Yesterday
has already been a day at Kobe home doing nothing, I have decided that today
shall be the day to stretch my legs and make damage to the world.
After having breakfast, which also served as my lunch, bidding my Kobe
mom a farewell, heading to Ashiya. Ashiya
is a town somewhere in the rural Kobe, a home to a famous Japanese author,
Junichiro Tanizaki, whose name I just heard yesterday.
Hmm, a non-blinded follower, I am.
Sitting
in the Kobe subway train, looking at the people surrounding me, feeling nothing
but that “little differences” is amongst us all.
According to my dear John Travolta’s interpretation of the “little
differences” is that although the major part of the thing is the same, but
just the name or the usage of that is different from places to places, it makes
the subject different. Like in Pulp
Fiction, according to Travolta, people in Holland, eats French fries with
mayonnaise, instead of ketchup and sugar like I normally do, that’s the
‘little difference, ‘ which just separated me from them right in the middle.
And if you do so obsessed with your original way, it will be blown out of
proportion.
Like
now, in the subway, I see what I see normally, doesn’t matter which country I
am in, people. Yes, people sitting, people standing, people talking to people,
people listening to the headphone, people reading, and people sleeping. But
it’s those little differences that make you think.
For
example, the books. Actually,
it’s the size of the book. I
believe Japan has the smallest, thinnest pocket size book in Asia. (I am not
going to say in the world, because I may get a complaint.)
It’s the pocket-sized book that you can just grab it with you so you
can: NOT to look at anybody else while you stand or sit stupidly
in the subway train. I have
witnessed a young boy, a “handsome boy,” as what they call them here in
Japan, who has nothing with him but sure enough, a pocket size book, heading to
the subway train. This has become their culture. The pocket-sized book.
And I believe this is getting transmitted to other parts of the Asia as
well, e.g. Taiwan, because I have just bought myself a “Red Mansion Dream” (
紅樓夢, sorry for the direct translation), with a size of no more than 10 x 8 x 3 cm.
Even smaller, although thicker, than the normal Japanese books that
handsome boy was holding. I am so
proud of my country. I am. Really.
And
the advertisements. Doesn’t those
ads just bother you? Here you are
in a nicely lighted subway train day-dreaming about, but all you can see around
you is the ads for this and that. If
you are in the train without a book and if not sleepy, I am sorry, you have to
look at them, or at somebody. I
have personally found the ads in Taiwan subways are not as bad, actually, there
aren’t many, but there are subway maps, so you can spend your time study your
trip or future trips. At least,
that’s what I do. Oh, you can get
off at ABC instead of 123, and take a free bus or walk to XYZ, this will save
you a 5 NTD, if you are so financially handicapped.
Unlike Shanghai subway trains, you are forced to look at the lady’s
underwear ads everywhere you go. Unless,
I repeat, unless you look at somebody else.
Now, that wouldn’t be so polite would it, in this Asian kind of
country, or any country for that matter. I
don’t mind Japanese subway train ads, because I cannot read them, they are
mostly about magazines anyway, but a lot of them, hanging just about anywhere in
the train. But again, that’s what
Travolta has mentioned, the ‘little difference’, if I allow them, bugs me.
A lot.
I
love to be in the subway trains, or any crowded places for that matter.
Because you can see how people behave, and trying to conclude what they
are like, what are going through their minds.
I personally always pretend that something is going through my
mind so that people next to me, or sitting facing me, can have an imaginative
good time, while without a book or sleepy bug.
Too bad, at the trip’s end, I never have them share their feelings with
me. Never found out whether it
worked or not.
Here
in the Kobe subway train, I see people. I
see people do any people would do when they feel they’ve been watched, who
sits very straight still, like in front of a school master who’s giving a
serious lecture. I see people who
sleep in various positions. Heads
tilted sideways is the most common in every country.
What I find amazing is those who sleep with their heads bowing 135+
degrees forward, totally against the human anatomy.
But funny how I don’t see this type of people often in the Taipei or
Shanghai subway trains.
I
also see people listen to their head phones, trying add music in their lives;
people with books, of course, trying to see what could happen to some other
people; people
staring straight-aways, maybe thinking about what they going to cook for the
night, or what will they say when they meet up with their pathetic partners;
people looking about, trying to make out what’s in their surroundings; and
people, like me, trying to read the neighbor’s newspapers and trying not to be so
obvious.
Don’t
you just hate it when you realize that someone is looking over your shoulder
and reads with you? In which case,
you probably will spend less time as possible on the same page.
You will also trying to ignore the nude girl’s article, with pictures,
as much as possible; unlike the neighbor’s paper that I am reading off from.
I guess I did a good job without him knowing it.
I
also found the young fellow to my right is reading The 101st
Proposal, a Japanese romantic novel. Now,
that’s a book I don’t think any man would read.
