During my first year in Japan, I lived an existence quite like an average Japanese salaryman, living in a company dormitory, eating most meals from what I could buy at a convenience store or izakaya, having a long commute to the office, and having nowhere private I could spend time with my girlfriend. (Women were not allowed in my dorm.) Like most unmarried Japanese women, (girlfriend) Kaori lived with her parents, so she had nowhere private to spend time with me, either.
We thus did what most Japanese people our age did: we went to "love hotels." Unlike their low-rent American equivalent, the no-tell motel, love hotels tended to be more cheesy than sleazy. The decor was routinely tacky, featuring as you might imagine, "fantasy" themes like Greek columns or floor-to-ceiling mirrors. However, love hotels were generally clean, discreetly located in back alleys away from prying eyes, and relatively inexpensive. They were conveniently priced for a three-hour "rest" during the daytime or an all-night "stay" from 10:00 pm to 10:00 am. Some tourist books used to advise people traveling to Japan on the cheap to stay in love hotels, although you have to be out during the daytime and can't leave your luggage there. I once stayed overnight in a love hotel in Kamakura when nothing else was available on short notice.
In the suburbs, love hotels tend to cluster near highway exits, and are noticeable from their excessive use of neon and their architecture, which runs from the Parthenon to Magic Kingdom. In cities, they tend be located near major train stations, usually on back streets away from where the main entertainments are.
The area of Tokyo known as Shibuya has a fairly extensive love hotel area, known colloquially as "hoteru gai" ("hotel town" or "hotel street"), which sits atop one of the hills that surrounds the Shibuya train station and shopping district. Hoteru Gai is a warren of back streets, many of them dead ends, most of them containing love hotels of one description or another, ranging in price from reasonable to very expensive. Because Shibuya was convenient to both of our homes (in the sense that we could both easily get to Shibuya by train), Shibuya was a regular meeting place for me and Kaori. We also had a couple of regular spots in Hoteru Gai.
Kaori being only 20 (I was 22!), she was still subject to a curfew of last train, and it was rare that we booked a "stay." But on one occasion, we stayed overnight on a weekday. The next morning, we left the hotel early to get to work -- just like everyone else in all the other hotels in Hoteru Gai. We walked out onto the street and were joined by a few other people leaving the other hotels on our alley. Our alleyway emptied into a larger street, and as each successive alleyway fed into the main street, the trickle grew into a human stream. Couples reaching the main street immediately broke away from each other and walked separately. Everyone walked briskly, making for the station, their eyes strictly in front, no one (except me) looked around for fear of making eye contact with an acquaintance, a gossipy co-worker or a friend of their real girlfriend or boyfriend. By the time we reached Dogenzaka Street, a major shopping street running down the hill to Shibuya Station, the trickle from our alleyway had become a river of people running down to the station, everyone speeding as quickly as possible away from Hoteru Gai, making for the plausible deniability of Shibuya Station.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
More on the Japanese Election
When I lived in Japan and was more of a young hothead, I used to think that Japan was a sham democracy. After all, it had had essentially one-party rule for all of the post-war period, and the United States had funneled money to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party until the end of the Cold War and the LDP had in turn funneled money to the opposition parties. Moreover, the urban population seemed to be itching for change, while the rural areas, which were rapidly becoming "rotten boroughs" were able to elect majorities and control the government. Plus, the LDP kept piling up majorities by larding the country with pork barrel projects that were unneeded but greased the right palms.
I still think that there was a lot wrong with Japanese politics during the postwar period, and who knows how much will change now, given that the Democratic Party of Japan still has a lot of former LDP pork barrelers in its ranks. But what is interesting to me is the question of legitimacy. For all its problems, my view now is that Japan has had a real democracy during this time, its democratic government has been legitimized over time, and this election is the fruition of the solidification of democracy in Japan after centuries and centuries of monarchical and authoritarian governments.
The LDP was corrupt, no doubt about it. But the Japanese voters kept on returning it to power in what were clean elections in the sense that massive vote fraud was not needed to keep the conservatives in power, as we've seen in places like Iran in 2009 and Florida in 2000. Japan was, and is, a conservative country, in the sense that the appeal of left wing policies espoused by socialists and communists never held widespread appeal beyond a certain limited slice of the population. A big reason the LDP kept being returned to power was that the LDP presided over incredible post-war growth that caused Japan to transform from a burned out hulk to one of the richest countries in the world in a mere 30 years. The opposition Socialists and Communists could not compete with this record of success. Thus, for the 40 years following the LDP's founding in 1955, its continual reelection was legitimate. There was never any need for the LDP to cling to power through violence or fraud.
I think there is a reasonable chance that, had the left-wing parties ever showed any real chance of winning an election during the height of the Cold War, serious oppression could have resulted, winked at by the US. Japan might have wound up looking a little more like South Korea than it did. (Don't forget that the LDP was founded by members of the pre-war right-wing elite that was closely tied to the miltarists, who were returned to power in 1948 after a brief socialist turn, when the US embraced the right-wingers in the "reverse course," when Occupation policy changed directions in response to outbreak of the Cold War.) But there was never a "need" for this result, because the voters kept returning the same party to power that was backed by the US and Japan's business and military elites. As a result, there was never an election that seriously threw the legitimacy of the system into doubt because fraud was necessary to maintain the conservative block in power.
Even during the period after 1994, when the LDP returned to power after a brief hiatus, despite the great satisfaction of most Japanese voters, its return was the result of pragmatism -- there really was no alternative. As hated as the LDP had become because of its corruption, the opposition parties were not seen as ready to govern. Japanese voters had no choice, so they kept returning the LDP to power.
Martin Fackler in his piece in the New York Times today referred to the Japanese voters as "traditionally passive," but this really misses the point. There have been episodes of hard fought elections and real resistance by the left in Japan since the war -- the elections before 1955, the resistance to the renewal of the security treaty with the US in 1960, and the resistance to the construction and expansion of Narita Airport in the 1970s come to mind. In recent elections, Japanese voters did not turn out in large numbers because there was no point -- the opposition had not gotten its act togther sufficiently to convince the majority of Japanese voters that it was capable of governing the country responsibly. Had the Japanese voters been given a real choice, they would have turned out to vote, as this did today. Passivity had nothing to do with it. Voters were either aquiescent to a system that worked for them, or they saw no legitimate alternatives. In this election, rather than discredited socialists and communists, the Japanese voters had a legitimate center-left alternative for the first time, and they embraced it.
Which brings me back to my point. There is no question of the legitimacy of this election, and no chance of the LDP attempting to avoid the results and cling to power, because Japanese democracy has become fully legitimized over the last 60 years. The near constant return of the LDP time and time again reflected the will of the people. Moreover, the LDP did not need to build up an army of thugs to beat up the opposition, because the opposition was never a serious threat. The LDP itself embraced the system, because the system worked for it. And when the LDP finally reached the end of its vitality, it had neither the desire nor the ability to steal the election, even though the business, military, organized crime and other powers that be still support the LDP. The LDP lived by the electoral system, because Japanese voters allowed it to for so many years, and now it has died by the electoral system, with no alternative but to step aside peacefully.
