Fushiki to Beijing - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 42

Chapter Four
Fushiki to Beijing
O UR Russian ferry arrives midmorning in the port of Fushiki, a small town on Japan's west coast. As I step
down off the gangway, the heavy gloom of Russia lifts away at once—like a Cossack cloak. I feel newly at
ease. Freshly bathed in first-world stability.
While on board the ferry, we'd struck up a friendship with a fellow passenger named Satoshi. He's a
Japanese university student coming home after a semester of study in Moscow. Satoshi's headed for Tokyo,
as are we, so we agree to make the trip together.
The Fushiki railway station is so tiny and adorable that it looks like an accessory for a child's model train
set. There are no English-speaking clerks and the ticket window does not accept credit cards. Coincidentally,
Rebecca and I don't speak Japanese and, fresh off the boat and with no ATMs in sight, we have no yen in our
pockets. Our new friend Satoshi volunteers to do the talking for us, booking us all on a commuter line that
connects to a Tokyo-bound bullet train. Satoshi also fronts the three hundred dollars for our tickets, which
he happily lends us without even knowing our last names.
I love this about Japan: the extreme goodwill toward strangers. (Superficially, at least. Foreigners attempt-
ing to assimilate into Japanese society encounter some entrenched and impermeable barriers.) A few years
ago, on the platform of a Tokyo subway station, I felt a tug at my elbow. I looked down to see a little boy
holding out a five-yen coin. I must have dropped it about a hundred yards back. The kid had sprinted the
length of the platform to catch up with me and hand me, essentially, a nickel. Later that same day, I asked
directions from a stranger on a street corner, and the guy—instead of pointing and grunting, which would
have maybe been a best-case scenario in Russia—walked a half mile out of his way with me just to ensure I
wouldn't get lost.
Chatting with us across the aisle as the train rolls out of Fushiki, Satoshi tells us he took the Trans-Siberian
straight from Moscow to Vladivostok without once getting off. That's a continuous week on a train that
doesn't have showers. And he did it all in third-class platskartny , surrounded by the Russian masses. By way
of explanation, he proclaims himself a Russophile, and says he can't wait to get back to Moscow when he
finishes university.
“It's interesting that you like Russia so much,” I say. “Japan and Russia seem so . . . different.”
“I like the chaos,” Satoshi says, grinning mischievously. “Everything in Japan is so ordered. It's too pre-
dictable!”
There may in fact be no more jarring cultural contrast than to travel directly from Russia to Japan. Russia
was blustery, slovenly, and rough around the edges. Japan is reserved, neat, and carefully squared off. Out
the window of our Trans-Siberian trains, the view was all emptiness and vastness, dotted with occasional,
dilapidated outposts of human existence. Looking out the window of our train in Japan, it's all compartment-
alized neighborhoods. Well-tended, fenced gardens. Paved streets with brightly painted lane markers.
During the layover between our train connections, Rebecca finds an ATM so we can pay back Satoshi. We
treat him to a tonkatsu lunch for good measure, at a restaurant around the corner from the station—because
nothing says “thank you” like deep-fried breaded pork. Soon after, the three of us board the bullet train,
which quickly accelerates to a buttery-smooth 140 mph. I fall fast asleep and don't wake up until Tokyo,
where we bid Satoshi a fond farewell.