Millie Creightonthis was still a topic kept hidden and not easily worked on in Japan
(Devos and Wagatsuma 1966 , Devos 1971 ). It took quite a bit of cour-
age to even address the issues at that time and may have been even
more difficult for Wagatsuma as a Japanese insider. Only recently
are more researchers taking up the challenge of researching Japan’s
hidden minority. With these profound interactions, I could not help
but feel that being flexible enough to allow an alteration in research
plans, by getting on the bus, had added immensely to my own ethno-
graphic understandings.
This said, as mentioned earlier, I do not wish to seem “flip” about
the importance of research agendas and having a research plan but
instead wish to argue for flexibility in deciding when to veer from it
as circumstances develop in the field. Before getting on the bus, I had
done as much as I felt I could reasonably accomplish in Nibutani. I
did not expect to gain that much out of a repeated museum visit to
Abishiri. There, thus, was a rational calculation of overall costs and
benefits to going on the bus tour. However, there turned out to be an
additional angle to this bus trip, one that I had not expected, and one
that would also immensely facilitate the specific research objective on
Ainu attempts at contemporary identity constructions.
While traveling, the members of the bus group were also engaged
in discussing issues of minority identities with Ainu throughout Hok-
kaido ̄. This explained why they were visiting the Ainu inn in Nibutani
in the first place. Thus, in addition to going to sites somehow associ-
ated with “internationalization,” they were also planning to stop to
allow visits with local Ainu. Hence, all along the journey, there were
involvements in Ainu presentations, Ainu gatherings, Ainu exchanges
of life stories. Sometimes these were in very remote locations that I
would have had difficulty getting to on my own.
One of the Ainu we met on one of these stops was a contemporary
Ainu crafts artist. He informed us that he, along with other Ainu,
would be in Sapporo with an Ainu art exhibit at the airport at the
time when the group’s bus was expected to arrive there. This is where
we were all supposed to get off the bus and where the journey was to
end for the planned bus tour, as they would fly out from the Sapporo
airport. The plan was that I would get off with them at the airport