London in 24 hours

I've been in the English countryside for almost two weeks now. I'm taking a course on ecoliteracy at Schumacher College. The experience has been incredible. Partly because of the college and partly because of its pastoral setting. I love the smell of cow poop in the morning. The college grounds are unlike anything I've seen before. All rolling green hills and quiet paths and stone buildings and grazing sheep. But I'll get to that later.

For now, I just want to post some pictures of London, a city in which I spent far too little time. I took the red-eye from Osaka to Dubai and then caught a connecting flight to Heathrow. By the time I arrived in London, I hadn't slept in more than 40 hours. But it's funny how being in a different country makes you feel alive and awake, no matter how tired you are.

I only had 24 hours in London from the moment my plane touched down to the time the train left for Totnes. So I bought a metro pass and hopped on the tube (I now know why they call it the tube. But I think "the cigarette" is a more accurate description. Subway trains don't get rounder or skinnier than the ones in London). I managed to hit all of the major tourist traps: Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, London Eye, Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, Hyde Park, and the dudes with the furry hats. I had dinner at a British pub, rode a double-decker bus, and wandered around the market in the morning.

But my favourite discovery was finding out that British people really do say things like "bollocks" and "blimey" and "bloody hell." It's adorable. Like a Hugh Grant movie come to life.

Haiku #2

small purple flower
for me and the bumblebee
nature in balance

The beauty of the cosmos

I was walking with my friend Mai the other day when we passed by a field of cosmos flowers.

"Did you know that you can see stars inside the cosmos?" she asked.

I told her I had no idea what she was talking about.

If you look deep inside a cosmos flower, she explained, you will see lots of little stars. So I pulled a cosmos close to my face and was struck by what I saw: there were stars inside the cosmos! The universe never ceases to amaze me.

Learning how to bow

A degree from Kyoto University is a golden ticket to a good job in Japan. As a result, the school feels more like an incubator for salarymen than a place for higher learning. Which is why a compulsory class on Japanese business manners is part of the curriculum.

I wasn't too happy about being forced to take a class geared toward future salarymen when I wasn't planning to work in Japan after graduation. Equally annoying was the syllabus, which explained that we would learn "how to make/receive phone calls" and "how to send/receive emails." The implication was that we somehow hadn't acquired these skills before entering grad school. I love Japan but I hate the hierarchical social structure that makes it acceptable to treat grown adults like 12 year olds.

I went into the business manners class thinking it would be a waste of time. But I was wrong: it turned out to be one of the most fascinating classes I've ever taken. It was both absurd and illuminating. Absurd in the sense that we learned looking cute was more important than being competent, and illuminating in the sense that we learned why looking cute is part of Japanese business culture in the first place.

The university had contracted the class out to Smart-i, a company that specializes in teaching new recruits how to fall in line with corporate culture. Our instructor was an impeccably groomed woman by the name of Akiko Sakamoto. It was her job to teach us how to dress, how to hand out business cards, how to bow, how to smile, and how to sit in a car. It was like boot camp for businessmen.

Learning how to dress

We were told to come to class wearing business attire. All of the Japanese students showed up in identical black suits and white shirts. Most of the foreign students showed up in suits as well, but with a dash of style -- a flashy pink tie or a purple blouse. After the introductory remarks, the first lesson was about appearance. Ms. Sakamoto geared her talk toward appropriate interview attire. She told us to stand up while she walked around the room and inspected our outfits.

She praised the Japanese students and scolded the foreign students. The way the Japanese students were dressed showed they valued the group, while the way the foreign students were dressed showed they valued their individuality. Generally speaking, interviewers in Japan are looking to see how well you conform to the group, while interviewers in the west are looking to see what sets you apart from the group.

When it was my turn to be inspected, Ms. Sakamoto was blunt. My blue silk blouse was offensive ("bright colours cause a feeling of strangeness"). My flared black skirt was too showy. My red nailpolish was inappropriate (nails should be clipped short and left unpainted). My earrings had to go (absolutely no accessories). My open-toed heels were wrong (plain, black low-heeled pumps covering the whole foot were best). My bare legs were scandalous (hose is a must). The only compliment she gave me was on my hair, which was pulled back in a bun ("avoid loud-coloured hair, it can make people uncomfortable").

