Hokkaido Highway Blues

syllogism from all of this: Japan has a very low crime rate. Therefore, Japan is very safe. Therefore, the rest of the world is incredibly dangerous.
    I remember the mother of one of my students fretting endlessly over the safety of her daughter who was going on an exchange to the United States.
    “It is so dangerous,” she said. “I am worried for her safety.” And where was her daughter going? Which seething pit of savagery and disorder? “Iowa.” The lady pronounced it with the same revulsion one might use when saying, “Sodom.”
    Taiyano had seen enough of the outside world at Sasebo, though how accurately American G.I.s represent Western civilization is debatable. For him, Hokkaido was exotic enough. “Make sure you see the horses,” he said. “They have horses in Hokkaido.”
    By this point we had renewed our celebrations—it having been discovered that my blood type was O positive—and a rumpled old man with a perfectly bald head slumped down beside me and insisted on shaking my hand. “Ah, Gaijin-san,” he said. “Mamgrm kyogrf shrgoi deshne!”
    Which, translated, was: ‘Ah, Mr. Foreigner. Mamgrm kyogrf shrgoi deshne!”
    It was worse than trying to read Japanese highway signs. I felt depressed; so many years in this country and there were still times like this when I understood less than ten percent.
    “Pardon?” I said.
    “Mugrmff gfrrmmg,” he explained.
    It got worse. The Japanese language has audible punctuation. To make a question in Japanese you just add ka to the end of the sentence. An exclamation point is made by adding yo. The bald man, gripping my arm like it was a lifeboat on the Titanic, mumbled something unintelligible that ended in ka. I knew I had been asked a question, but I didn’t know what. “Doshda gffmm ka?” he repeated. When I didn’t answer he became insistent.
    “Doshda gffmm ka?”
    “Sorry, I don’t—”
    He smote the table with his fist. “Doshda gffmm ka?!” he demanded. The kas were now coming fast and furious and the man was purple with rage. The veins began to throb in his temples. “DOSH-DA-GFF-MM KA?”
    In desperation, I hazarded what I hoped would be a noncommittal reply. “Yes.” I said. ‘Absolutely But then again, maybe not. Who knows?”
    With this, his expression softened, he patted me on the back, and tears welled up in his eyes. “Grhhmm deshne,” he said sincerely.
    “I must apologize,” said Taiyano. “He’s my father. He can get emotional at times. He was in Nagasaki City when, well, you know.”
    Oh lord. I felt sick to my stomach. My throat tightened. Nagasaki. “What was he asking me? Was it—was it something to do with, you know?”
    “No, no. He was talking about baseball. He’s still pretty upset that we lost the championship.”
    “Grmmffda yo,” grumbled the old man as he stared down at his beer.
     

7
     
    THE RAIN FELL throughout the night and when I awoke the skies had cleared and the air was crisp. I folded my futon and packed my bags. In one night I had managed to disperse my belongings around the entire room, a feat that never ceases to amaze me. I walked down the hall to the lobby where Television Man was still rooted in place, staring intently at a morning weather report. I banged on a bell apparently provided for my amusement, because it brought no immediate response.
    After several minutes of this the man yelled, “Customer!” Now I understood. He was Off Duty, though the difference was hard to see. A woman I assumed was his wife came out to serve me. As she wiped her hands on her apron, she looked me over. “You’re a foreigner.”
    I conceded her point; I was indeed a foreigner. She seemed proud to have spotted it.
    “He’s a foreigner,” she said to her husband, who, with a single one-syllable grunt, managed to say, “Piss off, I really don’t care, can’t you see I’m too engrossed in this morning weather report to concern myself with such irrelevancies, and fix me a sandwich while you’re up.”
    She remained chirpy and undiscouraged by this. She said a word I didn’t recognize, and when I looked at her blankly she simplified it for me. “Sumo,” she said. “I suppose you are here for the sumo.”
    Sumo? At first I thought she was making a veiled reference to my weight and I was about to lunge across the desk at her when she elaborated.
    “The bulls,” she said. “You’d better hurry, the tickets will be sold out soon.” And that was how I found myself attending the