Kintama o Mitta

Kiyosato prefecture has a bizarrely Swiss feel about it. From the back seat of a rental car, wedged in with five Japanese students, the scenery appears alpine despite the appaling Japanese pop music and the occasional sign advertising Pachinko or karaoke. The same striking mountain scenery forms the back drop for uniformly ugly concrete towns, designed with practicality rather than aesthetics in mind. A patchwork of agonisingly efficient strips of farmland fills the limited area of flat space amongst a drab suburbia. How these people remember which house is theirs is a total mystery.

Allowing myself to momentarily believe that I am on one of those all too familiar four hour drives towards a european ski resort, I zone out and feel strangely comfortable considering. It is the Autumn 'World Wide Wing's society' road trip to enjoy 'Autumn viewings', 'On-Sen' and drinks party (described poetically in the handout as '8pm until the night never end'). I am snapped out of my day dream by a chorus of Japanese noises expressing awe and wonder (which sounds absolutely hilarious by the way), because for the first time since I got to Japan, the illusive 'Fuji-san' had appeared, framed by a flame red valley of autumn trees. This all sounds gushing, I realise, but there is honestly something truly breathtaking about this mountain, the symbol of Japan. Despite the cabbage patch, jungle surrounds of my dorm in Yokohama, it is easy to think of Japan as being one big city; all neon lights, robots and odd sexual practices. In reality, it is 73% mountains, so really.. these sorts of views should be common place. The array of noises coming from the front of the car at every turn in the road would suggest differently.

We stop for lunch beneath another awe inspiring view, and Joei (the trip's illustrious leader) runs through the schedule. Its On-sen next. On-sen is typically japanese, and definitely a 'try everything once' sort of activity. Hugely relaxing, hugely sociable...but also hugely naked. Its not the most english of passtimes to go for a nude bath with three hour old friends, but 'when in rome'... As with the halloween costumes, Japanese people double take when they see a group of westerners in an abnormal situation. Nude would be one of these. The jacuzzi cleared out pretty quickly once it was filled with awkward westerners...so it had a bizzarely similar resemblance to our late night train rides back from karaoke. But a more naked version.

The Inn we stayed at had a rural, late-night-low-budget slasher film vibe about it...not helped by the fact that we were the only guests there. A kindly old lady (also a bit B-Movie style scary) and her equally kindly old husband had put on a huge meal for all thirty of us which I whiled away with a trio of girls consumed by a totally pedestrian anglo-japanese fusion chat about beans. Food finished, more photo ops, more peace signs...and on to the 'drinking party'. Unsurprisingly, there were drinks. Singing, dancing, shouting, laughing drunken japanese people are, if its at all possible, more amusing than their sober version. The night ended with a few passed out japanese guys and a made-up song called 'kintama o mitta'. Roughly translated as, 'I've seen your balls'.... in gratitude for the day's earlier on-sen experience.

I was angry when I woke up. My bed in Yokohama, as I've mentioned before, is about as comfortable as sleeping on the street, but the beds at the inn were worth their weight in gold. I was only granted three hours sleep in it though, as I was rudely woken by an overly chirpy Japanese lad at 8 o'clock. Unfortunately I couldn't remember the Japanese for 'get bent' in time before he went off to ruin the next room's morning. It was time for the next activity. Needless to say, the banter in the car was considerably less than the previous day. Having made some noodles and done some wandering around, the final stop was Suntory Whisky's distillery. This made everyone feel a little bit sick, and after the tasting session, fall asleep in the car. Luckily, in a very japanese style, the designated drivers were duty bound to wear a very embarrasing looking sign around their neck so they didn't get merry and end up in a ditch.

My zeal for all things Japanese has been topped up, by a weekend sejourn to the country. A strictly japanese withnail and I style romp through rural Japan has, however done nothing to soothe my endless hatred for asian pop music. It has literally no redeeming qualities. You might think to yourself, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...there must be at least one good song. Trust me, after an agregate of six hours of it (with backing vocals from my road tripping crew) I can safely say, there isnt.

DJ Will

Charity isn't big in Japan. Clearly it never came into vogue in the same way as it has for the western world's Bono, Live Aid, save- the-world-by-having-a-huge-party obsession. In fact, streaming Chris Moyles' breakfast show this morning from the relative comfort of, once again, Robin's floor, I hear there is a children in need gig with the likes of dizzee rascal and Cliff Richard tonight in London if anyone's interested... Robin, being half welsh and half Japanese, bridges the gap of cultural divide, notably by organising and hosting the 'Cows for cows' charity event in Omotesando last night.