According to Ms. Sakamoto, the most important thing is to look "clean" and wearing white shirt (presumably one without stains) is the best way to do that. A white shirt and a black suit creates a good first impression. Almost every Japanese job seeker will wear the white shirt/black suit uniform to an interview (they call it their "recruit suit"). Wearing something other than the recruit suit implies that you are not a team player. A good employee follows the rules and doesn't make waves. It's better to blend in rather than to stand out (therefore, no earrings, no jewelry, no nailpolish, no hair out of place). Of course, these rules are for the interview process, not the job itself. We were told the rules loosen up after you've been hired.

Learning how to give and receive business cards

Next on the agenda was the art of giving and receiving business cards. In Japan, the business card (or "meishi") is considered an extension of the individual. Exchanging business cards is a formal activity; therefore, the card must be treated with respect.

You give your business card with your right hand and you receive a business card with both hands. It sounds simple in theory but it's more complicated in practice. Technically, you're supposed to put both hands on your business card holder and hold your arms out in front of you when you receive a card, while saying "choudaishimasu" ("I will accept it"). Then you have to read the other person's card out loud, acknowledging their name and title. If you receive the card during a meeting, you put the card on the table in front of you and leave it there throughout the duration of the meeting. If you exchange cards in a place where there aren't any tables, you are supposed to put it in your card holder. Shoving someone's business card in your pocket or your wallet is considered rude. Ms. Sakamoto had us practice in groups of two and four.

The foreign students weren't the only ones fumbling around. The Japanese students were also having trouble remembering all the rules. My friend Abe-chan leaned across the table and said, "Don't worry. It's difficult for us Japanese too."

Learning how to bow

There are three different kinds of bows: eshaku; keirei; and saikeirei. Deciding what bow to use depends on the level of politeness required in a particular situation.

The eshaku bow is reserved for a light greeting, such as when you say hello to someone when you pass them in the office. The keirei bow is used for general greetings, such as when you welcome a customer into a store. The saikeirei bow, a deep bow from the waist, is the most polite bow of the three. It is used when you want to express a feeling of gratitude or apology. A prolonged saikeirei bow -- often lasting longer than 30 seconds -- is reserved for extreme contrition. It's the one you see on TV when a tearful company president takes responsibility for something horrible (a nuclear meltdown, for example) and bows so deeply he almost bends in half.

Ms. Sakamoto then had us stand up and practice the saikeirei bow. First we had to stand with our hands placed in front of us, with the left hand on top of the right hand. The reason for covering the right hand with the left hand is that (in olden days) you would pull out a sword with your right hand so covering up your right hand shows you won't give any harm. Then we learned how to bow down quickly and come up slowly. We were taught to come up slowly to prevent us from coming up earlier than the other person. Coming up more slowly than the other person is a sign of respect. It was highly entertaining watching two people bowing quickly at the waist and then trying to come up more slowly than the other. Competitive bowing. It could be an Olympic sport.

Learning how to behave

Smile, smile, smile. This was Ms. Sakamoto's main message when it came to proper behaviour. Judging by the smile plastered on her face throughout the entire class, it was a lesson she clearly took to heart.

Smiling, she explained, creates an impression of cuteness. Being cute makes you seem friendly and nonthreatening. Direct confrontation is a sign of poor manners so if you are cute, you are showing respect to other people (Ms. Sakamoto's words, not mine).

She also told us that "beautiful posture" would take us far in the business world. She barked out orders like a drill sergeant. Don't sit cross-legged ("it's bad for your back and bad for manners")! Don't cross your arms! Stand up straight with your hands at your side! The line dividing business manners and military training is a thin one in Japan.

Learning how to sit

Learning how to sit falls under the broader umbrella of "order of precedence." In Japan, there is an order of precedence in terms of where you should sit in a business meeting or where you should sit in a car. The order of precedence for seating arrangements follows a set of rules called sekiji. Customers, supervisors, or people older than you should have the best seats. Such seats are called kamiza.

