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The night before, my brother, who is a teacher at the school,
ntook me straight off the plane from London, to what he referred
nto ominously as a naked festival. It involved drinking lots of saki,
nwearing nothing but a mawashi loincloth like a sumo wrestler,
nstanding out in the freezing night with around two hundred
nsimilarly dressed men, and trying to grab hold of a long piece of
ncloth. As we all fought to get hold of the cloth, priests threw cold
nwater over us. The scrum of two hundred men kicked, pulled and
nbarged around in the dark for hours before someone finally,
nmercifully, emerged triumphantly with the cloth and disappeared
nup some steps to a shrine.
nThe next morning there is a picture of the melee in one of
nJapan’s national newspapers, featuring my pale backside right
nthere in the middle. I can tell it is mine because in my dazed,
ndrunken state I asked someone to write ‘Flash’ across my back. I
nwas thinking I was Flash Gordon, for some reason. A man on
nanother planet wrestling his way through a scrum of men. We’ve
nhad barely four hours’ sleep before my brother is up again.
n‘I’m running an ekiden,’ he says. ‘You want to run?’ I have no
nidea what an ekiden is, but running is the last thing on my mind
nthat morning. I was once a keen runner, but years of working in
nthe office of a London publishing company have left me all soft
nand pudgy. My running days are long behind me.
n‘No,’ I say, scratching the back of my neck.
nInstead he positions me by the school wall, gives me a
nraincoat to protect me from the drizzle, and goes off to join his
nteam. An ekiden, it turns out, is a long-distance relay race.