Oops, there I go again, separating people who are from Mars and people
who are from Venus again, right down the middle, nobody is in between, because
then you would be someone with no land to stand on.
But I guess there is always someone who is safely landed on a secret
place touching both side of the planet. As
I hope I am one of them.
This
reminds me of the discussion I had with couple of friends the other night, over
one too many drinks. In which
someone just categorized us women as people without logic.
Can you believe this guy? Just
throw us women all off that planet which we call logic. Well, the news is that we, the women, are well with logic,
just on a different logic planet then the men.
I forgave the guy eventually, after he’s been forced to agree with my
logic. And if it weren’t for all
these differences, there wouldn’t be any business for the ‘how to
communicate better with your love ones’ type of classes, and not to
mention all the shrinks, phychics, fortune tellers, and of course, any religion
that we all try to seek comfort and solution from at the day’s end.
Just
love this kind of world don’t you?
Well,
as I was wondering off in my little thought, the announcement, the un-be-li-e-va-b-ly
long announcement alerted me. Because
you don’t hear these when you are in the small stations.
And if my memory serves me right, I don’t believe there is any big
station that I would pass before I reached mine.
Since
I am a woman with grace and intelligence, I wouldn’t want to appear panicky or
even out of order in front of these foreign people, right?
So I gracefully got out my little subway map, casually glanced at the
station names, and tried very hard to find where the hell I was, but only slowly
realizing that I’d gone two stations extra already.
As all of the above is occurring, I start to sense that the buildings,
the trees, and the electricity poles are flashing in front of my eyes, which
only means there’s no way I can get off now.
A lesson for everyone who is about to come to Japan, the Super Express
trains don’t stop at little stations.
Well,
never mind, since I am on the Super Express train, I should be in the next
station in no time. And allow me to
elaborate, in the next BIG station in no time.
We are about to speed through another three little stations before a
full stop.
Again,
never mind that, for someone who can get lost at her own home town subway
stations, what harm can do to her that she’s got lost in a foreign subway
station? Oh
no, let me make a
correction, not lost, she is just taking an extra train ride before she arrives
at the correct station. So let’s
just let the lady with grace and intelligence to arrive at a station call Juso,
written 13 in Chinese words, and make her “been there, done that” mark, then
get on with the right train.
Ashiya
turns out to be a lovely countryside town.
But sad to say, once you are out of the station, there is no way that you
can tell whether you should turn to the left or the right, even with the little
map in your walking tour book. The
first step is always difficult. Just
like in the curse appeared in Jimmy’s Turning Left, Turning Right (or in Chinese, 幾米’s
向左走,向右走),
I turn to the left immediately without thinking.
And of course, and no wonder I am still with my single little soul, it
was wrong.
After
I gotten my direction straight, and thank god I abide to the belief of ask
when in doubt, I started my little walking exercise which shows perfectly in
my recent bought Walking Tours in Kobe, in Japanese.
What would be a faster way to learn Japanese, when you have only Japanese
book to read? Yeah, I can learn to
read Japanese faster all right, and I also can be very confused, when
without a dictionary, which of course, I didn’t bring when I came on with my
little walking exercise today. I
understood the book when they wrote bring as little as you can on the walking
trip.
Anyway,
Ashiya is a quiet little town, I just followed the red dotted line on the map and
see what’s around me. Except that
the
best season to visit is in April when all the cherry blossoms are in their
fullest. Now, I only have the
stream without water, the pine trees, and the big houses which all look like
coffee shops. Seriously, the big
houses here can very well be like in the ones in front of Taichung Art Museum,
various types of restaurants, and coffee shops, crammed full with rich or
not-money-sensitive Taichungese (not sure if this can be a word too).
But maybe it’s better this way, because I think most of those
restaurants in Taichung are out of business by now.
I
had only one stop in mind, the house of Mr. Yamazaki, whose name I have not
heard, and whose books I have not read, until the day before.
But after reading the description of it, a traditional Japanese house
with his original display of writing area, has done it for me.
Me, a fan of traditions and oldies.
It
is a nice little Japanese traditional house, but without woods or bamboos that I
had hope for, even the door is automatic. It
has though a nice garden and a pond that only rich people can build in their
yards. I am happy there anyway,
being the only guest, and able to understand 80% of what’s been written on the
walls about his life. But of
course, 80% of them are written with Chinese characters.
After
an hour in there, I find myself out in the rain again.
I have chosen this day on purpose, for I always link Japanese places with
rain. Cannot have it in any other
way, and loving every moment of it.
And
I followed the little red dotted line back to the station where I started,
seeing another fellow puzzled about his whereabouts, and happy that I am not the
only one with the Turning Left, Turning Right curse.
So
this ends my little walking tour in Ashiya.
I
have no problem with the stations on the way home.