The boars will think twice next time

The handwritten signs, tacked to telephone poles, community buildings, and our one bus stop, were posted on Thursday morning.

MEETING ON FRIDAY, 6PM

Re the Boars

The boars? I looked twice to make sure I was reading the kanji right.

We indeed have a population of wild boars here in Frog’s Glen--they live up in the hills and only descend to our village on 2 am vandalizing runs that are less about busting things up and more about finding scraps to eat.

I wondered what had the boars done now?

I told Toru that I’d join the conclave. “Could be a hoot. And it shows you and I are participating here.” He rolled his eyes and said fine do what you want.

“I’m sure there will be snacks,” I said. Meetings in Japan always have snacks.

So on Friday evening I strolled over to the Community Gathering House, a kind of balsa-and-tin-and-plastic shack our part of the Glen uses for important pow wows.

The farmers nodded perplexed hellos when I entered. As if to say to them why wouldn’t I be here, I planted my butt with purpose on the large tatami around a low, wide table filled with beers and sake, as well as chips, fried noodles, dried squid, and other snacks.

Toriyama-san, a corpulent and oddly pink-face farmer, opened. I figured he was the one who called for the meet.

He wheezes a bit and speaks in a slightly high pitch. “Thank you, everyone, for taking the time. Please help yourself to some drinks and snacks.” He motioned toward the table and 25 pairs of hands shot out to grab plastic-wrapped snacks and cold beer cans en masse.

The sound of unwrapping rice crackers and psssssh’ing Asahi Dry cans was almost deafening.

“As you all know, four of us here had our fields vandalized by the boars this past Monday evening.”

I made a “Mmmm” noise. (This is what you do in Japanese…a lot.)

Toriyama-san continued. “Although it’s winter and the fields are fallow, the damage will have to be fixed. The pigs really tore stuff up. They were rooting around for earthworms best we can tell.”

I realized that Toriyama-san was joined at the head of the table by the other three farmers who also had their fields damaged by the hairy marauders. Morimoto, Hirose, and Tanaka nodded and Mmmm’ed to each statement Toriyama-san made. This was a meeting called by the four to ask the rest of us for something…maybe for an approval of some sort?

The room was filled with the sounds of munching, crunching, and noodle slurping. But the four farmers addressing us waited to dig in themselves. They were still in presentation mode.

Tanaka-san, who I’m a big fan of because he always pauses his field work to nod or bow hello when I walk by, spoke next. “The boars of course aren’t going to pay for the damage.”

Lots of Mmmms around the room.

“And because our electric fences weren’t turned on, the cooperative JA’s insurance won’t pay either. Us four will need to bear these costs.”

“And that’s fine,” Toriyama-san jumped back in. “We will.”

Toriyama-san then explained that while no one in the valley is a licensed hunter, he knew a few cousins and friends of cousins who could (with the right paperwork filed with the prefecture) be hired to do “some culling.”

Ah now I knew where this was going. The four farmers would pay to restore the condition of their fields, but would ask us as a village to pony up for some pig hunting…for…retribution?

I kept quiet. I played with a piece of dried squid just under the table and sipped some local sake. It would be fascinating to see where this conversation headed.

Sayama-san, a pistol of an almost witchy woman who lives alone just past the village’s first stands of bamboo, and who we all know never minces words, raised her hand.

“Oh this will be good,” I thought.

“Toriyama-san, you never change.” She gave a snort. “Since the third grade you have always been the blusterer--and it never stops. Always with the guns and the gutting and the cages. And the ‘we’ll make them pigs think twice next time’ stuff. We all know you just want some free stew.”

The room laughed.

Foreigners like to say how non-confrontational Japanese are. And in the big cities that may be true. (The lengths urban Japanese will go to smile and embrace as they silently shiv you from behind is legendary.) But in these parts--a mere 90 minutes from the big city--no time or energy is wasted on pleasantries.

Frog’s Glen’ers say what they mean. And Sayama-san was not only saying Toriyama-san is a hungry butter ball, but that he is the same little punk she has known since grade school.

