Paying The Bribe

It's hard to believe it's been more than a week already since our ship landed in Tianjin. One does not exactly take China by storm so much as China fully takes you. I have to admit, coming to Beijing was not at the top of my very long mental destination list before I set out on this trip -- but I am so very thankful to be here (all consuming food poisoning incedent and all). It seems impossible to sum up what we've seen so far into a bite sized first impression paragraph -- but I guess that's the jist of it right there - it's the sheer unconceivable enormity of it all.

In three adjectives, I would say that China feels incredibly raw, alive, and of a level of granduer for which there is no scale. As for the first two, they're more of feelings than describable sites or sounds or smells. China does not put on aires so to speak. There is no sensation that one is not seeing the country and its people for what they are. Somehow it simultaneously feels like a completely different world and yet very much like one I know well. Much more so than any other city I've visited abroad, Beijing has to feeling of the poorer sections of huge American cities like New York to me. It's the sensation that you are walking through it like a shadow unnoticed. There are no cars that will slow for your crossing, no people who will acknowledge your presence in que or your concept of personal space on a train, no bycicles that will share the sidewalk with you. Before coming many other travellers warned us that China would be incredibly rude and harsh to our senses. But there's something in it, maybe because I've been living in the south and missing the northeast for too long, that I find quite comforting.

On a whole though, my first impressions have been most shaped by the breathtaking magnitude of it all. It's not just the size of the country (Beijing alone is roughly the size of Belgium I've read) or the hugeness and diversity of its population that makes me say this. It's the whole picture - it is a country whose "modern history" chapter begins in the 1500s; it is a vast land with an all consuming concentration of power that reaches every pocket of the country and exists even to this day (isn't it difficult to imagine in a country of this size that there could still be someone out there monitoring what I write in this very blog and sheilding its populous from corrupting media outlets like the BBC?); it is a land covered with temples, palaces, and various public works projects of uncountered proportion and scale which have been standing for longer than many countries have even existed; it is the fact that there are 1500 dialects spoken by just one of China's ethnic groups (there are 54 additional ethnic minorities, each with their own myriad of dialects); it is the breadth and rapidity of the country's economic progress over the past two decades; it is all of this and so much more that weighs on the outsider with this feeling of hugeness. It's a country that has always had, and continues to have, a grand vision. And more importantly, the ability to make those visions come true. It is truely awe-inspiring.

Welcome to Beijing where the national sport is...spitting.

Spitting is actually a generous term...though I'm not sure I've ever used this phrase before, it would be more aptly described as "hauking a luge." (Unsure about the spelling there...) Though fines of up to 50 cents have been imposed on those caught spitting on the street, it still does not stop everyone and their mom from reaching deep down in their throat, summoning their phlegm forward and letting it rip. In fact, most people reach down 2 to 3 times before they actually release.

Some cities are alive with the sounds of birds chirping or cars honking.

Beijing? The retching sound of man summoning forth his bodily fluids.

And it's only just begun...

We've just finished the first chapter of our journey. It's amazing sometimes how quickly three weeks can seem to pass and yet how far away their start can seem. We are now aboard the magnificent Yin Jang, making our way through the high seas to Tianjin, China (okay, if one insists on reality, magnificent may have been a stretch and by high seas I mean the calm waters of the sea of Japan. Life at sea has pushed us to exaggeration as we continually refer to ourselves as women of the sea and begin sentences with "In truth, it's a lonely life...". Clearly, the rocking of the boat made us a bit delusional and now I am not putting this entry online three days later in an internet cafe in Beijing, but you get the idea).

Here are my parting impressions of Japan. Certainly, we've not stayed long enough to make any educated statements on the country, but I will give my thoughts all the same. In leaving Japan, the three things that come to mind are: Conflicted, Confined, and yet still uniquely and wonderfully Charming.

Japan, in my mind, is a nation in conflict. In a way that was both baffling and intriguing, Japan brought paradox to nearly every situation. At once traditional and modern, advanced and yet terribly behind. Japan has gadgets and gizmos aplenty, but they've not figured out how to hide their telephone wires or make reasonable dryers. The Buddhist and Shinto religions which dominate the culture bring with them an appreciation for a focus on harmony with nature while at the very same time, the Japanese government is destroying Japan's beautiful natural landscape at alarming rates in the name of unnecessary and expansive public works projects.

As for the people, we found them to be warm and kind and helpful in ways unimaginable in the U.S. (even in the south) and yet at times, shockingly cold and untouched. Despite being one of the most homogenous nations in the world, the people of Japan are as varied and diverse in their outward appearances as one would find in any international city. The culture in many ways is typified by order and politeness but yet it can seem at times to be the absolute picture of chaos. Despite very specific codes of conduct that place a high premium on dignity and seriousness, once finds that after dark each night the salary men can be found,in their perfectly manicured suits, roaming the streets holding each other up by the necktie, vomiting on the sidewalk, and swaying in the subways drunkenly.

