The Dutchman

I met a Dutchman yesterday. There was a festival happening at a shrine near my school and I rode home to pick up my camera when I saw an odd looking Caucasian man waiting at a light opposite myself. I thought he was on his way to a costume party or a play because his clothing was out of place by both Western and Japanese standards. He wore a black wide-brimmed hat, black corduroy vest and pants, and a billowy white shirt underneath. Over his shoulder was a duffle bag comprised of several handkerchiefs tied to a stick and a knarled wooden stick swayed in his hand beside him.

As I rode past, I gave a brief “hello” and he turned around seemingly shocked at hearing a word of English. I took this as a welcome to chat so I turned around and asked him where he was from. As it turned out, he was a carpenter in the midst of a 3 year journey around the world. His English was quite broken, but I think he said that it was a tradition for his people (couldn’t find much in terms of Dutch traditions – so maybe it’s a family tradition? maybe I’m ignorant?) to travel with nothing but handkerchief luggage and a stick.




He was only planning on being in Iwaki for one night and then he would be off to Tokyo. I think he was planning to stay in Japan for 3 weeks before going to Germany where I think he has family. Otherwise, he has no home, no phone, just a camera, a stick, and some sleeping gear. The only languages that he speaks are Dutch, German, and a bit of English. Somehow he ended up in Iwaki for a day.

Seeing as how he was in Iwaki, I invited him to this shrine festival that I was on my way to, which we walked to together.

After speaking with a Philipino karage vendor who was named after Mother Teresa, I learned a bit about the significance of the festival. I’m not too sure of the time-frame, but about 500 years ago (maybe more, maybe less), there was a great war between rival samurai tribes in this region. A legendary warrior from one of these tribes became very ill and traveled to the place where the shrine was built to recover. It was here that he planted several ginger plants and was said to have made a miraculous recovery. Each year after, this festival of the ginger root has been held in celebration.

It was not a large festival, but they did have plenty of food and costumed samurai giving mounted demonstrations. It was also an opportunity for me to visit this shrine that I ride past almost every day, but have yet to visit. The highlight of the day was when mounted samurai would gallop down the road at a good speed and the rider would fire an arrow with his bow at a target. They also did several ride-bys where they would launch ginger roots into the crowd – although I think I was one of the only people who didn’t get one.

I think that one of the moments of the day was when another Japanese teacher from my school showed up at the festival. It turned out that he spoke a bit of German and the two of them conversed in broken German for a few minutes. In between phrases, they would translate their broken German into broken English for me and I’m pretty sure that none of us knew what anyone was really trying to say.