Japanese Summer River

It is still very much summertime here.  It's humid and sultry and the rain kicks up the smell of dirt.  After a day of biking and exploring and doing Tae Kwon Do by the river, I'm ready for a hot bath.

But the wind was quite strong today, and thunderstorms on the way, most likely spin-offs from the typhoons in the south and in Korea.  Several rice paddies have been hacked clean and the dirt under the shortened stalks is dry.  There are many dragonflies by the river and its compatriot streams, and children play in the water, catching the flying mythical monsters with large nets.  Summer is here and summer will go.

I feel like I've arrived in a new land that has taken me back in time by several months.  Returned to me are the hours I spent in front of a computer while the sun rose and set.  I have a whole summer in which to move and explore.

I biked to the hall today and practiced and on the way home my body decided that it would rather not take the proper exit.  So I bike further along the river.  I heard a strange sound come out of the parking garage of the Pachinko parlor.  I looked up and saw a man on the top floor.  He looked down at me on my bike and I looked back at him, and then he smiled and waved as he opened his mouth to continue his vocal warm-ups.  Everyday I am grateful for instances of Japan's beautiful self-expression.

I've been wondering about something that I've started to notice now that I have a bike and ride by baseball fields and rivers and bike paths with children weaving in and out on training wheels.  Rarely do I see parents discipline their children.  How many times has a child meandered in front of my bike and the parent stares back at me in confusion?  Why do I expect them to say something to the child?  Why do I think that they need my eyes to tell them that it's alright?  Children run away from their parents or behind them and quite often I see very young children and have no idea from where their obligatory adult is keeping a watchful eye.  There is so much patience with children and mothers raising their children.  Rarely do children misbehave (I'm actually not sure I've yet to see this) and I can only recall two tantrums, one from being bumped on the head.  It's only in the last two days that I've started to explicitly notice this and perhaps I've been noticing incorrectly.  I'll keep watching and listening.

But I've also wondered what happens to this freedom as one grows up.  Where does the pressure come from to fit in?  Or is the strength of learning by example so strong the it comes from within oneself?  The implicit need to fit in.  I'm not sure what it is.  But I'm curious.

Vocal warm-ups in a Pachinko parlor parking garage, practicing a golf swing outside a shop during slow business hours, practicing saxophone by the river, interrupting my focus in a Tae Kwon Do practice to say hello–these are a small collection of observed blessings of the individuality and polite audacity of the Japanese people.  The way that they take advantage of the open space by the river to open themselves more fully in the summer sun.  It's a side of Japan that I'm happy to see and to hear.  Happy to have the summer hours to play with them a little more.