"Are you tourist?" asked the man seated beside me on the early afternoon flight from Tokyo's Haneda airport to Kochi in Shikoku. He spoke in hesitant English.
"Not exactly. I'm on my way to cover the Ekin Matsuri," I replied in Japanese.
"Ah, Ekin. I've been to it a few times," he said, switching languages. "You should have fun. Ekin's pictures are very . . . colorful."