People I've Met On The Road – Peter

Given the amount of time I spend long-distance cycling, it is hardly surprising that I meet so many interesting people on the road. This is the third in a series of blogs about the more remarkable of those individuals. Enter your e-mail in the 'Subscribe' box on the right and you will be notified of each new blog post.

Tokyo 1984

In 1984, at the age of 26, I travelled to Tokyo, eager to discover what I had heard was a beautiful country and a fascinating culture. I knew it was expensive and that I would need to find work in order to stay. Nearly all the money I had, had been spent on the airfare. I got off the plane at Narita airport with around a hundred pounds and discovered that half of that was needed to take the coach into the city. Fortunately I had an address for a cheap working-men's hostel. When I arrived there I had £40 after currency exchange commission. A dormitory bed in the hostel cost around £8 a night. I felt sure, however, that something would turn up. 

Okubo House

The friendliness of the elderly hostel staff was an immediate boost to my natural sense of optimism. The hostel used to cater for Japanese workmen but more recently had started to take advantage of the foreign backpacker market. I understood very little Japanese and they very little English. The manager, who was affectionately known to western residents as Mosquito San, knew one or two phrases in English. The most memorable of these being "Mosquito drive away!" uttered with cruel intent as he roamed the dormitories in the evenings with a pump-up spray bottle. He was weird, but by no means the strangest person living in Okubo House. Within a day I had encountered quite a motley selection of long-termers who furnished me with invaluable information:

A US Vietnam Vet who told far-fetched stories of living underground and in trees in the Vietnam jungle and who ranted in his sleep. Israeli draft dodgers who knew all the best ways to live on minimal income in Tokyo and how to find temporary work such as in model agencies or film studios. A Russian shot-putter who hid men (or women) in her bed when they climbed in through her window evading curfew, and a timid New Zealand Irish alcoholic who ranted and raved around the house when he got drunk and was eventually barred. But there was one man to beat them all. 

Okubo House - Traditional Japanese Hostel (taken in 1998, now demolished)

Okubo House ran on military order. Mosquito San had clearly served time in the service of his country. There were posters around the place about cleanliness. The fact that these posters were in (comical) English (Rule 1. Never sleep the kwilt no pyjama), indicated that they were aimed at foreigners (since the Japanese are obsessively clean themselves). One was required to attend the communal bath every evening. Mosquito San kept a check. However, he was aided in this task (unsolicited) by a very odd young German. Peter would appear by surprise through a doorway and ask in a most accusing Orwellian voice "Are you clean?" This happened numerous times on a daily basis. New residents were petrified by the experience. Mosquito San and the other staff could never understand what the resulting hilarity was all about. 

Peter Sausage

Myself and a few of my newfound friends were fascinated by Peter. He was a little strange. We had each tried to engage him in conversation at various times and were left with the sense that he was mad. One evening we heard him in the foyer (this was a traditional Japanese building made of a wood frame with paper walls) having received a call on the house phone. 

"Jah, jah this is Peter Wurst."

Peter spoke English but it was not good English and he had a very strong German accent.

"Jah, I am English of course. My parents are English und now I am come here to living in Japan. I am liking to work as English teacher in one school like you language school. Jah, jah, I am having university certificate, naturally. When can I begin?" 

There followed numerous other calls involving laboured conversations of a similar nature. Although most people running these language schools were Japanese, most spoke good enough English to spot that all was not correct with Mr Wurst's English.

"My accent," I heard him say once, "jah, my accent is English of course, but maybe because mein father is von Scotland."

Peter told us he was an honest man seeking to earn an honest day's wage. Clearly his idea of the truth was somewhat different to most and it irked us that he might teach Japanese people to speak English like him. I was even suspicious about Peter's surname. Peter Wurst (Sausage) seemed a little too obvious for a man who told us he had been in Tokyo for two years working as what he termed a "Stick-man." 

"If you want earn big money in Tokyo my friend," he told us, "you need to find work as stick-man. Are you a good stick-man my friend?"

Peter's hand gesture left us in no doubt about what the job of stick-man entailed.

