Green-Eyed Geisha

I scare small children

2011-11-22T14:42:00.001+09:00

I can count on one hand the number of times I've met Baby Mama, mother of my future niece. While she seems lovely and is certainly concerned with getting into everyone's good graces, we know virtually nothing about her. Indeed when we do meet we don't just sit there staring at each other, but I've passed a six-hour evening with her and couldn't tell you at the end of it anything of her schooling, interests, nay even her pedigree. As a result of this, I essentially wrote her off. And then I wrote her back on recently after a sleepover. Look at me, eating my words.

We went back to Saitama despite vowing to never return. I steeled myself for the journey and promised myself an extra beer for my troubles. The Baby (I forget what I have been calling her) is still pretty fucking cute but unfortunately wouldn't let me hold her long enough to get a quick fix on her baby head smell. Conversation was much as it always is and eventually we made our way back to BD and BM's apartment. Since BD is always working when we visit, this is the first time the four of us have been able to chill and GOD (get our drink on). A couple hours passed and it began to dawn on me in an Asahi Super Dry haze that Baby Mama was actually kind of fun. Not go out dancing and laugh about a bird eating my vom the next morning fun, but more fun than the blank personality I had wrongly assigned her. Sure I still think the whole Saitama shot-gun wedding ordeal is a bit tawdry but at least we were conversing like fairly well-adjusted ladies even if it was only about the brothers that bind us (yawn on that conversation topic). By the end of the evening, I decided I quite liked her and we even exchanged mail addresses at the urging of Baby Daddy, who said we should text back and forth and talk about "uh...stuff." I've always liked BD a lot and props to him for trying to cement our sororal alliance, but way to make it awkward dad.

Through a variety of circumstances, the Baby ended up in with the beau and I, and slept right through the night (bet you didn't expect to get such exciting content on GEG!) like a small sack of warm sweet-smelling potatoes. The next morning, however, we had a most rude awakening. She awoke slowly and sleepily but as soon as she looked over and saw me started screaming bloody murder. Is it my big nose?

Baby Mama and I have since been in touch a couple times, which, yes, I am admitting in public is kind of nice, although I'm still on the fence with how I feel about her calling me G-chan instead of Older Sister (refresher: she is a year older but as partner of the eldest son, my position trumps hers). Just as I thought we were really getting somewhere, BM is feeling the need to up the competition and has gotten herself pregnant again. I don't know exactly what put her over the edge, my kimono dressin' skillz or the promise of tangible career success in the future, but she is obviously getting antsy. What does this mean for me, her younger Older Sister? Insinuations at the dinner table over the New Year's period, that's what. We may even be facing direct orders to get married. Or perhaps a reiteration that it wouldn't be so bad were I to fall accidentally on purpose pregnant myself (できちゃえ!). Either way, it's ON.

The kindness of strangers

2011-10-20T19:07:00.000+09:00

I ran to meet Mavis outside my office today only to discover her front tire was deflated. On closer inspection, I found the black cap on the tire valve was missing and I spent a couple minutes searching the concrete to no success. I compared it to the back tire's valve and finally realized the inner valve part was also gone. The inner valve part that is secured by screw nuts (harrr) that were still intact, meaning the parts didn't pop off while I was riding but were taken.

You may ask, what kind of depraved individual takes the valve from someone's bike tire? A royal asshole of the highest fucking order, that's who. In Vancouver if you chain your bike to a post by its wheel, your bike frame and the non-chained wheel are likely to go missing. In Japan, where small acts of passive aggression are everything, I guess they just steal the valve part, which still leaves you fucked.

After practically carrying my bike to the nearest bike shop and getting new parts, I managed to eek out a couple of hot tears as I rounded the imperial palace, feeling betrayed and angry at Tokyo. Had my transgressions while seated on Mavis's brown throne amounted to being stranded with a deflated tire and was this my bike karma? I wracked my brain to think of any altercations I'd gotten into in the Kaisha's vicinity but came up blank. I tend to be particularly careful in the blocks around work and save my one-phrase admonishments for idiots closer to home...

I tried to picture what the person who messes with someone's bike in broad daylight and in a populous area looks like. I came up with an ill-fitting suited man with a mosaic where his face should be. Like footage from a cop show.

I'm tired of biking, love it though I do. I refuse to go back to the train but with the increase in bikes after the earthquake and Tokyo's generally piss poor accommodations for bikers, it's exhausting to constantly come up against pedestrians, cars and other bikes. Earlier this year as I was riding across a pedestrian crossing, a salaryman (sorry, no better word for him) came riding along in the car lane not bothering to stop and see if anyone was coming out from the curb (and, ahem, ignoring the red light he should heed if he wants to act like a car). He blindsided me and banged into the side of my bike, somehow managing to stay upright, and pedaled off without a word. I was so taken by surprise I didn't have time to shout anything at him but have since come up with a few choice phrases, naturally. I later found that he'd hit the part of my bike where my light's mechanism is and I couldn't turn off that light for months.

I'm the victim in these stories, in case I didn't make that abundantly clear, but what about my own wrongdoings? They are not nil, try as I might to be a considerate person on the road and sidewalk. Last night, in fact, coming home on my usual route I was coming up a wide one-way road that expects two-way bike traffic judging by an intersection light only bikes can see. I feel that if you are going against the car traffic by bike, you should not make bikes going in the cars' direction move for you - you are the one who can see the oncoming cars and to force an oncoming bike out into that is not very nice. On a number of occasions I have come to an almost chicken-like state with bikers who want me to move into the car traffic so they can bike down the street against it. I sometimes can't be bothered enforcing my superior biking etiquette but it's begun to fuck me right off as of late. It's very similar to the issue I've had as a pedestrian with men in particular, who want me to get out of their way and will come to a complete halt until I do so. It makes me unreasonably stabby when this happens, mostly because I want to know what the hell went wrong with these people to cause them to act with such uninvited hostility (and to a woman no less, feminism be damned) that I have yet to find elsewhere.

So last night I slowed my bike to a halt during one of these cock size competitions and told the guy it was a one-way street (admittedly weak argument but points for flawlessly remembering and executing the word for "one-way street"). As I pushed off he tried to rebut this charge by telling me my light should be on (it normally would be but had been out of order for 24 hrs). I rode off feeling very pissay.

Go on and tell me I'm a jaded foreigner who should just shut the fuck up or get out. Don't worry, I'm working on one of the two. I love you ardently, Tokyo, but these "encounters" (not to be confused with what you can arrange on Craigslist) turn me into a high blood pressured bitch on wheels who secretly says really nasty stuff about this host country's people without moving my lips. I don't like feeling this much anger.

I don't know what will lessen the stress of commuting by bike in Tokyo other than designated bike lanes. You're either in the gutter being hedged in by cars or on a crowded sidewalk feared and resented by pedestrians. I hate pedestrians when I'm biking and I hate bikers when I'm walking; we weren't meant to co-exist on the sidewalk and I will just throw it out there that places like China do it (god forbid) much better with huge bike lanes in their metropolises. I don't want to be the bad guy on a bike scaring people who think I don't see them or accidentally grazing arms when a walker suddenly changes course.

As for the lowest of the bunch, the people who steal bike valves and leave trash in bike baskets (too numerous to count), I will try to quash my anger and trust that the Karma of Mavis will work its magic.

Charming Bitches

2011-09-02T23:36:00.001+09:00

The people of this island chain really are charming bitches. Ask any tourist or short-stay visitor and they will inevitably fall over themselves to tell you how nice everyone is in Japan. This is where I usually get tight-lipped lest I betray myself as a so-called "bitter lifer" minus the lifer.

People love to comment on your appearance here and like other countries in Asia, weight is not a taboo subject. Girls are not brought up believing that their partners should never ever comment on their weight or that they should tell others they aren't fat even if they are. I'm hesitant to even bring this up because it opens such a floodgate for me of a great number of things, so I will have to just promise you, dear readers, that I will dedicate a much longer post to this in the future.

As a butter-scented barbarian, you get used to the comments about how big you are (which in my experience tends to refer more to height but I suppose you never know) but how small your face is. And don't forget your tall (=big) nose. On a positive note, I've come to love my nose, which appendage I hadn't given much thought to before. I am totally rocking a tall nose and it's all thanks to uninvited daily commentary on my appearance.

When I spent a few months in China right after high school, I endured a comment from a nosy student who was twice my age in which she told me how perplexing it was that I was so "this" (as she spread her hands wide) and my boyfriend was so "this" (close up that gap). I told her I was sorry to have perplexed her so. She also asked me how much money I was making teaching English in the stix. At the time I wrote it off as an amusing cultural moment to be shared later with Westerners who would act appalled on hearing of it.

On the same trip, I ran out of a family dinner after my best friend, a gorgeous girl of Chinese heritage and with the biggest natural breasts you've ever seen on an Asian woman, fled from the table in tears upon an aunt's disparaging remarks about how fat she was getting in Canada (if slim is the new fat, then yes, I suppose she was right).

Despite often feeling like a big clumsy elephant when navigating certain Tokyo spaces, no one has called me an elephant. While remarks about my appearance coupled with unwarranted petting of my hair can wear thin at times, people are remarkably nice and I've allowed myself to feel vainly flattered even when the words received probably fall in the "empty compliment" category of stuff that comes out of Japanese people's mouths. When people praise the beau for finding such a pretty whitie, I am secretly pleased. Why am copping to all this? I'm starting to regret it. For starters, none of you lovely people know me and so questions of whether my compliments are deserved or whether I am an elephant will have to wait. For now.

It came to my attention several weeks ago that the beau's boss and one of his customers thought they should make comments to him on my weight. In short, they told him I had gained. I spent a painful week after that crying and trying to let it roll off my back. Full disclosure: I have recently gained 5 pounds give or take (possibly more give) and was already painfully aware of it. That they felt it was their duty to comment on this to the beau makes me incredibly spiteful. And yet, their conversation was perfectly normal in their eyes and I find myself not faulting them for it (his boss has also commented directly to me when I've lost weight). By way of reference to the actual conversation, they had been discussing the customer's wife's weight and I guess felt it would only be right to include me in the topic of conversation. For further reference, the wife and I are the same age while the customer is probably 15-20 years older, she hasn't worked since they married, has no children and stays at home all day playing some Internet computer game and polishing off two bottles of champagne by herself. Now there's a charming bitch.

So I've snuffled over Skype (hi mom!) and cried to friends in the middle of a fucking club, which for one of them must have been a flashback to our Waseda days except I was crying over a guy, not a piece of shit Japanese woman. I don't make it a habit to cry in night clubs but with some people you can't help but let your guard come all the way down. I also knew this particular girlfriend would have some snappy things to say (when I was crying over that boy, she told me I was a poodle during an elaborate analogy of dog pedigrees).

The hurt has now been replaced with mostly anger and resentment. I practice in my head what I want to say to the boss the next time I see her and she hopefully asks me if I've lost weight. I'm going to calmly and with light notes of shittiness tell her that I could hardly not lose weight after she had so kindly brought it to my attention that I had been overeating. I may then grow some real balls and let her know, sweetly of course, that it's considered rude and inappropriate in some circles to tell someone that their partner has gained weight, especially when one has so many flaws of their own.

I feel like I've run out of steam on this and no longer know why I even began penning it. I have so much more I want to confide in you but I can't just yet. In the meantime, chin up and eyes watchful for all the charming bitches up in here.

I take it back

2011-09-02T22:12:00.000+09:00

I eat my words. The check-out lady who frazzles my patience has been temporarily removed from my shit list. The other morning I was in there early buying my beverages for the day and as she handed me my change she pointedly chirped out, kyou mo ganbatte kudasai (try your best again today!). I had taken to wearing sunglasses in the store like some affected teenager or simply avoiding eye contact with her so as to help block out the constant barrage of commentary, but this was so unexpected it broke my steely concentration and I had to smile and thank her. And I meant it.

The Break Up

2011-07-27T16:45:00.000+09:00

The longer you live here, the more of these you will experience. Rather than count my years using their assigned calendar numbers, I look back at my time here in eras marked by the friends who helped to make them what they were...in addition to those not mentioned here, there was the Tokyo Cowgirl Era, the Other Whitie Era. As of late, another era has passed and let me tell you, redheads are hard to get over. My work husband also recently terminated his relationship with me and the Kaisha, so things are now a little bit lonelier even for me, the perpetually Lonely Whitie.

One of the first questions I will inevitably ask when sizing up a new friend is how long they will be in Japan for. It's not that I won't pursue a friendship with them if the answer is shorter than one visa renewal, but I like to know around how long I've got with them before the inevitable Break Up. Once the Break Up comes, it can be crushing. Long distance relationships are fine but when you are suddenly physically bereft of a friend, it's akin to standing alone in an empty room that's been packed up for a move. What used to be lived in is now just a space that remembers nothing.

Some might call the Break Up "relocating", "returning home" or "leaving Japan" but I call it as I see it: neither Japan nor I was good enough, so we've been dumped. What is particularly tragic is the friend who promised to be with you until the end (=your own BU with Japan) who breaks up with you way ahead of schedule. To put the bleakness in perspective: by the time I get off this island there is going to be no one left to break up with. I sometimes fantasize about farewell parties for myself where the only guest is, yes, myself (cheers!). Like I said, bleak.

Each time a friend leaves, I cast my mind back to the time before her era and I can't help but wonder how the hell did I get by without her? My most recent ex came along on the cusp of a year that was shaping up to be a bit shittay and turned it into a golden era. It's hard enough to meet people you can have a decent conversation with and harder still to find someone who shares your humor and affinity for taking trips to far flung places for monkey waiters, getting your hair did in a bouffant just because, and finding dank retro cafes from one of Tokyo's bygone eras.

I still don't know the magic formula for meeting friends here but have been remarkably lucky in meeting a few fantastic friends through my public rantings on here (why that didn't scare them away, I'll never know). Now that another blossoming relationship has been cut short, however, I may have to start going out alone and hitting on people.** I'll be sure to let them know up front that I'm not looking for any one-night stands. Or perhaps I'll install myself on a street corner with a sign that says "friends wanted."

In the meantime, I'm feeling desperately sorry for myself and enjoying some pillow biting, hoping that before too long, I will maybe again have someone who will say yes more often than no and who can muster enthusiasm for tiny dive bars in Golden Gai where discussion revolves around the bartender's protruding chest hair.

**or publishing a personal ad: LWF (lonely white female, natch) seeks funny female companion for possible long-term relationship. Must love bikes, vodka rickeys, cinema both lofty and trashy, eating things off sticks and the fine balance to be maintained between being classy and slumming it. Must not be adverse to restaurants from the early Showa period or leopard print.

Blow Me

2011-07-21T17:02:00.000+09:00

Gentle readers, meet summer's hottest must-have accessory for every distinguishing young lady who deigns the thought of a little upper-lip perspiration. Personally, nothing beats the feeling of a small trickle of sweat slowly creeping its way down my ass crack as I try not to let the sheer delight of it all show on my face. Nonetheless, following on from last year's efforts to go native, so to speak, I give you this, the neck fan.

In short, I have taken to wearing a plastic rectangular fan around my neck. Werk.

