LA to Tokyo

I had as pleasant a flight as 10 hours in economy can be, thanks to Singapore Airlines. terrific food and service. As I was sitting at the gate in LAX (which has a surprisingly backward terminal - busses to remote boarding towers - for international flights) a nice Singaporean lady came by with a sigfn offering wheel-chair assistance. I thought, "Why Not? I do look handicapped." So I accepted. They wheeled me right up to the door of the plane, took my coat, carried my handbag to my seat, all before anyone else boarded. They took it upon themselves to arrange the same service in Tokyo, where I was really glad for it.

A diminurtice Japanese girl in a Singapore Airlines uniform appeared behind a wheel chair. Although I must outweigh her three to one, she bravely pushed me up the ramp, including over those little joints that always catch your luggage rollers. And then we were off. I don't know why it is that all international passengers in the world are routed for very long walks before reaching the formalities windows. we went down an elevator, through several doors and corridors, around corners and then up another elevator and around the corner to a VERY LONG HALLWAY, complete with moving sidewalks that we couldn't use because, after all, she was pushing me in a wheelchair. And pretty fast. After about a km or so we took another elevator down and on arou9nd corridors and through doors to the immigration room.

There my three hundred-odd fellow passengers were lined up in the queue as I rode by them to the empty counter for the Crew. The official said "Card-u", which was an entry card that one fills out promising that one is carrying neither firearms nor explosives nor marijuana. I was just beginning to learn of the Japanese Solicitude Toward Guests.

I suppose it true everywhere that people in wheelchairs are treated a mentally as well as physically impaired. Add to this the Japanese Solicitude Toward Guests and the fact that underneath all the exquisite courtesy, they tend more o9r less unconsciously to regard us gaijin as helplessly clumsy and stupid to begin with, and you can imagine the treatment I got. My wheel-chair-pusher carefully dictated everything I was to write on the form. The nice official then stanoed it - as my colleagues waited in the interminable line - and I was wheeled throguh another door into Japan!

By ow it was about 2:00 am LA time and I was feeling a bit dazed. We pressed on (or rather she did) with my wheel-chair to the baggage claim.l there I found that my $5-Tucson-Goodwill suitcase has lost its pull-out handle in the flight. The SA women were3 crestfallen: full of apology, as th9ugh they were personally responsible. the new, older lady explained that I could file a claim, and joine my retinue, pulling my big bag along by the remaining handle. we went to xcustoms, where a masked official asked me the purpose of my visit. I said "tourism" and she waved me through. About one if eight Japanese seem to wear surgical masks in public. Then through the swinging doors to the Outer World.

but first, I had to 1) get a bus ticket for the hour and a half ride to the City, 2) find an ATM, 3) see about a phone card, and 4) go to the bathroom. My attendants dutifully wheeled me to all four destinations before3 depositing me on the curb right in front of the bus-stop, and handing me over to the care of the woman who ran the limousine service's curbside operations. I accomplished the first three tasks easily from my chair, advised and instructed by my attendant. They have a perfect phone deal for me: a FREE cell-phone (you pay through the nose for minutes, but there is no minimum). I needed it only to call Paul once the bus let me off, so I will have the phone with me for emergencies until I get back to Narita, virtually for nothing. A couple of bucks for the first call to Paul. The bathroom scene was kind of funny. there was a handicapped one that was so high-tech that neither I nor my helper could figure it out, so I just went to the normal one next door.

One other nice incident, which could have been a disaster, occurred. the bus pulled away and stopped on down the way at the other terminal stop. there a breathless man got on and handed my my security bag, containing money and passport and Indian Visa, which in my drooling stupor I had either dropped or left on the waiting bench. "O my God!" I said. He smiled and bowed and ran off again. As my KGB interrogator obsewrved in 1971 "This sort of incident is not repeated." No sir!

The ride to Tokyo was interesting and beautiful at night. Paul says he thinks Tokyo is more beautiful at night than in the daytime. Lots of canals and water and lights. No signs of squalor, although there are homeless people. Paul found me easily at the station and took me to my hotel, a short walk from his apartment. It is a tiny two-star place: just right. And CHEAP. ($80/night, which is what I paid in Kansas).

Anyway, I am going to move over to Paul's and share his apt with his Japanese house-sitter who has volunteered to take car of me too, while I am here. I will probably just stay in Tokyo - rent-free- for the whole two weeks and take day-tours to various places. Takashi has already collected a big pile of brochures for me, and he 0promises to show me as much as he can personally. He is a world-traveller himself, speaks excellent English, and has plenty of Japanjese Solicitude for Guests. He is studying accounting and cooking. (I think his travels may have delayed him a bit, career-wise.) Anyway, he has invited me to a cello recital tonight.
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Paul let this morning, but last night was quite an evening. We took a cab to a hotel noted for it's connections in the literary world. there we met Paul's publisher, Seito-san, who gave Paul 1,200,000 yen in cash (about $12k) and bought dinner at the Hotel's superb, gourmet Italaian restaurant for Paul and me and Paul's transactor-colleague, who is the head of the women's program at a famous university for foreigners in Kyoto. The money was Paul's fee for his part in The Project. (The first of an eight-volume set, of which Paul has finished one and will translate two more. The Book is a historical novel set during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. The Project has been noticed by the Japanese version of the New York Times, and Seito-san is very pleased. It is about two brothers - impoverished samurai-class hicks from the country, who modernized japan's entire military at the end of the 19th Century. The author (who has been compared to Tolstoy not so much for literary quality as for the subject matter and scope of his novel is supposed to be very entertaining to read (as also is Tolstoy). he is hugely popular right now, as the new generation is trying to come to terms with Japan's past. He is "both a national and a nationalistic author", says Paul. But not a right-winger.


As Seito-san explained to me, because of the atrocities of World War II (and he mentioned Shanghai and Nanking and the Bataan death-march), most westerners have the impression that this kind of cruelty is typical of Japanese Imperial rule. he facts of history are different, say Seito-san, as the Russo-Japanese War shows. Among other things, the Japanese scrupulously followed the Geneva code in treating Russian prisoners, whom they saved from drowning after their ships were sunk. Most of the prisoners did not want to be repatriated (to further service in the brutal Russian Navy), and they settled in Japan. This author has never before been translated into English, although his eight-volume novel are currently being serialized by the Japanese version of the BBC. Paul and I think that they should be dubbed into English and aired in the States.

Seito-san is a bon vivant and man of the world. He is or has been the representative of all the major university presses in the US and England. He knew Soerset Maugham and Faulkner. He like martinis and plenty of them. He ordered a perfect Montalcino for the main course (I sipped a teaspoon: it was one of the finest wines I have ever tasted - must have cost him a couple of hundred bucks). Dinner was quiet and elegant and relaxed. We shared most of the antipasti, including penne arrabiata, risotto gorgonzola, and prosciutto. My secondi was zuppa di pesce that was less a soup some perfectly cooked fish in a thick sauce.

We talked about literature and film and history and The Project. Not one words of religion or politics, which is unusual for me. It is very hard to tell what a man like Seito-san would make of one, given the refined degree of courtesy. But I did notice him grunting what sounded like approval at some of my remarks about Rashomon.