00:04 John Daub: Hokkaido, a sort of complicated way to get here from the big town where Shiraoi is famous for. You see these huts behind me. This is for the Ainu Museum. Ainu being the indigenous people of Hokkaido that were here before the Japanese came to the island.

00:34 John Daub: The guy who picked me up yesterday told me that the Ainu were descendants from Europe, fair-skinned, sort of from the Finland area. An 80-year-old man. That's my background, which is why I'm here. I don't know much about the Ainu people, so I've come to this museum to try to find some answers and get a better sense of the indigenous people of Hokkaido.

01:09 John Daub: I was picked up by someone of Ainu origin, a bear who took me to the service area from Tsubame Sanjo Station about 10 days ago. He introduced himself as Ainu, and I wanted to come here also because he was such a nice guy.

01:30 John Daub: Okay, here's the entrance. Wow. Looming all over it is a very big statue right in the center. It says Shiraoipiroto Kotan, the Ainu Museum of Ainu. And it looks really interesting, doesn't it? The map—I'm down here at the entrance. This is great. I'll be able to manage to do this in an hour or so. The price is 800 yen for adults, a little bit cheaper if you're a high school student. They have a bunch of other activities like workshops and cultural performances, and a cafe. Apparently videoing is okay, but smoking and dogs are not permitted.

02:51 Staff: Hello! What time is it? Until 5pm.

02:56 John Daub: Oh, until 5pm. Good.

03:01 John Daub: Here you go, 1000 yen. Is this the ticket?

03:12 Staff: Yes, this is a ticket.

03:13 Staff: Please weigh your luggage here with a big box.

03:17 John Daub: Oh, really? I'm glad. Been waiting for a long time.

03:21 Staff: Please weigh your luggage here with a big box. Thank you very much.

03:24 John Daub: OK. Oh, that's great! They're going to take my luggage. I got a lot of luggage.

03:38 Staff: This way.

03:44 John Daub: Really? OK.

03:46 Staff: This way.

03:50 John Daub: Thank you in advance.

04:00 John Daub: Thank you.

04:03 Staff: Please come here.

04:14 John Daub: This is my sign. I'm hitchhiking. I'm going to Sapporo today, but I should make a reservation. Thank you.

05:06 John Daub: In front is this really amazing statue of the Ainu. I should have gotten a pamphlet. I don't know how I'm going to explain all this stuff to you. Wow, it's just massive. There's a bridge you can go over to him. It's like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm going to pan up. Wow, that's a really big statue.

05:58 John Daub: Once again, this is where I'm at. From here on out, I'm going to call it the Ainu Museum, also known as Porotokotan. Who can say this ten times? Welcome to Porotokotan. Porotokotan. Porotokotan. It's got a beat to it. Porotokotan. Porotokotan. Quiet. I believe this was an Ainu settlement that's now been turned into a museum. I was encouraged by a lot of people to make the stop here. Take a look around.

06:52 John Daub: Oh look, they have like a kennel. There's a bunch of dogs in here. These are Hokkaido dogs. The Hokkaido dog belongs to the hound breed and the Ainu used them for hunting bears and deer. It's believed to be a faithful dog, and since it is very powerful, it can fight with huge bears. Also Shiba, Kishu, Shikoku, Akita, Kai, etc., are some of the typical breeds of Japanese dogs. And in 1937, they were identified as the protected breeds of the country. They're so protected, they're behind bars. Hey guys. Oh look at this one. He's so peaceful. Just let him out. Play with him. I totally would. They should give a dog to the visitors to walk around the park together.

08:15 John Daub: Oh! Back up. Back up. Back up. I was just at the bear park in Noboribetsu, and there's some massive bears here. Maybe not the best, but a nice place for them to be.

08:37 John Daub: And I'm afraid to show you guys this. I guess you could communicate with the bear through the tube. Hello! Hello! How are things going? I don't know what the tube is for. I guess I'm going for a walk. For treats maybe? This is sort of sad. How are you, sir? Sir? How's your day going? Would you like some treats? He looks really tired, doesn't he? Oh, poor thing. Gosh, how do I get him out of here?

