Big Buddha

I waited for Keiko in the lobby of the hotel. There were a lot of weddings going on at the hotel today—either that or a bunch of guests decided to wear the same white princes outfit. Lots of people were coming and going. I noticed that Japan appears to be a much less masculine culture than China. Body language of both genders is more relaxed and less posed, and there is way more affection between couples, friends, and families.

Keiko came into the lobby carrying two umbrellas. “Sorry I’m running late,” she said. “Do you want to use this umbrella. It is raining really hard.” I looked out the window and it was.

“I didn’t even notice,” I said. “I must be cursed. Every country I’ve visited it has rained on me.”

We walked outside and down along the pier. “What did you have for breakfast?” Kieko asked.

“I didn’t find Starbucks,” I said, “but I found a really good breakfast place and had pancakes.”

“Oh there is a good pancake place over by the Ferris wheel,” she said.

“Called Butter?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“That’s where I went.”

“You got into Butter?” she asked. “There is normally a line out the door!”

“No,” I said. “I got right in. It was so good!”

We walked back over to Umie. “I think today we will go to Nara,” she said. “They have the largest Buddha in Japan there. And lots of deer. It’s just a very nice city.”

We went into Umie and down a floor on the escalator. It was like an entire city underground. We walked several blocks underneath the streets of Kobe, with shops and craft fairs, and restaurants, and salons all over the place.

“Is all of Japan like this?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You would not believe some of the shops they have underground here.” I didn’t.

We walked all the way to the train station underground. I thought subway stations in China were clean, but this was spotless. Again, everything was so white and shiny. We bought tickets and got on the subway. A few stops later, we changed trains to one that took us out of town and up into the hills.

I noticed on the train that young people have an odd way of dressing. Girls all had very shaped hairstyles that formed to their heads. Almost all of them were wearing so much lipstick they had the “duck-lips” look. Short shorts were popular, but the waist of the shorts started up by the belly button. They almost looked like the style of shorts from the 60’s in the US. Guys on the other hand wore jeans and v-neck t-shirts. They all had really moppy haircuts, and most wore ear piercings of some kind. Men on the train were almost all wearing suits (even though it was Saturday) and women had on dresses.

Sleeping on trains in Japan is sort of a well-known stereotype, and one that I can confirm. A lot of people would get on and doze off as soon as they sat down. In a lot of ways it is very practical. There certainly have to be health benefits to sleeping when you are tired.  Something I didn’t know was that it is socially unacceptable, and possibly even punishable to talk on your cell phone on the train. When Keiko’s cell phone rang, she immediately silenced it and explained this rule to me.

Another established trend in Japan that we talked about was the high suicide rate. Japan has the highest rate of suicide in the world.

“It’s interesting,” Keiko said. “In a lot of ways, the suicide has to do with face. Part of face in Japan is the idea that individuals have to live up to the ideals of ‘being Japanese.’ It is both a very collective mindset and individual mindset. So a lot of time when bosses or managers mess up at work, they kill themselves to take ownership for their mistakes.”

We also talked about how this mindset of face really conflicts with Western ideals. By the definition of face, it is okay to make adjustments or—for lack of better word—hide things in order to “save face.” The desirable outcome is maintaining face so if you have to “cut corners” to do so, that is acceptable. What’s important, and difficult, to understand though is that the motive is not to be deceitful or malicious, the society just values reputation more than they value specifics. It’s the way things function, it’s just radically different than the way the west functions.

As the train climbed through the hills we passed lots of houses with brightly colored roofs and doors. There were pink ones and lilac ones and baby blue ones, among other colors and shades. Even some of the other trains we passed and brightly colored coaches.

Nara was about an hour outside of Kobe. When we arrived, it had stopped raining. Keiko had gotten a message from her son Eric that he and his friend Shane were going to meet us in Nara. They had taken a different train route because they had passes for one of the express lines. We waited for them at the station next to a fountain and a monk begging for money.

The Romanization of Japanese is much more phonetic than pinyin is for Chinese. Maybe it’s just because we all know so many Japanese words—like Honda, Nintendo, Sony, etc.—but reading signs, I could pretty much figure out how to say what I was reading.

“Nippon?” I asked Keiko, “is that 'Japan' in Japanese?”

 She confirmed it was.