It started with a ladies-who-lunch lunch with some Semi-professionals, one of whom showed me her, uh, neck fan. Every summer we Tokyoites love to talk about how damn hot it is and this year, thanks to the motherfuckers at TEPCO, we have even more to talk about with people we have nothing to talk about with: electricity saving measures! I could give a 10-minute soliloquy about these measures that would make Hamlet weep. To give you an example, I like to tell anyone who will listen how embarrassed and hesitant I am to use a recently inherited standing fan to rid me of the sweat beading at my hairline. None of the Secretaries have fans but by some strange twist of fortune/misfortune, I am with fan this year (not to be confused with "with child," something that would send me running for the hills). Do I even need to say it? Altogether now: I CAN'T TURN IT ON.

For all that I do to play down my whiteness (including but not limited to hiding the sound of my pee, taking care to rustle my plastic bags quietly, and greeting people with "sorrythankyou"), this would blow (ha) my cover. It would be a huge red flag reminding people that yes, I am still here, and yes, still a lonely whitie. This is not to say I don't use it on the sly. Some mornings I arrive extra early and when no one is around, bask in its cool winds. As soon as I hear footsteps, that puppy goes off. Now that we are deep into super cool biz, I have stopped sneaking around with the fan and have unplugged it and left it in a conspicuous place so my colleagues can see I am in the same hellishly hot boat as them. Yes to conforming!

The first question out of my mouth when my lunching lady showed me her fan was , Do you use it while typing at your desk? I figured if it was inconspicuous enough, I could keep cool guilt-free. She switched it on and let its sweet, cool rays blow gently across my cheeks. Sold.

Bonus points: I didn't even have to go out of my way to get it. While buying something at 7-11 later that evening I happened to glance down at a table near the register laden with all manner of keeping cool apparatuses and there it was. Begging to blow away my sweat. Sold.

The next morning at work I arrive at the same time as most of the Secretaries and am super excited to sit down and cool off on the DL. When no one's looking I slip the fan around my neck and press "on."

Gentle readers, it sounded like there was a helicopter overhead (abort! abort!). I immediately switched it off and thought back to our lunch. I couldn't recall my companion's fan being loud or making any noise at all. I switched mine on again. No, it was definitely conspicuous and if fans could talk, this one would be shouting, whitie over here! whitie over here! It's taken me a few weeks to get used to it, but I now feel comfortable using my neck fan with fairly reckless abandon, even when the office is dead silent. I do still get a little jumpy when people come by and are in earshot of my tiny wonder, but I banish the embarrassment by telling myself they must think the noises are emanating from my computer vents.

Don't stuff my box

2011-06-03T16:52:00.000+09:00

After years of fairly flawless, if not zombie-like service here, I am always taken by surprise when there is a blip in the system. I think this also increases my reaction to said event disproportionately, causing me to lash out rather than take it in stride as I would in a less service-oriented country like Canada or the US. Yesterday I arrived home to see that two packages containing a shirt and pants had been unceremoniously squeezed through the narrow slot on my mail box. I almost fainted with shock.

I live in the city where the post is a perfect system of pick-ups and deliveries, where you can even specify the time you want something to be redelivered. I could send you ice cream or cheese through the mail it's that good. When a package looks like it won't slide easily through my mail slot, the postman either buzzes me or leaves in it an automated lock box that I can access with a swipe card.

Those packages were not made to be shoved through my slot. I pulled them out and inspected their crumpled messes, turning them over and over for clues as to how they even made it through. Why the postman decided to shove them through, I do not know, but I was seized by a feeling of extreme pissed-offness and I wondered aloud to whom I could address my complaint. Could I call the post office? Leave a nasty passive aggressive note taped to my slot? I was studying this problem with the intensity of a laser and I was dearly disappointed when I realized there was no one to complain to that would make it worth it.

The beau was some kind of horrified when the nice shirts he'd bought in Canada were thrown, unfolded into a paper shopper. The ceremony of service that you get here can drive you a little crazy sometimes (see: woman at the grocery store who has a polite phrase for every step of the purchasing process that she has to cheerfully SHOUT at me when I am buying a bottle of water--> Over here please! Sorry to have kept you waiting so long! I'll take that for you! This is 126 yen! I'm receiving exactly 150 yen from you! 24 yen is your change! And here is your receipt! Oh you don't need a bag?! Thank you so much for your troubles! Thank you! Please come again! Thaaaaank you!!!!!! Next!). I started to tune out when I realized long ago that while some service people are genuinely nice, most of the lovely things that are said to you are part of a grand act, where the actors play ass-kissing shopkeepers while they silently don't give a flying fuck about you or your purchases or your problems kthxbye. So when I am all tuned out and grooving along and I come across some incredibly shitty service person, I put on my bitch gloves and really feel like letting them have it, even though I often don't. Nonetheless, I would kiss the toes of postal workers, who are always so careful with my packages and who have written, "This package got wet en route so we dried it at our office. We sincerely apologize for the delay this has caused," on my deliverables before. As a result of all this, I have concluded that the postal worker that day, the one that stuffed my slot full with nary a thought of the crushed, broken packages inside, must have been a foreigner.

They let you do that?!

2011-05-31T17:01:00.000+09:00

It's the small, silly things that make my day. Like someone talking to me at work, or finishing up my business within one "push" of the Sound Princess.

This morning on my bike, I was stopped at an intersection when a bus of school kids turned the corner right in front of me. As the bus approached I could see the children were all pressed up against the windows, chattering and hoping for a glimpse of something interesting on the way to a fieldtrip. I wondered whether they would bother to wave to me - lone figure on the corner - like children would likely do in other countries, and I scanned their excited faces. Just as the bus turned, two boys started waving at me and, receiving a wave and smile in return, began to wave their hands furiously until the bus was out of sight. I wonder if they were from Saitama or some other far-flung prefecture. They probably thought, They let foreigners ride bikes in Tokyo now?! I smiled the rest of the way to my destination and didn't swear at a salaryman or office lady once! Anyone else smiling over happenings of mundanity?

Konnichiwa bitches redux

2011-05-26T15:45:00.001+09:00

I wanted to insert a clip of the scene where they sing happy birthday in Ikiru but alas I could not find one. You'll just have to rent it.

I'm a few days late but yours truly with the green eyes has been assaulting your thoughts now for three years. Three years! I used to look at bloggers with archives going back three years and think, WOW! what beacons of the blogging community! I'm afraid I am no such beacon.

I do want to take this opportunity (god, don't I sound self-important), however, to thank you for reading and sticking with me, whether it has been for a year, months, or even the past week. To be honest, after my most recent extended absence, I felt like I was returning to a bit of a ghost town and explained it away by telling myself that most of you had either been raptured or were fervent animal lovers fleeing the scene of a violent crime. I can't sing for comments but know that I appreciate them all and usually go back and read them over several times like a big fat dork. I know you don't have to comment but you do. Through your comments, I feel like I've gotten to know little snippets about your lives and even commenters who don't link to blogs but comment often, I feel like I know them and will wonder whether they have stopped reading if I don't see anything from them in a while. Lurkers, I got love for you, too.

As I mentioned in my recent post on Loco's blog, never in a million years did I expect people to read this let alone comment and email and encourage! I don't say that with false modesty either: I had never had a blog, didn't comment on others, and basically had no idea what the fuck I was doing. In fact, I think my heart was actually doing what they call "pounding" when I clicked "publish" on my first post (which is terrifyingly embarrassing but I leave it up so you can read it and yell super awk! in your head). It has turned out more speshal than I could have ever hoped for. Tissue please.

So have a piece of cake, or a green eyed cocktail, tell me what I can do better or what you'd like to hear about, and be glad I am going to end this here before I delve into more uncomfortable touchy-feely territory. It's all hating on salarymen and Sound Princesses from here on out!

Please don't do it anymore

2011-05-24T09:05:00.001+09:00

I guess the good times had to come to an end, but I expected more from Tokyo Metro - a wedding, blow out fight, or even double suicide by Creepy and his on-again-off-again wife. Instead, I was greeted with this when I made the mistake of taking a train back in April:

It freaked me out, too. I immediately checked Tokyo Metro's site and it confirmed my worst fears: our favourite creepster is no more and we can now look forward to at least a year of animals being anthropomorphized. Dear readers, I'm sorry, but I'm just not an animal person. This doesn't mean I kick puppies, but I don't have pictures of animals on my computer and I find it a strain to get overly excited about cute animals (although sometimes they get the better of me). I did recently buy a top with a sweet zebra print...does that count?

Maybe it's not a permanent flaw. After all, as a teenager I told my mother that I wasn't a feminist and look at my feministy 'tude now. I wouldn't hold my breath though...

This is kind of an endearing picture, if only because the dog looks so ridiculous flying through the air at us like a furry missile. Nonetheless, I will probably discontinue my dwindling commentary on the Metro's monthly manner posters, unless I find other ones that are a bit more stimulating. So there you have it - I am GEG, evil eyer of salarymen and not quite lover of animals.

Getting Loco

2011-05-23T08:53:00.000+09:00

I am over at Loco in Yokohama's blog today where he has kindly asked me to participate in his Back to Life Blog Party. You can check out the post here and don't forget to also check out the other ladies and gentleman who have also, um, joined the party.

If you haven't visited Loco's blog before, be sure to go back through his archives and have a look at some of his gems. There aren't a lot of guy bloggers in Japan getting into the honest nitty gritty of living here and Loco brings a fresh perspective through his passionate writing.

While I am on a roll here, I also want to urge you to buy Quakebook if you haven't already done so (if you have, how about sending some copies as presents?). Regrettably, I was literally unplugged from the internets when the esteemed Our Man started putting this project together so I wasn't able to (try to) participate, but this is such an incredible project I have to urge you to support it.

Japan Standard Time

2011-05-23T08:50:00.001+09:00

People sometimes talk about island time and select cultures even have self-deprecating jokes about their inability to keep time. While Japan doesn't have the chillaxed attitude of other countries when it comes to time-keeping - trains are reliable to the minute and people routinely show up before the appointed time - there is a mysterious lack of regard for the timing of certain activities. Namely activities that disrupt my precious sleep. I hope you will forgive me for skipping over those charming white-gloved (literally) politicians who drive around with loud speakers blaring around election time, because while I despise them and their queenly waves, they don't drive around at 2 o'clock in the morning. Construction work, however, is not so courteous.

A short while ago we received a notice that there was going to be some construction work on the water pipes under our street lasting a week between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m. I understand that evening hours were chosen to minimize imposition on residents but isn't 11 at night a tad late to be doing construction work in a semi-residential area? The answer is yes, yes it is. I really wasn't too bothered about the whole thing other than having to remember to shower outside these hours, but if I was a good child-bearing whitie (in the eyes of the beau's mother and family), you can rest assured there would have been some severe raining down of the fiery rage if I had small children that could be woken up. But I'm not and I don't so let's press on.

Although our apartment faces the street, on the first night of construction when I pulled back the curtain, I was shocked to find myself blinded by lights turned up to eleven, almost reminiscent of a filming location. I could have tricked myself into believing it was daytime outside it was so bright. And the noise. Those unforgiving jack hammers sounded as if they were going to come through the window; being on a high enough floor was the only thing to convince me they wouldn't. The construction was so up in my building's face that Mavis was practically held hostage and extricating her from our bike garage involved a rearrangement of part of the construction site. And yet, this I can abide.

All of this pales in comparison to the sheer hell I experienced several weeknights later when even god doesn't know why, the construction did not stop at what I thought was the appointed time. I was hoping to crawl into bed by around midnight but the jackhammering was still going on at five past. I pulled back the curtains. Blinded. They can't be much longer I thought, they must be putting the finishing touches on those pipes. I read for a while as the clock crept towards 1 and those electric tools were still going strong. I began to second guess my clock, thinking that perhaps it was ticking forward at warp speed, contriving to make me believe it was later than it actually was.

I am pretty exhausted by 1 and knowing I have to be up early the next morning doesn't improve my mood. I figure I am so tired I should be able to fall asleep despite the light and noise fiesta extravaganza going on directly below my window. I'm in bed now and it sounds like things are quieting down. I'm starting to drift off when some sadistic motherfucker decides he missed a spot with the jackhammer. I am starting to freak out now. It's between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning and I have a raging construction site on the other side of a sheet of glass. How is this happening? Why are no other residents complaining? I understand the hesitation to complain of some Japanese people, but surely loud construction work (jackhammers people!) is enough to push someone's buttons. It was sure pushing mine. And yet I did nothing. There I was kicking up a mess with my sheets and so tired I was wide awake, plotting the demise of the construction workers below (yes, I realize it's not their fault).

I texted the beau because he was the only person I knew who would be awake at that hour and frankly, I needed some reassurance that I was awake and not nightmaring this hellish situation. He assured me it was real. I resisted the urge to tell him to hurry home so he could not only witness the situation with his own eyes but tear into the construction workers for me. It got to the point where I had four hours until I had to be up (3 a.m. now) and I was so fucked off and in disbelief that I had heavy duty machinery clanging in my ears that I started talking to myself. Yelling really. There was also some muttering and furious shaking of the head. I spewed about what kind of fucking derelict place is this where construction can happen at 3 in the morning and why the fuck are there no neighbors complaining about it and how in hell did I end up living somewhere that the law allows your ears to be assaulted at all hours AND on weekends and no one does anything about it. Damn you Tokyo!!!

Things spiraled quickly out of control. And yet I did nothing. Instead I crouched on the corner of my bed like a mad woman, wiping the sweat from my lip and panting as I glared out the window at the improbable scene below. Around 3:30 the noise stopped and the lights were flipped out, the only evidence of the crime was newly packed asphalt.

I wanted to go outside so badly, I did, but having to put on a bra and some vaguely sensible clothes topped my desire to unleash the rage. Plus, it's not as if they would have immediately shut down the site at the sight of my crazy ass. I'm justifying not going down really, because I regret that I didn't, effective or not. At least if I had gone down I could have confirmed that what I was seeing was not what I now think may have been a figment of my imagination.

Postcard from the Kaisha: nuclear apocalypse edition

2011-05-09T15:15:00.001+09:00

I found myself staring at the form requesting days off retroactively - what to put in the blank under "reason for leave request"? Cramp-inducing fear? Possibility of nuclear destruction?

In addition to these concerns, my secretary has been using her beauty mister per usual. I can't help wondering whether she is using bottled water for it and feeling indignant at the waste, or using tap water, thus making me feel resentful that she is pumping out her own little radioactive cloud over the partition.

She also has the earthquake alarm on her phone set to scare-the-shit-out-of-me loud, and I have been treated to its screams every now and then when an aftershock has rolled in during the work day. On a related note, I have mine set to 5 (Japanese scale) and over - I do not need to know about anything lower than that.

On the day we found out the nuclear reactor broke, people looked at each other with wide eyes as they reached for their coats and tried to quickly tidy things up before taking off. One Professional had the gall to try and get some of us to do work after receiving the notice. He preempted his request with an acknowledgement that we were all to leave the office shortly, but could we not possibly get this one thing done first? I politely brushed off the request. I believed I would be coming back to the office eventually and so resisted the urge to tell him where to stick it.

