Okonomiyaki World

Monday is my first time to join a mixed evening training session at Shosenji aikido dojo. When I arrive, only one person is sitting on the mat in hakama, doing some warm-up stretches. Another young foreigner. With bright eyes, he greets me, introduces himself and welcomes me to the dojo with a smile and a few friendly words. I go and get changed. When I get back from the changing rooms, a few more people have started warming up, and I bow and join them. Training is supposed to start at 7 o’clock. At 7.15, the dojo has filled up, and there is just about enough space for everybody to turn and slide and roll the dance of aikido. Some collisions occur, too, and someone’s head gets hurt, but recovers.

First, I train with an older gentleman whose movements are so soft, I can only feel he’s there whenever I find myself flying or gliding to the ground inexplicably. This is a simple tenkan - hand in your face - throw exercise. Next, we practise rooting ourselves. The partner grabs our wrists from the front and pulls them towards himself. We sink our feet and centre of gravity into the ground and counter the pull guiding it towards the ground, neutralising its force with the immutable force of our centre. This time, I train with an energetic young man called Hos-san, if I have read the kanji correctly. He gives me some encouraging words about my strength, but I feel I need to try harder to try less hard.

When I’m training with Tsu-sensei, a very high ranking sensei in the dojo who gives me a lot of useful advice on the throws we practise from ushiro ryotedori, Shihan appears out of nowhere as he does, and asks the sensei to excuse us for a second. He introduces me to Herrn Tho, who has just come in wearing black clothes, carrying a motorbike helmet. We smile and greet each other. Then he kindly lets me get on with my training, and we agree to talk later.

So after a very pleasant, enriching training session that seems, for some reason, to last longer and draw more sweat than the women’s class, we talk. So how long have you been here for? 15 years. Wow, that’s a long time. He is an engineer. But he studied physics. After that, he did research in America and Japan, and is now working in semiconductor research and production. He spent the first 6 years in Tokyo, and now feels quite settled in Osaka. So where are you from in Germany? He asks. “Hannover.” We speak German, obviously, and the female dojo boss asks us whether we are happy to have found somebody to speak our mother tongue with. There are some attempts of German by other dojo members. “Ich liebe dich.” and “Dankeschoen.” and “Guten, guten.”

So, we are both from Germany, we are both from Hannover. “What school did you go to?” he asks. “Bismarckschule.” “Me too.” We marvel in silence at this strange coincidence. “So,” he asks, “Did you go to that 100 year Bismarckschule anniversary party last year?” “No. I really wanted to go, but I was still studying in Bath at the time. But my mother went. She went to the same school. She was actually the first girl in Bismarckschule, and she picked that strange pink-purple colour for the auditorium.” Now, he covers his mouth with one hand and turns away in laughing disbelief. When he turns back, he says my mother’s name. It is a statement but it sounds like a question. Disbelief. My jaw drops and remains there for a while until I can speak again. “You know my mum?” “Yes. We went to school together. And I met her at the anniversary. Now I remember, she told me her daughter was going to Osaka. Now I know why your face seemed so familiar!”

Now I remember, too, that my mother told me about an old classmate of hers in Osaka, and that she had meant to give me his contact details. But obviously, that was not necessary. We just met, anyway, in Osaka, a 3.7 Million city, at Shosenji aikido temple in Toyonaka.

“Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?” he asks. As most days and nights, I have no plans outside work and training. So he invites me for my first Osaka okonomiyaki. We order one type called “mixed” containing pork, tiger prawns and squid, and one called “inaka” (countryside) containing mochi (sticky rice ball pieces) and potatoes. Both are extremely tasty, but as we can still eat more, we finish off with a load of mixed yaki-soba. I drink oulong tea and calpis from the soft drink bar, he orders a pint of beer.

So while two of the renowned Osaka okonomiyaki are sizzling away on the hot plate that forms the middle part of our table, we talk about what has brought us to Japan, and about what we do and want to do, and about my mother, and sister who paints, and his sister who paints, too, and translates in London. And savouring the tasty fried food, we celebrate the strange coincidence and the mysterious workings of the small world we live in. A world sizzling away and producing celestial flavours as everybody throws their favourite ingredients onto the hot plate. Okonomiyaki. We exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses and say good bye, and go our separate ways again, two Germans in Japan, two Hannoverians in Osaka.