Konnichiwa bitches...

as Dave Chapelle would say. Greetings from Tokyo, Japan where I live and work (NOT as an English teacher) (not that there's anything wrong with that) as a non-Japanese 20-something.

If anyone actually ends up reading this, I am obviously not a geisha so please don't give me any flack about using the name in my blog title. I have long had an interest in both the geisha culture and in their predecessors from the licensed pleasure quarters. I've read every book on the subject that I can get my hot little hands on and it is with a bit of sass that I call myself the green-eyed geisha. Yes, that's exactly it- poking a little fun at how "mainstream" geisha have become thanks to Arthur Golden and more recently, the film Sayuri. Both of which, while entertaining, can hardly to be used as references to anything but some Western wet dream of the Orient. It seems like every article out there about Japan starts off with some fluffy description about the seasons, followed by a reference to Japan as the land of the samurai and the geisha...right because both are so common these days. I guess it's a step up though from people referring to Japanese women as 'geisha girls' or 'gals' which is even worse!

So it is that I call myself the green-eyed geisha. My eyes are greenish, yes. And I also have a bit of a jealous green streak which has certainly caused me some problems in my relationship. Hell, if people who don't know any better are going to liken any Japanese woman (or any Asian woman for that matter) to a geisha, I'm about as close to one as any of them! So excuse the campiness, and please call me geisha.

Time to go カランコロン (karan koron which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound geta make) down the hall to wait for the Dominos pizza I ordered. Just a few of the flavours I managed to resist:

マヨシュリンプ　Mayo shrimp
メートママ　Meat mama (no joke)
マヨナゲ　Mayo nugget (chicken nuggets, corn, mayo, and BBQ sauce ON A PIZZA!?)
まよツナ＆コーン　Mayo tuna and corn
テリチケ　Teriyaki chicken
マヨじゃが　Mayo jaga (mayo, potato, bacon, peppers, onion and of course, CORN!)

It was certainly a toss up, as tasty as the mayo nugget pizza sounded, but I'm more of a cheese and pepperoni kinda girl.