q) The memory of an elephant.
r) A laughing hyena.
s) The day of the jackal.
t) Goose.
u) Bullheaded.
ν) I was buffaloed.
w) Chickenshit.
x) Cock.
y) Going ape.
z) Brass monkey.
11. Never wear the hotel yukata to a traditional Japanese banquet at a hot-spring resort unless you are: a) a woman, b) wearing tennis shorts underneath, or c) a very small man with short legs. Those things go on for hours.
12. It is unbecoming for a blonde, 5' 7", blue-eyed woman to put hand to mouth and giggle. Don't even consider it.
13. Do not rage at taxi drivers who cannot understand your directions in English. After all, how many New York taxi drivers, or London taxi drivers for that matter, understand English? (Or any Australians?)
14. Do not pull your shirttail out, roll your pants to your knees, wear your suit jacket backwards, and tie your necktie around your head during your performance at a karaoke bar. It can only lead to trouble. Particularly if you're driving home. And most especially if your wife thinks you've been working late at the office. And without exception if you're with your Head Office boss. (But always if you're with the local staff.)
Another Dimension
IT HAD BEEN RAINING—a driving, splashing, windswept torrent of water—for twenty-four hours. Muddy rivers cascaded down the mountain roads, engulfing and threatening to submerge the abandoned automobiles scattered randomly in the newly-formed lakes and ponds of the countryside valleys.
It's the "tail of the typhoon," everyone said comfortably, as if knowing why the heavens had opened in such spectacular fashion was enough to banish concern.
Nevertheless, Max Danger, feeling for all the world as Noah must have felt, surveyed the situation with considerable concern. (He briefly reviewed his experiences of the last week to make certain he had not overlooked a dream or vision involving cubits and shipbuilding.)
Max and thirty-nine of his company stalwarts were bouncing along the mountainside roads of the Izu Peninsula. It was company travel (trouble) time. Perched on the" gaijin seat" in the front of the bus, Max watched the driver negotiate the hairpin curves. Great stretches of the road were under water, thereby blurring the nice little guidelines one considers when navigating in the mountains—ditches and edges of cliffs. In fact, swinging wide on curves created waves of water washing over the edges and onto the tops of tall pine trees growing many meters below. It was truly, and alarmingly, breathtaking.
The driver's head rocked back and forth in an attempt to keep his vision on track with the wipers sweeping across the windshield. Since the windshield was the size of a barn door, the driver nearly left his seat each time the wipers reached the end points in their cycle. Fortunately, he had the steering wheel to hang on to. He had taken off his Mickey Mouse gloves and was gripping the wheel with actual flesh.
The bus hostess had stopped prattling over the intercom at about the same time as the driver doffed his gloves. The relative silence was a blessing, but it also emphasized the drama inherent in the escapade. It did not alleviate Max's feelings of concern to watch her peering intently through the windshield and hear her whisper hidari (left) or migi (right) to the driver as he wheeled the vehicle around blind corners. She was also doing something unusual for bus hostesses. She was sweating.
Max saw the jumble of stalled automobiles at the same time the driver did. Luckily the wipers were in the middle of their cycle. Max's foot jammed imaginary brakes—the driver hit the real ones. The bus slewed sideways, its rear end clipping the boulders at the very edge of the cliff. Sliding and banging in this fashion, the bus entered the lake formed in a hollow in the roadway. It came to a stop against a red Honda submerged to its windows in water. Eight other automobiles were in the lake, and about a dozen people were standing under trees on the "upside" of the cliff watching the action.
(A question was raised in Max's mind regarding the situation, although the question has nothing to do with this story. For the fun of it, let's take a poll. How many readers—raise your hands—think it's better to : a) stand together under trees on the "upside" of the cliff and watch vehicles plow into each other, or b) send someone, or a group of someones, up the road a few meters to the curve, and signal drivers to stop? Remember, those are your vehicles being plowed into.)
In any event, progress ceased. The rain, demonstrating its power, gushed with renewed vehemence. Bubbles of water the size of golf balls bounced from the lake's surface. Serious Hirose, from the mahjong group in the back of the bus, broke the silence. "Why we stop?" he enquired.
Looking back on it now, Max realizes there was never any real danger. One can be stranded far from civilization for days (or months) in other parts of the world, but it's virtually impossible in Japan. Over the next hill or around the next curve there's bound to be a Sony shop or pachinko (pinball) parlor.
It did take about an hour to agree upon a plan of action. The bus was capable of sporadic radio communication with its partner containing the other half of Max's company stalwarts. The second bus had encountered a landslide ten or eleven kilometers back, on the same road Max had just traveled, and the thinking was that each group should fend for itself. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.
No, there was no real danger, but there was extreme discomfort. Max's group disembarked from the bus into knee-deep (or waist-deep, depending upon who it was) water. Twenty-two males and eighteen females began a trek on foot down the mountain to a village rumored to be four or five kilometers away.
The wind was blowing uphill, and the trick was to lean forward enough to keep moving, but not enough to fall on your face. Little gaps in the blowing of the wind did send some of the hikers sprawling, particularly the larger people who had to reduce wind resistance by leaning forward at a more radical angle. Max sprawled once, but a heavy girl from the Accounting Department hit the pavement four times.
No part of anyone's body was dry. It would not have been so bad if it had been warmer, but as the sun set, the temperature dropped to below 10 (Centigrade). Head down, water sloshing around his ankles, more of the stuff blowing against his chest, Max began to shiver. The girl in front of him, who was wearing only a thin blouse and short skirt, was actually turning blue. Colds would be inevitable, but Max was worrying about pneumonia.
The inn at the village, which turned out to be about ten kilometers away, had seven rooms and, to no one's surprise, they were all occupied. Space on the lobby floor was available, however, and the old wooden structure became literally a port in the storm. Long lines immediately formed at each of the two toilets in the facility.
Normally a merry lot, no one in Max's company was having fun. A number of people surrounded Mr. Kitagawa, a former Ministry of Finance official and now a senior advisor to the company, and rubbed his arms and legs. He did not look good. One young secretary, pregnant, was wrapped in spare futons and given hot tea. Even Serious Hirose, a tough little character, was having problems. His shivering rattled the shoji against which he was sitting.
It was nearly as cold in the building as it was outside. Obviously, it was not the cold of mountain peaks in Nepal; it was more like the damp and bone-chilling cold of the west of Scotland. Keeping wet clothing on was unthinkable, taking it off was impossible. It was going to be a long evening.
So now, Gentle Reader, you have a picture of the circumstances. With those circumstances in mind, consider the impact the following had on Max and his little group.
The inn was constructed in the third year of the Meiji era (1870). It partially burned down in 1894, but was rebuilt immediately. Because it was against