It is three in the morning and I am on a fishing boat, drinking cheap sake from a plastic cup, and gnawing through my second hunk of dolphin meat. My day had started an hour earlier when, roused by a bashing on the door, I had left the warmth of my futon for the blistering cold of northern Japan in early spring. Cherry blossoms were budding in Kyushu, much further south. Here, the grass was streaked with snow.

Fumbling down an incline through the pitch black, I dimly made out the shape of a boat - more of an industrial barge - purring in the bay below. Nearby, a dozen or so fishermen, seated on tatami mats and drinking canned hot coffee, began zipping up their windbreakers against the cold. "Didn't you bring your boots?" asked one, scanning my leather shoes as though they were ballet slippers. Some rubber boots were fetched. I pulled them on and ambled towards the boat as the fisherman played with the name of my unfamiliar publication in the rough accent of northern Honshu: "Fai-nan-sharu Tai-mu-zu."