Part 6 (2/2)
During World War II, one of his companies produced engine parts as a subcontractor for Kawanis.h.i.+ Kokuki, a maker of combat seaplanes. Because the parts were for military use, the government supplied raw materials and performed a thorough inventory check every month.
One day (on this point, all of Ando's autobiographies concur), an employee in the company's accounting department informed Ando of a problem.
”The numbers don't look right,” the man said. ”It seems that someone is selling the inventory illegally.”
Perhaps Ando is exaggerating when he states in Conception of a Fantastic Idea Conception of a Fantastic Idea that the climate of World War II j.a.pan was such that a man could be put to death if found guilty of misappropriating government property. In any case, he quickly reported the matter to the Osaka Police Department, where he was told to discuss it with the military police. At a military police station in Otemae, not far from Osaka Castle, Ando was greeted by a man he refers to in his autobiographies as Corporal K. that the climate of World War II j.a.pan was such that a man could be put to death if found guilty of misappropriating government property. In any case, he quickly reported the matter to the Osaka Police Department, where he was told to discuss it with the military police. At a military police station in Otemae, not far from Osaka Castle, Ando was greeted by a man he refers to in his autobiographies as Corporal K.
”Please wait,” Corporal K said.
Ando waited, uneasily, in the military police station for what seemed like hours. ”At the time,” he writes, ”a military police station was a place where even the devil feared to tread.”
When Corporal K returned, he led Ando into a small room and began interrogating him.
”You're really something,” Corporal K said. ”You commit a crime and try to blame it on someone else. It's you who's been selling the parts on the black market, isn't it?”
Kansai International Airport was only ten years old and everything was clean and new. The terminal was one big, s.h.i.+ny electronic gadget.
I found my suitcase on the carousel and pa.s.sed through customs. I hadn't slept on the plane, but I wasn't tired. On the contrary, I was excited. I was excited to see advertis.e.m.e.nts in j.a.panese and newspapers in j.a.panese. I was excited to read signs in j.a.panese. I was excited to be surrounded by j.a.panese people speaking and sending text messages in j.a.panese on sleek j.a.panese cell phones.
Momof.u.ku: (61 days) I am excited by being surrounded by a lot of very attractive j.a.panese women. I am excited by being surrounded by a lot of very attractive j.a.panese women.
I followed signs to the j.a.pan Railways ticket office, where I reserved a seat on the Haruka Express Line to downtown Osaka. The man who sold me the ticket complimented my j.a.panese. ”Iya, hotondo wasureta kedo,” ”Iya, hotondo wasureta kedo,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face. When someone compliments your j.a.panese, it's polite to wave your hand in front of your face and say that, no, you have forgotten nearly everything. The truth was that I had forgotten many things, but hardly everything. I said, waving my hand in front of my face. When someone compliments your j.a.panese, it's polite to wave your hand in front of your face and say that, no, you have forgotten nearly everything. The truth was that I had forgotten many things, but hardly everything.
To reach the train platform, I had to first step outside the airport terminal. As I approached the exit, two gla.s.s doors parted automatically, and the rush of hot air made me sweat on impact. Osaka was like an oven. Making my way down an escalator, I cursed myself for trying to meet the inventor of instant ramen in July.
On the Haruka Express Line platform, I bought a bottle of C.C. Lemon from a vending machine, recalling how Harue and I used to sing the C.C. Lemon jingle, which was just the thirst quencher's name repeated over and over by a female singer who affected a Katharine Hepburn-like voice tremor. I held the bottle to my forehead to cool off. When the train doors opened for boarding, I rushed onto my a.s.signed, air-conditioned car, and sat in my a.s.signed seat.
