Hidemi Woods

Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.

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  • three-day trip to the Tokyo metropolitan area

    The Beginning of A Winter Trip The mountainous region where I live is in the depth of winter and it snows day after day. Now that the snow covering the ground has accumulated over my own height, I was having a sense of claustrophobia. That’s a cue for my annual three-day trip to the Tokyo metropolitan area that doesn’t have much snow.I set about arranging this year’s trip online. I successfully booked the room in a hotel of the Japanese luxury chain at a greatly economical rate by making the best use of coupons and their off-season promotion. The stay would come with preferential treatment at no extra cost as part of the promotion. To get to the Tokyo metropolitan area, I need to ride the bullet train that is expensive. But I got a 35% discount for the ticket by reserving early in advance. I was all set to get out of snow.

    Although it had snowed every day, it rained on that particular day when I set off on a trip in the morning. Rain is more troublesome than snow. I would take a local bus to the bullet train station. The bus stop is near my apartment but it has neither a cubicle nor a roof. When it snows, I can pat off the snow that comes onto my clothes while I’m walking to the bus stop and waiting there. But in the rain, my one hand is occupied with an umbrella as I carry all the bags, which would cause awkward walking that inevitably wets me.I would freeze while I’m waiting for the bus. I bore an unexpected expense and called a cab. The dispatcher told me it would take long to come to pick me up due to high demand. Since I had the bullet train to catch, I gave in to my umbrella and walked toward the bus stop in the rain. I felt miserable while I was waiting for the bus with many bags around me drenching. Out of the bus window, I saw snow plains beneath which were parks, rice paddies and sidewalks. The road was plowed, but the snow was pushed off to a long, tall snow wall alongside. The lengthy massive white wall was taller than the bus and it looked almost like a snow-made tunnel. I started to feel claustrophobia again. I cheered myself up by thinking I was soon in the snow-free city. I made a wish for a nice trip upon the closest mountain that had turned completely white.

    On the platform for the bullet train at the station, I found many Chinese families and tourists. That suddenly reminded me about the Lunar New Year during which Chinese people took vacation and traveled. The hotel I was staying at might be crowded with Chinese tourists as well. I couldn’t believe why I was so careless that I’d forgotten about Chinese New Year. Among the gleeful Chinese tourists, I stood waiting for the train with a long face. Rain and the Lunar New Year seems more like a bad omen, and now I became unsure as to whether or not this trip was the right move…

     The bullet train ran through several long tunnels in the mountains and carried me out of snow. In less than twenty minutes, I was in a different, snow-free world where the sun was shining and the blue sky spread.I put on my makeup and had rice balls that I’d gotten back at the station. By then, my worry about this trip had dwindled away and I began to feel thrilled. On the other hand, my poor partner who accompanied me on this trip had been suffering from atopic eczema and was sitting next to me nervously, as his body was itchy.We arrived at Tokyo Station where we walked through an underground passage that was busy and crowded with people and transferred to the local train. As this line runs along Tokyo Bay, the ocean can be seen out of the train window. It was so refreshing to see a stretch of the horizon over the sea for me who live surrounded by mountains. I thought I finally got my breath.The hotel I’d booked was close to the train station. I got in there but wasn’t allowed to check in until 7 p.m. since I chose the bargain rate for the room…

    Episode from

    Travel to Tokyo: My Customary Winter Trips to Take Breath Out of A Snowy Town by Hidemi Woods

  • Casino de Montreal

    I visited the casino in Montreal for the first time in seven years. It had been remodeled into an even more gorgeous, glorious place than before. I arrived there before noon and had an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch at a fancy restaurant. I enjoyed the splendid buffet at an incredibly low price. Compare to the amount of money I was about to spend for gambling, everything seemed cheap.
    Every time I lose, I always try to calm my anger by thinking the money I spend here somehow serves to make the city better since it’s a public-managed casino. The city is so beautiful that I regard what I lose in the casino as an entrance fee to a theme park called Montreal.


