Kanagawa Conditions Measured in Chigasaki (Updated monthly, starting 4/21/2011)
Source: MEXT
(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology, Japan)
link: here
Acronyms: I-131 = Iodine-131 / Cs-137 = Caesium-137 N/D: Non-Detectable
fallout in Kanagawa (MBq/km2) *
*megabecquerel per square kilometer
Date I-131....Cs-137
4/19: N/D.....N/D
4/11: 5.0.....N/D
4/5: N/D.....N/D
4/4: 11......7.8
4/3: N/D.....N/D
4/2: N/D.....N/D
4/1: 13.....5.9
3/31: 29.....52
3/30: 13.....12
3/29: 11.....5.7
3/28: 35.....20
3/27: 6.4.....N/D
3/26: 28.....14
3/25: 39.....7.7
3/24: 3,100.....42
3/23: 1,300.....64
3/22: 340.....110
3/21: 750.....210
3/20: 38.....N/D
3/19: 40.....N/D
Note: Currently in search of an average I-131/MBq/km2 -- If anyone has this, please drop a line.
------------------------------------
drinking water in Kanagawa (Bq/kg) *
*becquerels per kilogram
Date I-131....Cs-137
4/19: N/D.....N/D
4/11: N/D.....N/D
4/5: 1.9.....N/D
4/4: 2.3.....N/D
4/3: 2.7.....N/D
4/2: 3.3.....N/D
4/1: 4.5.....N/D
3/31: 6.3.....N/D
3/30: 8.6.....N/D
3/29: 9.9.....N/D
3/28: 9.6.....N/D
3/27: 9.2.....N/D
3/26: 7.4.....N/D
3/25: 4.9.....N/D
3/24: 1.0.....N/D
3/23: 0.75.....N/D
3/22: 0.93.....N/D
3/21: 0.58.....N/D
3/20: 0.46.....N/D
3/19: 0.43.....N/D
3/18: N/D.....N/D
Note: "Japan’s legal safety limit on radiation in water / milk: 300 becquerel per kilogram"
-------------------------
radioactivity in Kanagawa （μSv/h）microsieverts per hour
(Chigasaki)
Date （μSv/h）
4/19: 0.055
4/11: 0.058
4/6: 0.061.5
4/5: 0.063
4/4: 0.064
4/3: 0.064
4/2: 0.066
4/1: 0.066
3/31: 0.069
3/30: 0.070
3/29: 0.071
3/28: 0.075
3/27: 0.077
3/26: 0.081
3/25: 0.086
3/24: 0.087
3/23: 0.098
3/22: 0.096
3/21: 0.111
3/20: 0.048
3/19: 0.049
3/18: 0.050
Note: "At sea-level, the average radiation level is approximately 0.03 microsieverts per hour."
--------------------------------
Condition of Reactors (links): updated daily, click here and here
WHO REPORTS: World Health Organization
(Western Pacific Region)
Daily "Situation Reports" in PDF form; link here
Disaster Prevention & Nuclear Network
for Nuclear Environment (English)
or SPEEDI offers a map graphic of radiation
levels by Prefecture (updated daily)
(note: I believe "nGy/h" is a measure of gamma radiation)
link here
Same information as SPEEDI but
translated into Microsievert units; link here
Another map+graph, pinpointing more exact readings; link here
What are sieverts, milisieverts? Simple explanation; link here
Blog: Educating ourselves: Becquerels and base figures what do they all mean?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Tohoku-Kanto Daijishin: Week 1
Dear All,
I just wanted to let you know that we are all fine. Our bodies are on vacation, our minds are not, but still we feel very fortunate and thankful. Thank you for your concerns for our well being and for the flood of emails received, as it is always nice to hear from you, especially in times like these.
We are currently in Fukuoka, in Kyushu Prefecture, a perfect place to clear the mind enough to make important and sound decisions. The decisions our family has made thus far have been some of the toughest. Given the changeability of the nuclear crisis, we suspect there will be tougher ones ahead. Nevertheless, and for better or worse, they are our own and involve the consideration of many factors.
Naturally, our primary job is to ensure the safety of our children. Second to that, we want to ensure their continued happiness. I am happy as I am proud to say Kai and Hana are making the later job easy as pie. (They are bouncing on the hotel beds now.) Now five days away from home, Miko and I are reminded of the two months we spent backpacking in Thailand when Kai was 3 and Hana 1, realizing that 99.9% of our personal safety and happiness was easily transportable. It still is, but with Kai, soon 8 and Hana 5, their needs extend beyond their nuclear family: their friends, their school, their community, their grandparents, Jiji and Baba constitutes their familiar world. They miss and need these people and things, too. That said, and while it’s still reasonably safe to return, we will head back today, barring any unforeseen travel restrictions we may encounter. However, because Kamakura is still experiencing rolling blackouts and other inconveniences, we will stay as long as we can at Jiji & Baba’s house (Odawara) where things are relatively normal (i.e., no rolling blackouts) and a bit further south than Kamakura. Logistically, this makes sense too as there is a shinkansen high-speed rail station in their town. Should I need to get to Tokyo or we all need to head further south again, we can do so quickly. Miko is scheduled for an international flight on March 25 and my new term is scheduled to start early April. Given the situation in and around Tokyo, schedules are not fixed. What is fixed is that we are still employed. Yes, there is no denying the fealty we have for our employers as well. In upholding our job commitments while keeping safety a top priority involves keeping an eye on air quality and wind direction, two most important gauges on our dashboard now. That said, we must put our trust in information services over news.
News stories this big generate even more hyperbole than other international news stories because they play on everyone’s fears. And they do it well. In newsrooms this is just another day in the office, but for people like me, I don’t need to read bold headlines or hear the cacophony of countless so-called experts to know the severity of the situation. What I need is a weather vane and Geiger counter! Still, I find myself far from impervious to the fears generated by the media, some warranted, most not. What I fear most is that the hype will impede our ability to continue to make sound decisions about what to do as this crisis unfolds. Because the more of it that is out there clouding the less embellished sources of information, the less able we are to make the right decisions.
In closing, I want to ask you to please not worry about us. Thank you for the many offers of support. And in response, I can only think of one thing we need most now and beyond this crisis. Kai and Hana really enjoy video web chats. For example, seeing Jono and Camy face-to-face has helped them form bonds and is a gain-gain proposition for both sides of the line. As always, for me, knowing how you are doing and generally what’s up is really all we need from you. I look forward to joining the discussion on how our world can secure safer and more sustainable sources of energy. That, I believe, is the lesson to learn from this crisis.
with love,
Mike and family
I just wanted to let you know that we are all fine. Our bodies are on vacation, our minds are not, but still we feel very fortunate and thankful. Thank you for your concerns for our well being and for the flood of emails received, as it is always nice to hear from you, especially in times like these.
We are currently in Fukuoka, in Kyushu Prefecture, a perfect place to clear the mind enough to make important and sound decisions. The decisions our family has made thus far have been some of the toughest. Given the changeability of the nuclear crisis, we suspect there will be tougher ones ahead. Nevertheless, and for better or worse, they are our own and involve the consideration of many factors.