Throughout that afternoon and evening, a stream of automated "disaster safety" emails came in, not saying much at all except to await further instructions. At long last, a longer explanation came through: the Kaisha had not received any special information prompting the call to leave the office but as a result of careful consideration of several factors (among them the nuke situation and the messed up public transportation), it had been deemed best to empty the office for the rest of the day. Barring any negative developments, we would receive word to come to the office as usual the following morning at 6am. For the next few days until my scheduled trip, I received an email in the morning telling me to come in, to which I replied that I simply could not. In case you are wondering, I had already booked and had approved a week off for my trip, but for those extra days I was at home with the curtains drawn and my hair getting knotty, I had to use some of my precious paid holidays (an umbrella term for days to be used for both vacation and sickness - there is no differentiation). The Kaisha has also taken a hard line when it comes to asking for unpaid vacation in the event I run out of days. Fear of nuclear meltdown is not a plausible appeal to this rule.

I understand where this stems from (blind stoicism), and I don't really blame the Kaisha. On the other hand, expecting the few foreign nationals you employ who do not speak Japanese to be able to soldier on with little information to go on (those disaster safety emails only started being translated into almost passable English about ten emails in) is an unforgiving stance. If similar shit had gone down overseas, you can bet the Japanese living there would be on the first plane out. Again though, this is not really about whether you should stay or not, but the level of tolerance surrounding what a person decides to do in order to feel safe. There was no precedence here and no contingency plan for how to carry on with business after something like this happens. I'm lucky I had planned and announced my trip for the sole reason that to the Kaisha it didn't look as if I was running away.

In the Kaisha bathroom it is also business as usual. I got Sound Princessed several times, which is when you are peeing for all to hear and someone in a neighboring stall turns on the old SP to silence you. I was pretty fucked off. Here we are in a crisis and these women are still concerned about another woman hearing them pee. Not to mention the power that could be saved if we all forwent the SP. One of these days I am going to unplug all the toilets. I can't wait.

I am used to the relative dimness around the Kaisha now. With the exception of signs telling us to buy our own bottled water and tea, it all looks quite normal. Until, of course, a big after shock comes, prompting a piercing overhead speaker to announce several moments prior that a fair amount of shaking is expected so please ready yourselves. Then during the shaking, the speaker keeps telling you to remain inside the building. Eventually the swaying stops and the speaker tells you to await information on any fires and then that the elevators have been stopped. I can appreciate the knowledge of an earthquake before it happens, but that alarm has got to go before I end up doing more damage than letting out a drop of pee.

I will admit to googling information about my office building, its age, and how up to date its earthquake architecture is. This is not stuff I want to know and it is not going to aid in any decision. I am here to stay. It is scary but what are the alternatives? Go somewhere and get hit by a car? No, I will stay. I think I am finally starting to think like a Tokyo resident, or at least a stellar Kaisha-ite.

Dark days

2011-05-08T18:03:00.000+09:00

It was my five year anniversary with Japan the week of 3/11, and what a show she put on for the occasion. I wonder what all the Iwasherefirst-gaijin think of the mass exodus of "flyjin." I suspect they are tickled pink, feeling as if this disaster has really separated the worthy from the unworthy. Because of course the gaijin community here needs yet another line along which to divide itself. (And it goes without saying that you only deserve to be here as a foreigner if you can carry on per usual with your chin up while the country is embroiled in a large-scale disaster.)

I have been trying to reconcile my guilt for leaving my home in its hour of need to go ahead with rather timely travel plans booked months ago. Yes, home. Tokyo will not be my home forever and while I may not appear to be her most likely resident, I am one. I have a healthcare plan here, an employer, shitloads of taxes to pay, an apartment lease, a vehicle (albeit small, two-wheeled, and pink), bank accounts and credit cards, a very expensive kimono, a secretary who drives me crazy and of course, what for all intents and purposes is family. It was not exactly a viable option for me to just up and leave, although I certainly can't begrudge those who have. I did, however, have a ticket out for a few days, which I decided to use after much pillow biting, if only to restore a measure of my sanity that had seemed to evaporate all at once when I was sent home early from work one day with no assurance that it wasn't because they thought we were destined for a major nuclear disaster.

You never think it will happen to you, but you should. (Morbidly enough, this sentiment put me in mind of a self-defense class in high school where the instructors told us to assume we would be raped at some point.) The sheer number of people who have contacted my family, from mildly estranged relatives to the woman who runs the Italian grocer we always shop at, was so humbling it physically hurt, causing my throat to squeeze up and tears to quiver in place, threatening to spill over as I read another email from my mom telling me who had called that day. Would I have done the same? I always tell myself that I am so disconnected from everything and everyone when in fact, there are a lot of people looking out for me. I will try to be better, but I still can't promise much improvement from the shockingly rude inner dialogue that seems to flow of its own accord when I am here at home in Tokyo. I haven't verbally assaulted anyone recently, so maybe my temper has been tempered.

I count myself extremely lucky to have had very few brushes with real fear in my years until now. Vastly different from millions of others on this earth, if I were to pinpoint the times when I've feared for anything close to my life, it would have to be a couple adventurous family vacations in New Zealand involving a lake and later, a volcanic mountain (when I mention this to my family, they are surprised that I felt so "strongly" about the whole thing, so maybe memories change).

Sometime around midday some days into the tragedy, the Kaisha suddenly sent out an email ordering us all home within the next hour, citing vague reasons. When they finally got it together to send out an English translation, some poor soul had thought to translate this vagueness into "one of the reactors has broken." Well then. The secretaries started tittering and one particularly panic-stricken co-worker informed me that his wife had already spotted the radioactive cloud creeping over Chiba from one of the plant explosions. Well then.

Up until this point, it had been a bleak few days, with the news on during all waking hours, reports of friends leaving just beginning to filter in, and the overwhelming sense that I no longer had any interest in a trip I had so looked forward to only days before. The initial days of work after the earthquake went by, with my concentration at an all time low and one eye on news websites and a couple tweeters who seemed to have overwhelmingly good sense. I felt like if I went on my trip, I wouldn't be able to keep an eye on things at home, as if my watching it unfold would somehow make it better. As a co-worker and I walked to the station together that day, my until-then calm began to swell into a thick panic. He stopped to buy a face mask and insisted we take the closest underground passage, thus limiting our exposure outside. Was this really happening? Across the globe and 24 years ago when I was little, my parents staged demonstrations against nuclear energy and now here I was in Japan of all places on the edge of a nuclear crisis.

Parting ways at the station was horrible. Co-worker indicated that he would be moving his family out of the Kanto area and implored me to do the same. We shook hands and he held on too long in that this-is-goodbye-too-much-eye-contact way and I started to get choked up. What the fuck, I know. I was there. The dark edges of panic started to creep to my peripheral when I got home and saw the beau. Nevertheless, I thought, even though there is no immediate reason for us to leave Tokyo, let's just head south for a couple days to put some distance between us and the situation. I would much rather leave and feel like an over reactive idiot on the way home than stay and realize we should have left and now ohmygod we can't. I couldn't even get over the roadblock in my imagination where we would actually have to leave Tokyo - for that would mean everyone else would have to leave Tokyo - and how exactly do you propose we evacuate 13 million people? That's what I thought. It's so unthinkable it almost makes me giggle, except I wasn't laughing, I was fucking petrified.

After a little half-hearted begging on my part, I realized the beau was not to be convinced that we should leave Tokyo, and in case there was any question, by god, I'm going to work tonight. I considered working myself into a hysterical fit and throwing myself in his path on his way out the door, but inherently understood that that would be a futile endeavour as well. Besides, I had to save some of the ugly crying for later. Which I did. That afternoon I began a Skype marathon so that it felt like for the next 72 hours I was always on with someone. First order of business: break down in front of my parents and wail and snuffle about how the beau wouldn't budge. Never one to care whether I marry or not, my dad gave me permission to relate to the beau that going somewhere with me would be looked upon as a personal favour to him and would weigh heavily in the scales when it came time to give our official union his blessing. Nice sentiment but I knew the beau would see through it. Friends called asking for advice I was not qualified to give, and I knew not what to tell them. My brother who is busy getting through school and his own life even seemed worried, and made sure to keep more in touch than he had as of late.

I was told work would continue on as normal bar any further developments and I stopped going in. I couldn't. How could I possibly give my all to work when there was news to be closely watched and hands to be wrung. Evenings were spent alone keeping vigilent watch over the TV and trying to intersperse that with some mind-numbing shows from the States. There were none of those variety shows or close-ups of steaming food on TV, it was news 24 hours across the channels (as an aside, I would recommend turning off the TV before starting to have sexy times). I began to watch Twitter for the first time ever, finding a few people to act as my guiding lights. Personal hygiene went down the tubes and I tried to drum up an appetite (this was a personal first).

I appealed to the beau's mom, thinking she might hear my desire to leave Tokyo for a few days and command the beau into action. No such luck - she basically intoned that if there was a large-scale meltdown, we would all be fucked anyway. I know my parents were worried but they did a pretty good job of not telling me to come home, only that they would take care of us if we did need to leave. At one point my dad suggested I at least get stuff packed up and ready in the event we did need to leave but as I looked around the apartment, the possibility of trying to tie up our life here in 24 hours was was the cool kids call "ridic". I also realized that if we did really have to leave, I would be able to simply take off with a passport and the clothes on my back. All those possessions amassed over the last few years suddenly didn't seem very worth it at all.

The beau would come home in the middle of the night and I would still be up. Sometimes there would be crying and others very calm and practical conversations. He told me to go ahead with the trip because even if it did come to leaving, he would be able to get out faster on his own. We talked contingency plans and meeting in places like Hokkaido and Korea. I slowly came to understand that me leaving for Osaka for a few days would do nothing if it got really bad and furthermore, it was much cheaper to go on the planned trip. I finally decided 24 hours before we were scheduled to leave that I would in fact, leave. I was devastated to be departing without the beau but there was no moving him, not even further south. Rather than remain in Tokyo with fear giving me the trots daily and a never ending haggard appearance on Skype, it seemed best to get some distance, if only for a small piece of mind.

As soon as I set the ball in motion, I started to get all my affairs in order, as they say. Halted preparation for the trip aside, I set up an email and Skype account for the beau and wrote out a page-long information sheet with passwords, addresses, and numbers, and laid his passport on top. A small suitcase was placed nearby. On my last night here, I was up as usual when the beau got home and we sat around with some wine until it got light. I was seeing it get light a lot those days and even after only three hours sleep I would be upright ready to take in more bad news.

The beau kept reassuring me that by the time I got back from "vacation," the reactor situation would be under control. I made him promise to bolt at the smallest sign of something bigger. As the elevator opened I managed to hold it together as we said goodbye and only after the doors had closed on the brown door to our life together, did my face get hot and my eyes wet.

In the aftermath

2011-03-12T16:39:00.002+09:00

Embarassingly enough, I was going to write about my day yesterday after Tokyo tried to shake us from her like the pesky residents we are, but that feels too trite right now, even for me, in light of how devastating the last 24 hours have been. And continue to be...

I'm safe, as is the beau and our family and friends in Aomori. I'm not sure what to do with myself at the moment, other than stay glued to the news while the aftershocks roll in and out. I've often lamented how lonely and isolating it can be here at times, but the number of people who have contacted me from overseas and have contacted my parents to make sure we are all right makes me weak with gratitude. Clutching onto a fence on the sidewalk yesterday to ground myself to the pavement so desperate to buck me as the surrounding buildings visibly swayed and shuttered as if a quick breeze was blowing through, I wasn't convinced it would ever end.

Please do it like a schoolgirl

2011-03-04T15:53:00.000+09:00

How can you not like this month's edition of Tokyo Manners, there are schoolgirls featured! Why these lovely lasses haven't made it onto the posters earlier, I cannot imagine. The schoolgirl image here is like the popular girl at school - girls want to be her, boys want to fuck her (or should that be infantile women/pervy men?! I'm not judging). It also looks like Family Creepy is still together, despite his philandering and her brushes with hot young men with impeccable manners. I think even Creepy Baby is growing and before long will be sporting hair and glasses just like his daddy, and creepin' on strangers.

Anything to add gentle readers? I'm out.

Dear Dude on a Bike,

2011-03-03T16:50:00.000+09:00

I got home last night and felt both shaken and ashamed for my words. I don't know why you decided to bike on the right side instead of the left, which even pedestrians seem to understand, or why you stubbornly insisted on staying on the inside of the sidewalk so that we played a game of bicycle chicken, our headlights coming within inches of each other. You looked a little surprised when I didn't yield to you, but you should know I have been dealing with this move by salarymen as a pedestrian for several years now. I'm not sure why I seem to attract your type - refusing to budge, determined to make me go around - maybe it's because I have it out for rude salarymen. I wish you would tell me why, in all my years as a pedestrian, what could have ended in collision usually ends in a smile and maybe a "sorry" as we both try to zig zag out of each other's way, but here in Tokyo, it ends in a standstill and maybe a rough elbow.

I probably sound entitled to you, Dude on a Bike, and I think I am to the extent that I should be able to get down the street most of the time without being forced to bend to the will of an ornery salaryman or a Vuitton-toting bitch. Tell your friends to cut me some slack and let's try to cooperate as we coexist on Tokyo's streets. That said, I'm sorry I told you that you should be on the other side of the sidewalk and that you're an idiot, most people don't deserve that. This is my second verbal confrontation with a stranger in Japan and while after the first, I felt smug for responding so appropriately, this time I wasn't provoked by your words, but by your actions, and I am shocked at how quickly those nasty words came shooting out of my mouth. You may be an asshole, but I should have refrained from calling you an idiot.

The other thing I wanted to tell you, was that I hope you don't make the mistake of thinking all foreigners are barbarians after your encounter with me, for there are gaijin much gentler than I. I'm also not that bad in the scheme of barbaric foreigners: I don't look at all-you-can-drink plans as a way to get my money's worth, or ride the train while exclaiming loudly as I make sweeping generalizations about Japanese people, or try to school other foreigners on the proper way to "navigate the intricacies of Japanese culture". I probably act meaner than I look, but I never claimed to be perfect. I know it's hard not to equate one irate foreigner with all of the others, I mean we all look alike, but just as I won't write off every Japanese guy as a bull-headed asshole, I hope you'll realize that my frustration and anger come not from being a foreigner, but from being a girl constantly shoved around. Deciding to say those nasty words to you probably does come from being a foreigner, though.

With any luck, you will have written me off as a slightly crazy whitie who has maybe reached the end of her rope. That's certainly what it feels like sometimes. So again, Dude on a Bike, I'm sorry for my words said in anger. Next time, maybe you can consider biking on what is generally considered the correct side and not threatening to collide with others.

The one where I put my hand in the toilet

2011-03-03T15:41:00.001+09:00

Commuting by bike is hardcore stuff - at any given time I am travelling around the city with at least one extra outfit in my bag - and don't even ask about the shoe colony breeding under my desk at work. If only I wasn't such a schvitzer, I could be one of those fabulous women wearing heels and a skirt on her bike, barely breaking a sweat as she glides through the streets. I tried her out for a couple months, and although I felt infinitely hotter (in both senses of the word), she is strictly a weekend friend for me. So I wear scrubs on my bike now and get changed in a bathroom stall every morning, which of course comes with its own set of neuroses in a place where you should not hear anything that goes on behind the stall door. Fuck, save me from myself.