A bunch of middle school aged girls in white and blue uniforms were standing around drinking juice boxes. Keiko suggested that we go get something to drink, so we went and bought juice boxes as well. On our way back to the station, we passed a pottery store and Keiko stepped inside for a few minutes to look around. The tea pots were really cool and molded into just about every artsy shape imaginable. The store was also playing an internationally recognized soundtrack: Frozen. First it was the Japanese version of “Let it Go.” Then, they played the English version of “Let it Go.” Then they played the Demi Lavoto version of “Let it Go.” Next up was Japanese “For the First Time in Forever”  …I’m assuming it continued from there, but we left.

Eric and Shane arrived and we decided to go get lunch. Keiko took us to a stir fry restaurant where they cook the noodles and meat on the tabletop in front of you. I had beef and noodles and they were really good. It looked like a lot of the noodle dishes I’ve had in China, but not as greasy or as salty. In fact, it was kind of sweet and the vegetables tasted awesome. I got it with the udon noodles because they are a little thicker and easier for me to pick up with chopsticks. The tabletop skillet actually kept the food really warm, and the last few bites were almost a little too hot.

As we started walking up towards the temple, we saw lots of big red prayer flags with little grave stones along the trail. Keiko explained that the grave stones are put up by families that have to abort their unborn babies. These memorials give them places to pray so that the child’s soul will go on to the afterlife.

I was able to ask Keiko a lot of questions about some of the Buddhist architecture and significance. The little towers I’ve been seeing that look like pawns from a chess board are actually old style lanterns. No one can give me a completely clear answer about what a pagoda is, but they are generally built in honor of someone or some event and used as an additional place to pray.

Keiko is a huge animal lover and her favorite thing about Nara is the deer. Nara has deer like most cities have squirrels. This is because deer were considered sacred in Buddhism so these deer roam the temple grounds. They are very tame and will lay or stand for people to pet them. They get a little aggressive around food, but they are incredibly smart. The even wait for the green light to cross the street. Keiko was taking lots of pictures with the deer, and at one point she may or may not have been kissing them.

As we approached the entry to the main courtyard of the temple, we could see a big arch up ahead in the distance. Little vendors lined one side of the walkway, while a large open park with a big pond sat on the other side. The most popular vendor item were cookies to feed to the deer.

The courtyard was guarded by two large statues of warriors. They were both several stories tall and had bulging muscles with tunics draped over them. Their faces were menacing looking, with pointed beards like the whiskers on a dragon.  The courtyard itself had lots of tall evergreen trees and cobblestone paths that went in different directions. About 100 meters down was a white and red building where you bought tickets to go see the temple.

And the temple was beautiful. It was a large building, with two flowing roofs that have that traditional Asian architecture to it. The building was white and the roofs were brown. At the very apex of the roof there were two gold fish statues facing each other. All around the temple was a green grassy field, which was almost as beautiful as the brilliant blue sky.

As we walked up the trail, Keiko explained that it is tradition to wash your hands before going into a temple. We did so at a small fountain with cups to ladle water over your hands. People were lighting incense over a large fire outside the entry way. Stepping up and over the lip of the door, we were inside.

The Buddha was big! His one nostril was said to be six feet in diameter. He had curly hair on top of his head (which Keiko said each curl represented a connection with divinity). One hand was held out with the palm facing forward. The other was resting on his knee with the palm facing the ceiling and his middle finger raised slightly. Keiko said that the hand gesture on his knee was supposed to represent “saving the people from suffering.” She wasn’t sure what the palm facing forward represented. The Buddha did sit cross legged on a bed of eight locust pedal. Each petal was intricately carved. We read about the significance of the carvings, but some of it went over my head. I gathered that the top portion of each petal was depicting different teachers from Buddhism. The bottom portion depicted different teachings of Buddha. I was more impressed by the fact that this Buddha was made sometime around the year 700AD.

One of the pillars supporting the temple roof had a hold drilled into it. It was supposed to be good luck to crawl through the hole. Despite watching various people wiggle their way through—and there was a line to do this—Keiko, Eric, Shane, and I were all pretty sure that we would get stuck if we tried.

“Where do they do the offering to the ancestors?” I asked, recalling the money burning ceremony I’d seen in Shanghai.

“Ancestor worship is only practiced in Chinese Buddhism,” Keiko explained. “In Japan, when you are dead, your spirit goes wherever it goes and that is the end of your role in this world.”

