Futility Closet - 172-An American in Feudal Japan

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from a 19-year duel to a lawless Arkansas. This is episode 172. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1848, when Japan was still closed to Westerners, a lone American in a whale boat landed on the country's northern shore,

Starting point is 00:00:35 drawn only by a sense of mystery and a love of adventure. In today's show, we'll follow Ronald McDonald as he travels the length of Japan toward a destiny that will transform the country. We'll also remember a Soviet hero and puzzle over some security-conscious neighbors. And a quick programming note, we'll be off next week, so look for the next episode on October 16. Ronald McDonald was born in 1824 near what today is Astoria, Oregon, in what were really unusually cosmopolitan surroundings. His father was a Scotsman who headed a fort for the Hudson's Bay Company, and his mother was an Indian princess, the daughter of Comcomly, the chieftain of the Chinook Nation.

Starting point is 00:01:17 And Hudson's Bay was a trading company, so he was raised hearing French, English, Gaelic, Chinook, Iroquois, and a whole range of other Indian languages. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He was educated at the Red River Settlement in central Canada, and then he took a job at a bank in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1837, following the conventional path that his father had laid out for him. But he hated the bank job. He hated having to live like a European gentleman and tasting for the first time the racial and cultural prejudices that come with living in a majority white community. He wrote, in spite of all my training for civilized life,

Starting point is 00:01:48 I felt ever and uncontrollably in my blood the wild strain for wandering freedom of my highland father and possibly more so, though unconsciously, of my Indian mother. He somehow conceived a passion to visit Japan and learn its culture at first hand. This was an odd thing to conceive a passion about. At this time, most Americans didn't even know where Japan was. The country had closed its borders to outsiders in 1635 to eliminate foreign influence. They did a tiny amount of trade with the Dutch and the Chinese at the southern port of Nagasaki, but otherwise no foreigner was allowed to enter Japan and no Japanese was allowed to leave.

Starting point is 00:02:22 During his childhood, MacDonald had occasionally heard of Japanese sailors who'd been shipwrecked in his own country, and possibly his own mixed blood made him curious about other cultures. He wrote, what of such people? What of their manner of life? The veil of mystery which then hung over that strange realm unaccountably attracted my roving mind. Later in life, he said simply, my principal motive in this was, it must be confessed, the mere gratification of a love of adventure. So he quit the bank and went to sea. Over the next three years, he visited Calcutta, Hawaii, Bombay, Java, Madras, Australia, Africa, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore, among many other ports. And then in 1848, when he was 24 years old, after three years at sea, he shipped out of Hawaii on an American whaler called the Plymouth to head to the whaling

Starting point is 00:03:04 grounds off the coast of Japan. And this time he made a deal with the captain, Lawrence Edwards. He said he'd give up his wages if Edwards would put him off in a small boat near Japan's northern coast, which wasn't heavily fortified. He had no knowledge of the Japanese language and no real plan. He'd gathered some books and teaching supplies in hopes of passing himself off as an educator, and he planned to pose as a shipwreck victim so that the Japanese would feel some compassion for him. His crewmates considered this suicide, and the captain called it a wild and foolhardy expedition, but on June 27, 1848, they lowered a boat for him. MacDonald later wrote, against the strong and earnest remonstrances of the captain and crew, I stepped into my boat. My comrades refused to unloose the knot which bound me to

Starting point is 00:03:44 them. Myself, with averted face, had to cut the rope by which I hung to all of them. I felt in the cord the strong electric sympathy bursting from the true friendly hearts of my comrades. With a quivering God bless you, Mac, they bade me a long and, as they thought, a last adieu. And he set off into the fog. He found a small island and spent a couple days there, planning his next action and letting some time pass so the Japanese wouldn't associate him with the Plymouth. From this small island, he made his way to Rishiri, which is a larger island off the coast of Hokkaido, the second largest island in Japan. At dawn, some men from that island approached him in a large skiff.

