Occasional Green Pastures and Quiet Waters

Listen to me recount my recent travels around the Islands of Japan, in the hopes that I may inspire your own journey around those beautiful islands, and dispel the common myth that travelling in Japan is expensive.

On the 14th day of the Eight month, of the year 2013, I left for Haneda via LCCT. I arrived in Haneda at 2330hrs, just 30 minutes before public transport goes out of service. I was told to meet my old friend Nadia at her friend, Pipé's place. I had never met Pipé in my life and I had no idea where exactly he stayed except that he stayed in an area called Tōgoshi. Racing agaisnt time I struggled to make my way to Gotanda station from where I was supposed to be able to transit to a Tōgoshi-Ginza station, which I really hoped was the right station.

From Tōgoshi-Ginza, I scoured the streets for a payphone, and thankfully managed to find one. After a call to Pipé and securing his address, I walked through the very silent town of Tōgoshi. With no lights to illumine my steps, save the soft glow of the humming vending machines, I wandered farther. Along the way, I managed to get directions from a lady who walked with me as far as she could to my destination. People are far friendlier when they find out that you're a foreign tourist who speaks Japanese. Finally, I made it to Pipé's place, with the humidity of the summer air clinging to me like a film of cling-wrap. His air-conditioned abode, small as it was, was a welcome respite.

The next morning, I took a walk around the town to kill time before Nadia was to arrive. Tōgoshi as it turns out, are several small housing areas clustered around what the Japanese call shotengai, or shopping streets. I don't think there are any inns or traveller's lodges to stay around the area, given it's nature. Transport in and out of here by train isn't very worth it either, especially if you're using the JR rail pass as the line here is a private one. Despite that, it is a nice place to stay, with lots of hidden gems to discover.

For one, the park about 15mins walk from Tōgoshi-Koen station is a nice place for photographs and a nice lunch on the bench as you watch the old folk feed the pigeons. Another spot would be a relatively large Jizo shrine, which from the looks of the bleached wooden structure, must be at least a decade old.

After Nadia joined us, we went to meet up with another friend, Nina. Nina was an old friend from my year back at Hachioji High School, who is now studying in Japan. We rendezvoused at Shinagawa station, and walked around, looking for lunch and shade from the blazing summer sun. We ended up in a small Indian restaurant, tucked away in a bar complex. Yes, you heard me right. A bar complex. An entire floor, all bars. Since it was still midday, none of them were open save the Indian eatery and its sister restaurants. Devi Dhaba is manned by two staff, the chef (from Bangalore) and one waiter (from Pakistan).

The food at Devi Dhaba is quite authentic, coming from a Malaysian (though I quite suspect our Indian food here might have altered a little as well). My only gripe is with the price - RM30 for one thosai masala. Then again, with Indian food sharing the same prestige Japanese food does here in Malaysia, it is understandable, but outrageous nonetheless for a guy who has grown up with RM3 thosai masalas.

Later that night, another South American joined us at Pipé's room, which was quickly turning into a lodge. Valentina, or Balen, as we called her, is a student from Chile, as Pipé was. On summer holiday, she was in Tokyo and decided to drop by to visit as she knew both Nadia and Pipé.

Nightfall at Pipé's place is like a traveller's fireside. Home country politics, delicacies, and life stories are exchanged. I was then introduced to a ubiquitous drink called Yerba Maté, a drink made by infusing ground leaves and twigs from the yerba maté plant in a maté (the gourd from which the you drink from), and you slurp it through a metal straw called the bombilla (which I suspect is related to the Malay word for fire brigade, bomba, which is actually the Portuguese name for the straw). It has a mildly bitter taste, unlike that of coffee or tea, and has a lovely fragrance to it. The drink is traditionally shared from the same maté and bombilla. Hehe. I can already think of a few people who would shy from this drink.

Nightfall at Pipé's place. What you see here is our sleeping space.

Yerba Maté, Maté, and bombilla

Let me digress a little here to tell you all about the JR rail pass. This is a rail pass you can only purchase outside Japan, and can be used to ride on all JR modes of transport, ferry included. The fee is quite a hefty sum, RM2000 for 21 days (there are cheaper packages for less days), but I can tell you, if you're moving around a lot, especially by shinkansen, it will be worth it. You can find the agents here. The one I purchased my pass at was the J-Horizon's travel agency office at the Weld, Jalan Raja Chulan.

You exchange the coupon they give you at designated counters in Japan for this, which you flash at the station masters.

Now back to the story.