    I used to live in Montreal but had to leave as I became short of money for life abroad. When the time to go back to Japan drew near, I seriously thought of gaining money to stay in Montreal, by gambling.
    I determinedly sat at the slot machine of a high progressive prize for a couple of days. On the last day, it happened. As the slot I had played kept gobbling up my money, I moved over to another slot machine and a middle-aged woman came to the one I just left. She turned it for only five or six times and hit the jackpot unbelievably quickly and easily. If I had continued for five more quarters on that slot, I would have won. She snatched $100,000 away from me right before my eyes. While she screamed for joy, the lights flashed, the sound blared and the casino workers scurried toward her with papers, I was running into the bathroom. I couldn’t help crying in there. I was trembling with chagrin. I cursed my bad luck and my coming life in Japan.


    A long time ago, my mother asked a fortuneteller about my future. She told me that according to the fortuneteller, I would often come close to big money, but it would slip away each time. “So, you will never be rich,” my mother said to me. I remembered that and I thought I saw proof that she was right. After I returned to my apartment, I wailed out loud like a baby.
    My former self was that stupid. Now, I play the slot machine just for fun. I sat at the minimum bet slot with a low prize. If I was lucky and won a little, it meant that I could play longer with that money. The band started playing at the stage on the casino floor and I enjoyed soft drinks that I took from the free drink bar listening to it. I won a little, which let me stay and play there longer than I had planned. As fatigue from the long flight began to kick in earnestly, I got back to my hotel room and fell into bed. It was an excitingly fun day at the casino that cleaned me out yet again, as usual…

     

    Episode from

    Montreal: One on The Other Side of The Rainbow by Hidemi Woods

  • A Slipper Battle

    About ten months ago, a middle-aged woman complained to me about my slippers at the communal spa of my apartment building. She wanted me to take them off and stay barefoot in the locker room because everyone except for me was barefooted there as a custom.

    I refused as being barefoot wasn’t an official rule and I felt much more comfortable and more hygienic with slippers on. I was kind enough to explain to her that wearing slippers was more hygienic on the public floor than barefoot. It’s totally logical, but she didn’t accept anyway because her point was to keep up the custom.

    I’ve kept wearing my slippers in the locker room everyday to this day even though sometimes there were other middle-aged women who grumbled to me or darted an angry look at me. Three months after I got the first complaint, I saw a woman wearing slippers in the locker room and I was no longer the only one that wasn’t barefooted. Then, since last month, a mother and her child have been wearing slippers. As I predicted, people began to imitate me and adopt my way.

    And the other day, this slipper battle developed a new twist. I entered the locker room with my slippers on as usual, and there was a woman who had gotten out of the spa and been putting on her clothes. She was putting on her socks when I walked past her. Thinking I found the third example of non-barefoot, I said hello to her with a smile as I usually did. She turned to me and our eyes met. I was astounded. It was none other than that middle-aged woman who told me to be barefoot here ten months ago. She herself was wearing socks! She looked startled to see me and her face got filled with embarrassment at once. She returned hello to me in a faint voice. She lost her battle.

    Slowly but steadily, a wrong custom such as nothing should change is disappearing. I was shown a proof that to keep doing the right thing can change the world in a better way. For me, though, it’s an extremely trivial thing like wearing slippers…

    Episode from

    My Naked Spa in Japan: Fear, Relationship and A Breakthrough by Hidemi Woods

     

    Audiobook

    My Naked Spa in Japan: Fear, Relationship and A Breakthrough by Hidemi Woods

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  • the news was not fear but relief

    In voice mail, there was a message from my father that said he needed to be called back immediately. I was chilled to the bone. I have never received a single phone call from him that’s not disturbing. When he calls me, he does it to vent his spleen about his daily life and about my career as a musician. What comes out from the receiver is his lengthy verbal abuse. Nevertheless, I mostly return his call because things get worse if I don’t. This time was no exception and I called him back fearfully with trembling hands. Instead of a spurt of anger, he told me to come home as soon as possible and stay for a few days. I asked him what happened and he didn’t answer that. As his request sounded urgent, I repeatedly asked for the reason. He just dodged and kept saying that he wanted me to come home right away. I hung up and felt alarmed. Something must have happened. Since he had never given me good news, that something was most certainly a bad thing.

