And also ‘God.’
”
“Sorry, no,” she says, deflating my hopes. I’ve never felt such irritation at my lack of skill in the Japanese language. The woman next to me is either a) having some kind of nervous breakdown, or b) already batshit crazy, and I can’t properly eavesdrop. The language barrier is made of glass, allowing me to see but not understand.
All I can do is watch as she increases her volume and takes to picking up and slamming down the objects on her table. At one point, she shoves the table away from her, as if it had just told her she looks fat in that kimono. The teapot, teacup, and various condiment containers topple and crash into one another as the table teeters from side to side. She stands, her pink cherry blossom kimono still wrapped artfully around her, her face still immaculately painted, her white gloves none the worse for wear. She grabs her small bag, walks with her clipped stride to the door, opens it, and with a smile and a bow in the direction of the employees at the counter, departs into the night.
“Thank you! Come again!” they beam.
It is a suggestion she appears to take a little too seriously, as, mere minutes after leaving, the Empress is back for another cup of tea, smiling and bowing at the counter staff, looking the picture of Ginza classiness. She sits again at the same table and stirs her tea, that familiar smile on her face all the while.
“So, Midori-san, Cameron Diaz is lesbian?” Kenji asks in English, returning to our discussion.
“Only in movie, I think,” Midori answered.
“Ah, in movie only. Does she make other movie like this?” he asks as he gets out a pen to write down the names of the other movies in which Cameron Diaz appears as a lesbian.
They continue discussing lesbianism as I look over at Mood-Swing Diva to see what she’s up to. Sure enough, her expression has changed in the manner of that clown’s face in
“Oh shit,” I think, clasping my hands together. “She’s not gonna cough. She’s gonna puke. Yes, yes. She’s gonna puke. I wish I had my camera!”
Sure enough, she starts heaving, and this being a woman who has recently screamed that she is going to make someone eat the dogshit, she doesn’t engage in it quietly. Her whole body shakes in its seat, throwing itself into the task of getting rid of whatever horrible and noxious thing lives within. Our conversation stops dead, and Midori, Kenji, and I look at her with the kind of expression you have when you drive past a car accident hoping to catch a glimpse of a dead body.
She heaves and wretches and heaves, like a freshman at her first frat party. I lean closer, disingenuously hoping I can coax the puke from her stomach.
“Uuuaaaaaahhh! Oooahhhhh!! Uuuahhhh!” she screams. By this time, the entire cafe has gone uncomfortably quiet, its patrons wishing to God she would hurry up and toss her cookies so the staff can clean it up and we can all get on with our lives.
She wretches once more and leans forward over her teacup. Then, silence. She leans back, smiles, and as regally and serenely as she’d arrived just a few minutes earlier, she stands, carries her tray to the drop-off, and steps out into the street.
We watch as the Empress of Ginza strides by the window at which Kenji, Midori, and I are sitting. She laughs maniacally as she walks, and Kenji, laughing, says she said “dogshit” again. And again and again. Also “dick,” “asshole,” and the Japanese equivalent of “motherfucker.”
Our conversation loses its momentum after she departs. Both Kenji and Midori seem sad that she’s gone. It is certainly the most exciting language exchange we’ve had. We stay a few more minutes, finishing up our coffees and allowing Midori time to finish what she has to say about
We leave and begin walking back towards Ginza Station, chatting in English about work and plans for the weekend. It’s about ten now, and the pedestrian traffic has died down a little bit, though up ahead there is still a sizeable group of people gathered around the street performer and his Stradivarius-wielding puppet friend. As we pass quickly by, I can hear over the swelling of “Greensleeves” a distinct hyena-like cackle.
I look at Kenji and Midori, and we all nod in agreement.
Her majesty the Empress is in the crowd.
And she is amused.
8
The western wind of Japan whispers the story of a lone white man from a tiny town in North America (or was it England?) who came to the land of the rising sun to seek his fortune, to see how they live on the other side of the world, or to simply experience his first fourteen-hour plane ride. He was a modest man, a clerical assistant at the local community college in his mid-to late twenties, with ice-blue eyes and a bright, friendly face. Also, freckles, buckteeth, a birdcage chest, and a mullet that curled up on the edges.
He had never really had a girlfriend, unless you count the poster of Princess Leia he’d had on his bedroom wall since 1977. But something deep within him told him that there was a place in this world for guys like him, and that it was probably not in any English-speaking country. More likely it was in faraway Asia. So he got a job as an English teacher in Japan, packed his bags, and came to the great city of Tokyo to explore a country that had always held a certain fascination for him, with its famous sculpted gardens, traditions full of nuance and studied elegance, and amazing technological feats like Fujiyama, until recently the fastest and tallest rollercoaster in the world. Also because, if the Internet is to be believed, the high school girls are all total slags and really short skirts are part of their school uniform.
This mysterious stranger hoped to God he was in for a major life change. And sure enough, something magical happened when he deplaned at Narita Airport, boarded a train, and headed towards Tokyo. People took notice of him. At home he was nothing, a nobody, an eyesore. A piece of lint. A yellow sweat patch on a dirty old white T- shirt. A pocket protector. But as he settled into his new life in his new country, he became blissfully aware that he was no longer Invisible Vince from Vicksburg or Nobody Nick from Newcastle. Yes, in Tokyo, he was GaijinMan. And he had three dates this week.
There’s a saying here amongst us gaijin folk, reminiscent of that proverbial “tree falling in a forest and no one being there to hear it” question: If a white guy in Tokyo is rambling on and on and on about absolutely nothing interesting and there’s no one remaining at his table to hear it except for his Japanese girlfriend who can’t understand him anyway, does he still need to be bitch-slapped?
Actually, I just made that up, and I’ve never actually said it out loud, but the more I quietly ponder this question while studying at a cafe or reading on the train or browsing at the record store as I’m forced to listen to the unabridged ramblings of some Western goofball explaining the Fourth of July (or was it Guy Fawkes Day?) to his newly minted Japanese girlfriend™, the more I think the answer is a resounding, “Good God, yes! Somebody shut him up!”
We gaijin are here for many different reasons. There are the lost souls like me, desperately in need of a battery
