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The Turtle

Many days on our walks about our neighborhood, we pass a Buddhist cemetery and temple. The grounds are beautifully maintained and the hand washing pool has two interestingly carved dragons on it. I don’t usually go into the grounds of this shrine (or at least not past the dragons) because it seems like a working shrine and, except for the occasional funeral, not too many people venture into it. It certainly doesn’t seem to welcome tourists.

For reference, since I do not know it’s real name, I call it the long eared nazi Buddha shrine. The cemetery has a statue of a very long eared Buddha….his ear lobes almost touch his shoulders. The ‘nazi’ part refers to the gates and fences around the shrine that have swastikas all over them. It is interesting to me that the inwardly focused Japanese have not removed the swastikas. I am sure they were there for many, many years before they became a symbol for the Nazi Party. They were considered a good luck charm. They probably still are to many people. I think the philosophy here is that the swastika was a good luck symbol for much longer than it had negative associations with Hitler so why change it?

The children and I were on our way to Roppongi Hills and had to pass the shrine. As we peered in through the gate, we saw a monk. He was dressed in sandals and a blue gi. He set something on the ground. Then we saw the something start to chase after the monk. It was a turtle! The turtle was really surprisingly quick! The children have one Japanese phrase that they use on a daily basis. It translates into a very polite ‘May I pet your animal?’. Armed with this they scrambled across the temple grounds and skidded to a halt beside the monk. He seemed so surprised that the children spoke Japanese and were so polite, he agreed to let them hold and pet his turtle.

A Japanese lady leaving the temple witnessed all this. Turtles out for walks is unusual even to Japanese people so the lady came over to see. She spoke some English. The monk told her that there were more turtles in the koi pond across the courtyard. She translated this for us and the kids ran over to see the fish.

The pond was small and beautifully landscaped. It had a waterfall and large stepping stones placed through the middle. We stood at the gate and admired the koi but did not see the turtles. The monk and the lady came over and let the children in through the gate. They stood at the edge of the pond but still could not see the turtles. So Steven, then Darran ventured across the stepping stones. When they found the turtles, the lady joined them in the middle of the pond. The monk asked the lady what the English word for ‘koi’ was. She didn’t know so she asked us. The children said ‘carp’. As we were leaving, after bowing and saying thank you (the lady was very impressed by the children), the monk asked the lady what the English word for turtle was. She said ‘turtle’. The monk tried to repeat it but he said it was too difficult for him.

http://www.yakult-swallows.co.jp/special/pg20070420_05.html

We went to the Swallows game tonight. The web site advertised that it was a ‘disguise’ night (using the Babellfish web site translator) or ‘cosplay’ on the actual Japanese site.

The kids planned their costumes and quickly changed when they got home from school. We brought our noisemakers and umbrellas from previous games and bought the cheap seat tickets.

Then we started to worry. Not one other person was in costume. Not one. Okay so we will be the crazy gaijin. Again.

A security guard came and asked what Steven was. Actually the guard just said ‘Star Wars’ and Steven nodded ‘yes’. Then the dude made a phone call.

I started worrying that the kids were in trouble for carrying fake weapons. Steven, as a Jedi, had a light saber. Darran had a dagger and a sword for her pirate costume.

After a while a lady behind us showed up in a red santa’s elf costume. Okay so we weren’t the only crazy ones.

And in front of us a little girl, a toddler really, was wearing pink Minnie Mouse ears with an attached veil. But no one else was in costume.

Before the game, as the teams were warming up, they announced the umbrella dance. You unfurl your umbrella and get ready to dance. The camera pans across the dancing crowd until it finds someone of interest, then it stops. A frame goes up on the jumbotron, framing the next dance contestant. The announcer tells you to get ready. When the music starts, you do your craziest umbrella dance to the music for about 30 seconds.

The stands were still mostly empty. The first contestant was the santa’s elf. Then the camera hit Steven, standing on the seats in a Jedi costume waving one pink and one green umbrella. And the frame appeared around him on the Jumbotron. The announcer was being an awesomely good sport and tried to give Steven instructions for the contest in English. He said ‘wave umbrella’. Steven did his best umbrella waving. He did a crazy, jumpy dance with lots of smiles.

Then they moved on to the Minnie Mouse girl.

The contest continued, hitting 2 or 3 contestants during every break in the game. I did notice that they were trying to find people in costume but there were very few costumes in the stands.

After the 5th inning, I noticed the Swallow’s mascot standing in the tunnel that led up to our section. Steven thought the mascot’s dance moves were really cool so I pointed out that the guy was up here. Steven put his shoes on and went into the tunnel to say ‘hi’. The handlers sent him back to his seat.

