Sanrizuka Trip

Hardly any voice left today, far too much singing yesterday eh? Lucky that you don't need to talk much to eat nut roast. And now I have to get those darn carol tunes out of my head, no sooner does Christmas arrive than it has gone, once you actually get to the day then in truth the 'big production' is over already. What you think of as 'preparation for Christmas' is in fact Christmas. In England the bad tempered over-tired and slightly bored experience of Boxing Day strings it all out a bit but in Japan they have never even heard of Boxing Day. It is just another day at the office along with the 25th.

So yesterday was our 'big day out' up at Sanrizuka. In the end seven of us went over from this patch of leafy Chiba-ken. I was curious to see the place, I've through it loads of times but never ventured off the Prefectural highway before. This area is rather 'famous' in Japan as the site of legendary and massive pitched battles. Not between warring samurai though it might as well have been. The battles of Sanrizuka took place between armies of protesters and police during the late sixties and early seventies as the government tried to build Narita Airport and pretty well everyone else said "over our dead bodies". This was seriously contested territory, and Narita is still one of the world's most closely guarded airports twenty five years on, 'officialdom' remains nervous about the place being invaded by protesters. If you thought that we were only ever polite in this part of the world you can read all about that fierce struggle in "Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan" by David Apter and Nagayo Suwa.

Well I was a bit surprised that either police or protesters ever found the place let alone fought over it. Even armed with the best city maps we circled around searching for the Santa Anna Nursing Home for so long that we were twenty minutes late which left only minutes to get our coats off and we were 'on' with no warm up at all. A gruelling hour of Yuletide fun at 10:00 am without a cup of coffee first is not my idea of "My Perfect Morning" but there you go, it was no worse than the old 'Glasgow Empire' was reputed to be and we made it through to an early picnic lunch at eleven. Then everyone just 'chilled out' until our main session at two which was in the big lounge on the top floor with a wonderful panoramic view of the jets taking off a mile away. Up there we had at least a hundred residents and very lively too, not just our usual run of a dozen carols to work through but also a big pile of 'oldie' songs of the kind you learn in school and remember all your life. Extra singers appeared out of the woodwork and we did a brisk trade for more than an hour.

Something very odd about this day for me, I'm still thinking about it. Out of the window and over the tops of the nearby cedar trees a clear view of the very first Japan I ever knew. Concrete runways and arrival lounges that I first encountered twelve years ago and are now such a familiar part of my existence. And then inside an aspect of Japan that I haven't seen much of yet but in another twenty or twenty five years might become a very familiar part of my life too. I've always been a bit afraid of growing old here but there is no reason to be.

Happy Christmas to all regular readers.