Naturally, our primary job is to ensure the safety of our children. Second to that, we want to ensure their continued happiness. I am happy as I am proud to say Kai and Hana are making the later job easy as pie. (They are bouncing on the hotel beds now.) Now five days away from home, Miko and I are reminded of the two months we spent backpacking in Thailand when Kai was 3 and Hana 1, realizing that 99.9% of our personal safety and happiness was easily transportable. It still is, but with Kai, soon 8 and Hana 5, their needs extend beyond their nuclear family: their friends, their school, their community, their grandparents, Jiji and Baba constitutes their familiar world. They miss and need these people and things, too. That said, and while it’s still reasonably safe to return, we will head back today, barring any unforeseen travel restrictions we may encounter. However, because Kamakura is still experiencing rolling blackouts and other inconveniences, we will stay as long as we can at Jiji & Baba’s house (Odawara) where things are relatively normal (i.e., no rolling blackouts) and a bit further south than Kamakura. Logistically, this makes sense too as there is a shinkansen high-speed rail station in their town. Should I need to get to Tokyo or we all need to head further south again, we can do so quickly. Miko is scheduled for an international flight on March 25 and my new term is scheduled to start early April. Given the situation in and around Tokyo, schedules are not fixed. What is fixed is that we are still employed. Yes, there is no denying the fealty we have for our employers as well. In upholding our job commitments while keeping safety a top priority involves keeping an eye on air quality and wind direction, two most important gauges on our dashboard now. That said, we must put our trust in information services over news.
News stories this big generate even more hyperbole than other international news stories because they play on everyone’s fears. And they do it well. In newsrooms this is just another day in the office, but for people like me, I don’t need to read bold headlines or hear the cacophony of countless so-called experts to know the severity of the situation. What I need is a weather vane and Geiger counter! Still, I find myself far from impervious to the fears generated by the media, some warranted, most not. What I fear most is that the hype will impede our ability to continue to make sound decisions about what to do as this crisis unfolds. Because the more of it that is out there clouding the less embellished sources of information, the less able we are to make the right decisions.
In closing, I want to ask you to please not worry about us. Thank you for the many offers of support. And in response, I can only think of one thing we need most now and beyond this crisis. Kai and Hana really enjoy video web chats. For example, seeing Jono and Camy face-to-face has helped them form bonds and is a gain-gain proposition for both sides of the line. As always, for me, knowing how you are doing and generally what’s up is really all we need from you. I look forward to joining the discussion on how our world can secure safer and more sustainable sources of energy. That, I believe, is the lesson to learn from this crisis.
with love,
Mike and family
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Valentine Time
What a nice surprise, Jono, Camy, Tina & Mike. Needless to say the package did not go unopened till Valentine's Day proper-- no way K & H would wait. (Note how Kai rips into the lovely packaging like a terrier with rabies.) Thanks again for all the goodies. We really like the book, especially (The Little House); certainly a nice addition to our budding English library. Will try to post a video of Hana and Kai reading it.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Letter to Family (Sent 9/26/2010)
Dear Family,
I realize a letter to all of you is long overdue as I look at the calendar in amazement, having to take a double take --- how the hell is it that a season can fly by so fast? Then I find myself pining for yesteryear, thinking to myself: will I ever be able to enjoy those vast swaths of time when Kai and Hana were in the pupa of their youth?" The answer is no, not for a long time. But then again war journalists and war photographers manage to write and reload cameras in foxholes and trenches, while bullets fly overhead. So, it is with that esprit de corps I type to you today, hunkered down, with laptop in the crossfire, letting the surrounding chaos unfold where it may. If you can't beat them...
Keeping up with Zippy and Zoomy is taxing enough to be sure, but with the addition of the swelt-n-melt summer heat, I soon find previously unimaginable thoughts at the forefront of my mind like, "what am I going to die now of a heart attack or heat stroke?" Yes, weatherwise, it certainly was some summer here on the Kantō Plain, in that the unrelenting heat hadn't let up until about two days ago. What better time to write.
I heard you guys were in the 90~100s well into September. How did you all fare in the Fahrenheit?
Well, let me fill you in on the haps of the past two months. I guess we left off with Kai & Hana suffering from mumps (boy that was no fun), the disease having pretty much succeeded in wiping out our July. Hana had it first then Kai and in the time between, Hana was able to participate in her school summer festival. Kai stayed home with Ba-ba with a face that resembled a sumo wrestler's and a temperature that rivaled that of the Heat Miser's. Mumps, which I've never had, is basically a week-long ordeal that saps both energy and appetite. Again, no fun for anyone.
Early August was when my break started, also marking the beginning of matsuri, or festival season. There are so many festivals that it is almost impossible to keep track; they are in every town across Japan, and in every neighborhood of every town. The air, both day and night, is filled with the smells and sounds of our sultry summer. Yatai, or food stalls dot the streets, selling okonomiyaki, roasted ginkgo nuts, takoyaki, yakisoba fried noodles (to name a few), the smells of which blend with the smell of hanabi fireworks, creating a unique combination of smells that inextricably link the past with the present. And through your ears, the relentless buzz of cicada by day is replaced by the faint sound of drums and flutes being played by night, as the countless processions of distant festivals march throughout the season and into your dreams.
Many an evening, after a long day at the beach, wearing more sand and sunscreen than clothing, and the smell of fireworks in hair, we shower in cold, a brief reprieve before the heat returns, then melting us into bed like grilled cheese sandwiches. Night sleeps are, to say the least, shallow, and circadian rhythms offbeat, necessitating midday naps. These naps often come involuntarily like a long walk through a poppy field, but can also be most blissful. They say that rice farmers would sow by moonlight and sleep by day --- I believe it.
Some questioned our choice of vacation destination, Singapore, wondering why we would go from one hot climate to an arguably hotter one. Well, the choice was easy. First of all, we would be staying in a swank, amenity-filled hotel where we could deny nature for as long as we chose. Secondly, there was so much to see. Singapore is chalk-filled with things to do for the family. In our 3-day stay we saw lots, visiting Little India, Sentosa Island, and the famed Night Safari, which was most memorable. Finally, though Singapore is a good distance from Japan (about 6 hours), there is no jet lag to deal with. Oh, of course, meeting our friends in Singapore gave the trip a nice personal touch. The Ahmad family used to live in Japan and Rozita Ahmad and her two girls, Meira and Zeti belonged to our Playgo bicultural group. Rozita and her girls were the best tour guides one visiting Singapore could ever hope to have. Singapore certainly lives up to its image: it is very clean, orderly, diverse and friendly. The population is primarily made up of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Caucasians (in that order, I think), sharing one common language, "Singlish". Singapore English, or Singlish, as it is called, took about a day for me to adjust to. It's not as distinct as Indian English, or thick as say Irish or Scottish English; it's maybe somewhat close to Hawaiian English, but with more unfamiliar usages and colloquialisms.
Getting back to the Night Safari, let me just say this: Night Safari is wild! Kai and Hana thought it was quite cool to be out so late at night in an open zoo. The Night Safari opens after dark and stays open till about 11:30, during which time visitors can see nocturnal animals roaming and the whole zoo experience takes on Jurassic proportions as one's imagination fills in the dark spaces of night. Night Safari is like Disneyland's Jungle Cruise except the animals are real! Adding to the overall intrigue is the fact that there is an almost complete absence of fences and cages; in fact, I didn't see one fence, and the only cage we did see we were allowed to enter! And not just any ordinary cage, the bat cage! That was the coolest of cool. One of the bats I saw was no smaller than a Foster Farms chicken (see photo).
