My work days, until the end of the month, require me to go to a municipal building in the nearby town of Tanuma. The building will soon be replaced by a commanding, brand-spankin' new monolith in the center of town (at least what I think of as the center; I'm not really sure, but this is the internet and anything is truth here). But for now, we've gotta commute there. I start off by leaving my apartment and riding as hard as I can — I've got it down to three minutes — to my coworker's apartment across from the train station. From there, we ride together to Tanuma and then walk to the junior high school, where we each have another bicycle parked in its bike lot. We then ride those bikes to the Board of Education, where we sit for eight hours on inadequately padded chairs while finding ways to pass the time. We study Japanese, work on lesson plan ideas, and shop for furniture online.

The bicycle parked in Tanuma is known as a mamachari; tried and true, and comfort at its finest. The bicycle loaned to me for everyday use is a typical two-wheeled machine with gears and a seat and tires not too fat and not too thin. Neither bike is designed to fit me, but the former wins out. I decided to swap the bicycles so that I could ride daily in moderate comfort and also have a cute little bell on my handlebars. So one Sunday morning I rode to Tanuma. I rode as hard as I could for over half an hour, sweating out half my body weight and feeling the burn in my legs as they slowly turned into tubes of gelatinous fibers. I battled traffic, hills, bumpy sidewalks overgrown with sharp weeds, and the expected hot and sticky Japanese air. Finally I arrived to the school where my bike was parked. And was greeted by a gate.


My heart sank. There was my mamachari, my cookie cutter comfort bike, my pimp ride, sitting just behind a huge metal gate, just hanging out with my coworker's bike. I thought to myself, "self, you're not leaving here until you have that bike. You will climb over that gate and heave that bike onto the street with all your might and you will grunt and growl like a maniac when you do it, but you're getting the mamachari. You'll look good on the mamachari. Get the bike, man." I considered my prostate health, and general discomfort, and decided there was no way I was going to ride back on that hard seat and risk the woes of temporary erectile dysfunction. Spoiler alert: I got the bike. And it wasn't even an issue. The gate, a giant slatted door wide enough to let three Japanese automobiles pass through, or one American car, wasn't even locked. There was a little chain tossed around the fence and the gate, either to keep it from swinging open or foil unobservant burglars. In any case, I hurriedly slipped through the gate and swapped the bikes. I didn't want anyone questioning my motives. A car with two women pulled up next to the school just as I was tidying up the crime scene, and so I casually pulled out my water bottle and took a calculated swig of hydration. I intentionally didn't rush out of there so I didn't look suspicious. I know what you're thinking. Smart move, Marshall. You are a genius, a master of reverse psychology, a wizard of the mind. Or you think too much and are way too paranoid and preoccupied in your own head.


Moving on.


In a personal challenge to see how much I can manage to keep myself from becoming dehydrated and drying up like a salamander on a campfire skillet, I joined my coworker and friend, who will henceforth be referred to as Melissa, on a hike up another mountain. We chose another blazingly hot and humid day to ride out to the mountain and trek along a paved road up to an overlook point. Drenched in sweat and having uttered at least four score and seven F-bombs because of the persistent mosquitos and gnats (I'm guessing they were gnats, but they could have been tiny birds – this is, after all, Japan, a world miniature against all comparisons), we made it to the resting point. A bathroom. A playground. A bridge that went nowhere, crossing only a section of the parking lot, existing for no other reason than to just be there. Maybe it's some sort of Buddhist bridge or was designed by influence of Rod McKuen.

But we could've taken the train. Not a real train, but a diesel-powered cart with faux train engine panels and a hilariously phony train whistle sound. They ride up and down the mountain on a schedule, carting families and people smarter than Americans who decide to hoof it to the top. I opted to ride it down, and a friendly, grandfather-esque man showed us to the trolley and we boarded. He crawled into his high perch — I think he had to use a stool, but I'm not sure — in the conductor's chair, and gave an obligatory toot of train whistle artifice. Even though we clearly could not verbally communicate with him and were the only two people on the not-really-a-train train, he diligently announced something on the loudspeaker, like a tour guide would do. "And to your left are some mosquitos that'll leave you scratching in pain and discomfort for the rest of the night. Straight ahead you'll see some other fools on foot, which will soon be out of sight, in their cars and nearly home by the time we hit the bend, since we're puttering along slower in this vessel than a blind dog with three broken legs and nowhere to be."