"There are much old women here who like the young western man for boom boom, jah? If you are good stick-man you can make much money. I do this for two years but now I am tired. I can give you phone number for agency, jah?"

He went into great detail about the type of clients one could expect and the nature of their usual requirements. In the interest of international relations and common decency I shall not relate the lurid details here, but suffice it to say that his descriptions were hilarious.

Mad times in Tokyo 1984

Helped by advice from the Israelis, I managed to survive on noodles and All You Can Eat Shakey's Pizza for two weeks until I found a teaching job. But Peter didn't forget about my interest in his previous work. On his nightly visits around the hostel enquiring about personal cleanliness, he would always ask me "did you find some stick-man work my friend?"  

If you would like to read short stories by Mark Swain you can find these on Amazon, Smashwords etc.

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Japanese Hospitality

The Legendary Kindness of The Japanese to Strangers

Today some fellow long-distance cyclists, who are currently travelling through Japan and experiencing this phenomenon, asked on Facebook whether others had experienced similar kindness when travelling by bike. I felt I should reply, since in Japan in particular I have experienced it a great deal.

The Japanese word for foreigners is Gaijin. Literally this means 'outside people'. It has been translated by some as 'aliens', since it sounds rather xenophobic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Japanese love visitors and like to show them great hospitality. They are concerned to give a good impression of their country. They seem to see it as their moral human duty as much as a national tradition. Imagine if everyone in the world was like that!

Back in the early to mid-80's I used to live in Japan as an English teacher. I met my wife there in fact (a fellow TEFL Teacher). Early on, before I met Lorna, my friend Steve and I needed to go to South Korea to renew our visa. We were low on cash so we decided to hitchhike down to Shimonoseki to take the boat. The Japanese didn't know what hitchhiking was back then. It was tough getting lifts but when we did, the people were incredibly kind and helpful - taking us out of their way. It's a long time ago but I suppose it must have been on the second day, a man picked us up and we got into vigorous conversation. He was excited about having this opportunity to talk to young foreigners (we were around 21 and 25). He was going to his brother's wedding, he explained. Later we stopped and he insisted on buying us lunch. He phoned his brother. Re-starting, he then insisted we should join him at his brother's wedding. We were invited, he said. Can you imagine how amazing that was for us? We stayed an extra night and left for Korea the next day wondering what had hit us! This is only one example of the hospitality we encountered on that short trip and one of the many experiences I had living there for two years.

Back to recent times. Fairly near to the end of our big trip, cycling from Ireland to Japan, my son Sam and I found ourselves on Shikoku island at the start of the Golden Week public holiday. I was reminded that during this holiday, hotels, hostels and B&Bs charged a premium and were very over-subscribed. We spent hours riding around the lovely small city of Kochi, looking for accommodation. People tried hard to help but everything was full. Finally, feeling very tired, we went to the tourist office at the central railway station. There we were helped by enthusiastic students doing a holiday job. Against the odds they managed to find us a traditional ryokan (Japanese family run B&B). It was expensive but we felt lucky and extremely relieved. We stayed for two days and were royally treated. Each day we found special Japanese treats left in our room and discovered that all our clothing had been washed and ironed by the old grandmother. By the third day we felt sad to leave. The whole family came out to wave us off. As we left the old grandma handed us a substantial packed lunch each.
"What amazing, kind people," we said as we rode away.

100kms later we stopped by a mountain stream to eat our picnic lunch. Unpacking mine, I found that the money we had paid for our two night's stay had been neatly wrapped and put inside. You don't find hospitality like that every day.

The river where we ate lunch and discovered the money

 One puncture in 10,000miles and it happened in Shikoku

 Kochi Castle. Sam and I were taken places by local people who befriended us

Owner of a bar demonstrates some Japanese dancing. This bar was closed for Golden Week but a friend we met (Kenichi Harada) asked them to open it especially for us - which of course, being Japanese, they did.

To read more about the amazing father and son journey from Ireland to Japan by bicycle, just click on the links in the right-hand margin of this blog. Thanks for reading.