Tales of Sendai, Part 1

There's a relaxed air in Kokobuncho as we stroll away from one of the city's favourite bars. It was hot in there, and while it's not that much better out here, the cooler air on sweat-dappled skin is a welcome relief. People move slowly, anxious to avoid heating up. There's no hurry anyway. It's only midnight; there's plenty of entertainment left to be found, and ample time in which to find it. Sendai's nightlife district takes a big deep breath, and we breathe with it.

*****

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. It reminds of us of all that once was good and could be again. Baseball..."
- Darth Vader

I'm guessing it was the influence of the Americans during the Occupation. Whatever the reason, baseball is enormous in Japan. Ask any Japanese who their favourite sportsperson is, and they'll most likely list one of the players in the American Major League, someone like Ichiro, Matsuzaka or Matsui. So with the influence of baseball an inescapable fact of life here, we decided we'd better take a butchers while the season lasted.

Off we set to the Fullcast Stadium on a rather nice September evening: Stacie, Cari, Stephen, Amy and myself (Stephen's behind the camera).

As it turned out over the course of the four-hour game, baseball is a lot like war. There are long periods of dullness punctuated by short intervals of intense excitement and terror. Okay, maybe there was no terror. But you get the idea. Whole innings will pass with nothing happening. There seems to be some kind of detector for this lack of activity, because at random moments between innings, the field will be invaded by what seem to be brightly-coloured gnome rabbis, who charge about and play air guitar. If you're lucky there might be an eagle-man on a motorcycle. Welcome to Japan!

Luckily for the Kiwi and the Englisher, there were Americans on hand to explain what was going on. Even they, though, were surprised by what turned out to be the biggest difference between the Japanese and American games: half the game is spent cheering. Whenever the Sendai team was at bat, a big sign flashed up the name of the current batter, and the crowd would stand and begin a rhythmic chant/clapping routine. And they would sing. And it quickly became apparent that every single batter had his own unique song. And the crowd knew them all. The guy standing behind us was ear-burstingly enthusiastic. By the end of the night our palms and throats would be raw.

Anyway, the game. Sendai had scrambled two inelegant runs, and the very next innings, the opposition ran in five. Doom settled over the stadium for the next few innings, and was only shaken off when one of the Sendai players clobbered a monster home run right out of the park. The crowd went totally bananas, and continued to do so as Sendai gradually clawed back the deficit, hitting the winning run in the very last inning. Excited Japanese fans turned in their seats, seeking more people to high-five, and we were happy to oblige. One young man, resplendent in check shirt and jeans yanked up above his navel, marched down the row, high-fiving each of us in turn. Everyone had these long balloons, and these were inflated and released at the moment of victory

So that was baseball. Oh! I also bought a hot-dog. Because you have to buy a hot-dog at the ballgame.

*****

There's a strange paradox apparent in the design of green space in this town. I can't say for sure whether it exists in other cities; indeed it may not: Sendai is famous for the sheer quantity of its trees and parks.

And maybe that's the problem. For while many of these parks seem well-appointed, they are subsequently left to decay, as if the mere act of establishing them was enough, and there's no need to allocate money for maintenance.

I first noticed this when I caught the subway up to Dainohara and spent an hour exploring Shinrin-koen ("koen" = "park"). This place is essentially a long, low hill covered in trees and threaded with paths, with the occasional point of interest carved out at the edges. The paths themselves were wide, muddy and lined in railings representative of another ghastly Japanese habit: fake wood. This stuff is cast in the shape of textured wooden logs out of plastic or concrete, painted brown, then placed in a natural environment as if it isn't at all a jarring departure from the nature of the location. There were buildings too, as you might expect to find, but rather than attempting to blend with the landscape, they stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, slab-columned triumphs of white-painted Modernist functionality. You can see an example in the background here:
Those hexagons, while being the most interesting landscape feature of the whole park, would have looked a lot better if they'd been filled with more than overgrowing long grass. The same grass grew untidily out of what were meant to be neatly-manicured hedges and messed up what might have otherwise been an interesting arrangement of bronzes. The nearby lake was still and dirty. There was a lot more concrete used that was strictly necessary.

Kotodai-koen and Nishi-koen suffer from the same problems. The trees there are wonderful, but once you get lower than two metres it's like the powers that be just stopped caring. Kotodai-koen has some beautiful Japanese maples, but the path is poorly maintained, the fountain is filthy and the flower-beds are overgrown with weeds. The ground at Nishi-koen looks mostly like an unsealed parking lot down at the domain.

This is why genuine natural locations, smartly adapted, are so thrilling. Places like Matsushima are gems of landscaping, effortlessly incorporating elements such as paths and pools while valuing good maintenance. Too bad the Sendai City authorities don't feel the same way, but then we in New Zealand are well aware of the general uselessness of local government, aren't we?