Dosanko Cup 2011

This past weekend, I took part in Hokkaido's largest (and really only) ultimate tournament. This year, the "Dossanko Cup" was in Yubari, about 45 km from my house, up in the hills in what used to be coal country. I had decided to ride my bike up in the morning, so I was up and out of the house a little after 6:30am, and I rode the same path I had taken the previous weekend, through Naganuma, Yuni, and the edge of Kuriyama. The last 15 or so kilometers follow the old train line between Yubari and Kuriyama. The Yutetsu Line was closed in 1975, though a couple of the stations are still extant. Having done some poking around online, I was able to spot the two stations right along the side of route 3 (Shin-Futamata and Tsugitate). Not much to look at, but as a history nerd, I get a kick out of that sort of thing. I was unable to figure out where the switchback ran coming out of Yubari, though once I looked at a map when I got home, I think I should be able to find it without much difficulty. The climb up into Yubari on that route is such that a train would be unable to go straight up, so they built a major switchback to make the climb. There was apparently a really nice park along the rails of the switchback, judging from photos I found online.

I arrived at the fields at around 8:40, perfect for the 9am opening ceremonies. Everyone was a little bit surprised to see me on a bike, though only slightly because I am well known to ride up in to Sapporo for practices, even though that takes a good hour and a half with the traffic.

The tournament was held at Yubari's athletic fields, which are really nice, nestled right along side one of the walls of hills that make the valley that the town stretches along. The tournament started with two games of university students versus the "adults." Following that, we split everyone up for a hat tournament - all the players mixed up. It's ultimate's way of saying pick-up, though captains don't choose players. The team I ended up on went on to win the hat tournament, quite possibly my first tournament victory playing ultimate. We got "coal cream puffs," courtesy of Yubari and some nice socks, courtesy of Club Jr., the largest company in Japan that does disc sport related business. The cream puffs are regular cream puffs that have squid ink mixed in to the batter so they turn out pitch black. They're really quite good.

After the tournament, we moved en masse to the hotel. Turns out the place is, in fact, the building of the old Yubari North High School, which closed in 1994. Yubari has seen it's population dwindle from 116,000 in 1960 to only about 10,000 now. The mines began closing in the sixties and Mitsubishi closed their last mine in 1990, leaving the town without any real industry. Something like a dozen schools (elementary, middle and high school) have been closed, leaving only one of each. That a good use could be found for at least one of the buildings is great. And the hotel was actually really pretty cool. There was a small display of photos and other odds and ends from the school's history.

Dinner was near the coal mining museum and camp ground. The camp ground was in fact the location of a boondoggle of an amusement park, built at the tale end of the boom economy as Yubari attempted to redefine itself as a tourist spot. But it never took off, and the entire amusement park, roller coasters and all, is now completely gone. Dinner was the Hokkaido specialty, Chingis Khan (AKA Mongolian barbecue) and beer. It was fun, and then we all moved back to the hotel for the after party, which was fairly calm and sedate by Japanese after party standards. Before the after party, I did find two small stag beetles in the room as we had forgotten to close the windows before we went out for dinner. Beetles have spiky feet, which means that it's hard to get them off of carpet when they don't want to go. But I was able to get them out eventually.

In the morning, I bought a couple of small souvenirs (keitai straps of the new Yubari mascot - Melon Bear) and headed home, legs feeling relatively fresh in spite of the fact that I had ridden two hours and played in 7 games of ultimate the day before. I made it home in under 2 hours. It helps that coming out of Yubari, you start with a 5km descent, and there are only two small ascents after that on the route home. I think that with fresh legs and no luggage, I could probably make the Yubari to Eniwa trip in about 90 minutes or so. I'll have to try that some time.

Riding to and from Yubari and doing some minimal research about the town, I got to thinking about Yubari and it's past, and recent history in general. While the past is important and we clearly shouldn't forget the past, it's also important not to fetishize the past at the expense of the present. It's something that historians, especially amateur ones, are very susceptible to do. Yes, Yubari is now bankrupt and has a tiny fraction of the population that it did in it's heyday. But that's not to say that 1960 was perfect. Far from it. I've seen color aerial photographs of Yubari in the early 1970s. The river? A sickly yellow. I've read that the town was, not surprisingly, more or less coated in black soot. Steam locomotives ran up and down the valley belching out lots of black smoke. And there were 3 different lines that ran up and down different side valleys, meaning that no part of the town would have been immune from the black smoke. And, hell, it was one of Japan's biggest coal mining towns. Coal is dirty.