In the middle of August we took a quick jaunt to Sapporo, in Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, joining Miko on her flight there and back. We stayed the night, enjoying a seafood dinner, which is always a treat because the fish doesn't get fresher than in Hokkaido, where the ocean stays cold pretty much year round. Sapporo is a big city with a small town feel, making you feel at home the moment you land. Unlike our area, Hokkaido stays dry and a very hot day might be in only the high 80s. It was a short but refreshing trip to say the least.
Other highlights of summer include blueberry picking near Ninomiya at my friend's farm. After a full day of blueberry picking, Kagiyama-kun suggested that we climb Mt. Fuji later in the summer. Always up for an adventure --- albeit naively --- I agreed.
Just last week that's where you could have found me, gasping for air on the world's 35th most prominent peak. I thought I was going to die. The Kagiyama/Mike party became four, accommodating Kagiyama-kun's two friends, Yoneyama-san & Hamadi-kun. This was great because the more bodies the better in the event my body failed (cheaper than being airlifted off the mountain, I thought). Turns out Kagiyama's friends blazed up Fuji-san like nobody's business, seemingly in record time. I took my sweet time, taking a record (slow) time of 10 hours to summit. We started the hike at 1:00 AM from the 5th stage camp in a drive to be at the top to see the sunrise. We didn't make it. We got to about 9,000 feet when the sun emerged and even by that time we could see the curvature of the earth, so it was still quite a sight to see. And from this altitude, the formidable mountains of Hakone (near Ninomiya) were mere model train set mountains, and the ones surrounding Kamakura read like braille. Fortunately Kagiyama brought along oxygen tablets and I brought 10 liters of compressed oxygen. Still, both of us suffered altitude sickness. Fortunately, I didn't throw up, but I developed a pretty strong headache and found it difficult to breathe even with the oxygen supply. At about 11,000 feet, I turned to Kagiyama and noticed his face looked as green as Kazoo's (the character on the Flintstones). Kagiyama-kun vomited twice and fortunately I had packed enough trail mix to help him out with much needed calories after he emptied the contents of his stomach. There is no water sources on Mt. Fuji except some patches of ice. To stay hydrated, climbers must bring no less than 2 liters of water. I brought 4 and drank 3 liters on my accent, 1 liter on the descent! All said and done, it was the hardest 1 day of my life, or at least in recent memory. Mt Fuji: beautiful but brutal. There's a old Japanese proverb that translates to, "you're wise to climb Mt. Fuji once, a fool to climb it twice." I think I'll take that proverb to heart, or at least until Kai and Hana say, "Pops, let's climb Fuji," at which time I will have forgotten the pain and naively agree, again. Hope I remember to pack my gravestone. (In fact, I saw more than one grave on the mountain, sadly.)
Well, this letter is starting to read more like an Outdoor magazine article than a letter. I think I'll give our eyes a break, both yours and mine. Attached are lots of long-overdue pictures, each one maybe showing a metamorphoses of smiles as Kai and Hana seem to loose teeth faster than I did braincells on Mt. Fuji.
Take good care, and do email or Skype us sometimes. It would be so nice to hear from you. Love to all.
Mike & family
PS: Mom's birthday is fast approaching, maybe a Skype conference call is in order?
I realize a letter to all of you is long overdue as I look at the calendar in amazement, having to take a double take --- how the hell is it that a season can fly by so fast? Then I find myself pining for yesteryear, thinking to myself: will I ever be able to enjoy those vast swaths of time when Kai and Hana were in the pupa of their youth?" The answer is no, not for a long time. But then again war journalists and war photographers manage to write and reload cameras in foxholes and trenches, while bullets fly overhead. So, it is with that esprit de corps I type to you today, hunkered down, with laptop in the crossfire, letting the surrounding chaos unfold where it may. If you can't beat them...
Keeping up with Zippy and Zoomy is taxing enough to be sure, but with the addition of the swelt-n-melt summer heat, I soon find previously unimaginable thoughts at the forefront of my mind like, "what am I going to die now of a heart attack or heat stroke?" Yes, weatherwise, it certainly was some summer here on the Kantō Plain, in that the unrelenting heat hadn't let up until about two days ago. What better time to write.
I heard you guys were in the 90~100s well into September. How did you all fare in the Fahrenheit?
Well, let me fill you in on the haps of the past two months. I guess we left off with Kai & Hana suffering from mumps (boy that was no fun), the disease having pretty much succeeded in wiping out our July. Hana had it first then Kai and in the time between, Hana was able to participate in her school summer festival. Kai stayed home with Ba-ba with a face that resembled a sumo wrestler's and a temperature that rivaled that of the Heat Miser's. Mumps, which I've never had, is basically a week-long ordeal that saps both energy and appetite. Again, no fun for anyone.
Early August was when my break started, also marking the beginning of matsuri, or festival season. There are so many festivals that it is almost impossible to keep track; they are in every town across Japan, and in every neighborhood of every town. The air, both day and night, is filled with the smells and sounds of our sultry summer. Yatai, or food stalls dot the streets, selling okonomiyaki, roasted ginkgo nuts, takoyaki, yakisoba fried noodles (to name a few), the smells of which blend with the smell of hanabi fireworks, creating a unique combination of smells that inextricably link the past with the present. And through your ears, the relentless buzz of cicada by day is replaced by the faint sound of drums and flutes being played by night, as the countless processions of distant festivals march throughout the season and into your dreams.
Many an evening, after a long day at the beach, wearing more sand and sunscreen than clothing, and the smell of fireworks in hair, we shower in cold, a brief reprieve before the heat returns, then melting us into bed like grilled cheese sandwiches. Night sleeps are, to say the least, shallow, and circadian rhythms offbeat, necessitating midday naps. These naps often come involuntarily like a long walk through a poppy field, but can also be most blissful. They say that rice farmers would sow by moonlight and sleep by day --- I believe it.
Some questioned our choice of vacation destination, Singapore, wondering why we would go from one hot climate to an arguably hotter one. Well, the choice was easy. First of all, we would be staying in a swank, amenity-filled hotel where we could deny nature for as long as we chose. Secondly, there was so much to see. Singapore is chalk-filled with things to do for the family. In our 3-day stay we saw lots, visiting Little India, Sentosa Island, and the famed Night Safari, which was most memorable. Finally, though Singapore is a good distance from Japan (about 6 hours), there is no jet lag to deal with. Oh, of course, meeting our friends in Singapore gave the trip a nice personal touch. The Ahmad family used to live in Japan and Rozita Ahmad and her two girls, Meira and Zeti belonged to our Playgo bicultural group. Rozita and her girls were the best tour guides one visiting Singapore could ever hope to have. Singapore certainly lives up to its image: it is very clean, orderly, diverse and friendly. The population is primarily made up of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Caucasians (in that order, I think), sharing one common language, "Singlish". Singapore English, or Singlish, as it is called, took about a day for me to adjust to. It's not as distinct as Indian English, or thick as say Irish or Scottish English; it's maybe somewhat close to Hawaiian English, but with more unfamiliar usages and colloquialisms.
