Rox Populi

For Anyone Who's Had to Live on $3.72 Until Pay Day

Mad props for Momofuku Ando, who may not have indirectly saved my life but certainly got me through many a rough spot.
 

Who's the Coffee Boss?

Brad Plumer, another Tokyo escapee, poses a question I've been wondering about for some time now.

I should add that I don't so much miss being able to buy cans of hot coffee from a vending machine as much as I miss being able to buy a 5th of scotch from a vending machine. Or a pair of underwear from a vending machine.

Oh, and I don't miss the Shibuya Girls at all!

I Don't Get It

What's with the new American obsession with all-things-Japanese?

As regular readers know, I lived in Tokyo for almost 3 years. Specifically, 1/2 a mile or so from the "home" of those Harajuku Girls everyone is going on about.

青山墓地

sakura sakura
ima sakihokoru
setsuna ni chiriyuku
sadame to shitte
saraba tomo yo
tabidachi no toki
kawaranai sono omoi wo
ima

Near the epicenter of Tokyo's gaijin ghetto, you'll find 青山墓地 (Aoyama Bochi) --a very large cemetery that currently hosts a rather large "foreigner's section." I write "currently" because, according to posts on several blogs, the "foreigner's section" is under threat from destruction. Tokyo blogger Kuri reveals the details:

Why? The old dead foreigners aren't paying their cemetery fees. Bad gaijin!

According to the cemetery's rules, if a plot's 590 yen/sq meter annual fee isn't paid for five years, a notice goes up and the plot will be razed at the end of a year. 78 plots in Aoyama Reien were flagged in October and many of them are in the foreign section.

These are the graves of expatriates from the Meiji era, men and women who promoted Western ideas and practices in Japan--doctors, educators, missionaries, and artists. Although many of their contributions live on, it seems a pity to remove their memorials.

I used to live across the street from 青山墓地 and it has a special place in my heart. I hope these good people find a way to rectify the situation.

It's Weird the Things You Miss

In addition to being a Rox Populi blog anniversary, it's also my two year anniversary of being back in America.

When I left Los Angeles at the end of the 20th, the United States was loud, proud, fat and happy -- a prosperous country, whose inhabitants, I learned only after returning home once on a Christmas holiday, smell like butter.

Japan was my destination, a country on the slide (at the time) that smells of shoyu. A country, as my experience corroborated, that was grossly over-mythologized for its worker productivity, hospitality, and innovation. That was my personal experience in Tokyo anyway.

That is not to say that the Japanese are bad people or that Japan is a bad country. It’s just that, in my view, Japan ain’t quite the bill of goods we were sold in the 80s.

As many accidental expats do, I used the pretext of a job overseas to escape, to temporarily circumvent dealing with my life. Like a lot of expats, a great deal of time in Japan was spent intoxicated, too. And I don't mean “intoxicated” in the romantic, literary, quixotic sense.

When you live overseas, events -- both world and personal – can take on a surreal, detached quality. I passed many a milestone in the Land of the Rising Sun, including my mother’s death, the 2000 election, 9/11, and marriage. Of course, 9/11 was particularly peculiar.

America changed a great deal during my Tokyo years. I changed, too. But, I don’t mean that in the schmaltzy “the world will never be the same” way. It’s little things you only notice if you’ve been away for a while, like flavored mayo and Swifters, reality television, and Humvees lining the streets of San Francisco, that make you feel like you’ve been living in a time-warp.

And, now that I’ve been back home for a couple of years, I’m starting to miss Japan. I miss polite taxi drivers, even though they don’t know where they're going or how to get there. I miss being able to walk down the street at 3am without worrying about my safety. I miss going to the theater and not having to listen to you talk to your girlfriend about what you have to pick up at the grocery store on the way home in the middle of the fucking movie. I miss the little ironies, the constant reminders that even though they have just as many Starbucks, KFCs, and McDonald's, you know that you're in Japan and not Kansas. I miss the Coffee Boss.