I'm not entirely sure what the charity does, but the general gist is straight forward enough. Each party aims to raise enough money (roughly £600) to buy a cow. But it doesn't end there. The purchased cow then enters into a life of mixed reward at the hands of impoverished Cambodian farmers for a period of a few months; enjoying a rigourous work routine and, with a little help from mother nature and a randy bull, producing a baby that the village can keep. The cow then gets taken off for its next tour of duty at the next village, and so on. A bit like pay it forward... but with a cow. Someone had the bright idea of hosting the event in a bar called the Pink Cow. I think the reasoning speaks for itself.

The Pink Cow is a kooky, bohemian feeling bar. It has one of those vibes that makes you feel as though it would be ok to start an impromtu freestyle poetry battle, in a suit made from hemp and radical thinking. This was confirmed when I saw the open mike night sign up sheet. Two acts, one of which was called 'Chit', both described their genre as 'New age folk vocals.' Hippy bashing aside, it definitely seems an appropriate place to attempt to woo the Japanese populus into charity. Robin ended up hosting the event himself becuase the main man behind the charity had decided not to show. Whilst working an inumerate number of jobs and going to university, he managed to secure a stand-up comic/ magician, a singer, an apres-ski style cover band called 'V1 Rocket'...and DJ Will (thats me...)

Cut back to the day before the event. I recieve a stressed call from Robin saying that he has lost the DJ.... careless really. Would I be interested in filling in? 'No.' For two main reasons; One, I have never touched DJ decks in my life, and two, I only had mincy little headphones that just wouldn't make me look like a hardcore DJ at all. Of course, I gave in to peer pressure and spent that evening frantically trying to learn how to use 'Virtual DJ' instead of trying to learn Japanese vocab. I achieved neither, and ended up babysitting a playlist that would have been right at home in any of the Edinburgh clubs that require you to say 'Will Dobbs' on the door.
I ended the night winning 500yen off of the lead singer of the V1 rockets at poker and eating a luke warm bacon cheeseburger alone in Robin's Kitchen at 3am. Apparantly not all DJs get all the girls. I just got Robin and a futon.

A radish, a racist and a romper suit

Halloween is pretty odd. Its odd as a concept. Its odd in practice. Its totally beyond help bizarre in Japan. This halloween, I decided not to do the standard Darth Vader costume that has become a loveable stalwart of the Edinburgh 'dress up as anything remotely applicable to a theme most people will ignore in favour of whatever is cheapest' party scene. I went in an oversized all in one pink panther romper suit. I consequentially enjoyed the most comfortable evening of my life in the reassuring pink envelope of cheap nylon fleece and cheap canned lager.
YNU enjoys its annual festival at the same time as halloween, this meant that there was a purpose built infrastructure for lash; complete with breakdancers, close harmony singers, foodstalls....and my personal favourite 'the Miss YNU competition.' What is usually a fairly standard stroll towards the library on an ordinary day at uni was magically tranformed into a rampant Japanese hybrid of the Koh San Road and a world foods fair. Every concievable society had a stall selling something, and some ferociously polite groupies using a formidable combination of giggling smiles and emotional blackmail to secure a £1.50 sale of some slightly undercooked teriyaki sticks. Obviously the arrival of a horde of westerners in various permutations of cute and cuddly onesie outfits is not a normal spectacle in Japan. It did however win me a free curry, a free beer and a slightly warm kitkat by way of remunerations for trick or treating.
Miss YNU turned out to be rather less than the hype made it out to be. And the hype was fairly minimal. I did meet one of the five contestants, but I get the impression she was only being nice to get my vote.... I had absolutely no idea how to vote anyways so I think it was mainly a lost cause. Some of the costume highlights included; my friend from the yakuza (no jokes) dressed as a radish (he normally wears all black and looks like a seriously mean piece of work), a japanese guy who didnt understand the racist connotations of trying to scare people whilst wearing a mask of a generic looking black guy, and someone dressed as a giant sperm.
The hilarity has been cleared up as quickly as it arrived, and today the university looked and felt as if nothing had happened. It felt strangely Narnia like to walk into a normal lecture theatre and find it transformed into a UV rave....or best of all a room full of commotase/ paralytic drunk Japanese students who hadn't made it past 9pm.
Its suddenly got cold here, so its finally time to crack out scarves and hats....maybe I'll wear my halloween costume in bed tonight.