At this point, alarms SHOULD have been going off in my head. But not understanding Japanese, I was clueless. Then I saw myself on the Jumbotron. They were trying to focus on the constantly moving Steven. The mascot came up and they showed Steven’s crazy dance again, this time to a much bigger crowd. They presented him with a golden yakult Swallows umbrella and took a picture with him and Darran and the mascot.

For the rest of the game, Steven was congratulated by everyone who saw him and his golden umbrella.

I took the kids to a Yakult Swallows Baseball game. This is the major league team that plays in an old, open air stadium near our house. Their arch rivals are the Yomuri Giants, who play in the new, Tokyo Dome stadium across town.

Seats are cheap in the outfield. You have to chose a team to root for. GOD FORBID you were seated in the wrong section. Fortunately (or, rather, scarily) when I looked on-line for ticket information and game schedules I found numerous english language sites that explained the etiquette, cheers and differences between the teams. It turns out that baseball-crazy Americans actually travel to Tokyo to watch baseball games. So from what I gleaned from these web sites, I know to ask for seats in the Swallows section.

We arrived at the stadium about an hour before the game, bought tickets, picked up our free paper fan and found seats. On old man approached us and took one of our fans and placed it onto the seat next to ours. Why? I had no idea. I thought he was saving a seat for himself. The kids set off to find food and cheering tools (wait until I explain those). Darran ate her body weight in chicken yakitori skewers. You can buy as many as you want. They coat them with teriyaki sauce and put them in a paper cup for you. Steven ate a corn dog. For a semi-vegetarian he sure does love his processed meat foods.

Darran chose a plastic clapper thing to make noise during the cheering. Steven chose two small plastic bats that you bang together to make noise. I bought a small see-through green plastic umbrella.

Once the game begins you cheer when your team is ‘at bat’. When the other team is at bat you go outside to smoke or make calls on your cell phone. You do not ‘boo’ the other team. There is a smattering of applause when your team strikes out the other team and now your team is at bat. Now the real work begins.

First you stand up with your noisemaker. Everyone has a noise maker. As each batter is announced you do the cheer for him. Not just any cheer. HIS cheer. Fortunately their are cheer conductors in every section to lead you in the cheer. You must clap out the correct rhythm on your noise maker. You also need to sing the song to go with that batter. Single, double runs get cheers. Home runs get a different cheer and you have to do the umbrella dance. Since the Swallows have no dome roof, they use the umbrellas to prove that ‘they don’t need no stinking dome’. THAT is why I now own a tiny, green umbrella.

Steven and Darran really got into the cheering. Steven would take his shoes off and stand on his seat so he could see and cheer. You MUST cheer the whole time your team is at bat. No one just sits and watches the game.

So why did the old man take our fan and put it in the seat next to us? Well it is what EVERYONE does to give themselves extra space. The cheap seat section was busy but not full so everyone could have an extra seat.

The stadium is so friendly and homey that EVERY kid that was cheering for the Swallows got their picture up on the Jumbotron. Steven was very impressed to see himself up there!

The first home-run for the Swallows was scored by the lone American on the team. The fans call him ‘american’ since his name is very hard to pronounce. The old man returned after the homer to give us a high five since we must be american too. He also returned later with a runny Icee and offered it to all of us and the whole row of Shibuya girls behind us. EEEWWWW. Some of them took a sip and handed it back. We declined the offer, perhaps damaging US-Japan relations but at least avoiding any germs.

Surprisingly the fans were not as drunk as they could be. Their are beer vendors walking past every 5 seconds (not an exaggeration). They do not carry trays of beers. Instead they have a keg strapped on their back and a bar tap snaking over their shoulder. If you want a beer they pour it for you right there. I felt sorry for the two 14 year old boys next to me. They were at the game without parents. Perhaps with parental permission, perhaps not (i.e. they were supposed to be at cram school or something). Either way they might have some explaining to do as one of the beer girls accidentally shot beer from her hose all over their school bags.

The beer vendors wear lime green or glow in the dark yellow. For a moment I thought I was back at a George Michael concert in 1984. If you are too young to get this reference….who cares…..this was when ‘chose life’ meant something else. “Wake me up before I go go…”

Enough eighties pop. Back to the game. Swallows won. They beat those Yomuri Giants. (trivia fact: Yomuri is the newspaper company and Yakult is a scary yogurt drink). The kids had a great time and want to go back.

The following summer I returned to the Great Wall again with a number of tourists. We passed by the lake again with the buried city, and although the builders were still there, the rooftops had been ripped off the tops. There were various boats floating in and around the city, with men fishing in the low waters or hunting inside the skeletal houses. I found out the reason for this strangeness later, when a local told us the government had set up this idyllic village in the bosom of the Great Wall, and then decided that it was not worth the effort and opened the dam, flooding all of the buildings and relocating the villagers.