Every morning I place my bag on a shelf in the stall and almost every morning when I pull earrings out of my bag the thought crosses my mind that one day I am going to drop them in the toilet. I then make a little promise to myself to start my accessorizing when I am safely away from the toilet's beckoning depths from the following day. That promise? It gets made every day. It's also not without good reason.

When the beau and I first shacked up together, we lived in one of those charming "one room" bachelor pads, which was probably around 20m². The "one room" (or wan roomu) is not named as such because it is a one bedroom apartment, but rather because the entire thing is literally one big (actually not so much) room. It is one of my greatest regrets that I didn't document that time in our lives with photographs of the apartment at the height of our residence there, maybe throwing in a couple weird bed shots like John and Yoko, for it was truly stacked from the floor up. The bathroom was a "unit bath" (yunitto basu), which I loosely define as my ass will hit the wall if I bend over. Those of you not in Japan may have encountered one of these beauties before, favourite that they are of the ubiquitous Japanese business hotel. So imagine that, if you will, and then shrink it a little more, and you have our cream-coloured, seamless all-in-one bathroom. Not surprisingly, the toilet had a nasty habit of tempting my cosmetics to leap from the narrow shelf above it to a watery grave below. I almost shed real tears the first time my face cream ended up in there, bobbing around and daring me to pull it out and pretend like nothing had happened. So I guess you could say I have experience with this kind of thing and I've come out of it with the knowledge that unless you close the lid while literally powdering your nose in the mirror, that shit is going to wind up soaked.

One thing our unit bath toilet didn't have, was a flushing sensor, which adds a whole other element to the fishing game. I've toyed with fate too long, made too many broken promises, so of course last week my bag falls over, puking into the toilet, if you will, a hair clip and an antique locket (and my pride, if you must know). The hair clip I can do without but the locket? It was given to me by a close family friend for my Bat Mitzvah and while it spent about ten years being too grown up for me, my style has now come around. There was no time to think, really, I knew I had about 20 seconds tops before the ever-efficient toilet would sense my panicked body in front of it and whisk the locket away to, I don't know, somewhere off Odaiba. In my hand plunged, out came the locket, and stall peace was restored. Except now you can add sticking my hand in the toilet to the growing list of things I've done behind the stall door at work.

A lesson in communication

2011-02-24T18:06:00.000+09:00

or was it compassion? I get the two so mixed up these days.

It's a well known fact that I am a territorial ho and have been feeling a little put out recently to hear Baby Mama talking to the beau's parents using informal language, even going so far as to call them mama and papa. If you held a truth gun to my head, I would tell you hearing her address them in that way makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Despite my interpreting duties at our recent international conference, I tried to keep one ear on BM to gather more evidence in my favour. I haven't yet worked out how exactly this is in my favour.

In our post-conference debriefing, I lamented for the annoyingth time that BM was all up in their informal grill and woe is me the left behind whitie who will never truly be part of the family. Why the beau decided to finally set me straight on the subject, I will never know, but I have a strong inkling it's because I am so persistent, if not an annoying motherfucker, on the subject. I won't lie and say that I don't know why I feel so done wrong by - I am an accomplished young lady, docile when I want to be - because it's pretty obvious and fairly pathetic. I've been trumped by a baby. The wedding was one thing, the official signing of papers does nothing to one-up my history with the beau, particularly since I haven't given anyone the impression that I am gagging to get my kokkon (read cock-on). So why this feeling when I don't even want children of my own at the moment? Because I can't beat a granddaughter at this stage without producing one myself. The beau sits at the top of a line of boys, each one expected to be a girl. The beau's parents were dying for a daughter and while I am an OK substitute, a granddaughter (and her mother) is some tough competition.

So there we were, me whining like a door coming off its hinges and the beau setting me straight. According to him, BM's casual form of speaking and address is her strategy for getting in with the family. I've had years to do so, but as someone suddenly married and producing offspring with no prior contact, she uses informality to try and get closer, faster. And to show that she is a kind and easy-going person. Does this mean I should have been employing informal language all along? No. It was then pointed out to me that the beau's parents get that I take pains to speak politely to them and realize what a challenge that is, which now that I have heard it, I wonder why I would have ever thought otherwise. Of course they understand the implications of the way I address them, they are Japanese of a certain generation. Just because they aren't giving me a running commentary on what they are taking note of while we are all together, they do see what's going on.

Now, should I continue on in the same way when I speak with them? Not necessarily. The beau thinks they would be thrilled to be addressed by me as mama and papa, because it denotes a certain closeness. While okaasan and otoosan is fine and perfectly appropriate, I can get away with the more informal versions. How to do this without feeling weird? If they were so attuned to my utterances before, would this not seem like a sudden move? I do not know. But I have made a point to start addressing them this way when I email them, and when we are in person, I am going to start making an effort to use informal language, even if it feels wrong at first.

I had always wondered at what point it would be appropriate for me to speak casually with the beau's parents, mostly because they are so laid back with me and it feels utterly awkward to be the only person in a group using polite forms of Japanese. We'll see how it goes. I have to say that at the end of our conversation, I felt a little bad for BM, she's just trying to make it through what is a pretty fucking awkward situation - god knows what's going through her head - and her communication style speaks to the pains she is going to to ingratiate herself with everyone (granted, I prefer to be called "princess" rather than "G-chan"). The beau's parents brought an amazeballs gift for my parents, which I will talk about another time, but suffice to say, neither BM or her family is getting anything similar. This, the beau told me, speaks to his parents' affection for me - that they would offer such a gift on meeting my parents for the first time (and no ring on it). This could not have failed to make an impression on BM, so I think it's time to cut her some slack. I certainly won't be dialing down the snark, but I will try to be a little more thoughtful when it comes to viewing her as someone to admonish.

It's a family affair

2011-02-09T14:15:00.000+09:00

In last week's Last Word from Metropolis, Tokyo's purveyor of all things cultural and hip to today's generation of expat taste makers, the author in his post-apocalyptic vision of Japan predicted: "The number of international marriages will explode, leading the mass media to coin a cute word for them." How can there not already be a cute word for international marriages? They are the hot new way of the future, aren't they? I put forward to you "kokkon," which is an interbreeding of the words "kokusai" (international) and "kekkon" (marriage), pronounced cock-on. Feel free to pepper your speech with it, dear readers. I don't expect it to garner the widespread use that Dan Savage's "Santorum" has, but we can still try to fertilize the shit out of our conversations with it. Alternatively, if you have a better idea (which won't be super hard), holler at me in the comments.

And speaking of kokkon, families beau and geisha did sit down as planned and try to hammer out a deal for the transfer of one white disobedient office ho'. Me, in other words. It wasn't half as barbaric as I expected and they didn't even look at the size of my ankles when deciding on a fair price. Weddings and concrete plans were hardly touched on at all in fact(thanks for attending BM and BD!!), and the conversation remained fairly close to the surface most of the time. I can barely remember what we talked about, which is the occupational hazard of the sole interpreter in the room ("yes dad, let me just explain to them that you were only joking about going to a sento together"). Instead of thinking about lulls in the conversation as awkward, I simply took the opportunity to suck down some more alcohol, which the beau was sure to ply me with as well as securing a steady supply of food to my plate. I'm surprised he didn't just start feeding me from his chopsticks quite frankly. The one time I snuck off to the bathroom, I came back to the whole table trying to look up "Saitama" in my old crusty electronic dictionary (definition: don't go!) and debating the finer points of whether a yakiniku joint should be called a restaurant or a yakunikuya-san ("yakiniku joint"). As you can see, there wasn't much time for emotional chow-chow about the future.

A few notes my addled brain managed to take:

-Do not sit at the end of the table when you are the centre of attention

-DO sit between your parents so that one doesn't miss out on entire chunks of conversation

-DO eat at a restaurant where dishes are shared

-DO drink alcohol

-Do not allow babies, unless you want to provide a cute focus for conversational dead air

-Do not not discuss seating arrangements beforehand

-Do not worry about what the fuck you are saying in Japanese, trust that whatever mangled shit you've pooped out will have to suffice

-Do not plan to bring a photo album of snaps of you and your lover from the past few years (both as conversational fodder and an old "fuck you" to those in the family who may have had a shotgun coupling) and then run out of time to make one

-Do explain to your parents beforehand that any comments not satisfactory to the interpreter will be censored out (see: comments about naked communal bathing)

-Do think of a few conversational topics to interject with if the need arises

-Do not beat yourself up about it when those topics fly out the window as soon as you start translating for everyone

-Do come to peace with the fact that some stuff once processed through your dirty and perfunctory mind and mouth will simply not sound as interesting as it did in its original language

I really wish the beau and I could have attended the much more sombre and official Meeting of the Parents 2010 for BM and BD, just so I would have some frame of reference for what one of these affairs might look like for a 100% Yamato Coupling (trademark pending), minus the oven bun and plus way more time getting to know each other. I entered into this wondering whether it would be easier or harder being a mixed couple with no language crossover. It seemed like it could go either way: harder because of those language and cultural barriers that bring people who share them together, or easier because of the same differences and freedom from having to act according to the dictates of Japanese manners and decorum. I now see, and probably could have foreseen then, that none of that really matters, much of it depends on how naturally people gel with each other. Still, I find myself fervently wishing that there was a magic language potion. My family is incredibly dear to me and it's deflating knowing that in the future, new members of my family will not be able to communicate with the original members. I suppose though, that I could just as easily have ended up with someone from a family of royal assholes, in which case speaking different languages would seem like a blessing.

I came away from the evening with about a thousand feelings all nattering away inside my head deconstructing what could have been said, what wasn't, and the meaning behind what was. I'm not really in a fair position to judge the evening, it wasn't for me after all, and if I were to go by the glowing reports from each side received later, I would say it went very well. There's nothing specific I would have changed (the inclusion of BM and BD maybe, and that's a very big maybe), except maybe my great expectations. I didn't think we would all go riding off into the sunset together in a stretch limo but I did have some private inarticulated expectations about the evening. If I can try to look at it with some distance, it did go well and I'm not sure what kind of amazing experience and conversation I thought would take place by putting these two caring families together with no common language for one night (one night only!), not to meet again for the foreseeable future. It can't all be accomplished in the space of three hours and you are a fool to think it can.

The only true fail part of evening was at the very end when the beau and I were seeing everyone off before we could run back inside to drink away the stress and dissect the evening in detail. My dad had taken it upon himself as we were getting up from the table to issue some kind parting remarks (with no prior approval) to the beau's dad, which I tried to approximate. Maybe this would have been the time to say "official goodbyes" before we went outside for photos and cabs. All I know is that the photos were done, I was having a word with BD and BM, and I turn around to see the beau's parents running into the middle of the street for a cab without a word. I think the beau had told them to hurry up because taxis were scarce that night but it was a little disconcerting to then have to explain to my parents that "I guess we had said our goodbyes."

In the days following, I passed along my parents' regards to the beau's mom and she in turn said how well it had all gone. When I mentioned that it would have been nice to have more time together, she suggested that next time, we all go to an onsen for a few days, which I couldn't help but laugh about as it would mean my dad realizing his ongoing joke about both families visiting a public bath together (yes, I come from one of those families).

After reading everyone's supportive comments on the BM/BD debacle, I started to feel pretty bad. Granted, I'm glad I didn't get any "bitch, you cray cray" comments, but it did give me pause on the whole thing. In the end, it wasn't ideal having them there, but with such a small window of time, I did want my parents to meet everyone. I will say though, that having less people and no baby may have encouraged a different conversation, simply because there are less faces around the table. We had planned a dinner the following week with my just parents and BM/BD, but ultimately had to cancel it. I found out later that when the beau had cancelled, BD had said that BM's parents had been slated to join the dinner! THANKS FOR THE NOTICE BUDDY BOY!!! And thank fuck we had to cancel anyway, because obviously I would have been tha-rilled to interpret through a dinner with a set of parents I don't even know. The beau admonished me for saying as much, as did my mom, because wasn't it just obvious that BM/BD were trying to pull out all the family stops? Yes, yes I do have a black heart. So there you have it, no major international incidents were caused or treaties terminated. I have a slightly new perspective on things now thanks to a later conversation with the beau and although I am still a jealous biatch who wants to be number one at everything, I am working on being OK with there not always being a number one (more on this later).

Untitled 2/12

2011-02-01T22:17:00.002+09:00

I was kind of hoping there would be a poster this month specifically targeting the Secretary next to me, the quiet one, who has developed the unfortunate habit of letting out single coughs throughout the day without covering her mouth. It brings to mind the brilliant character in Little Britain who does the "computer says no" routine. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

I'm not too much of a priss when it comes to germs, but really? Not covering your mouth during a cough? Just bad manners. I even cover my mouth when I am coughing whilst enjoying Mavis's leather saddle. I keep semi-glancing over at the Secretary when she coughs hoping this will instill some fear or shame, but to no avail. This is the Secretary who tries not to make even the smallest amount of noise when hanging up the phone or opening an envelope. How is it that we have ladies gargling (presumably to fend off colds) at the sink at work in the morning, really getting into it and making all sorts of disgusting sphincter-tightening sounds, and then we have people walking down the street coughing and hacking openly at unsuspecting passersby? This is definitely one of those "Japan is an enigma" moments.*

Thoughts on the poster? It actually looks like Creepy was getting ready to play grab ass and this poor woman who works for Subway corporate HQ is just putting some physical distance between them utilizing the objects at hand, like any good salarywoman would. We all know if it was me, I would be actively ramming the suitcase against his shins without a second thought.

*If the sarcasm was not apparent, you should probably get out while you can.

Down, hand!

2011-01-28T17:05:00.001+09:00

So this year, for whatever reason (shinenkai are the new bonenkai?!), the Kaisha decided to pour its alleged heart into a shinenkai (new year party) instead of the usual whorey Christmas mash-up. I hope you didn't think I had forgotten to regale you with tales of out-and-out drunkenness punctuated by awkward conversations and feigned enthusiasm on my part.

Scene: last week some time. Enter: me, stage right. Or whatevs. This year we are seated instead of standing (except for a cocktail reception) and gathering in January rather than December, but I have nothing new to report that hasn't already been said. I am so used to the performances put on by junior members of the Kaisha and the faux sluttery displayed by the females of this group for thier validation as contributing members of society, that it almost doesn't register any more other than as a time-keeper. The secretaries are doing some kind of para para meets Beyonce dancing on stage in hot pants and midriff-baring tee-shirts? Time for me to make an exit.

The one thing that did occur to me this year, however, is that I have a naughty hand. Not naughty as in I-can't-stop-copping-a-feel-with-every-Professional-who-ignores-me but as in doesn't listen to instructions and tends to go rogue when I am not devoting full attention to its exact location.

Japan is a lesson in minimal physical contact. Regardless of the compulsory touching and crotch-pressing that gets done on trains (if it can't be avoided, it doesn't count), there is very little casual touching that goes on between people. I continue to feel like an awkward gaijin lump when, after almost a year apart, we see the beau's parents and nothing more than a "welcome home" passes between them/us. Or when I see a Japanese-Japanese friend (not to be confused with a Japanese friend who was educated overseas or is some kind of hippie) after a span of two years and we stop short with half a metre between us. Exceptions between families and friends aside that I'm sure you could give me, nowhere is this no-contact culture more prevalent than at work. Tell that to my right hand.

