South of the Rising Sun: Surfing in Japan

by Ben Martin

"Where are you going," the guy in the shop asked me as he pulled down the double padded board bag from the shelf, "Indo? Australia?"

"Japan," I replied.

"Right,.."

There it was again, that nod of the head and look of bemusement that me and my girlfriend and had become so used to over the months leading up to our trip.

"Japan heh..? Yeah, there’s waves there for sure," He didn’t sound like he believed what he was saying, and I’m certain that he was not far from trying to convince me that it was not too late to change my ticket, to Indo, the Philippines, Fiji, or ... anywhere but Japan! Nevertheless he sold me a copy of the Drive Thru Japan DVD and wished me a good trip.

As much as I wanted to ignore his not so well hidden scepticism I had to admit his doubts were not unfounded. Ask anyone about surf in Japan and their inevitable response will be small waves, big crowds and lengthy flat spells. And yet my girlfriend and I, both avid surfers were about to leave the British winter behind and head to Japan, with the intention of living, working, and saving some much needed travel money whilst sampling as much of the local culture as we could. Naturally we wanted to give ourselves the best possible chance of finding waves.

Our need to be by the sea had already meant that we had been forced to pass by opportunities to sign up for the big English teaching companies who recruit from abroad and offer lucrative deals, paying your flights, finding your accommodation and offering visa and lifestyle support whenever needed. The only problem was they could not guarantee where one person, let alone two would be placed. So with the whole country to choose from we began our research.

The east and Pacific facing coast is the place to be for surf in Japan, the west coast is fronted only by the Japan Sea, a narrow straight between Japan and China. And so after much pouring over maps, reading and re-reading the sparse amounts of information we could find about the waves in Japan we were left with a few choices of what seemed to be the most consistent places. Near Tokyo there are the prefectures of Kanagawa, Shizuoka and most famously the current WCT site, Chiba, all of them peninsulas. Further south on Shikoku island we considered Kochi, a nicely curved bay that was rumoured to have a wealth of good reefs and river mouths. This was our first choice for a long time, but then a last minute decision in Tokyo changed our plans again and we found ourselves on a boat headed towards our until then second choice: Miyazaki on Kyushu island, one of the southernmost and most swell exposed prefectures in Japan.

There has been very little since that day to make us wish we had made a different decision. We arrived in February, and despite the cold winds which tear relentlessly from Siberia, the sea temperature was surprisingly warm, around 18C, the same as the British summer! We were greeted with long stretches of promising beach, fringing the city to both the north and the south. It was true that the main beach, Kizaki-hama (actually an ex WCT contest site) was a very crowded spot, but it was possible to find some quieter waves nearby.

It did not take long for us to meet a welcoming crowd of other gaijin (foreigners), most of whom surfed, and all of whom were willing to share their knowledge of the area with us. There was a mix of young people, like us passing through and enjoying the area’s waves and relaxed lifestyle, and then an older crew of expats, mostly Australians and Americans who had arrived here maybe ten years ago or more, searching for waves and finding such a rich supply that they never left, many of them marrying and settling into a quiet life.

"How long are you planning to stay?" many of them asked.

"A year."

"See you in three," was the all too often worrying reply, but it was true that everyone seemed to stay longer than they planned, and it was easy to see why. Easy to see why, especially when the real surf started to come through.

Japan is a land that seems to be built on extreme polar opposites. Miles of flat land suddenly extends up into steep and jagged mountain scenery. An ancient and sacred culture walks the same streets as a new generation sporting a mind-boggling array of technology: car TVs, movie phones, electric toilet seats and much more. The most polite and placid people you will ever meet live in the shadow of one of the fiercest and bloodiest histories known. Even the ocean, small, clean, unthreatening for the colder winter months, at some point around the middle of July suddenly begins to rage and gnarls up some of the most spectacular seas you can ever wish to see, no doubt the inspiration for Hokusai’s iconic painting, The Great Wave.

The reason for this sudden change is of course the typhoon season, and surf in Japan is all about these typhoons. In May and June, the early tropical storms brew far out to sea, perhaps brushing by the Philippines and pushing a long-range three-foot swell onto the shores of Japan. But by July as the sea temperatures begin to warm up the storms lurch ever closer, sometimes steering off to the west and underneath Japan, sometimes heading east out to sea, and frighteningly occasionally hitting land. My first hand experience of this was Typhoon 14 of last year. Many said this was the worst in living memory, and it struck Miyazaki head on in early September. It was so powerful, and so slow moving that the rainfall was fatal, causing catastrophic flooding, and forcing many citizens, including my girlfriend and I, out of their houses and into evacuation centres.

