Sapporo

Having arranged for my favorite perch aloft, I looked out the airplane window to see the northern coastline of Honshu, Japan’s main island, as it curved to an end. Hokkaido surfaced only a few miles further on. I tried to locate cities and towns but my geographic knowledge was lacking. Soon we turned inland, landing in Sapporo.

Cold weather, snow and ice on the streets, overcast skies – it all reminded me of my birthplace in winter. Yet I felt none of the depression that weighed me down in those forlorn months of my youth. For here was a new city, a culture open for exploration. With some difficulty I found the hotel Tomita-san had reserved for me. Small and straightforward, it had one tiny elevator to hoist me up six floors.

It took me forty-five minutes to call home from the hotel. Cable and Wireless, NTT/KDD, even the lobby pay phone refused my connection. Finally, with a phone card purchased from the clerk at $4 a minute, I reached home.

After talking with Annie for a midnight minute or two, she rousted my youngest daughter. When Chelsea came on the line, I could hear the affection in her voice, taking me back to the pre-teen years, when her Daddy was the most important man in her life. I felt her love as if she had jumped in my lap and wrapped her arms around me.

“I miss you, Daddy! I haven’t heard you in a week!” We talked about cheerleading and her latest track event: pole-vaulting. It was my old event from high school – probably the reason she tried it. Things had changed since the days of steel poles. Our three minutes went by quickly, our love clearly expressed. Talking to my daughter in California was the best ten dollars I’d spent in Japan.

The next day greeted me with peeks of sunshine as I headed out early, camera in hand. Still looking for the famed ice sculptures, I walked some of the shopping roads. I came upon a little park with old, wooden buildings – a wonderful contrast to the commercial steel and glass in the surrounding blocks. A blanket of fresh snow highlighted the rooftops and the tree limbs. Many smaller trees had little straw coats constructed around them. I recalled midwestern winters when my mother covered shrubs with straw to help them through the freezing months. Perhaps this was a similar but more stylized attempt. The skirts of straw were placed in very distinct layers, with a black belt of sorts tying them tightly on each tree. The dome of fresh snow on the top of each gave them the appearance of little people dressed in straw coats. A small creek ran through the park. I tried to capture some of this winter wonderland in the brightness between passing clouds.

In front of an NHK television station, I saw a marvelous statue. A young woman, naked but for the suggestion of a flowing robe behind her, was holding a bird aloft. Her uplifted arms gave a sense of flight, as if she were about to soar into the sky. It was inspirational.

Looking upward and beyond, I caught the juxtaposition of this classic art form, arms reaching toward the heavens, with the broad satellite dish in the background, also reaching skyward. However one might judge the advances, Japan had come a long way. Would she lose touch with art, with the emotional in her quest for the modern?

I suspected that all those little contradictions and traditions so odd to me were actually hooks into the past. They would serve to anchor her people and prevent a pace of progress that might pull her away from such artistry.

I always liked to climb someplace high to get my navigational bearings as well as a good view of the land. The tower in the NHK building afforded such a view, with the added convenience of an elevator rather than a rocky climb. The only westerner, I piled in with a couple of dozen Japanese visitors.

As usual, no one spoke. I gazed around the elevator, finding the standard registration and warning information in English. Maximum capacity was listed at 19. Hmm. I counted heads: 22.

Breaking the silence, I addressed our guide. “Does this sign indicate the carrying capacity of the elevator?”

“Yes,” she responded with expected surprise and perhaps a bit of self consciousness. I had caught her off guard. Who talks in elevators in Japan? “That is the maximum number of passengers,” she explained.

“It says 19,” I continued.

“Yes, 19.”

“We are 22.” I let the mathematical contradiction hang out there. Some of the other guests apparently knew English and let out nervous laughter. The guide and I joined in. An unsettling element of risk had just been added to our ascension.

Perhaps in this small space together, I was finally beginning to understand – or rather to feel – the bond of the Japanese that Richard had tried to explain back at Stanford. I anticipated how others would feel in a situation that posed some danger. We didn’t need to express our anxiety; we all knew it to be the appropriate response. We shared this clear communication, wordlessly.

Similarly, when we all exited the elevator on the view floor, I could sense a relief, also shared. A few of us looked at each other, exchanging knowing smiles. This moment was the closest I had ever come to feeling connected with the Japanese at large, as a society, as a people. I finally understood.

Before I left the tower building, I found our guide and asked her a question that had been puzzling me. “Excuse me, but where are the ice sculptures from the Winter Festival? I’d like to see them.”

“Oh, they are gone now.”