For example, three co-workers sharing a taxi to a meeting downtown have to follow a strict seating arrangement. Where each of these employees sits in the taxi depends on their rank in the company. The most important person sits in the back, directly behind the driver. This is the most honourable seat because it is the safest seat. The next person down the ladder also sits in the back seat. The lowest ranking employee sits up front beside the driver. This is the least honourable seat because it is the least safe seat. So if there's an accident, it's better to sacrifice the 22-year-old intern than the 60-year-old boss.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rules. Consider, for example, the case of four employees taking a taxi. Suppose three of the employees are equally important, with one lower ranking female employee. Technically, the three important employees should sit in the back and the unimportant female employee should sit in the front. But if the three important employees are all large men, then the female employee should offer to take the middle back seat so that the important male employees are more comfortable. The lowest ranking female's comfort and safety are irrelevant (again, Ms. Sakamoto's words, not mine).

All the rules get thrown out the window, however, if the company president is the one driving the car. In that case, the intern gets booted to the back seat and the second-in-command takes the seat beside the driver. The least safe seat mysteriously becomes the best seat. Don't ask me how this works. It defies logic. The whole thing made me feel as if we had been transported back to the 1950s.

Learning how to speak

After being drilled on how to answer the phone and send emails, the last lesson of the day was on how to speak super polite Japanese ("keigo").

Keigo includes teinei-go (polite form), sonkei-go (honorific form) and kenjo-go (humble form). Deciding what form to use depends on the relationship between the two speakers. But it's not just who you're talking to that determines the form, it's also who you're talking about. For example, when talking with the boss in the office, the speaker uses the honorific form. But when taking with a client about the boss, the speaker uses the humble form.

It's confusing. Let's leave it at that.

Overall, it was a fascinating class. I fully endorse the general goal: respect, manners, and politeness are all wonderful things. The western world could use a few lessons from Japan on how to cultivate group harmony.

But I think Japan takes the repression of individuality a bit too far. It can't be healthy to hide your true emotions all of the time. The class reinforced so many of the little things that I'm not entirely comfortable with here. Like making myself small and submissive. Or blindly conforming to the group. Or putting in 12-hour days for the sake of company loyalty. Or putting everyone else's needs ahead of my own. Or simply not being able to call out, "shotgun!" when I'm sharing a ride with my colleagues.

Hot off the press

One of the things I've been working on at Kyoto University is figuring out how to talk about environmental issues in a way that resonates with the public. After all, what good is scientific research if you can't communicate it?

There's a lot of interesting work going on at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies. But no one knows about it because very few of us bring our stories beyond the conference circuit. Professor Tracey Gannon wants to rectify this. So she created a newsletter to highlight some of the work being done by faculty and students in our graduate school. I helped her edit the newsletter and wrote an article on the future of nuclear power in Japan. The inaugural issue is now online.

The first issue focuses on the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and what faculty and students are doing to help the country rebuild. One article explains how the engineering department created an eco-friendly toilet for evacuees who were staying in shelters where there was often only one toilet for 500 people. Another article looks at the work of the disaster management lab, which is researching the role of social media during the Tohoku disaster. My friend Melina wrote about her experience volunteering in the disaster-affected area. Another student wrote about Kobe's Maiko High School, which is the only school in Japan that teaches a special course on environment and disaster mitigation.

The newsletter is stripped of academic jargon in order to tell our stories in a clear and compelling way. It's not the New Yorker and it won't win any design awards but it's a much-needed bridge between scientists and the public.

The mystery of the exorbitantly expensive grapes

This is a story about a $98 package of grapes. I found them sitting on a supermarket shelf in downtown Tokyo. They were sandwiched between a $2 bunch of bananas and a $3 pack of pears. It was a low-key place for such a high-end product.

The grapes were sold by the bunch. Each bunch contained about 12 grapes. The price per bunch? A whopping 7,350 yen (about $98 or 70 euros). That's 612.5 yen (or $8.16 or 5.83 euros) per grape.

Clearly, these were no run-of-the-mill grapes. The packaging was as excessive as the price tag. The grapes were lined with paper, wrapped in plastic, cradled in Styrofoam and placed in a box. Four layers of packaging signified that these grapes were something special. But I had no idea why they were so exorbitantly expensive.

