A Good Nights Sleep

Clumsy westerners meet refined oriental customs in an attempt to discover something of the 'old' Japan.

Invaluable bathhouse tips.

A Good Nights Sleep

Ohayo gozaimasu, ohayo gozaimasu, I repeat to myself slowly and softly having great difficulty with the pronunciation. I was hoping to at least show some respect to our wonderful host who I could hear downstairs preparing our breakfast. It was one of a handful of Japanese words or phrases I knew, Good morning! 

My back and limbs are stiff having spent the night on a thin futon in our eight tatami mat room. Jill and I are staying in an old traditional inn located in the remote countryside of Shikoku, the fourth-largest island of Japan. A small cluster of homes and guest houses forming a small village is located either side of the valley road that winds its way between tall and forested mountainous terrain: an occasional small community perched on the side of a misty mountain or snug and tight on a small piece of flat land near the river.

Our room embodies the minimalist aesthetic; exactly the size of the eight precise modular straw mats, walls are neutral coloured wallpaper with two hooks for our yukata (for bathhouse visits). On one side, sliding windows open to the street below. A small alcove, called ‘tokonoma’, contains both a hanging scroll painting of a white crane and a small vase sitting in a carefully chosen twisted piece of forest windfall. The only furniture is two cushions to sit on and a small low table on which a teapot and two tea-bowls are precisely positioned. Bedding when not in use is rolled up and placed in a cupboard that is flush with the wall as though it doesn’t exist. The harmony was only broken by our collection of bags, clothes, books, maps, brochures, devices and chargers scattered around.

Built right on the edge of the narrow road, the inn looks out across the valley and down to a fast-flowing river that carves through a rocky ravine. We are the only guests. During the day trucks laden with pine logs rumbled past as if centimetres from our windows. They ceased at nightfall but I had been kept awake by the cigarette vending machine across the road emitting what looked like about two full moons worth of light into our room. Then to add insult I was woken by the automated voice giving instructions to an early morning bus commuter purchasing a pack with their credit card. At dawn, those cheery, happy, happy tones just didn't sound sincere. 

We walk down the steep stairs almost stumbling in our slip-on house shoes to where our host, Fukuko greets us, smiling and giggling at my fumbled reply. Our dining room table set with a tray each containing multiple dishes; a piece of grilled salmon, black caramelized seaweed, delicate pickled vegetables, slices of omelette, a small finely chopped cabbage salad, mouth size tofu blocks in a dashi sauce and a single persimmon. Taking into account shape, texture and colour, each breakfast item is matched to a contrasting ceramic dish. Fukuko, walking with a pronounced limp, traverses to and from the kitchen with hot miso soup, steamed rice, and tea.

‘Arigato’ we say multiple times, even adopting the Japanese custom of a polite nod of the head. ‘Oishi!’ we say aloud as we delight in each morsel. Thanks and delicious, words two and three of my vocabulary! This scene repeats itself over the three days we stay with her, her generosity has filled our tummies morning and night. We learn that Fukuko means ‘happy’; at seventy she has been running the inn for forty-six years, the last twenty on her own since her husband passed away, or ‘sleeping’ as she indicated by mime. She has been very motherly to us; we in turn share concerns for her future, as she is very much alone. What is the destiny of the inn? 

Each day we venture further into the valley driving along mountain hugging roads, in many sections only one car wide, slowly, slowly, watching carefully for oncoming trucks and the local bus in particular. When we meet, one vehicle has to reverse to find a spot wide enough to pull off. Big round mirrors help avoid collisions on tight corners. It is the Iya valley and has a history dating back 800 years to a fugitive clan called Heike and samurai warriors who would use the valleys to hide and resist capture. 

They became more established over the centuries and built suspension bridges across the treacherous river using vines collected from the forest woven together in an engineering feat. The bridges enabled easier and more extensive travel, hunting, woodcutting, and trade. If being pursued the vines could be cut, the bridge falling and escapees able to disappear into the mountains and the safety of caves. A small number of the vine bridges remain, in fact, they are heritage listed, replaced every three or four years as the vines deteriorate. No longer needed for essential travel, they have become popular tourist attractions. 

Out on a steep-sided mountain village walk, one promoted as a living museum of traditional life, we admire the intensive and well kept vegetable gardens that surround most homes; rock-walled terraces create enough flat land for small plots of food crops such as, rye, buckwheat, and rice. Occasionally there is a museum like example of the thatch-roofed homes of a bygone era. A passing shower proves to us that the thick profile of the thatch provides perfect waterproofing. Walking past a small utility, a still warm dead deer fills the back tray. Nearby stockpiles of neatly cut firewood sit alongside rock walls and sheds; we notice cone-shaped towers, sheaves of grass, presumably for use as thatch. Life here seems quiet and peaceful, the only movement, just the odd car or elderly person tending their garden.

As we drive further through the valley it appears as though so much is rundown, closed, shut up or abandoned; homes, sheds, workshops, buildings, shops, even cars. We know these are remote isolated communities, people living traditional lifestyles, hunting game, growing vegetables and fruit but even so there are very few people to be seen, we have a niggling sense that although charming, something is not right.  