Starting point is 00:04:18 He pulled the plug in his own boat, swapping it to fake an emergency, and they greeted him with elaborate ceremony. It turned out that they were not Japanese themselves, but Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan. They took him to shore, put sandals on his feet, helped him up the bank, and fed and clothed him. He stayed with them for the next 10 days. They treated him well. They always watched him, but he could go outside and ramble around the local area. On the second day, two Japanese overseers of the island arrived and took a careful inventory of his possessions. They were especially fascinated by his books with their English letters. He presented himself as an educated castaway, as he'd planned, and depended on the humanity of the Japanese not to kill him.

Starting point is 00:04:55 On the sixth day, two junks arrived with half a dozen Japanese officers who interrogated him. When they asked why he'd left the Plymouth, he told them he'd had a disagreement with the captain. They inventoried all his things again and seemed fascinated by his woolens, as the Japanese had no sheep. It seems clear they weren't hostile, but didn't know what to do with him. Traditionally, shipwrecked foreign sailors were sent to Nagasaki before being deported, but that was at the other end of the country, and apparently a lot of arrangements had to be made. They began to move him gradually south, from village to village, always treating him courteously, but keeping him in barred rooms for weeks at a time to be sure that he saw nothing of the country.

Starting point is 00:05:28 At some stages, they actually raised ceremonial curtains along the streets to block his view as they moved along, and they carried along all of McDonald's things with them as they traveled, including his boat. But he said that all his wants were met, and he had no reason to complain. In fact, the officers gave him tea, sugar, a pipe, and tobacco. To communicate, they had to rely on sign language and the few words they had taught one another because there were no professional English-speaking interpreters in that area. In fact, no one in Japan could truly speak the English language at all. But many of the people he met were receptive to English and seemed interested in foreigners. On one sea journey, whenever a ship appeared, the officers would point to it and say, American ship. But MacDonald could see that this wasn't so, and he'd say, no, no. One doctor who examined him

Starting point is 00:06:08 asked whether America, England, and France were larger than Hokkaido, and seemed unable to believe that that was possible. They carried him further south by ship, and sometimes carried him in a palanquin. In one of the rooms in which he was kept, he saw, to his great surprise, the English letters J and C scrawled in charcoal on the wall. His host showed him some more writing on a stanchion in the middle of the room, the names Robert McCoy, John Brady, and John something indecipherable. He later understood that these were men from another American whaler, the Lagoda, which had sunk shortly before he'd arrived, but he didn't know what had become of them. The Japanese were accommodating. When he asked for his Bible, they gave it to him and even built a shelf for it, even though Christianity was strictly prohibited in Japan. But they were still secretive.

Starting point is 00:06:48 When the final sea journey for Nagasaki began, he was kept in his cabin and allowed to see so little that he thought they were traveling down the eastern coast of the country when really it was the western. They arrived finally in the Bay of Nagasaki on October 11, 1848. A number of officials boarded the ship to question MacDonald, but here as everywhere, language was a problem. The modern American translator Frederick Schott writes, Although MacDonald did not know it at the time, his arrival was like a gift from heaven for the Nagasaki interpreters, for they desperately needed to learn English. Their country was about to open up, and to have an educated Westerner literally float out of the fog to help them was too much to hope for. It's really amazing the timing here. The day after his arrival in Nagasaki,

Starting point is 00:07:28 MacDonald was taken to the central office, central government office, to appear before a magistrate. There he was interrogated formally, asked many of the same questions he'd been given before, but in greater detail, where he'd come from, who his family was, why he'd left the ship, and so on. On hearing what he'd done, they said, you must have a great heart to leave in such a little boat,

