Nanking-machi 1

In an unusual Sunday morning effort, I force myself out of bed at 9 o’clock. I pack a rucksack that contains some books, my camera, and exercise clothes I will need for the second part of the day. Then I leave for Sone station from where I will be taking the Hankyu line to Juso. I work at Juso, but today I’m not going there to work. I’m going there to meet my manager to visit Nanking-machi, the China-town of Kobe. This has nothing to do with work. We both wanted to go and see the Chinese New Year’s Celebrations, so we decided to go together. Two stops towards Juso, I realise that my phone has switched itself off for lack of battery. This is extremely inconvenient. I have two people to meet at locations as unspecific as a train station platform! But if I go back now, I will be late. And too late to say I will be late. So I brace myself and decide to brave the day without my mobile.

I know which line to take to Kobe, but I’m not totally sure whether Manager will meet me at Juso or hop on the train later on, as she lives along that train line. I search for her on the platform at Sone but can’t find her, so I embark on the agreed train (luckily, she is organised and has told me the train will leave at 10.06) at the front and look for her there. She is not there. At the next stop, I get off and get onto the next car of the same train. This, I continute at every stop (it takes half an our and quite a few stops to Kobe), until, upon leaving the train, I see her smiley free time face light up. I have found somebody without a mobile phone!

We take a faster train to Kobe Sannomya and ask two people where Nanking-machi is. It is about 10 minutes from the station, walking next to a long road with a Starbucks and various other shops and fast food restaurants on it. We then walk left, through a short shopping arcade and enter Nanking-machi.

The small streets lined with shops selling Chinese food, tea, stationery, lucky charms for mobile phones, China dresses and kung-fu clothes, are heaving with people. Paths are cordoned off where people are not allowed to stand but have to keep moving, so nobody gets stuck. Security guards in blue uniforms are holding up signs next to the ropes saying “No entry here” and “Please keep moving”. When we enter, there is a little hut on the right, where people can buy and light incense for good luck in the coming year of the pig, and then, in front of a small pagoda, get their picture taken together with four people dressed up as Son-goku, the Monkey King, and his companions Pigsy, Sandy, and the monk Tripitaka. Next to the pagoda is a big stage, but at the moment, it is empty. The calming and exhilarating smell of incense is wafting through the streets as Manager and I embark on a small tour of the shops before the event starts that we want to see.