Getting back to the Night Safari, let me just say this: Night Safari is wild! Kai and Hana thought it was quite cool to be out so late at night in an open zoo. The Night Safari opens after dark and stays open till about 11:30, during which time visitors can see nocturnal animals roaming and the whole zoo experience takes on Jurassic proportions as one's imagination fills in the dark spaces of night. Night Safari is like Disneyland's Jungle Cruise except the animals are real! Adding to the overall intrigue is the fact that there is an almost complete absence of fences and cages; in fact, I didn't see one fence, and the only cage we did see we were allowed to enter! And not just any ordinary cage, the bat cage! That was the coolest of cool. One of the bats I saw was no smaller than a Foster Farms chicken (see photo).
In the middle of August we took a quick jaunt to Sapporo, in Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, joining Miko on her flight there and back. We stayed the night, enjoying a seafood dinner, which is always a treat because the fish doesn't get fresher than in Hokkaido, where the ocean stays cold pretty much year round. Sapporo is a big city with a small town feel, making you feel at home the moment you land. Unlike our area, Hokkaido stays dry and a very hot day might be in only the high 80s. It was a short but refreshing trip to say the least.
Other highlights of summer include blueberry picking near Ninomiya at my friend's farm. After a full day of blueberry picking, Kagiyama-kun suggested that we climb Mt. Fuji later in the summer. Always up for an adventure --- albeit naively --- I agreed.
Just last week that's where you could have found me, gasping for air on the world's 35th most prominent peak. I thought I was going to die. The Kagiyama/Mike party became four, accommodating Kagiyama-kun's two friends, Yoneyama-san & Hamadi-kun. This was great because the more bodies the better in the event my body failed (cheaper than being airlifted off the mountain, I thought). Turns out Kagiyama's friends blazed up Fuji-san like nobody's business, seemingly in record time. I took my sweet time, taking a record (slow) time of 10 hours to summit. We started the hike at 1:00 AM from the 5th stage camp in a drive to be at the top to see the sunrise. We didn't make it. We got to about 9,000 feet when the sun emerged and even by that time we could see the curvature of the earth, so it was still quite a sight to see. And from this altitude, the formidable mountains of Hakone (near Ninomiya) were mere model train set mountains, and the ones surrounding Kamakura read like braille. Fortunately Kagiyama brought along oxygen tablets and I brought 10 liters of compressed oxygen. Still, both of us suffered altitude sickness. Fortunately, I didn't throw up, but I developed a pretty strong headache and found it difficult to breathe even with the oxygen supply. At about 11,000 feet, I turned to Kagiyama and noticed his face looked as green as Kazoo's (the character on the Flintstones). Kagiyama-kun vomited twice and fortunately I had packed enough trail mix to help him out with much needed calories after he emptied the contents of his stomach. There is no water sources on Mt. Fuji except some patches of ice. To stay hydrated, climbers must bring no less than 2 liters of water. I brought 4 and drank 3 liters on my accent, 1 liter on the descent! All said and done, it was the hardest 1 day of my life, or at least in recent memory. Mt Fuji: beautiful but brutal. There's a old Japanese proverb that translates to, "you're wise to climb Mt. Fuji once, a fool to climb it twice." I think I'll take that proverb to heart, or at least until Kai and Hana say, "Pops, let's climb Fuji," at which time I will have forgotten the pain and naively agree, again. Hope I remember to pack my gravestone. (In fact, I saw more than one grave on the mountain, sadly.)
Well, this letter is starting to read more like an Outdoor magazine article than a letter. I think I'll give our eyes a break, both yours and mine. Attached are lots of long-overdue pictures, each one maybe showing a metamorphoses of smiles as Kai and Hana seem to loose teeth faster than I did braincells on Mt. Fuji.
Take good care, and do email or Skype us sometimes. It would be so nice to hear from you. Love to all.
Mike & family
PS: Mom's birthday is fast approaching, maybe a Skype conference call is in order?
Sunday, June 7, 2009
South East Asia Trip Reflections
Letter written to family after returning from Thailand and Malaysia, 2006
Selamat tengah hari,
Well, good to be back in the warm embrace of Japan, but the sights, smells and tastes of Southeast Asia still linger, inextricably suffused into our senses. We spent some of the most unforgettable days there, and turned out to be just the kind of R&R we needed. Our time in Malaysia moved glacially slow, a place that makes even laidback Maui seem like New York City. Our three weeks felt more like three Japan months.
And we saw yet another side of Thailand, the central part, visiting Katchanaburi, host town of the infamous Death Railway, and the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’. Sight of this landmark bridge will have anyone who has seen the movie involuntarily start whistling the Colonel Bogey march alongside the ghosts of Alec Guinness and company. It’s a fascinating, and remarkably beautiful part of Thailand. A ride on the aptly named ‘Death Railway’ will scare the pants off you more so than the gnarliest of rollercoasters. So happens “Kwai” means scary in Japanese (no relation). Our train was delayed due to a “minor derailment”, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. When a vehicle weighing untold tons comes off its tracks, “minor” is not the adjective that first comes to mind. At any rate, the trip was of the variety only the Thais can provide: lethal. On every corner of the Kingdom you’ll find attractions that can potentially kill you (see elephant photo below). To cite another example, there’s a monastery near Katchanaburi that is run by a monk who happens to keep 18 tigers, creating a sort of orphanage for the endangered animals. To help fill the coffer (to help cover running costs), the monk has opened his ‘Tiger Temple’ to visitors. True to Thai style, visitors are invited to the tranquil temple to risk loss of life and limb. The main draw being visitors are welcome to try their hand at petting the lovely 400-pound felines, sometimes literally losing the limb in reciprocation. I never laugh when I hear these stories of tourist bravery (a.k.a. tourist stupidity). Thailand has this charming power to fill you with more bravado than is good for you. I should know. Momentarily swapping my scruples with Clark Griswold, I found myself signing up my family and myself for a tour of the Tiger Temple. It wasn’t until the owner of the guesthouse we were staying told me that recently a hapless tourist was mauled to shreds by one of the monk’s cats because he had made the fashion faux pas of wearing a red shirt. Guess, like bulls, red enrages tigers. So happens my travel wardrobe consisted of mostly red items (this becomes evident upon seeing our travel pics. see below).
These are the sort of tidbits of trivial knowledge Marlin Perkins should have been imparting on Wild Kingdom, don’t you think? Then again, maybe that’s why Mutual of Omaha pulled the plug on Perkins: too many housewives cashing in on their husbands’ life insurance policies after being inspired to take nutzoid safaris and jungle treks into carnivorous beast infested lands.
Thailand: a Wild Kingdom, indeed.