    My parents’ home is located in Kyoto that is 500 miles away from where I live. It takes me over five hours to get there by bullet train. I don’t have so much free time to take that long trip without the reason. Besides, such an unusual request requires extra caution. I called my mother’s cell phone and asked her what was all about. She told me that they had decided to sell their house and move out. They were looking for a condominium to buy and moving in as soon as the house was sold. The house could be sold next month at the fastest, and they wanted me to sort out my stuff and spend time together under this house’s roof for the last time.

    The house was built when I was nine years old at the place where our old house was torn down because it was too old to live in. That old house was built about 100 years ago. My ancestors lived at exactly the same spot generation after generation for over 1000 years since my family used to be a landlord of the area. We are here for around 63 generations. My father succeeded the family from my grandfather, and I would have been the next successor if I hadn’t left home to be a musician. Because my father failed the family business and didn’t have the next successor for help, he had sold pieces of our ancestor’s land one by one. Now his money has finally dried up and he can’t afford to keep the last land where the house stands.

    When my grandfather passed away nine years ago, he complained to me again about financial help I wouldn’t lend. I promptly suggested that he should sell the house and its land. He got furious at my suggestion. He shouted, “How could you say something like that? Do you really think it’s possible? All ancestors of ours lived here! I live to continue our lineage right here for my entire life! Selling the house means ending our family lineage! It’s impossible!!” He bawled me out like a crazy man while banging the floor repeatedly with a DVD that I had brought for him as a Father’s Day gift.

    But nine years later, the time inevitably came. Considering his mad fury about selling the house back then, it was easy for me to imagine that he planned to set fire on the house during the night I would stay and kill my mother and me along with himself. That seemed the true reason why he wanted me to come back. Those murder-suicide cases sometimes happen in Japan, especially among families with long history.

    But the first thing that I felt at the news was not fear but relief. As I had known my father wouldn’t sell the house, I had thought that I would end up reaping the harvest of his mistakes as his daughter even though I didn’t succeed the family. I would have to liquidate everything in the house to pay his debts and sell the house and the land by myself after I would argue with all my relatives in the family’s branches who would most certainly oppose strongly. That picture of my dismal future had been long hanging low in my mind. But now, completely out of the blue, my father was taking up everything and I was discharged…

    Episode from

    Living in Kyoto: My Early Life with Japanese Traditions by Hidemi Woods

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  • One Japanese Girl Got Freedom

    As long as I could remember, my family members had told me that I was a successor of the family and I was to live with my family all my life as my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather and on and on and on did, by taking a husband into our family to bear our family name. They kept saying that as a usual chant so repeatedly that I was sort of under the spell that I would be stuck in the house as a successor until the day I die.　

    So, I was an outsider when other girls chatted giggly about what last name they would bear after their marriage or where they would live in the future. I knew what my last name and what my future address would be because they wouldn’t be changed. My whole life was so predictable for that matter. Since I knew my future, I had no interest in my life, and days were so boring.　I changed my future completely by abandoning my family, my friends, my hometown and the old tradition. Now, I’m free from my once-arranged future. Instead, I dread my uncertain future everyday…

    A long time ago, when Japan had the feudal system, my family was a landlord of the area. It has come to a complete downfall over the years, but my family still clings to its past glory. For them, to succeed the family is critical. I’m firstborn and have no brother which meant that I was a successor and destined to spend the whole life in my hometown.　

    But music changed everything. To pursue a career in music, my hometown was too rural and I had to move out. Back then I was a college student and moving to a city meant dropping out of school. My parents fiercely opposed but as usual, they left the matter to my grandfather who controlled the family. Considering his way to keep a tight rein, everybody including myself thought he might kill me.　I could have run away, but I wanted to tell him for once what I want to do for my life. He answered right away “You can go.” He added, “You earned it by yourself. I’ve watched you all your life and I know you. That’s why I let you do what you want.” Although I had always looked for a way to get rid of him, it was him who made me free and what I am now…

    Episode from

    The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods

    Audiobook

    The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods (Author, Narrator)