Hokkaido Highway Blues

brain-scooping and lung-discarding began anew.
    “Drink! Drink!” he urged. He then topped up my glass with shōchū, a form of alcohol so pure it shows up on some Periodic Tables.
    “Some day,” he threatened, “I will introduce shōchū to your country.”
    Fortunately, I didn’t have to eat the rest of the crab because another guest arrived, a tall, gregarious American named Donner. Donner had missed a flight to Sapporo and when he tried to check into a nearby hotel, the owners had frantically fobbed him off on Mr. Saito, whose English ability was well known in the neighborhood.
    Donner was an entrepreneur. He had a smile as clean and wide as the Great Outdoors, and he had been doing business with the Japanese for almost four years. “I don’t speak Japanese,” he said, reciting a pet quip, “but I do speak Loud English.”
    Over crab and shōchū, Donner regaled us with his various misadventures in the import/export business. He had that brash confidence Americans seem to exude. “Have my card,” he said, and like a blackjack dealer in a Nevada bar, he pulled out a stack and dealt me one. “I have connections. Lots of connections. Japan,” he said. “Tough country. Lot’sa red tape. But well worth the effort. Well worth it. Profits. Huge profits. Profits the size of— of—” he couldn’t come up with a metaphor big enough. ‘As big as—well, you know. A lot of money. Big money. You should get involved. Teaching English? Chump change. The real profit is in imports.”
    On and on it went, like a personal self-help video. And when he announced suddenly that he was tired (it was as though he had decided when he would get sleepy) a vacuum of silence followed his departure. In my heart of hearts—and oh, how I hate to admit it—I like Americans.
    “Tell me,” said Mr. Saito after Donner’s departure. “What did you think of Hakodate? Did you go up the mountain? Did you see the night view?”
    I had indeed. He was pleased to hear this.
    “There is a theory,” said Mr. Saito, “a common theory, that we can understand a person by the way they look at the lights of Hakodate.” It was a bit like an Rorschach test. “Some people see an hourglass: they are thinking about life and how short it is, how time passes. Other people see a fan opening up: they are very high-culture people. Others see a wineglass. Some see a river. Tell me, Mr. Will. What did you see?”
    “What did I see?”
    “Yes, when you looked at the lights of Hakodate. What did you see?”
    “Ah, what you said, a river. A wineglass. That sort of thing.”
    He saluted my good tastes. But when he tried to foist off more crab legs on me, I pleaded extenuating circumstances. “I’m still full from King of Kings.”
    King of Kings? He knew the place quite well. He was friends with the owner. When I told him about the vast amount of meat I had packed away, Mr. Saito roared with laughter. “You didn’t tell him you were staying here, did you? Did you?”
    “I might have.”
    “Oh, no!” said Mr. Saito. “I’ll have to buy him a new cow just to reimburse him!“ He laughed so long at this that his face became even redder, almost purple. He laughed so long he forgot what he was laughing about.
    The shōchū and beer continued, and the more we drank the more disjointed and incoherent the conversation became. Somehow we ended up talking about the war. Why does this always happen? Again, is it just me, or does every heart-to-heart talk in Japan always end up focusing on the Second World War. I wasn’t even a corny pickup line in my father’s repertoire when that war started. What do I know about the Second World War?
    Japanese knowledge is even worse. In Japan, the bombing of Hiroshima is treated as though it were a baffling, unprovoked attack. As though the innocent Japanese were sitting around, minding their own business, when wham! out of the blue, the Americans decided to obliterate them. In China, meanwhile, the Rape of Nanking (dismissed as a “myth” by Japanese apologists) left more people dead than Hiroshima; and the Japanese army did it the hard way. They butchered, tortured, and raped the citizens of Nanking one victim at a time.
    “I’ll tell you why the Americans bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Mr. Saito. “It’s because they didn’t consider Asians to be human. That’s why. They never would have done it to a white country.”
    “But they couldn’t have. Germany had already surrendered by the time