The Beard, The Babe, and The Bear

From where I sit above Vienna I can see old bearded Austrians hobble past young Muslims lost in conversation amongst red-brick buildings. To think that 24 hours ago I was eating a box of bento—rice, fried fish paste and steamed vegetables—on the floor of a train station in Tokyo boggles my mind. My wife Raquel and I finished a year spent teaching in Takayama Japan and decided to strap our stuffed bear Kumamon to one of our backpacks, and spend two months in Europe. 

Eating on the floor in Japan is certainly more agreeable with the locals than walking while you eat, but typically frowned upon when done in a train station. Yet we were given no hassle, for Kumamon was with us. Locals tried to frown when they saw two westerners shoveling their faces between trains, but inevitably failed when they saw his fat black belly and rosy red cheeks. Frowns faded as the passersby mumbled “Kumamon,” from goofy smiles. It seemed that deciding to take a stuffed animal as our only carry-on item besides a backpack each was a great idea.

But that all changed.

The three of us landed in the Dubai airport after a tiring yet sleepless 12 flight from Tokyo. After a year living amongst a sea of Japanese salary men, the diversity of the airport boggled my mind. I saw men in turbans and women in scarves, gnarled beards, styled mustached, business suits, bindies and baseball caps on hair of every style growing from skin of every color. The only thing all these people had in common was their distrust of the two Americans sauntering through the airport with a stuffed bear. 

People woke from their naps just to roll over and turn their backs on us. Mothers warned their children to keep their distance and husbands told their wives wait to take a picture until the cheerless ambiance of the enormous international airport could return.

After an hour of listless wandering, it was time to fly to Vienna. We queued up, inched forward, presented our boarding pass and were promptly told to get out of line. A hundred people walked past us, their tickets brokering them no troubles. We kept smiles on our faces and Kumamon bounced happily in Raquel’s arms but the passing crowd was not amused. As people filed onto the plane, stares grew from distrust to suspicion to downright horror. I know they were all thinking the same thing. “There’s a bomb in that bear.”

“Your seats changed, I didn’t have a printer,” the flight attendant said with a grin, not even apologizing for how sweaty the delay had made us. We piled onto the plane, plopped down with Kumamon, and prepared for the praise to come for our travelling companion.

Instead we were greeted with a cold smile from a European flight attendant, and told to stuff our teddy bear in the overhead so we could take off.

Teddy bear? We looked at eachother. TEDDY BEAR? We would never travel with a teddy bear! But then our eyes alit on sweet sweet Kumamon and we realized that she was indeed talking to us.

So I’ll miss Japan, with its bowing businessman and silly characters, but we’re ready for a new adventure, this one with a cast of three lead characters and countless bit parts that will come and go. So stay tuned to see who we meet, and what they have to say about my beard, my beautiful wife, and lil’ Kumamon.  

If you liked this post, follow our adventures in Europe or find out about my year in Japan.