Starting point is 00:07:49 which means they thought he was crazy too. The Japanese asked the same questions repeatedly to check the consistency of his story, but also because no one could really understand what he was saying. In fact, the interrogations might never have been possible at all without the help of a Dutchman named Joseph Levison, who was fluent in English. Even with Levison's help, the process was absurdly complicated. The Japanese interpreters translated the examiner's questions into Dutch, Levison read them to MacDonald in English, MacDonald replied, Levison translated the replies into Dutch, and the Japanese interpreters wrote them down in Japanese. This was humiliating to the Japanese. It pointed out the fact that none of their professional interpreters had a working knowledge of English, one of the world's most important languages. English, one of the world's most important languages. During the questioning, MacDonald tried to get them to see him as belonging to both Britain and America, that is, that he was a British subject born in Oregon, in hopes that they would tell a ship of either nationality about him if one should arrive. Also, since he knew there were American sailors in the country, he now felt a

Starting point is 00:08:36 duty to get out of Japan and tell the people of the United States that their countrymen were imprisoned there. He himself wondered how long he'd be kept there. Only one Dutch ship a year visited Nagasaki Harbor, and the latest ship had left without him, which led him to fear he might never get out of the country. He was kept in another barred room, seven by nine feet, where he would stay for the next six months, except for repeated bouts of questioning. But on the whole, they got on well, especially as they got to know each other. He wrote, in look, facial features, etc., I was not unlike them. I see life in rather dark complexion, moreover, giving me their general The Japanese could tell that he was intelligent, good-natured, and well-educated, and they'd seen increasing numbers of Western ships on the Japan Sea, more than their navy could repel.

Starting point is 00:09:28 So while MacDonald was awaiting repatriation and basically living under house arrest, he began to teach English to 14 of the official Nagasaki interpreters. The interpreters already spoke Dutch, since Holland was the only country that Japan maintained contact with. In their work together, he wrote, Their habit was to read English to me one at a time. My duty was to correct their pronunciation and, as best I could in Japanese, explain meaning, construction, etc. He found that he had a natural aptitude for teaching. He wrote, They were all very quick and receptive. They improved in English wonderfully, for their heart was in the work and their receptiveness was, to me, extraordinary,

Starting point is 00:10:01 in some of them phenomenal. His favorite pupil was Moriyama Ainusuke, whom he called by far the most intelligent person I met in Japan. Moriyama was something like a language genius. MacDonald wrote, When with me, he always had books in Dutch and a Dutch and English dictionary. The books were on different subjects, but principally on the commerce and customs of European nations. He told me that he had a large library and also that he was studying Latin and French. While MacDonald was teaching English, he was learning Japanese, imperfectly but enough to start to understand the society he was living in. Formerly, the Japanese were reticent to say anything about their country, but among the more intelligent people he met, there seemed to be an unvoiced frustration with the feudal system.

Starting point is 00:10:32 Their minds, he wrote, were, quote, acute enough to pierce the veil of their old traditional life, which to them was the rotting shroud of a dead past. And correspondingly, and perhaps without knowing it, in teaching them English, MacDonald was telling the Japanese a lot that they hadn't known about the outside world, about geography, whaling, armies, navies, and the governments of Europe. The Japanese had never even seen steamships before. MacDonald is commonly called the first English teacher in Japan, but that misses the point. It's the fact that he taught English to the interpreters that's important, because they went on to play a major role in negotiations as the country opened up in the next few years.

Starting point is 00:11:05 Schott writes, As I mentioned, another group of shipwrecked sailors had arrived shortly before MacDonald. No one ever told him that the other Americans were now imprisoned in Nagasaki with him, but occasionally his Japanese keepers asked him to translate phrases like, shiver my timbers, which admittedly would be hard to translate into any language. He wasn't really able to help them understand that phrase, but it led him to suspect that British or Americans were in the city. He began to think that they must be there with

Starting point is 00:11:46 him somewhere. An hour or two before sundown on April 17, 1849, MacDonald heard six cannon shots. That was the customary signal of the arrival of the annual ship from Holland, but it was too early for that. What had happened is that Levisone had written to the outside world about the plight of these shipwrecked Americans, and the U.S. consulate sent

