear (yes, I  rejoined the gym in January, paying cash for one year, which is much cheaper; no, there’s been no discernible change in my appearance or weight yet), the second, documents to proofread, and my laptop (a MacBook, the other big-money payout which ensures that I’m not going to profit from the inflated yen by sending any money home anytime soon). For a split-second I thought: can I get that computer bag into the backpack with the gym gear? A short struggle told me: no.

So I walk to the station with a bag over each shoulder. I listen to Silver Street, the BBC Asian Radio soap opera on the iPod (aging, but still holding up – the iPod, that is). The train arrives, remarkably full for a Saturday; I put my computer bag in the overhead rack, and start listening to the At Issue panel discuss Canadian politics. The train pulls into Tennoji Station. I promptly exit and head for Starbucks (despite how  not-completely-unjustifiably fashionable it is to hate it lately, it’s a non-smoking café in a country not known for them). Enter, go to put down my bags, and realize that I no longer have bags in the plural. Feeling of dread immediately descends. I turn and walk back to Tennoji Station.

I speak to the station staff – a man slightly older and a woman much younger than me. Tell them I’ve forgotten something, and of course all that listening to English podcasts all morning has gummed the works of the primitive Japanese section of my brain (I think I described my bag as “Koizumi-iro” – the colour of the former prime minister – instead of “nezumi-iro” – grey*). They asked me what train I was on and showed me a schedule. Luckily, I noticed the crowd waiting to get into Kintetsu Department store, so I knew it was before 10 o’clock and indicated that. Next, they asked me which car (carriage) I was in and I told them it was the one “before the Ladies’ Car” ( for the last four or five years, there has been a women-only car on most of the subways and commuter trains in Japan, an option for women who wish to avoid all the repressed male gropers out to cop a feel on the way to or from work – and according to my female students over the years, there are plenty of them).

They conferred quickly: Well, we’ve missed Namba, it should be in Umeda in 9 minutes. So if we call now, we can get someone to check that car in Umeda (woman calls the Umeda Stationmaster). Yes, I’d like to report a forgotten bag on train # XXXX, car # xx. It’s grey and has a pasucon (personal computer/laptop) in it. Onegaishimasu (Would you be so kind?)!

They ask me to wait until the Umeda staff call back. As I stand by the counter, I watch the commuters pass throught he ticket gates. Some, not all, look at me, as if to say, Well, they caught another one. Wonder what this one did… I stand stoically. The phone rings.

“Hai. Hai.” (yes, yes) she says. “Grey. Has a laptop.” She turns to me. “Is it wrapped in a towel?” Embarrassed, I tell her yes (payday is Thursday. I’ll buy a proper case then). Confirms my information to the staff on the other end of the line, then rings off.

She tells me I can go pick it up now! “Jikan ga nai,” (I don’t have time) I tell her, and, this being Japan, she immediately understands that I have to go to work. “Well, you can get it anytime today. Go to the Umeda stationmaster’s office. Tomorrow, they’ll send it to general lost and found.”

I thanked them politely and bowed (which, I realize now, I don’t do all that often), and they smilingly bowed back. As I walked back to Starbucks (I really needed a coffee by then), I reflected that if I had mentioned this to any station staff in nearly any other country in the world, I’d have been lucky not to have them laugh in my face. I concluded, not for the first time,that although Japanese politicians and captains of industry set a world standard for corruption, incompetence and mendacity, the average Jousuke, for all his foibles, is all right. And perhaps that was my problem: in what other country would I have my guard down enough to let go of my computer in the first place?

The postscript is unremarkable: I went up to Umeda and got the bag, after filling out a form in duplicate (Japan must be the only industrialized country which still uses carbon paper unironically). I headed south, vowing I’d never forget anything on the train again. Until (remembering all the other things over the years that I’ve walked away without) the next time.

*On the other hand, I saw Koizumi on TV last night, and he certainly looked mouse-coloured (the literal translation of grey) to me.

