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Twas The Week After Christmas
Tuesday 29th December 1998
Edelweiss | Beds are
bad for you | Beethoven's Ode to Fibre
| Happy Soup | Japlish
No sooner than has the foul taste of Tokyo Tales 24 disappeared
from your mouth, what should come sneaking along to replace it?
That's right! A bloody big vodka, to help you forget about pool
halls that Fred Flintstone would feel at home in and rucksacks
that would have you believe that observing the start of winter
is in some way akin to owning a knapsack.
But instead, what do you get in your inbox? Of course, Tokyo
Tales 25! Guaranteed maybe about as uninteresting as all the others!
(Yes, even the last one...)
Edelweiss
So the holiday we ended up going on was to the same ski resort
in the "Japanese Alps" (because they're like the Alps okay? You
know, kind of pointy and with snow on top. But in Japan. Obvious,
really) as where they held a lot of the skiing events at last
February's Nagano Winter Olympics. I fear we may have freaked
out the staff somehow...
The hotel was imitation Swiss. What this actually means is that
the bar was called "Edelweiss" and all the female staff wore strange
alpine milk-maid costumes, with the lacing up the front and all
that. Being waited on by teams of flat-chested, bronze-skinned,
Asian Heidis - I didn't think it was going to get any stranger,
to be honest.
The Japanese, when on holiday, like to be told what to do. The
idea that you might just "go" somewhere, and potter about taking
the odd photo, seeing what there was in the way of entertainment,
skiing for a day or two if you could be bothered is, to them,
unheard of. Instead they expect to be woken up by a phone call
or tannoy system, and told to have breakfast. Now. We asked when
breakfast was. The guy said 7:30. We asked when it was *until*.
Don't worry, he replied, smiling slightly; we'll call you. Oh.
I see. Very reassuring.
Sure enough, 7:28am, the phone goes. "Resutoran desu..." (this
is your jailer calling...). Hmmm. So we go back to bed after breakfast.
Until we get telephoned again at 10:05 to be told that the maids
would like to clean our room. Could they do it later? We're going
out at 10:30. They definitely weren't sure about this. It had
never been done before, you see. Then there was the time when,
even before it got to 10:00, they announced over the tannoy, rather
than even knocking on our door, that they were waiting for us
to vacate our room. Just itching to replace our towels and make
the beds. I could tell they were hungry for it from the crazed
look in the chambermaid's eyes.
It must be said that the food was delicious if decidedly French
(i.e. undercooked). Dinner was 4 or 5 courses, plus coffee, every
night. And there was a LOT of fish. Surprising, considering how
land-locked Switzerland is, I thought, Oh, and I hadn't realised
that the Swiss ate rice with everything. Like steak. And lamb.
And breakfast. It occurred to me that they probably thought we
Europeans ate like this the whole time back home in Watford, as
I stared at the miniscule yet beautifully arranged haute cuisine
displayed in front of me. With rice.
We were there for 5 days, probably the longest staying guests
since the Finnish ski team back in February. We didn't notice
any other guests who were there for anything more than two nights.
You arrive. You are told to have dinner. You go to bed. You are
told to have breakfast. You ski all day. You are told to have
dinner. You go to bed. You do it again. You go home. Holiday over.
The guy asked me if I'd be needing my rented snowboard gear for
a second day. My girlfriend hadn't arrived back yet from her skiing,
so I told him I'd have to ask her first, and could I tell him
later? Later? he asked? Yes, I explained, just before dinner,
probably. I could see the sweat beginning to form on his brow...
I mean, they were unfailingly polite, and the level of service
was attentive bordering on call-the-police-I-am-being-stalked,
but it just struck me how regimented everything was. Apparently
it's the same when they go abroad. 5 days in the same place? Madness,
you could fit in at least three countries in that time. One of
my students did France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg in five
days, including arriving on the first morning and leaving on the
last evening.
I was shocked when one of the receptionists where I work told
me she was taking ten days to holiday in the United Kingdom. Excellent,
I said. So what are you going to do, spend a week in London, a
couple of days in Edinburgh, or maybe Bath? No, she replied, a
day in London, fly to Edinburgh, one day there, then a day in
Aberdeen, then back down through Glasgow, half a day in Chester,
then by coach to Bath, a day there, a day in Stratford-upon Avon,
stop in on Oxford for a night, then Brighton the next day, then
back to Heathrow....
Beds and why they are BAD for you.
I like futons, and all that, but I must say I was really looking
forward to spending the night in a bed for the first time in literally
months. The hotel beds had lovely soft yet firm matresses, and
sheets all tucked in..... heaven. Until I woke up the next morning
with what felt like a dislocated shoulder. Just out of practice,
I thought. I was nearly sleeping okay by the fourth night, but
waking up to discover the ceiling unnaturally-close was still
causing more than a few early-morning panics. You're safer on
the floor, I've since decided.