Today, Yubari, while much smaller and financially staring into the abyss, the valley itself is beautiful, even if the buildings are not. Will Yubari be able to survive one or two more decades? I don't know. But they're trying. The new mayor is the same age as I am. 30. This is a town where more than half the population is elderly. So at least some young people care. And maybe that'll be able to save what's left in Yubari. Maybe it won't. But it's important not to forget that Yubari isn't only it's past. There is a present, and hopefully there will be a future.

The historian bug bites me again...

So, this coming weekend, I have an ultimate tournament in Yubari. Never heard of it? Not surprising. But in Japan, it's well known for a couple of reasons. One is the melons. Canteloupes, or rockmelons if you like. It's also known for being the city that is bankrupt. This is a "city" - town really, at this point - of 10,000 people that has millions of dollars of debt. Why? The reasons are obviously many, but suffice to say, it was a coal boom town, and for the last twenty years, there have been ZERO coal mines operating. The last one closed up shop in 1990, though the first closure dates back to the 1960s. So there is quite a bit of writing to be found about Yubari around the interwebs, as well as non-electronic mediums. Of course, it helps if you can read Japanese, though there is a fair amount of English language writing out there as well.

After riding my bike there last weekend, my interest has been piqued by finding out that at it's peak, Yubari had something like 116,000 residents. It was, at the time, about the 4th largest city in Hokkaido, no small feat when you consider the location.

And all of this internet research has been leading me towards a possible paper, and here's the first few lines that I thought of.

"What is Yubari? Sure, there are the simple answers. It's a cautionary tale, warning municipal leaders against putting all their eggs in one proverbial basket. It's the tale of one boondoggle after another at the tail end of the bubble economy. It's the namesake of a secondary character in Quentin Tarintino's Kill Bill. It's the home of a once major international film festival that saw the director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs appear as a guest more than once. But all those answers are too easy."

If this is really going to happen, it's going to need some serious time and leg work. But I'm really hooked on the story of this town. We'll just have to wait and see.

New bike

Today, I got to try out my new road bike. As an inaugural first run, I headed up to Yubari, where I'll be participating in an ultimate tournament next week. I figured I might ride my bike up if the weather is nice next weekend. Staying overnight with a barbeque party. So it should be fun. And it's definitely doable as a bike ride. Today, with no ultimate (but doing it as a round trip), I made it to Yubari in just under 2 hours. Round trip totals: about 96 km (appox. 60 miles) in just under 4 hours. And yeah, it's a lot easier to ride on roads with a road bike. Just as (dirt) mountain roads are easier with a mountain bike.

Dander raising issues

So, I was just poking around on Facebook (which is more and more a rarity these days). And I came across a comment on an acquaintance's photo. The photo was in an album of things and people this acquaintance, who lives in the Tokyo area, has seen on the train. The photo in question was of a middle aged gentleman snoozing on the train with a fairly impressive straw hat. He happened to be wearing a T-shirt that read "Japon." And the comment made by this acquaintance's friend was about the spelling, implying that it was wrong. Which it is...if you are an English speaker. But that's the funny thing about the alphabet. It isn't the exclusive domain of the English language. In fact, many of the European languages, as well as a few other languages around the world, use the same characters to write words.

And "Japon" happens to look perfectly normal to a resident of Paris or Montreal. Because that is exactly how you should write the name of the country if you are a French speaker. Sure, I don't expect all English speakers to know that, but it is a good example of coming across as a bit of an English language snob.

Another example I came across recently pertains to what the majority of Americans call "Hawaiian shirts." In the Japanese language, said garment is known as the easily understandable "Aloha shirt." Now, sure, most American's wouldn't use this phrasing, but I also imagine that many could probably guess as to the meaning. And, what do know, a tiny bit of digging on the internet turns up the fact that the term "Aloha shirt" originates in Hawaii of all places. It seems to be a brand name for that variety of clothing. While I can't vouch for the accuracy because it comes from Wikipedia, but it seems that perhaps in Hawaii, the shirts are, in fact, still referred to by at least some locals as "Aloha shirts."

I could go on with more examples (the word "prepone" which is commonly used in Indian English), but I guess the point I'm getting at is this - I'm not one to suffer ignorance very much in the first place, but when you couple ignorance with condescension, it really gets my dander up. I know that not everyone was raised in a household where dictionaries and encyclopedias and almanacs were always within easy reach, but in the age of the internet, you really don't have much excuse for not checking on things.

Sorry for the mini-rant. But it really bugs me.

Photos!

This past Sunday was the school festival, so that means that I took a whole mess of photos - some of which actually are fit for public consumption! Enjoy the slideshow and click through to see them more closely.