Fear and Loathing in Sasebo

(Disclaimer: This may come off as an excessively negative post, but believe me I had a fantastic and informative time in spite of, or perhaps because of, the adversities placed in our path)

I have gazed through the looking glass into a nightmare world of American imperialism, 46 in. waistlines and exported stereotypes and it is called Sasebo, Nagasaki. If there's one place in all of Kyushu where good ol' Japanese “mask” of amicability towards foreigners just falls away it is here.

This trip traces its roots back about a month, when Lindsey invited Maia and I to Miyazaki City for sailing with her and Kate (in Nakatsu, from the UK). Yes, they were going to rent a yacht and sail the Hyuga Coastline while Maia and I sat back in white turtlenecks, navy straight-leg slacks and pea coats sipping the finest, cheapest champagne out of monkey skulls like true blue bloods. Since I'm the only one of the group that has spent any significant amount of time in Miyazaki I was to book the campsites and all that jive, which was fine with me. Somewhere, however, the plan took a left turn at Albuquerque.

About two weeks ago Lindsey mailed me and said plans have changed and we're not going to Miyazaki but Nagasaki's Kujukushima (99 Islands), and we're not sailing but kayaking, and we're not alone but with a bunch of people from the Hita City educational office. Maia and I were shaken by this, but not entirely turned off since I was told we could rent our own tent at the campsite and we'd just go off during the day and do our own thing instead of kayaking.

Things didn't start so well the Saturday morning we embarked. First, it should be illegal to plan any activity to start at 7:30AM on a weekend, that's just flat out cruel. Next, if you must start at that time and you're going to be driving for two to three hours in Japan, for the love of the FSM, please stop at a proper rest stop for food, drinks, toilet breaks and stretching. Please. Then, when I try to introduce myself it would have been smashing if you could have reciprocated and not just treated me like a third wheel. And finally—and this is an issue that would crop up all weekend—I speak passable Japanese and I am not a child (and my girlfriend is even better), so do not lie to me about what a road sign does or doesn't say and please respond in Japanese as it's taken ever so much effort to learn your language.

So, yeah, one of the Japanese folks said we'd be stopping at a rest area along the way (or “Highway Oasis” as they're called here) we passed one, two, then three and Maia and I, starving as we were, woke up a sleeping Lindsey in the back seat to email her friends and ask when our caravan would be stopping for breakfast. The next rest area, came the reply. But the next area is a crummy parking area with nothing but a toilet and a vending machine, the real “Oasis” wasn't for another 10-15km according to the signs. “No, there are no more rest areas, this is the last one”, lied our Japanese guides, “but here's a rice ball from our cooler (as a consolation prize and to shut you up).” Livid, I drove on behind them until we came upon the proper rest stop after 15km, where the signs said it would be. Caught in their lie they stopped and said nothing. There were two more such rest areas before we reached Sasebo.

At the campsite we were still given the third wheel treatment and then found out that there were no tent rentals and we'd be sleeping in two big gender-segregated tents with these complete strangers who would be, by that time of night, completely shitfaced drunk. The decision to flee came suddenly. With as much tact as I could summon to do such a deed I told everyone we were taking off to do our own thing and would be back in the morning to pick up Lindsey and Kate. While I'm pretty sure I burned a bridge with Lindsey on this I feel more than justified in walking for the night. Like Lando Calrissian did after getting shafted by the uneven bargain Vader forced upon him I turned the tables and proverbially said 'No. No more stormtroopers in Cloud City.'

We drove around the 99 Islands area looking for fun and lodging hoping to stay close and pick up our two companions the next morning. We found neither. In the end I suppose Maia and I live in the countryside so we don't really intend to go there on vacation unless there's volcanos (Kirishima)or spaceships (Tanegashima), so we headed back to Sasebo. For anyone who has never heard of Sasebo, it was the HQ for the Imperial Japanese Navy from the early-20th century until WWII when the Americans moved in and it became one of three Japanese cities (the other two being Yokosuka, near Tokyo and Naha, Okinawa) to house a US military base, in this case “US Fleet Activities Sasebo”. The Americans have certainly left their mark in good ways...but mostly bad, surprise, surprise.

Kudos to the American presence for spurring a more varied selection of international cuisines than many Japanese cities twice its size. There are three Indian joints, two Mexican, a Thai restaurant and a (very bad, but campy fun) NY pizza parlor! And, uh, that's about the extent of good things my countrymen have brought, for the other bits that have followed in their wake are obesity, an unreal level of prostitution, fear and suspicion from the locals, increased scrutiny from the local fuzz and, while we were there, a really really horrible abortion of a 9/11 memorial festival/celebration of the cowboy life called the “Heart and Soul of America”. Sitting at Starbucks sipping iced coffees, Maia and I were present when some yahoo promoters in cowboy getup and Indian outfits tried to whip up interest by cracking whips and lassoing concrete posts, only to be halted by the cops about, oh, fifteen seconds after the first “yee haw”.

Then the Mormon missionaries started rapping with the Indian about Jesus. Classic.

The obesity in Sasebo is noticeably higher than our corner of Japan for reasons that must be all too obvious by now. On the ground one can specifically quantify the phenomenon, what with the two Mister Donuts shops and two McDonalds within spitting distance of each other, plus the plethora of “Sasebo Burger” joints. I didn't get around to eating at one and am feeling it may have been for the best.

And then there was Billy Joe...

--Matt