I’ll spare you the story about our unforgiving, 14-hour journey on Malaysia’s ‘Jungle Railway’, yet another chapter from the Travels & Perils of The Kubos. And no trip of ours is without ‘Gilligan Time’…yes, we did find the "uncharted desert isle” paradise, The Perhentian Islands! A place time itself becomes meaningless, allowing us to surrender our senses to the islands’ refreshingly untamed nature. Kecil (small island) and Besar (big island) are jungle-crowned dots on a map, but teeming with more wildlife than 100 zoos in one! No cars, not motorbikes, no concrete, no phones. Boring? No way! Stretch on a mask, plug in a snorkel, take a dip, and the surrounding seas become a seizure of pure, primal life, the likes of which I’ve only seen illustrated in Jackie Turner’s Watchtower magazines. (I think some of those pages gave the Tiger monk the idea for his temple.) And just when you thought life was getting predictable, a shark the size of Kai meanders under your flippers, Nemo gets innumerably cloned, and you find yourself swimming with giant sea turtles. Here’s a mental image to ponder: Kai throwing a Triscuit overboard, watching in awe as a school of normally docile tropical fish become a seething, thrashing bath of piranhas.
Well, in case you were wondering, yes, the four of us made it out of Bangkok before the country shut down. By mere hours, we managed to miss the hoopla coup de ta, the overthrow of the Thai government.
Again, good to be back. Just waiting (hoping) for our minds to catch up with our bodies.
With love,
Mike
Selamat tengah hari,
Well, good to be back in the warm embrace of Japan, but the sights, smells and tastes of Southeast Asia still linger, inextricably suffused into our senses. We spent some of the most unforgettable days there, and turned out to be just the kind of R&R we needed. Our time in Malaysia moved glacially slow, a place that makes even laidback Maui seem like New York City. Our three weeks felt more like three Japan months.
And we saw yet another side of Thailand, the central part, visiting Katchanaburi, host town of the infamous Death Railway, and the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’. Sight of this landmark bridge will have anyone who has seen the movie involuntarily start whistling the Colonel Bogey march alongside the ghosts of Alec Guinness and company. It’s a fascinating, and remarkably beautiful part of Thailand. A ride on the aptly named ‘Death Railway’ will scare the pants off you more so than the gnarliest of rollercoasters. So happens “Kwai” means scary in Japanese (no relation). Our train was delayed due to a “minor derailment”, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. When a vehicle weighing untold tons comes off its tracks, “minor” is not the adjective that first comes to mind. At any rate, the trip was of the variety only the Thais can provide: lethal. On every corner of the Kingdom you’ll find attractions that can potentially kill you (see elephant photo below). To cite another example, there’s a monastery near Katchanaburi that is run by a monk who happens to keep 18 tigers, creating a sort of orphanage for the endangered animals. To help fill the coffer (to help cover running costs), the monk has opened his ‘Tiger Temple’ to visitors. True to Thai style, visitors are invited to the tranquil temple to risk loss of life and limb. The main draw being visitors are welcome to try their hand at petting the lovely 400-pound felines, sometimes literally losing the limb in reciprocation. I never laugh when I hear these stories of tourist bravery (a.k.a. tourist stupidity). Thailand has this charming power to fill you with more bravado than is good for you. I should know. Momentarily swapping my scruples with Clark Griswold, I found myself signing up my family and myself for a tour of the Tiger Temple. It wasn’t until the owner of the guesthouse we were staying told me that recently a hapless tourist was mauled to shreds by one of the monk’s cats because he had made the fashion faux pas of wearing a red shirt. Guess, like bulls, red enrages tigers. So happens my travel wardrobe consisted of mostly red items (this becomes evident upon seeing our travel pics. see below).
These are the sort of tidbits of trivial knowledge Marlin Perkins should have been imparting on Wild Kingdom, don’t you think? Then again, maybe that’s why Mutual of Omaha pulled the plug on Perkins: too many housewives cashing in on their husbands’ life insurance policies after being inspired to take nutzoid safaris and jungle treks into carnivorous beast infested lands.
Thailand: a Wild Kingdom, indeed.
I’ll spare you the story about our unforgiving, 14-hour journey on Malaysia’s ‘Jungle Railway’, yet another chapter from the Travels & Perils of The Kubos. And no trip of ours is without ‘Gilligan Time’…yes, we did find the "uncharted desert isle” paradise, The Perhentian Islands! A place time itself becomes meaningless, allowing us to surrender our senses to the islands’ refreshingly untamed nature. Kecil (small island) and Besar (big island) are jungle-crowned dots on a map, but teeming with more wildlife than 100 zoos in one! No cars, not motorbikes, no concrete, no phones. Boring? No way! Stretch on a mask, plug in a snorkel, take a dip, and the surrounding seas become a seizure of pure, primal life, the likes of which I’ve only seen illustrated in Jackie Turner’s Watchtower magazines. (I think some of those pages gave the Tiger monk the idea for his temple.) And just when you thought life was getting predictable, a shark the size of Kai meanders under your flippers, Nemo gets innumerably cloned, and you find yourself swimming with giant sea turtles. Here’s a mental image to ponder: Kai throwing a Triscuit overboard, watching in awe as a school of normally docile tropical fish become a seething, thrashing bath of piranhas.
Well, in case you were wondering, yes, the four of us made it out of Bangkok before the country shut down. By mere hours, we managed to miss the hoopla coup de ta, the overthrow of the Thai government.
Again, good to be back. Just waiting (hoping) for our minds to catch up with our bodies.
With love,
Mike
Sunday, February 8, 2009
お燈まつりOtou Matsuri (Fire Festival), Wakayama, Japan
Otou Matsuri (Fire Festival) お塘まつりWakayama, Japan Feb. 6, 2009 - Amazing videos are here
"Let's Get Confidence". With fude calligraphy brush, I paint these words, my negai, my hope for both my son and myself on our taimatsu, or torches. These torches and these hopes would burn bright that night, along with thousands of other torches, thousands of other hopes. And the heavens would respond by raining obu, or descending spirits that would swirl about the cold night air, and dance with the mortal embers we men would make.
For the past 1,400 years or so the town of Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, has been host to one of Japan's oldest festivals, the Otou Matsuri, or Fire Festival, an event that starts innocent enough with participants wearing traditional, all-white "hakuzosoku”, toting yet-to-be-lit "taimatsu" cypress wood torches, and engaging in various innocuous rituals, but ends in a fiery finish at Kamikura Jinja, an ancient sub-shrine of the larger Kumano Hayatama Taishi Shrine, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Kamikura Jinja is precariously perched on the steep mountainside of Gongenyama in this soulful, seaside town. Every year on February 6 this is the site where boys become men and men become boys, when fire meets soul, as the intense flames of our forefathers rekindle the collective male primordial tinder, humbling both young and old in the presence of the Immortal Face, and its blank stare of infinity.
For the past 1,400 years or so the town of Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, has been host to one of Japan's oldest festivals, the Otou Matsuri, or Fire Festival, an event that starts innocent enough with participants wearing traditional, all-white "hakuzosoku”, toting yet-to-be-lit "taimatsu" cypress wood torches, and engaging in various innocuous rituals, but ends in a fiery finish at Kamikura Jinja, an ancient sub-shrine of the larger Kumano Hayatama Taishi Shrine, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Kamikura Jinja is precariously perched on the steep mountainside of Gongenyama in this soulful, seaside town. Every year on February 6 this is the site where boys become men and men become boys, when fire meets soul, as the intense flames of our forefathers rekindle the collective male primordial tinder, humbling both young and old in the presence of the Immortal Face, and its blank stare of infinity.