Our perplexing question is soon answered as we come to a fertile little community, bursting forth in the spring sunshine, colourful people everywhere, tending their gardens, smelling the flowers, chatting across the fence, sitting waiting for the bus, fishing on the riverbank. This is more like it! … Or is it? We stop and go for a walk; the people are not real, they are soft sculptures, dressed in real clothing and looking animated. There are hundreds of them. Suddenly one figure moves, she really was tending her vegetable patch! 

A spritely woman about 60 wanders over, ‘Konichiwa’ she smiles and waves. ‘Konichiwa’ we reply, I did know that one! Realizing we don’t speak much Japanese and she English, she takes off along the road towards a group of buildings, beckoning us to follow. Inside a community hall, there is a council meeting in full session; people sit around a large table strewn with papers and files. I feel like saying ‘sumimasen’ (excuse me) but we are not intruding … it is all make-believe. It is the same with the elementary school nearby; a gymnasium with sport and cultural activities captured in a frozen moment. A school that must at one time have housed hundreds of students, an Education department concrete structure from mid 20^th century by the looks, abandoned and stained with neglect.

The village is Kakashi no Sato and it is in serious decline. One resident (one of only 20 or so) in particular has returned, herself having left many years ago. She has embarked on this project of making sculptures. It involves anyone who wants to take part and it is constantly growing, becoming its own tourist attraction. A collective creative activity to bring people together; making the figures, sourcing used clothing and creating the tableaus. Along with the addition of visitors like us, it breathes new life into the community.

The whole area was once much more populace, tobacco was a good cash crop, potatoes and grains were grown for specialty foods; silkworms raised; young families lived and prospered but that has changed. Japan has negative population growth, no immigration, an increasingly ageing population and a drift away from the simplicity of rural existence in favour of urban centres and the modern manner of manufacturing and consumption. I dare say, young people, in particular, see employment and lifestyle choices elsewhere, not in small rural communities.

*

Weary as we change shoes at the entrance of our inn, I check my health app, approaching 8 kilometres walking … not bad! Considering we spent a good part of the day driving. Wholesome smells and steam rise out of pots cooking in the kitchen, our dinner being prepared no doubt. The ever-smiling Fukuko comes out waving paper tickets. ‘Onsen, Onsen’ she repeats. Jill looks knowingly at me … the inn’s bathhouse is good but a poor relation to a specialist Onsen establishment … so without another word, it's a ‘yes' from us!

A short drive away is a forested area high on a mountain, what looks like a big hotel is, in fact, an onsen - large public baths with separate male and female sections. This is not our first onsen adventure but even so, it is a little daunting, as in the correct etiquette. First shoes go into a locker that has a wooden key; then the inner change room section where another locker is for your clothes and big towel. You emerge naked with just a locker key around your wrist and a very small towel, probably best described as a washer.

Sliding open the steamed over glass doors reveals a large room with many shallow pools, some like a spa, others more like a wading pool where people lie and relax. Around the edge is a line of tap sets each with bottles of soaps and shampoos. The idea is you take a small plastic stool that you crouch on to first wash thoroughly before entering the communal pools. The small towel is then folded to sit on your head and never gets wet in the communal pool. It would appear not to be any sort of modesty device. Observation is the key to know what to do, being extremely tactful of course. Best to sort of blend in, try to look like you do this every other day, although if like me, you will probably make a few mistakes - towel falls off, you use someone else’s stool, yelp having stepped into the pool with electric current (there was a sign but it was in Japanese) or turning bright red after too long in the really hot pool.

The best bit though is outside, privacy from the outside world assured, you are surrounded by pine forest; the pools are made with rocks with a small waterfall. The water temperature is warm to hot, the heat soaks right through you as you relax feeling like you are just one with nature. Your mind plays fantasy delusions as though you were a wild creature like the birds in the trees above you, your unaccustomed nakedness like a means to forget any tensions or worldly concerns. 

My reverie is broken by the sudden need to take a pee, which entails going all the way back to the change room and then poor form to come back to the pools so I forgo the icy cold plunge pool, not that I am too disappointed. However: a word of caution regarding toilets in Japan. They can be very sophisticated; I imagine airline pilots love them, plenty of dials, buttons, arrows, and symbols; seat heating, sprays of water to various body parts, music, eco mode to name but some. My problem in this instance was just trying to figure out a basic flush and in my confusion, I must have mistakenly pushed something like an emergency help button; help was I must say soon on the scene in the form of a fully dressed female staff member. 

So back at the inn, feeling soporific and pristinely clean, Fukuko serves up a feast and breaks out the sake for our last night. We have lapped up her meals, different at each setting, healthy, tasty and bountiful. Like a class in Japanese cuisine; she has taught us about sauces like dashi and soy, types of sashimi, wakame and nori seaweed, nabe hot pot and the local specialty Iya soba (noodles in a miso broth), and who could forget Yuzu liqueur.

That night I sleep like a log – a Japanese pine forest log. 

Fukuko escorts us to the front door where she stands as we pack our bags into the car. Her parting gift is packets of sesame biscuits for our drive to rendezvous with friends. ‘Sayonara’ we call as we wave goodbye. She bows numerous times, continuing I notice in the rearview mirror, all the way till we round the bend.

 Scott Avery  2019