On this same mountain there is a fire. An intentionally lit fire. On a mountain. Covered with trees, which are things that generally burn. It's part of a festival that celebrates something that I didn't quite understand or bother to find out more about, but it was apparently a big enough deal to hold a festival attended by the mayor and some cutesy girl pop group, and it happened a few days after our sweaty little outing, and it looks like this:

Again, since this is the internet, the details surrounding this event are anything you want them to be, and I encourage you to come up with your own version of the story.

I'll leave you with a few pictures with no captions. For now, I have to go hydrate.

When I was about 15 or 16 I was attending a punk rock show at Bareville fire hall. My friends and I walked down the street to a Turkey Hill minute market, and I recall a car full of d-bags with too much testosterone and only a hint of a neck (the variety of which I would later regularly see in college that would cause me great confusion as to why women find this attractive, but that's irrelevant right now) being rowdy, and one of them asked our group if we were Amish. At the time I was wearing a faded t-shirt of the album Machine Head by the kickass rock band Deep Purple. I wondered then and I wonder now if Amish people ever get to really experience the power of electric guitars, Fender amps and pyrotechnics.

Anyway. This past week has been a whirlwind of an adventure; a roller coaster of discovery, emotions, reflection, and sweating through my shirts. Early upon my arrival in Sano I attended an impressive fireworks show held in the nearby town of Ashikaga. There were droves of people. I'm not a fan of crowds (Gandhi, the great mover he was, did not like crowds as he knew ya can't control a mob, and I share his sentiments on that, but not his wardrobe choices) but here in Japan there's something about them that isn't threatening. People are calmer, happier, just looking to have a nice sweaty evening out eating donuts with chopsticks and occasionally dressing like sexy cartoon schoolgirls. So I didn't do my usual verification of adequate nearby exits, and it was refreshing. Check it out before reading on:

I also had the uncomfortable pleasure to dance in a Sano City parade. Apparently, and maybe this would have changed the negotiations of my contract a little bit had my employer reviewed this detail with me, the city employees, as well as other organizations and groups around Sano, participate in this annual festival. Each group had its own attire and ours (shown below) consisted of a blue robe thing (hell if I know what it's called) and a white ball cap. My head isn't designed for ball caps, so you can imagine my (well-controlled) horror when vain little me was handed my urban jungle fatigues. But hey, I can roll with it.

I was told the dance itself was easy and I'd just pick it up and follow along. Wrong. So twenty minutes into this parade my mouth was as classically colorful as the fireworks last weekend. But I can deal. And actually, it was a lot of fun. The spectators again were lively, their big brown eyes full of joy and their little bellies full of mochi. At the end of a series of dances performed to traditional Sano songs — whoa, just as I was typing that there was an earthquake, second one since I arrived — a lady with a microphone, kimono, and camera crew approached me and Melissa, the other ALT from Lancaster, and asked for an interview. Our boss was standing nearby and I grabbed him and said, "we need you." He happily translated for us when we were asked our thoughts about the festival (in hindsight I should have responded that I was expecting something more along the lines of Carnaval; plastic surgery, crime and all). So a week here and we're basically famous.

The following day I was invited by Hiro, my new friend from downstairs, to go to the river with his friend Chris, an American guy who's been here twenty years and learned Japanese by ear because he needed to find a job. I thought about my short swim trunks — just shy of being a little questionable, and DEFINITELY not appropriate for business meetings — and the company I was with, but let it go. I was accepted whether or not my ass cheeks were at risk of an afternoon cameo.

There were a lot of people out to enjoy the sun, water and scratchy weeds this day, and Hiro was curiously the only Japanese person there. There were people from India, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, and the United States of Goddamn f'ing America, son. I made friends with a Brazilian guy (who was clearly Brazilian yet said his father is American and his mother German, hmm) and we chatted in Portuguese. He speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish, and Japanese. Pretty impressive really. That's a lot of grammar rules to keep straight.

