the place in what I live and stuff
I saw Chinese whores today! In my local supermarket! Of course, I’m jumping to conclusions here as it wasn’t like they were holding a banner proclaiming their whoreness or anything (and, in general, I tend to label most women who I don’t know by name as “whores” anyway), but I’m assuming they were Chinese whores stemming from the fact that:
a) they were dressed head to toe in some kind of golden chain-mail type material, the likes of which only a true lady of the night can wear with a straight face.
b) they were speaking Mandarin, which incidentally is a language made up entirely of “sher” “sha” and “shing”. Try it some time - just repeat those three words over and over again in a variety of different patterns. To the western ear it will probably sound like absolute nonsense, but I bet you’ll be making perfect sense in Mandarin.
c) they were in the local supermarket. This meant that they were from the local area and if there is one thing I know for sure its that this sleepy agricultural town isn’t some kind of hotbed of international business activity and that the only foreigners other than me and the 2 other JETs, are the Filipino and Mainland Chinese snack bar hostesses (ok ok not “whores” per se) - and legend speaks of a mythical group of Russian women who are also in this area for the same purpose, although I have never seen them. Perhaps this calls for some kind of comprehensive review of all the seedy snack bars in this area. I shall make it so.
ANYWAY it occurred to me recently that, in the 2 years I have been doing this diary, I have never really introduced the place where I live. I guess at first that was the result of some kind of paranoid safety precaution KEEP INTARWEB FREAKS AWAY BACK BACK YE DEVILS but as my understanding of the world has broadened and my faith in the sanity of my readers has increased, I have become decidedly less afraid of one of you guys turning up at my door and stabbing an axe into my face screaming “I’M ONLY DOING IT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU” as a result of me stating where I live in Japan.
So here we go - all there is to know about Asagiri Town, in southern Kumamoto Prefecture.
Initially when I started writing this article I rubbed my hands together in a sinister fashion and muttered racial slurs under my breath as I set about verbally defacing the town in as many ways possible, from talking about the rubbish location (roughly the mathematical centre of nowhere) to the lack of any kind of night time entertainment (oh ok we have a karaoke club and I guess failing that I could always walk into town, strip naked and start humping lampposts whilst making my “OH” face to bide the time) BUT. But. Just like at the end of the He-Man Christmas Special where Skeletor, an inherently evil character, “feels the Christmas spirit” and ends up saving the children, I too began to see the better side of this place, as I thought more and more about it.
So I decided to write about the good things. Then I realised that there actually aren’t any! No no just kidding, but really, I could keep this joke going round in circles for days. I kill me. Anyway yes, so what follows is a decidedly positive, yet non-sugar-coated review of my town here in Japan.
Asagiri means “Morning Mist” which is basically a poetic way of saying that we have cack weather and loads of traffic accidents. Asagiri is actually a new town that has been born out of a recent amalgamation of a few other, smaller villages - something that is becoming more common in Japan as time goes on. Asagiri town is not completely atypical of the sort of small towns you will find dotted about all over Japan. In Japan you can drive down a road and pass through a dozen towns and never at one point notice where one town ends and another begins. This is because all Japanese towns are exactly the same. The reason for this? Quite simply, Japan has too many towns.
For example, where I am from in the UK, if we take a random sample of say, 20 square miles of land, you might find 2 or 3 separate towns. In the same size sample in Japan, you will find seven hundred tiny little towns all crammed into that small area, each trying desperately to maintain individuality over the others by having some kind of slightly different red-bean-based local sweet compared to the one from the village to the left.
The reason we are having these amalgamations in Japan is largely because of this abundance of little towns and villages. I believe the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi and the finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki had a conversation along the lines of the following, at some point:
Tanigaki: Mr Koizumi, I believe we are going to be shafted in the future. Koizumi: Tan-chan, how many times have I told you - refer to me as “Your Excellency” Tanigaki: Sorry, sorry. Anyway, yeah, we are spending way too much on local governments. I think we should start making all those little tiny villages and towns merge together into new, larger towns. Koizumi: Go on. Tanigaki: Because fewer administrative entities means we can spend less money. Koizumi: Go on. Tanigaki: - because spending less money in this area is ultimately one of our fiscal goals. Koizumi: Go on. Tanigaki: And- achieving our goals is- good? Your Excellency are you listening to me at all? Koizumi: Go on. Tanigaki: This is bullshit.
