Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan Read Free

five-year-old son to ride a bicycle. Eschewing training wheels, she simply put him on a bike and pushed him off, down the driveway, where he inevitably flipped over or hit a tree or skidded to a stop on his face. After a few of these lessons, the kid was a wreck: his knees scraped, his elbows bruised. But he kept getting back on and trying again and again, sniffling back the tears as he went. It was all very entertaining, and it provided me with hours of amusement as I sat at my kitchen table, sipping my coffee and charting little Taro’s progress. I applauded his more acrobatic flips. Without fail, every time he set out on another foray, his mother would shout—in the brief moment he was in control—“ Jōzu desu ne!” After which he would crash. Again. And again.
    Whenever someone in Japan compliments my second-language skills with the exclamation “Jōzu desu ne!” I think of little Taro on his bicycle, barely in control and heading for disaster. Keeps me humble.
    Anyhow, I had committed myself to discovering the True Heart of Japan. “William is going to follow the sakura all the way to Hokkaido,” my supervisor would tell people at random, and I would grimace in a manner that might easily be mistaken for a smile. I stalled for three years.
    When I finally did set out to follow the Cherry Blossom Front north, I went armed only with the essentials of Japanese travel: a map, several thick wads of cash, and a decidedly limited arsenal of Japanese, most of which seemed to revolve around drinking or the weather. (“It is very hot today. Let’s have a beer.”)
    Japan is not a small country, no matter what the Japanese themselves may think. The main island of Honshu alone is larger than Great Britain. Were Japan in Europe, it would dominate the continent. Japan is larger than Italy, larger than Norway, larger than Germany. A journey from Cape Sata in the south to Cape Sōya at the north covers three thousand kilometres. In North America this would be a journey from Miami to Montreal—and at roughly the same latitudes.
    So why this persistent image that Japan is a tiny little place? One reason is due to a cartographical optical illusion. On a map, Japan looks small because it is surrounded by the largest nations on earth: China, Russia, Canada, the United States, and Australia. But there is more involved than this. Japan is small because Japan prefers it that way. It supports the image Japan has of itself: the beleaguered underdog, small but mighty, the little engine that could. If you tell the average Japanese person that their country has a larger population base and a far bigger land mass than that of Great Britain, they will either resent it or refuse to believe you.
    Oddly enough, despite their conviction that they live in a small country, my Japanese friends also thought of northern Japan as being hopelessly remote. For them, the island of Hokkaido was a world away, and when we discussed my travel plans they were not terribly optimistic about my odds. “It is very far,” they warned. “Very far.”
    To make matters worse, I decided to go by thumb. Striking a heroic stance, I declared my intention to become the first person ever to hitchhike the length of Japan, end-to-end, cape-to-cape, sea-to-sea. This did not impress my Japanese friends as much as I had hoped.
    “Why would you want to do that?” they asked, genuinely puzzled. “There is no reason to hitchhike. That’s why we built the Bullet Train.”
    Others worried about my safety. “But,” I would argue, “Japan is a very safe country, is it not?”
    “Oh, yes. Very safe. Safest in the world.”
    “So why shouldn’t I hitchhike?”
    “Because Japan is dangerous.”
    And so on.
    Now, I will admit that mooching rides across Japan is not a major achievement—I mean, it’s not like I paddled up the Amazon or discovered insulin or anything—but I am the first person ever to do this, so allow me my hubris.
    When I left my home in Minamata City