In real-world terms, in order to participate in the festival one must be male and willing to be subjected to intense heat, violence, and other life-threatening challenges, and most importantly one must be willing to let go of modern securities and conventions and to put tremendous trust in his fellow man, yet at the same time be ready to fight him should he be his foe. I took my son Kai (age 5) but I saw boys as young as two! In this sense it is a rite to passage for young males, and for grown men a rebirth.
The fabric of which Japanese society is woven is of tight strands of mostly the staid, but sometimes the crazed, creating intricate patterns, which on the surface may seem as smooth and sophisticated as kimono silk, but surprisingly primitive on another, deeper, seldom seen level. If one were to look deeper into the fabric, he would see and feel the ever-smoldering embers and blood stains of futile Japan. While these strands are very much hidden from the naked eye, they are in fact there, and they are of a most strange and ethereal cloth.
Festivals like the Otou Matsuri are like kimono on display, in that they in effect show Japan's true cultural tapestry in her fullest splendor, allowing us to touch and feel, to see even the underside: the rough backing of her fabric, the ancient yet essential primary weft that holds her more orderly and ornamental embroidery in place.
As obu fade in the afterglow,
Marking the end of the festival,
Our charred, shortened torches become cold to the touch.
My son and I now feeling within
The burns on our skin,
As our adrenaline thins.
We watch her kimono being put back on,
In gradations of gray, to black,
The countryside of Shingu holding still for another long year
Till the men in white return,
Knowing we will be but two them.
This is the Japan I yearn to see more of. Yes, this is the festival to wake the Primordial Father in all Fathers.
Mike Kubo
Feb. 8, 2009 Kamakura
Special note: Thank you so much Okada-san for inviting us. I will never forget this experience, nor shall my son.
岡田さん、お燈まつりへの招待ほんとうにありがとうございます。海くんと私はこの経験のことをずっと忘れません。
Monday, May 19, 2008
Dads: Hunters, Gatherers, Scavengers...
Dads: Hunters, Gatherers, Scavengers
How Bob Vila and Feng Shui Affectively Stole Our Mojo
How Bob Vila and Feng Shui Affectively Stole Our Mojo
Part of the appeal of undertaking so-called “real man’s work” is that I can allow myself to feign that belligerent voice that I believe lies deep in the primortial soul of all men, we hunters and gatherers. The voice sounds something like this: “Unless Feng Shui is some sort of black-belted ass-kicker from the Orient, single handedly capable of rearranging the features of my face, he can take his home decorating concepts and do you know what with them.”
However, the tone in which I choose to write this entry is of the mojo-less schmuck of a man I’ve become, sensitive to the needs of not only my better half, but, of the Home Improvement Establishment on the whole, a cabal that has hobbled all the pure intent and ingenuity that tinkering types like me used to have before the likes of Bob Vila got on TV to tell us we were doing it all wrong.
My home improvement project at the moment is to do something with the veritable cord of thick wood planks stacked six high in front of our humble bungalow by Sagami Bay, Japan. And do something with it quick. I’ve learned that living in this land of limited space and time, every home project embarked upon—diminutive to dwarfing—married men, like myself, are behooved to abide by the rules of a unique time paradigm I define as the thin red line between bliss and divorce. Or should my wife grammatically model the maxim, it might look something like this: “get it done ASAP, or else."
I digress.
A pile of wood obstructing the flow of chi, goods, and services in and out of an otherwise yin and yangly balanced home is certainly not seen as an eyesore fit for the set of Sanford & Son, rather an inspiration for wannabe-carpenter husbands the world over. But for those of our race, on the black paisley side of the Taijitu coin—the feminine “yin” side, as it is—such sites are the bane of the wives of us yangs, unable to grasp the metaphysical potential of what looks to them nothing more than an unsightly pile of stinky wood. While women see a stack of sea-soaked wood, stain, and tools near their doorway as the antithesis of Feng Shui, most men would see it as a painter might: a fresh canvas and palette: that yang-shaped tray loaded with assorted colors. Equipped with these materials, a man has the potential to paint the next Mona Lisa or, in my case, create the Eighth New Wonder of the World, if I may be so humble.
Let’s face it, were it not for the great painters of the world, the walls of the Louvre would be decorated by Martha Stewart, and not by the likes of Rembrandt and DiVinchi. And speaking of the Louvre—as great a place as it is—it ain’t gonna win any Feng Shui awards. In fact, for years, the glass and steel pyramid plopped incongruently in front of the stately stature of the famed museum was seen as an eyesore to many in the “Establishment”. To my eye, however, the Louve Pyramid is pure genius, breaking the rigid geometrical rules of centuries-old architectural conformity.
Feng Shui aside, I see the merit in getting my home projects done in a timely manner, for no nobler reason than to stay a married man. Nevertheless, some projects simply can’t be rushed for any reason. Just ask the generations of artisans assigned to the perpetual building of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, the Roman Catholic basilica that has been under constant construction since 1882.
I will often resort to such absurd, theology-based trivia to create appeals for extensions of grace periods for home projects undertaken, but almost always overshoot, either temporally or budgetarily. “Honey,” I will plead with my wife, ”for the love of God, Jesus was a carpenter,” or “Sweetie, do you think Noah bought his ark at Costco?” absentmindedly forgetting her Buddhist roots for a time-biding, albeit futile and brief reprieve. Notwithstanding, for the project at hand, I cited that the beloved 11-headed Hase-Kannon Buddha in our town of Kamakura was intricately and painstakenly carved from one massive camphor tree only to be thrown into the sea, allowing the forces of nature determine the deity’s final resting place.
Invariably, songs and dances such as these buy me less than a millisecond of spare time to ride the aforementioned paradigm, as I agonizingly watch the Bliss/Divorce needle dip deeper and deeper into the D end of the gauge with every metered tap of my wife’s right foot. There’s little time nor space to stall; the benevolence of Buddhism is an illusion; Mrs. Kubo has not the fortitude to wait for my pile of planks to be divinely reincarnated into a glorious deck extension by some miraculous act of god or deity, much less some false prophet like me. It’s either I build the goddamn deck as promised, and with my own mortal blood, sweat and tears, or start writing my personal Internet ad. An ultimatum I can work with OK, but not before I finish writing this journal entry.
Part II: With Typhoon as Medium, Feng Shui Speaks to Me
The aftermath of a recent typhoon was my muse, the storm having pounded the coast all night, left behind incalculable sums of detritus, strewn up and down Kamakura beaches like a tickertape parade for unsung heroes far and wide: Beachcombers and Scavengers of the World, a group of which I’m a proud member.
Three days ago while on a post-storm reconnaissance mission, I spied what appeared to be a wall or deck previously attached to one of the many temporary beach huts that dot Japan’s summer coastline. “Umi no ie” (lit. beach houses) provide services for the beach-going hoards, ranging from hot showers and coin lockers to food and drink. Come September One these summer shanties disappear like hermit crabs, as workers dismantle and haul away the deconstructed structures. For many, this annual undertaking marks the sad end of summer, but a swell new start for some, as fodder fit for beachcombers and fathers alike comes up for grabs, some of it quite irresistible.
Should a typhoon coincide with these end-of-summer mop-ups, lots of “home improvement opportunities” are left in her wake. In my particular experience, rather than see long sturdy planks of premium wood go to waste, or go through the age-long process of becoming true driftwood, I felt the primal urge to scavenge. And scavenge I did, ecstatically, extension-of-deck blueprints unfolding between the folds of my mind.
