Hokkaido Highway Blues

mountain, the yama-zakura with their smaller blossoms, and leafier branches, the flowers sparser on the branch but deeper in color.
    The mountain sakura of Japanese tradition have been largely displaced in central Japan, but they remain strong in the south, and here, in the backwoods of Kyushu it is indeed the yama-zakura that are still seen highlighting the forests like dabs of paint.
    “There are cherry trees in Nagoya,“ said Hiro, “that take your breath away. We went every year to the castle, to see the flowers falling. I miss that castle. It had golden fish on top. In Nagoya.” There were long pauses between everything he said, and his voice was so quiet it was almost like listening to his thoughts rather than his speech. “I used to visit the castle grounds with my wife. When she was young. I’m retired now. Semiretired. I had to come south, for work.”
    Changing jobs is as traumatic in Japan as divorce is in the West. Hiro’s company had gone out of business in Nagoya and he ended up here, in Oita prefecture, working as a salesman for a construction firm. He gave me his card. The company motto was in English: Think of Space and Tomorrow. I chuckled over the slogan and for a long time I didn’t think much about it. But lately it seems to me that the motto might well be that of modern Japan. Not space in the sense of the stars, but in the sense of isolation and vacuums. This fixation with the future, with tomorrow instead of today, is strange in a nation with a two-thousand-year history. Stranger still in a country that gave us Zen Buddhism, haiku, and the tea ceremony. Japan seems hell-bent on modernity, and in the end I suppose it is for the best—or, at the very least, inevitable. Welcome to the 21st Seiki.
    Almost a hundred years ago, a man named Wilfrid Laurier declared that “the twentieth century belongs to Canada.” He was wrong of course, and Canadians have spent a long time living down that remark. The twentieth century belonged to America. But the twenty-first century will belong to Japan. Not necessarily in the size of its GNP—not with the Japanese economy stalled like it is—but more in its outlook. Japan has no sweeping ideologies or founding philosophies. It is old-world nationalism and tribal alliances writ large against the future. Grounded in traditions, mesmerized by novelty, I can think of no nation better suited for the postmodern world. Japan, almost by definition, is eclectic.
    Think of Space and Tomorrow. It is a fine battle cry, but there are casualties along the way. Mr. Hiro Koba doesn’t dream of the future, he dreams instead of Family and Yesterday. And Sunday afternoons in a park with a castle topped in gold.
    “Does your wife miss Nagoya as well?” I asked.
    “Oh, I suppose she does.” There was a pause, longer than usual, and then: “I’m a widower. My wife passed away.” And then: “Have you ever been to Nagoya? They have a castle there with beautiful golden fish. It’s a reconstruction, of course. But I miss it. Have you been to Nagoya?”
    It is the third time he has asked me this. Yes, I have been to Nagoya. What I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t especially like the place. It seemed to be just another large Japanese city, but then, I have never lived in Nagoya. I didn’t go to school there, I don’t have memories invested in it, I didn’t work in Nagoya for thirty years, and my wife’s ashes aren’t buried there.
    Hiro and I talked about the sakura and spring, but that only led back to the castle grounds of Nagoya, where the cherry blossoms are at their best. I could feel our conversation drowning in a series of sighs, so I changed tack.
    “Hobbies?” he said. “I don’t have any really.”
    Damn. But then, almost in passing, he said. “I like sumo, though.”
    Finally, I was back on steady ground. I am the equivalent of a Sumo Deadhead, following tournaments, keeping track of the stars, spending my money on sumo handprints and sumo playing cards and commemorative sumo banners. I love sumo the way some people love their country. It is, and I think I am being objective in my assessment, simply the greatest sport in the history of the universe. In Japan, rotund pale flabby guys are considered the epitome of masculinity. Don’t you just love that?
    The rikishi of sumo (“wrestler” doesn’t quite describe what a rikishi does) are objects of lust and adoration. Personally, I think it’s the hair. Sumo rikishi were the only group