Originally posted 2009-11-19 at https://inpixels09.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/warm-water-in-the-baths-at-1030/

when you slip into the water of a hotspring, the japanese call the tingling sensation of bubbles and needles pushing beneath your skin “chiku-chiku.” onomotopeia like this, words that convey their meaning through sound and feel, rather than merely a name, are attatched to every action, like the pencil lines and ripples that show motion in comic book magazines. tonight, my host brother and i, submerged in an outdoor stone pool of mountain spring water discussed it at length-

kuru-kuru = a helicopter spinning motion

moya-moya = gloomy sauntering or gliding

pyoko-pyoko = short lively hops, as in a rabbit

nyogo-nyogo = a snake-like slithering

and im sure you can imagine two naked young men splashing, waving their arms, puckering their hands to explain these things. the place was empty on our side of wall, (a few elder women talking about their grandkids on the other side, or so i was told) so we had plenty of room to speak in louder voices than usual and think louder than usual. i like the way mist floats over the water and how people look behind it.

naohiro wants to learn english, he told me in the baths one day. he had a deep desire to travel, but never knew it was so possible. plans to go to france and fly out to michigan to chill with me, but first things first, he says- learn english, learn how to speak it. in the morning, downhill on our bikes we go back and forth in engrish.

“what does ‘borrow’ mean?”

jay explains

“oh- can i borrow your coat?”

…

“can i borrow your girlfriend?”

“… no understand…”

he understood perfectly well.

it was an old style bath, with natural spring water. first thing i did when i walked in the room- take it all off, compare pec muscles with naohiro, which lead to english frat-boy vocab on the subject. told me he likes slang. everybody is totally stripped down on the tatami (grass-mat) floor, which was the two of us at the time and the two of us in the mirror. that kid is hillarious how much he looks in the mirror.

the baths are a place to discuss things because its a step outside, but i was confused at first- it seemed contradictory that people who value isolation and distance would put it all out there, like that.

three weeksa ago on the clearest day ive been through in a while, i drove to nagano city to see a special mountain hotspring with my area rep- a pack of mountain monkeys liked to dip in and out, and didnt mind the hikers watching them either. families of four or five were all over, shrieking and running around like animals. after f***ing it up once, tamura-san warned me not to make eye-contact with the males, because they would charge you. i took it to heart, twisting away like a five year-old whenever a monkey looked my way. in the lodge, an infant in a basket resting near the fireplace turned my way, and i quickly looked down.

i asked him in the car why it was what it is, with silence in public and naked, shriveled old men quite talkative when submerged in hot water, leaning against the stone next to you and sighing;

japan was once in a state of war, between kindgoms and samurai. it is renowned for its warriors of the age, all of whom spent the better part of their lives training not only their bodies, but their mind and strategy. the japanese samurai sword, known as the katana, is one of the deadliest weapons around and museums of the crafstman who made them are all over. ive seen two exhibits in matsumoto, and another separate showcase on and upper floor of the town’s famous castle.

people wore long decorative robes, “kimono,” stitched from thick fabric. these robes were long enough to stick something dangerous in. in fact, most people carried short knives next to their chests. you dont want to seem disrespectful to an asian hulk who might be, probably is, holding a knife. and so they withdrew.

but when you slip into the hotspring, all the heavy robes come off and we relax in knowing that this is ourselves without suspicion and concealed knives. there are no knives. they were actually banned along with guns outside of cooking and fishing, a few years back.

through talking with kids and teachers in the school, i learned about the other american in the school. i had been introduced to him once, by my homeroom teacher for a short conversation about the weather, ann arbor and where he was from in boston. spoke perfect japanese and had been at this same school since almost 20 years back, so as he explained it, there was no reason he shouldnt get it. he apparently translates japanese books.

he teaches the seniors, and so had nothing to do with me but the fact we both stood out like white people in japan might. i learned he was a total bad-ass who broke peoples cellphones when caught texting in class. the librarian broke her two hands over her knee when she described it to me, like a tae-kwon-do excercise. thats a bad-ass way to break a cellphone.

I finally got the chance to talk to him. he saw me in the hall today and struck up a conversation, asked me if i planned to take the mid-semester exams and i told him no, i didnt think i would. we got talking about japanese culture, quite easily. it was nice to get someones opinion without directly asking. but i did ask, and he told me what he thought.

the popular phrase KY stands for “kuuki yomenai,” or an inability to read the air and tell how a person feels by the atmosphere. its an insult, not very insulting because all i can think is its not i who should be blamed for not seeing emotions unshown, but still shameful. i didnt think the problem was on the receiving end. he said yes, its total bullshit, they think they transmit these magnetic waves from head to head and i shouldnt mind it, its got no weight behind it, nothing pushing it forward, its just their phrase. i walked the rest of the way down the hallway and down the stairs shaking my head and laughing at what he had said, because nobody says those type of things anymore.

I feel like there are themes in my life, now. people stand for things, and there are symbols for the larger ideas im hoping ill be getting sometime soon. i remember a year ago my brother and i were in the basement and i wondered to him wether reality was made up of themes and symbols, like the books that read about them. he told me he definitely read his life like a book. interesting.

I wondered out loud to naohiro what things would be like if all life was lived as if in a bath, while we ate ramen and half-watched a report on a recently caught murderor on trial. he said he didnt know, but high school would be a hell of a lot more interesting and we would need some heavy air conditioners to stay warm. i stayed up with him until 3 last night, with 4 other friends and talked about exactly this type of thing, then woke up and trudged to school. im getting to know him better, as well as his friends. a friend of his wants to take me to a hotspring on his side of town. he invited me after we talked about the books of Haruki Murakami for a while, last night.

so it seems someone is writing about the impact of the seeming absence of deep social connection on the mind, and how hot water and steamy baths and 18 year-old humor compact this. you come to see that its not the man-made illusion we live in, but what we can observe and only those who wear a heavy robe put it back on when leaving the baths.

I asked Nao what he thought while we walked out the other day, and he laughed and shoved me so i lost balance on my tall, wooden sandals.