Unpacking after a long trip or stay is always a joy for me. This time it was especially good. I came back from Beijing loaded to the gills, heavy on the clothes and books. It was all the sweeter because I made it back with two very special presents for myself: a pair of staves and a pair of yuan yang yue. I wasn't too worried about the staves. True, they stood out in their bag at over five feet long but they are, after all, made of wood and are thus not banned from being brought into Japan.
I was much more worried about the 鸳鸯钺 or yue. They are not specifically banned, but I was worried. I have tangled with the people in Tokyo's Narita Airport before and had my tai ji jian (straight sword) confiscated for three months. That sword had been a gift from Chinese friends at the wushu school in 1998. The old Japanese rules said that no steel swords could be brought into the country. My sword was promptly spotted and a magnet was produced and, lo and behold, the magnet stuck = the blade was made of steel = the sword was confiscated (I later brought it into Japan on a different flight, long story).
The logic escapes me. 99% of tai ji swords are not - in the present world - capable of cutting much of anything. They are often wielded by practitioners of an advanced age seeking some vague health benefit from tai ji without having any knowledge or sense of what a sword is used for or the danger of a live blade. I do possess a live blade or shinken which I have used in iaido since before passing 4-dan. A magnet won't stick to it but trust me, it cuts easily and well. And I can, with proper paperwork showing ownership, take it in and out of Japan without incident.
The new rules omit the reference to steel but still ban the bringing of "swords" into Japan. Here is where things get grey. Look at the picture - yue are clearly not swords, but they do have potential cutting edges (9 on the style I use, fewer on others). Mine are not sharpened (though Liu Laoshi's pair, on which I learned from day one, were...) but they could certainly poke an eye out, as the saying goes. And mine are made of steel. Of course there is no problem with possessing them in Japan; I can easily buy a pair, but at about 500 % of the price I paid in Beijing. The question is whether it would be a problem to bring them into Japan.
I bought them as a gamble, deciding to risk confiscation for the price. And the risk paid off - I got through without incident. I had been right in hoping that the long bag with two staves would draw attention, that said attention, once settled, would get me through the door with everything intact. And here we are.
It was actually in China that I had trouble - due to legitimate security concerns, not only was security tight at every venue, but there were also bag searches at most large subway stations. So after I bought the yue, I sailed nonchalantly into a subway station and boom! Spotted on the x-ray machine right away, they caused quite a stir. "You wait a minute" are words that always make me nervous and which always signal a long wait. I was running through every negotiating possibility in my mind when yet another police officer approached, told me to write down my name, hotel room, and passport number in a notebook. And that was that.
To and through the airport with no problem. Cleared at Japanese customs and on my way! The loss of the yue would have been disappointing but I had steeled my heart for possible confiscation. The loss of the staves, however, would have been crushing - I don't know how to use them as well as the yue, but they were a gift from the sticks-in-the-street group, had been personally engraved, and so on. So I got everything home without incident and can start practicing and reviewing. Only one problem -anybody want to work on some knuckle-busting paired staff routines with me?
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