First Day in Niitsu

10/22/07

Only the penitent man shall pass.

It seems wrong that my hotel room is on the top floor of this building. Only two floors, but it’s too high after a day spent mostly on my knees.

Our team has spent the last two days in the more-than-relative creature comforts of the Hotel Niigata in Niigata city. Each morning a huge breakfast was prepared for us, and during the day we were entertained by men and women of power, influence, and surprisingly humble demeanor.

Today we were taken by two of our fantastic new friends on the GSE 2650 team out to a nearby city, Niitsu. Niitsu has two rotary clubs, though they are somewhat small in comparison to clubs in the larger cities, and as such the Niitsu club will be hosting Claudia and Kenja while the Niitsu-cho club, meaning Central Niitsu, will be hosting Dan, Michael, and myself.

Our hosting club members are fantastic.

I’ve made sushi before. I have a whole assembly for making and eating sushi. I’ve never seen anything like what I was shown today.

I was busing exchanging meishi and greetings with the members of our welcoming committee when I turned around to see Dan putting on some white shirt over the Rotary polo he already wore. Then I saw two more shirts come through the side door in the hands of the restaurant staff.

We were then led into the kitchen and bade wash our hands in a sink the size of a toboggan. A man with a shaved head and the brisk happy movements of a zen monk brought in a huge wooden tub, much like the bottom of a barrel, in and set it across from us on the table. He poured a large quantity of rice into it followed by a mixture of what we were told was vinegar, and sugar.

The sushi monk then began stirring, chopping, slicing, and generally agitating the mixture with timed precision. Dan was provided with a fan, and told to fan the mixture while the monk stirred it.

Done with stirring, the sushi monk turned to a giant knife and a slab of fish on the nearby cutting board. He sliced about 10 slices off the fish, each the width of a cracker, and then proceeded to ask Dan to make his own sushi while watching the monk do the same.

At the end of the next ten minutes, Dan, Michael and I were covered in sticky rice and had each made two of the saddest pieces of sushi the world had ever seen, made much more humble by the fact that one of the monks sushi masterpieces was between our attempts on our serving boards. But then we all got to eat the sushi we made and it tasted delicious either way.

Niitsu served us a fantastic luncheon complete with a whole fish each. No kidding. Eyes, gills, mouth, skin; the works. It was delicious. I may never be able to eat American seafood again.

We swayed outside to see what was next and found a Toyota bus labeled Niitsu Driving School. I wasn’t sure what was up, but just rolled with it. We hopped on and spent the next hour talking to students teachers and staff at the local University for pharmaceuticals and applied life sciences. These folks are great. They teach everything from modern sciences to ancient Chinese secrets. They were quite impressed when I told them about a girl I know who was just accepted to Acupuncture school.

Rolling out, we drove to the top of a hill above Niitsu. The day was beautiful. The greenery was striking. The guard rail was a little weird.

From our vantage point we could see the fields of tomatoes, stretching out below us, turning into rice fields, and then into city. We could even see the tower in Niigata, quite a ways off, where the District Conference is going to be held next month.

We traveled to a petroleum refinery museum and looked at an assortment of drill bits the Spanish Inquisition would have loved to get their hands on and learned a little about the economic history of Niitsu.

After we left, we walked down the street toward a garden I had seen through the window of the bus earlier that day. There are two entrances to the garden, so we walked past the first doorway to get to the main entry. As I passed it I smelled something and stopped dead. I stood there in the archway for a minute smelling the air.

Oranges. Moisture. Earth. Flowers. Light decay. It was the best thing I had smelled in days. I forgot to bring underarm deodorant.

The tense changes here to present, because I am remembering it this vividly as I recount it as to seem as though I am actually here.