As we know, at work the good people of the Kaisha are safe from me in my small white ghetto (population: 1), but let me loose during a schmoozey cocktail hour before dinner and there's no telling what my hand will get up to. I tried to implement my personal one-woman PR tactics and unconciously stepped it up a notch with some good old-fashioned arm petting. I don't know where I learned this behaviour from (Mad Men perhaps) but give me a drink in one hand and my other hand will get lonely and start travelling sans visa to the arm of any male to my right with whom I am engaged in conversation. Now it's not like I put these guys into a death grip or anything, I do have my nails to think about after all, but I can't help myself from an occasional pat or short-spanned laying of the hand on the shoulder when talking to someone. What can I say? It's my thang and in some places may even be considered personable or charming. Not at the Kaisha, however.

My hand was given the side stink-eye, looks of surprise, shock, and horror, and unmistakable eyebrow twitches akin to having something uncomfortable on your face (a fly? sweat?) during a job interview but not being able to do anything about it. Picture me straining to act sociable, friendly, and normal, and believing myself to be exactly those things with the help of my wine, and then, oh! There goes that creepy hand, creepin up some poor Professional's arm. I don't know what my hand was thinking! There I was talking to men I have worked for for a decent amount of time and my hand thinks it's appropriate to lightly touch their upper arm while trying to emphasize some point about the weather. If it wouldn't have looked completely cuckoo I would have used my left hand to restrain my right. There I am, talking, smiling, nodding, and there goes my arm, Oh! No you don't. No, I didn't.

By the end of the evening, if any Professionals I knew made eye contact with me from across the way, I would immediately scoot over to them and try to make small talk. This includes the guy who wants me to set him up with my non-existent lady friends and the guy who thinks I am dating down. When facing permanent ostracization, it is not the time to be picky. Funny how none of them have anything to say to me and are looking kind of surprised that I singled them out. Last time they ever make eye contact with me! The night was a smashing success really. You know how I know? On the way to powder my tall nose, a group of Secretaries in my department were all posed for a group photo and as I passed by, a couple of them shrieked for me to jump in "because you're so cute." These are women who will barely say a thing to me when we pass in the hall and with whom I haven't exchanged more than perfunctory greetings. At least me and possibly my cleavage will be forever remembered as "that Whitie" when the Secretaries are showing the photos to their new husbands and babies a few years from now. Success at last!

Please do it again in 2011

2011-01-04T13:50:00.001+09:00

Did the guy who designs these posters send this one to the printers after a bonenkai party? The angle on that poor foreign woman is all wrong in the first picture: what happened to her armpit? Did that giant spotted muu muu gobble it up? And what's with that huge beaver tail mound of hair overwhelming her left side? A rendering of what her hair looks like when she turns her head?

This is all wrong. I would say that it looks like a white male eikawa teacher designed this portrayal of the Evil White Woman in Japan but I can't even bring myself to resort to what is one of the oldest and most tired shots in the book - gaijin girl vs. gaijin guy: let's take out all our misery and insecurities on each other!!!

Who knows, maybe she is a member of Japan's national volleyball team. Or maybe a Russian sumo wrestler on his way to the hairdresser. I'm all out of ideas...

My tampon overfloweth

2011-01-01T23:33:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year gentle readers! May your 2011 be filled with all that you desire. And welcome to anyone clicking over from the CNNGo article. I've been deep in hiding with a visit from my parents but I had to come out briefly when I received an email notifying me of this humble blog's inclusion in the CNNGo list (I am truly flattered). I also came out of hiding long enough to discover (shock, horror) that GEG has been categorized as a "tampon overflow" blog on a forum, which really tickles me pink. What does that mean anyway, do I talk about feminine hygiene products too much? Maybe it was my unhealthy obsession with the Sound Princess?! Either way, thank you, sweet readers, for your patronage in 2010- really, my tampon overfloweth, and I appreciate your support. I'm not sure how I made it onto the list but if you'd like to recommend a Japan blog that isn't on my (by no means comprehensive) list to the right, please do so in the comments and let's share the rub.

Meet the parents

2010-12-16T17:01:00.000+09:00

Or should I say, parents meet the parents. We are looking to squeeze in one more event of the season for 2010, because frankly a shotgun wedding just wasn't enough this year. I feel like I should begin by offering a disclaimer that I am not (really) withholding information from you, nor am I about to announce that I am getting married or, forbid, pregnant. There will be no talk of babies gracing these digital pages (not that there's anything wrong with that) or gratuitous shots of small doughy beings with disarmingly pleasant smelling scalps. Was that too much? Maybe I should have used "heads" instead of "scalps," which veers into the field of vocabulary employed by psychopaths in my mind.

Mama and Papa Geisha are coming to town, despite the song saying it will be Santa, and what would a visit to Tokyo be without an awkward cultural encounter with their daughter's pseudo in-laws? I am throwing them into the deep end. Let me also preface this by saying that I will be translating the whole damn thing, despite briefly considering asking my only cool Japanese girlfriend (OCJG) to come along and help, offering her a free meal and a front row seat at what is bound to be a fun cultural shit storm. I plan to start sculling wine as soon as we sit down and when I get so drunk I start babbling at my own parents in Japanese, I will simply tell everyone to talk amongst themselves and go out into the cold December air for a cigarette.

Talk of this dinner has been happening for over six months now and is about to reach fever pitch. Dotting this timeline, we have changes in attendees, discussions of attire and gifts and, perhaps most importantly (aside from my own personal meltdowns), who is going to pay for it all. I've been running so hot and cold as to think I am pre-menopausal when it comes to who will grace our fair dinner table. We had initially said the parental sets and maybe Baby Daddy and then of course during the summer, the beau had to go and invite Baby Mama (and Baby Mama's baby), which, despite all odds pointing to her obvious attendance, I cannot seem to rationalize or think about without getting riled up. I know that she is more family than I am at this point, but while everyone is telling me the baby will be a welcome distraction, I can't help but see it as a distraction from me. As in a distraction from me and my party.

Have I mentioned I know I'm crazy? I am pretty much resigned to the situation and haven't thought about asking Baby Daddy to just bring the baby for at least ten days now. It's all about the small steps. I have however, come up with a new reason I don't want Baby Mama there: who is she to share in my special family time? I can only guess at what will actually be said during this upcoming dinner, but I don't think BM deserves to be privy to it. Cue a few sentences where I tell you just how much I realize this is petty, unfounded and completely wack. BD is a doll for the most part but this Japanese girl I hardly know attending my dinner has caused me to exhibit some embarrassing behaviours in front of the beau. Luckily, he already knew I was a queen. I promise to try and be a good drunk and not let something snarky slip out about not being in a pregnant rush to get married.

The beau's mom called us a few weeks ago and started grilling him on what to wear and what kind of dinner, specifically, we were hosting. We tried to impress upon her that it was a casual affair and that I didn't want them bringing any extravagant gifts for my parents. Apparently the protocol changes depending on whether we are calling this an Official Engagement Party or a lower cased introduce-the-parents-party. The words and greetings exchanged also change according to category and despite explaining that my parents wouldn't know what the hell was being said to them in any case, the beau's mom insisted that we define it for her.

Talk about international negotiations. We have the beau trying to placate his mom while I am trying to discern whether she will listen to him on the omiyage front at the same time running interference with my parents. It's really the gesture that counts, so I have given instructions to bring a small assortment of delicacies from Vancity, which will be appropriate whether the beau's parents bring something or not. I also had to explain to my mom that there isn't a set "exchanging of the gift" time or ceremony where it all goes down simultaneously with flash-bulbs going off, so there is no need to plan on bringing an incognito bag to hide the gift in case it isn't reciprocated and we-don't-want-to-embarrass-them-or-make-a-huge-cultural-gaff. I'm tired, are you?

The one issue I thought we had agreed on came to a grinding halt during one of our nightly conversations that take place when I am practically sleep talking and the beau has returned from work. We really need to put a stop to these 3am conversations. When we initially talked about who would pay, I suggested that everyone just put money in, unless this would offend the beau's parents for some reason. I can't have my parents pay for dinner and drinks for 8-10 people and I wouldn't necessarily expect the beau's parents to pay either. The beau said either his papa would pay or we would ask everyone to give us money. Fast forward to 3:12 a.m. and when I confirm this agreement, the beau says he/we will pay for it. There were a whole lot of noyouwonts thrown around and then just for good measure, I started in with that I wouldn't have approved BD and BM coming if I had known we were going to pay for everyone. Illegitimate sister-in-law-hood problems aside, that's just fucking stupid. Let's go to a beach in Thailand instead stupid. I don't want the beau paying because ultimately, that means I will be paying too. Lord knows what is going to happen when we get the check but I'm hoping everyone quite literally starts throwing money at us.

Everything else, my controlling personality will have to leave to fate, or the other people sitting at the dinner table. There has been some talk of me receiving (his) mama's engagement ring, which we have never seen, and having it put into a new setting. It's kind of crushing to think how good the beau's parents have been to me and how it potentially could have turned out so horribly different. I'm hoping if she does bring it, there will be none of it at the table because wouldn't it just be my luck to be told to try it on and struggling to just get it on my pinky like a foolish motherfucker (while chanting in my head "just get it on whitie, you are a strong, powerful woman"). As a wise friend once said, old diamonds tend to be small diamonds, and I would also like to be spared the throat pain of getting all high and whiny in effusive praise for something that may put me off second-hand gifts. Either way gentle readers, it promises to be a smashing evening with the potential for disaster!

The Event of the Season (III)

2010-12-07T17:03:00.001+09:00

Before I delve into the delicious December gossip, it might be a good idea to finally bring the wedding that was to a close.

I think I left you where we were getting booted out of the reception hall and it was only oh, about 2 in the afternoon. Weddings are strictly timed here (not as in, see how fast you can do it, but to ensure the whole thing fits within a set time slot, probably to make way for other suckers, I mean happy couples), so as soon as the lining up and crying and candle lighting was done, it was very clear that we were to, well, clear out. We grabbed our goody bags and had to go through whatever is the opposite of a receiving line, despite being family, providing yet another awkward opportunity to bob up and down at Baby Mama's parents. We did get mini cans of Asahi Super Dry though, which was a thoughtful touch.

Are you chewing on your hangnails to know about the gift bags? It is normal at weddings here to give a gift to every guest that is around twice what you predict will be received from them. If I were in charge of the world, I would say let's give the married couple half the amount and call it even. I have no need (or room) for photo frames and fugly crystal vases that are not my taste, although I did once receive a lovely set of Tiffany rock glasses. I buy so much already, I hate to receive stuff that I am not going to use, it is such a waste, not to mention this gifting system basically means you are buying a useless gift for yourself.

Inside each bag was a box of cakes and a nicely wrapped catalogue weighing several pounds. Apparently lots of couples do this - provide a gift catalogue with a pre-arranged label, and their guests can choose their own gifts. Later at home the beau and I scoured through the catalogue and I kept trying to guess whether everything cost the same. What a strange idea. The catalogue included food products, household items, clothing and even a small toolkit, and flipping through the pages was kind of depressing. Not because you shouldn't be allowed to buy questionable products from a mail-order catalogue, but because this was a result of some of the 70,000 yen we shelled out. I told the beau I didn't want to order anything, they could keep the money, but if you don't order something within a certain time period, the catalogue people will just send some consolation gift basket as everything is prepaid. And god forbid you don't walk away with something for your efforts. We ended up ordering a bottle of sparkling and a knife to replace the 100 yen store one I am several cuts away from slicing off a finger with. That's right, I will drop money on clothing and dinner and yet I have been using a $1 knife to cut with for the last three years. Moving on then.

I went to the bathroom on the way out and as I was washing my hands, I looked up to see a polished and sleek suited woman calling my name. I couldn't place her and yet she knew exactly who I was and was doing that wavy spazzy happy puppy thing Japanese girls do. Hopefully my look of complete blankness wasn't a dead giveaway, because the next moment I placed it: the suspicious sex friend from our unfortunate foray into the Saitama concrete jungle! Mama was looking fine! No longer wearing a too small and too short dumpy denim skirt that made her legs truly look like the beloved "daikon legs" one hears about here, she had her hair blown out and was wearing long strands of pearls with a black pantsuit (something I have never seen a woman wear to a wedding here). We had a happy little reunion while I silently wondered as to the true nature of her relationship with Baby Daddy, but I guess we will never know.

Back at the hotel we all stayed at, the beau's mom, aunt and I locked ourselves in an empty room to get changed. I didn't know an interrogation was also on the menu. You saw the pictures of these tiny women compared to my looming 5'6 frame, and yet, as they went about efficiently folding up their kimono and packing everything away, they managed to grill me about the state of my relationship with the beau. I don't think I should have to deal with questions from his family, so I tried to deflect the conversation on to him and suggested that they talk to him about it. This made them ask whether he was dragging his feet and that was what the hold up was. How could I possibly explain the myriad of reasons we would not be getting married the next month. His mother clucked that my parents must wonder what the hell I am doing over here, cohabiting with a strange man for so long (quite the opposite). His aunt started to fold up my kimono while I was getting undressed and we stopped a minute to laugh at how silly she looked running up and down the length of the bed to fold up all the extra fabric. With her own short frame, she can fold her own kimono while standing in one place but mine required her to go back and forth from collar to hem to get it all in place. The the beau's mom suggested that, if my parents ended up coming to Japan in December, why not just get married then? She is sweating for us to get married.

God I hope she doesn't think I feel bad that we weren't married first. I also hope she doesn't think I am going to get married quickly at some shitty hotel service with no dancing just so I can be married. I mumbled some crap about it being hard to plan an international wedding and they let me out of the room.

A short while later, BM and BD showed up at the hotel, having changed out of their frumpery and looking like a couple of teenagers. No honeymoon, no romantic send off, they spent their wedding night having dinner with us and then going back to Saitama. Sad face. Dinner was really nice actually, albeit a tad strange seeing as no one really knows BM and yet there we were, having dinner with her on their wedding night. In the elevator down to dinner, BD turned to the beau and I and with a shitty little smirk apologized for getting married first. Although he was just trying to be funny it took all my soul to smile back. Why does everyone think I want to get married!?

So there you have it gentle readers, that is about all I can remember from the most highly anticipated event this year. Now we can talk about what comes next.

The break-up

2010-12-07T12:24:00.000+09:00

My secretary broke up with me this week. Praise the lord.

It started last week with some murmured snippets about some desk shifting about to go down, but I didn't dare get my hopes up that it would be her moving. Not having to deal with her weird sour puss attitude and continued resistance to acknowledging my existence was more than I dared hope for. Having her continually in my peripheral vision all day every day was starting to do my head in. I have realized though, that her issues cannot be chalked up solely to her being Japanese, and I think she is genuinely just kind of fucked up. Case in point: she always eats lunch at her desk. I do too, for the most part, but I do it because I am a lonely whitie with a vag. What with her nationality and ethnicity behind her, she should be able to fit in with the other secretaries and score invitations to lunches where bore-me-to-tears conversations abound. The fact that she does not is suspect.