The train was another s.h.i.+ny new gadget. Like all trains in j.a.pan, it rode silently, with no shakes or jolts. This one ran on an elevated track, its tinted windows framing the Osaka skyline, which was not unlike the Tokyo skyline. There were apartment buildings and office towers as far as I could see, which was not that far because of the smog. Billboards on the tops of buildings advertised consumer loans and ”capsule hotels”-the ultralow-budget hospitality option in which guests spend the night in stacked fibergla.s.s tubes. (Think coffin, with a television at your feet.) Text of the day's news stories scrolled along an LED display over the train's bathroom. ”Sumo's Asashoryu Apologizes for Drunken Rampage.” ”Hiros.h.i.+ma Officials Receive Suspended Sentences for Embezzlement.” ”Ichiro Extends U.S. Hitting Streak to Eighteen Games.” A young woman in a beige uniform wheeled a snack cart through the aisle. ”Cold oolong tea,” she said in the high-pitched voice of j.a.panese women who sell things. ”Rice b.a.l.l.s. Mandarin oranges.” Finding no takers, she pushed the cart to the end of the car and turned around, bowing to me and my fellow pa.s.sengers. It struck me that only in a country where snack vendors must bow before leaving a train car will you find a television show about two hosts who scream, ”I wanna ___!” (The converse, I surmised, might also be true.) Out the window, I noticed a gra.s.sy park with a baseball diamond. The train was moving so fast that I barely saw it, but before the park whizzed by, I watched a man throw a ball for his dog to fetch in left field. The scene was so familiar, so un-foreign. I imagined that the man knew I was on my way to meet the inventor of instant ramen without an appointment, and that he was telepathically telling me it was a waste of time.
When the doors opened at New Osaka Station, I wheeled my suitcase onto the platform and began to sweat again. From there I rode an escalator down to a sprawling underground mall. I was surrounded by restaurants and clothing boutiques and bakeries and travel agencies, but most of all, sweaty people on their way home from work. The evening rush hour was just beginning.
It was too late to visit Nissin, so my first order of business was finding a place to stay for the night. I walked toward one of the travel agencies, and as I pa.s.sed through a narrow corridor, I felt a stream of cool air hit my sweaty head. Looking up, I saw an air-conditioning vent, and for about ten minutes I stood in that spot. An old man flashed me a look as if to accuse me of hogging all the cold air, and I felt weak and embarra.s.sed.
Sleeping in a capsule was one option, but the travel office helped me find a room at a reasonably priced hotel. It was what the j.a.panese call a ”business” hotel, which I knew from experience meant that, even though I was only five foot ten, I would hit my head on the bathroom ceiling. It would have private rooms and air-conditioning, and according to the listing, it was a twelve-minute walk from the station. Exiting the travel office, I noticed an outlet of Beard Papa's, the j.a.panese cream puff chain that had recently opened stores in New York and California. I bought a pumpkin-flavored one.
Momof.u.ku: (61 days) I'm on my way to a business hotel not far from your Osaka headquarters. I keep pa.s.sing attractive women walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk. As I approach each one, I find myself staring into her eyes, hoping she'll return the gaze. It's as if I'm searching in the eyes of these women for answers, yet I don't know the question. I'm on my way to a business hotel not far from your Osaka headquarters. I keep pa.s.sing attractive women walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk. As I approach each one, I find myself staring into her eyes, hoping she'll return the gaze. It's as if I'm searching in the eyes of these women for answers, yet I don't know the question.
I didn't time exactly how long it took to walk to the hotel, but my guess is that it took exactly twelve minutes. (If something in j.a.pan takes longer than it's supposed to, your watch is probably wrong.) I checked in at the front desk and rode the elevator to my room on the third floor. The room had a twin bed and a desk, on top of which sat a small TV and a phone. I hit my head on the bathroom ceiling.
I wanted to see if I had any e-mail, so I called the front desk and the receptionist directed me to an Internet cafe around the corner. In my in-box, there was a note from the researcher in my magazine's Tokyo office. She and the other office staff often took me out for dinner during my reporting trips, so she knew of my interest in j.a.panese food. ”While you're in Osaka,” she wrote, ”why don't you visit the Gyoza Stadium?” The stadium, she had written, was a food court devoted exclusively to gyoza-j.a.panese pot stickers. I had heard of the Yokohama Ramen Museum, but I didn't know there was a gyoza version.