09:40 John Daub: The bear food's 100 yen. Should I give him the bear food? I'm really confused because I feel bad for the bears in these cells. Should I give them food? Alright, I'm gonna give him food. I'm gonna give him 100 yen and at least they're gonna get some food. Okay. They look well fed if you look at the trash can. There's a lot of people been giving them food. The food hit him in the head and he just stood there. Watch. That's not a good sign. I think he's really sick. Oh my lord. I'm really sorry, bear.

10:51 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to the pacing bear. Hello, bear. Hey, I'm your friend. He's on a mission. He's not gonna stop till he arrives at his destination. See, like, if I time it right, it'll land right in his mouth. Alright, hold on. 3, 2, 1. Oh, it just missed. You know what? I'm a little bit depressed by this. What do I do with this? They obviously didn't want the food. I'm just gonna put the food here on top. Okay? And then maybe a little kid will feed them. This is the food. Okay. I'm a little bit sad about that.

12:00 John Daub: That's the first thing you see when you get here, the second thing you see after the big statue. It's not good to see the bears in captivity like that. And they look really bad. Okay, there's a cafe. I'm gonna need something strong after seeing the bears. Oh, man. Ice cream. I just don't feel like eating ice cream right now.

12:47 John Daub: Okay. It looks like everything has English explanations. This doesn't feel like Japan to me right now. There's people dressed up. Maybe this will get interesting. This is the Shiraoi Porotokotan Main Building. And there's people inside. I'm in a performance. Should I go inside? Do you think it's okay to go inside? Should I go in? Okay. All right, Toby. Go in. Okay?

14:49 John Daub: All right. You can enter. Okay. The first one out.

18:32 John Daub: That was pretty cool. For a moment, I forgot about the bears. Now that I brought it up again, I'm thinking about them again. This place is important because without it we wouldn't have cultural stuff about the Ainu people, the indigenous people here. So I have mixed feelings. It smells like autumn to me. The weather, the fact that there's no leaves on the trees, the grayness of everything here, the sky, the temperature is chilly. It feels like autumn to me. Very weird place. It's almost surreal. Okay, there's a bunch of other tents or huts. See, there's all these tourists. They're going somewhere. I don't know what's authentic and what's not. All I know is that the only way to know is to go inside, and this one is appropriately named Next House. Shall we go inside?

21:12 John Daub: The lake is called Numatomanuporo kotan (village next to the big lake). Oro is a big lake. Kotan is a village.

21:41 John Daub: [inaudible Japanese conversation, poor ASR; appears to be casual chat with locals about Hokkaido, Ainu population, Sapporo, tiredness, etc.]

23:11 John Daub: [inaudible Japanese explanation by guide about Ainu words for rivers, place names, fish like shishamo (capelin), etc.; humorous teaching style].

27:32 John Daub: How am I supposed to explain that to you? I can't get in a word. He's talking about adding jokes in with Ainu culture. So using humor to teach about Ainu. And unless you can speak Japanese, I gotta get out of here. Oh, man. Why did I sit in the front? Toby. He told me to go into the last house. I said, go in. So I went in. I thought I'd go into the next one, and it was a big mistake. You gotta go into places that you can make a quick escape. Toby, my man. Thank you. I will please do send me the email. Thank you. I will get a hot drink. I need to settle down. Good on you, Toby.

28:26 John Daub: All right. This is the big house. Now, in most countries, the big house means prison. You know, that's the name of the prison. Usually, it's a big house. So this is—oh, you gotta take your shoes off. All right. Let's do that because I think Toby got me a drink. I'm gonna look for a drink in the big house. Can I talk in here? Ah, it smells like barbecue, like just without the sauce. Just the charcoal smell, the grilling. Oh, that's why. There's a real fire in here. It gives it a good smell. Wow, it is pretty big. Look on the roof. Look up. Probably gonna be still pretty cold in the winter. I didn't know Ainu had the chimney. Please do not touch. It doesn't explain what it is. That looks like the emperor. So the emperor has been to the big house. Pretty interesting. It is nice and warm here. I guess these are like spears or something. These are something. There you have a traditional shirt. You can wear this, but you have to pay 300 yen to get your picture taken in it. I'll pass. Hey, look. That's what I'm using. That's sort of interesting. This is a big house. Let's go on to the next one.