I still think that there was a lot wrong with Japanese politics during the postwar period, and who knows how much will change now, given that the Democratic Party of Japan still has a lot of former LDP pork barrelers in its ranks. But what is interesting to me is the question of legitimacy. For all its problems, my view now is that Japan has had a real democracy during this time, its democratic government has been legitimized over time, and this election is the fruition of the solidification of democracy in Japan after centuries and centuries of monarchical and authoritarian governments.
The LDP was corrupt, no doubt about it. But the Japanese voters kept on returning it to power in what were clean elections in the sense that massive vote fraud was not needed to keep the conservatives in power, as we've seen in places like Iran in 2009 and Florida in 2000. Japan was, and is, a conservative country, in the sense that the appeal of left wing policies espoused by socialists and communists never held widespread appeal beyond a certain limited slice of the population. A big reason the LDP kept being returned to power was that the LDP presided over incredible post-war growth that caused Japan to transform from a burned out hulk to one of the richest countries in the world in a mere 30 years. The opposition Socialists and Communists could not compete with this record of success. Thus, for the 40 years following the LDP's founding in 1955, its continual reelection was legitimate. There was never any need for the LDP to cling to power through violence or fraud.
I think there is a reasonable chance that, had the left-wing parties ever showed any real chance of winning an election during the height of the Cold War, serious oppression could have resulted, winked at by the US. Japan might have wound up looking a little more like South Korea than it did. (Don't forget that the LDP was founded by members of the pre-war right-wing elite that was closely tied to the miltarists, who were returned to power in 1948 after a brief socialist turn, when the US embraced the right-wingers in the "reverse course," when Occupation policy changed directions in response to outbreak of the Cold War.) But there was never a "need" for this result, because the voters kept returning the same party to power that was backed by the US and Japan's business and military elites. As a result, there was never an election that seriously threw the legitimacy of the system into doubt because fraud was necessary to maintain the conservative block in power.
Even during the period after 1994, when the LDP returned to power after a brief hiatus, despite the great satisfaction of most Japanese voters, its return was the result of pragmatism -- there really was no alternative. As hated as the LDP had become because of its corruption, the opposition parties were not seen as ready to govern. Japanese voters had no choice, so they kept returning the LDP to power.
Martin Fackler in his piece in the New York Times today referred to the Japanese voters as "traditionally passive," but this really misses the point. There have been episodes of hard fought elections and real resistance by the left in Japan since the war -- the elections before 1955, the resistance to the renewal of the security treaty with the US in 1960, and the resistance to the construction and expansion of Narita Airport in the 1970s come to mind. In recent elections, Japanese voters did not turn out in large numbers because there was no point -- the opposition had not gotten its act togther sufficiently to convince the majority of Japanese voters that it was capable of governing the country responsibly. Had the Japanese voters been given a real choice, they would have turned out to vote, as this did today. Passivity had nothing to do with it. Voters were either aquiescent to a system that worked for them, or they saw no legitimate alternatives. In this election, rather than discredited socialists and communists, the Japanese voters had a legitimate center-left alternative for the first time, and they embraced it.
Which brings me back to my point. There is no question of the legitimacy of this election, and no chance of the LDP attempting to avoid the results and cling to power, because Japanese democracy has become fully legitimized over the last 60 years. The near constant return of the LDP time and time again reflected the will of the people. Moreover, the LDP did not need to build up an army of thugs to beat up the opposition, because the opposition was never a serious threat. The LDP itself embraced the system, because the system worked for it. And when the LDP finally reached the end of its vitality, it had neither the desire nor the ability to steal the election, even though the business, military, organized crime and other powers that be still support the LDP. The LDP lived by the electoral system, because Japanese voters allowed it to for so many years, and now it has died by the electoral system, with no alternative but to step aside peacefully.
LDP Swept Out of Power
I'm taking a break from the past today to reflect on today's historic election in Japan, in which the Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) defeated the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a rout, sweeping from power the party that had ruled Japan essentially uninterrupted since 1955.
I was in Japan in 1993, when the opposition briefly broke the LDP's hold on power and governed for 11 months. The central bureaucracy, which was strongly tied to the LDP, worked to frustrate the Hosokawa government and it collapsed in under a year, returning the LDP to power. But the LDP has never quite been the same since, ruling as weak government with the exception of the six years when Junichiro Koizumi was prime minister.
This election represents the end of cold-war politics in Japan, and a final triumph over the urban and suburban areas over the rural districts that held disproportionate political power under the LDP. The DJP is expected to spend more on social infrastructure and less on massive construction projects, as well as to strengthen Japan's relationships with other Asian countries and distance itself somewhat from the United States. It will be interesting to see if an apology for WWII is finally forthcoming, since the DJP is not in the pocket of the Bereaved Families Association, which prevented such an apology, as the LDP was.
The DJP's biggest challenge will probably be internal. The party is a collection of different constituencies, formed of defectors from the LDP and the remains of the old Japan Socialist Party. The disparate branches of the DJP are tied together by their opposition to the LDP, rather than by a common program. So, will the DJP be able to implement a program, or will it quickly become caught up in infighting? It's impossible to say at this point. But Japan has long needed a political shakeup, and now that shakeup has come in dramatic fashion. There is now a great opportunity for change. Will the bureaucrats frustrate it? Will the DJP squander its historic chance? Only time will tell.
I was in Japan in 1993, when the opposition briefly broke the LDP's hold on power and governed for 11 months. The central bureaucracy, which was strongly tied to the LDP, worked to frustrate the Hosokawa government and it collapsed in under a year, returning the LDP to power. But the LDP has never quite been the same since, ruling as weak government with the exception of the six years when Junichiro Koizumi was prime minister.
This election represents the end of cold-war politics in Japan, and a final triumph over the urban and suburban areas over the rural districts that held disproportionate political power under the LDP. The DJP is expected to spend more on social infrastructure and less on massive construction projects, as well as to strengthen Japan's relationships with other Asian countries and distance itself somewhat from the United States. It will be interesting to see if an apology for WWII is finally forthcoming, since the DJP is not in the pocket of the Bereaved Families Association, which prevented such an apology, as the LDP was.
The DJP's biggest challenge will probably be internal. The party is a collection of different constituencies, formed of defectors from the LDP and the remains of the old Japan Socialist Party. The disparate branches of the DJP are tied together by their opposition to the LDP, rather than by a common program. So, will the DJP be able to implement a program, or will it quickly become caught up in infighting? It's impossible to say at this point. But Japan has long needed a political shakeup, and now that shakeup has come in dramatic fashion. There is now a great opportunity for change. Will the bureaucrats frustrate it? Will the DJP squander its historic chance? Only time will tell.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Hanami II
More on hanami.
Some interesting cultural differences came to light during cherry blossom viewing. Americans and Japanese both use blankets or tarps when picnicking outdoors, but for Japanese a tarp or blanket functions in a sense like indoor space. While Americans wouldn't think twice about walking or sitting on the tarp with their shoes on, Japanese people consider this to be quite dirty and always remove their shoes before stepping onto the picnic surface. (It's probably also due to the fact that the tarp/blanket functions as the eating surface, and you wouldn't step on that.)
