Like a lot of people in Japan, I seem to spend a lot of time on the train. Of course, for me, it's weekends only, as I'm either off to visit a fellow gaijin AET friend, shopping down in Tochigi-ken's capital of Utsunomiya, partying down in Tokyo or simply sight-seeing (all of which usually involves me getting horribly, horribly lost).
It's difficult to explain why (sheer incompetence), but along with the not knowing where the heck I am, a lot of weird stuff seems to happen around me when I travel by JR (Japan Railway) rail. But, the topic is not 'why weird things happen to me' but rather it's about water sports.
"Wha-? On the train?" I hear you ask incredulously. Yup, but first I have to tell you about the time a traveled down to Mamada (it's a small little podunk of a place in Tochigi-ken, that was home to one of my good friends, one James 'Jimmy Jive' Dalton, formerly of Stoney Creek, Ontario in Canada.
I, as per my norm, was sitting in the non-smoking train car watching people speak without actually opening their mouth or moving their lips (more on this later). I was sitting at the far end of the car taking in the freshness of the air (or rather the freshness of the air, such as it is, when you inadvertently sit beside the washroom), when a tiny old man who must have been 90-years-old if he was four-feet tall (usually a given, but in this case, it was pretty close), ambled into the car and sat directly opposite me.
He squinted at me and then spat on the ground (not the water sports), apparently to reclaim his territory. He then reached into his coat pocket and fumbled around for a few seconds. His gnarled right hand emerged with a pack of Lucky Seven extra-strength smokes. His gnarled left hand pulled out a lighter and flicked his BIC lighting one of the cigarettes.. He inhaled. He exhaled and bathed himself in a haze of blue-grey smoke. He continued to puff away like the little Nihonjin that could until he finished. Then he lit up another.
That was when a young salaryman (that's any person not defined by a major career - journalist, policeman, etc., who earns a salary, and is considered the ideal job for any upstanding young Japanese male) who was sitting to my left leaned forward and in no uncertain terms told the old man to stop smoking in the non-smoking car!
The old man said: "Eh? (Huh?)", looked away and continued to smoke. Mr. Salaryman leaned over a little closer to the old man and spoke with extreme loudness, that if the old boy didn't immediately extinguish the cigarette, he would do it for him.
(Believe it or not, while I couldn't speak enough Japanese to seem intelligent, I was very adept at understanding spoken Japanese! Actually, it works that way for everybody learning a new language).
The old man wiped away some of the salary man's spittle from his eyes (not the water sports. Later. I promise.), he replied: "Eh? Iie (Huh? No... ii-e is pronounced eeee-ya or eee-eh, depedning on where in Japan you are from)." and looked away again.
Now that's when the cannon to the left of me (salary man) grabbed the cannon to the right of me (a fire extinguisher), pulled the green tab and squeezed the trigger.
A white powdery substance exploded all over the old man's cigarette, face, hair, clothes and of course, seat, window and gaijin (me). The entire train car was silent except for that clickety-clack sound, but you know what I mean.
Everyone in that car quickly looked back down into their comic books (later blog), unsure if they had seen what thought they had seen happen here in boringly polite Japan. I took that as my cue to laugh my head off. Mr. Salary Man pipped in, followed by the rest of the car. Even the old man cracked a white-faced toothless grin as he dropped his fire extinguished cigarette. I decided to look at the bigger picture, and thought this young man probably saved the old man from having his lower jaw removed after it becomes riddled with cancer. he may even have saved his life.
Okay. An interesting story, but no water sports yet. Wait. I almost forgot to tell you how the Japanese are probably the world's best ventriloquists. On those occasions when I forget to bring a book on the train and get tired of counting the number of women with knock-knees, I look at faces. I've noticed that people on the train seem to talk without moving any part of their mouth, save their tongue, and I'm unsure about that because they speak with their teeth clamped shut. Their lips are usually spread a few centimetres (an inch) apart. Come to think of it, the only time I've seen the Japanese open their mouth really wide is when they are yawning in my classes or cramming their entire lunch in so they can swallow it whole in one gulp.
Right. On to the water sports. The Japanese, true to form, love to sleep as much as they can - perhaps because of the long hours spent at work, at school or working around the house or farm. They try and grab a few winks whenever they can.
So it's no surprise that when they board a train, they sit back in their seat, drop their head forward and are asleep. I have only known one person who isn't Japanese who can do that, and she'll remain nameless - okay, it's my ex-girlfriend Ashley who still sleeps with me (this is really confusing to me). Anyhow, some of these sleepers bear closer scrutiny - why? - because they drool.
This is the water sports portion of the story, although it's not about my ex-girlfriend because she doesn't drool - she made me say that. Incidentally, five lines later, she is no longer sleeping with me.
Just yesterday (it won't be yesterday by the time you read this. It might be a week, a month or possibly even 19 years ago), but there was a guy beside me who had dropped his head in sleep. (Aha - I see a pattern forming!)
He parted his lips a few centimetres (a real pattern!) and dropped a big goober down onto his paisley tie. It was hilarious! Every time the train hit a bump, which was often due to the clickety-clack (few people seem to care that the bump actually occurs on the 'clickety' section and not the 'clack' section - we just don't feel the bump until the 'clack' sound hits our ears) - now where the heck was I? These annoying segues confuse the heck out of me.
Oh yeah, every time the train hit a bump, he spilled more saliva all over himself. Every bump, a whole new pattern. And, after watching him intently for a while, I noticed that his tie wasn't originally paisley.
Somewhere with a squeegee,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by The Platters: Give a LISTEN and here's a different version from Fred and Ginger CLASSY.
PS: Picture is me wearing a JR (Japan Railway) hat given away for some purpose - make fun of gaijin day or something like that. I'm standing in a junior high school teacher's lounge. It must either be October/November or March/April judging by my sweater and brightness of the day. I'm kidding. How the hell would I know that.