So I did what any modern detective would do -- I googled it. It turns out there is a reason why the grapes are so expensive. This is not to say the reason is valid or logical but rather to point out that even the most seemingly bizarre and random things in Japan are almost always that way for a reason. The reason may be as bizarre and random as the thing itself but there is a reason why things are the way they are. Like the way the office expects me to follow their absurd orders without question. Every three months or so, they ask me for a photocopy of my passport and visa. My passport and visa do not change every three months. They must have at least 10 copies of the same two pages by now. But they still ask for a new photocopy every few months. I know there is a reason behind it I just don't know what it is.

As for the mysterious $98 grapes, it turns out there are two types of fruit in Japan: the fruit you eat and the fruit you give as a gift. If you don't know how to distinguish between these two types of fruit, the price tag serves as a guidepost. The fruit you eat is cheap. The fruit you give as a gift is expensive.

According to the New York Times, gift fruit is cultivated in a special way. The high price reflects the "exceptional methods" used in growing the fruit. The grapes I found in Tokyo are a variety known as Ruby Roman. They have been engineered to be extra big and super sweet. They are grown, packaged and marketed solely as gift fruit. In other words, the grapes owe their existence to the high-priced-fruit-as-present industry (an industry I'm pretty sure exists nowhere else on the planet). It's a system that works well in Japan, with its love of luxury brands and its culture of gift giving.

So there you have it. Mystery solved.

Apartment blues (a haiku)

sleep interrupted
a putrid smell fills the air
my neighbour's cooking

Rethinking nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster

I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Japan about the Fukushima disaster. Much to my surprise, the Japan Times decided to publish it.

The letter appears in today's newspaper. You can read it here. I have also cut and pasted the letter below:

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda,

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan continues to resonate far beyond its geographical borders for many reasons, but most of all because it exposed a deep fault line that runs through the global nuclear industry.

The twisted, charred reactors that sit on the Fukushima No. 1 site are a powerful symbol of both the literal and metaphorical damage to an industry that has long promoted nuclear power as a safe, reliable and clean source of energy.

The Fukushima disaster -- the worst of its kind since Chernobyl -- has shaken our assumptions about nuclear power, proving it is more unstable and dangerous than we thought. The disaster has also exposed the human arrogance that leads us to think we can somehow "outsmart" nature by building nuclear power plants as if they were unsinkable ships impervious to the rumblings of the earth and the movements of the ocean.

We forget that nature can't always be controlled or predicted, and so when a bigger-than-planned-for tsunami slams into a nuclear power plant, we are shocked to see the ugly mess left behind when the water recedes -- in this case, a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, the release of radioactive materials and the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from their homes. The tragedy is that we did this to ourselves.



If any good is to come of the Fukushima disaster, it is that it has sparked a worldwide debate about the future of nuclear power. Switzerland and Germany took quick, decisive action after the Fukushima crisis and announced their complete withdrawal from nuclear power in the coming decades. I'm pleased to hear that you plan to phase-out nuclear power too.

But what happens next is more complicated. Shutting down nuclear power plants will leave us with an energy supply gap that will have to be made up somehow. Will we invest in renewable energy or rely on increased imports of polluting fossil fuels? Will we attempt to reduce the demand for energy in the first place or continue to act as if the ground will never run out of oil?

Before the March 11 disaster, nuclear energy accounted for about 30 percent of Japan's power supply. Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan hoped to fill the majority of that gap with renewable energy by the early 2020s. You have said that reducing Japan's dependence on nuclear power will be a gradual process and that some reactors will have to be restarted.

In Germany, however, political leaders acted immediately to phase out nuclear power following the Tohoku disaster. The German government reversed its pronuclear stance and decided to abandon nuclear energy within 11 years. Eight of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors were taken off the grid after Fukushima. The German government has set a target to produce 35 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

But it's not enough to just address the supply of energy; we also need to look at how we can reduce that demand for energy in the first place. This will require a change in the way we think about energy and the way we live our lives.

Here in Japan, for example, there are more than 5.5 million vending machines. They guzzle electricity day and night to keep drinks hot and cool. But do we really need any of those vending machines? Do we really need to have their refrigerators and heaters running 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the sake of convenience?