Starting point is 00:12:02 a warship, the USS Preble, from Hong Kong under Commander James Glynn. And Glynn's order said that if he learned of any other American seamen confined in Japan, he should also demand their release and surrender. So that meant that MacDonald would be freed. On April 25th, he was summoned to this town hall and saw for the first time the 13 shipwrecked Americans from the Lagoda looking, he said, very pale and thin, and the governor told him that he'd be allowed to depart with them. Ironically, the first Japanese to board the Preble had been Moriyama Anusuke, MacDonald's star pupil, and he'd conducted almost all the negotiations, so in a sense, MacDonald had arranged for his own release. On April 27th, he departed Japan 10 months after

Starting point is 00:12:37 coming ashore. This story was featured in English-language newspapers and magazines around the world, but MacDonald didn't go directly home. He chose to pursue further adventures in China, Australia, and Scotland before returning in 1853 to spend the remainder of his life in British Columbia and Washington State. In his 1923 autobiography, he wrote, I have never ceased to feel the most kindly and ever grateful to my fellow men of Japan for their generous treatment of me. Throughout my whole sojourn of 10 months in the strange land, never did I receive a harsh word or even an unfriendly look. James Glynn, the Navy officer who'd freed him, wrote two prophetic letters in 1851.

Starting point is 00:13:10 In one to a New York shipping firm, he advocated opening Japan, saying, We could convert their selfish government into a liberal republic in a short time. Such an unnatural system would, at the present day, fall to pieces upon the slightest concussion. In the second letter to President Millard Fillmore, he recommended that the United States send a naval officer on a U.S. warship with a letter from the president asking for rights to trade and associated privileges. So accordingly, under orders from Fillmore, Commodore Matthew C. Perry set sail for Japan the following November. He arrived in Edo Bay in July and presented a request for, quote, friendship, commerce, a supply of coal, and provisions and protection for our shipwrecked people. Then he withdrew to Hong Kong to give the Japanese time to deliberate. He returned in March 1854 to

Starting point is 00:13:49 negotiate an agreement. Treaties followed, the shogunate collapsed in 1868, and in time Japan was transformed from a feudal to a modern state. Moriyama Ainusuke, MacDonald's star pupil, was one of the chief interpreters to handle these negotiations and would go on to participate in many of the most important early meetings with Americans, Russians, and the British in the mid-1850s, and he accompanied the first Japanese mission to Europe in 1862. The official negotiations with Perry were conducted in Dutch and Chinese, but often, as in Moriyama's case, the interpreters were able to use the English that MacDonald had taught them to impress the Americans, to befriend them, and to understand the nuances of their demands. Schultz said that MacDonald

Starting point is 00:14:24 had taught them not only grammar and vocabulary, but, quote, body language, expressions, nuance, customs, and history. And they'd been exposed to a North American worldview, rather than a Dutch or a European one, and that change led to the rebirth of Japan as an industrialized nation. At the end of his life, MacDonald wrote, in my old age, while living out still in the sweat of brow the fast-falling evening shades of life, in my native homeland, while living out still in the sweat of brow, the fast falling evening shades of life in my native homeland of the Columbia and having in my wanderings girded, I may say the globe itself and come across people's many civilized and uncivilized. There are none to whom I feel more kindly, more grateful than my old hosts of Japan, none whom I esteem more highly. When he died at age 70 in an isolated area of Eastern Washington, his last words to his

Starting point is 00:15:03 niece were sayonara, my dear sayonara. At the start of his biography of MacDonald, Schoetz says, this is a book about a man who did an extraordinary thing and then fell through the cracks of history. MacDonald was the first North American to go to Japan alone of his own volition, and his teaching English to the Japanese interpreters was enormously influential. But his notes about his adventure weren't published until 1923, 29 years after his death, and that's tended to obscure his contribution. Researcher Chato Ishihara says that many of MacDonald's direct students, as well as the interpreters who probably learned from them, were sent to post throughout the country. Others stayed in Nagasaki, where they helped in foreign relations, taught English, propagated Western culture, and served invisibly in the modernization