Anyway, back to the topic. Asagiri town. What is there? Well, being an amalgamated town it benefits from the- rich- background of 5 separate villages, so in keeping with that theme, I’ll talk about the attractions of the town in their separate areas:
Menda Higashi
This is where all the action is. I say “action” but think of “action” in terms of a low budget end-of-career Steven Seagal film, on horse sedatives, and you might be halfway there. Despite this, Menda is the venue whenever the Asagiri JETs (that’s 3 of us) decide to, for whatever ghastly reason, have a night out on the town in Asagiri. Menda sits right on top of the main road, route 219, which cuts through the entire Hitoyoshi-Kuma region of southern Kumamoto, explaining why it is the most built up area in Asagiri. Menda is home to this - by no means exhaustive - list of tantalising places to visit:
Asagiri Hanten - right across from the Sun Road supermarket, this Chinese restaurant serves surprisingly good Chinese food, that gives even restaurants in Kumamoto city a run for their money. A much loved venue. That probably does a side business in whores.
Dai San Gen - now that I think about it, I’m not really sure if this gyoza restaurant is in Menda, or the next town along (which is not part of Asagiri), such is the total lack of any kind of sign indicating you have indeed crossed a town border. Well, for the purposes of this article, it’s in Asagiri. Dai San Gen is the kind of place you would drive past in your car without even noticing. From the outside it looks like just a regular, nondescript run-down ramen joint, continuing the popular “3rd world soup kitchen” look that many of them maintain with a kind of horrifying precision. But INSIDE, you will find easily the BEST gyoza in the Hitoyoshi-Kuma region (the ramen however, is average) and certainly among the best gyoza I have had in Japan.
Okaharu Kita Okaharu is the part of Asagiri town in which I live. It is also among the smallest of the 5 villages that formed to create the town.
Okaharu Fureai Center - perhaps the only place really worth mentioning in Okaharu is this very new community center which houses the newest (and one of only 2) onsen in Asagiri. Unfortunately, as far as onsens go, it is a pretty standard tiled-bath affair, with no outside rotenburo. That said, it is a boon for the residents of Asagiri who now have an impressive 100% more choice in which onsen to visit in Asagiri.
Ue Kita Among the most important details about Ue is the fact that the JET who lives there is Mr Brett Herrick, a man who stands so tall and large over the children that it is widely believed by the younger generations that he is in fact Totoro and that his very presence encourages the growth of plants and trees. Brett, often found wading through offerings of bushes and saplings left by his doorstep, is in fact just a regular human being just like you and me. I talked to Brett about what I should write in regard to attractions in Ue and he simply laughed at me and slapped me in the face. Unperturbed, I “discovered” that Ue is home to:
Biwa Park - a park at the foot of a mountain complete with camp grounds and adventure playground for the kids. I think I had a BBQ here once. Yep.
Mount Shiragadake - I typed “shiragadake” into Google and almost unbelievably, it turned up a few relevant links. That means that this mountain is actually slightly more well known than I had previously given it credit for. The peak of Shiragadake is the highest point in the Kuma-Hitoyoshi area, standing at around 1417m and I am reliably informed that there is some kind of magical fruit at the top, giving everlasting life to anyone who eats it. Ok not really, but there is an impressive view from the top, which one would expect really, it being the top of a mountain and all. So yeah, visit Shiragadake - its really great- spoken with all the authority of a guy who has never, EVER been there.
Fukada Poor, poor Fukada. There is nothing here. No wait, I think I saw something! No no, it was just a car going past.
Sue Sue and Fukada are, I believe, tied for the title of “smallest village in the world, EVERRRRR” hence Sue, like Fukada, doesn’t really have a lot to offer. But wait!
Sue Bunka Hall - the world’s best accountants are still trying to figure out how on earth this all happened. Sue, a tiny farming village with a teeming population of around 1500 people, is somewhat inexplicably home to what is essentially a rather modern, medium-sized concert hall. Christ himself only knows where they got the money to build such a thing, but it is there in all its glory, used for all manner of cultural and musical events, bringing in performers from across Japan. It’s a boon for the Junior High School (and myself, who has performed with my violin on the stage - oooh look at Mr Boasty with his violin), who get to use the hall whenever they wish, which means that the Sue JHS bunkasai (cultural festival) are among the most polished and professional I have seen in the 2 years I have lived in Asagiri.
So in a nutshell, that is Asagiri Town. A festering, stagnant pond of mediocrity? Maybe - if you only look at it on the surface. But, to extend the metaphor further than I should, submerge your head under the water and open your eyes. Whilst the free-floating dirt and tiny, flesh-eating plankton might sting your eyes for a few seconds, after a while your vision might clear to reveal some kind of beautiful underwater palace, all made out of coral or crystal or something. Because you see, after living here for 2 years, now going into my 3rd, I still find new things to see, new restaurants to eat in, new snack bars with exciting, new hostesses from a different, impoverished 3rd world country to the ones from the other snack bar down the road, maybe a new rice field that looks slightly greener than the one outside my house, a new bento at the hokka hokka tei, a new road sign and so on. Yes, my life is wonderfully rich. And I owe it all to this beer I have in my hand right now. God Bless you, Asahi Super Dry. And God Bless Asagiri Town. The Greatest Town on the face of the earth. EVAR.
