Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan by Will Ferguson Page A

half hidden behind it. Both are home to wild bands of macaque monkeys. At one time the entire Kyushu mainland teemed with them, but human encroachment has left only a few scattered groupings, mostly on remote islands such as these. The monkeys here are some of the least affected by man, and as such are the object of intense study by academics.
    A few years ago, the monkeys on Kojima made international news (as far as monkeys go) when it was discovered that the females were teaching the younger monkeys how to rinse the sand off their food before they ate it. The monkeys of Torishima, meanwhile, did not rinse their food, so clearly this was not a case of instinct but of taught behaviour, something that was once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans. Then, suddenly, incredibly, the monkeys of Torishima Island began washing their food as well!
    This sent the academic world into a tailspin, and teams of researchers descended. How was it possible that such a rare social trait should suddenly appear in two geographically distinct areas? Was there some recessive “food-washing” gene that had only now kicked in? Could the monkeys on Torishima have peered across the water and somehow understood what the other monkeys were doing and then copied them? Could this be some kind of simian extrasensory perception? Or were we witnessing a rare leap from one evolutionary plateau to another? The theories grew and grew, yet the mystery seemed intractable. Someone asked the local fishermen what they thought. “Well,” the fishermen replied, “the monkeys do swim back and forth between the islands. Maybe that has something to do with it.”
    And that was how the Swimming Monkeys of Kojima were discovered. The mystery of the telepathic primates was over. It was common knowledge to everyone in the area, of course, but it had taken the Tokyo experts ages to figure it out.
    The Professor drove down a narrow-laned road and we came to a crescent of beach. Across the water was Kojima, a rounded cap of deep jungle green. A few freelance fishermen were hanging about, brown-skinned, young, almost lethargic. They exhibited a certain jungle-cat conservation of energy; they barely moved when we approached them. The encounter went something like this: The Professor strides up. He wants a ride out to the island. It can be arranged, they say. How much? There are shrugs. A price is given. The Professor tells them that he is from Tokyo University. The fishermen contain their excitement. The price is repeated. The Professor haggles with them, first as a group and then one on one. They don’t budge. A professor from Tokyo is no match for a southern Kyushu fisherman. We pay the initial, unchanged exorbitant fee to take the boat across.
    Professor Takasugi was almost belligerent in his offer to cover my cost, but I declined. It was the only time on the trip that I would insist on paying my own way. The pilot of our boat was a study in muscle and sinew. He had a long ponytail and an Errol Flynn moustache. I thought: If pirates attempt to board us on the journey over, we will be in good hands. Unless of course our captain is a pirate as well, in which case it is every man for himself.
    The boat was paint-peeling white, and the motor was disproportionately loud for such a slow putt-putt of a vessel. Our captain had to yell to be heard above it.
    “There are about ninety monkeys on the island,” he shouted. “They are called the Wisest Monkeys in Japan.”
    “How so?” I shouted back.
    “Well,” he said, “they wash their potatoes before they eat them.”
    I was going to ask him how washing potatoes qualified one as “wise.” I mean, I wash my potatoes all the time but no one refers to me as being particularly wise. Maybe “the Cleverest Darn Monkeys in Japan” might be a more accurate title. But I felt I had annoyed enough people for one day, and I wisely decided to keep my comments to myself. It is one thing to be kicked out of a car, it is quite