The Inland Sea by Donald Richie

Author:Donald Richie [Richie, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Travel, Asia, History, General, Richie, Japan, Japanese islands, armchair travel, central Japan, Pico Iyer, Inland Sea
ISBN: 9781880656693
Google: iNllU90c2R8C
Amazon: 1880656698
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Published: 2002-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

•••••

MORNING IN TOMO—a light rain, almost a mist, gradually resolves itself into vertical lines of heavy rain. Then the rain is caught by the sea wind, scattered, and once again dissolved into mist.

The eaves drip. Rain runs down the panes. Drops trickle along the spines of the potted palms outside the window or catch in the needles of the cacti. Over the sound of the rain, the putt-putt sound of distant boats, the cry of kites circling, wet and invisible, overhead.

I sit in a small, rustic teashop built out over the channel. In the front there is a display of Japanese bean-pastries, which are served in the rear along with cups of hot, steaming green tea. Not liking the sweet and sickly pastries, I order their principal ingredient, red beans, served hot in their own syrup—a dish called shiruko. It too is sweet and sickly but is, at least, not made in the marchpane shapes of little apples, clusters of cherry blossoms, and the like.

I sit and nibble at the stuff, sweet and insipid at the same time, and feel sorry for myself—alone and lonely, miles away from friends, eating shiruko on a wet, dead day, lost somewhere in the wilds of a land that preeminently knows how to make one feel alone. Reluctantly, I eat the last of the red beans—because there seems nothing else to do.

The young waitress, plain and neat in a blue skirt and a white apron, has been watching me. Now she approaches, excuses herself, deftly removes the empty bowl, bows, and moves away. Soon she reappears, fills my teacup neatly, brings a new ashtray, removes the used one. She does all of this, as do most Japanese waitresses, decorously, with discretion and with care. Then she disappears and comes back with another bowl of steaming shiruko. She allows herself a smile as she puts it in front of me, turns and says, charmingly, “Okawari desu”—another helping.

She had observed me, had perhaps misunderstood my reluctance to finish as a wish to savor. Now she was giving me, free, another helping because I had seemed to like it and because it was theirs.

The Japanese concept of service is doing something nice for someone, and doing it as though for its own sake. This girl expects nothing because one need not tip in Japan. Even my future patronage is not to be considered, for the likelihood of my ever returning is very slight, sitting as I am with my belongings, waiting for a boat. And no one obliges her to behave in such a pleasant fashion. She does it because it is the proper way of doing it. And it is. It is the only way to serve and not demean either yourself or your customer.

Mouthing my second bowl of shiruko, this time even sweeter-tasting, sweet enough to make the teeth ache, and trying to look as though I were enjoying it, as though it was just what I wanted, I look out the window:

The tiny offshore island, made of gray-brown stone, humped like a whale, slowly turning black in the rain.

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