After a time of teaching English in Japan in my 20’s, I started hanging out with a Japanese family, and if this seems at odds with the formality normally associated with the Japanese, it was. Kenichi wasn’t mainstream, but at the same time he was very Japanese, and completely nuts. Photo: Kenichi, me (note ripped bloodstained trousers), Miki & Jim
“Biru San” (Mr Beer), he used to say, puffing out his chest, “we are super Japanese, daiyo.” With that he would rabbit punch the air, to drive the point home.
He was working class Japanese done good and, like Roy, he owned a motor repair shop, called Phenix Garage. Misspelling in English is not considered a mistake in Japan, hell, the discussions in class about how to represent any word or meaning in Kanji just ran and ran. There was a brilliant 5m long neon sign in Yachiyo Shi advertising ‘Harmburger’.
It was Kenichi who decided I was to be a motorcyclist. “Biru San, let’s go lindo,” (trail riding) he announced emphatically one day after class. I was 24, alone, about as far away from parental disapproval as I could get and, crucially, I was ready to fall off anything I could get my hands on. We started gently by going motocrossing in Narita the following weekend.
After the grazes healed and my ankle stopped looking like an aubergine (from falling heavily off kenichi’s daughter’s bike), it was decided that I would enrol at motorcycle school. Trail riding inevitably included some sections of road, linking up the trails, so I would have to get a Japanese licence.
Every week, Kenichi’s wife, Kimiko, would dutifully pick me up at my apartment and drop me back afterwards. In retrospect, I can’t help wondering what she thought of her husband taking this foreigner under his wing. I was the only blonde 6ft male for miles around, hard to miss, and the Japanese principal of the English School would not have approved of the plans he had for me.
If I was to be uncharitable, I suspect he sold her a line about free English lessons and looked forward to some righteous motorsport with his mates, using me as an excuse. Kenichi always had a grand plan, though, and eventually he revealed that his was to fly to the states and buy certain desirable cars at knock down prices. Employing the services of a bilingual negotiator, at knock down prices, was a key part of his plan. To be honest, I was more than happy to be paid in advance in sushi, beer and motocross. I would have gone on my first trip to the States for free.
Motorcycle school was fun. It was also safer than being taught by Kenichi. Looking back I was lucky to come away with just a bruised foot from my first go on a bike, ever, at Narita. What was Kenichi thinking, giving me a bike and just sending me out into the motocross melee? It was a question that cropped up with alarming regularity.
The school had a dummy road system which we would snake around on, kindergarten fashion, on 400cc Honda Reveres. The instructors would strut about in police style jodhpurs, barking instructions, which I just about understood. Otherwise I just copied the guy in front. I did well at the practical exam but when they put a written paper in front of me I just looked at them and said, “Impossible, daiyo.” My spoken Japanese had got quite good but I could never read or write it.
I guess they just didn’t know what to do with me from that point on. The examiner took me to the department head, who looked annoyed at being presented with an impossible problem. The department head took me to the school principal, who fumed back at him for the same reason. In the end I was ejected unceremoniously, but with a certificate in my hand. Probably the first and last gaijin to go through the Yachiyo school.
Kenichi found me a Honda XL250 single, it cost me a month’s wages but he had one of his mechanics replace the road tyres with knobblies and drive it over to the school on the day I graduated. “Biru San, let’s go!” he shouted, helmet on, eyes gleaming behind thick lenses. The ride home was nothing like anything I’d learned at school but if I was to keep up with him I quickly realised I’d have to break a few minor traffic regulations. The banzai spirit is intoxicating and foreigners don’t know any better, I told myself.
We had an expression, ‘gaijin value’, which took care of any difficulties related to cultural faux pas. Jim, who’d joined me in Japan by then, went out on my bike to fetch booze one Friday night, with a pissed yank called Daniel on the back. They were stopped by the law and Jim gave my name, Daniel wobbling on the back brandishing a bottle of bourbon. The cops let them go, which is crazy, but they just looked like too much trouble for a couple of small town policemen – the wonder of gaijin value.
I had a small accident soon after that and went to the police station to report it. Jim had omitted the detail about giving my name that night and these coppers were like, “yeah, we wondered how long it would be before we saw you in here...Mr Beer.”
I’ve had so many damn accidents since Japan, which is not in the script anymore, I hope. The story is supposed to be; westerner goes east to learn from Japanese master, not Japanese nut-job. It wasn’t just Kenichi either, there was this kid Miki, who worked for him, who wrung the neck of a two-stroke four until it spat him off. “What happened?” we asked, on a hospital visit. He couldn’t say, except it all happened on the expressway at 250kph. He was probably watching the clock instead of the road.
They love their speed the Japanese but an idiosyncrasy of licensing regulations means that big bore bikes are only ridden by old men. It’s hilarious to see these little prunes on giant bikes - good on ‘em though, go for it grandad. This is why they’re so intent on making pocket rockets, or were in any case, for Miki and his adrenalin crew. It would be nice to know what’s come of them.
I’m hoping the DVLA will get their shit together next week and send me a reg for the Black Bullet. I don’t even know what I’m missing but I’m missing it bad, ever since that evil corporation wrecked my inner peace. I even put the guitar up for sale. I know, it’s crazy, but achieving your dreams by UPS isn’t right somehow. It’s hard to explain. I need to get out on the bike and soak up some rain.