“Gone? Where did they go?” I was bewildered. I knew from years in Minnesota that ice doesn’t just go away. It takes months to melt. Where I grew up there was a tradition of dragging an old car to the middle of a frozen lake in Winter. People would bet for weeks on when it would fall through the ice, marking Spring’s arrival. This didn’t happen quickly. Ice sculptures didn’t just run off.

With the best vocabulary she could muster, she replied, “They are all … burned down.”

Burned down, I asked myself? You have got to be kidding! In a country supposedly strapped for energy and dependent almost entirely upon foreign sources, they turned on some huge gas burners and melted them? All the statues? Good Lord, why?

Then it came to me. Of course: the Festival was over! There is a time for everything in Japan. A time for summer vacation; a time for holidays; a time for lunch. When it’s over, it’s over. Burn it down! Clean everything up. Remove all traces and prepare for the next collective — and very crowded — event.

In a travel agency, I asked for information on Niseko. In broken English, a young woman offered assistance. Some of the brochures she handed me offered lodging with the train ticket. As long as I was backpacking, I thought it might be fun to stay in some sort of youth hostel. Okay, so I didn’t fit the “youth” part anymore; but I shared the world-inquiring spirit of the younger generation.

The young woman found a place in Niseko but was concerned that I could manage getting there, as few would be expected to know English. “How about Spanish?” I asked. She looked at me quizzically. I let the joke pass and suggested I would be fine. Could she call?

She arranged the reservation and gave me instructions to call the hostel when I arrived at the train station in Niseko. I thanked her and headed out once again into the overcast unknown.

I reflected on my increasing difficulty in traveling as I got further into the countryside. With all it’s strangeness, Tokyo was a piece of cake. Mind you, it was a far cry from traveling in Europe where Latin derivatives left you with a good guess at signs and maps. I longed to see some Romanji so I could at least pronounce what I could not understand.

I passed through a covered market, amazed at seeing so much seafood in one place — in new and unfamiliar forms! Fish swam in a huge circular tank I’d expect to see in an aquarium. These were surrounded by watery shelves full of scallops. Deep fried shrimp lay waiting like fast food, beckoning passersby to grab a tail and enjoy.

One stand had a half dozen different kinds of crab, most of which I’d never seen. I recognized the snow crab legs – much larger than I had seen. Others had bumpy shells or long thin legs that were doubled back under, reminding me of some kind of accordion. The young vendor saw me talking a picture. He lifted a live crab from a tank and posed.

I delighted in all this. It was like fantastic imagination wherein someone took a concept and expanded it, making up new forms: a natural, experimental artist. Yet these were all real. Why hadn’t I seen any of these crabs in the U.S.? Maybe crabs are a local thing: Dungeness from California, King from Alaska, and whatever these were from Hokkaido.

After a rest in my hotel, I hit the streets again to see the city of Sapporo in her evening dress. Cold as it was, there was a street vendor selling food from a brightly lit stand. Looking more closely, I could see this vending booth was actually a van with a pop-up top. He had opened the sliding door on the side to reveal a countertop, a stereo that was blasting and his smiling face behind an opening. I raised my camera as if to ask permission. He stuck his head out and grinned widely as I clicked the shutter.

I found one narrow street that seemed to run mid-block. It was full of little stalls, stores, and restaurants with neon signs. I looked over several, finally choosing one. Entering the door, I ducked my head inside. Soon I was seated at a table with two built-in ovens and benches on both sides.

Looking around, I saw people talking, smiling and enjoying their dinners. Searching for tips on how to proceed, I watched diners tending the grills in front of them. These were filled with fresh fish and shellfish. It was a mix between a Korean BBQ and Benihana without the chef. As I looked over the menu, which fortunately had pictures, a waiter came with a hot box of coals. He placed these in one of the ovens in front of me — a lined box built into the table. Replacing the grill top, he left me to look over the selections.

I was particularly interested in a neighbor’s crab leg medley. I found it on the menu and ordered the same. I wrote for a while as I waited. It was a comfortable place: it had the warm feel, the low ceilings of a dive, but the upbeat atmosphere of a good restaurant.

How often did Japanese actually dine alone? As I reflected on this, I recalled seeing individuals only at odd hours. During prime time lunches and dinners, there were only couples and groups. A socially engaged society, indeed.

Soon I was placing items from my delivered tray onto the grill: crab legs, fish, even a scallop that soon began to steam in its shell. Without peer, this seafood was the best I’d ever had! The grill gave the crab a smoky flavor so good I had no craving for the usual dunk in butter. I soon wished I’d ordered the crab alone!

Savoring the other seafood before me, I changed my mind as I finished. On the way out, I looked into the large oven where wood was being burned down to hot coals for the evening’s guests. I stood there for a minute or two, absorbing the radiant heat. Revitalized, I stepped into the cold night air.