I still remember the light breeze, the gurgle of flowing water, and that joyful sense of release. Tourists flock to the rock gardens of Ryoanji; I found my Zen behind a great sushi restaurant, against a stunning 12th floor view of southern Kyoto, amidst the hustle and bustle of an underground Starbucks. I refer, of course, to the delights of the sit-down toilet. Only after stumbling every morning to a porcelain bowl in the floor can you understand the genius of Western plumbing. For a month, my brother and I made daily pilgrimages to our favorite sites; they became “ours” in a sense that Nijo Castle and the Golden Pavilion never did. We went to Japan to help my brother find himself, but spent a month looking for sit-down toilets instead.
It was July, and my brother Isaac had a college application to write. If Tom Cruise could find his soul and the obligatory Asian chick in Japan, my brother should have no problem getting an essay topic. Alas, Isaac was interested in the girl, not the spiritual epiphany. I had planned our trip from Boston, preparing for an exotic land of kimonos and haikus; my brother packed his bags in Taiwan, thinking of schoolgirl uniforms and manga comics. Isaac won. As Last Samurai morphed into Lolita, even I became an accomplice. The best way to snap pictures of unsuspecting females is to position your frumpy sister in front of them. Schoolgirls on bikes, young mothers at the mall, Shinto priestesses on festival barges…and the sister can be erased with Photoshop™.
I was horrified. He was supposed to ponder the tension between East and West in modern Japan, the ever-present shadows of the past in sprawling Kyoto, the sense of both fascination and alienation in a foreign land or just how a clump of white sand is supposed to signify mankind’s insignificance in the cosmos. How was stalking Japanese women supposed to demonstrate his thoughtfulness, maturity, and fitness for acceptance to an Ivy League college?! Like hell!
But it was fun. We would sit in a Starbucks window and grade each girl that walked past. I discovered that my brother had terrible taste in women. When we did agree, I got a thrill out of getting our victim. On days the hormones ebbed, we would stand for hours browsing secondhand manga stores or actually visit some of those tourist attractions. Every morning was the first decision of the day: did we want croissants and a nice single-stall with a self-warming seat or donuts with a full row of toilets and automatic faucets? Often, we’d choose both: Isaac ate second meals like a hobbit, which doubled our food budget. I fretted about the money, yet went to bed smiling.
After a year of college, I’d forgotten what Isaac was like. He wasn’t some pseudo-intellectual who wrote long papers on the philosophy of reflections in the art of the Japanese garden. My brother was a young man who liked short skirts, violent comics, and a second order of ramen. He also taught himself Japanese, gave up bus seats for ladies, and knew when my backpack was too heavy. We went to Japan so Isaac could find himself, but it was I who needed to find him. As July drew towards its end, we knew the best bathrooms in Kyoto, yet still didn’t have an essay topic. I, however, did get the epiphany: when it comes to family, sometimes you just have to flush your carefully laid plans down the drain.