Several days later, it was Nadia's birthday, and she decided to throw a party. And by throw, she meant pay your own. hahaha. We met up with a group of her classmates and old friends from AFS by the Hachiko statue at Shibuya, and proceeded to a Thai dinner at the Shower Lounge. Up to this point, I am finding it very ironic that I fly 8 hours to Japan only to see food I have left behind. haha.

Half way through dinner, the stage which we could see from the window of our private room started to light up. Turns out this lounge has pole dance performances twice a night. Quite unlike what one would picture pole dancing to be from American media, the Japanese version keeps it quite clean. A little risqué, but no nudity and dirty old men stuffing dollar notes down thongs.

Another interesting cultural phenomenon I managed to obeserve during our dinner at the Shower Lounge was what they call 合コン (gōkon), or better known to us as a group blind date. A group of young men filed in to the lounge and sat on one side of the table. Immediately the girls on our table got really excited, knowing what would conspire. The poor men were left waiting for a good 30-45mins before the girls finally showed up, and even then, 2 guys had to go with out a partner till a good while later when the last two girls came gliding in.

Turns out, there will be a leader on the men's side and on the women's side too. The both of them are usually friends, whilst the rest of the group may or may not know each other. It is the duty of the leaders to keep the atmosphere up for the whole length of the date. Some of girls at our table lamented about how it is never fun to be the leader.

After dinner, the South Americans wanted karaoke, but since most of the group had to leave, a small group of us went. I think I was the only non-South American. Not a fan of large crowds, I have to say I enjoyed the karaoke sessions better.

The next day, I took a trip to Hachioji to meet up with two old classmates. It is quite a pity that since most of them have started working, it is insanely hard to anybody to meet up. Some of them don't even keep in touch with their classmates. Ah well... It's not to say I'm not guilty for not keeping in touch with my high school friends either. One of the friends I met up with works in a sushi restaurant, so that's where we met for lunch. Her boss was at counter duty, so we got served a whole load of interesting dishes on the house, none of which I was allowed to pay for.

More to come...

"I think that groping, raping is definitely unacceptable given that our society protect autonomy of body.

However, I don't think it is fine that women is allowed to dress in whichever way they want at any place. The way a person conduct him/herself has influence over others. It is not ok if a person come into a room screaming. Given that sexual desire is stronger than men than in women, it is natural for a man to stare/have imagination seeing a woman of skimpy clothes. I don't think it is a crime or even something bad. On the other hand, why should a woman have the right to block my sight or stop the wandering of my mind? In this context, what should a woman expect wearing this kind of outfit? Either she is too stupid not seeing the consequences or she is fine with/ like guys fantasizing about her bodies.

Someone might want to cite gender equality, but this is a flawed argument. Gender equality only applies where biological difference is irrelevant. Here biological difference IS relevant.

So I believe it is ok to stare, fantasize or call the woman a slut." - Taken from NUS Confessions.

Reactions to that quote:

Once, there was this pastor visiting this church I used to attend in the early days of my university life. During his sermon, he made this statement: 'Children are sinful too!' At that point, I assumed that everybody there understood and agreed with the pastor. After all, everyone was guilty of rejecting the kingship of a God who had created this world, whether adult or child, and are under judgement for said rebellion; and this rebellion shows itself in many ways, but most of the time, it is about wanting ourselves to be the centre of the universe, whether it is in relationships with God, with other people, or even with the natural world around us. It was later that week, while I was talking to a girl from the same congregation about the sermon, where she told me in a very hurt tone, that she "couldn't believe that children were sinful". At that time I didn't say anything. I had no idea what children were like.

Today, almost four years down the road, with roughly the same amount of working experience with children, I think if I ever get the chance to relive that conversation, I would tell the girl that she obviously had never had to look after children for more than a quarter of an hour. In my three years with children even as young as six months, I have witnessed jealousy, rage, selfishness, self-righteousness, and manipulation. Although undeniably, they do have a great capacity for kind deeds, and the gift of a short memory for grievances, one can hardly say that they are the innocent, chubby angels from above. After all, like they say, we just only get better at hiding it when we grow up.

As I recount my experiences with children over the past three years, I am reminded of this article I read somewhere. Probably on the Gospel Coalition. Regardless, it was about Gospel centred parenting, where children need the Gospel as much as the adults. After all, do we not have a high priest who once was the infant in a manger, and the child at the temple? As much as he identifies with adult struggles with sin, he also identifies with the struggles of children with sin. In realising this, my heart is once again burdened with how I can share the good news of Jesus with these children, and I despair at the shortness of my arm. For how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? Though the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few and overworked.