I run to catch up with the rest of the group and find out what this place was; hurrying through the next gate without pausing. It is like seeing the Emerald city for the first time; green everywhere. Old buildings, still covered in the waving roof tiles dotted the area, each completely unique from the others, but still uniform enough that it was clear they had all been built by the same mind. There’s a hammer going somewhere, metal-to-wood… metal-to-wood…

Walking past the first four buildings we head down to the last house on the right, the largest in this row, still dwarfed by what appears to be the main house situated elsewhere on the grounds.

Two obaa-san welcome us to the house and hand out menus asking for our drink orders. Iced coffee and apple tea are passed around and conversation floats on the breeze bearing both the unique scent of the area and the espresso from neighboring glasses. It’s a welcome respite from the last few hours spent on the go. Tsuchida-san hands out brochures and tickets to each of us talking about the area that we are in. The snap shot in the brochure makes me say, “I know Kung Fu.” Michael responds in kind, “Whoa.”

Quickly, we all finish our respective glasses and give thanks to the hostesses while we walk back out into the jungle. Walking down the pathway to the main building I pause to take a picture of the main house on the grounds and my camera seizes up and dies. It won’t come back. Shoving it into my pocket, I hurry to catch up with the others. Shun-san is the last person waiting for me.

The first few rooms are uneventful, we see the old genkan where people originally would have entered the house, we see amazing oyster inlays in black marble cabinets, zen displays of decoration and a dedication to excellence that would be hard to find in America.

The back yard speaks to me. It brings back all the memories of the Japanese gardens in San Diego and Phoenix where guides do their best to explain in English something that was conceived and created by the Japanese culture.

The moment pushes me to my knees in seiza as I was taught to do in the dojo years ago; left knee first in case you need to draw your sword at a moment’s notice. I’m not sure how long I have been kneeling when Kasuga-san sits next to me and says that the caretaker of the building, an elderly gentleman who until now had been content to sit on the far said of the building and watch, is proud of me for sitting. I’m confused, but confusion isn’t a new feeling here in Japan.

The caretaker starts motioning us towards him and soon we are all sitting on the floor as he starts talking rapidly in Nihongo, Shun-san translating for the gaijin.

“This building was made to be seen from the ground. There are specific places to kneel and reflect while you are here. Where you were sitting was one, this is another. The caretaker says that you will not actually see this house if you stand while you are here.”

I’m sure it doesn’t translate well, but I get the point. Mt. Fuji is carved into a wood panel above the rafters and light is filtering through it, showing the intricacy of the work.

Caretaker walks to the next space and we follow. More and more wonders unfold as we move from place to place sitting in different vantage points, including the old genkan we already walked past. Each time you shift your view, the caretaker explains, the picture changes.

That’s what all these windows are. Picture Frames.

Caretaker via Shun-san says,”This house was designed completely by Buddhist philosophy. In Buddhism, when you stand, you cannot help but look down on things, including other people. This is not the way Buddha teaches.”

Moving us to a spot in the far corner of the house that we hadn’t seen yet, Caretaker starts sliding pieces of the wall around. He opens up the section in front of us, then runs down the length of the house, sliding all the glass mado closed.

I can see the texture and it’s pleasing. I have an eye for things like this, but I missed the important part.

“This view represents two worlds,” Shun says. “The outside here, represents the real world as it is. The wall, the reflection here, represents a dream world; yume.”

Only the penitent man shall pass.

Slowly we rose and left. Caretaker showed us tori, and ryu, and thousand year old maple trees on the way out of the area. We went to a driving school following. We rode virtual motorcycles and cars and ate the first persimmons of my life; which are awesome by the way.

But that moment sticks with me. I am the student; this experience and all the people I am meeting are the teachers. As much as I may think that I have something to offer them, I will receive more. No matter how much I give out, I can never give these wonderful individuals more than they are giving me.

We ate dinner today on our knees again this evening, which seemed appropriate even if not the most comfortable. It’s been a long time since I have knelt so much, and it will be another several weeks of kneeling on a daily basis, but today more than ever before, I know it is worth it.