31:32 John Daub: So I'm getting a sense of the Ainu culture here, the types of places that they lived in, the clothing that they wore, what a village looks like. In the spring it feels like autumn here. The trees are still barren and it's still pretty cold out here. The place that I was camping last night in Noboribetsu, there was still snow on the ground. And there are patches of snow around. Last night was cold. Ah, this is the Ainu village. There's a couple more houses. There's no music coming out of them. I like the performance. Now I gotta tie my shoes. You know what? You can tuck the shoes in. For those of you've been following, my shoes have been—the glue came off so I glued them myself. And it doesn't look as stylish as the maker probably wanted them to look. But you need two hands to tie a shoe, unless you have Velcro. What you do is you just tuck in the laces. And you just pray that you don't get chased by a wild animal. This place looks pretty safe. All the wild animals are in cages. That's—I'm laughing at myself, not at the animals.

33:19 John Daub: Makunchi. This is the back house, which is pretty much the same. Oh, it's closed. Okay, closed. Okay, that's a pretty romantic little make-out area. There's no people out here. I'm the only one. A little bit spooky. This is number five. This is the Ponpise. It's a question. You're supposed to answer it. I refuse to answer it. Come in and see how Ainu handicrafts are made. I'm shy to go in there. If I go in there, I can't escape. There's nobody in there. So if I go in there, I can't escape. And they're like looking at me now. I can't run away because I couldn't tie my boots. I want to see how the handicrafts are made, but I don't want to be the only one in there. Because that's a lot of pressure for me and you. Just like that comedian guy who was teaching us about Ainu stuff. I couldn't get out of there. I won't be able to get out of there either.

35:03 John Daub: A little Ainu house. It looks like a dog house. If I was a kid, I'd want a tree house like that. That's sort of cool. Can you climb in there? This hut is nicknamed Poo. It really is. Says Poo. Cute. Poo is where you would store the food. Food was stored at this place facing towards the south window of a house having good visibility. Food items such as dried fish, seaweed, and millet were mainly stored. The houses were built on stilts in order to keep the food stuff safe from moisture or rats or Toby. Boards such as rats go back used to be hung on the floor ladder. It was put up during use and usually it was kept outside. Interesting. So the food storage is on stilts so animals couldn't get at it. So people didn't live in there. The food did. That's pretty interesting. And this is a bear cage. So the Ainu have been caging bears for a while. The bear cage was built on the place facing towards south of a house where food storage was provided. Interesting. So you can see the bear cage is raised off of the ground. I wonder why. Oh, the reason why they raised the bear off the ground was because of snow. There was so much snow that they couldn't build a cage on the ground so they put it up on stilts. Back then there were lots of bears though. Bears were, you know, like Ainu's best friend maybe? Like dogs are man's best friend. I still got a lot of questions about the Ainu people.

37:41 John Daub: Oh wait, the next house, they're singing in the next house. Okay. This is where that comedy show was. They're doing it again. So we've already been in there. The best thing was the performance by far and that massive statue in the front. How cool was that? I feel more cultured though. I feel like this was worth the trip. It's not far from Noboribetsu. I just like getting a sense of the buildings, how people lived, getting to hear some of the local music. Because this was a place where the Ainu lived and now it's a museum. I like that sound. They made it with the music. I wonder if they have a CD I can buy.

38:59 John Daub: Alright, looks like the rain is gonna start coming down. I don't know if I can bear this place anymore. This is the Ainu Kaikan, a meeting hall for the Ainu people. And there's a cafe. Maybe I should get a coffee or something. Alright, folks. I'm gonna get a coffee. This coffee is thanks to Toby. Toby, thank you for the coffee, my man. Get in touch with me. I have something for you.

39:58 John Daub: YouTube? Yeah.

40:06 John Daub: So the museum cafe. Alright, they have booze. I think I need something strong. Alright, you don't need to see me get completely wasted. So thank you very much for watching this live stream. I'm gonna leave you with 20 seconds of the bear cage. And I'm not gonna take you back to the bear cage. Oh my. I'll leave you 20 seconds with this Ainu village and the really peaceful lake. It is a nice place. I slightly recommend it for you to visit if you're in the area. Is that an omen? A black crow just crossed my path. So I'm gonna try to—the clouds look like it's gonna rain. When you turn around, you're gonna see it. I'm gonna try to get to Sapporo tonight. I don't know if I can. It's getting dark. But I'll do my best. Thank you all very much for watching this live stream. I'm hitting back to the road. Hope you enjoyed the Ainu museum. I sure sorta did. Thank you.