Starting point is 00:15:41 of Japan. Ishihara writes, at the risk of death, placing his faith in his fellow man, a single 24-year-old young man had infiltrated Japan when it was still firmly closed to the outside world. His pupils took the seeds he sowed and made them flower throughout Japan. Today there are memorials to Randall MacDonald on Rishiri, the island where he first landed, and in Nagasaki, as well as in his birthplace in what is now Astoria, Oregon. Listeners, we really wouldn't be able to commit to the amount of time that the show takes to make if it weren't for the donations and pledges we get. If you'd like to contribute to the celebration of the quirky and the curious that is Futility Closet, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or if you'd like to join our Patreon campaign, you'll get access to our activity feed,

Starting point is 00:16:41 where you'll find outtakes, extra discussions on some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, the official Futility Closet podcast. You can check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the link at the website. And thanks again to everyone who is a part of Futility Closet. it. A couple of our listeners wrote to let us know about the recent news of the death of Stanislav Petrov. Richard in Melbourne, Australia wrote, Hi, Sharon, Greg and Sasha. Bizarrely, I only came across your podcast last week, so have been binge listening since then during my daily commute. I found myself listening to episode 83, Nuclear Close Calls, yesterday and was particularly interested in the story of Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet radar officer who relayed a malfunction rather than a missile launch when the Soviet satellite system

Starting point is 00:17:36 detected a launch from the U.S. in 1983. I could practically feel my blood turning to ice in my veins as I tried to imagine how Petrov would have felt at the time. Imagine my surprise then to wake up this morning, check the news, and read that Petrov has passed away. Apparently he died in Moscow on May the 19th, but fitting in with his reclusive nature, his death was only reported yesterday, the 18th of September. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to working my way through the rest of your back catalog. timber. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to working my way through the rest of your back catalog. And looking at some of the news stories on Petrov that came out this week, I noticed that many of the headlines called him the man who saved the world. There was a 2014 documentary on him with the same title, and it really might not be much of an exaggeration. But as Greg reported in

Starting point is 00:18:21 his story on him, he really didn't receive any recognition at all for his actions until many years later, and the world only learned of his death months after it happened. The German filmmaker and activist Karl Schumacher, who was the first to really publicize Petrov's story, had called to wish him a happy birthday on September 7th, only to be informed by his son that he had passed away in May. Schumacher then announced Petrov's death online, and it was eventually picked up by the news outlets. The LA Times reports that despite the international recognition that Petrov eventually gained, he had little fame in Russia and apparently lived in rather poor circumstances. They also said there have been no official reports or statements about his death from any Russian government agency. I don't know why I have this impression. He seems very modest or humble. Yeah, that's the impression that I got from reading the statements, too, that he wouldn't

Starting point is 00:19:13 have ever publicized what he had done. Other people were the ones who had to sort of bring it out. And most of what I read in the news reports, you had actually already covered in your story. Good job to you. But the Washington Post did have one amusing anecdote. They said, after the incident, investigators heavily interrogated Petrov. They asked him why he did not write down every detail of that night. Because I had a phone in one hand and the intercom in the other, and I don't have a third hand, he replied. That's a pretty reasonable reply under the circumstances.

Starting point is 00:19:46 I imagine that if you're in the middle of such a crisis situation, where you have only a very short time to make such a phenomenally important decision, writing down every detail might not be the first thing in your mind. You'd think they'd be as glad of what he did as we were, you know? Yeah, but actually, if you remember, he was actually reprimanded for not filling out his paperwork properly. He was not praised or lauded in his home country. It was also kind of an embarrassment because what he did was find that the Soviet satellite system had malfunctioned, right? So they didn't find that praiseworthy in some ways.