At a small hanami party or other picnic in Japan, both Americans and Japanese would sit while eating and talking. The more people involved, however, the more like a party it would seem to the Americans, and their years of party instincts would take over. In other words, they would stand. After a while, all of the Japanese would be sitting on the blankets and all of the Americans would be standing around talking.
There are other times, too, when Japanese take off their shoes when it would not occur to Americans to do so. When a Japanese person needs to stand on a chair to reach something high, they will remove their footwear -- whether its shoes at the office or slippers at home -- before standing on the chair. Also, Japanese parents make their children take off their shoes when they get a seat on the subway, since Japanese kids, like children everywhere, have a way of always putting their feet on the seats. Japanese doctors' offices, dentists' offices, some hospitals, and even hair salons are also places where you change into slippers before walking in. I even had to remove my shoes and change into slippers for a tour of one of Canon's factories.
Then there are all those oyaji (old farts) at the office who are so accustomed to taking off their shoes inside that they wear slippers or sandals at the office . . . .
Some interesting cultural differences came to light during cherry blossom viewing. Americans and Japanese both use blankets or tarps when picnicking outdoors, but for Japanese a tarp or blanket functions in a sense like indoor space. While Americans wouldn't think twice about walking or sitting on the tarp with their shoes on, Japanese people consider this to be quite dirty and always remove their shoes before stepping onto the picnic surface. (It's probably also due to the fact that the tarp/blanket functions as the eating surface, and you wouldn't step on that.)
At a small hanami party or other picnic in Japan, both Americans and Japanese would sit while eating and talking. The more people involved, however, the more like a party it would seem to the Americans, and their years of party instincts would take over. In other words, they would stand. After a while, all of the Japanese would be sitting on the blankets and all of the Americans would be standing around talking.
There are other times, too, when Japanese take off their shoes when it would not occur to Americans to do so. When a Japanese person needs to stand on a chair to reach something high, they will remove their footwear -- whether its shoes at the office or slippers at home -- before standing on the chair. Also, Japanese parents make their children take off their shoes when they get a seat on the subway, since Japanese kids, like children everywhere, have a way of always putting their feet on the seats. Japanese doctors' offices, dentists' offices, some hospitals, and even hair salons are also places where you change into slippers before walking in. I even had to remove my shoes and change into slippers for a tour of one of Canon's factories.
Then there are all those oyaji (old farts) at the office who are so accustomed to taking off their shoes inside that they wear slippers or sandals at the office . . . .
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Hanami
One of my favorite activities in Japan was hanami -- cherry blossom viewing. Hanami is an annual rite in Japan that takes place in late March/early April. The country nearly comes to a stop for the week that the blossoms are out, with offices holding after-work viewing parties for which junior workers are sent out during the day to find and hold a good spot. Hanami takes place wherever cherry trees can be found, and some of the best places are in spots you wouldn't guess. For example, a great place to view cherry blossoms in Tokyo is Aoyama Cemetery, where the avenues between the graves are lined with cherry trees. The park is packed even at night, when people visit the cemetery to see the trees lit up by the street lights, called yozakura, or "night cherry [blossoms]." (I am sure that, in the old days, yozakura was done by the light of the moon, but you can barely see the moon in Tokyo now, given all the light pollution, and the street lights illuminate the trees quite beautifully.)
My first hanami took place in 1992. Dave S. (who had not yet assumed his secret identity, Meishi Man), his girlfriend Chieko, and my first girlfriend in Japan, Kaori (who shares the same first name as my wife -- Hi Honey!!), went to Aoyama Cemetery on the spur of the moment one Saturday when the blossoms were out.
We bought some convenience-store bento boxes and some beer and found a spot under the trees, next to a large group of men who seemed to be work-mates. Their set-up was quite elaborate, complete with a blue tarpaulin, large platters of cold cuts, and a crate of jars of Ozeki "One Cup" sake -- sake that comes in a glass with a pull-top lid for drinking on the go, a workingman's favorite in Japan.
Being in earshot of this group, they soon overheard us speaking in Japanese and started to get friendly. With a mid-day beer buzz making me sleepy, I put my head down on Kaori's lap, and stared up at the cherry blossoms above. Suddenly, a man's sake-reddened face burst into the scene above me. "O-den ga suki?" ("Do you like o-den?"), he blurted. (O-den is a popular dish of vegetables, vegetable cakes and fish cakes that simmer in a broth for hours, usually consumed in cold weather, and hanami season is generally still cold.) The question was sudden, and out of context, and I didn't even know the guy who was asking me, but through the beer haze I said that I did.
"Okay, wait a minute," he said. He returned a couple of minutes later with a serving of o-den that he bought from the open-air vendor just a little way down the cemetery avenue. We thanked him appreciatively, and then began to talk with our new-found friends. Naturally, they wanted to know how Dave and I had learned Japanese, what we were doing in Japan, where we worked, etc. They didn't ask us the usual question about whether we liked Japanese girls. The answer to that question must have seemed obvious.
The men had been there for hours before we arrived and their party broke up before we left. They had a lot of leftover cold cuts and One Cup sakes, and they insisted that we take all of it. A single One-Cup is enough rot-gut to generate a really good buzz, and we were already pretty full from beer, so I think we wound up having only one cup each, and then Dave took the rest home. We ate some cold cuts and then threw away the rest. It's possible we went to "Oh God!" after that, since it was nearby Aoyama Cemetery, but I really don't remember.
From that first cherry blossom experience, I began to organize a hanami party every year. When I later moved into my own apartment, which had a big roof-deck, a friend gave me a barbecue set, which I used to lug to Aoyama Cemetery or Inokashira Park (another famous viewing spot) to cook yakitori. The parties were successively bigger each year; I think the last of them drew about 40 people.
I've only gotten to see the cherry blossoms once more since leaving Japan in 1994. In 2007, my wife Kaori and I visited her parents when the cherry trees were blooming, and I had the rare treat of seeing the blossoms in Kyoto, which is famous for its cherry trees. The last "Unrelated Japan Photo" I posted is from that trip.
I've tried to recreate hanami in New York, and have found an excellent spot in Central Park where the blossoms are as plentiful as in a Japanese park. It's always fun, but the general party atmosphere of life stopping while the trees are blooming is missing. There are always a few Japanese there also trying to recreate what they are missing from Japan, but it's never quite the same. Most Americans, it seems, don't even notice the blossoms.
P.S. Out of nostalgia, I just looked on the internet and found that the bar is not "Oh God!," but "Oh! God," as if God walked in on you unexpectedly. The placement of the exclamation point is so classic and so quintessentially Japanese! How could I have forgotten this wonderful tidbit?
A review is here: http://ultimatepubguide.com/pubs/info.phtml?pub_id=334
My first hanami took place in 1992. Dave S. (who had not yet assumed his secret identity, Meishi Man), his girlfriend Chieko, and my first girlfriend in Japan, Kaori (who shares the same first name as my wife -- Hi Honey!!), went to Aoyama Cemetery on the spur of the moment one Saturday when the blossoms were out.
We bought some convenience-store bento boxes and some beer and found a spot under the trees, next to a large group of men who seemed to be work-mates. Their set-up was quite elaborate, complete with a blue tarpaulin, large platters of cold cuts, and a crate of jars of Ozeki "One Cup" sake -- sake that comes in a glass with a pull-top lid for drinking on the go, a workingman's favorite in Japan.