Toriyama-san smiled. Yet there was a glint of coming-right-back-at-you in his eye. “And now, Sayama-san, I suppose you will for the thousandth time bring up your science project which I pushed off the table in Mr. Gotoh’s science class. Never felt better I have to say. When that stupid volcano you built hit the tile floor.”

Morimoto-san, one of the other farmers at the head of the table, held up his hand. “Now, now. Everyone, let’s get back--”

But Sayama-san straightened up. Munching and slurping in the room grew to a crescendo. This was turning into a verbal cage fight.

“Yes, let’s get back to the real subject at hand,” she said. “Toriyama-san and his friends forgot to turn on their electric fences and now hope we can all chip in to hire some Toriyama family members for a meaningless shooting party. None of us should be concerned, it will only cost each of us oh I don’t know maybe 5,000 yen each to fix a non-problem that wouldn’t have happened if they had some sense as farmers.”

Oh ouch. The sembei crunching quickened even further. “Is this local valley entertainment,” I was wondering. In the West we have popcorn---out here it’s plastic-wrapped rice crackers.

I tried to keep my gaze down and into my own lap and continued quietly twirling my dried squid. Nobody needed an American joining this conversation, that’s for sure.

But Sayama-san was right. The need to pool some funds hadn’t been mentioned, at least not yet, but it didn’t take long to realize that’s where this conversation was going.

The bickering and insults continued a bit further (she called him porcine, and he said as much as she’s a kooky witch), but my mind wandered. I thought first about how non-urban-Japan this scene was. No shiving from behind here, that’s for sure. Maybe farmers long ago decided they don’t have time for Tokyo-style ballet.

City people also rely much more on a concept called inshin denshin, which refers to a magical quality all Japanese genetically(?) share that lets them read each other’s thoughts without needing to state everything. (Foreigners by the way don’t have inshin denshin, it is said. It maddens everyone because the nation needs to descend into uncomfortably direct and bright strokes with us.)

So I was a few minutes behind, but clearly the room had discerned that the errant farmers had called us to this meeting to pony up for a pricey killing party.

Share

My mind rewound further, back several decades--the first time I successfully decoded inshin denshin directed at me.

I was living in my first “good” apartment in Tokyo and I held a raucous housewarming party to celebrate. Classic rock blasting, weird people coming and going, a fire alarm mistakenly pulled, goddamn loud…a real bash. The next morning my 72-year-old landlady, Mrs. Osumi, paid me a visit. She passed me a small housewarming gift, smiled in a grandmotherly way, and congratulated me on my big party.

“Oh, you have so many friends.”

“Yes, yes.”

“They had so much fun it seems last night. That’s wonderful.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Nice to bring them by and to have a party…sometimes.”

It took a few more years, but I later realized that Mrs. Osumi wasn’t the least bit interested in the number of my friends. She was telling my Californian ass to STFU. And to NEVER have a party again in her building, or she’d personally rip my eyes out and grind them into the floorboards.

So Sayama-san had dispensed with all the ham-handed indirectness and basically said let’s all get to the point.

Kobayashi-san, one of the oldest men in our village (yet sharp as a tack) had not said a word during the meeting. He has no title in the Glen, but I think he is accepted as an unelected elder, a wise voice. At a pause in the back and forth, he cleared his throat.

“Boar are indisputably infuriating. I think we all agree on that. Yet they serve a purpose in these hills--they’ve been here longer than our ancestors. I think we do our best, we fence, we keep scraps away. And we live together. Gosh knows we are all scraping here to get by, boars and men.”

And with that everyone toasted their beers.

By 7:30pm the meeting had ended. A few farmers volunteered to help restore the boar damage in the four farmers’ fields. I could hear a few saying, “Let’s meet out there on Thursday to take a look. We can do it together.”

Sayama-san moved to the door. She was smiling, talking with a few of the other elderly ladies. Toriyama-san moved to her and I overheard him saying, “I didn’t really enjoy knocking your project to the floor. I just said that. I regretted it…tonight you just got my back up.”

She bowed, I think grateful for his words.