Starting point is 00:20:20 Yeah, but still, if it averted potentially a war. That's true. If it averted a nuclear war, you would think, hmm. Cody Huffstetler, who did a brilliant job of giving me pronunciation tips, wrote, Hi, I've been listening through all your old episodes and have now managed

Starting point is 00:20:35 to listen up through episode 165. You recently, well, recently to me, since I'm on 165, mentioned that you think people should listen earliest to latest

Starting point is 00:20:44 to avoid having puzzles spoiled, which is exactly what I did. It was fun seeing the progression of the podcast. I think there was one point where you said you thought you were getting the hang of this whole podcast thing before you'd even thought of doing lateral thinking puzzles, which was funny. Back to front is definitely the way to go. And yeah, the more we've thought about that, the more I think we agree. Definitely better to hopefully follow us improving rather than descending through our getting worse. And we still find ourselves thinking that we're continuing to get the hang of the whole podcast thing. I think we've been feeling that way for like the last 160 episodes or so.

Starting point is 00:21:17 Yeah, and I still don't feel like I'm there. Right. Hopefully we're still continuing to improve. Cody also said, Hopefully we're still continuing to improve. Cody also said, Also, I wanted to mention that it struck me odd that there would be local laws requiring doors to have round handles, as I would think this would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. ADA requires doors in public buildings to have lever-style handles to aid people who have trouble gripping things.

Starting point is 00:21:45 There has been some discussion in the security community regarding the fact that this presents a significant security flaw, in that a simple hook can be slipped around or under the door and used to pull the handle from the other side. I suppose now bears can be added to the list of security concerns. Thanks for the podcast. As you can imagine, I'm an avid listener. So, Cody, if you've gotten to episode 168 by now, you'll have seen that we do talk about how Vancouver is now requiring lever-type door handles to make it easier for people with different needs to get into buildings. And the Pitkin County regulation that started all this discussion was for private homes, while I think that the ADA applies mostly to access to public places. Though this does raise a good point, if a person with, say, arthritis wanted to have lever-type door handles in Pitkin County? Would

Starting point is 00:22:25 that be a problem? Would they not let them? That's a good question. You have to reconcile all these different concerns. Yeah. And I hadn't even thought about how there might be security issues with the lever-type handles. So lots of complexities to think through. Though now that I've thought about it a little bit more since that episode, wouldn't the answer to the problem of bears getting into houses in Colorado simply be to have people lock their doors? I haven't yet heard of bears being able to pick locks to let themselves in. So wouldn't that be a simpler solution than regulating the shape of the door handles? Maybe somebody should bring that up to the Pitkin County Commissioners. Let us know what they say. Simon Grimes wrote, Dear Sasha, I address my comments to you because I know who is actually running this enterprise.

Starting point is 00:23:08 That's fair enough. Your episode 164 about Augustin Courtauld's survival on the Greenland ice cap brought back a few memories. In 1972, I spent some time in a tent on the edge of the Greenland ice cap with a group of students, running a weather station and measuring glacial melt. of the Greenland ice cap with a group of students, running a weather station and measuring glacial melt. Due to a minor miscalculation and uncertainty about the weather when we would be due to be evacuated by helicopter, we decided to go on half rations for three weeks. In our spare time, we hunted down World War II ration depots laid 30 years earlier for the air crew of downed aircraft and dug up tins of army biscuits. Aged 18, this brief experience taught

Starting point is 00:23:45 me a useful life lesson. If my mouth doesn't water at the thought of old army hardtack biscuits, I'm not hungry. I also spent a winter in the Antarctic living in an isolated base the size of two shipping containers with one colleague. We survived and remained on speaking terms, but were encouraged by regular radio schedules and occasional visitors from other Antarctic bases when the weather was clear enough for travel. Reading the journals of Courtauld and Admiral Byrd, it is apparent that their mental strength was more important than their physical condition, and I do not know how I would have coped in their isolated position. That's a good point. It seems like that's at least as important. It's got to be, That's a good point. It seems like that's at least as important.