Being in earshot of this group, they soon overheard us speaking in Japanese and started to get friendly. With a mid-day beer buzz making me sleepy, I put my head down on Kaori's lap, and stared up at the cherry blossoms above. Suddenly, a man's sake-reddened face burst into the scene above me. "O-den ga suki?" ("Do you like o-den?"), he blurted. (O-den is a popular dish of vegetables, vegetable cakes and fish cakes that simmer in a broth for hours, usually consumed in cold weather, and hanami season is generally still cold.) The question was sudden, and out of context, and I didn't even know the guy who was asking me, but through the beer haze I said that I did.
"Okay, wait a minute," he said. He returned a couple of minutes later with a serving of o-den that he bought from the open-air vendor just a little way down the cemetery avenue. We thanked him appreciatively, and then began to talk with our new-found friends. Naturally, they wanted to know how Dave and I had learned Japanese, what we were doing in Japan, where we worked, etc. They didn't ask us the usual question about whether we liked Japanese girls. The answer to that question must have seemed obvious.
The men had been there for hours before we arrived and their party broke up before we left. They had a lot of leftover cold cuts and One Cup sakes, and they insisted that we take all of it. A single One-Cup is enough rot-gut to generate a really good buzz, and we were already pretty full from beer, so I think we wound up having only one cup each, and then Dave took the rest home. We ate some cold cuts and then threw away the rest. It's possible we went to "Oh God!" after that, since it was nearby Aoyama Cemetery, but I really don't remember.
From that first cherry blossom experience, I began to organize a hanami party every year. When I later moved into my own apartment, which had a big roof-deck, a friend gave me a barbecue set, which I used to lug to Aoyama Cemetery or Inokashira Park (another famous viewing spot) to cook yakitori. The parties were successively bigger each year; I think the last of them drew about 40 people.
I've only gotten to see the cherry blossoms once more since leaving Japan in 1994. In 2007, my wife Kaori and I visited her parents when the cherry trees were blooming, and I had the rare treat of seeing the blossoms in Kyoto, which is famous for its cherry trees. The last "Unrelated Japan Photo" I posted is from that trip.
I've tried to recreate hanami in New York, and have found an excellent spot in Central Park where the blossoms are as plentiful as in a Japanese park. It's always fun, but the general party atmosphere of life stopping while the trees are blooming is missing. There are always a few Japanese there also trying to recreate what they are missing from Japan, but it's never quite the same. Most Americans, it seems, don't even notice the blossoms.
P.S. Out of nostalgia, I just looked on the internet and found that the bar is not "Oh God!," but "Oh! God," as if God walked in on you unexpectedly. The placement of the exclamation point is so classic and so quintessentially Japanese! How could I have forgotten this wonderful tidbit?
A review is here: http://ultimatepubguide.com/pubs/info.phtml?pub_id=334
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Birth of Meishi Man
My friend Dave S. and I developed a regular habit of hitting an izakaya called Tonta once a month or so. Tonta was under the Yamanote Line tracks, halfway between Yurakucho Station and Shimbashi Station, directly behind the Imperial Hotel. It was down three steps in a half-basement and had everything a good izakaya needs -- long communal tables, advertisements from Kirin and Sapporo of buxom young Japanese women in bikinis holding pints of beer, cigarette smoke, cheap beer and sake, and decent food. I don't know whether Tonta is particularly well known, or it just happens to be known to certain cameramen in Japan, but every once in a while, I see the interior of Tonta (which is burned into my memory) on TV.
A group of two at Tonta would usually be seated across a communal table from one another, with people you did not know on either side of you. If you came with a larger group, you could get a table to yourself, but not usually with two people, unless it was a slow night. When seated alongside strangers, the etiquette is generally to pretend they don't exist. It's the only way to have some privacy when you are seated six inches from a couple of strangers. Of course, speaking in English provided a buffer for our conversations, but you never knew who could speak English, so it was best just to imagine they didn't exist anyway. (Japanese usually assumed we could not speak Japanese, so it was common, as soon as we sat down, to hear conversations about America, the speaker's inability to speak English, etc.)
One night, we were seated at a table right near the door. A large foreigner in a suit -- probably staying at the Imperial -- came to the door, looked through the window, saw us sitting there, and decided it was okay to come in. Because he was by himself and it was very crowded, the waitress seated him at the end of a table, which happened to be our table. Foreigners are generally not used to being seated with strangers, and even less used to the idea that, if you are seated with strangers, you are supposed to ignore them. The foreigner immediately started talking to the two salarymen seated on either side of him. From his accent, we could tell he was German.
The two salarymen did their best speaking English with him. His booming voice matched his large frame and we could hear everything he said. Suddenly, he asked them, "So, is this a Chinese restaurant?"
Dave and I checked our laughter. The two Japanese, probably expecting such ignorance, explained to him earnestly that this was an izakaya, a kind of Japanese bar.
After a while, Dave and I tuned out the conversation, which was following the standard Japanese-gaijin format of "Do you like Japanese sushi?" and so on, and went on drinking. Eventually, the two salarymen bid the German a good night and left to return either to the office for more work or to their homes in deepest Chiba or Kanagawa Prefecture. Dave then abruptly announced, "I'm going to get his meishi!" He went over to the German, talked for five minutes, and came back with his business card.
I didn't know it at the time, but I had just witnessed the birth of Meishi Man.
I don't know whether Dave had been reading books about networking or what, but over the coming months, he became obsessed with obtaining people's business cards. We'd be out drinking somewhere, and all of a sudden, he'd be collecting the meishi of everyone in sight. There was no rhyme or reason to his obsession. He did not seem to target people in any particular field. He just wanted cards, any cards, as though, somehow, if he collected enough of them, he would have some kind of networking breakthrough, reach some kind of meishi collecting nirvana, that would lead to a new career opportunity. I don't know what he did with all the cards. He never mentioned to me that he had later contacted a single person whose card he had collected while out drinking with me.
In the end, Dave proved a good networker, apparently networking his way into a job as the president of a Japanese subsidiary in Italy after business school. I don't know if he still collects business cards obsessively. I'm just proud to say that I knew Meishi Man when he was just a meishi boy.
A group of two at Tonta would usually be seated across a communal table from one another, with people you did not know on either side of you. If you came with a larger group, you could get a table to yourself, but not usually with two people, unless it was a slow night. When seated alongside strangers, the etiquette is generally to pretend they don't exist. It's the only way to have some privacy when you are seated six inches from a couple of strangers. Of course, speaking in English provided a buffer for our conversations, but you never knew who could speak English, so it was best just to imagine they didn't exist anyway. (Japanese usually assumed we could not speak Japanese, so it was common, as soon as we sat down, to hear conversations about America, the speaker's inability to speak English, etc.)
One night, we were seated at a table right near the door. A large foreigner in a suit -- probably staying at the Imperial -- came to the door, looked through the window, saw us sitting there, and decided it was okay to come in. Because he was by himself and it was very crowded, the waitress seated him at the end of a table, which happened to be our table. Foreigners are generally not used to being seated with strangers, and even less used to the idea that, if you are seated with strangers, you are supposed to ignore them. The foreigner immediately started talking to the two salarymen seated on either side of him. From his accent, we could tell he was German.
