You say Sayonara and I say Yaho:- Sojourn to the Land of the Rising Sun
I dedicate this post to my older sister Jacki who had a pen pal named Hiroko Yamawaki. Hiroko, from Tokyo, if you are still living in Japan and somehow reading the Times of Israel blogs, I am accepting your kind invitation and welcome, which you must have extended to me during your happy visit to my family home in Connecticut circa1964. I remember it well. You brought your exquisite kimono, we took pictures of you, and then Jacki, aged about 13 years old, modelled it for the camera. You were so sweet, graceful and smiley in that distinctly shy Japanese way and I knew one day that I would see your unique land for myself and share its glories.
1st June 2026
My flight lasted all day, and then all night as I flew from my hometown of London to Tokyo. The lady sitting next to me was a beautiful Japanese woman with spikey tri-coloured hair, a lot of magenta, some teal, a bit of goldenrod, and an elegant way with a fork. I knew she must live in London and must be about my age, especially when she took out her interdental brushes and portable electric toothbrush. We had the pleasurable conversation of two strangers who could still understand each other though from entirely different childhood worlds. She had married a Brit, had two grown children, and parents who were gone. She was going back to Japan to take care of property and financial matters, a Japan she no longer felt close to but rather engendered the mixed feelings that expats know well. The fourteen-hour flight passed in warm conversation, and she helped me to find my way on the Tube and train maps, incidentally, heavily influenced by London’s iconic, world-famous tube map.
My immediate impression of Tokyo
I am in awe of being here and feel blessed to have travelled so far, to such an unknown land. Tokyo is a big, very big metropolis, one just feels it straightaway. I park my bags in the elegant hotel I will stay in, next to Shinagawa Station, with staff so charming, and head out anywhere, everywhere this city beckons. But first I sit nearby in a café/takeaway food shop with a famous Soho New York name, Dean & DeLuca, from back in the day, but the food looks nothing like what the cafe used to sell, past tense because this once renowned purveyor of epicurean delights shuttered its shops in Gotham City wafting in debt a few years ago. But in Japan, it’s going gangbusters selling generally Japanese food with NYC names. So, I look around, and with no intention to buy, I focus on the many yummy mummies (more glamorous than soccer moms), with their black-haired little cherubs so dainty and beautiful they do not look real. And strike up a conversation with one of them, a dressed-up toddler girl, probably under two years old, and her mother. Somehow, we communicate. The dolly says, “bye bye” and I blow her kisses, my reward is her sweet smile.
The hotel is not located in the centre of town, but rather conveniently situated near Haneda International Airport, where my plane landed, and the aforementioned mega Shinagawa train station, larger than any station I have seen in New York or London and absolutely filled with people rushing this way and that, but never accidentally careening into each other; a famous Lowry painting with triple the masses.
Sure, the buildings are big (have I mentioned that yet?), many with an obvious geometric quality, stretch rectangles that edge up to the sky, the kind of place in which one can well imagine the archetypical salaryman or woman toiling from dawn to far beyond dusk. Monotonous, edifices of indistinctiveness, more up and down than the average American urban structure and possibly more soulless but much of Tokyo was built after the war and there is an element of great design in the simple geometric lines of buildings which take their cue from Japanese traditional architecture, itself so beautiful in its pure lines that Frank Lloyd Wright studied it; its influence readily apparent in his famous homes in the US.
There are also wide avenues, lots of space and beautiful pine trees and maples, pruned to a Japanese measure of loveliness. They don’t start out that way; the more natural trees which abound remind me of the loblolly pines of the Carolinas and Georgia on the East Coast of America, which turns out to be unsurprising since Tokyo is at the same latitude as Raleigh, North Carolina. In fact, Japanese black pine, red pine and white pine are in the same tree genus (Pinus) as the loblolly pine. Japanese special tree pruning then accounts for the uniquely serene and exquisite style, following bonsai principles but adapted for large trees. Pruning may be called, “sukashi” which is a thinning method, or “niwaki”, shaping to create clouds, the pufted, tufted green trees of Dr Seuss-like topiary admired throughout the world. And then there are the Ginkgo trees native to East Asia (China) with delicate leaves that look like fans, and berries from the female trees which are said to smell so putrid (seriously gross like vomit, faecal matter or rancid butter) that urban landscapers often stick to male ginkgo trees when planting. Not sure what this means for the future, but ginkgo trees can change sex and scientists have empirical evidence of individual branches on a male tree switching to become female and then growing seeds.
The intense efforts to prune trees, along with lots of parks of green seen in Tokyo and much of the rest of the country, where there are bamboo woods, and rice paddies, called “tanbo”, and terraced rice fields on mountain slopes gives the islands of Japan a tropical lushness, save for the most northerly area of Hokkaido, known for its volcanoes, hot springs and skiing (remember Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympics). Even Tokyo has mild winters, windmill palms, and an abundance of rain in the warmer months. In fact, Japan gets a lot more rain than England.
The beautiful parks of Tokyo deserve a special mention, especially those bursting with purple and white irises to the exclusion of all other flowers – Horikiri Iris Garden, dating back to the Edo period of the Tokugawa Shogunate (which I will get to in my next post, promise, bli neder), Mizumoto Park and Fukiage Iris Park. My eldest daughter’s middle name is Irit so I am particularly partial to these blooms.
But so far, it is not the built environment or even the sublimeness of the landscape that is so compelling to me but rather the humanity of its inhabitants of which I take notice. They are not robots, the so-called salarymen of yore so many of us may have read about or perhaps seen, but real people, polite, helpful, eager to be friendly, speak to me in English; all told a most disarming group these Japanese. It doesn’t feel strange; it seems exciting. I am thirsty to know more.
I take the tube, or subway, to an area of many small streets, a neighbourhood abundant with fabric shops and not on the beaten tourist trail. Shop after shop, some with just fabric, some just haberdashery, buttons, bric a brac, thin or wide fabric strips, ornate and beautiful materials, and all manner of tools and necessities for whatever the creator fancies:- mostly likely clothes for the family. Because what I see is mainly, if not exclusively, women, who still avidly sew, providing for their dear families, husbands, sons and daughters, and grandchildren. I sit down on a bench in the stifling heat of an airless Monday midday and a kindly lady sits down next to me and starts to talk; we both speak, woman to woman, mother to mother, in English. The lady, about my age, I estimate, lives on the outskirts of Tokyo, took the train in, and makes all the clothes for her family, obviously with much quiet but profound pleasure and detected pride. She was wearing a dress which was similar in cut and style to what I was wearing but hers was homemade. I admired her work immensely and I told her so. I do not sew, I never did except for one failed attempt in 7th grade, but my mother, sister, and grandmother did. I remember my Mum had made my bat mitzvah dress. It was beautiful and I still have it; it was made with love. I hope she knew I appreciated it. It is that connection, from my mother, to me, to this mother of Japan, from my family to hers, sewn together by an ancient art which sustains the threads of women’s lives all over the world, and which goes right to my heart, we women know what is important, we know who we are.
In the meantime, I find myself saying “arigato”, every few minutes, “thank you” to the person I buy a train ticket from, and “thank you” to the person who shows me where to walk in a complex maze of trains and routes, and “arigato” to the person I buy a drink from; “arigato” all over the place, and always bowing; sometimes over and over sequentially. As if in some movie. It feels so nice to be polite, a sign of respect, the behaviour and manners in everyday life that so enhance human relations. I imagine and understand the strong social contract between people in Japan, the level of trust arising automatically in a nation which so values integrity. It is not a perfect world but perhaps these values could be adopted elsewhere.
Next post – more on Nippon (Japan).
