I've decided to set up a new blog while I'm in Japan. Here's the web address:

http://theshapeofjapan.blogspot.com/

From now on, any new entries will be posted at that address.

I forgot to mention a couple other things about the hotel. First, in the lobby and throughout the halls, 1950’s-black-and-white-movie-sounding music is constantly playing. When I’m walking around I feel like Audrey Hepburn could pop out at any second. And if she doesn’t, I never feel alone, thanks to the complementary soap provided by the hotel, which has on its label “And it's so late. But I'll wait. Through the long night with you. With you". I don’t know why the soap wrapping would have such a thing written on it but I guess I should be glad, at least, that my soap is so devoted to me. I certainly prefer that to the alternative.

As for the problem I had with my tennis racket, I resolved it earlier this afternoon, although not by using a staple gun. First, I used some sort of glue that one of the tournament workers let me use. After letting the glue dry I tested it out and found that the handle cap was still too loose. I then asked the racket stringer on site at the tournament if he could fix my racket. He had never dealt with that sort of problem before so, instead, he suggested that I go to the sports store just down the road from the tennis courts. I went but it quickly became apparent that there would not be anyone there who could fix my racket. Feeling as though I was out of options, I returned to the tennis courts. As I was standing in the clubhouse, I looked out the window and noticed a sort of Japanese Home Depot across the street. I figured if there’s anywhere around here that has a staple gun it would have to be that place.

I walked over and wandered around the store for a few minutes in search of someone using tools. I soon heard the sound of wood being sawed and followed the sound to the back corner of the store. I found a man at one of the wood-cutting stations and indicated to him by pointing to the staples on my racket handle that I needed to repair the handle. After he told me he didn’t have a staple gun, I walked over to the other wood-cutting stations where there was a woman sawing pieces of lumber as her child waited in a stroller. I indicated the same thing to her as I had to the man just before and she got the attention of one of the workers, as I didn’t realize she was a customer. The store-worker led me over to the nails section of the store and helped me find a pack of the smallest nails for sale. I bought a pack and then went back to where the woman had just been sawing wood, which I think was a sort of customer workshop. Although it didn’t strike me the first time I went by the workshop to ask the woman for help, I realized the second time around how unlikely it would be that a Home Depot or Lowe’s Home Improvement store would ever have this sort of thing in the U.S. This was an in-store workshop with unsupervised access to a table saw and several hand saws along with some more basic tools. The lawsuits would be endless.

So after buying nails I proceeded to use the available hammer and drove some nails through the cap and into the base of my racket handle. I was unsure at first whether or not this would work but I had nothing to lose. I drove the first few and tested it out by pulling the cap away from the handle. It seemed to be working! I must have looked like a bit of a madman to any passersby; as I was driving nails into my tennis racket, an act absurd in itself, I, myself, started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Nonetheless, about fifteen or twenty nails later, the cap was better than new.

Now I’m ready to get back on the court with my equipment in top-notch condition.

I left Kusatsu yesterday for Akishima, the city hosting the next tournament. I practiced some yesterday afternoon with an Australian guy I met at the last tournament and then he, myself, and another American guy practiced this morning. Thankfully, it’s a lot warmer and seemingly less humid here, which I think is because Akishima is at a far lower elevation than the mountain-town of Kusatsu. I was getting tired of Kusatsu’s rain showers that would occur just about once every couple hours. The tennis facility here is also significantly better than the last. Kusatsu only had five match courts and once practice court, all of which were in relatively bad shape.


The Akishima facility, on the other hand, has around twenty courts, all in good condition.


Like Kusatsu, Akishima’s courts are carpet, which is my least favorite surface, but I’m starting to get more used to them.

As for Akishima the city, it’s been interesting so far. It’s still relatively quiet although there are a few pockets of noisiness, specifically the game houses that I pass on my way to the courts.

I’m not sure yet if one can gamble in these places but I’ve seen quite a few people, men and women mostly in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, playing these games during the day and night. I walked in one briefly last night and it was the loudest, most overwhelming thing I’ve experienced in a while. In a way, it was like being back in one of the more hectic areas of Beijing.

After leaving the game room, I walked down to a manga comic book store just past the hotel where I’m staying. I find the manga style quite strange. If you just look at the covers, half of them look like relatively normal comic books with young-looking Japanese characters with those big, glassy eyes on the cover. But then the other half has that same style of animation except sexed up. Various parts of the female characters’ bodies are proportionally absurd and they’re dressed in very provocative clothing. I don’t know which demographic these things appeal to but last night the store was mostly populated by men who looked like they had just come off work and were coming by do to their regular evening browse of the manga store. Every convenience store also has a manga section alongside the other regular magazines and whenever I walk by one I see people of all ages checking out the latest comics.