Later that evening my supervisor stopped by to bring me a laundry pole to hang my clothes out to dry. My apartment has a little balcony which is essentially just designed to do that, and to house the air conditioning units for the apartment. She reminded me of the festival and so I rode my bike (or rather the bicycle that was issued to me by the Board of Education) over to the festivities and strolled around a bit. The day before it was dancing, and tonight it was groups of people carrying these shrines and following some chants and song. I bumped into some of my new pals and joined them on the walk. There was a little float of taiko drumming and just as I was saying how that's something I wanted to learn, a man pulled me over and handed me a Shime-daiko drum, similar in appearance to a talking drum but played differently. He asked me to join in, so I did, and he explained to me the technique and rhythms before each song. Then he said, "and smile: camera!" And before I knew it there was a lady with a video camera within arm's reach, focus set to my skull. I quickly put on my best cheese, thinking how my girlfriend always says I look miserable in photographs. It's true. I'm working on it. The band cheered me and handshakes and bows and high fives were exchanged, and they gathered around for some group photos. Again, famous.

Further up, there was live music and some games and other festival activities. I walked to the stage to watch the performances, and there was a middle-aged Japanese man on stage with (I think) a Gibson Les Paul and shredding some ear-splitting, hold-onto-your-underwear-lest-they-be-torn-to-shreds-and-found-in-the-next-zip-code guitar riffs to some prerecorded backing tracks. He announced his last song and bent down to cue his iPod® or something, I don't know, and the unmistakable opening grooves of Deep Purple's "Highway Star" came blasting out of the PA system. Curiously, it wasn't like a karaoke song with the vocal track removed, but rather the actual song just turned down in volume enough so that Jumpin' Jack Japan and his buttery guitar solos could be heard over the music. He started to sing along and I thought, "this is okay, yeah." But as I watched his mouth and listened to his words I realized he had no damn clue as to the lyrics of the song, and at times would just sort of fade out all together, the concentration hanging on his face like a baby koala clinging to its mother as it's ferried around the eucalyptus canopy. And the audience loved it. They cheered, they threw their fists in the air, they screamed and applauded. Even over the slightly dissonant solo that battled the original one on the actual song, which could be heard plain as day to any discerning fan, they cheered. I looked around for a telltale beard and horse and buggy, but saw nothing.

Japan, you're welcome at my place any time.

I'm in Japan now, and for those friends back home who might read this, the future is pretty amazing. When you're here it's like the present, only more humid and filled with vending machines and lots of bowing. It's as if people are on strings attached to their backs and something is manipulating them like a puppet master, creating a sea of bobbing marionettes. Or like those toy birds whose heads move back and forth in a dish of water. People bow to each other over and over and over again in the same conversation, even long after it ends. They bow to doors when they pass through them. They bow to faces they can't see on the other end of a phone conversation. Impressive.

I haven't started my teaching assignment yet (I'll be at a junior high school most of the week and an elementary school once a week) but I am working at the Board of Education for this month, which is really hanging out in an office practicing hirigana while waiting for instructions to meet with people (we met the mayor yesterday, pretty rad), or fill out paperwork, or travel to nearby places to fill out other paperwork, and bowing at everyone and everything. But as things calm down I'll be using the time to study or prepare lesson plans or something. Or whatever I'm told to do.

Speaking of work, people don't mess around with it. They're on time, and then a clock chimes, and a meeting begins, and then people bow a whole bunch and go to their desks and sit there until another bell - the lunch bell - chimes. Then they turn the lights out and turn on a television, and promptly an hour later the TV is turned off and the lights turned on and they're back to it. No dillydallying here in the future. I like it.

I bought a plant for my room. And sorry Mike, there will be no Japanese girlfriends.

A view of Sano City, where I'm living, from a mountain overlook. We biked and hiked our way to it.

And sometimes there's a Toshiba just chilling alongside the road.

And when you're 6' 1", your knees become familiar with the feeling of being pressed against a wall while you're just trying to relax.

More later.