Momof.u.ku: (61 days) I had the idea to search the America Online member directory for ”Osaka AND gyoza lover.” For a moment I took pleasure in the fact that a day was subtracted from my no-dating period when I crossed the international dateline, but then I realized it would get added back on the way home. I had the idea to search the America Online member directory for ”Osaka AND gyoza lover.” For a moment I took pleasure in the fact that a day was subtracted from my no-dating period when I crossed the international dateline, but then I realized it would get added back on the way home.
The clerk at the Internet cafe was no older than sixteen. I paid him for the fifteen minutes I had used the computer, and he complimented my j.a.panese. I told him that, no, I had forgotten everything. Then I asked what he thought of a ramen place I had noticed across the street.
”Mmm,” he said.
In j.a.pan, mmm mmm does not mean ”yummy.” It means that there might be a problem. does not mean ”yummy.” It means that there might be a problem.
”How did you hear about that place?”
”I saw the sign,” I said. ”It looked high-end.”
The name of the restaurant had been carved in a sh.e.l.lacked tree stump.
The clerk shook his head.
”Mr. Customer, I'm going to be frank with you. The ramen there is not very good. It might be the worst ramen in this neighborhood.”
He recommended instead a restaurant a few blocks away called s.h.i.+sen Ramen.
”Mr. Customer, with ramen it's not always a good idea to be swayed by the sign.”
It took me half an hour to find s.h.i.+sen Ramen because it barely had a sign. The menu at s.h.i.+sen forced me to choose between ”original flavor” broth and ”new flavor” broth, and with nothing to go on, I closed my eyes.
O Momof.u.ku. Show me how to live so that I may better do your will.
I didn't hear an answer, so I chose ”new flavor” on the premise that if the original was so great, why would they have had to make a new one? The soup was a rich, deep brown, and its surface was dotted with orange drops of chili oil. The toppings included chunks of blackened pork, scallions, and a clump of bok choy. I asked the waitress what made the broth so dark and tasty. She relayed my question to the chef, but he was not in the mood to share his recipe. ”There's sesame in it,” he barked. ”And chicken.”
Without a gallbladder, it's sometimes hard to digest fat. Halfway through, I was feeling queasy, so I took a break and skimmed another episode of Ramen Discovery Legend Ramen Discovery Legend. Serizawa, the ramen producer, had been cast as the story's archvillain; he constantly challenged Fujimoto to ramen duels and belittled him as nothing more than a ramen-obsessed fool. But in the episode I read at s.h.i.+sen Ramen, it was becoming apparent that Serizawa also had a good side, and that his harsh approach might have been a way of helping Fujimoto not only achieve da.s.sara da.s.sara, but also find a ramen recipe that was true to himself.
”Compared to other traditional j.a.panese foods,” Serizawa tells Fujimoto, ”ramen has no past. There's no manual, no established theory. That's why you can express yourself through it. That's why it can help you understand yourself.”
A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF MOMOf.u.kU ANDO, PART 6 : TORTURE
To help modern readers appreciate the brutality of j.a.pan's wartime military police department, Ando cites the case of a socialist writer whom the military police allegedly tortured to death in 1933. According to reports quoted by Ando, when the writer's remains were returned to his family, ”his thighs were swollen to twice their normal size as a result of internal bleeding, bruises covered his p.e.n.i.s and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, and there were 15 or 16 places where needles and spikes had been driven into his skin.”
”The violence brought upon me,” Ando writes in Conception of a Fantastic Idea Conception of a Fantastic Idea, ”was no less impressive.”
In the military prison, Ando was beaten daily with a club and kicked in the stomach. He was forced to sit seiza seiza-style with a bamboo pole inserted between his thighs and calves. This resulted in an agony that he describes as ”not of this world.” His cell was so crowded that there was no room to lie on the floor and sleep.
He was convinced that he would soon be dead.
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