How we use energy, how we produce energy -- it's all part of the discussion. I hope you will continue to keep Japan on its path of phasing out nuclear power. I also hope you will start thinking about safer, cleaner and more reliable alternatives.

If there is any good to come out of the Fukushima disaster, it is this.

SARAH MARCHILDON
Kyoto

Five days in Tokyo

Tokyo's manic energy is intoxicating. I don't know if it's the lights or the crowds or the futuristic vibe of the city. Whatever it is, it's impossible not to feel a rush of excitement while walking under a night sky blotted out by neon signs.

The best way to get to Tokyo is by bullet train. Being on a train going more than 300 kilometres an hour sets the tone for the trip. Riding the bullet train is like sitting in an airplane as it roars down the runway just before takeoff. That burst of takeoff speed is the thing I love most about flying. The only problem is that it doesn't last long. On a bullet train, you get the thrill of traveling at takeoff speed for more than two hours. You feel like you're hurtling headlong into the future.

I have a newfound appreciation for Tokyo. Maybe it's because I've been in Kyoto for too long. Living in Kyoto is like being in a small bar with jazz playing softly in the background. It's smooth, easy and comfortable. Going to Tokyo is like entering a huge nightclub with techno thumping from the speakers. It's loud, crowded and frantic. The bass rattles your teeth, the lights sweep over a sea of heads dancing in unison. The energy is contagious. There's nothing to do but look for a space in the crowd, slip in and let go.


The beauty of big cities is their diversity. There's a greater variety of people and lifestyles. In turn, people in big cities tend to be more accepting and tolerant than their small-town counterparts. You won't see gay couples holding hands on the streets of Tokyo but you will see a lot creative and non-conformist people -- stylistically speaking, at least. People in Tokyo are not afraid to dye their hair green, pop the lenses out of their glasses, carry a bag with a huge kitten painted on it, pair chunky purple shoes with red pants, and top it all off with a gold-sequined shirt. And those are just the guys. Harajuku girls elevate cosplay to an art form. Kyoto seems so conservative by comparison.

There is no shortage of things to do in Tokyo. On Saturday alone, there was a jazz festival, a bicycle film festival, an organic farmers' market, a high school cheerleading competition and a march against nuclear power.






It was inspiring to see hundreds of people marching against nuclear power. A lot of Japanese people are angry about the Fukushima disaster. And they are making their voices heard. I only hope the politicians are listening. The times they are a-changin'.

After the protest march, I ate a vegetarian falafel at the organic farmers' market at the United Nations University. It doesn't get much more politically correct than that! I felt like I was back in Vancouver.


Tokyo is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. Too big. Too many people. There are more people in the Greater Tokyo area (35 million) than in all of Canada (34 million). Five days in Tokyo was fun. But I couldn't imagine a lifetime of crowded trains, cramped living conditions and concrete as far as the eye can see.

Learning how to cook Indian food in Japan

One of the things I love most about Japan is the food. Sushi, ramen, curry, tofu, tempura, soba, udon, sashimi, onigiri, yuzu, nashi, gobo, edamame and wasabi. I love it all. But man cannot live by white rice and miso soup alone.

Unfortunately, easy access to foreign food is difficult to come by in Kyoto. It's almost impossible to satisfy a craving for Jamaican patties or Russian borscht or Mexican fajitas without spending a lot of time, energy and money traipsing across town to the tiny specialty shops that may or may not have what you're looking for in stock that day.

So it was a treat to be invited over to my friend Sunil's apartment to learn how to cook Indian food using ingredients easily found in Japan. Few Japanese supermarkets carry basmati rice or a large variety of beans or the myriad of spices needed for Indian cooking. But Sunil is able to buy everything he needs online from Ambika Japan.