That’s something strange that I’ve come across since I’ve been here. Now for something somewhat funny: my hotel room. I was a bit spoiled last week by my spacious living conditions, which included a small kitchen. My room here in Akishima, however, is quite small and without a kitchen. When I’m just in my room, I’m able to side step and weave my way around my things fairly well, but the bathroom is much harder to manage. Just picture what an airplane bathroom might look like if it had a shower and that’s basically my bathroom. And if I were about 3 inches taller I would probably have to stoop down every time I went in there. So for anyone around six feet three inches or taller planning on going to Japan, you best watch your head.

I’ve got a match tomorrow so I’m mostly going to be hanging around today not doing too much. In the meantime, though, I’ve got to figure out how to repair the handle on one of my rackets. I’m using a couple of cheap Chinese-made rackets, brand-name “Poems”, which have been fine, until yesterday. About thirty minutes into my practice session I noticed that the handle felt a bit funny. What had happened was that the staples holding the cap onto the bottom end of the handle had come loose. That problem only got worse as I hit so I now need to find someone with a staple gun. That should be a very useful word to know for the future.

This past Thursday three Thai guys from the last tournament and myself took a bus from Karuizawa to Kusatsu, where the second tournament is being held. I’ve been in Kusatsu for a couple days now and I’m very much glad to be here and out of Karuizawa. It’s true that Kusatsu too has some tourism, however, it’s far less pronounced than it was in Karuizawa. The main draw here are the hot springs, or, in Japanese, onsen. According to the Lonely Planet there are more than 3000 onsen in Japan. Kusatsu apparently has quite a few onsen in the area, including one main one downtown, although you don’t see people bathing in that one.

There are several resorts throughout Kusatsu where Japanese come to spend the weekend and relax. Vacation time in Kusatsu is so wholly devoted to relaxation that the visitors will even walk into town in what is essentially a bathrobe. I’m assuming they’re going to the various onsen that are located throughout the town but, who knows, maybe they’re just going to the store to pick up a few things.

One more nice thing about Kusatsu besides the smaller presence of tourism is the food. Whereas in Karuizawa you couldn’t get a meal at a restaurant for less than about $9, here food is much more affordable. And since my hotel room has a small kitchen complete with fridge, stove, and microwave, I’ve been either making or microwaving all the food I eat.

Microwaveable meals appear to be quite popular here, so popular, in fact, the grocery store has a microwave or two on a counter just beyond the checkout counters where customers can heat up the meals they’ve just purchased before heading home. I’ve been eating these as well and I have to say I’ve been pleased with all of them so far. But what’s been the most pleasing item of nutrition since I’ve been in Japan has been milk. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have access to a refrigerator in China or maybe it was because if you were going to drink milk there it was going to be soymilk. For whatever reason, I didn’t drink any cow’s milk for those four months in Beijing. But now that I’m in Japan where I have a fridge, albeit temporarily, and where dairy is much more accessible, I’ve been putting away some milk. And for those of you who know how much I enjoy cereal, you can probably imagine how, for me, finding a couple boxes of the stuff in the grocery store last night was like finding the Holy Grail.

That’s enough for now about food. So Kusatsu seems to be much more of a regular Japanese town than Karuizawa was. One thing I can say about this town that seems to also be true of Japan as a whole is that it is extremely quiet. When you walk around the streets just about the only thing you might hear is the faint, efficient-sounding whirring of car engines.

You also might hear people conversing as they walk along the street but it’s never loud. These are things I might not have noticed had I not come straight from China to Japan. In China, everything’s louder. I suppose I should say that in Chinese cities everything is louder since there are still lots of quiet, rural places in China. But when you’re in a Chinese city (and chances are if you go to China you’ll be spending a lot of time in cities), whether it’s noise from construction, noise from car horns which are probably used more than the steering wheel or gas and brake pedals, or noise from Chinese people who, for some reason, speak very loudly, you are constantly bombarded with sound. But in Japan, it’s almost the complete opposite. The train ride from Tokyo to Karuizawa, the bus ride from Karuizawa to Kusatsu, the streets, the supermarket, the restaurants, the volume at which Japanese people speak; all very, very quiet.

The quietness of Japan also goes along with its cleanliness. When you walk into any hotel or home you immediately take off your shoes and put on slippers.

