Hokkaido Highway Blues

stricken with AIDS), but eyes caught mine as I passed, masks behind masks. I wandered into a bar building, one of the many that have compartmentalized the Japanese experience. The typical bar building is several stories high and divided into separate apartmentlike rooms, each containing a separate pub—though pub is perhaps too grandiose a word for something the size of a large walk-in closet. As I climbed the stairs, a burlesque of drunks staggered by, yelling and laughing and slurring each other’s names. The plaintive caterwauls of karaoke songs bled from behind doors, disembodied like spectral voices in a house plagued with singing ghosts of limited talent.
    A pink-and-purple sign above one door glowed, in English, PHOENIX SNACK. Another announced, BLUE LOVE SNACK. Another, simply THE SNACK. Many firsttime visitors to Japan, and I was one, mistakenly assume that a place advertising “snack,” will serve, well, snacks. But the meaning has been adapted just a bit. In Japan, snack doesn’t mean “light repast,” but rather, “tiny bar without set prices where the hostess can charge as much as she damn well pleases so if you wander in you might as well paint a bull’s-eye on your forehead, you poor stupid fool you.” The only snacks these places serve are plates of peas and dried squid.
    Inside the Phoenix, a small knot of young company men were being served and flattered by a middle-aged hostess. A bartender in a white shirt and bowtie manned his tiny domain, and a group of well-presented young ladies were taking turns on the karaoke machine. A woman in a bank teller’s blazer was belting out an English-infused pop song (“ I’m just a woman. Fall in love. ”), accompanied by the stiff rhythmic claps and polite smiles of her friends. People don’t listen to karaoke, they endure it until it is their turn. It is the singularly most self-indulgent form of entertainment available.
    The bartender was all grins and leers, and to avoid conversation, I turned my attention to the video montage being played on the monitor to the accompaniment of the song. “Don’t you remember, when we wah togezah.” This video was so cheesy it practically emitted stink rays. A soulful young man brooded, a woman pouted, the man brooded some more, the woman cried a single, dainty tear like a drop of milk rolling down her cheek, the man gave her a rose and then drew a heart on the sand, a wave washed it away, the woman forgave him. And so on. A diabetic would be well-advised to avoid Japanese karaoke videos. It reminded me of something a friend once pointed out: Japan is a land without irony. Irony requires distance and a certain cynical view of life, but here the kitsch is painfully sincere and the sappiest romantic sentiments are taken at face value. The Japanese have farce and buffoonery and pratfalls, but they do not have irony.
    “Sing! Sing!” cried the salarymen once they had spotted me.
    The men, faces beet red and neckties loosened in reckless abandon, insisted that I honor the room with a tune. So I launched into my award-winning version of “Blue Suede Shoes,” for which I was awarded free beer and octopus. Encouraged, I belted out a rousing rendition of “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog” followed by a stunning interpretation of “Jail House Rock,” after which they asked for their microphone back.
     

11
     
    To THE EAST of Matsuyama is Dōgo, the oldest spa in Japan. Dōgo has a three-thousand-year history that begins with a wounded heron nursing itself back to health in its waters (a common legend; the hot springs of Yunotsuru near my house in Minamata makes a similar claim about a wounded crane). People were bathing at Dōgo before the time of Christ, before the birth of Buddha, before the conquests of Genghis Khan. So I decided to add my own sorry carcass to the pool.
    I took the tram to the end of the line in a neighborhood crowded with inns and private baths. The main bathhouse at Dōgo was a wonderfully jumbled affair, built up on top of itself with a small watchtower peering out, crowned with a greening copper figure of a heron. It was a wet, dank world within. Centuries of steam had penetrated the very walls, and the baths were murky and filled with slow-moving figures. I eased myself into the alkaline waters and closed my eyes. I almost wished I had been walking across Japan, rather than hitching rides; a hot bath is always best when you are weary and full of aches.
    The higher up you go in