Sunil, who originally hails from Delhi, said he didn't know what to eat the first few months after he arrived in Japan. Being vegetarian and unable to read Japanese meant he went hungry most of the time. Tired of subsisting on rice, Sunil asked his mom to teach him how to cook via Skype. Friends told him where to buy ingredients online and thus began a year-long foray into Indian cooking. The experience was miserable at first. Sunil overcooked the rice, burned the curry, couldn't figure out the right balance of spices, couldn't prevent the bread from hardening. But he persisted and made small adjustments here and there until the food began to taste good. The more he cooked the better he got. The better he got the more he enjoyed cooking. The more he enjoyed cooking the more he began to invite people over for dinner. And the more he began to invite people over for dinner the more his reputation began to spread.

I told him I had heard about his culinary prowess in the hallways at school. He laughed and said he wasn't sure he deserved any praise but that I'd be welcome to try his cooking for myself. Even better, he said he'd teach me and a couple of friends how to cook Indian food.


We made kidney bean curry with puri. It was easy to make and even easier to eat. The curry had the magical flavour combination of garlic, ginger, onion, tomatoes and chili peppers. The puri was soft and delicious. With Sunil's permission, I have reprinted his recipe below.


Red Kidney Bean Curry With Puri Recipe

INGREDIENTS

One head of garlic
One chunk of ginger
One large tomato
One medium onion
Five green chilies
500 grams of red kidney beans
One tablespoon of whole cumin
Half a tablespoon of turmeric
One tablespoon of coriander powder
Half a teaspoon of tamarind
Half a teaspoon of salt
Half a tablespoon of garam masala
Chili powder to taste
Olive oil
Canola oil
Three cups of atta (whole-wheat flour)

METHOD

1. Either cook the red kidney beans in a pressure cooker yourself or buy them pre-cooked in a can. Be sure to save the water from the pressure cooker or the can.

2. While the beans are cooking, prepare the puri dough. Spread out a bunch of newspapers on a large surface and dump three cups of whole-wheat flour in the centre. Knead small drops of olive oil into the flour then add a few drops of water, little by little, kneading the flour into one big ball that is slightly hard. Set the dough aside and keep it covered until you've finished cooking the curry.

3. Grate the ginger and garlic. Chop the onion, chili peppers and tomato.

4. Set the stove to low heat and add four tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot or frying pan. Add one tablespoon of whole cumin and fry for 30 seconds.

5. Add chopped onions, grated ginger, grated garlic and chopped chili peppers.

6. Stir fry until the onion is golden coloured.

7. Add half a tablespoon of turmeric powder and one tablespoon of coriander powder. Continue stirring and cooking for a few minutes.

8. Add the chopped tomatoes. Stir for about five minutes until everything becomes like a paste. Add half a tablespoon of salt and some chili pepper to suit your taste. Add half a teaspoon of tamarind.

9. Add the cooked beans. Little by little add the water that the beans were cooked in (or the water in the can of beans). Be careful not to add too much. You don't want liquid curry.

10. Add half a tablespoon of garam masala spice blend. The curry is finished. Now it's time to make the puri.

11. Take the puri dough and rip off small chunks and roll it in your hands into small balls. Using a rolling pin, roll each of the small balls into a small circle. Use oil on the pin if the dough starts sticking.

12. Fill a deep frying pan half full with canola oil over a high flame. When the vegetable oil is hot, take a pair of tongs and place (one at a time) a single puri in the oil. Allow it to deep fry for about two seconds before turning it over to do the other side for another two seconds. The puri will puff up immediately. Remove it from the oil quickly and set it aside. Continue one by one until they are all done.

13. Enjoy! Serves five.

Shirahama Beach: Japan's Jersey Shore

Summer in Kyoto is a little slice of hell. The humidity is oppressive, the heat is sweltering, and the sun is scorching. The temperature hovers around 35 degrees Celsius for weeks on end. The rivulets of sweat drip like a leaky faucet. The cicadas never stop screaming. The mosquitoes are omnipresent; the cockroaches even more so.

Escape, if only for a few days, is essential. Which is why four friends and I decided to leave the city behind last week. We hopped on a bus bound for Shirahama, a resort town on the Pacific Ocean about 150 km south of Kyoto. It seemed as good a destination as any. Shirahama, which means "white beach" in Japanese, is one of the country's most famous attractions ("famous" meaning "crowded"). The tourist propaganda describes it as popular destination but neglects to mention that the beach is more of a Japanese Jersey Shore than a scenic getaway.