We wandered up to a garden that was behind the temple. It was far less crowded and touristy. A lot of little grave stones dotted the trail, up to the point that a large beige wall rose up on either side. In the gutter between the trail and the wall, there were little orange gutter crabs and massive blue dragon flies. There were some buildings that looked like either small shrines or maybe little houses. They all had those Asian style roofs to them and were built almost entirely from wood. But the higher we got, the distracting view was the rolling green hills, and beautiful blue sky.

We climbed up one final staircase to the main shrine where you had a great view of the city.

“This is what I miss about Japan,” Keiko said. “Nature is so close. You just walk 15 minutes from the city center and you are out here with all this fresh green life.”

Eric explained that at a shrine, you ring the gong over head by pulling on the rope. Then you clap your hands a pray.

“You can pray in English,” he said. “Shrines are multi-lingual.”

Shane rang the gong first and then I went. Clapping my hands I prayed, “Dear God. Thank you!” There was so much beauty, so much history, and everything was so clean. I was thankful for all of that, and also thankful to have Keiko and her family guiding me around. It was turning out to be a great weekend away…and I couldn’t wait to see more!

As we hiked down from the shrine, Eric explained to me a little bit of Japan’s history to me. “You see the whole country has basically been in a recession for 30 years,” he said.

“I’ve had a few conversations with people in China,” I explained, “and part of the problem China faces is that Chinese people do not want to buy products made in Chinese. If the foreign demand for Chinese made goods went away, China’s economy would collapse.

“Japan is in the same boat,” he said. “They led the way with the video game boom, but they’ve pretty much been living off of the success of Nintendo ever since.”

He and Keiko both told me about how this past month the president has reinterpreted the constitution. Following WWII, Japan formalized their foreign policy that they would only enter into war if attacked on their own soil. In June, the government voted to amend this so that they can also assist their allies in any military ventures.

Back at the temple, Keiko couldn’t resist and bought some cookies to feed the deer. She split them with Shane, who inevitably got chased by the small herd that formed around him. Keiko on the other hand went seeking out the baby deers and the ones that were off by themselves.

“Careful Mom,” Erick said. “If you get too close to some of the babies, you’ll find out which ones are the mothers.”

We took a taxi from the Temple back down into town. There, we caught the high speed train back to Kobe to meet with Erick and Shane’s wives. Shane and his wife went with their friend to have a steak dinner while Keiko, Erick, his wife (Stephanie), and I went to a buffet restaurant that Keiko had a membership at.

The food was all you could eat for 2 hours. It was really good! I’m not a huge tofu fan, but the fried tofu was pretty good. I also had tempura squash, vegetables, and shrimp. It wasn’t served with the usual soy/teriyaki sauce that we eat it with the US. Instead, it was sprinkled with green tea salt. It was kind of sweet and kind of salty, but neither taste was overpowering. There was some thinly sliced pork that was really tender and flavorful. I tried some sushi but really wasn’t a fan. It was more like shashimi than America rolls. The salmon didn’t have much flavor to it, but the octopus tasted really odd. There was a rice and curry dish that was pretty good, but did make me belch.

My favorite thing of all had to be the salad. Finding vegetables in China that are both fresh and don’t make me sick is a challenge (you can find both categories separately, but both is much harder.) It was just a standard salad of ice berg lettuce, carrots, radishes, and dressing, but it tasted so good!

The desserts were also pretty good. There was a chocolate fountain with some pastries to dip in it. That was a little disappointing in flavor, but the soy based soft serve made up for it. There was also a tofu based custard that was pretty good.

When we finished, we went to meet Shane and his wife at a bar. I tried a mixed drink that Stephanie suggested that tasted pretty good (by that I mean it was really fruity and didn’t burn my throat at all…I don’t know what I was called but I would drink it again.) Shane had picked up some Gyoza from the most famous Gyoza restaurant in Japan, and we stood around sharing his leftovers. They too—and this is probably starting to sound repetitive—were really good.

Erick and his friends were going to stay out a little longer, but Keiko wanted to head back to do some grading. We were talking about going to Kyoto tomorrow so I decided to head back too and get some rest. She took me most of the way back to hotel (until I could see it) and gave me some more money for breakfast. It was almost midnight by the time I got to my room, and after a quick shower, I passed out on the bed.  It was an awesome day, and my only concern now was, how will I be able to go back to China.