And when you go to the bathroom you may find a separate pair of slippers, which you should wear whenever using the bathroom. Those medical facemasks you see people wearing when things like the swine flu break out are also quite popular. I’ve seen several people walking down the street in Karuizawa and Kusatsu, both of which, mind you, are small towns with little to no crowding, wearing these facemasks. All the convenience store workers here in Kusatsu and, if I remember correctly, the workers at the grocery store also wear them. This may be just because of the swine flu but I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of Japanese were wearing these things before the breakout.

And then there’s the countryside of Japan, all of which, from what I’ve seen while riding the train and the bus, is green and lush.

So, all in all, everything here just feels very clean. Of course, I have yet to spend a significant amount of time in Japanese cities, where things may not be so quiet and clean. But I’ll certainly be on the lookout for these characteristics whenever I do go to one.

As for news about tennis, I played my first tournament match yesterday and lost 6-2 6-2 to a guy from Australia. I played decently but my opponent was simply the better player. I would say the main reason I lost was that he overpowered me. I couldn’t figure out why a couple of my shots, my backhand in particular, were so weak. Regardless, it was fun to get out there and play a match. Whereas last weeks’ tournament was on clay, this one is on what’s called carpet, which is Astroturf and sand combined in an attempt to simulate playing on a grass court. I’ve never played on grass so I can’t say whether or not carpet succeeds at simulating grass but what I can say is that it is frustrating to play on. The stuff is extremely slick and you end up sliding every time you try to stop, which can be fun but is also frustrating. I don’t particularly like the surface and most everyone else I’ve talked to at the tournament feels the same way.

Now that I’m out of the tournament, I’ll hang around here for a few days and keep trying to practice with whomever I can find who’s also looking to hit some. I’ll probably leave on Thursday for the next tournament, which is in a city called Akishima. Akishima is a city of a little more than 100,000 located within the Tokyo Metropolis, which is one of the 47 Japanese prefectures. The Tokyo Metropolis is similar to Beijing, which is both a city and a municipality. The municipality of Beijing is basically the equivalent of a Chinese province, or, if comparing it to the U.S., a state. Thus the municipality of Beijing includes the city of Beijing as well as other smaller cities and towns. The Tokyo Metropolis appears to be basically the same thing in that it includes both the city of Tokyo along with other smaller cities and town.

Just to give a brief overview of the geography of the country, Japan is made up of four main islands along with a string of smaller islands in the south. The central island, which is also the largest, is known as Honshu Island. You can think of Honshu as being in the shape of a right angle with the lower part projecting to the left and the upper projecting upwards. Or you can also think of those X and Y graphs we used to use in geometry class; Honshu is basically the upper half of the Y axis and left-side half of the X. Tokyo is located at the corner where those two axes meet (or if you prefer the geometry graphs, point 0,0), with Karuizawa and Kusatsu to the northwest. This is a very rough and possibly very inaccurate guess but I would say that to drive from Tokyo to the area where Karuizawa and Kusatsu are located, one would drive about 3 hours west and 3 hours north.

That’s enough geography for now. But before I finish this post there’s a guy here at the tournament that I’d like to talk about. As I was waiting to go on court, there was a match between a Japanese guy about my age and another Japanese guy who looks to be in his early 30’s. I’m not sure who this guy is but he’s quite a character. He has shoulder-length orange-dyed hair that he keeps out of his face with a headband. He clearly hasn’t played tennis for long but he does seem to enjoy it very much. I first met him on Friday when I came to the courts to practice. He introduced himself and we talked for a little while. Then, as I was paying to get one of my rackets restrung, he started to take a picture of me as though there was something memorable about that moment, which there wasn’t. Unfortunately, his camera malfunctioned and he didn’t get a chance to snap a photo before I had finished handing the racket-stringer my money; a moment now lost in time. We saw each other a couple times Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, sometimes he would address me as “Sam Sam”, other times as “Mr. Sam”.

As for his match on Saturday afternoon, things didn’t go so well. His opponent defeated him quickly and without effort. He did, however, do one thing during the match that I’ve never seen before. And judging by the reactions of all the other players sitting around watching the match, this was completely new to them as well. As he was sitting in his chair during one of the changeovers (when players sit down at the sideline and get a drink of water or Gatorade), he took one foot and rested it on his other knee. He then began taking swigs of water and then with each swig spray the water all over the soles of his shoes. I had already noticed that his shoes looked different than they had at the beginning of the match. I assumed he must have changed shoes at some point in an attempt to turn things around. Later that afternoon I saw him and we started talking. I looked at his shoes and saw that he had put socks around them. I asked him why he did this and he explained that it helped him gain traction on the slick carpet courts. He then added that spraying water on the soles further enhanced their traction, which explained his changeover antics. As you can imagine, the whole thing looked entirely ridiculous but, then again, maybe he’s really come up with something.