Thus, it seems to me, that in many regards, Japan is a nation in conflict. Japan seems to be held in a forward and backward movement that is keeping it stable and also stagnant. It was descibed by Alex Kerr in his book Of Dogs and Demons (which inevitabley skewed the way I viewed Japan) as a post industrial nation, with pre-industrial goals. It will be incredibly interesting to see what they do with the next ten years - it could go either way.

My second leaving impression was that in many ways I felt the culture to be defined, and in a way confined by what is normal, what is traditional, mostly by what it means to be "Japanese." Despite the outward diversity expressed in fashion choices and hairstyles, there is an incredible emphasis on being part of the group. As children, they are schooled in an almost military fashion, taught time and again that the highest value is placed on belonging to something, on fitting in. From this develops serious problems with bullying and high numbers of student burnouts (I've read that Japanese students miss on average 1.5 months of school per year attributed to this). At the larger scale it creates and support xenophobia (though I personally did not confront outward signs of xenophobia, and on the contrast was repeatedly met with helpfulness and warmth, I have heard differently from those who have been here longer). There are very serious unspoken rules of engagement around here which regulate most aspects of Japanese society and which inevitably exclude those who do not, or can not, play by the rules.

Despite everything that has been surprising and sometimes disappointing however, I am still quite enamored with the place. My final parting impression is that in spite of it all, Japan is charming to a fault. I will miss the lights of Tokyo and the calm of Kyoto. The hidden shrines and the sushi trains. I will miss the men whose job it is to push you into the subway car and the girls teetering knock-kneed on their stilettos. I will miss chocolate covered puffed rice and everything being on time. Bicycle parking garages and old ladies with sun umbrellas. I will miss the giggles on the street, and the sound of bike bells. I will even miss, if only a little, the utter depressing loneliness of Tokyo in the rain (after having been lost for 3 hours only to be turned away at the door of the Chinese embassy and forced to take refuge in an overpriced starbucks).

In the end, I was able to remove (if only for a bit) my rose colored glasses and scratch at the top layer of Japanese culture. I found that, as is always the case, Japan was not the Utopia I first thought it to be, but it is still an awfully wonderful place. On the sleepless overnight bus ride to Kobe, I was kept awake by the tune of a song from childhood, around 4am the words finally came to me and they seemed all too fitting as I moved on to the second chapter of our trip: "Don't know how we'll grow up, but what a way to begin..."

It is with no small amount of sadness that we bid goodbye to Japan tomorrow. Yes my friends. Tonight we board an all night bus only to disembark and board a ship that will cart us off to China in a mere 54 hours. (We repat: of course we can do this on a shoestring budget. No, it will not be pretty.)

And so without further ado or fanfare, I give you facts and figures, bests and worst, a complete salute to the Empire of the Rising Sun:

Number of visits to your best friend and mine, the Sushi Train: 2

Number of tasty Starbucks beverages consumed while feeling massively guilty for our expensive Western addictions: 3

Number of temples/shrines viewed in the last 21 days: 945,067 (aprox)

Number of Japanese women seen walking in heels over 3 inches, thus inducing some serious knock-knee: Really can't　count that high.

Worst meal in Japan: As featured below, hot dog buns, cheese, canned corn and tea

Best meal in Japan: I don't recall, did I mention Sushi Train?

Song most played on shared IPOD: On the Road Again (we heart Willie Nelson!)

Number of photos Sarah took of postcards as she was too cheap to buy a real one: 5

Times that Dont Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead immortal mantra "justice is served" has been repeated: 28

Number of unattractive and social akward Western men spotted PDAing with hot Japanese women: 472

Lost in translation:

Number of nights we attempted to stay out until 5am to appreciate the Tokyo night life: 1
Number of nights I fell asleep at the bar while attempting to stay out to appreciate the Tokyo nightlife: 1

High: Fushi Inamari. Go there one day. You'll fall in love with it.

Low: Coming dangerously close to being kicked out of the dirtiest hostel in Japan, as we were blamed for bringing cockroaches from America with our dirty ways. (Please note: my mother stuffed my bag with rubber cockroaches...)

Japan, Pay the Bribe salutes you for three lovely weeks. You'll always be the first one.

Don't worry..we'll always have Tokyo.
Hmmm...somehow not quite the same ring Boggie had, but oh well.

A brief word on Japanese toilets...

Not gonna lie...I have been panicked about the bathrooms I would encounter during Pay the Bribe. Much as I try to deny it, pretty much a spoiled westerner at heart. I enjoy frivolous things.

Like toilet paper. And hand soap.

A decision had to be made. Stay home and enjoy my Starbucks lifestyle or venture forward into the great unknown.

I ventured. And encountered this:

I know. You don't know what to do either, do you? (Okay gentleman...maybe you scoff. But try to imagine the sweat I broke into upon viewing this contraption.) I thought maybe if I just ignored the problem, eventually my body would adjust. I could become a medical wonder, the girl who no longer peed.

That didn't work out. After days of struggles, close encounters, cursing the gods, I stumbled upon the squat. Now do not confuse this with a bend. Its practically on the ground, as low as you can possibly go. Its not an exercise for the knees so much as an encounter with the earth.

Panic goodbye...squat hello. I embrace you and your sanitary approach to natures call.