Once again, on my day off, I rode – hungry, still tired – to the tongue-twisterly named Nishinakajima-Minamigata Station for my annual company health check ( I’ve written about this before ). I found the place more easily than in past years, and got a pair of pyjamas which fit me on the first try – both good omens. The usual samples were given to the nurses when I checked in (produced this year not without some effort: of all times to get constipated). Now that it’s nearly a routine, like taking the subway, I can observe the check-up process  a bit more detachedly, as though it’s all happening to someone else (except for the barium exam of my innards, which could only have been happening to me).

God, I thought, everyone looks so tired and old! Is that what office life does to someone in Japan? Then I remembered that the morning check-ups were reserved for men 35 and up. Looking around me, there seemed to be more ups than 35s. I didn’t see anyone who looked as though he even remembered being 35 (I do, but only what year it was). We all sat in our powder-blue pyjamas, waiting our turns for the weighing, blood pressure check, eye check, chest X-ray, blood test or what-not. A different-coloured stripe around the cuffs denoted the size of the pyjamas. I noted, with no satisfaction, that I was the only one with lime green cuffs. Most men’s cuffs were brown; a few small men’s, orange (as well as one stout man who was definitely in denial or too shy to ask for something larger).

The nurses (or technicians – I don’t know the difference) all wear powder-blue uniforms and black tights (and now I can’t recall if they wore caps). I have my blood pressure taken (normal!) by the same nurse who took it last year. A flicker of recognition from her, but she’s too professional to say anything other than “Roll up your sleeve, please” or “Relax your arm, please”. She has that kind of Lead-Actress’s-Best-Friend look about her. I wonder if her life is going as she’d hoped. Has she found someone? Is she happy? Does she get to do the eye tests or the blood-drawing every now and then, or does she perform the same function, year-in, year-out? The old-fashionedness of the place, the uniforms, give me old-fashioned, protective thoughts for this woman, who’s probably just wondering when she can go have lunch.

The barium wasn’t that bad, really (until it made a sudden encore appearance later in the day). I could have had another blood test done instead, but it would have cost ¥2000 extra and I’d forgotten to go to the bank. Outside the testing room were some cards with cute, cartoon food  drawn on them. They were the flavours of barium you could request (strawberry, vanilla, coffee, and my choice – lemon – are the only ones I can recall). After drinking that taste sensation, I went through the same performance  I do every year, even though they’ve finally installed new speakers, so the technician behind the thick, shaded glass no longer sounds like he’s communicating from a ham radio somewhere in the South Pacific. He still had to risk death and come out of his booth to turn me in the right direction more than once. At the end, as usual, we both good-naturedly apologized – him, unnecessarily, for his inability to give instructions in English; me, more justifiably, for continuing to misunderstand his Japanese. It’s a tradition by now – it almost puts me in the Christmas spirit.

The last test is always done by an actual doctor, who puts a stethescope to your chest and back and tells you to breathe deeply a few times. This has always been done by a large, elderly man, but this year a no-nonsense woman in her 50s seemed to have taken over, and not just his chair. I say this because the one doctor is often the owner of these check-up factories (for that is what they are – Japanese companies are required by law to provide these annual tests to their full-time employees). Maybe she was the old guy’s daughter – anyway, I’ll never know. She suggested I lose weight (an observation that doesn’t exactly require seven years of med school), drink less coffee, and join a gym. I will do all those things, again.

Changing back into my street clothes (there’s a locker room), I made my way out. The nurse at the uketsuke (reception desk) called me back. She waved a little green ziplock bag with a little tube inside. “What do you call this in English?” she asked.

“Um, stool sample,” I replied. She’d never heard it before. I wrote it down, and illustrated it with a smiling piece of poo, which received the ultimate Japanese accolade: kawaii (cute)! She thanked me profusely, and I noticed a gaijin in ill-ftting pyjamas standing by the loo. He nodded, sheepishly. My good deed for the day completed, I left, with resolutions to keep fit ringing in my ears as I walked down the highway toward the station and made a beeline for Mosburger.