From one culture to another; cornwall-based filmmaker christiaan bailey explores surfing in the land of the rising sun.

Words and Pictures by Christiaan Bailey

(First published in Stranger 011 - August 2006)

I had come to Japan to promote my surf movie The Hub (a traditional style longboarding movie, focused around Noosa Heads, Australia). Jacob Stuth, my friend (a talented surfer and member of the cast) was here to help me, and together through Japanese financing we would try to get other projects off the ground. We both hoped for waves as I wanted to do some filming, and Jacob was keen to share the advances which he and Tom Wegener had made in their Alaia project.

Surfing is pretty big in Japan - not so much the numbers of people who do it, but their intense dedication and willingness to consume. Some shapers spend a few months in Japan each year and can then cruise around for the next nine months knowing that they are financially secure. The Japanese cherish their surfboards in the same way that the ancient Samurai cherished their swords. Quality is valued highly, but it is also costly and this might explain part of the Japanese surfers' reverence for their equipment. However, there is something inherent about Japanese culture that goes much deeper than just valuing an object based on cost alone: it is almost spiritual, and certainly all-encompassing.

When the Japanese surf, they do so in a thoroughly methodical manner. A deeply polished car/MPV pulls into a space and out steps our surfer. They open the rear of the vehicle, produce a portable shower - this is placed to one side for later use - and a rack is also brought out. The rack is unfolded, a wetsuit hung upon it, a changing mat laid beside it. The surfboard is finally removed from the roof and de-bagged, the board is placed delicately on the rack, and its bag folded neatly and placed in the car. Once dressed and on the beach, the stretching begins... this can go on for some time, even if it is pumping! I witnessed this at every surf break I went to and I suspect that in Japan a surfboard rack and changing mat are just as essential as the fins or wax to go with your board. There is no middle way, it is all or nothing.

This nature embodies Japan; it is in the railway systems, with 285 km/h trains running on specially built tracks; it is in the concrete that is poured relentlessly over the countryside; the hi-tec cars; the lack of a middle ground between plains and steep sided mountains; and the steadfast belief that no one understands the Japanese but the Japanese. The people are deeply respectful of their culture and would consider themselves attuned with nature. I never felt threatened in their land, yet they have history of invasion, isolationism and blatant disregard for the environment and many of its creatures. Japan is a bewildering and contradictory place; cities full of technological wizardry, shrouded in a canopy of power and phone cables more akin to a shanty town, and young women who dress as school girls in strip clubs by night and take Cornish filmmakers and "Aussie" surf stars on sight seeing tours of local landmarks by day.

painter at The Greenroom Festival

Much like our own humble beginnings in this nation, surfing was brought to the shores of Japan by others. After WW2, American soldiers policed the islands (they continue to do so via the American Navy) and during R&R some would go surfing. Waves had been breaking on the shores of Japan for thousands of years prior and the Japanese had no doubt utilised them in boats or on rafts whilst fishing, but this approach was different. The style of wave riding that the Americans demonstrated was for pleasure and expression. Onlookers were soon copying the designs of the American equipment and out there riding the waves themselves.

About an hour outside Tokyo and on the edge of Yokohoma is an area called Shonnan. On a weekday with waves maxing at 1ft, Jacob and I witnessed a sea of black rubber, floating like debris along the shoreline. There must have been about 800 people out at one of the beaches. "It's busier at the weekends", said Nishi. It certainly put crowding into perspective for me, the line-up in Cornwall is positively empty in comparison.

After the Greenroom Festival we travelled down to Chiba. Being further away from the main centres of population, the crowds diminished - but there were still plenty of folk to share the waves with. Our hosts from Sunset Town' surf shop, as well as old friends Taka (a surfing Buddist monk) and Tatsue helped us score the best waves. One morning it was overhead out the front of our lodgings, and on the other days we surfed down the coast at Tito beach, with its long right-hander and smiley local crew. The standard of surfing we witnessed was good. Jacob was riding an Alaia (a solid wood plank with no fin based on ancient Hawaiian designs) shaped by Tom Wegener; people were fascinated by the board and stunned by Jacob's ability on it. They wanted a piece of the action and swapped equipment outback; the stoke was such that the face plants did not dilute the smiles. Such public displays of inability and self-humiliation at the hands of the Alaia were quite suprising given the Japanese penchant for saving face, but it demonstrated the commitment that these surfers had to mastering their art and how their enthusiasm enabled them to be bigger than the pressures of society.

The exchange of culture between Japan and nations who pioneered the modern surfing age seemed a strange one at first. Yet, spending time makes it possible to see how surfing has attained a position of reverence with open minds in Nippon. Comparisons with Samurai and surfers are fairly easy. I realise this might sound absurd, but both live for the moment, cherishing and experiencing the now with all their senses; hold tools of the trade as precious; train tirelessly for that one magic day; and devote their lives to their practice. The Zen-like approach which the Japanese take to their surfing displays commitment to a life in tune with the swells, tides and seasons. A natural flow, the drawn out lines and snappy turns of surfers mimic those of a master swordsman, committed to the attainment of perfection in the Now.

Japanese have a great respect for tradition and this has led to a fascination with surfing's roots. The blending of imported cultures with the waters of these four islands, has led to a freedom-loving movement of highly regimented wave sliders, mimicking ancient arts of their own. My time in this contradictory land left me wanting more; I only caught a glimpse of the wave potential and met so many wonderful people. The Japanese are excellent hosts, if only we could get them to leave the whales alone...