She is now gone, far down the hall and out of my line of sight. Not surprisingly, she said absolutely nothing to me about it, but made a point of saying goodbye to the nice secretary diagonally across from me. The first I officially heard about anything was when that new quiet secretary who used to sit next to me, came over and said that again, she would be joining my quad of shame, yoroshiku, etc., thank you very much. I feel like I have written in detail about the two quiet secretaries who used to sit near me, but for the life of me I cannot find it. In short, they were unnaturally quiet. Hanging up the phone in slow motion-type shit. I don't think I ever saw either one with a plastic bag or anything that could have emitted an offensive sound. I became painfully self-conscious of pulling a tissue from its box, taking my sandwich out of its bag, popping open a diet Coke, even the sound of my palm-sized stapler sent waves of paranoia through me. The worst part is, they weren't simply quiet, they were purposefully quiet. I could see the pains they took to ensure total silence and it in turn, pained me.

So this is who I have sitting next to me again. We will see how it goes. Three or four days after my secretary moved, she finally sent me an email to tell me that one of her main duties in relation to me is being shifted to Quiet One. And that maybe she should have told me earlier. You motherfucking think? I was so very very very tempted to write back that yes, she should have told me, and while we're at it, she should have told me she was moving too. I mean, my nose is so freakishly tall that sometimes I miss things going on to the side of me and holy shit was I surprised to turn my head one day and find a completely different person sitting on the other side of the divide. I am still trying to decide how to ask my secretary whether she is still my secretary or whether I should now direct everything to Quiet One. I am of half a mind to just email HR and have them clarify things for me since she is not being very forthcoming.

Living in Japan blurs the lines for me and I am left wondering about the motives behind people's actions: are they targeting me as someone who is foreign and female, or are they just ass holes? I alluded to it a little in my most recent manner post, but I am struggling with the extension of kindness to strangers. I'm not sure where the turning point came and went, but somewhere along the way I got it into my head that everyone is against me. There are obviously many exceptions to this rule (even at the Kaisha), but for the most part, sadly, I automatically assume that people outside of my little corner apartment in Nihonbashi are out to get me. I suppose I could easily draw this conclusion living somewhere else, but never have I encountered such a wall of passive-aggressiveness and people fronting all kinds of attitudes in my general direction.

Late last night as I was riding home, I came upon a group of six or seven salarymen taking up most of the sidewalk (which, by the way, is spacious on Showa-dori), so I moved to the very far left so as not to break up their group. What do you know, but two of them decide to move to the same side and then split up, making it almost impossible for me to squeeze through. I would have dismissed it as that peculiar and frustrating habit of people here to go completely against (my) logic when moving around other pedestrians and bike traffic. Last night though, the two salaryfuckers must have decided to fuck with me, because they had to move away from the group to block me and as I barely made it through swearing out loud at how tight they had closed ranks, the whole group started laughing about it. Those two in particular deserve to have Mavis run over their fucking underused balls. Now class, did the salarymen gang up on me because I was a foreigner on a bike? a female on a bike? a foreign female on a bike? a person with wavy hair on a bike? a sweaty person with wavy hair on a bike? a sweaty female on a bike? I will never know.

Do it again, Sven

2010-12-01T17:10:00.000+09:00

Admission: as I walked by this very quickly, the only plausible explanation in my mind was that this strapping Swede called Sven was showing Creepy the correct and fashionable way to tie his scarf. In my harried mind, this poster was serving to warn how a long scarf could lead to your demise if the doors closed on it. All that fresh air on my bike in the morning must be doing me in, for as I glanced at the last picture, it seemed perfectly natural that Sven would be giving Creepy the thumbs up after trying to impart his flawless continental styling tips. It was not until I nabbed this image of the Tokyo Metro website that I realized that this was about not getting in other people's ways, and that Sven's scarf knot with a gay gym-bunny vibe was a completely incidental but welcome aside to the whole thing.

Second admission: I love that I am no longer a slave to the train! I am an adoring fan of the subway system here but only when it doesn't involve going to and fro work. After my years on the Tokyo subway, I have become hardened and not a little jaded. I used to think I was a polite stranger, but now I am not someone you would want to fuck with underground. It saddens me not a little that I have such an attitude now and instead of apologizing at bumping into strangers, I immediately feel wronged and issue a little "fuck you" in my head. This is not cool, I am turning into one of those gaijin we love to hate!

Third and last admission: I am kind of excited about December. I won't be reversing my stance from two years ago but I did watch the Royal Tenenbaums last night for the first time in maybe five years and not only did I remember that it is one of my favourite movies, it put me in the holiday mood. Whatever the holiday mood is for a Jewess in Tokyo saying to herself, "does Hanukkah start tonight?!" Get me some candles.

See you hopefully sooner than later gentle readers! (Just to prove my love, I promise to finish up all the loose ends from this year, including but not limited to, how I almost cried during my kimono test, the surprise guest at the wedding back in April, the upcoming family entanglements and maybe as a bonus, how I have been naked in front of several hundred Japanese people.)

That's mama-san to you!

2010-12-01T16:30:00.000+09:00

So remind me, where were we? Although I have not yet penned the third and final chapter to the Event of the Season, aka the wedding of Baby Mama and Daddy, we all know how it ends, with a wee babe, which is what makes shotgun weddings so predictable! Well, Baby Mama has finally earned her name and she is truly a mama now. The beau and I finally made the pilgrimage out (up?) to Saitama to see his small niece and BM for the first time since the wedding. Obviously she is just darling (the child not Baby Mama) and when no one was looking I tried to get a few head sniffs in without scaring them into thinking the large Whitie was trying to suck the small defenseless Japanese baby in through her (tall) nose. Someone needs to bottle that scent, stat.

We took some pics and oo'd and ahh'd and all went out for dinner. BM is nice but I don't think we will ever be super close, not least of all because she lives in Saitama. I was obviously on the look out to see how she would behave towards me seeing as she is now the daughter the beau's family never had WITH an official ring AND an official baby (collect them all!). I can chalk part of my keen observation skills up to being culturally curious but really, I have a vagina with an A-type personality and an axe to grind. You figure it out.

Part way through a conversation about my solo expedition up north over the summer, BM is talking about some "mama," and it takes me a couple seconds to realize she is talking about the beau's mom. And a couple seconds more to feel totally scandalized. The beau and BD call their parents "papa" and "mama" as I have noted before, but I could not believe that this trollop with a baby accessory was calling her (our/whatevs) mother-in-law by the common "mama." I used to avoid calling the beau's parents anything at all, which is pretty easy breezy in Japanese, and if pressed, I would call her "okaasan," which is perfectly acceptable and decorous. I managed to keep it all smiles and grace through about six more beers and then on the way home I let the beau, the poor man, have it. Did you hear her call your mom "mom"?!? What the fuck is up with that? Even I don't call her that! Wah wah wah all the way home.

Being diplomatic and not possessing a vagina, the beau explained it away as her simply imitating what BD calls his parents. Do call me out if you happen to know otherwise, but Excuse Me? I don't see any Japanese ladies calling their mother-in-laws (excuse the wordiness but I refuse to use the initials that plague wedding/family chat boards. Slash I don't get most of them.) "mama." I wonder if BM calls her that to her face! I'm still pretty skeeved about the whole thing, trivial and petty as it is, but I feel like I have put a number of years of work into this family and BM just waltzes in after a night of unsafe sex squawking "mama." Alternatively, we could just call it what it really is: plain old competition of the female variety.

I have enjoyed a few years as the white (but still perfectly acceptable) de facto daughter to these people, which frankly is not hard when you are licensed to wield a kimono and your competition is an endless parade of underage girls who couldn't show you a breast if you paid them. Now within the span of six months I have been practically ousted from my position of privilege by a floozy from Saitama with incredibly fertile eggs. This is of course a gross exaggeration given my frequent emails with okaasan and my solo maiden voyage north, but as someone who may or may not produce the two crowning jewels for any woman in this country to be worth a damn (marriage and babies, natch), I'm starting to schvitz under my ta-tas a little. Everything was rainbows and lollipops when I was the only girl on the scene with my somewhat understandable Japanese and adorable interest in regional Japanese festivals, but now they have a Real Live Japanese Daughter (spawn included), I'm starting to feel a little put out. It didn't help matters when okaasan sent me a photo a couple weeks ago of the wee babe with a message indicating that her and otousan (or "papa" if you are a biatch from Saitama) had recently visited Saitama for a night. As much as I would like to think Saitama is far far away from Tokyo, it actually isn't. Obviously, being child-free means I have nothing to entice them to come to Tokyo. Only time will tell and while I work myself out of being a complete sook I will think pleasant thoughts about disposable income, travel and the intoxicating smell of tissue paper holding some new item of clothing.

We will see in coming weeks (shit is going down at the respective casas from whence Geisha and the Beau sprang) whether BM dares to call the beau's parents "mama" and "papa" to their face. In the unlikely event you were wondering, she calls me Geisha-chan. I can't help but wonder if she will ever call me "onesan" like a good Japanese family member because although she is technically older than me, my attachment to the beau, the oldest son, trumps age (ha!), making me the older sister. I've heard her call the beau "oniisan" so I don't know what kind of racket she is running but in her defense, she is dealing with an unwed whitie of questionable status. Maybe I should suggest she call me "whitie" from now on and we call it a day.

Dark river night

2010-11-06T16:41:00.001+09:00

Hooking up with Mavis is possibly one of the best things that has happened to me during my time in Japan. Deep into our honeymoon period, we are tearing it up all over town. I even thought I would be clever and take her to my last eyebrow threading appointment in Nishi-kasai AKA a place very far from central Tokyo when all you have is your legs to carry you. I thought it would take about an hour of concentrated love-making with Mavis to get there and thought, why not? I had nothing better to do that Friday night than get my brows lined up and take a monster bike ride.

Getting to Nishi-kasai from my side of town, I have to cross two rivers. Two! Here I thought I was living in a metropolis, who says there isn't nature a-plenty to enjoy. The way there was fairly uneventful but long, and things didn't start to look iffy until I was starting to cross the second bridge, which spans a wide big Bertha of a river. You would think with such a wide river, the footpath on the bridge would be ample but no, there was barely enough room for two bicycles to squeeze by each other and wouldn't you know it, the only crazy motherfuckers crossing the bridge were on two wheels. Have I mentioned that it was windy and dark? So I am pedalling for my life across this huge bridge, until I approach other bikers of course, when I have to slo-o-ow it down so that we can cross paths unscathed. It felt rather like a wild nature safari after my years of self-imposed confinement to concrete.

Pretty-browed and a short break later, I prepared for the journey back. Biking far and wide is fabulous as long as you remember that you must ultimately rely on your own two legs to get you back home. It was recommended that I take a different bridge on the way back, one with more girthal allowance, and as I headed to the first river, instructions on turning right or left were promptly carried away on the wind. Reaching the river, I automatically thought the bridge to my right was the one I had come over on and so I logically started towards the bridge to my left. "Left" is a bit of an understatement; "bridge way the fuck down river" would be a more fitting description. Away I pedalled, sometimes glancing down at the dark black river churning to my right. A yakata-bune made it's way down the river with its kitsch red lanterns swinging to the waves and as I looked across the river and saw nothing but low buildings and fog trimmed in hazy light, it occurred to me that I was very far from home, Toto. I couldn't see clusters of high buildings in Shinjuku, Shibuya or any other civilized hub. This caused me to pedal faster and with more purpose towards the bridge in front of me.

It was as I passed under the bridge with no on-ramp in sight that I started to feel a little nervous. I had been told explicitly that the river path led right onto the bridge and well, this huge bridge way over my head was not looking accessible from on top of Mavis's leather throne. I did the only logical thing to me at the time and began to pedal inland from the river, thinking that perhaps the on-ramp to the "bridge" started way over there where my eyes couldn't reach. Notice how I just used bridge in quotation marks? That's a little bit of foreshadowing right there, for as I got further and further from the river and into abandoned industrial area save for a lane of very fast cars, it began to dawn on clever me that perhaps there was no path over the "bridge" if you weren't in a car, or by the looks of it, an eighteen-wheeler truck. It was Sophie's choice trying to decide whether to keep going further in to find this path that frankly, was beginning to look as if it existed only in my head, or to turn around and go 30 minutes back to the bridge to my right. No one in the world knew where I was at that moment, so I decided to cut my losses and head back to the original bridge. Turns out, this "bridge" I had planned on crossing? It was a fucking highway.

It also turns out the original bridge wasn't the original bridge, but the one I was supposed to take on the way home to save myself the stress of playing chicken with other bikes. By this time, exhaustion was setting in and climbing up the bridge's steep incline, I was actually uttering the mantra "You are a strong powerful woman, you are a strong powerful woman", possibly out loud, to get me over to the other side. It was that or think about how not even the beau knew my whereabouts and if I didn't propel my ass home, I was going to be spending a night camped outside a Jusco (yes, that is how far out of Tokyo Nishi-kasai is).

Almost two hours and a regular coke (which I never drink) later, I made it back to my sweet sweet home and basked in the comfort that is feeling surrounded by concrete and department stores with things I cannot afford.

but who's counting

2010-11-05T16:45:00.001+09:00

Hello Hello Hello Hello. That is the echo heard over the internets when you've neglected your blog for um, about a year (I've been busy making sweet, sweet love to Mavis). If anything was going to lure me back in, a host with yellow hair in a questionable style is at the top of the list. That and the fact that we get to meet Baby Creepy again who has had a sudden growth spurt (and appears to either be doing a nazi salute or backhanding his mother's ta-tas).

The young host looks smoother than Kimu Taku as he responsibly whips out his cell phone and makes a flashy display of turning it off (girl boner!). I love how he sparkles with little crosses after doing his good deed for the year but am a little confused as to what they denote: cleanliness? godliness? moving sniper targets? It's all the same down in Kabukicho. It's refreshing to see the Tokyo Metro using a broader spectrum of societal characters in making their manner points, but again, it seems to me they are at the same time indicating that it is the young part-time youth that are the problem, when we know it's actually the disenfranchised salarymen, mothers with strollers and white geisha who are the real problem.

Speaking of feeling disenfranchised, I have yet again caught my secretary doling out the omiyage to every other bitch with high heels except me. She's not bad at including me in the rounds when other people's swag is getting passed from quadrant to quadrant, but in the whole time we've not been besties, I haven't once received omiyage from her. And I know she has gone somewhere at least three times, even if it was just to Disneyland or somewhere equally close ( =still within approved omiyage distance). Humor me while I remind you that I have given her furry stuffed some-would-say-cute animals not once, but a total of two times. Twice! And yet she still acts like a pigeon-stepping paranoid spook around me and thinks I won't notice when someone stops by her desk and receives omiyage from her in plain sight. I don't know what I have done to her to cause such aversion to me that I no longer ask her for help when I require it; I simply figure out how to do it myself or ask another secretary who knows how to smile naturally and convincingly. I must simply disgust her. I wish she would hurry the fuck up and get married or pregnant already so she would just quit.

Slightly unrelated, but I feel it is my duty to make a PSA to all you fancy toilet users out there: If you are reaching to push the Sound Princess and accidentally hit the bidet button instead, for god's sake DON'T jump up in surprise before hitting "off" (you: cork, toilet: bottle of champagne). Obviously this is another one of those things I came up with through sheer thought process and not actual Real Life experience.

Bitch, please

2010-10-11T18:24:00.001+09:00

I think it could be a sign that you've really made it in Japan when you can verbally assault passersby in Japanese at the drop of a hat. If you'll humor me this hypothesis, then I can tell you that as of today, I have officially arrived.

