The potential affect a large-scale Critical Mass could have in Tokyo is hard to fathom. Everybody in Tokyo rides bikes: salarymen on their way to work, high school students, most the police, and of course the anarchists. Bike culture is interwoven in Japanese society as a result of the limited amount of space in Tokyo and the reliability and comfort of train system. Accordingly, as soon as I moved to to Tokyo I set out to find its Critical Mass.

           Having ridden in the Boston Critical Mass for the last four years, I thought I had developed a sense of what Critical Mass is like and for that reason, I was excited to join Tokyo’s CM. I struggled to find any information concerning the ride on the Internet and the streets. I found nothing except old youtube footage of a 2005 Tokyo CM ride. Eventually, I found a message board, entirely in Japanese, with a date, time, and location.

At 15:00, Janurary 27, 2007, I pedaled to the NHK (Japanese PBS station) building. I found a huddled group of three men talking amongst themselves. In horrendous Japanese I asked, “Critical Mass desu ka?” Their previously stoic faces exploded into cheerful a chorus of the affirmative “Hai!” They motioned for me to come over and we began to talk. (Well, let me clarify: I know maybe thirty words and ten phrases in Japanese, and when I use those words and phrases Japanese people falsely think I know the language.) After about ten seconds they comprehended my limited lingual ability, but still did their best to include me in their conversation. A quick note on Japanese: When speaking it is common to add the sound ‘-ne’ to the end of words. By adding the sound it is equivalent to asking, “Do you agree?” So when I say we spoke, I mean they said ‘–ne’ to me and I nodded. We waited around for another twenty minutes until fifteen more people showed up. Each one of them greeted me with curious admiration. Literally everyone came over to me and shook hands or bowed. Before we left, three of the riders went around handing out confections, cookies, and chocolate. Before long the group began to buzz, as is common before the Boston CM, and our departure followed. We left Yoyogi Park, heading towards Harajuku occupying one lane of traffic.

English is compulsory in high school, but only for a couple of years. This means many Tokyoites know some stock English phrases, however, they rarely use them on account of embarrassment. As the ride continued I noticed a couple of major differences between the Tokyo CM and the Boston CM. For starters, nobody was beeping at us, no cars were trying to swerve into us, and there were no police following us. The lack of police would be a result of our meager numbers, but I can only conjecture about the reasons for the other differences, and they all have to do with Japanese society.

           The ride lasted an hour. My conversations were confined to two men, who joined the ride late and spoke English fluently. Our ride took us through some of the most congested intersections in Tokyo, yet we were treated with nothing but respect by the motorists. Side note: We heard the clicking of cell phone cameras and cries of Kawaii! [cute] almost the entire way. We headed back through Shibuya and ended the ride. Looking around I noticed another difference. I was one of the youngest, and apparently the most unkempt looking person in the group. The group was composed of garden variety people, all seemingly dressed for comfort and not to impress anybody with their revolutionary/activist wardrobe. There were a couple bike messengers, a tour-de-France looking rider, a man with a dog carrier hitched onto the back of his bike (dog included), two women and about ten nondescript looking male riders.

     After dismounting the bikes the group members huddled around a vending machine and started to chat again. Beers were produced and offered around (drinking in public is legal in Tokyo). Soon another rider produced a cake from her bag and we began to eat, again. After a bit I was about to give my goodbyes, when I was approached by another rider and informed that the group usually goes out for more “biru” after the ride. What followed was a traditional Japanese dinner and more drinks. After that, we went to another bar for yet more drinks. All in all, we rode for an hour and drank for about four.  When the drinks started to flow, everybody really opened up. They began having conversations in whatever English they could muster in an effort to include me. A highlight of the night took place in the last bar we went to, where the owner knew the group and played Queen’s “Bicycle Race.” The Massers     exploded when the chorus came, except they sang ‘bicycle lace.’

       The drinking continued long into the night. When the time came to depart I said goodbye to everybody as best I could, but before I could take one step towards the door the group all came over and one by one shook my hand, literally, everyone. I left enthusiastic, not just for biking, but for the future of CM in Tokyo, and for the future of direct action. Next month I will return to my meet my new friends, maybe this time with some friends of my own.

The ride reminded me of why exactly I started doing CM. I wanted to make a change, not only in myself, but also in the world. I had taken the time to discern what is important to me and decided it was time to act. CM is an action that seeks to change the entire the reality of our, and hopefully others’, lives. The road is not only for cars. We know this, and those who witness the bike gang now know this, hopefully. We are taking back the streets, and with them, the pieces of sanity that have been slyly confiscated from us. What has been accepted as “normal” or the “status quo” is not normal; it is not how things should be. It is how our enemies want it to be, how those in power can retain their dominance over us. They feed us the poison that is consumer culture, and we have become addicted.

Our addiction, like any other self-destructive habit, destroys us from both the inside and outside. Alcoholics have a 12-step program to recovery. This principle can also be applied to the general public’s addiction to consumer culture and the apathy it breeds. The first step is admittance, and it is plain to see that something is wrong. We are losing the war within ourselves. We have become self-destructive beings reliant on alcohol, drugs, religion, TV, sex… These are the releases from the mental enslavement we have been corralled into. I use the term “release” and that is deceptive. The aforementioned stimuli are SOMA. This SOMA numbs us to ourselves, to inner humanity, the last pocket of resistance left in a world gone crazy.  The second step in recovery is acknowledging that a Power greater than ourselves can “restore us to sanity.” This greater Power lies in others. Collectively we have the power to restore sanity to this world. It will not be accomplished though the selfish efforts of the few. The Power originates in solidarity and hope. For me, the third step is Critical Mass. This is the step where you turn your life over to the higher Power. Turning your life over means stopping, leaving the self-perpetuating torture wheel, living life, creating your own reality and helping change how others see the world.

         Critical Mass was the first step I took towards living again, towards reshaping my reality. I am far from finished, but I am finally living to some extent, and I am not longer shackled by the Technicolor chains of bondage.