見学
You can see a lot just by observing - How to Japanese - March 2021
This is How to Japanese, a monthly newsletter with something about Japan/Japanese, something about booze, and a dash of いろいろ.
日本・日本語： Onsen Adaptation
I have not thirsted for a book as much as I thirsted for Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy in the summer of 2003.
I’d arrived in Beppu by boat from the western coast of Shikoku. I remember standing on the boat and watching Shikoku recede into the horizon as we departed the port at Yawatahama: I was exhausted, as I had been for much of the summer. I was writing for a travel guide that had been given a single summer to complete work that needed at least twice that much time. I’d also neglected to get a new debit card before the trip and discovered that the magnetic swipe on the one I had was stripped. Unable to access my checking account, I was forced to rely on strategic Western Union transfers, which at the time was only accessible at Suruga Bank. The westernmost branch of the bank was in Nagoya.
So I was living on rations of konbini inari-zushi, Toppo, Pocari Sweat, and Coke. At one point in Matsuyama I ate a single piece of naan for dinner, which did not please the owner of the shop. In my defense, I did put his store in the guide (Ladki Curry - it’s still there!).
I visited what I could in about a month, probably 65 percent of what I should have. This left large swaths of the island uncovered. Kamakura, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Awaji-shima had all been on my itinerary before Shikoku, and I had to get to Beppu and Kita-Kyushu before flying home.
I found a spartan business hotel directly across from Beppu Station, and at some point—I don’t remember how or when—I came across a rotating rack of faded paperbacks in a store on the main drag. I picked up The New York Trilogy and quickly ensconced myself in the story in my hotel room. The whole summer had been about me, about experiencing parts of Japan and then recreating it all in guidebook form, but I was so stressed with deadlines and I’d had so little downtime that it was hard to enjoy. The novel was a concentrated dose of downtime.
(On a side note, at the end of my trip I ended up staying with the writer covering Tokyo, and I remember him blowing off steam with lengthy sessions of StarCraft on his laptop, so it wasn’t just me.)
I easily could have licked my wounds and half-assed the coverage of Beppu, especially given that I’d only ever been in a single onsen before.
The summer prior, I interned at a propeller company in Okayama. One weekend, our hosts took the three other Rotary interns and me to a rural onsen resort and guided us into the baths while my pleas for a small towel were ignored. I was given a large bath towel, which ended up being helpful, but it was not the small towel that I saw others carrying. The role these small towels played was immediately evident to the 20-year-old who’d worn a bathing suit when he showered on his eighth-grade camping trip six years earlier.
I was reminded of this moment while reading Anne Helen Petersen’s newsletter about “Quarantine Grooming” back in September:
The first time I realized I really didn’t have to get ready every damn morning was near the end of my freshman year in college. None of my friends blow dried their hair, but I’d clung to the routine as some form of grounding. But then, on Reading Day (when you’re supposedly starting to study for Finals, but usually just laying on the campus green) I just put on the shorts and t-shirt I would’ve worn after showering and went with it. It sounds dorky but it was truly revelatory: no one even noticed. It was the first of many times that I realized that no one is thinking about you quite in the way you’re thinking about yourself.
These two moments—my first onsen, and this trip to Beppu—were defining moments in my own bathing experience. On the Okayama trip, I steeled myself and tried to act as naturally as possible. It was a shock to the system, to be sure, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
This prepared me to fall in love with onsen in Beppu.
I eventually put down Auster, bought a Beppu bus pass, and transported myself to Mushi-yu, midway up the slope to the western hills in a neighborhood that seems to be leaking steam from every hole in the ground. I crawled into the bath’s narrow steam sarcophagus and poached myself for five minutes (they recommend no more than 8-10 minutes). Then I crawled out, rinsed off, and plopped into the regular bath where the proprietress (herself fully clothed) proceeded to engage me in conversation as I soaked.
The rest of the trip ended up being exactly what I needed, even more than a good book. Each day I woke up, got dressed immediately, and started work. At some point I’d come across an onsen and take a bath. I squished clay between my toes at a mud bath, lounged with the old men at spartan Showa baths with names like 不老泉 (furosen, Bath of Eternal Youth), and was covered with sand at the beautiful, wooden Takegawara Onsen (which was not nearly as hot as advertised).
I was still carrying around small bottles of body soap and shampoo and using them at almost every stop, so I hadn’t shed all of my bathing compulsions, but it was refreshing. You have to make a lot of effort to not enjoy an onsen once you get past that initial hesitation. Why resist when you can relax?
I do have one vivid memory of a standing in a bathhouse fully clothed in cargo shorts and a T-shirt. I trekked up to the Suginoi Hotel, which had dueling Shinto and Buddhist-themed baths that alternated men and women each day. I either didn’t want to spend the money to go in or decided that I didn’t really have enough time to justify taking a dunk in a hotel pool, so I used the word that got me around most of that summer: 見学 (kengaku, observation/observe). A hotel employee escorted me in, I took a quick look around, and that was all I needed to write the place up. It was so tacky that it received a total design overhaul a few years later.