The planks had festooned themselves over a concrete runnel leading to the sea, looking much like one of many whimsical driftwooden sculptures hippie artists of the 70s used to build on the wetlands of Emeryville, an area off the Eastshore Freeway leading to the cantilever section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
30-some-odd years on, on the very opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, the “new hippie” author of this journal contemplates the logistics involved in transporting what looks like a 5.5-meter long, unfolded Japanese fan from the concrete runnel to his abode some one-half mile away. The section was in the hundreds of pounds, thus requiring some disassembly. So, with cordless drill, and handsaw in hand, I set off to salvage, in part, the remains of summer. Wife and kids came along to offer their support, and, I’m sure, to secretly enjoy the spectacle.
When I jumped atop the huge fan I soon sensed it was perched firmly atop only one side of the concrete runnel, resulting in a unwilling bending sensation not unlike standing on the end of a disused, sun-beaten diving board ready to snap any moment. From this somewhat unnervingly precarious position, I attempted to unscrew the planks from the weather-beaten joists only to find that most of the screws had been set too deep and too tight to remove smoothly. I tried various torque settings in an effort to reverse the screws without further striping the Phillips heads. Given their low-tensile strength—a mark of shoddy construction—the screw heads melted like butter, leaving them burrowed deep inside the planks and joists like a tick might leave its head in one’s skin after its body has been scratched away. Unexpectedly faced with having to craft Plan B, I determined I had to saw free the planked section from the cumbersome plank-free frame that constituted the main assembly, which, once free, would resemble a makeshift raft, that—in theory—would float freely to sea, but not before taking a 2-meter plunge into the murky runnel water below. After a fair amount of strategic cutting, the section finally cracked free, and, much to my 4-year-old son’s delight, splashed dramatically into the rivulet below.
Pops, too, now knee deep where the salty swell meets the dirty freshwater stream, finds a slimy, algae-covered rope, which he uses to fashion to the end of the raft, so as to guide it down the runnel and to the restless, seething, post-typhoon sea. Pleased to see his theory turn living practice, yet knowing things are going maybe a bit too smooth, perhaps sensing that kind of ominous calm before the storm (as seen depicted in countless natural disaster movies), Pop’s instincts tell him the toughest leg lay just ahead.
With all this sawing and tugging going on, I had attracted a fair amount of attention from fellow beachcombers and passersby: four young boys toting makeshift fishing poles, three high-heeled, college-aged girls from the city, and, of course, my family. I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway, wrestling an unwieldy and unseaworthy craft. Thank goodness the responsible parent beat out the romantic parent self, in that, had the Tom Hanks/Sawyer in me placed my son atop the raft, we would now be a family of three. “Kai!!!” (cf. “Wilson!!!”)
In the time it took me to free the planked section to when the stream met the sea, the tide swelled to waist level and the brine became a different animal altogether, something in the order of leviathan. The maiden voyage was smooth going down the runnel, but once beyond the breakwater, a wave from nowhere pounced on me like a liger (yes, a liger) would a mouse, mauling the raft in a capsizing seizure of sea foam. Granted, it was a swell that would have thrilled a surfer, but one that scared the pee out of me, as my imagination allowed me to virtually experience the near reality of my 500-pound, wave propelled, waterlogged behemoth taking my teeth out in one surging blow to the mouth.
Allowing the cold wave to slap some much-needed sense into me, I quickly got my sea legs and bearings straightened. Castaway Pops was back on course, en route to Sakanoshita, his end of the beach, one-half-mile due north.
With a fair amount of tugging to and fro, I finally beached her at the large concrete landing between the dank fishing nets folded in stacks tall as me, midst the alive and lifeless alike. I was, at this stage, among the half-dead.
Night fell quicker than curtains on a bad play, but not before splashing the dusk pastoral, with clouds arranged in gradations: orange to pink to pale gray.
Like personal lifeguards, wife and kids had walked the boardwalk to Sakanoshita, watching me, and our deck-to-be, every step of the way. And there, now, above the landing, three smiling faces greeting me with cheer.
Breathless, blistered, salty and wet, I beckon them down, algae-slimed rope still in the other hand. My son now standing atop raft, triumphantly, like Karate Kid practicing “the crane,” pointing to the evening sky that has turned the heavens into a halved blood orange, squeezing out the last of its acerbic light.
We stand there under the whiskey-sour sky, beholding the sunset, as I let the scene seep deep into my mind like paints taking foothold to canvas, drying. Long after the laughter and the setting of the sun, the moment stays framed, hanging there as it does, in the Louvre of my mind.
First there is a deck, then there is no deck, then there is! My mind, heart and mojo now realigned, and true to Feng Shui form, whoever the hell he is.
Kamakura
September 14, 2007
However, the tone in which I choose to write this entry is of the mojo-less schmuck of a man I’ve become, sensitive to the needs of not only my better half, but, of the Home Improvement Establishment on the whole, a cabal that has hobbled all the pure intent and ingenuity that tinkering types like me used to have before the likes of Bob Vila got on TV to tell us we were doing it all wrong.
My home improvement project at the moment is to do something with the veritable cord of thick wood planks stacked six high in front of our humble bungalow by Sagami Bay, Japan. And do something with it quick. I’ve learned that living in this land of limited space and time, every home project embarked upon—diminutive to dwarfing—married men, like myself, are behooved to abide by the rules of a unique time paradigm I define as the thin red line between bliss and divorce. Or should my wife grammatically model the maxim, it might look something like this: “get it done ASAP, or else."
I digress.
A pile of wood obstructing the flow of chi, goods, and services in and out of an otherwise yin and yangly balanced home is certainly not seen as an eyesore fit for the set of Sanford & Son, rather an inspiration for wannabe-carpenter husbands the world over. But for those of our race, on the black paisley side of the Taijitu coin—the feminine “yin” side, as it is—such sites are the bane of the wives of us yangs, unable to grasp the metaphysical potential of what looks to them nothing more than an unsightly pile of stinky wood. While women see a stack of sea-soaked wood, stain, and tools near their doorway as the antithesis of Feng Shui, most men would see it as a painter might: a fresh canvas and palette: that yang-shaped tray loaded with assorted colors. Equipped with these materials, a man has the potential to paint the next Mona Lisa or, in my case, create the Eighth New Wonder of the World, if I may be so humble.
Let’s face it, were it not for the great painters of the world, the walls of the Louvre would be decorated by Martha Stewart, and not by the likes of Rembrandt and DiVinchi. And speaking of the Louvre—as great a place as it is—it ain’t gonna win any Feng Shui awards. In fact, for years, the glass and steel pyramid plopped incongruently in front of the stately stature of the famed museum was seen as an eyesore to many in the “Establishment”. To my eye, however, the Louve Pyramid is pure genius, breaking the rigid geometrical rules of centuries-old architectural conformity.
Feng Shui aside, I see the merit in getting my home projects done in a timely manner, for no nobler reason than to stay a married man. Nevertheless, some projects simply can’t be rushed for any reason. Just ask the generations of artisans assigned to the perpetual building of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, the Roman Catholic basilica that has been under constant construction since 1882.