Phileas Fogg - Japan

This entry was first published on May 5, 2004

Yesterday, we started our own 1,000 Places list, covering Great Britain & Ireland. Today, we're going to look at another island nation: Japan.

Japan was my home for almost three years, so prepare yourself for a few more off-the-beaten-path items. And, if you have your own suggestions, please feel free to add your comments below.

[Note: Places in BOLD are places I've been]

1. Fuji-san - Had an apartment with a view of Fuji, but hardly ever saw it due to weather. Never climbed it and don't think any of my close friends did, either. The Japanese have this saying about Mt. Fuji: "Everyone should climb Fuji-san once, but only a fool climbs it twice."
2. Geronimo! Shot Bar - Sit at the famous "Roxanne" stool and be sure to order the "Roxanne" shot
3. Fuji Rock! dude
4. Sundays at Yoyogi Park - 'Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Animae' dressed hip kids meet right outside the park at Harajuku subway station.
5. Shibuya Crossing
6. Jazz at Tokyo's own Blue Note
7. Rave Party - If you are 35+ be sure to bring something the stop the bleeding from your ears because the music is going to be f*cking bloody loud.
8. Cherry Blossom Party/Hanami - The flowers bloom and the Japanese have the equivalent of a tailgater. Our company party was held in Aoyama Bochii, a very famous cemetary.
9. Tsukiji Fish Market - Largest fishmarket in the world. If you go, be sure to wear shoes you don't care that much about ... because you're never getting the stink out of them.
10. Bike ride around the Imperial Palace - Always wanted to do it, but never found the time.
11. Shinjuku Station at rush hour - Plant yourself up against a wall, out of the way of traffic and people-watch.
12. Philosopher's Walk in Kyoto
13. Gion Matsuri Festival
14. Mt Hiei-zan & Enryaku-ji Temple
15. Visit a Sumo Stable
16. Free food sampling at Mitsukosh
17. O Bon Festival
18. Nara - There's a tile on the roof of the Todai-ji Temple with my name on it.
19. Onsen - If you can find a hotspring that allows foreigners, go for it.
20. Rioanji - The inspiration for that stupid zen rock garden you bought in '87, but it's still cool.
21. Sapporo Ice Festival
22. Hiroshima - If you're an American, you won't have too much fun here. Go anyway.
23. Miajima Island Site of a famous Torii Gate, be sure not to look directly at the wild monkeys in the mountains.

Click here to see a complete list of Phileas Fogg entries.

Your Moment of Zazen

Looking for work? Hunkabutta, one of the better photo-bloggers, points us to some interesting, albeit non-paying, work experience for you to add to your CV in her 18 May 2004 post (sorry, she has no permalinks):

"Miss A" had a predicament: She was already 31 and still inexperienced in the ways of corporeal love -- a state of affairs she attributed to her disgust with a philandering father and two elder sisters who conducted affairs with their bosses at work.

Unable to accept celibacy any longer, A boarded the shinkansen to Tokyo for a prearranged rendezvous with "Mr. B," who had been introduced to her by a sex-counseling service. She was escorted to a nearby restaurant for dinner. After picking nervously at her omelet with rice -- accompanied by several glasses of wine to fortify herself -- she and the gentleman took a taxi to a "love hotel" in the secluded Yushima district, whereupon, shortly thereafter, A willingly gave up her virginity.

Black in Roppongi

I would have liked to have seen that.

What I Miss About Tokyo

Three Words: Geronimo! Shot Bar

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates
"Tokyo is no place to examine your life." -- Roxanne

A Little Lost in Translation

Forget about the cherry blossoms.

[Japan's] Hounen festival pays veneration to a female deity, Tamahime-no-mikoto, embodying agricultural fertility. Every year at the height of winter a new phallus is made from a single Japanese cypress tree and carved according to strict ritual. According to Shinto traditions newly made objects posses vitality. The phallus is a gift to the deity, which accompanies her visiting husband once a year.