My apartment in Chicago has just a shower and no tub, unfortunately. I sure could have used it in February. I would have taken advantage of it as I did the bath in my JET apartment. On some winter days I would come home and read in the tub while my kerosene heater warmed up the place.
Despite my lack of access to tub, I do feel like I’ve further evolved in terms of comfort with my own body and cleanliness. I’m washing my hair every other day or so, sometimes less. Often I do just a quick rinse to get the day going. And on lazy weekends I’ll even go Japanese style and shower in the evening. Now that I’ve made it to this point, it’s hard to imagine living with that invisible resistance I had before I went to Beppu. It makes me wonder what other obstacles within me there are to be torn down and how I can accomplish that rather than choosing to curl up with a good book and ignore the world around me.
見学 is still a word that reminds me vividly of that summer. Phrases like 見学させていただけますでしょうか (Kengaku sasete itadakemasu deshō ka, Would you allow me to observe [insert museum/attraction]) were invaluable, although they would have been even more helpful had I thought to send out a volley of emails ahead of the trip.
取材 (shuzai) is a word that’s broader and has become more useful to me as a practicing writer, especially one living outside of Japan. It can mean interview, photograph, record a video, and the act of covering a subject for an article or news report itself. There are a lot of good email templates on this site, which I highly recommend mining for future use.
ビール： 遠慮
For the second month in a row, I’ve written longer than I intended in the first half , so I’ll keep this section short. That works well; I’ve been in New Orleans busy catching up with family and not really able to avail myself of the city’s usual attractions.
I worked my way through some beer from 2nd Shift my brother gave me on my drive down at the end of February (2nd Shift is a very solid St. Louis brewery that seems to have mastered almost every style), and I’ve had a couple mezcal tastings with my folks that I can highly recommend (Agave Mixtape and the Agave Road Trip box set from Maguey Melate), but other than that it’s been work and family. I have no complaints. I needed a change of space and atmosphere. I think I’ll return to Chicago recharged when I head back later this week, vaccinated (!) and ready to dive back into the beer scene.
So in this spirit, I wanted to re-up my writing about 遠慮 (enryo, restraint, restrain actions/speech), a very graceful way to refrain from drinking at social event. I like to imagine that there’s only one excuse we all need right now to avoid social situations, but given how much pressure I’ve felt over the past year in the meager handful of social opportunities I have had, I realize it’s not always easy to say no.
There’s a nice finality to 遠慮. I wrote about the phrase a lot in the early days of How to Japanese, cleaned up a piece for Neojaponisme, and incorporated it into an article on drinking vocab for the Japan Times. Give these a read!
These phrases in particular are useful:
遠慮させていただきます (Enryo sasete itadakimasu, Please allow me to refrain)
This is the one that will get you out of almost anything. Especially if you add a phrase of apology immediately before it.
遠慮なくお知らせください (Enryo naku oshirase kudasai, Please feel free to let me know)
This is a newer one that I incorporate into my emails regularly. 遠慮 is usually a good thing, except when it’s not. It can be helpful to reassure another party that there’s no need to let social graces prevent clear communication.
いろいろ
Radio Garden made the rounds in February and I forgot to include the link, but it’s given me more time to explore the radio stations of Japan. I listened to a Christian missionary station on at 2:00am in Shibetsu. I found jazz and gyaru talk programs syndicated around the country. I’ll be curious to see how long these stay accessible in Japan. I always thought rights access for music was more limited in Japan. I have a Twitter thread going with some links to reliable stations. And I discovered the syndicated show of classic pop hits あの頃青春グラフィティ, which has a Facebook group where they post playlists.
Bloomberg on the changes in Japanese whiskey laws.
On the drive down to New Orleans I listened to Nelson Sings Nilsson, which sounds like Sgt. Pepper and Mingus made a Nilsson cover album. (You’ll recognize Sean Nelson from Harvey Danger fame.) If you’re into this, add Nilsson Sings Newman to your queue. If you’re not too torn up after listening to that, you might as well read “Deconstructing Harry,” after which you’ll be remiss if you don’t watch some of the BBC sessions on YouTube (permasearch). At that point, you’re going to end up watching Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)? anyway, so go ahead and start tracking it down.
And last and probably least, my TikTok self intro got some traction! I've hit 27K views and nearly 3,500 likes, but things are starting to slow down, possibly because I haven't posted anything for a while (I'm fascinated by TikTok's algorithm; it is a very good at figuring out what people like, what "fits” TikTok style, and matching up content with an audience). I haven't had time to film any down here, but I have been drafting some material. Looking forward to doing more with it soon.