The two salarymen did their best speaking English with him. His booming voice matched his large frame and we could hear everything he said. Suddenly, he asked them, "So, is this a Chinese restaurant?"
Dave and I checked our laughter. The two Japanese, probably expecting such ignorance, explained to him earnestly that this was an izakaya, a kind of Japanese bar.
After a while, Dave and I tuned out the conversation, which was following the standard Japanese-gaijin format of "Do you like Japanese sushi?" and so on, and went on drinking. Eventually, the two salarymen bid the German a good night and left to return either to the office for more work or to their homes in deepest Chiba or Kanagawa Prefecture. Dave then abruptly announced, "I'm going to get his meishi!" He went over to the German, talked for five minutes, and came back with his business card.
I didn't know it at the time, but I had just witnessed the birth of Meishi Man.
I don't know whether Dave had been reading books about networking or what, but over the coming months, he became obsessed with obtaining people's business cards. We'd be out drinking somewhere, and all of a sudden, he'd be collecting the meishi of everyone in sight. There was no rhyme or reason to his obsession. He did not seem to target people in any particular field. He just wanted cards, any cards, as though, somehow, if he collected enough of them, he would have some kind of networking breakthrough, reach some kind of meishi collecting nirvana, that would lead to a new career opportunity. I don't know what he did with all the cards. He never mentioned to me that he had later contacted a single person whose card he had collected while out drinking with me.
In the end, Dave proved a good networker, apparently networking his way into a job as the president of a Japanese subsidiary in Italy after business school. I don't know if he still collects business cards obsessively. I'm just proud to say that I knew Meishi Man when he was just a meishi boy.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Chopstickery Pet Peeves
I'll relate a story that actually occurred before I went to Japan, but it's fun nonetheless.
Between my junior and senior years of college, after studying Japanese in college for a year, I posted a flyer seeking a Japanese language exchange partner at Yaohan (now Mitsuwa), Japanese shopping center in Edgewater, New Jersey. A woman named Noriko answered my ad. During that summer, we got together periodically to exchange Japanese and English language pointers.
One day, Noriko and her roommate, who was also Japanese, invited me to their apartment for dinner. To eat with, they gave me warebashi, those disposable bamboo chopsticks, still attached to each other at one end, that you have to break apart to use. (Although this sounds tacky -- you wouldn't give your guest a plastic fork in the US -- it's actually common in Japan, because it's considered more polite to give someone unused chopsticks, as opposed to the ones you've been sticking in your mouth for a couple of years.)
I pulled apart the chopsticks and then started rubbing them together to remove splinters, as I had seen some Asian American friends do at school. As I rubbed, I asked Noriko, in as good Japanese as I could muster at the time, "Please tell me if I ever do anything considered rude in Japan."
Noriko and her roommate looked at each other and then Noriko pointed to my splinter-removing technique. "That's rude," she said. I felt like a dope.
Moral of the Story: Don't assume that Asian Americans know any more about Japanese etiquette than you do, just because they're Asian American.
Etiquette Note: One of my pet peeves is people who treat chopsticks like toys. You don't play with your knife and fork at the table, do you? If you want to practice drumming, get some drumsticks. Treat chopsticks like you would tableware: leave them on the table if you're not using them to eat. Doing otherwise is considered extremely rude.
My Other Chopstick-Related Pet Peeve: People who insist on using chopsticks in Asian restaurants because it's "more authentic" that way, even though they can't use them properly. Most of these people hold the chopsticks near the bottom, like a pencil. But chopsticks operate more like scissors. Imagine if you decided that, rather than using the handles, you would use the scissors by holding them near the tips of the blades. You'd lose the advantage of the lever-and-fulcrum principle on which chopsticks depend. You'd also look rather silly.
Even a fork works on the same principle. If you hold a fork down by the tines, like a four-year old, it doesn't work so well, does it? That's why adults hold forks at the other end.
Get your hands as far away from the business end of the chopsticks as possible and you'll have much more control and grabbing power. If you ever get Chinese take-out and they give you those disposable chopsticks in the red paper cover with the chopsticks instructions on the back, read the directions! They distill 5,000 years of chopsticks know-how into three easy steps. Chopsticks work much better as shown in the diagram. Trust me.
My Japanese friends are always amazed at my chopstickery. (Like the Japanese language itself, gaijin are presumed to be inherently incapable of learning to use chopsticks properly -- probably because most gaijin hold chopsticks like pencils.) They always want to know: How did you learn to use chopsticks so well? The answer: China House, Foster Village Shopping Center, Bergenfield, New Jersey, circa 1978.
I followed the instructions on the place mats.
Between my junior and senior years of college, after studying Japanese in college for a year, I posted a flyer seeking a Japanese language exchange partner at Yaohan (now Mitsuwa), Japanese shopping center in Edgewater, New Jersey. A woman named Noriko answered my ad. During that summer, we got together periodically to exchange Japanese and English language pointers.
One day, Noriko and her roommate, who was also Japanese, invited me to their apartment for dinner. To eat with, they gave me warebashi, those disposable bamboo chopsticks, still attached to each other at one end, that you have to break apart to use. (Although this sounds tacky -- you wouldn't give your guest a plastic fork in the US -- it's actually common in Japan, because it's considered more polite to give someone unused chopsticks, as opposed to the ones you've been sticking in your mouth for a couple of years.)
I pulled apart the chopsticks and then started rubbing them together to remove splinters, as I had seen some Asian American friends do at school. As I rubbed, I asked Noriko, in as good Japanese as I could muster at the time, "Please tell me if I ever do anything considered rude in Japan."
Noriko and her roommate looked at each other and then Noriko pointed to my splinter-removing technique. "That's rude," she said. I felt like a dope.
Moral of the Story: Don't assume that Asian Americans know any more about Japanese etiquette than you do, just because they're Asian American.
Etiquette Note: One of my pet peeves is people who treat chopsticks like toys. You don't play with your knife and fork at the table, do you? If you want to practice drumming, get some drumsticks. Treat chopsticks like you would tableware: leave them on the table if you're not using them to eat. Doing otherwise is considered extremely rude.
My Other Chopstick-Related Pet Peeve: People who insist on using chopsticks in Asian restaurants because it's "more authentic" that way, even though they can't use them properly. Most of these people hold the chopsticks near the bottom, like a pencil. But chopsticks operate more like scissors. Imagine if you decided that, rather than using the handles, you would use the scissors by holding them near the tips of the blades. You'd lose the advantage of the lever-and-fulcrum principle on which chopsticks depend. You'd also look rather silly.
Even a fork works on the same principle. If you hold a fork down by the tines, like a four-year old, it doesn't work so well, does it? That's why adults hold forks at the other end.
Get your hands as far away from the business end of the chopsticks as possible and you'll have much more control and grabbing power. If you ever get Chinese take-out and they give you those disposable chopsticks in the red paper cover with the chopsticks instructions on the back, read the directions! They distill 5,000 years of chopsticks know-how into three easy steps. Chopsticks work much better as shown in the diagram. Trust me.