The typhoon season lasts for around six months, and there are so many typhoons each year (I think this years official count was 24) that they are not given names like their American cousins, but numbered, in a much more bureaucratic and Japanese fashion. However they are named, each typhoon brings with it huge seas, and the coastline is suddenly full of more possibility than a revolving sushi bar. Surf in Japan isn’t all about small waves!

Drive north or south from Miyazaki City along a long and winding coast road, and within an hour, definitely within two, you will encounter a host of beach breaks, reefs breaks, point breaks and river mouths, each requiring their own special set of circumstances to start firing. Some of the waves are fun, some of them more serious, and some, dare I say it, are world class. The famous Curren’s point, a terrifying righthander (serious surfers only!) is just a short drive from the city. My own personal favourite is Aora, a left that breaks off a point in front of a peaceful fishing harbour. Once you have paddled around the fishing lines to get out there is a lovely almond shaped barrel take off, which on the right day then lines up in a long fast wall that takes you racing towards the harbour. It’s just one of the many classic breaks on this coast that can hold anything from head high to triple over.

Swell direction is a big factor on this coastline, and on any given swell it is almost impossible to know for sure where will be working without checking for yourself. Somewhere that was huge and out of control on the last typhoon can be flat on the next, and then perfect on the next. Only one thing is for certain -- when there is swell there will usually be good waves -- somewhere. In the height of the season, August and September, when the typhoons pump through with a regularity of almost one a week there are is a lot of searching to do! And if you are prepared to go a little bit further you will surely be rewarded.

On a trip last summer to an unnamed southern island, one of many that stretch in a long chain off the south coast of Japan, I was lucky enough to happen upon some of the most perfect waves I have seen anywhere in the world. A deserted beach and a machine like righthander throwing out huge, overhead pits, not a drop of water out of place and just a few local legends getting barrelled off their nuts! I could not believe it, but driving around the island later that day I soon saw that this wave was no freak. The coastline was just overloaded with great spots, most of them graced by just one or two lonely surfers. Beautiful scenery, warm water, no crowds and classic waves. It’s the sort of thing you dream of when you set off on a surf trip, but I never expected to find it in Japan.

Surfboard-maru

When one thinks of the pursuits that the Japanese, living in almost total isolation for such a long period of their history, have made their own, it is easy to see why surfing has taken off here in such a popular way. Zen Buddhism, haiku poetry, the martial arts, even flower arranging and calligraphy all require that special attention to the moment that so many surfers find in their sport. And when the Japanese take to something they do so in a big way. In The Last Samurai Tom Cruise notes, "they get up at dawn and practise whatever it is they do all day".

... it meant that the object it was used with was more than just an object, but through care and dedication had become an extension of the spirit of its owner.

This is certainly true of the surfers, and no matter how early you get up in the land of the rising sun you will rarely ever be the first one at the beach. They will go out in almost flat conditions and still find speed enough for a snap on a wave face that I would never have considered even with a longboard. But it’s not just their vehement dedication that is impressive about the surfers in Japan; they seem to be one of the few groups of Japanese people that have inherited the spirit of their Samurai ancestors.

It would be easy here to make comparisons between the slashings of the Samurai’s sword and the precise and snappy arcs torn into the waves by their sharp nosed and tiny boards. The ease with which they perform all their manoeuvres could easily hearken back to a hereditary aptitude for grace. But watch any Japanese surfer at the beach and you will notice something more than just their style.

There is an ancient Japanese suffix -- maru -- which is rarely used today but seems to encapsulate the Japanese approach to their surfing. When the suffix was used with another word it meant that the object it was used with was more than just an object, but through care and dedication had become an extension of the spirit of its owner. Therefore a Samurai’s sword was a sword-maru, meaning that because of the assiduousness with which he cleaned it, sharpened it, used it, his very being had become infused with the object. Go to any beach car park in Japan and watch the surfers carefully taking their pristine boards out of their bags, attaching the leashes, putting on fresh wax, tightening or adjusting the fins, then stretching for a good five minutes (even if its pumping!) before entering the water and finally catching their waves, then coming in and washing and dismantling the whole kit once more. Their surfboard-maru. Like the tea ceremony, like sumo wrestling and like so many other things Japanese, surfing in Japan is not just about the action itself, but the ritual and the whole process before and after the action. It’s a far cry from my friends and I back at home tossing our battered boards into the back of a transit van and racing off to the surf. Patience and quality are examples of a Japanese wisdom we have yet to learn.