This afternoon I leave for Kusatsu Gunma, the town where the next tournament will be held. I must say I won’t be missing Karuizawa. The countryside here is very pretty, however, the only things to do in Karuizawa besides coming for the tennis tournament appear to be shopping and having expensive weddings.

So, yeah, not my kind of place. Unfortunately, I’ve been told that Kusatsu Gunma too is a resort town and so it may be quite similar to Karuizawa. I’ll suspend judgment, though, until I get there.

On a side note, I’ve seen some strange things on TV here in Japan. TV in China was mostly melodramatic soap operas, basketball, martial arts shows with cheesy, overblown effects, and the occasional minority hour (a show where a group of one of the 56 ethnic groups in China would dress up in their traditional garb and then sing and dance on stage in front of their clapping audience).

In Japan, there’s the usual news, sports, and soap operas. But as I was flipping through the channels last night, I came across what I suppose was some sort of kids’ channel. The first thing showing was a game of dodgeball in which a man in his mid 20’s ran around within a painted square as three kids around ten years old, two boys and one girl, attempted to tag him with the ball. They were unable to tag him for around a minute so the man decided to liven things up by simply catching the ball when it was thrown at him. After catching a couple balls thrown at him by the two boys, he then proceeded to repeatedly catch and return the ball to the girl after she attempted to tag him. This went on and on until he and the crowd then began to laugh at the girl for her ineffective throws.

Once the game ended and the girl had been thoroughly humiliated, the show moved on to some sort of dating game between, once again, boys and girls of about ten years old. Three girls wearing elaborate makeup and clothing that you might see on a college campus first sat and watched as each of the three boys performed some sort of talent in front of them; one did martial arts, another danced, and I didn’t see what the third did. After the talent show, each boy then had an interview with the three girls. Near the end of the show there was a preview of the next week’s episode, which showed a clip of one of the girls about to choose one of the three boys as they closed their eyes with their other hand.

All in all, I’d have to say this was a bad day developmentally for these kids. Whether it’s showcasing one girl’s shame on national TV or having some kids play The Bachelor instead of hide-and-go-seek at their friend’s house after school, I’d say the show should come up with something more appropriate for that age group. Bu then again, maybe I’m just old fashioned.

I didn’t get a chance to play a match in the first tournament here in Karuizawa. The way these tournaments work is that if you have a world ranking then you are basically guaranteed a spot in the tournament. If not, then it’s a gamble. If you do, however, have a national ranking then that helps. I have neither, so my entering these tournaments is an even bigger gamble. And this is just for the qualifier to the tournament. If you win a few matches in the qualifier, then you’re in the actual tournament, or what’s called the main draw. Luckily, though, the tournament next weekend, which is in some place an hour’s bus ride from here, still has spaces available in the qualifying draw so I think I should have a better chance of getting into that one.

Still, coming here has very much been worth it, even for the tennis. Although I haven’t played any matches in the actual tournament I have gotten to practice with a few Japanese guys over the last couple days. And since the main draw begins tomorrow, the players who automatically got into the main draw have arrived and practiced yesterday and today. If you get into the main draw automatically that means your world ranking is relatively high, and if your world ranking is high that, as you might guess, means you’re very good. So just watching the main draw players has been enjoyable. Two of the guys who are in the main draw are from Taiwan and I spoke with them some this afternoon after I overheard them speaking Chinese. I hope to get to know them better this coming week and the next week as almost everyone, myself and the two Taiwanese included, will go on to the following tournament in the next town. I’d like to hear what they have to say about mainland China and some of the issues that come up over there.

One funny thing about tennis here, and I found this as well in China, is that just because you play tennis or are watching tennis from nearby doesn’t mean you can’t smoke. In China, I played a few times with a couple high-school aged guys (I say “aged” because they no longer attend school but, instead, only play tennis) whose parents came out to watch and smoked as they sat on the sidelines. Then there was an instructor on the court beside us who took a smoke break on the bench as his student picked up the balls from the court and put them back in the basket In Karuizawa, I saw one player smoking a cigarette about five minutes before going on court to practice before his match. And then of course, there’s a designated smoking area in the viewing area situated in the middle of the complex. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anyone in the U.S. smoking in the proximity of a tennis match.