My Japanese friends are always amazed at my chopstickery. (Like the Japanese language itself, gaijin are presumed to be inherently incapable of learning to use chopsticks properly -- probably because most gaijin hold chopsticks like pencils.) They always want to know: How did you learn to use chopsticks so well? The answer: China House, Foster Village Shopping Center, Bergenfield, New Jersey, circa 1978.
I followed the instructions on the place mats.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Why I Learned Japanese
People often ask me, why I decided to learn Japanese. Well . . .
I went to college at the height of the Bubble Economy, when Americans fears of a Japanese takeover were fanned by the Japanese purchasing ever signature building in New York City, and the New York Times had three or four pages of classified want ads desperately seeking people who could speak even the tiniest bit of Japanese. All around me at Harvard, people were studying Japanese, hoping to cash in on the Japanese wave.
One of those people was my girlfriend, Joanne. Between our sophomore and junior years of college, Joanne got a summer job in Okayama through the Japanese department's internship program. During that summer, she would write me letters telling me how much she loved Japan and how she would be going back there after college to work before going to business school. During that summer, I had a crummy job back in New Jersey, none of my high school friends were around, I had absolutely nothing to do, and I convinced myself that Joanne was The Girl, even though we had actually broken up just before the summer break.
By that time, I already knew that I wanted to work for a while after college, and I had always wanted to live abroad. Given my newly discovered desire to follow Joanne to the ends of the earth, I thought to myself, "I'll go to Japan with Joanne." Having made that decision, I thought I had better start cracking on the Japanese studies.
Of course, a couple of months after I started studying Japanese, Joanne and I broke up. But I kept studying Japanese, because I found it fascinating. It was utterly different than the French and Latin I had studied before. I was also kind of tickled at the idea of learning a language that few Americans could speak.
When it came time to graduate, I still wanted to work rather than head straight to graduate school. But, it was 1991 -- the midst of the first Bush recession -- and not even Harvard grads were getting jobs. I decided to try my luck in Japan, and began applying for jobs before graduation, eventually landing the Canon internship and the Look Japan editing job before I even left the U.S.
As it happened, in 1990, Germany reunified and Joanne dropped Japanese like a hot potato and started studying German. I ran into her years later in New York -- ironically, at a Japanese restaurant -- and she told me she had never returned to Japan after that internship. I wound up with a lifelong interest in Japan and a Japanese wife because of Joanne, and Joanne never did anything with her Japanese interests. Funny how life works out.
I went to college at the height of the Bubble Economy, when Americans fears of a Japanese takeover were fanned by the Japanese purchasing ever signature building in New York City, and the New York Times had three or four pages of classified want ads desperately seeking people who could speak even the tiniest bit of Japanese. All around me at Harvard, people were studying Japanese, hoping to cash in on the Japanese wave.
One of those people was my girlfriend, Joanne. Between our sophomore and junior years of college, Joanne got a summer job in Okayama through the Japanese department's internship program. During that summer, she would write me letters telling me how much she loved Japan and how she would be going back there after college to work before going to business school. During that summer, I had a crummy job back in New Jersey, none of my high school friends were around, I had absolutely nothing to do, and I convinced myself that Joanne was The Girl, even though we had actually broken up just before the summer break.
By that time, I already knew that I wanted to work for a while after college, and I had always wanted to live abroad. Given my newly discovered desire to follow Joanne to the ends of the earth, I thought to myself, "I'll go to Japan with Joanne." Having made that decision, I thought I had better start cracking on the Japanese studies.
Of course, a couple of months after I started studying Japanese, Joanne and I broke up. But I kept studying Japanese, because I found it fascinating. It was utterly different than the French and Latin I had studied before. I was also kind of tickled at the idea of learning a language that few Americans could speak.
When it came time to graduate, I still wanted to work rather than head straight to graduate school. But, it was 1991 -- the midst of the first Bush recession -- and not even Harvard grads were getting jobs. I decided to try my luck in Japan, and began applying for jobs before graduation, eventually landing the Canon internship and the Look Japan editing job before I even left the U.S.
As it happened, in 1990, Germany reunified and Joanne dropped Japanese like a hot potato and started studying German. I ran into her years later in New York -- ironically, at a Japanese restaurant -- and she told me she had never returned to Japan after that internship. I wound up with a lifelong interest in Japan and a Japanese wife because of Joanne, and Joanne never did anything with her Japanese interests. Funny how life works out.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
One Whiskey, One Sake, and One Beer
Although I am trying to write chronologically, occasionally I remember things out of order and have to skip around in time. We return to my summer as a Canon intern.
In the middle of my summer at Canon, the entire company shut down for two weeks. I freaked out, because no one had warned me about the shut down, and I would not get paid during the break. When I got done freaking out, I decided to focus on what I would do during the break. One of my dorm-mates from Fujigaoka Dormitory, Shige-san, suggested that I come stay with him at his house in Kyoto for a few days. It sounded like a great idea, so I took him up on it.
Shige's family lived in the northern part of Kyoto, which (as I learned many years later from my wife, who is also from Kyoto) is dominated by old families, some with old money, who consider themselves the real Kyotoites and look down on people from the rest of Kyoto. There is a good chance that Shige's family had both an old name and old money, as they owned the second-largest distributor of tea-ceremony goods in Japan, and Shige and I stayed in their "extra" house, which was basically used as a crash pad for their sons when they were back in town. (During my stay in Kyoto, Shige took me to his parents' shop, where he showed me the single most expensive item -- a three-inch long curved piece of bamboo, used as a scoop for powdered green tea, which sold for I don't remember how many thousands of dollars.)
On my first night in Kyoto, Shige's parents took us to a very beautiful kaiseki restaurant. (Kaiseki is Japanese haute cuisine, the food served in the exquisitely arranged bite-sized portions one sees in travel magazine articles about Japanese food.) Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name or location of the restaurant, for I would love to go there again, but I do recall that it was down a small alleyway of polished paving stones lined by bamboo and lit with foot lights, and that inside, there was a small stream running along one wall of our room, under glass, and lit. It was absolutely over-the-top tasteful and understated, if you know what I mean.
I don't remember the restaurant's name or location because of what happened next: I drank a lot. Not enough to be sick or embarrass myself, but enough that my memories of that night 18 years ago are hazy.
We sat down at a low table on the tatami mats next to the little stream, me across from Shige's father, Shige across from his mother. A middle-aged, kimino-clad woman came in, and Shige's father ordered beer. Japanese have a custom of starting with beer because it is perceived as "lighter" than liquor and thus not such a shock to the system; it's warm-up booze. (However, this custom violates the rule I learned in college: Liquor before beer, never fear. Beer before liquor, never sicker. And I saw a lot of sickened people in Japan.)
We had some food, we talked as much as my Japanese would allow about the U.S., Harvard, my impressions of Japan, etc., and then, Shige's father asked me, "Nihonshu ha, suki desu ka?" ("Do you like sake?) We were already drinking beer, and the question sounded rhetorical to me, so I said I did. The kimono-clad waitress reappeared. (I guess Shige's father had buzzed her.) He said something to her. Moments later, she returned with a bottle of sake and several glasses. Now I had two glasses before me, one beer and one sake.