The beau and I were prancing through Ginza this afternoon on one of the back streets when he stopped to look at a menu in front of a restaurant. There was a woman coming towards us on my side but I stopped and moved in towards the beau. I kind of actually hate when people randomly stop in the street to look at stuff but the beau had pulled over so what could I do. Stroller Bitch must have thought I should have waited for her to pass, because when she went around us (and P.S. there was plenty of room because it wasn't a street with raised sidewalks), she clucked her tongue and snarled "jama da yo" to me, which basically means "you're in the way" and not something you say to people in the street. Without missing a beat, I immediately shot back "omae ga jama da yo." I've discussed the use of "omae" before ("you") - I've seen it used to show familiarity among the beau and his family, and I've also gotten pissed at him for using it with me when we argue when it's used in a derogatory way. I was definitely not being familiar with Stroller Bitch when I spat it out at her.

Nothing more happened, she kept going and I turned back to the beau who was studying the menu with the concentration of a pro. Or that of one with a cray cray girlfriend prone to amuse and offend.

Immediately after the exchange I felt like crying like a little bitch. I think this was partly due to the fact that I was hungry and tired but I definitely felt uneasy about the whole thing. I've gotten into physical passive-aggressive shoving with people during my commute, which is well-documented, but I've never had such an exchange with someone on the street, no matter how many times I've wanted to. Which may account for my immediate and perfect response ("you're the one in the fucking way"). As with most humans, my response time is slow and I can only think of clever comebacks hours after the fact but today my delivery was pitch perfect. The practicing in my head has obviously and at long last paid off.

I feel pretty bad at the moment about the whole thing, although I really wouldn't have done it much differently to be honest: I don't know whether she would have said that to me if I was Japanese, I can only speculate, but I did want to make it very clear to her that I knew exactly what she was saying. I may have done a bad thing for foreigners everywhere just trying to make it here in Japan, and for that I am sorrry, but I refuse to take shit for something so trivial as not kowtowing to a woman who has decided to take her demon spawn out for a walk.

Let's Party

2010-10-07T00:14:00.000+09:00

Yes, let's.

Starting with some hot pants to go under my pleated navy skirt for those windy days.

And then on to some "loose" socks, those scrunchy white wonders adorning the legs of only the most fashionable school girls.

Super wide for extra scrunch and volume.

I think it might be difficult to ever make oneself inconspicuous here as a foreigner - even dressing "local" would be like walking around with a cardboard cutout of a tree strapped to your front and hoping to blend in with the scenery - but should you ever feel in need of a good dose of attention whoring, might I suggest a Japanese school uniform? I've only ever received a lot of random vocal attention all at once when wearing kimono or yukata but the uniform punches it up to a whole new level: you become part of the collective national fantasy. There is even a party held sporadically in Tokyo where you can unite with other uniformed lovelies and dance in front of gold-framed mirrors with dead animal heads on the walls that stare blankly at the gratuitous chandeliers. Why yes, I am turning 27 in a few weeks.

Young hip things (i.e., my peers!) in Shibuya even yelled nice stuff at me from their groups huddled on the dirty sidewalk doing god knows what. I was forced to snub someone once at the end of the night when this guy kept getting up in my grill: he thought he was being a conversationalist, I thought he was being an ass^hat. He asked me if I like anime to which I gave a vehement no and explained that I had merely been out to a party. Where people dress in school uniforms. So much hotter than anime (no offense otaku). I want to run off and join the schoolgirl circus.

That is a Strong Zero that I'm holding - I was going to go for a Slat (whose unfortunate name conjures images of Beavis and Butthead saying "slut") but was lured in by its long sleek body. And I rarely even drink these bitch drinks anymore - give me a beer or a vodka rickey any day.

I rarely try to bore you with non look-I'm-in-Japan content (isn't that all I can think about anyway, being in Japan?!), but seeing as I am dressed as a schoolgirl with a little jungle flava above, I feel it has provided a sound opener to draw your attention to the It Gets Better Project headed by the only sex columnist worth listening to, Dan Savage. With my dark heart things rarely make it in there these days but this has managed to. If you know a LGBT or questioning youth, let them know that it gets better.

Like two bikes passing in the night

2010-10-02T12:46:00.000+09:00

I was going to title this "Love at first bike," but then I found an even better platitude to make you cringe. One night last week on my way home from work, I paused at a busy intersection on my bike and looked up to see the beau across the street on his bike and on his way to work, waving. I suppose this was bound to happen eventually but given the number of different routes I've been using to get back and forth and the fact that our work places are on opposite sides of the Imperial Palace, I was taken completely and blissfully unaware at the coincidence in this anonymous capital and our being able to steal a quick kiss on the corner before going our separate ways. It's truly the moments like these that make all those fist-clenching ones easier to simply let go. (No more gaggy love stuff, promise.)

I'm not in a habit of naming inanimate objects, but I feel like my bike should have a name. What better name than Mavis? I can't pin point where my obsession with the name Mavis started, possibly around the time I was at an all girls' college in Wellington, but there was a definite era when I named everything Mavis.

I haven't had a bike since I was on exchange during uni, so getting on a bike, my Mavis, was incredible. Riding her home that first night past the Imperial Palace, dark and still, was nothing short of thrilling. It reminded me of my first car ride in Tokyo ever. Now I am used to taxiing through the city at inappropriate hours and even having been behind the wheel a couple times myself (rental car, not taxi), it no longer feels special, but when I was at uni here, I hadn't been in a car in months and I certainly wasn't taking taxis - I was at Pure until 5am and falling asleep on the train home, only to wake up in fucking Mitaka. But my first car ride after months spent popping up from underground at various spots around town and hurtling by the buildings on above-ground trains felt very foreign. Foreign and not a bit luxurious, sitting next to my first private student - an older lawyer type - in his Mercedes, as we glided through the Shinjuku neon. No, I probably shouldn't have gotten into his car, but I made a judgment call based on his business card, the fact that our first lesson was at the Hyatt, and that I could probably have taken him if it came down to it. If you ever get to the point where you feel you really know a city, try a different mode of transport - bike, double-decker bus, car, piggy-back and legs all come with their own unique perspective.

One first I did have last week, was the pure joy of riding a bike while listening to music. Do other people know about this stuff?!? I feel like I've been missing out all this time. Half-way through my ride home I decided to stick in my ear buds and HELLO WORLD!! I suddenly felt like I was starring in my own private music video on a bike and had to resist trying to dance while pedalling. I was content to think that biking itself was enough but this whole biking while musicing combo has just turned it up to eleven. Thrilling, I tell you, thrilling. I've had a similar feeling at the gym when I suddenly feel the urge to frantically twist my hands around in time to the Bollywood driving my workout forward or to start shaking my bootay to a particularly inspiring piece of rap. Try it. You can thank me later.

If you are on two wheels in Japan, check out these sites and articles about biking . Note that when I say "biking" when referring to myself, I am literally just propelling myself forward on a two-wheeled vehicle in a very perfunctory manner and am no way experienced, sporty or non-threatening to pedestrians. Regardless of whether you have a bike with gears or a mama-chari, the above sites should still prove interesting. With the feeling of fall creeping up, fashion magazines are dishing out forecasts on the next "it" accessory to have for this season but if you ask me, it's a bicycle hands down.

Ode to Osaka

2010-10-02T11:46:00.000+09:00

Can I just say that I think I belong in Osaka? Granted, Tokyo is uber hip and fast-paced and I can get my nails done with a cocktail in one hand, but the stuck up Kanto bitches pale in comparison to the fun-loving Osakans. And before you jump down my throat for generalizing, I understand that living somewhere is leagues away from actually living there. Just look at all the happy tourists who love to raaaaaaaaave about how damn friendly and genuine Japanese people are. When they say "genuine" I don't think they are talking about the smiling elevator lady who is picturing bitch slapping you in the same instant that she purrs irrashaimase.

Osaka how I love thee, with your throngs of yankii boys and girls, love of eating and drinking, and ability to converse with anyone. A break down of our trip in parts:

Part 1 - Osaka, gangsta style

Y-san, of Yakuza and Hotel Room fame, came to pick us up from our hotel in a tinted-window Lexus and drove us to a nearby spot with reggae and cold beer. The drinking commenced at 6 and didn't let up until around 3 the next morning and that was only because we all lost the ability to accurately aim the rim of a glass at our own mouths. While I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a negotiating table from him, Y-san is such a sweetheart as only a cute yakuza with tattoos can be. He kept thanking us for coming down to Osaka to see him and had lunch planned for us the next day.

Part 2 - Osaka, okonomiyaki style

We struggled to get up at noon and headed downstairs, this time to a van with tinted windows and a mad sound system. It was time to see what all the Osaka okonomiyaki fuss is all about. Hello fluffy sweet, sweet heaven. We lazed around our tables for a four-hour lunch while Y-san tried to hit on the waitress, a cute exchange student from China. While I would normally cringe at this kind of thing, I couldn't help but beam at Y-san like a fond younger sister as he kept exclaiming how pretty she was in a totally non-threatening way. He even showed her his full back tattoo, which I think was more the alcohol talking than a regular yakuza. Still, the one thing that surprised me the most was his readiness to discuss his job with us. I'm sure if we had been closer to his in-group it would be completely different, but it was like hanging out with a cool uncle who happens to have a shady job. When we rolled out of there buzzed it was dusk, making it feel like we had just transitioned from one night to the next, skipping those mandatory daytime hours in between.

Part 3 - Osaka, blond style

I ditched the beau and went off for some blond bonding with the fabulous Corinne, who I now really wish lived here in Tokyo. Not being married (with children) I kind of fall outside the foreign wives circle here so there's not a lot of you-have-a-Japanese-partner-too? bonding for me in Tokyo, which made it even more special to hang out with someone who knows the score only too well. Corinne was equal parts lovely and funny, and extremely patient when it came to giving the beau instructions on how to locate us (seriously, why don't Japanese men use GPS or ask for fucking directions?!). Girl, you need to visit Tokyo ASAP!

Part 4 - Osaka, baseball style

I had no idea that when I first wrote about Japanese highschool baseball two years ago that I would find myself there in person this summer, sweating in the stands and contemplating opening my parasol. I saw a few other women with open brellas but couldn't bring myself to do it and so got a lovely diagonal flash of burn from my one shoulder top. Hot.

I have always said that baseball is eight innings too long and to be perfectly honest, if there were no hot dogs or beer, I wouldn't ever step foot inside a stadium. I can see how the highschool baseball tournament here could be exciting to watch - unlike the pros, there are much more mistakes and sudden turning points to the games - but I enjoyed watching the cheering section much more. Each school brings their own cheering squad with matching uniforms, which includes both a marching band and actual cheerleaders with pom poms. At one point in the game, the beau pointed out a student standing at the very back of the cheering squad who was holding a huge school flag pole diagonally, and informed me that this poor schmuck had to do this for the entire game without rest, and that, get this, it was an honor!

I forgot to bring our binoculars, so unfortunately I was not able to hone in when the losing team began furiously scooping up dirt while crying, which is possibly the most riveting parts of the game for me. Highschool baseball is such a quintessential Japanese experience, and you know you're not in Kansas anymore when the teams line up in front of their respective cheering squads and bow before and after the game.

Part 5 - Osaka, night style

After getting lured into a love hotel area by all the pretty lights, we soon found there were no watering holes to be found. Where do these people hydrate after sex? Some more wandering and we found Osaka's Shinjuku ni-chome, and while there was a very interesting lady waiting for customers, any customers it seemed, in front of Bar Chicago, we decided to press on. This became a running joke for the rest of the trip - that we could always count on Bar Chicago to be there if all else failed. Patience wearing thin after entering another area with not much open, we saw this blue neon sign calling us with its siren song from the depths of a dark and narrow alley. I am partial to dark and narrow alleys, so obviously I dragged the beau's ass in there. With an upstairs loft area and 5 seats at the counter, we were soon engaged in raucous conversation with the bartender and the couple next to us. We were practically tripping over each other to experience the locals, and they in turn, seemed equally fascinated by these strange creatures from Tokyo visiting "for fun." I think their Osakan charms made the beau a little too comfortable, because before long we were discussing the whole "curtain/carpet" thing and when I was asked whether mine matched, the beau blurted out, "She doesn't have any!!!" Thanks for that, darling. Discussion on Brazilian waxing ensued...

The following night I was starting to approach the brink of bitchy when we couldn't find a place local enough to drink at, when a young thing approached the beau with a flyer. I of course was sceptical, thinking she was customer fishing for a hostess club, but nonetheless we followed her into a building filled with bars and cabaret clubs. Where we ended up was a typically Japanese nomiya with white leather and gold interior decor happening. With only one looong counter, it used to be a girls' bar, but after the turn in the economy, they made it an everyone's bar. I'm not sure how well that is working out though, as all the customers I saw were male. Not that I can blame them - apart from the male manager, the other bartenders were these super cool Osaka girls. I've never seen Japanese women like girls from Osaka - brash, loud and with a very particular conversation style, I immediately girl crushed on them. If Japan was highschool, the girls from Osaka would be the wild, funny, popular girls that every other student is intimidated by. We spent hours there, talking to the manager and a couple of the female bartenders; I even had the ole standard of beauty conversation with one husky-voiced bartender with a sparkly headband holding back her long caramel curls. As always, it began with praise for my big nose, which is fast becoming competition for my breasts. Why are some women here surprised that foreigners find them exotic and enviable? Granted, I don't necessarily (hello highschool in Vancouver), but you know, people from the sticks of middle America and manga-obsessed Europeans. I am so used to Asians that quite frankly, I am a little surprised every time I look in the mirror and see some white girl staring back.

I think we were a little shocked at the friendliness. The bartenders we encountered immediately begin engaging customers, smoking and drinking along with them to encourage a kind of camaraderie. Not that there aren't friendly bartenders in Tokyo, there are, but there are so many places in Tokyo where you can go for a drink and the bartender says nothing more to you than what is required for taking your order. To put it succinctly, we were smitten.

Also, can I just say for the record that Kinryu ramen is so-ho overrated? Yes, it's cool that you sit on raised tatami platforms to eat but the ramen itself is a major disappointment and the reviews make me think the ravers have never had ramen outside of Osaka.

Osaka has definitely made a play for my heart, and I may never look at Tokyo with quite the same love again. I am already planning how to get down again there for a clandestine meeting. Don't tell Tokyo.

I'm gonna Shanghai you

2010-10-01T17:09:00.001+09:00

It's like a bread line for the train! I wish this poster had been out a few months back when I saw red and threatened to cut a bitch (all in my head of course) when she tried to nudge me off the tracks. In fact, I think Tokyo Metro should market and sell a pack of yellow cards with the manner posters printed on them. I would carry them around in my purse for ease of reference so that whenever I spot a violation, I can pull the relevant one out and "yellow card" the offending party. I would do this while giving them my best "back off bitch" eyes.

I'm feeling rather groovy about this month's poster, possibly because I didn't have to see it this morning because I BIKED to work! Now that I have finally found a fairly non-populated route and my ass has stopped feeling like I just had anal sex for ten hours straight, things are looking waaaay up in the commuting department. I almost want to laugh maniacally as I buzz by on my bike because it feels so ridiculously good to be on it (but not in a bad anal sex to good anal sex way), pesky pedestrians and all.

