A New Beginning

Sunday 25th January 1998

Why? | The City | The Life | The Fun | Japlish

So!

Here I am in Tokyo. Where to start? Oh - I just did; well, that was easier than expected, then.

Apparently someone once said, "When you've been in Tokyo for a day, you want to write a book about it. When you've been there a week you want to write home. When you've been there a year..." and then follows something about not wanting to write very much at all, I suppose; I can't really remember. Anyway, this is my attempt, possibly naively, to capture that initial urge to write it all down.

I don't know who I'm writing this for, really. It could be you guys out there, it could be me in a year's time (in which case it's probably about time you finished unpacking, don't you think?) or it could be me in two years' time (of course you're reading this whilst nursing the mother of all post-millenium hangovers on a beach somewhere in the Cook islands, I hope. Or maybe on your own in a flat in Peckham. Almost anywhere inbetween those two extremes would probably be acceptable, anyway). So, if you're my future self, I hope you've done me proud.

The city

So, Tokyo. It's huge, but you probably knew that already. You also probably know that the trains are really good, and that apples are very expensive. Both of these things are also true, but there's much more to it than just that. It's a blend of old and new, which I guess you could pretty much say about any city (maybe not Milton Keynes, though) but here everything is packed so tight that there are 600 yr-old shrines ready to pop out into the shopping streets if the people in the neighbouring department stores so much as sneeze.

For you Londoners out there, you might like to try this little recipe: take the density of Camden, or maybe Angel or Charing Cross, a little bit grottier, add a bunch of overhead wiring (phone, power, washing, whatever takes your fancy, really), plenty of elevated train tracks and a whole bunch of neon and extend it out to about Luton. That's Tokyo in a thumbnail sketch, although I'd hate to see the thumb...

Or if you've seen Bladerunner, then you'll also have a pretty good idea! Dinner a few nights ago was on the fiftieth floor of a skyscraper overlooking Tokyo to the west; I kept expecting a flying police car to hum past the window. I can't have been very good company as I spent most of the time gazing out of the window. Cool.

The life

I get up late. I eat toast. I can cook toast. I drink orange juice. I know where they sell it, you see. I switch on my paraffin heater. I worry about blowing the place up. I've been told this is "very unlikely"; I would have preferred "impossible". I take the train to work. It's not as if I could get it up the stairs, let alone in through the front door of the buildings where I work, so I generally leave it outside. I apologize for that abysmal joke. I teach. I catch a train. And it's then that the fun starts...

The fun

There's too much! There's just too much damn fun to be had in this place. Tokyo parties for 25 hours a day, 367 days a year - apparently they can do something clever with daylight saving time, the sun's rays and a bloody big lens. Let me tell you about last night - hey! Come back!

We met up at about 11; this is the problem with working until nine most nights, you can't start until late, and because the last trains home are generally about midnight or one a.m, trying just an evening out would be a non-starter. Instead? Well, you can guess the rest.

But if you can't: We clubbed from midnight to five, and it wasn't too pricey, either. 2500 to get in, including a couple of drinks, more drinks (and we had many more drinks) another 500 each. Those of you who haven't yet worked out that I'm talking in Yen and not pounds should leave now. We ate breakfast at a little noodle bar at what must have been six in the morning; I got home about 7:30 and slept for all of three hours so forgive me if my typing is a bit ragged. But this is just what we *did*; what actually *happened* is far more interesting.

Being gaijin, we tended to get a lot of attention; it was, er... flattering(?) but I wouldn't want it every time I went out, you know (dahling). The girls got chatted up heavily by Japanese guys keen on a bit of conversation practice; this is okay but check out these two snippets of news:

1) One female friend got groped on the train the other day. In a particularly nasty way (Is there a friendly way?), too. She was so tightly packed in that she simply couldn't do anything, couldn't even move her own hand to grab the offending limb. I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to someone I knew. Remind me to tell you about the top ten software titles next time I write.

2) Someone pinched all of another female friend's underwear from the laundromat. Not just her clothes, but only her underwear. Someone actually *sorted through* the tumbledryer and pulled out her underwear, separating it from her boyfriend's stuff. Woman in desperate need of knickers, or pervert? You decide.

So what is the Japanese male psyche? Perverted or just playful? More on this next time, plus a bunch of other stuff. I'll leave you now cos I badly need sleep. Is it a bad sign when you can clearly see two computer screens in front of you and only remember paying for one? I think so.

Japlish du jour

(As seen on the doormat of a ladies' hair salon opposite one of my schools:)

Welcome
Creation for the future
Thinking about the
Mother Earth with us
Developing human power

(Noble aims, I'm sure you'll agree.)

Sayonara,

Chris

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