In Japan, it is rude to allow your guest's glass to become empty. So, whenever I drank a sip of either beer or sake, someone would fill up my cup. Because I was raised never to leave food over, every time they filled my cup, I drank it. Then they filled it again. I did not realize that the way to get them to stop filling the cup was to leave it full. (Saying no did not work, because it's actually polite in Japan to refuse what's being offered to you a couple of times, and they merely thought I had good manners.)
After some more food, Shige's father asked me, "Howisskee ha, suki desu ka?" ("Do you like whiskey?") Having learned nothing from the sake question, I said yes (even thought it was not really even true), and soon a bottle of whiskey appeared, along with glasses for the whole party. Now, the table before me was beginning to resemble that John Lee Hooker song -- one whiskey, one sake, and one beer -- and each time I sipped from one glass, it was filled up again.
I don't remember further details about the evening, except that the meal was delicious, I had a great time, Shige's parents were very nice people, and the restaurant itself was one of this most beautiful I have ever been to. But the story has a post-script. Shige's father probably asked me about whiskey to be polite. As an American, I was expected to like whiskey -- just like Americans in the movies -- even though no one I knew at the time drank it (except for my friend Paul O'Brien). I thought of whiskey as an old-fashioned old man's drink. Over the years, many Japanese, like Shige's father, would insist that I drink whiskey with them like a real American, to the point that I developed a taste for it, which I still have.
It's ironic that I had to go to Japan to become a whiskey-drinker.
In the middle of my summer at Canon, the entire company shut down for two weeks. I freaked out, because no one had warned me about the shut down, and I would not get paid during the break. When I got done freaking out, I decided to focus on what I would do during the break. One of my dorm-mates from Fujigaoka Dormitory, Shige-san, suggested that I come stay with him at his house in Kyoto for a few days. It sounded like a great idea, so I took him up on it.
Shige's family lived in the northern part of Kyoto, which (as I learned many years later from my wife, who is also from Kyoto) is dominated by old families, some with old money, who consider themselves the real Kyotoites and look down on people from the rest of Kyoto. There is a good chance that Shige's family had both an old name and old money, as they owned the second-largest distributor of tea-ceremony goods in Japan, and Shige and I stayed in their "extra" house, which was basically used as a crash pad for their sons when they were back in town. (During my stay in Kyoto, Shige took me to his parents' shop, where he showed me the single most expensive item -- a three-inch long curved piece of bamboo, used as a scoop for powdered green tea, which sold for I don't remember how many thousands of dollars.)
On my first night in Kyoto, Shige's parents took us to a very beautiful kaiseki restaurant. (Kaiseki is Japanese haute cuisine, the food served in the exquisitely arranged bite-sized portions one sees in travel magazine articles about Japanese food.) Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name or location of the restaurant, for I would love to go there again, but I do recall that it was down a small alleyway of polished paving stones lined by bamboo and lit with foot lights, and that inside, there was a small stream running along one wall of our room, under glass, and lit. It was absolutely over-the-top tasteful and understated, if you know what I mean.
I don't remember the restaurant's name or location because of what happened next: I drank a lot. Not enough to be sick or embarrass myself, but enough that my memories of that night 18 years ago are hazy.
We sat down at a low table on the tatami mats next to the little stream, me across from Shige's father, Shige across from his mother. A middle-aged, kimino-clad woman came in, and Shige's father ordered beer. Japanese have a custom of starting with beer because it is perceived as "lighter" than liquor and thus not such a shock to the system; it's warm-up booze. (However, this custom violates the rule I learned in college: Liquor before beer, never fear. Beer before liquor, never sicker. And I saw a lot of sickened people in Japan.)
We had some food, we talked as much as my Japanese would allow about the U.S., Harvard, my impressions of Japan, etc., and then, Shige's father asked me, "Nihonshu ha, suki desu ka?" ("Do you like sake?) We were already drinking beer, and the question sounded rhetorical to me, so I said I did. The kimono-clad waitress reappeared. (I guess Shige's father had buzzed her.) He said something to her. Moments later, she returned with a bottle of sake and several glasses. Now I had two glasses before me, one beer and one sake.
In Japan, it is rude to allow your guest's glass to become empty. So, whenever I drank a sip of either beer or sake, someone would fill up my cup. Because I was raised never to leave food over, every time they filled my cup, I drank it. Then they filled it again. I did not realize that the way to get them to stop filling the cup was to leave it full. (Saying no did not work, because it's actually polite in Japan to refuse what's being offered to you a couple of times, and they merely thought I had good manners.)
After some more food, Shige's father asked me, "Howisskee ha, suki desu ka?" ("Do you like whiskey?") Having learned nothing from the sake question, I said yes (even thought it was not really even true), and soon a bottle of whiskey appeared, along with glasses for the whole party. Now, the table before me was beginning to resemble that John Lee Hooker song -- one whiskey, one sake, and one beer -- and each time I sipped from one glass, it was filled up again.
I don't remember further details about the evening, except that the meal was delicious, I had a great time, Shige's parents were very nice people, and the restaurant itself was one of this most beautiful I have ever been to. But the story has a post-script. Shige's father probably asked me about whiskey to be polite. As an American, I was expected to like whiskey -- just like Americans in the movies -- even though no one I knew at the time drank it (except for my friend Paul O'Brien). I thought of whiskey as an old-fashioned old man's drink. Over the years, many Japanese, like Shige's father, would insist that I drink whiskey with them like a real American, to the point that I developed a taste for it, which I still have.
It's ironic that I had to go to Japan to become a whiskey-drinker.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Curry Shop Girl
After my home-stay went awry, I moved into the Canon dormitory managed by Oshikawa-san and his wife in Musashi-Nitta, in Ohta-ku, Tokyo.
Musashi-Nitta was a working-class neighborhood in the southeastern part of Tokyo, near the Tama River, which separates Tokyo from Kawasaki City. Tokyo lacks zoning laws, and Musashi-Nitta featured a diverse mixture of land uses, ranging from houses to shops (concentrated in the business district near the station) to small factories doing piece-work for Japan's big companies. There were even a few rice paddies scattered in the neighborhood near the Tama River, existing on some of the world's most expensive real estate due to extremely farmer-friendly tax policies. (I always wondered if people would eat the rice if they knew it came from a field next to a car-parts manufacturer, but they probably never knew where it came from.)
Like most neighborhoods in Japan, Musashi-Nitta featured a shotengai (shopping district) near the station, consisting of a street sloping downward in the direction of the river, demarcated at both ends with a gate reading Musashi-Nitta Shotengai. The shotengai featured a couple of convenience stores, a supermarket, a home electronics-goods store, a store where could buy household items like linens, pots and pans, and even small furniture items, and a few restaurants and "snacks" -- the Japanese name for a kind of local bar with a very small number of seats, very personalized service, and a reputation for looking askance at new people. The shotengai always had some kind of seasonal decorations hanging from the telephone poles -- pink plastic cherry blossoms in the spring, red and yellow plastic leaves in the fall -- that added some color to the drab grey exteriors of the neighborhood shops. The shotengai lay directly on my route from Musashi-Nitta station to Oshikawa-san's dormitory, so I would traverse it twice a day.