Yesterday was the finals of the French Open between Roger Federer and the unexpected Robin Soderling. In the hopes of watching the match I asked around to see if there might be somewhere in Karuizawa that would be showing the match. Some people at the tournament helped me out by writing down some instructions on a piece of paper, which I was to give to the hotel staff where I’m staying. After I gave the paper to the same woman who seemed terrified the first night arrived (she’s seemed much more relaxed since then), she made a few calls to see if anyone knew on what channel the match might be shown. She soon found out, however, that the match was not scheduled to play on TV. After saying “tennis” while making an “X” with her fingers to indicate that I would not be able to watch the match, she sent me on my way with a bag and two cookies in it, I suppose as consolation for the letdown of not being able to watch the match. As I said in my previous post, the people are extremely nice here, and this is a good example of that.

Here are a few pictures of the tennis facility and of the place where I'm staying.







There are 10 courts total with the viewing area in between. The court surface is some sort of brown clay that I've never seen before.

My plans for the summer changed quite drastically recently. It all started in Chengde. As Arthur and I were sitting in our hotel room flipping through seemingly endless terrible Chinese TV shows, we came upon the sports channel, which happened to be showing the French Open. Watching the French really just made me want to play tennis, and since the sport is still in its nascence in China, I decided to look elsewhere for some tournaments to play. This brings me to where I am now, which is Karuizawa, Japan. There are four tournaments in Japan this June; the first of which is held in Karuizawa. I spent Wednesday and Thursday figuring out what I would take with me, what to mail home, buying cheap knock-offs from a couple different markets, and then yesterday morning I flew from Beijing to Tokyo. I didn’t have time to hang out in Tokyo because I had a train to catch but from what I can tell it seems to be a very well-organized, clean, and, of course, huge city. I had to take one train into the city and another to Karuizawa, both of which left and arrived perfectly on time. The people were walking rather than running to the trains and then actually queued as they waited in line instead of making a mad rush for the first opportunity to get on board. I saw none of these things in China. Although the train experience in Japan is more convenient and comfortable, that of China is, if anything, interesting and I ended up meeting and talking to a lot of Chinese people on the trains who just wanted to talk with a foreigner.

As for Karuizawa, it’s basically my hometown of Banner Elk except it’s in Japan. There’s a ski resort somewhere around here, lots of golf and tennis, and hiking. Coming here has made me realize just how nice it is to be able to speak the language of the foreign country that you’re visiting. In China finding things and understanding people was, for the most part, relatively easy. Here, it’s been difficult. Luckily, tons of people here can at least speak some English. I had some trouble getting to the hotel where I’m staying but eventually made it here after I got in touch with the tournament director. He speaks very good English and gave me a ride to a small hotel that’s cheaper than the one recommended by the tournament. When we entered the hotel and walked up to the front desk there was a woman in her 60’s working behind the desk. Upon seeing me she had the most terrified look on her face, for what reason I do not know. She then rushed around the desk and hurried up the stairs to show me my room, which is nice, although clearly not designed for people taller than six feet.

Since Karuizawa is a small town, the restaurants and other stores close relatively early and so I had some trouble finding a place to grab some dinner. I went inside a small office where a middle-aged man was working behind a desk to ask him if he knew of any restaurants in the area that were still open. Instead of simply telling me where to go, he turned off his computer, closed the office, and took me over to a small restaurant that from the outside appeared to be closed. We ate what was basically Japanese barbecue and tried to exchange a few words, however, our conversation was extremely limited as he only knew little English and I know no Japanese. The food was very good and I was especially glad to have a good meal after what’s been a long day of travel.

After I returned to the hotel, the woman behind the desk came out and said something to me. She speaks no English and so I had no idea what she was saying. Finally, she simply started pointing at the dining area on the opposite side of the room and put up 8 fingers, which I assumed meant she was telling me breakfast would be at 8 in the morning. We got that resolved and then as I was leaving she said something and bowed, which I took to mean as goodnight. I then said it as well and bowed, then she said it again and bowed, so I did the same, thinking this was customary. But after I said whatever it was I said and bowed she then did the same again. I figured two or three was plenty so I then headed back to the room rather than continuing with what could be a never-ending cycle of saying goodnight (if that’s what it was we were saying) and bowing.

Everyone I’ve talked to, from the ticket salespeople to the people in Karuizawa, has been very friendly and helpful. Traveling has been easy so far, especially given that I don’t know any Japanese, and the countryside is very pretty. Overall, I have to say I like Japan very much.