Portrait Spotlight #2: Hiromichi Marui

Meet Hiromichi Marui.
Age: 32. Occupation: proud owner of the Ise Kazami Guesthouse, probably the one and only hostel in Ise-shi, Mie.

 

Earlier last weekend my friends and I traveled to Ise and stayed at Kazami Guesthouse, located close to the station on a quiet street (Fukiage) which is dotted with various small boutiques and thrift shops. We were greeted personally by Marui-san (who likes to go by Hiro, so I will go with Hiro-san for this blog) the moment we stepped through the doors.

   

As soon as we entered I was immediately struck by Hiro-san's blend of ethnic-alternative fashion taste. I was equally taken by the friendly and earthy atmosphere of the hostel. I decided to ask if it was ok for me to interview him for the blog and take a few pictures,which he was more than happy to help with.

It turns out that the hostel had just been purchased, renovated, and opened by Hiro-san only five months ago. Before that the building was the site of an old, rundown ryokan that was suffering from various water damage and sewer problems. When I asked Hiro-san what made him want to buy and start a  hostel business, he said that he simply wanted to create a warm, cafe-like environment where travelers to Ise from all over could gather and share their experiences together. Being a local native from Ise himself, he thought that transforming the old ryokan eyesore into a new, livelier place was a good way to help improve the image of the neighborhood.  Hiro-san said that he hopes he will be able to make many friends from all around the world at the hostel, because one of his life goals is to travel to many different countries one day.

The instruments in the corner of the lounge (drum, guitar, and sanshin) reflect Hiro-san's own musical background as he used to be in a punk-rock band. Before that, Hiro-san worked as an AC technician (a job he thought he was very bad at!)

 

 

Together with some artist friends who helped paint the many interesting and beautiful murals that decorate the inside of hostel, Hiro-kun was able to fix up and open Kazami. Also there that day was one of his friends, a recent Princeton graduate from India who drops by and helps volunteer at the hostel  when he's not busy with his job at the municipal government office. In the meantime, small repairs like fixing the column and sweeping the floors in the morning are still dutifully done by Hiro-san personally.

 

Making friends on facebook

 

In the evenings, Hiro-san loves to socialize with his guests with a round of drinks in the lounge, or just take everyone out for a midnight hike up the mountains from some stargazing (we were all too tired, so had to decline). When I asked how he spoke English so well, Hiro-san admitted that he learned it entirely through playing Nintendo games. For now, English is the only foreign language Hiro-san knows although Hiro-san says he would love to learn others. 

Proud owner and business

Was offered to stay and work as a staff!

I loved being able to speak with Hiro-san, and loved how he was able to incorporate his globe-treading dreams into his hostel.  I will be sure to visit again whenever I return to Ise!

What do Japanese People Do? Go to sporting events

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the second-to-last-day of the Osaka Sumo Grand Tournaments.  Previous to this trip, my only exposure to sumo was probably just from the movie Memoirs of a Geisha (in that scene where Sayuri watches it and gives some extended metaphor about strength and blablabla). Can't mention sumo warriors without geishas? How typical. I think coming from the States with an outsiders view of Sumo it was hard for me to think of it beyond some sort of elaborate, mystical and strange shinto ritual involving fleshy, scantily-clad men and more as a sport. I certainly wasn't really expecting to enjoy it like I would watching football and basketball back home as I was going at the time mainly for the "cultural exposure."

Boy was I wrong.

And boy is it a SPORT.

 

If anything, the Japanese audience sure treated it like one. People ate in the stands, left to go to the restrooms and returned in the middle of matches, and cute snack-vendor girls ran up and down the seats hawking their food to hungry viewers. Sake was openly served and consumed. The whole arena buzzed with excitement like in any sporting event and had none of the quite, polite, and constrained "Japanese" enthusiasm that I thought I would find there instead.

 

Towards the later matches in the day with the higher-ranking wrestlers, more and more people began to show up and the stands began to get packed. At the end, the stands were completely sold out. Viewers of both genders and all age groups were present, and I saw that even small toddlers were watching the matches as intently as the adults. There were many foreigners there as well, including some, that I overheard talking, who kept up with the scores and "stats" of each wrestler. A particular Japanese attendee next to me, a young man who looked to be in high school, even had  a score keeper which he avidly circled and marked after every match.

 

Most surprising of all perhaps was the yelling that came from all around the stadium. Single fans or entire cheering squads of guys or girls would wait for their favorite wrestler to appear and then give ear-piercing screams of 'gambarrrree!' or the yell the wrestler's name as encouragement. This also was acceptable to do during the middle of a match, when the wrestlers would grapple with each other in a deadlock. Publicly raising your voice to that level is probably something that you don't find in Japan except at a sporting event like this. On a side note, interestingly enough, while there were many times when the entire audience would break out in applause for a good match between the Japanese sumos, only one out of the several foreign sumo wrestlers that day received a smattering round of 'good effort' applause after his match.

And certainly all the shinto ritual elements were there, such as the making of the stage, the priests' blessings and the throwing of the salt before each match. But really, from the atmosphere, people were there to see cool throws and bodies fly.  Most of the bathroom breaks in the audience seemed to coincide during the middle of all the shinto practices between matches.

In the box seats, people sat in groups of friends, or family members, and many women wore traditional yukatas. The best-dressed and most serious attendees occupied the most expensive, ring-side seats. Treating it like a sporting event and sitting as close to the action as possible, despite the sweat-flying, body throwing goodness of the stage side seating was one of the amusements of the day. (I did see a few well-dressed attendees and their escorts getting squished by an unfortunate flying wrester as he fell off the stage).
    

If you're interesting in having a fantastic, sporting-event time like I did, please visit the The Official Grand Sumo home page for more info on where the next tournament is: http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/