One of the restaurants was a curry-rice shop, occupying a location toward the bottom of the street at the Y where two streets came together. The shop was run by a middle-aged woman and her daughter, who was a year or two older than me. After a while, I started going there a couple of times a week. I was usually the only customer there, and it was a good chance to practice my Japanese.
The daughter always seemed sort of shy and sad, and I figured that being trapped in a curry shop in Musashi-Nitta with her mother was not exactly the kind of life she wished for, but it was nice being able to talk to someone during dinner. She would pepper me with questions about the U.S. and I would try my best to answer in my still-halting Japanese. She always seemed happy to see me when I came in, and I thought I had made a new friend.
I guess she had bigger ideas than that. She suggested that we go out one Saturday afternoon, and I accepted, thinking it was harmless. I don't remember where we went, but the next day, she showed up at my dormitory with a present for me. It was then I realized that she was interested in more than just friendship. I am not cynical about her motives, but I am sure that part of her interest resulted from the fact that the possibility of dating a gaijin (and Musashi-Nitta was not exactly the kind of place where you met a lot of them) offered her an exciting escape from life in the curry shop.
Although I was not happy to be put in this position and didn't want to hurt her feelings, I knew it would be crueler to lead her on, so I told her, as best I could, that I was only interested in a friendship. She burst into tears, which needless to say, only made me feel worse.
I pried myself away from her and went back to my room. I stopped going to the curry shop after that, and always walked by very quickly from that point onwards, hoping that I would not run into her, which I never did again.
Musashi-Nitta was a working-class neighborhood in the southeastern part of Tokyo, near the Tama River, which separates Tokyo from Kawasaki City. Tokyo lacks zoning laws, and Musashi-Nitta featured a diverse mixture of land uses, ranging from houses to shops (concentrated in the business district near the station) to small factories doing piece-work for Japan's big companies. There were even a few rice paddies scattered in the neighborhood near the Tama River, existing on some of the world's most expensive real estate due to extremely farmer-friendly tax policies. (I always wondered if people would eat the rice if they knew it came from a field next to a car-parts manufacturer, but they probably never knew where it came from.)
Like most neighborhoods in Japan, Musashi-Nitta featured a shotengai (shopping district) near the station, consisting of a street sloping downward in the direction of the river, demarcated at both ends with a gate reading Musashi-Nitta Shotengai. The shotengai featured a couple of convenience stores, a supermarket, a home electronics-goods store, a store where could buy household items like linens, pots and pans, and even small furniture items, and a few restaurants and "snacks" -- the Japanese name for a kind of local bar with a very small number of seats, very personalized service, and a reputation for looking askance at new people. The shotengai always had some kind of seasonal decorations hanging from the telephone poles -- pink plastic cherry blossoms in the spring, red and yellow plastic leaves in the fall -- that added some color to the drab grey exteriors of the neighborhood shops. The shotengai lay directly on my route from Musashi-Nitta station to Oshikawa-san's dormitory, so I would traverse it twice a day.
One of the restaurants was a curry-rice shop, occupying a location toward the bottom of the street at the Y where two streets came together. The shop was run by a middle-aged woman and her daughter, who was a year or two older than me. After a while, I started going there a couple of times a week. I was usually the only customer there, and it was a good chance to practice my Japanese.
The daughter always seemed sort of shy and sad, and I figured that being trapped in a curry shop in Musashi-Nitta with her mother was not exactly the kind of life she wished for, but it was nice being able to talk to someone during dinner. She would pepper me with questions about the U.S. and I would try my best to answer in my still-halting Japanese. She always seemed happy to see me when I came in, and I thought I had made a new friend.
I guess she had bigger ideas than that. She suggested that we go out one Saturday afternoon, and I accepted, thinking it was harmless. I don't remember where we went, but the next day, she showed up at my dormitory with a present for me. It was then I realized that she was interested in more than just friendship. I am not cynical about her motives, but I am sure that part of her interest resulted from the fact that the possibility of dating a gaijin (and Musashi-Nitta was not exactly the kind of place where you met a lot of them) offered her an exciting escape from life in the curry shop.
Although I was not happy to be put in this position and didn't want to hurt her feelings, I knew it would be crueler to lead her on, so I told her, as best I could, that I was only interested in a friendship. She burst into tears, which needless to say, only made me feel worse.
I pried myself away from her and went back to my room. I stopped going to the curry shop after that, and always walked by very quickly from that point onwards, hoping that I would not run into her, which I never did again.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Unrelated Japan Photo #9
Outside Kamakura, Japan, 2006.
Does anyone know the name of this temple? You can see it from the Enoden, on your way from Kamakura to Fujisawa.
Added 9/11/09: It's Ryuko-ji, a Nichiren Buddhist temple, founded in 1137, where Nichiren is said to have been executed.
Cleaning Ladies in the Men's Room
One of life's little differences in Japan was that, every once in a while, you'd be standing at a urinal in an office building bathroom, and the next thing you know -- there's a little old lady in a uniform cleaning the bathroom around you.
The first time this happened to me, I was at Canon. I was standing there, absent-mindedly doing my thing, when all of a sudden, a woman walked in and began to clean the urinal next to me. I was so surprised, it nearly caused me to miss.
Over the years, I saw enough cleaning ladies in men's bathrooms, gym locker rooms, etc., that I got used to it. I came to realize that, unlike Americans, Japanese don't sexualize nudity unnecessarily. Nudity is sexual when people are having sex; at other times, it's just an absence of clothing. Men and women bathed naked together in public baths before prudish Victorian-era westerners arrived and told them to cut it out if they wanted to be considered "civilized" and not get colonized for their "own good." Even though there are only a few places -- mostly in rural outposts -- where men and women can still enjoy the public baths together, it's still very common for couples to bathe together in private baths at an onsen (without it being foreplay -- don't think of the heart-shaped bubble bath from old Love Boat episodes!), and Japanese parents often bathe with their children at home, at least until the children reach puberty. It's not considered sexual, it's considered essential for families to feel close to one another.
Nonsexualized nudity. It's so . . . civilized.
The first time this happened to me, I was at Canon. I was standing there, absent-mindedly doing my thing, when all of a sudden, a woman walked in and began to clean the urinal next to me. I was so surprised, it nearly caused me to miss.
Over the years, I saw enough cleaning ladies in men's bathrooms, gym locker rooms, etc., that I got used to it. I came to realize that, unlike Americans, Japanese don't sexualize nudity unnecessarily. Nudity is sexual when people are having sex; at other times, it's just an absence of clothing. Men and women bathed naked together in public baths before prudish Victorian-era westerners arrived and told them to cut it out if they wanted to be considered "civilized" and not get colonized for their "own good." Even though there are only a few places -- mostly in rural outposts -- where men and women can still enjoy the public baths together, it's still very common for couples to bathe together in private baths at an onsen (without it being foreplay -- don't think of the heart-shaped bubble bath from old Love Boat episodes!), and Japanese parents often bathe with their children at home, at least until the children reach puberty. It's not considered sexual, it's considered essential for families to feel close to one another.
Nonsexualized nudity. It's so . . . civilized.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
