bears, flowers, pastry, only, museums and volcanoes

For: Daniel Landa (Text and photos)
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The bear shook the water, centrifuged. It was there, favorite teddy for children, the nightmare for campers and a god for ainus. We saw him behind the security of a fence and we kept going, moving away from Akan lake.

An hour later we reach Furano, a city that sings to spring with the blooming of the lavender flower and dresses in white mourning in the sadness of winter. We arrived late to see the snow and early to walk among the purple fields, because the calendar played to misplace us.

The city had just woken up, like bears, shaking off the icy wind and the cafeterias were populating in the desktop. Since we arrived in Japan, we had been verifying that dessert is never offered after lunch. The astonished faces of the waiters followed us every time we insisted on a sweet to top off the sushi or the fish soups.. En Furano, however we managed to get served a dessert made from a kind of sweet bread with cream, of such a size that we hardly saw the diner in front of us. Our guide's name was Yomiko and she smiled between amused and embarrassed when she saw us devour that hypercaloric cake. And then he revealed to us the mystery of Japanese desserts. Simply, men don't eat dessert, is frowned upon, weakens his virile image. They also don't ask for milk or sugar for coffee. The Japanese have their pet peeves., like everyone else, but after a month in the country, I was able to conclude that almost all of them are linked to the public image they project. And many of their customs have to do with a marked obsession with exercising their masculine and feminine roles.. It is part of an education that sometimes becomes tyrannical.

men don't eat dessert, is frowned upon, weakens his virile image.

We finished the dessert and ordered two cubes with the coffee., already by sheer provocation, protected in our status as foreigners.

The fields surrounding the city were bustling with activity. Yomiko lamented as she explained that in fifteen days Furano would smell of lavender and the horizon would be filled with flowers.. Men and women tended the crops, because there they did not distinguish between genders.

Yeray, Pablo and I decided to focus on the cultural part, because the landscape had not yet dressed and we left the city to see if by moving away from the 7 Eleven, we found some trace of the ainu, that fit best among the woods. Our guide took us to Asahikawa, assuring that that city had been the cradle of the Ainu culture. We find avenues full of people with their i-phone, showcases with short dresses, bikes and shopping malls. And yes, there was a huge museum dedicated to the ainus, but it was empty, no visitors, for the whole city seemed to have gone out to meet spring among the streets.

We had traveled Hokkaido from one end to the other and of the Ainu we had only seen cultural cities, craft shops and museums. The only pure Ainu we met had succumbed to his Japanese future and there was nothing to predict that we would find an Ainu who still prayed to the bears and took refuge in his huts of wood and straw, turning his back on order., to discipline and consumption. But there was, smiling, waiting for us to take us to his village, to the past and extinct world of those who lived there. had changed house, of appearance and even of name. Now he called himself Keniche, he had a beard and long hair like his ancestors and was married to a woman much younger than him.

He offered us sake, showed us an old Ainu cemetery and told us about their spirits.

He offered us sake, showed us an old Ainu cemetery and told us about their spirits. The problem with that man is that by living in the style of the Ainus he had become a hippie, in a hermit, surrounded by the paraphernalia of a Japan that grows so fast that there is hardly a place to hide. Keniche had an enviable humor and wanted to believe, but I don't know if I believed at all. He had Japanese blood mixed with indigenous blood and everything indicated that beyond his cozy cabin there was an apartment where he might have watched sumo matches.. I didn't want to ask either, because I also wanted to believe, as it happened to me with Mr. Fujito, the sculptor of lake akan, but the truth is that this culture is already sentenced to museums.

The last day, Yomiko took us to see another volcano, one more accessible this time. Asahi Dake is another colossus that snorts sulfur between the snowfields. We record your breathing, its fumaroles and there we spent a good time recording beautiful shots of the always violent landscape of the volcanoes.

Here reigns the harmony of chaos or the order of the unpredictable, That's why it upsets you every day.

Then I was aware that we had run out of Japan and that at that point I had not been able to understand it. A foreigner who tries to understand this country ends up entangled in its apparent contradictions. Because Japan is orderly in the streets of Tokyo and a labyrinth of creeds in Kumano Kodo, it is ancient in traditions and tends to the future in digital screens, has geishas painted white and urban tribes with blue hair, Japan seduces you with a plate of sushi and denies you a cream cake, it lacks litter bins and has plenty of zebra crossings, this country is capable of being reborn from bombs but commits suicide in the bamboo forests. Japan reinvents itself in its technology and abandons itself in its museums, he shudders at sumo wrestling and is shocked at a public caress, here they shout without complexes in the karaokes but there is always a quiet bow in the hotels. Here reigns the harmony of chaos or the order of the unpredictable, That's why it upsets you every day. You can dress as a schoolgirl, you can wear kimono, You can do whatever you want , believe in what you want and express yourself as you want but you cannot be what is not expected of you. This place has stories of peace and war, samurai and fishermen, tsunamis, legends, paper houses and glass skyscrapers, Japan has a whole world to itself. But if you come from outside, how did we get there, you end up spellbound by its language of impossible concepts and completely clueless.

 

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Comments (3)

  • Mayte

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    What a pleasure to read this story.. In addition to informing is pure poetry. I liked it.

    Answer

  • Lydia

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    Qué bien Escriba , Daniel. You express your feelings very well.. I can imagine all those contrasts, all those contradictions…what a peculiar country.
    My first contact with Japanese culture, its history, its geography, I had it when I was little. My parents gave me a book called Trip to Japan.
    I was fascinated by how different it was from everything around me. Instilled in me the desire to travel. That's why I love him so much.

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  • silvia perdomo

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    world of contrasts, contradictions ,paradoxes …proof that humans not only need harmony to live . I don't know if so much contrast is positive, but despite this, it does give the impression that Japan lives in balance

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