So, if you are thinking about areas of ministry you would like to help out with, let me encourage you to have children's ministry be one of them. No, it is and has never been limited to women only. In fact, the young boys would benefit lots from having a male figure setting an example. 

My beloved peers, and juniors,

I write this to you as a reminder and as an encouragement, to see what we have lost, to realise how far we have fallen. To then get up, and together, head towards the light.

We as a people, have become foreign to laying out premises, and become strangers to sound arguments based on logic. Having invested so much emotion and energy into our beliefs, we have become overly protective of them, hardening our ears and minds to the joy of sound debate. Instead, we have dismissed debates and arguments as 'divisive', and have secured our fragile beliefs as 'taboo' or 'sensitive'. Any attempt to debate merely crumbles into base mudslinging. We have, with increasing measure, turned in and gazed inwardly at ourselves. In doing so, we have while mouthing sweet phrases such as 'diversity' and 'tolerance', have become monsters of our own making - blind, and unable to see beyond our own bellybutton. We have scorned the efforts of those who have dedicated years of learning to a subject matter, insisting with all insolence that our 'expert' opinions are of the same weight and authority. We all have rejected all authority and sense with clever words like 'who are you to judge me?!', and made ourselves the sole authority and judge over everyone else. Yet we pause not to think of the consequences of having so many authorities, all 'wrong', yet all 'right' at the same time. Dark days are here, where everyone will do what is right in their own sight.

Listen to Sophia. She is crying out in the streets, in the marketplace she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets she cries out, at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

Two incidents have recently caught my eye. The first is the acquittal of a Malaysian national bowler from statutory rape charges on the account of him having a bright future. The second incident, which happened not too long after, is the similar acquittal of a 22 year old school dropout from statutory rape charges, also on the account of his future. Notably, there are differences in the two cases which have to be noted: in the latter case, the sexual act was consensual between both parties, while in the former, the man pleaded guilty.

However, what I found to be most interesting was not the cases themselves, but rather, the reaction towards these cases where offenders walk free from incarceration; and of all the reactions, the ones which strike me most are responses from Christians.

Many Christians were outraged at the fact that these offenders were allowed to walk off with less than a jail sentence, I myself included. What perversion of justice! How unfair to the victim! What was the judge thinking?! And then I realised something - I, of all people, as a Christian, should refrain from such outrage at the walking of such people. For was I not as they were, guilty? My charge was greater than what they were charged with. I was charged with rebellion against the King of Kings, for insubordination, for mutiny - of which I am deserving of death. I had no 'future' to appeal to, and even if I did, it was far from 'bright', but yet the Judge showed me grace in His mercy, and declared me righteous on the basis of his Son's substitutionary atoning death.

My thought is but this: If as Christians, we were shown such clemency, should we not expect such extra-judicial grace in our shadow of a judiciary system? Should we cry in outrage when one we deem to be guilty is pronounced by the judge to be otherwise? Then should we not cry in outrage at our own salvation? Should we not cry because we were not charged with what we deserved?

However, it is important to note that this picture is but an imperfect allegory of salvation. This is but a pale shadow of what true forgiveness is. True justice still demands for a price to be paid - somebody has to be punished for the crime. The Godhead did what no Earthly judge could do for any prosecuted - tear himself, a being who has been in perfect relationship with each other since eternity, apart to pay himself what the prosecuted could not pay. True justice is not lost in mercy, but instead is met together at the cross where Jesus dangled dying.

1. This is a fine example of eisegesis, the reading of one's personal ideas into a text, or in this case, a character. As there are no given explanations on the components of the character, any explanation can be provided by anyone. I could give an explanation which has nothing to do with Biblical narrative: 船 is basically a picture of a big boat with 舟being the body of a ship, while the remainder on the left looks like a superstructure of a boat, giving you an image of a houseboat, quite like the ones you see in Hong Kong harbour. My father provides an alternative to my alternative: the word 沿 means a river bank and therefore 船 would simply be a picture of a boat by the bank. You get the point.
2. There are some cases where the archaic form and the modern form of the character varies too greatly to make such connections. Take for example, the word for flood 洪, which the video puts up as evidence, varies too greatly from it's archaic form seen at 21:06 of the video. To be able to make such conclusions, the breaking down of the character has to be consistently do-able with the archaic form, not just solely with the modern form, since the assumption would be that the archaic form is closer to the Biblical period the video is suggesting.