Koji of Green Gables

Four years ago I was fortunate enough to travel my home country of Canada. I had developed a sort of mantra on travel at the time that was “Before journeying down the street take a look into your own backyard first”. That cross Canada trip has given me many memories and a nice collection of stories. Kayaking the Atlantic and then traveling by bus for over three days to dip my foot in the Pacific, rolling over prairies and through mountain towns, eating lobster in Cape Breton and walking around the Seawall of Stanley Park on my birthday are all things I will never forget. This story, though, is about Koji, my first real friendship, albeit a short one, with someone from Japan.

The Canadian Pilgrimage, as I have come to call it, was a trip that would serve multiple purposes. The world was in a strange state post the 9-11 attacks and there was no better time, I thought, then to trek across my own land and discover Canada. This journey was not to be all pleasure, however, and there was an element of business involved. Trying to keep afloat in the Toronto film industry had led me to an island of misery. The consistent uncertainty of employment and the move from job to job, some paying, others not, was beginning to take a toll on my love of filmmaking. Toronto became a place that felt more constricting then liberating and the wheels of my escape were set into motion one night on a dark and lonely road. My gig that night, as it was many nights at the bottom of the film gig barrel, was to sit for over 12 hours in 20 below weather watching a line of 16 pylons to ensure no cars not part of our crew parked within their borders. Sitting out there with nothing but those pylons and the mist of my own breath to keep me company gives a guy lots of time for personal reflection on his current state of being. I mean, I had already named the pylons and acted out all of Merchant of Venice with them under the dim glow of a streetlight spotlight. What else was there to do but retreat into what had become a bitter and depressed mental state armed with a large steel spatula to turn that son of a bitch over?

Megs, Madman Megs, oh Megan of Mountains had just returned from her own thrilling journey out west. She returned rejuvenated and, in many ways, a new woman. It was as though her trip exorcised many elements about her that she didn’t much enjoy or need carry and they were replaced by new pieces she found within herself she didn’t know were though. The loss of the here and the excavation of the there was the conception that gave birth to the Megs I have come to love, respect and, in more then a few ways, attempt to emulate. I owe a lot to Megs. I think she knows that. It was her stories and personal shift that light the fire under me to saw through the chain keeping me bound to the Toronto scene, dig a hole through my prison wall and Shawshank my ass out of there. Together we came up with an idea for a film of our own, something that would break us from continuing to work on the dreams of others and to create our own. In the end, our little flick about organic farming and the underground travel movement WWOOF would not soar higher then the ambitious tones of our conversations (although every now and then we still bring it up as something to eventually attempt to get on celluloid) but maybe, in the grand scheme of things, it was simply the MacGuffin in the initial brush strokes and shades of gray of a larger and more complex piece.

It was the great Sir Alfred Hitchcock who popularized the term back in the late 30s. When interviewed by Truffaut in the 60s, Hitch explained his popular cinematic device as such: "It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, 'What's that package up there in the baggage rack?' And the other answers, 'Oh that's a McGuffin.' The first one asks 'What's a McGuffin?' 'Well' the other man says, 'It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.' The first man says, 'But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,' and the other one answers 'Well, then that's no McGuffin!' So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all." In essence, the MacGuffin is the device that motivates a character and furthers the story but, when the final credits roll, has no other relevance or deeper meaning within the confines of the story. In Hitchcock’s films, examples of the MacGuffin can be found in Psycho (the stolen money, The Lady Vanishes (a code being carried by the vanishing lady) and best used in North By Northwest (a secret carried by a man who doesn’t exist). The famed falcon in the Matlese Falcon itself was a MacGuffin. A more recent example of a MacGuffin would be the curious contents of Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase in Pulp Fiction. My MacGuffin, in retrospect, seems to be the documentary film. If anything it was a catalyst and nothing more. Without it I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't have met Koji.

Koji and I crossed paths on the fertile soils of Prince Edward Island. I was a Canadian conducting research on a film that would go nowhere and he was a Japanese guy looking for a fictional redhead. It was the perfect match. The Wood Farm was my first stop while researching the film. The plan was to stay at a selection of organic farms across the Maritime provinces actually participating in the daily farming regimental routines while interviewing my farm hosts for insight on their trade. I had stayed a few days in Halifax, a place that would become my home base of sorts over the next few weeks, and shuttled over the Confederation Bridge to Charlotte Town. There, at a dilapidated gas station, I would be picked up by the elderly Marie and shuffled off to a trailer park where I would watch her jiggling tap dance nightly to the songs of Joan Armatrading only to escape this eye gouging display by heading off to sleep on the couch I shared with her kleptomaniac son. It was one of the strangest times I have ever spent and I seldom tell the tales of all that were witnessed in those bizarre few days before I was shuffled off to her husband’s farm in Rollo Bay. Some stories are best left in the basement of the library.

Koji had earned his money to fly to the land of Anne by delivering pornographic magazines to various news stands scattered about the Tokyo subway system. His English was dreadful and he seemed to only know the words “pussy” and “beer” taught to him, I’m sure, by the womanizing farmhands and equally uncouth and chauvinistic Mr. Wood. Koji best conveyed his meaning in a series of grunts and hand gestures. I would nod, cock my head, rub my chin and try to decrypt him as best as I could without some form of Rosetta Stone to guide me. It was through these complicated conversations, with much patience and coffee, that I deciphered his story and why he had made the long journey to Prince Edward Island.

