Arrogant or Insecure? Hitching Rides with Buddha

Will Ferguson likes to ask the helpful yet hapless Japanese who offered him a ride, if Japanese people are arrogant or insecure. Most said insecure, some said arrogant and insecure. Finally he encountered Katsuya-san.

"Arrogant or insecure? Or?" He looked at me as if to say, Well, there's your problem. Perhaps the problem is in the question itself. "We Japanese," he said confidently, "are not arrogant or insecure, we are both. You know, it is possible to be insecure in a very arrogant way - and vice versa. Look at America. I have always thought that you Americans manager to be dumb in a very smart way. Very smart." (Note: Will is Canadian)

I initially thought he asked this in retaliation for all the "harros" and "zis is a ben" announcements by annoying brats and "Japanese is number one" comments from the equally annoying adults. He also likes to retaliate to patronising xenophrobes who compliment him on his people's (apparently all white people are Americans) girth, by coolly replying that it wasn't because they, meaning the Americans are big, but that the Japanese are ...

Maybe Will asked the question because he considered the Japanese a paradox. They politely, hospitably treat Will and include him in the group, and yet remind him now and then that he is a foreigner, that he is different. Will will always be an outsider looking in, no matter when he is carrying the shrine with them, soaking in the bath with them, or even singing "Diane" in the Karaoke with them.

I have to say that Will himself is a paradox, he resents the invisible wall and yet he also takes advantage of it as well. He doesn't mind freeloading on the free rides, the free food the drivers ply on him and even sneaks into a bar behind a group of salarymen, hopeful that they would notice and include his horny self in their play. He did succeed, but he did not manage to touch a free thigh, because the salarymen were only interested in drinking, singing, bitching about office politics (conveniently whoever was on in attendance) and in the vice senior supervisor's (he is higher ranked than the senior vice supervisor, don't ask me why) case, promoting everyone, even Will.

One of the funniest incidents in the book occurred when the very pissed (do not read: angry) inn manager in Hokkaido, Mr Saito, became very worried that Will would not be able to sucker anyone into giving him a ride (disregarding the fact that Will had already made it across land and water all the way from Kyushu to Hokkaido). In fact it is quite ironic how all the Japanese drivers who stopped for William are adamnant that other Japanese people would not stop for him. Mr Saito scrawled drunkenly on a cardboard, this message in gradually smaller script:

HELLO EVERYONE!

I AM WILLY FROM AMERICA.

I CAN SPEAK JAPANESE A LITTLE.

PLEASE TAKE ME TO SAPPORO.

I AM AN ENGLISH TEACHER.

I CAME ALL THE WAY FROM KYUSHU.

REALLY, I DID.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I AM SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

let's be international friends!

The title was concepted from the Zen saying "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." According to the Ordinary Mind website, The idea was that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, realised upon enlightenment that all beings are Buddhas, while the road is two-fold; the road outside where the road outside where we look outside ourselves for the ones who have all the answers, and the inner mind road, where we set up all the "shoulds" we must obey to turn ourselves into the Buddhas we don't believe we already are, but think we must become.

So "killing the Buddha" means killing or wiping out this fantasy image, and "the road" is two fold: the road outside where we look outside ourselves for the ones who have all the answers, and the inner mind road, where we set up all the "shoulds" we must obey to turn ourselves into the Buddhas we don't believe we already are, but think we must become.