Moriguchi, Where I'll be Straying the Next Few Months

Moriguchi, precipitating. Something it's been doing too much of recently.

What do I know about Moriguchi? I know how to get there by train. I know how to get to my house. And I know how to get back to the train station, which is very important, because everything I do is beyond here. I know that Moriguchi is a suburb of Osaka, just a stop from Kyobashi. The limited express doesn’t stop at this poor overlooked city with few attractions.

Despite the three weeks I’ve been here, the things I know about Moriguchi are essentially what I can gather by staring out my window. I’m on the fourth floor, so I recon my view is first-class compared to other Moriguchians, though admittedly, today is the first time I’ve actually parted my white lace curtains to observe the view.

There are streets and streets of tall narrow houses, gardenless, with just balconies littered with drying underwear and towels. They’re all very similar, with often the only distinguishing feature being a door decoration. Indeed, this is how I learned to recognize my home. My house is wedged neatly between two other houses. Only emaciated cats can pass through the six inch wide corridor that runs between them, though it’s not something I’ve seen at my house yet. The neighbor’s house is lined with old water-filled pet bottles, which I vaguely remember to be some sort of superstition said to ward off cats- ominous, stigmatized, strays. The city is full of them. Toms patrol their blocks, and queens call out to them like cheap prostitutes. It’s one of the more obnoxious sounds that fill the night. Otherwise, it’s the typical droning siren, buzzing motorcycle, barking dog…  Oh, that’s just my family’s mutt, Towa, who for some inexplicable reason barks at the rain. But it’s all slowly becoming white noise to me anyway.

Maybe I’m just an uncultured dolt with bad eye for distinguishing city from city and little appreciation for the surely complicated social connections between the people of this town, but… this sure seems like the living space for busy people who commute to Osaka every day. I get the sense that with the exception of the elementary school children who enjoy each other’s company on the playground, Moriguchians keep their life at their work place, and come home Moriguchi because living is more affordable here. It’s not like I have nothing to compare it to. I was fortunate to live in Heisenji, a small community in Katsuyama-shi, of the sparsely populated Fukui-ken for five months. Heisenji’s small coffee shop, conveniently owned and run by my host mother, was the gathering place for all sorts of odd community members who came to her for the most recent update on the Tanaka family, or the collapsed wall just down the hill, or Fujima’s boy- did he pass his entrance exam?  I was in the loop. Living in Moriguchi, I don’t get that feeling anymore, not even in the slightest, but can you blame me? I’m at school from nine to six almost every day.

The one interesting thing I’ve picked up on is an event I call “unicorn racing”. Tuesdays and Thursdays when I’m briskly striding along the darkening streets back to my home, anticipating another great feast fashioned by my host mother, I look for the man and his herd of children that are often practicing some sort of exquisite night time sport involving lighted cones in a large grass field. The first time I saw them, they came bursting out of the park, thundering down the street like a herd of wildebeests. Bewildered, I stopped to witness this man being followed by at least twenty children of all ages, much in the same way Ceasar Milan’s pack of dogs might follow him. Into the field they sprinted, and then with great agility, began darting in and out of these mini multicolored cones that light up the field like faeries. It was magical, yet startling. I took a somewhat less magical picture, but it doesn’t do the event much justice.