I will often resort to such absurd, theology-based trivia to create appeals for extensions of grace periods for home projects undertaken, but almost always overshoot, either temporally or budgetarily. “Honey,” I will plead with my wife, ”for the love of God, Jesus was a carpenter,” or “Sweetie, do you think Noah bought his ark at Costco?” absentmindedly forgetting her Buddhist roots for a time-biding, albeit futile and brief reprieve. Notwithstanding, for the project at hand, I cited that the beloved 11-headed Hase-Kannon Buddha in our town of Kamakura was intricately and painstakenly carved from one massive camphor tree only to be thrown into the sea, allowing the forces of nature determine the deity’s final resting place.
Invariably, songs and dances such as these buy me less than a millisecond of spare time to ride the aforementioned paradigm, as I agonizingly watch the Bliss/Divorce needle dip deeper and deeper into the D end of the gauge with every metered tap of my wife’s right foot. There’s little time nor space to stall; the benevolence of Buddhism is an illusion; Mrs. Kubo has not the fortitude to wait for my pile of planks to be divinely reincarnated into a glorious deck extension by some miraculous act of god or deity, much less some false prophet like me. It’s either I build the goddamn deck as promised, and with my own mortal blood, sweat and tears, or start writing my personal Internet ad. An ultimatum I can work with OK, but not before I finish writing this journal entry.
Part II: With Typhoon as Medium, Feng Shui Speaks to Me
The aftermath of a recent typhoon was my muse, the storm having pounded the coast all night, left behind incalculable sums of detritus, strewn up and down Kamakura beaches like a tickertape parade for unsung heroes far and wide: Beachcombers and Scavengers of the World, a group of which I’m a proud member.
Three days ago while on a post-storm reconnaissance mission, I spied what appeared to be a wall or deck previously attached to one of the many temporary beach huts that dot Japan’s summer coastline. “Umi no ie” (lit. beach houses) provide services for the beach-going hoards, ranging from hot showers and coin lockers to food and drink. Come September One these summer shanties disappear like hermit crabs, as workers dismantle and haul away the deconstructed structures. For many, this annual undertaking marks the sad end of summer, but a swell new start for some, as fodder fit for beachcombers and fathers alike comes up for grabs, some of it quite irresistible.
Should a typhoon coincide with these end-of-summer mop-ups, lots of “home improvement opportunities” are left in her wake. In my particular experience, rather than see long sturdy planks of premium wood go to waste, or go through the age-long process of becoming true driftwood, I felt the primal urge to scavenge. And scavenge I did, ecstatically, extension-of-deck blueprints unfolding between the folds of my mind.
The planks had festooned themselves over a concrete runnel leading to the sea, looking much like one of many whimsical driftwooden sculptures hippie artists of the 70s used to build on the wetlands of Emeryville, an area off the Eastshore Freeway leading to the cantilever section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
30-some-odd years on, on the very opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, the “new hippie” author of this journal contemplates the logistics involved in transporting what looks like a 5.5-meter long, unfolded Japanese fan from the concrete runnel to his abode some one-half mile away. The section was in the hundreds of pounds, thus requiring some disassembly. So, with cordless drill, and handsaw in hand, I set off to salvage, in part, the remains of summer. Wife and kids came along to offer their support, and, I’m sure, to secretly enjoy the spectacle.
When I jumped atop the huge fan I soon sensed it was perched firmly atop only one side of the concrete runnel, resulting in a unwilling bending sensation not unlike standing on the end of a disused, sun-beaten diving board ready to snap any moment. From this somewhat unnervingly precarious position, I attempted to unscrew the planks from the weather-beaten joists only to find that most of the screws had been set too deep and too tight to remove smoothly. I tried various torque settings in an effort to reverse the screws without further striping the Phillips heads. Given their low-tensile strength—a mark of shoddy construction—the screw heads melted like butter, leaving them burrowed deep inside the planks and joists like a tick might leave its head in one’s skin after its body has been scratched away. Unexpectedly faced with having to craft Plan B, I determined I had to saw free the planked section from the cumbersome plank-free frame that constituted the main assembly, which, once free, would resemble a makeshift raft, that—in theory—would float freely to sea, but not before taking a 2-meter plunge into the murky runnel water below. After a fair amount of strategic cutting, the section finally cracked free, and, much to my 4-year-old son’s delight, splashed dramatically into the rivulet below.
Pops, too, now knee deep where the salty swell meets the dirty freshwater stream, finds a slimy, algae-covered rope, which he uses to fashion to the end of the raft, so as to guide it down the runnel and to the restless, seething, post-typhoon sea. Pleased to see his theory turn living practice, yet knowing things are going maybe a bit too smooth, perhaps sensing that kind of ominous calm before the storm (as seen depicted in countless natural disaster movies), Pop’s instincts tell him the toughest leg lay just ahead.
With all this sawing and tugging going on, I had attracted a fair amount of attention from fellow beachcombers and passersby: four young boys toting makeshift fishing poles, three high-heeled, college-aged girls from the city, and, of course, my family. I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway, wrestling an unwieldy and unseaworthy craft. Thank goodness the responsible parent beat out the romantic parent self, in that, had the Tom Hanks/Sawyer in me placed my son atop the raft, we would now be a family of three. “Kai!!!” (cf. “Wilson!!!”)
In the time it took me to free the planked section to when the stream met the sea, the tide swelled to waist level and the brine became a different animal altogether, something in the order of leviathan. The maiden voyage was smooth going down the runnel, but once beyond the breakwater, a wave from nowhere pounced on me like a liger (yes, a liger) would a mouse, mauling the raft in a capsizing seizure of sea foam. Granted, it was a swell that would have thrilled a surfer, but one that scared the pee out of me, as my imagination allowed me to virtually experience the near reality of my 500-pound, wave propelled, waterlogged behemoth taking my teeth out in one surging blow to the mouth.
Allowing the cold wave to slap some much-needed sense into me, I quickly got my sea legs and bearings straightened. Castaway Pops was back on course, en route to Sakanoshita, his end of the beach, one-half-mile due north.
With a fair amount of tugging to and fro, I finally beached her at the large concrete landing between the dank fishing nets folded in stacks tall as me, midst the alive and lifeless alike. I was, at this stage, among the half-dead.
Night fell quicker than curtains on a bad play, but not before splashing the dusk pastoral, with clouds arranged in gradations: orange to pink to pale gray.
Like personal lifeguards, wife and kids had walked the boardwalk to Sakanoshita, watching me, and our deck-to-be, every step of the way. And there, now, above the landing, three smiling faces greeting me with cheer.
Breathless, blistered, salty and wet, I beckon them down, algae-slimed rope still in the other hand. My son now standing atop raft, triumphantly, like Karate Kid practicing “the crane,” pointing to the evening sky that has turned the heavens into a halved blood orange, squeezing out the last of its acerbic light.
We stand there under the whiskey-sour sky, beholding the sunset, as I let the scene seep deep into my mind like paints taking foothold to canvas, drying. Long after the laughter and the setting of the sun, the moment stays framed, hanging there as it does, in the Louvre of my mind.
First there is a deck, then there is no deck, then there is! My mind, heart and mojo now realigned, and true to Feng Shui form, whoever the hell he is.
Kamakura
September 14, 2007
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