Starting point is 00:24:24 It's got to be, yeah. Simon also says, On a completely different topic, your puzzles and the speed with which you get to the solution reminds me of the old BBC radio version called Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. A mystery item was defined by these three attributes, and questions could be answered as yes or no. The point I realized I was completely out of my league was when someone correctly guessed washing up after two questions. You may need to explain this archaic concept to the dishwasher generation. Regards to your minions, Simon Grimes and his master, Boris the Burmese. So thank you, Simon and Boris. But I really don't see how washing up or dishwashing as we call it in the US.S., could be classified as animal, vegetable, or mineral.

Starting point is 00:25:07 And even once I get past that, I can't possibly imagine how anyone could guess that after asking only two questions. Unless maybe the first question was something like, is this something I hate? Assuming that the questioner has strong feelings on the subject. But I feel like we've been totally eclipsed. So thanks to everyone who writes in into us, human or otherwise. And if you or any of your pets have anything you'd like to contribute, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle.

Starting point is 00:25:42 I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation, and he has to work out what is going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Mike Davis, who says if his name is too easy, his middle name and mother's family name is Knockham, which he gives me free license to butcher. So did my best on that one. That was thoughtful. Mike's puzzle is, someone asks their neighbor to walk their dog for them that afternoon the next day both people change their apartment door locks why okay are there more people involved than just these two um there could be but that's not

Starting point is 00:26:21 really important all right two people on a dog one person owns a dog and asked the other to walk it. Yes. And then you said the next afternoon? The next day, both people change their apartment door locks. Okay. Just getting organized here in my head. Are the people's specific identities important? No.

Starting point is 00:26:44 Is the time period or anything like that important? They're just people. They're just people. Okay. Walking the dog. Do I need to know anything in particular about the dog? No. So something happens is...

Starting point is 00:26:53 All right. I have to ask this. Is the changing the door locks related to what happened the preceding day? Yes. And does it relate... And it relates to walking the dog. Oh, you said ask someone to walk the dog. Did he actually walk it?

Starting point is 00:27:09 Is their gender important? No. Let's say they're both men. Sure. One man asked another to walk his dog. Sure. Would you say they both changed the locks for similar reasons? Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:21 Was it mutual mistrust? Were they changing the locks because each mistrusted the other? No. All right. So they're both... Was it related to preventing crime, changing the locks, would you say? I'll say yes. They feared someone would get into each of their houses?

Starting point is 00:27:37 Possibly. Okay. And they hadn't thought that the day before? Right. And they're in an apartment. Okay. But the next day, both people changed their apartment door locks. Is that important? Yes. Really? Yes. Right. And they're in an apartment. Okay. But the next day both people change their apartment door locks. Is that important? Yes. Really?

Starting point is 00:27:47 Yes. Okay. Wow. Do we need to know anything about how this is set up? Are they next door to each other or anything like that? Do we need to know that? They are. Yes. So they're in adjoining apartments. Yes. They both change their door locks. Or they're at least on the same floor of an apartment building. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:03 I don't know if they're actually adjoining or not. Intriguing puzzle. But they're near each other, let's say floor of an apartment building. Okay. I don't know if they're actually adjoining or not. Intriguing puzzle. But they're near each other, let's say, in an apartment building. Okay. Does a crime occur? No. All right. Okay.

Starting point is 00:28:16 So one asked the other to walk his dog. The other one agrees and does this? Sure. Do we need to know why the guy wanted him to do that? Okay. So he walks his dog on the first day. Yeah. And then gives the dog back to the second guy?

Starting point is 00:28:29 Yeah. Okay. Does something happen after the dog has walked that leads them both to want to change their locks? No. Let's say no. Does something happen while the dog is walked? No. Would they have changed their locks anyway?

Starting point is 00:28:51 So the dog isn't just a red herring? No. I'm not sure how to answer that. Ask that more specifically. Okay. If their next door neighbor is in an apartment somewhere, some apartment building, and on day two they both changed their locks.

