I arrived home at around 7.30 that night. The streets and lanes in the tanjū were deserted. As usual, the street lights were not working, and as I rode the motorbike through the maze of housing, the exhaust echoed from the concrete walls and culverts. The fronts of the houses were in darkness: the residents had obviously moved into the main room to eat and watch television, and only the muted sounds of conversation and game show music disturbed the cold, clear night. As I dismounted, I was approached by my neighbour.

‘Matt-san, Ogata-san is still waiting in the baths for you. He's been there since five o'clock. By now he'll look like a prune. Go on, get over there,’ she urged me. Groaning under my breath I realised that I had forgotten that it was Tuesday, and that the baths were open. For the five days a week that they were open, Ogata, the man who lived for the baths, waited for me so that he could retell stories of the coalmines. The schedule of the bath opening times had changed in the last week, and I had totally forgotten. Ogata would not be impressed.

The ultimate storyteller, more adept at chronicling stories than Oguchi, the kami shibai man, could ever be, Ogata has a range of tales that encompass everything from moral cautions to tales of personal violence, the war and the foreigners who lived in the area. A miner for more than 20 years with the H-san mine in Kawasaki, he moved to the M-san tanju 23 years ago, when he was lucky enough to get a job at the coalface.