Climbing the Mountain
By Andrew Morris
As the sulfurous aroma of the bath settled in my nostrils, my body relaxed into the water and I looked out to the mist shrouded lights of Nagasaki. This momentary meditation was disturbed by a grunt and a splash as a foot entered the other end of the bath. Glancing back I saw it was, as expected, my bearded companion, Man-chan. Slowly, he shuffled his way over to my side in the way that one does in an onsen and settled into the dark brown mineral infused water. We sat for a while in silence, arms propped on the ledge of the bath staring out at the city below.
“You know, I lived in Osaka for 10 months once. I was there for a cooking course. My plan was to apprentice at a famous Taiwanese restaurant and then after a year I was going to leave for Australia and go from there.”
“Really? That somehow doesn’t seem like you.”
“Heh heh, oh really? Well, just before I was going to begin at the restaurant, my father fell quite ill. Of course at first I was torn over what to do, but when it began to become rather serious there was really no choice but for me to return home. I’ve been here ever since.”
“How old were you?”
“I think I must have been about 20 then. My father was probably around 60, just about as old as I am now. Somehow, despite his illness he lived for another 28 years and I ended up spending nearly all of my time with him. We did everything together. We worked together in our family’s restaurant when he could work. We went to onsen together. We ate together. All of it. Of course sometimes I wonder about what would have happened if I had continued on the more worldly path I had set out for myself, all the things I would have seen and the places I would have gone. But really, while either course would have had its benefits, I think this one I’ve chosen has made me a stronger person.”
We sat still in the water again, the silence interrupted only by leftover raindrops from the earlier downpour and the unfortunate modern accoutrement of the Television humming at the far end of the bath.
I tried to take this new information about Man-chan and add it to the fantasy world that I previously imagined for him in my mind. While I had picked up bits and pieces of his past life on occasion, this new information somehow shifted my conception of his being.
Man-chan is a very difficult person not to mythologize. He had after all, become my very own bearded wise man that one finds at the top of mountains in comics and fairytales. Granted in my case the mountain had been more of a glorified hill that I had traveled on my bicycle, and instead of meditating in a cave, Man-chan had been making soba noodles in his restaurant nestled amidst the dead end forest road leading to Ryutosen waterfall near the small town in which I was living. Still, for my life, he truly did come to resemble just such a mountain sage. The beard alone, that hung down to below his waist (which was wrapped up and tucked into his shirt for meal prep) was enough to inspire reverent awe, but then when he began lecturing me on Zen principles and displayed his talent for singing traditional Japanese folk songs it was enough to make me question whether I hadn’t just stumbled across a modern day bodhisattva incarnate.
Silly Orientalist notions aside however, Man-chan did slowly became a kind of a “life coach” for me. Rather fortunately for myself, my foreigner status in such a rural area of Japan and my frequent trips up the “mountain” to visit Man-chan’s soba restaurant aroused his interest and soon he began to invite me on onsen trips with his family which included his brother Hideo, Hideo’s wife, and their daughter, who all ran a seperate restaurant just down the road from the soba shop.
Their world was unlike any I had previously encountered. Man-chan liked to claim that he hadn’t taken a vacation day in years. He didn’t see the point because every day when he was working at the soba restaurant he was doing exactly what he loved the most. If the shop was empty, as it often was in colder times due to its secluded location, he would use the time to landscape the beautiful garden space around the restaurant. “Everything the customer encounters from the moment they leave their car is a part of the experience of the meal.” At other times they would be busy at Hideo’s restaurant below, or in the other restaurant that Man-chan also owned in a neighboring town and he would head down there for the day to help out. Taking the day off to go shopping or to travel though just didn’t have the same appeal it does to most people.
Once, after a particularly stirring post meal performance, I asked who had taught him how to sing the seemingly complicated style of traditional balladry of which he appeared to be a master. He just chuckled in his jolly way saying, “Just me, just me. I have many free afternoons up here throughout the year and so I taught myself. I’ve also been practicing the piano for nearly 12 years now although I’m not quite pleased with my abilities enough to play for others quite yet.” When I asked whether he was inclined to make a CD at some point he responded, “I have considered the option, but I find that hearing it in person is much more pleasing for people so I’m not sure that I will.” Having experienced a few of Man-chan’s impromptu concerts, the most memorable of which occurred during the heaviest snowfall in the area in over 10 years, I can attest that the in the flesh experience of his singing can bring a near otherworldly sensation to the listener. Those moments will be among the strongest memories of my years in Japan as I’m sure they will be for all of my companions who have been lucky enough to witness them.
I find myself, at a still restless twenty-seven, somehow magnetically drawn to people like Man-chan who have staked out a place in the world and found contentment in that, their decided home. It is the same notion that from a young age drew me to the poetry of Emily Dickinson who saw and was able to express more about the world without leaving her street in Amherst, Mass than many of the more worldly sorts that have come before or since. I struggle continuously to reconcile this longing I feel for the settled understanding I see reflected in their lives with my own wandering nature that still seeks the adventure and freshness of new places and sensations.
Sitting submerged in the mineral soaked bath, I am reminded once more of this struggle as it occurs to me how little time I have left in this place before deciding my next relocation. Then, with another quick grunt, Man-chan rises in the bath creating a few small waves that cascade over the edge of the rim splashing on the tiles below.
“I guess that what I want to say to you is, that in the end there is only going to be one path that you will end up taking and it will be the right one because it will become the only one, and that can’t be wrong. Obviously there are some similarities in my story and yours, but I’m not trying to tell you specifically that you need to go back to be with your father now. That is something that only you can decide. Whichever way you choose though, you must commit to it completely and not let the ‘what might have beens’ affect where you actually find yourself.”
I nodded in agreement and rose up to follow him back to the locker room as my mind tried to both translate the specifics of his Japanese and process the implications of what he had just said.
“Thank you.”
That was all I could manage, although it was the truth. I had of course heard this “be here now”, “follow your own path” type message many times in my life, but while familiar with its content, hearing the same idea in a different context can bring across entirely new meanings and levels of understanding.
On the drive home with the family, a further discussion of the past eventually brought us around to a discussion of the future.
“Well, I don’t think either Hideo or I could really continue to do this for much more then 10 years or so really. At that point we’ll probably just sell the restaurants and then finally take that trip around the world.”
“Really? That’s still something you’d like to do?”
“Ha ha ha… Of course! Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to come and visit your family in America then.”
It was at that point that Hideo’s wife chimed in from the front seat, “By that point Andrew will have a family of his own we can visit.”
“Ha ha ha… I guess that’s true… I guess that’s true.”
——
Andrew Morris continues in his wanderings and is currently planning to settle in Kyoto, Japan. He remains a writer and editor, for NagaZasshi, a bi-monthly web/print publication that he started with some colleagues while in Nagasaki. For those that might find it interesting, it is available in PDF form on their website, www.nagazasshi.com.
Photograph appears courtesy and copyright of the author.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Non-Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