Starting point is 00:29:06 My question is, would they have done that even if the first man hadn't walked the second man's dog? They would not have. Okay. But it's not because of something that happened while the dog was walked or afterward. That's correct. Is anyone's occupation important?

Starting point is 00:29:18 Nope. Okay. But it does need to be that they're in an apartment building, which is why I corrected you when you said it was houses. So they both, did they both, is it fair to say they were both, they both realized they were vulnerable to some crime? Yes. Because of this? Because of the whole situation, but because of what happened, yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:37 They would not have if the situation hadn't happened. So it sounds like I need to know more about specifically what happened when the guy walked the dog. No, because I said it's nothing that happened while the dog was being walked. But I mean, while they were negotiating it or something. Sure. Okay. Does the first man call the second one call the first? It doesn't matter. He says, hey, can you walk my dog? The guy says, yes. Yes. And then what would you need to do so that somebody could walk your dog? Yes. And then what would you need to do so that somebody could walk your dog? Well, you'd have to get the dog to him.

Starting point is 00:30:10 Or? Or he'd come over and collect the dog? Yes. Is this what happens? Yes. The first man goes over to the second guy's apartment to get the dog. Let's say yes, or even maybe before that step. But what would he need to do? Let's say one guy is going to be out of town or detained at work all day, so he can't walk his dog.

Starting point is 00:30:34 So what would you need to do so that your apartment neighbor could walk your dog? Give him a key to your apartment. Uh-huh. All right. So he does that. Yes. So then the next day, the guy uses the key he's been given to open the second guy's apartment to get the dog, and he walks it. Yes, that all happens. And brings it back. Yes, that all happens. So now,

Starting point is 00:30:50 is it just that the second guy doesn't like or trust the first guy? No. Okay. So at this point, the first guy has a key to the second guy's apartment. Right. But he can just give that back to the second guy. Yes. Does he do that? Sure. So, if there's no mistrust there,

Starting point is 00:31:06 I mean, the second guy could think, well, he could have made a copy of the key and now I'm not. It's not that. It's not that at all. But it's really germane that one guy gave a key to the other guy. Okay.

Starting point is 00:31:17 All right. So the second guy gives a key to the first guy and now knows that he has that. That's that, right. That second part about knowing he has it that's not important it's really important though that one neighbor now has a key to his neighbor's apartment do we need to know about how the apartment building is set up and how like not really they don't all use similar keys or anything ah they do. They all use similar keys? That's what was discovered. They didn't know that until the neighbor saw the two keys together and realized they were all the

Starting point is 00:31:54 same keys. And they discovered they were all the same keys for the whole floor. Mike says this actually happened to him and several of his neighbors in a Brooklyn apartment building and says it was a very scary realization to say the least. Thanks again. And all three of you, I'm counting the cat too, keep up the great work. That's really scary. I guess it would save the landlord a lot of trouble. Right. But if you realize that your neighbors all have, I mean, any of your neighbors could get into your apartment or if one guy copied the key and gave it, right? You know, I almost asked you if this was true and I thought that, well, I can't be true. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:26 Oh, my gosh. Mike says it is. So thank you from all three of us for that puzzle, Mike, in which all crimes, including violent murders, manage to be avoided. And if anybody else has a puzzle for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's our show for today. Just a reminder that we'll be off next week. And in the meantime, you can check out our store

Starting point is 00:32:50 if you have a hankering for various items adorned with the Futility Closet Penguin or the Futility Closet books on Amazon or the more than 9,000 tidbits of trivia that Greg has collected over the last 12 years. You can find all this plus the show notes and a support us section, at our website at futilitycloset.com. If you have any questions or comments for either us or Sasha, you can email any of us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by my stupendous brother-in-law, Doug Ross.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks.

Futility Closet - 172-An American in Feudal Japan

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