Every Japanese beach-goer was armed with two essential accessories -- a beach umbrella and an inflatable life preserver. The umbrellas were used to create a little patch of shade. The life preservers were used by children to stay afloat and by women to keep their heads high enough above water to avoid getting their hair and makeup wet. Each one of these women could have been a Jersey Shore cast member with their teased, sprayed, dyed hair and full-face makeup -- foundation, powder, blush, lipstick, eyeliner, fake eyelashes, eye shadow all the way up to their drawn-on eyebrows, eyelid tape (if they hadn't already had eyelid surgery), and those creepy "big eye" contact lenses that create the appearance of a bigger, wider iris. There's nothing wrong with wearing that much makeup but wouldn't it be more fun to swim in the ocean without worrying about your face sliding off?

Not that there was much room to swim. The water was so crowded it felt like we were fish in a tank. We kept bumping up against other swimmers and when we weren't bumping up against other swimmers our bodies were brushing up against candy wrappers, plastic bags, newspapers, and other assorted bits of garbage. The flotsam and jetsam were a fitting accoutrement to the noise pollution. The entire beach was ringed with loudspeakers spaced a few metres apart. Every five minutes a recorded voice would remind us to be careful, "Attention everyone! Please be careful." That was about as specific as it got. Occasionally there were live announcements, usually concerning nondescript lost children, "Attention everyone! Mrs. Tanaka is looking for her six-year-old son. He is wearing a black shirt and blue shorts." And then, inevitably, the follow-up announcement, "Attention everyone! We have found Mrs. Tanaka's son. He is safe. Please be careful!" Over and over again.


This is one of the things about Japan I don't think I'll ever really understand. It's as if anything that is naturally beautiful or unique (as I imagine Shirahama Beach once was) is exploited by developers who demolish the surrounding area and build ugly hotels and line the streets with shops selling cheap junk and put down parking lots the size of shopping malls so that hundreds of buses can drop off thousands of tourists who mill around taking pictures of whatever it was that once made this place so special before everything around it was razed to the ground and encased in concrete. The worst offenders are the places marketed as the country's top three famous spots (such as the top three famous views, top three famous castles, top three famous beaches, top three famous mountains, etc.). Japanese tourists, with their limited vacation time and limited desire to get off the beaten path, descend on these famous places en masse, take some pictures, buy some souvenirs, eat some food, and then leave before the next busload of tourists arrives to take their place. It's not my idea of fun but people here seem to enjoy it.

Maybe I'm just a spoiled Canadian, unable to appreciate natural beauty if it isn't in full-screen format -- a wide vista of open spaces and wild places. I can't narrow my field of vision the way Japanese people can. They seem to be able to block out the concrete and the neon signs and focus instead only on the small beautiful thing nestled amongst the urban ugliness. I can't focus on the beauty of a cherry tree if it stands on a riverbank strewn with garbage. I will always see the whole picture, not its individual parts. That's not to say my North American way of seeing is better. Just different.

Still, there are beautiful areas to be found away from Shirahama's main tourist strip. We stayed at the Kyoto University research house, which is located in a forest a 20-minute walk away from the main beach. It was a bit out of the way but it's hard to complain when you're only paying $10 a night (being a student has its privileges). The best part is that the research house had its own private beach, which was much nicer and cleaner than the main beach. Because our beach wasn't "famous" it was completely deserted. It was so empty that we were able to go skinny dipping in the middle of the afternoon (much to the delight of the lone male researcher who showed up at the exact moment one of us was letting it all hang out on the beach).



Other highlights included a walk to the Senjojiki rocks and the Sandanbeki cliffs (sadly famous for being one of the top suicide spots in Japan).





Of course, the pictures don't tell the whole story. How do you capture the feeling of skin covered under layers of sweat, saltwater, sunblock, bugspray, mosquito bites, and melted ice cream? How do you capture the warmth between friends and the sensory experience of summer -- the long days and the even longer nights? The noisy cicadas and the burning sun? The rivulets of sweat and the freedom of the open ocean? As crowded and as tacky as Shirahama was, it was a trip that embodied the best of summer.