Thursday, February 01, 2007

Bicycles in Japan

There's a memorable Japanese movie called "Afterlife" about, uh, the afterlife. Those people who have died are sent to a limbo where they must choose a defining or happiest moment in their lives. The "staff" of this limbo (composed of volunteers from the dead) are then given the task of recreating this moment. Using props, they do so, and the departed checks out with this memory in their mind.

I have never been much of a cyclist, preferring to walk, but when I arrived in Japan the Board of Ed kindly supplied me with a cool silver bicycle. After seeing my minimalist apartment, I decided to furnish it entirely in black, white, and silver. Thus, I was happy to have a silver bike.



On the first day of school, I rode up to the empty parking lot and parked my bike. It's a cliche, but Japan is very safe. I've left my keys - and even groceries and other items - in my bike and there's been no problem. The only problem usually is the lack of places to park. There's guys that ride around and check if bikes are parked legally. If not, they post a note or chuck it in the back of a truck. Anyway, when I came out after school, I couldn't find the bike.

The problem was not that the bike was gone, it was that the students had come and parked their bikes - all 300 of them. And, of course, they were all silver. All of them. As I'd only ridden my bike for a few days, I couldn't quickly identify it. A teacher saw me stumbling around looking for it. "Need any help?" he asked. "No, thank you - I'm okay". Yet, he recruited a bunch of other teachers to come and look for it. "It's cool - I'm sure it's here...". Then, someone called the kyoto-sensei (vice principal). He showed up, frowning, "If it's stolen, we'll have to cancel these meetings and also call the police". I assured him that it was certainly there somewhere, "Who would wade through all these bikes just to steal mine? It's here, I've just gotta find it". Of course, it was there and I found it about five minutes later. Still, it was an interesting experience. My kyoto kept ribbing me about "losing" it for the next few days.

Police in Japan often stop cycling foreigners (non-Japanese) and request their ID. The idea is that the bike may be stolen. Most, if not all, of the other ALT's here have had this experience. I haven't, although I had it happen to me in Osaka on my second trip to Japan. Unfortunately, I only had about three hours sleep, so I wasn't in the best of moods. Picture a crowded parking lot, with many Japanese people and one foreigner (that would be me.) No other people are stopped or questioned. The conversation (in Japanese) went something like this:

Police: Are you a foreigner?

Me: Yes.

Police: Do you have your passport? (at all times, visitors must carry a passport, foreign residents a special card)

Me: No.

Police: Is this your bike?

Me: No. (it was my host sister's, who luckily was with me).

Police: Can you speak Japanese?

Me: Yes, a little. (remember, the entire conversation so far was in Japanese.)

They then turned to my host sister and confirmed that I wasn't crazy and also hadn't stolen the bike. At the time, I thought "How ludicrous - why would I travel across the world to steal a girl's bike?". I can't remember, but I think I may have asked them if they were also stopping Japanese poeple. However, I now know that they could have made it very difficult for me as I wasn't carrying my ID. I've heard tales of people being forced to write (and present in court!) a formal apology, or even being thrown in jail for this offence. When you consider that the country has a 99% conviction rate, it's best to carry the card.

Returning to "Afterlife", riding my bike through the streets while listening to "Yes, she is my skinhead girl" by Unrest or other such fare might be a choice for a defining moment; there's something special about wheeling past empty fields and pachinko parlours at top speed. It's not perfect: the sides of the roads here have a foot-deep gutter on the sides. Also, many streets don't have lights, so nights are almost like a David Lynch movie: you never knew it could be so dark. Combine this with the driving on the left, the incredibly narrow streets (often just wide enough for one car - the other must back out), and a couple of draft beer and well...I'm lucky to be here. A dive into that gutter at a good speed might be enough to take out any future Bonsai-superstars. Also, 10 years or so ago, Japan was more lenient on drinking and driving (post on this coming up), but now they have a zero tolerance policy. I'm told this even extends to bikes, but luckily there's been no issues thus far.

Still, I've ridden up hills and between mountains. I saw a huge group of birds circling for 10 minutes. I've ridden, many times, with bags of groceries on the handlebars. I rode with an ex-gf sitting on the back wheel. The latter is something couples often do here, which I think looks very cute, so I've always wanted to do it in Japan. Sometimes, the girl is standing, which is alarming when this 8-foot tall thing suddenly comes wheeling past you from behind on the sidewalks of Osaka. Once, I saw a couple riding through the shotengai (a long outdoor shopping mall) in this fashion, whipping through the crowds while a cop chased them on foot, shouting "Orite! Orite!" (get down!). They didn't even look back.

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