Asakiyume mita

Many people know the story of faithful Hachiko, the dog who always went to Shibuya station in Tokyo to greet his master after work, and who continued to go there every day to wait for him for nine years after the man died. There's a bronze statue of Hachiko by Shibuya station now.

Well, on February 5, Tokyo got snow that--unusually for Tokyo--stuck. And in Shibuya station, someone made a friend for Hachiko:

Photo by Tokyo photographer 清水哲朗; gobiguma on Twitter (original tweet here)


This photo courtesy of Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper


We can imagine the statue and the snow dog came alive in the wee hours of the morning and romped and played, dark dog and pale one. I'm sure the spirit of actual Hachiko is pleased.

You may remember this clip from The Pink Panther:



I had a similar experience a few days ago, and in trying to decide what thing to talk about this morning (other contenders were Moana and Aslan's remark about only telling you your own story, both of which maybe I'll talk about later) this is what won out.

I was running in my neighborhood, and a little dog--very little--came running across its yard toward me. Its owner was calling it, but it charged on into the street and bit me on the calf.

"He bit me!" I said, shocked.

"He doesn't bite," the owner said. "He can't bite."

"I'm saying he just did," I said.

"No, no--he can't bite," the owner said.

"Well, he did something with his mouth on my leg," I said, and we were at an impasse. She scooped him up in her arms and apologized while continuing to say that he didn't bite. I was thinking, well, maybe the bite didn't break the skin; it didn't feel like much. I'll run home and check. So I did, and damn it all, it had broken the skin.

So I put on street clothes and went *back* to the woman's house, and knocked on the door.

"Look, I'm not here to cause trouble, but your dog did bite me," I said, and I showed her the bite. Her husband showed up behind her. "Did you see it happen?" he asked her. She had a deer-in-the-headlights look and said, "He did run over to her . . ."

"I just want to know that he's up-to-date on his rabies shots--that's all," I said.

"He has his own insurance!" the woman said. "It's at [can't remember] Veterinary Clinic."

"And he's had rabies shots?" I asked again.

Well, so, in the end, they were able to show me that yes, the dog had had his rabies shots.

"Thank you!" I said. "That's great. That sets my mind at ease. That's all I wanted--I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't get sick, you know?" And they nodded, looking a bit dazed, and I left, and everything was, I guess, more or less copacetic.

I've just finished a great book on restorative justice--that's where the harmed party and the person who's caused the harm meet up directly to make things right between them. Obviously this can't happen all the time. For one thing, it takes both parties being willing to engage in good faith, and a lot of times that's not possible. But if it CAN happen, it can be much more healing for both the victim and the perpetrator, and for the community as a whole, than our current justice system. For me, that's what the encounter I had felt like. I could have just gone home angry and stewed, or I could have called someone and made a complaint, but instead I talked to the people directly.

It's not a perfect outcome. I told this story on Twitter the day it happened, and one person noted to me privately that because I didn't contact authorities, the dog was likely to just do the thing again. And that's true, but I feel like there's a limit to how much responsibility I have to take for their dog situation. And who knows? Maybe they'll be more careful to have their dog on a leash before letting it out from now on.

Mt. Kablaki is not the tallest mountain in Timor-Leste; I think it's the third-tallest. But it's a sacred mountain, like Mt. Ramelau, the tallest--and it's visible (and hike-able) from Ainaro.

Mt. Kablaki



One of the students asked me when American independence day was, and I told her it was July 4th and asked when Timor-Leste's independence day was. May 20th, she told me. Then I told them the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. It's a myth, but it encapsulates values we'd like to think our first president had. Then I asked them to tell me a story about Xanana Gusmão, their national hero and current prime minister. One of the students told me how, during the resistance, local people hid him on Mt Kablaki.

I've also read that he got a protective amulet there--the sort that lets you move unseen past your enemies.

I've also heard that he could transform himself into a dog. There are many many dogs running around loose in Ainaro, so that would be a good disguise. I asked one girl if she had any dogs, and she said yes, four or five. I asked what she fed them, and she said rice, or rice gruel.

Later, when I was rinsing rice for dinner (and in Timor-Leste there's much more reason to do this than there is in America, because in Timor-Leste the rice contains lots of bits of chaff and hull), I went to pour off the water in the yard, and one of the local dogs came trotting over eagerly. Aha. Rice gruel, I thought.

neighborhood dogs



But back to mountains. All the mountains roundabout Ainaro are beautiful.



Here's dawn over the pre-secondary school, across the street from where I was staying.