Beethoven's 9th Symphony - "Ode to Fibre"
What bodily function is the staple of physical comedy? Answers
on a postcard to Lesley Neilsen, please. That's right - the fart.
You fart, you get all embarrassed, you pardon yourself if it's
audible, you cross your fingers if it's silent. Certainly you
hope no-one notices. Farts, and indeed rafts, which is what I
originally typed there, are not to be celebrated. No. Not unless,
that is, you are on Japanese TV. Or win a really nice white water
dinghy in a raffle.
So these two guys, right, possibly a highly successful comedy
duo in their own right, right, maybe the Newman and Baddiel of
NHK (but more likely the Trev and Simon) are standing around explaining
something. One is holding a 12-inch directional mike. The other
is wearing a dressing gown. A graphic comes up on screen, a stave
of music with 5 ascending notes and one much lower. It is no recognisable
tune. Now you might be wondering, "Eee? Nan da yo?" (lit. "eh?
this is what? I ask you") but a veteran Japanese wide-show watcher
such as myself immediately jumps to a conclusion, and that conclusion
is: bodily functions. Noisy ones. Are we there yet? Good.
So this guy in the gown sits down and starts eating sweet potatoes
(fibre anyone?) and bananas (more fibre anyone?) and drinking
coca-cola (gas, anyone?), watched all the time by his mate. Captions
tell us that half an hour has passed. Suddenly, he looks up! "kuru!"
("it comes"). His friend springs into action, grabs the mike,
and crouches down behind his gown-wearing associate, pointing
said microphone directly at the guy's brain - i.e. his arse. Gown
man bends over and lifts his shirt-tail up to provide an uninterrupted
"path", and then farts.
After all that, it's really a rather sorry little parp of a
discharge, and gown man looks suitably embarrassed whilst mike
man wafts away what must presumably be the smell of fermented
sweet potato, banana and everybody's favourite carbonated vegetable
extract drink. Then, they reveal that they have a professional
musician in one corner of the room with a headset and keyboard.
After some careful judgement, he pronounces himself happy that
the fart was indeed one of the notes on the graphic. I quote:
"Ja, sore wa 'fa', desu ne."
trans: "Well, that one was 'fa', I think, wasn't it?"
The pair seem very happy with this, and a voiceover says something
else as they celebrate a little. Bless them and their digestive
tracts. The voiceover is for some reason backed by a rendition
of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the one that goes "Dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum Du dum dum dum Dumm du Dumm..." Hmmm. Can't work
out why. I mean, that doesn't seem to correspond to the graphic.
I keep watching.
He eats. Occasionally he farts. Each time he cries a warning,
and fake klaxxons sound as they both scramble into position, one
with his protruding arse, one staring intently at it with a mike
and headset. The klaxxons end just in time for the fart, when
it comes, to be amusingly bathetic. I am actually quite enjoying
it by now. My girlfriend asks me to switch over. I keep watching.
Each time, their musical expert removes his headphones and informs
them that they've hit another one ("Sore wa 'so', ne?"). Once
he actually asks him to try to clench more so they can get the
higher notes. He tries relaxing in different positions, and doing
stretching exercises - I have to keep watching.
After a couple of hours of eating and drinking, they stick gown
man under a kotatsu (a cross between a low table and a duvet,
with a bar heater under it, to keep your legs warm) with a bunch
of porn (seriously) to get him to "riilakkusu", or "relax". He
feels the last one coming. Get your arse out from under the table,
then, says microphone man. No no, says gownboy, if I move it,
I'll lose it. Come and get it. So, mikeman crawls, with his sound
gear, head-first under the kotatsu. And gets farted on.
You can tell he's not that impressed. But the final note is
the one they wanted, and so, after much celebration, they reveal
their magnum opus (or should that be anus?) - having captured
all the relevant notes, they sequence the farts together with
a bit of TV jiggery-pokery to produce, yes that's right, the first
eight bars of Beethoven's 9th. Farted. With the accompanying TV
footage. Post-burial rotation, anyone?
So what's next week? Ravel's Bolero, synthesized from the sound
of a man throwing up? I'll keep you informed, don't worry.
Why you should buy this soup
There's a TV advert for a brand of soup, with Ryoko Hirosue,
one of my favourite "tarento", or "talents", so called because
they don't have any. The tagline struck me as rather beautifully
zen in its simplicity:
"Happii wa, suupu kara"
lit.:"As for 'Happy', it's because of soup."
You see? Forget spiritual enlightenment, or drugs, or any of
that crap - you want soup, mate. And not just any soup. You want
*this* soup. Yeah.
Japlish du Jour
(from the same series of rucksacks as last time)
Little wonders are gone in a flash,
like squirrels. Put your found
treasures in your rucksack.
(What? A low-slung rucksack has practical value, as well as
just making the small of your back look more fashionable? I refuse
to believe it.)
That was rather longer than I intended. I got carried away with
the farting, I think. I'm going to lie down now. Goodbye.
Chris
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