Attack of the Lego Men

Unfortunately it’s not quite the far eastern paradise it could be, there is a yin to the yang of the Japanese surfing life. Another unfortunate extreme is that for all the breathtaking beauty in the country and the wonderful spirit of the surfers here, the country’s government is responsible for some deeply depressing violations against nature. They seem to be stuck in an obsession with concrete -- where there is a space, fill it with cranes diggers and little men in hard hats until it is hard and grey. This is not just for the ascetic reasons however. A massive 8% of the country's annual GDP is raised through construction -- a figure that results in Japan, a country about the size of California, spending more money on public works that the whole of the United States. It has not been unknown for construction companies to be given lucrative deals filling in harmless mountainsides and valleys in the middle of nowhere with concrete and unneeded roads. The effect for the countryside is devastating, and last year the government turned its attention to the Miyazaki local beaches.

Over 60% of Japan's coastline is already covered with concrete, you will never have to drive far along a coastal road before you encounter a pile of the notorious tetrapods, massive concrete blocks, shaped like a huge rolling jacks. They pile these anywhere they can, claiming they are needed for coastal protection. People in Japan are used to this, and hardly blink an eye to see a new pile of the pods appear. But when the local government proposed around March 2005 to put huge concrete barriers parallel to the shore along a two kilometre stretch of beach used by hundreds of local surfers, not to mention a rare breed of loggerhead turtles, there was an outrage. The government claimed it was necessary work -- a large typhoon the previous year had destroyed a road that ran adjacent to the shore. The road however, had only been built for the purposes of a previous construction project, where they lined huge groins of tetrapods out to sea along the same stretch of beach. What’s more, all the evidence seemed to show that works of this kind did nothing for coastal protection, and made the erosion process quicker in the long run. Miyazaki’s sister city in the States, Virginia City, had actually removed its tetrapods in the Seventies and since 1985 the American opinion has been that these projects actually increase erosion.

Ties between the government and the construction companies are all too obvious to see. Once a governor has retired, he will almost always go straight to the head of a construction company, providing an easy access route for any number of backhanders and dodgy contracts to be issued. Therefore a local by-law stating that the beach was to be preserved for the use of the surfers and the turtles was unsurprisingly overlooked, and anybody that dared to speak out against the project mysteriously faced disciplinary transfer.

As with anywhere, the spirit of the surfers was inspirational, and along with environmentalists they did everything they could to oppose the work. There were protests and public outcries against the project. Local people turned up in their hundreds to march through the city's streets, or to hold hands in a show of strength at the beach. Driftwood barriers were built to stop the trucks. The media, however, gave the story only the most minimal of coverage. It was rumoured that any TV, radio station or newspaper that covered the story would be forced to surrender their license. The local council had the whole thing pretty well sewn up.

In November 2005 the cranes moved in. At first there were just a few men in hard hats wandering about the shoreline, taking measurements, unreal little Lego men preparing to wreak their destruction. Surfers watched from the waves, hardly believing that the beach was about to slowly be eaten by the grinding jaws of the mechanical dinosaurs. But little by little it happened. Sit-in protests were to no avail, and the beach was taken apart. If I had arrived in the city a year later than I had, there would have been no beach for me to lament, but seeing the slow destruction of the place where I had already caught so many good waves was one of the most upsetting and angering experiences of my surfing life to date.

But at the risk of finishing on negative note about a country that I have grown to love in many ways, let me relay a story which I think reflects the true nature of the people here. Turning up on the aforementioned island we expected to hire a car, but when we asked a guy behind the desk at the ferry port it turned out there were no cars available. He ran around for two hours, phoning car hire companies and friends but without any luck. Then, finally he came towards us holding a set of keys.

"Take my car," he said seriously. We tried to protest but he would not be deterred, and led us out to a small van, complete with surfboard racks and clothes rails.

"Sorry about the dog hair," he said, and proceeded to get out a map of the island and cross off a number of surf spots he recommended. One of them just happened to be that magical righthander.

"When will you surf?" I asked, still feeling guilty about taking his car.

"Next week is good too," he said, smiling, and I don’t doubt he was right.

Talk to almost any long-term foreign resident of Japan and they will almost certainly tell you that their relationship with the country is grounded on a solid love/hate basis, reflecting all the other extremes the country holds. And my experience has been no different. Love the waves; hate the construction work. Love the people; hate the bureaucracy. Love the sushi; hate the natto (fermented soy bean hell paste! ).

The Land of the Rising Sun may not be the first on everybody’s list of surf destinations, but come at the right time, be prepared to search, and you will surely be rewarded with not only classic waves but a unique experience of a fascinating culture and people.