Koji and I mainly talked while pealing potatoes for supper. It was certain that we would be pealing potatoes for supper. Pealing potatoes for supper had become ritual. Good Farmer Wood did not like to deviate from his routine. Either he had obsessive-compulsive disorder or he really liked potatoes. Every morning he had Cornflakes and coffee. Every day for lunch he would drive us to a pizza parlor in Souris and purchase Dr. Pepper and beef subs. Every evening for lunch it was potatoes and ground up hamburger. Every day’s eating routines mirrored the previous days right down to the placement of the salt and peppershakers on the table. Koji and I, being farm help working for lodgings and food, were given the task of potato pealing with strict instructions to cut out any protruding eyes and ensure that all potatoes were perfectly smooth. Any bumps in potato terrain would be met with Mr. Wood’s disapproving scowl and he would shoo you aside to pair away at the potato until it’s circumference was a polished as a cue ball. With the 1950s television delivering the 5 o’clock news, cautious potato pealing and a hail of hamburger grease spattering us from the frying pan I would learn of the Japanese infatuation with Anne of Green Gables.

Hanako Muraoka, a radio personality, Children’s writing and feminist is credited as first with importing Anne into Japan. While working in a Canadian mission in Tokyo a fellow missionary gave her Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 classic novel of Anne, the rambunctious orphaned redhead, and her trails and tribulations as she comes of age in Avonlea. Muraoka, taken by the strong character portrayed by Anne, translated the book into Japanese and, keeping a promise made to her Canadian friends when they were forced to leave Japan at the star of World War II, introduced Akage no An (Red-haired Anne) to a new country of school children.

Not only would the ambitious and empowering character of Anne Shirley influence young Japanese women but Montgomery’s descriptions of Prince Edward Island would be the first depictions of Canada many of the Japanese would experience. Anne devotees would hunt down images of Prince Edward Island and, like us Westerners would fanaticize of romantic retreats to the Bahamas, the Japanese would dream of one day visiting Cavendish which was the basis of Montgomery’s vividly picturesque but fictional Avonlea. Twenty-three enthusiasts would carry out this dream in 1981 and take part in one of the earliest pilgrimages to Prince Edward Island. The island folk, I’m sure, were quite surprised to learn of Japan’s fondness for their provincial icon as many of them fielded questions pertaining to where Anne lived and puzzled on how to give proper directions to Avonlea. The Anne fans would return to Japan and form a fan club called Buttercups which is still running today with over 200 members. The club publishes a monthly journal titled Buttercups Tsushin and has twice assisted in financial donations to preserve historic Montgomery landmarks (giving $3000 in the 1980s to renovate a school where Montgomery taught and in the late 1990s, on Montgomery’s birthday, donated over $1500 to help transform the author’s former home in Leaskdale, Ontario into a Museum of her life and works). In fact, the Japanese are so infatuated with Anne and P.E.I. that they created an entire theme park called Canadian World. Opened in Hokkaido in 1990, this 48 hectors park, as large as Tokyo Disney, showcased scale replicas of Green Gables with, of course, the famed Gables home being the centerpiece. I was met with disappointment thinking I would be able to trek on up to Hokkaido and enter a little piece of home abroad, maybe take a stroll through the haunted wood, as the park proved to be a financial failure and was closed down after sevens in operation.

Though some might say the Japanese underestimated the popularity of Anne, Koji would tell me that “nobody would want to visit a fake place when they could go to the real place”. At least that’s what I thought he said. He could have just been passing gas and swatting flies. The real adventure was visiting the actual island and, thus, many Japanese make the trek over to Canada year in and year. Some visit to be married in the Green Gables church. Some visit to stay for a year where many local farmers have taken in people just like Koji interested in a prolonged Anne expedition. Many, I’m sure, are disgusted to see the sorry state their beloved Green Gables has become. I know I was. Cavendish in the last decade has done a disservice to the fabled landscape by erecting tacky museums and a full sized space shuttle replication to attract more tourists. A romantic walk down the haunted wood path of “Green Gables” could land you in a coma if beaned by a speeding golf ball launched from the 9 hole of the adjacent Green Gables Golf Course.

Koji didn’t seem to mind. His eyes light up wide at the mere mention of Anne and sometimes he would even blush as if the character had stepped off the page and onto the Wood Farm. We were both set up in small trailers and walking into his was like entering a shrine to all things P.E.I. He collected and saved every pamphlet and travel guide, poster and key chain, mug and miniature lobster trap. Yes, he even had an Anne doll or two. In many ways I am glad that such a symbol of Canada has become such an adored and looked up to idol to the people of Japan. It certainly could have gone much worse. We could have the Japanese trekking on over to Timmins and erecting Shania land. In the end, though, I realized that Koji had peddled that porn and saved that yen not just for Anne but, mainly, as an escape into something new, fresh and foreign. In many ways, that summer, Koji and I were alike.

For all I know Koji, like many of the Japanese who visit the island, has remained on P.E.I. having fallen in love with the simplicity and beauty that this smallest of Canadian provinces can offer. From the concrete and neon of the Tokyo cityscape to the pastoral fields, freshly plowed parallel lines of red earth and majestic ocean coves of Prince Edward Island, every year come more and more Japanese and, in Anne, they carry with them a McGuffin of their own.