I'm feeling so good about this month's poster, in fact, that my first reaction on seeing it was that we should all just make like we're in China, since that's what everyone is itching to do anyway. I just got back from a little exploratory voyage to Shanghai and I am so over the passive aggressive behaviour here - give me aggressive rock-out-with-your-cock-out craziness any day. The Shanghainese have no qualms about putting it all out there and rushing into that train before anyone can blink, and after seeing some similar behaviour here in Tokyo, I think it's time to drop the facade Tokyoites. Although there is the slight problem of comparing the Japanese to the Chinese; I think it could be one of the worst insults out there to a Japanese person. Take for example, exhibit A: I want the beau to stop spitting outside, so I tell him he is acting just like they do in China. Fastest behavioral turnaround I. have. ever. seen. For reals though, let's start gunning for it like they do in China.

Recent email to my parents

2010-09-01T12:03:00.002+09:00

Re: Vroom vroom

Bitches better watch out.

Snuggle up bitches

2010-09-01T11:28:00.002+09:00

I am digging the graphics and layout on this month's poster. A gentle reader alerted me to this ridonculous collection of posters gathered by Pink Tentacle. If you want to see some outrageous stuff, click the shit out of that link. I should have been in Japan in the eighties if it weren't for the fact that I would have been about 5 and not able to enjoy all that the delicious bubble had to offer. When a colleague of my dad's came to Japan and I took him and his partner to dinner, he wanted to know whether there were still buildings in Roppongi with a different discotheque on each floor, which he had apparently experienced on a trip to the Tokyo of Long Ago. The closest thing I know in Roppongi to a discotheque is Lexington Queen and even that is a stretch (notice how I am using the old name, which tells you how long it's been). After we ate I sent them on their merry way and although I have no idea what they ended up doing that night, I hope they found some glam.

What does this anecdotal nugget have to do with the manner poster? Absolutely nothing, but I am terribly behind on posting and have been for the last, what, year maybe, so I feel I should say something. It's holy shit September already and time to get serious about Serious Things but I am hoping and praying to Buddha that by November everything will be fabulous. Just in case you're worried that I'm not having fun, I am, and just this past weekend I was out at Koenji's Awa Odori festival with the beau looking like a show pony in yukata with hair sculpted and coiffed and asking a Japanese friend if he had been busy doing sexy times the night before in a Borat voice, which context he did not get of course but it was fine because the couple we're hoping to double date with did and everyone laughed eventually. Phew. Thank god for fun friends who can all laugh together even when the joke has to be translated.

I know I got a bad reputation

2010-08-19T17:15:00.001+09:00

and it isn't just talk, talk, talk.

Any of you know this song by Freedy Johnston? Most people who know me would probably not believe that I know the words to most of the This Perfect World album, but I do, somehow. I think my dad received a box of CDs from a friend/radio dj and Johnston's album somehow became a staple on road trips. I don't trust my memory so I had a squizz at his Wikipedia entry and apparently, "Johnston's songs are often about troubled loners, and cover topics like heartbreak, alienation and disappointment." Well fuck me sideways, I should have made one of the tracks my theme song for living here in Tokyo a long time ago!

I'm not sure if I've ever written it out loud, but you may have noticed that while I am fairly content to play the role of ostracized whitie at the Kaisha, I do try to "up" my, for lack of a better term, positive visibility, around the office when the opportunity presents itself. What do I mean by positive visibility? Well I know for a fact that people are rampant gossips but due to my sterile and minimum contact with so many of my Kaisha comrades, I don't get a chance to do a lot of personal PR. In other words, most of what goes around about me is based on some sporadic conversations with secretaries or observations you might make about an animal in the zoo - "G-san eats raw carrots," "Don't you think G-san looks a little peeved today?" or "G-san needs a haircut."

I don't mean to come off as a bitch on wheels around the office, but I'm afraid that's sometimes how my coping mechanisms are construed. On the rare occasion I engage in some kind of social activity or interaction that goes beyond perfunctory grunts, I try to act perfect, whatever that means. By my somewhat screwy logic, this will help to increase my P.V. (positive visibility, stay with me people!), and increase the flow of pleasant gossip tidbits that get traded behind cupped hands.

Yesterday I was finally invited to lunch by a Professional and two Secretaries. I say finally because I often do work for this guy and despite sitting in the same area and him twice sending his Secretary to me with cakes, I have only ever spoken to him on the phone. You may also find it interesting that said Professional walks by me on a daily basis because I am located near the smoking room (hello 1970s).

Let me just start by saying I think I have a new clush, which works out perfectly numbers-wise because my gyoza man is gone, much to my stomach's and eyes' collective dismay. How I would have liked to stroke that ponytail...

I never realized how attractive this Professional is because I only ever see him in profile, either passing in front of my desk, or reflected in the glass as he passes behind my desk. But trust me, he is damn fine. Or "fit" if you're in England. I didn't even mind the somewhat predictable conversation because I got to look at him the whole time, nodding and grinning so hard I woke up this morning with sore cheeks. When explaining away his sexily ruffled hair, he mentioned that he had slept on the floor of his office last night. Actual response: "Really? You look totally fine." Inner monologue: "Keep doin what you're doin, rarrr."

During the course of lunch, I was particularly careful to act over-enthused about everything, while still maintaining some modicum of lady-like posturing: "OMG you watch Gossip Girl too?!?!?!" "This gooey potato paste is super delish!" "You grew up in the Tokyo area? That's amazing!" Remember, I had one short hour to work my P.V. and hope that some tales of my goodness were spread around the office by 6. I didn't even miss a beat when my chopstick kung fu skills were praised, and when the Professional confessed to me after prodding by his Secretary that he had been wanting to have lunch with me for over a year but felt he needed to get his English up to snuff first, I just about flew across the table at him.

After lunch, I did the obligatory thank you email and got into an email exchange with one of the secretaries. I almost forgot how laughably over the top and childish my emails become when writing other women at the Kaisha. I normally would have said, "Thanks for lunch, let's do it again soon! G." But not here, here I go all out with, "Dear Secretary-san, Thank you so much for lunch today, I really enjoyed talking with you!!!♪♪ It was so fun. Please invite me for lunch again soon!!! (^ ^) Best regards, G." Now today's lunch actually was fun, but this is the kind of email I would send after a lunch spent checking my watch too. More on this later.

I think my short hour of happy Kaisha love time will be enough to last me another half year, at least. Unless of course, my P.V. strategies start working and fill my inbox with invitations. But I'm a realist - you and I both know that ain't happening. A few posts later I am bound to start in on the woe me, Kaisha bitch, schtick after I realize that no amount of personal PR is going to reverse the position I have entrenched myself in.

The Event of the Season (II)

2010-08-16T17:08:00.000+09:00

This has been a long time coming, but I will use the excuse the beau's mother gave me last week: "I have been completely drained since the wedding in April." A child was born however, over the weekend in fact, so I feel I should at least get through the wedding before writing anything about its tiny catalyst with big eyes.

So where were we? Lights, costumes and fire fit for a carnival I believe. There was no proper ceremony with faux priest, but Baby Mama and Baby Daddy stood on their little white platform and exchanged vows, rings and an extremely chaste peck (come on, I think a bun in the oven means the jig is up). Unfortunately I wasn't smashed enough by that time to yell "stick ya tongue down her throat!" and it is my humble opinion that such a display was sorely lacking.

Keep in mind, if you will, that this whole thing was being narrated by the hotel's wedding MC, with a voice and tone not dissimilar from those used by shopgirls. Just in case we missed some small detail, the MC was right there spooning it down our throats. Aside from the waiters and other minions running around, there was also the wedding coordinator, who wasn't coordinating in the way you might imagine, she was more like a puppet master. Yes, I like that, let's call her the Puppet Master. She was there not to ensure the smooth running of things behind the scenes, but that the whole wedding went off like a well-rehearsed play. A play where the director comes on stage and gives the actors directions as they perform. I wish I was joking.

There were toasts and as the eating began, so did the speeches. An employer and friend from each side gave speeches and when Baby Daddy's rowdy boss got up, he encouraged us to shout Banzai! after each of his toasts and just when I was wondering whether everyone else present knew this was a shotgun marriage, he toasted to the little baby growing inside Baby Mama's belly. Banzai! That took care of that and I had to force myself not to look at the beau's mom at this point to see how she was taking it. Let it be acknowledged that these people don't smile in pictures. For reals. When my mom saw the photos of me, mama and aunt, the first thing she said was that they looked very severe. This has caught on, and I find myself looking at cameras with a blank face these days, resulting in photos with me looked seriously ticked off. I honestly don't know whether the no-smiling thing has to do with this particular series of events or whether it is simply cultural. Any thoughts? I'm used to wedding pictures with people smiling their asses off so I can only imagine what Baby Mama and Daddy's album will look like: lots of lights, frothy white tulle and unsmiling guests. When I did look over at the beau's mom, she didn't look like she was celebrating at all, our whole table in fact felt a bit like that, and I did allow myself to feel a twinge of sadness. I'm not chalking it up to the whole shotgun thing, although that would certainly contribute, but I feel like part of it is the fact that, as family, we are supposed to mostly stay out of the way at the wedding.

Half way through, BM and BD disappeared behind the scenes and then when the MC instructed, we had to stand up and clap for the new couple again as they entered through French doors to a crazy light show going on up towards the ceiling. Their second outfits felt very Harajuku meets Versailles. I purposely didn't crop it to show you that every guest at the wedding was like a member of the paparazzi, snapping camera and cell phone pictures at every chance they could get. I put the beau in charge of my camera so at least I didn't have to pretend to be interested in taking photos at every small milestone as the wedding progressed. No camera = more time to swill wine.

In their new outfits, the new couple then did the candle lighting ceremony that I have only ever seen at a Japanese wedding, but I suspect Japanese people think comes from us. As they made the rounds to each table with the torch, the Puppet Master was right there with them, ensuring they made all the right movements and didn't scorch some bitch's big hair. I should probably mention here that during this whole ridiculous display, there was some awful flighty music that was probably supposed to encourage tears, and goddamn it if I didn't feel myself getting a little teary. I solved this by looking at the beau's mom, who still looked pissed off, which shocked me back into reality.

Your job as a guest is never done at a Japanese wedding by simply taking your seat. If you are a work friend, employer, school friend or part of the family, you must make the rounds to each table to pour beer for everyone and pay your respects. This looked exhausting but luckily my special unmarried whitie exemption precluded me from this onerous chore, and I got to remain seated while reaping the benefit of liquid respect paid to the beau and his family. I would put the time Baby Mama's parents came over with beer among the highest on the shotgun wedding Uncomfortable Moment List. You may recall my musings on how I would be introduced as the illegitimate white daughter-in-law sideshow and once again, the inappropriateness of Japanese politeness saved me. Every guest had a table chart showing who was who, so when Baby Mama's parents came over bearing a bottle of Sapporo, they knew who the beau was and there were perfunctory introductions by his father. None of which included me, the smiling freak show in kimono sitting next to him who looked like someone had just pressed the repeat button on her smile-and-nod-furiously function. I guess I shouldn't have expected any drawn swords or rolled r's, but I was mildly disappointed at my weak shock value.

Towards the end, which was timed down to the minute, Baby Mama read a letter to her parents before her and Baby Daddy presented each set of parents with flowers - par for the course. I believe at some weddings here, the bride reads a letter to her mother-in-law, begging for her kind favour and pleading for a married life out of her line of fire. Having only met the beau's mom once before this felicitous event, however, I guess that kind of letter wouldn't be super apprope. Before the grand finale and encore of applause (all dictated by the drill sergeant MC), the Puppet Master lined up Baby Mama and Daddy with the parental sets and you could see her going down the line telling them to step into place and when exactly to bow. Way to make an awkward moment even more cringe-worthy. I felt a bit sorry for the parents, really, being made to stand under the harsh stage lights while being groped and fondled by the Puppet Master. Final thank yous were given by the papas-in-law and Baby Daddy, and then we were basically told to get the hell out.

What would a recap be without a post-mort?! Stay tuned for the final part in this wedding trilogy, which includes the revealing of the surprise guest.

Bump

2010-08-16T17:07:00.002+09:00

While I was waiting for my lunch companions at the entrance to a restaurant today, an old man literally walked right into me from behind and then drifted off in the other direction muttering something to himself. A group of office ladies lunching nearby had seen the whole thing happen and were tittering about it to themselves. When I glanced over and caught one's eye, she gave me a huge knowing smile. I grinned back. It was such a pedestrian social interaction but one that I haven't had for what feels like years. I felt like shouting Yes! I am human too!

Road kill

2010-08-12T17:57:00.001+09:00

I've never owned a car or motorized vehicle of any sort, but from what I hear about them, I am kind of glad to be living in Tokyo with the web of trains connecting all points in the city: the money I would pay in insurance and up-keep can be used for clothing and footwear, and I only have to rely on my legs and the trains to get me from point A to B. This has now been tested. Again.

I thought the first time my heel snapped off and I had to quite literally hop to the cobbler where I was given a pair of ugly Office Lady shoes to wear to work while he fixed them was horrific enough. Apparently not.

The shoe gods put me in my place once again at the exact moment I crossed the main Shibuya intersection. I could feel something strange going on down there but as in the first stage of grief, was in denial that anything was happening. That didn't make the problem go away so I stopped and inspected the damage - the cork wedge heel was starting to come unstuck from the rest of the shoe, threatening to turn it into a flat. I decided there was no time for triage and that if I walked carefully and with purpose, it would remain stuck on. For about five steps.

The next thing I recall was feeling the ground flat beneath my foot and looking back, only to find the carnage laying a few feet behind me. I tried to do the whole picking-up-the-heel-of-my-shoe-that-just-fell-off-is-soooo-natural thing and quickly tucked it into my bag like a dirty tampon. I then did the whole walking-with-one-shoe-that-is-three-inches-higher-than-the-other-is-soooo-natural thing down Center Gai, which would have been par for the course post-Pure at 5am six years ago but not so much today. Luckily my shoe decided to commit suicide in Shibuya, where there are many a store selling cheap shoes, instead of Ginza, where I would have been one fucked puppy indeed.

I ended up with a ghetto pair of flip flops that are vastly inferior to cherry red wedges, but thankfully the wonderful and totally not Generic Jen B did not bat an eye at them, for which I will be eternally grateful. There isn't much of a moral to this story, but you can be sure I no longer trust my shoes to get me across the city and might have to consider a permanent space for a pair of plan B shoes inside my purse, because you know this shit is going down again some day.

SP recognized as fashion-forward

2010-08-12T14:35:00.001+09:00

While catching up on the glossies at the hair salon, I made the pleasing discovery that the ole SP has made it onto the hallowed pages of British Vogue. I wouldn't consider it brilliant though, not when you have to worry about whether it's going to run out on you every day...

Postcard from the Kaisha: masked edition

2010-08-12T12:16:00.000+09:00

Welcome to those of you finding your way over via Loco in Yokohama. If you're already a gentle reader of mine, please check out Loco's site for a different and well-written spin on Japan.

I suspect that I was recently schooled by my secretary but as always, I can't be sure. I've done a Kaisha Health Edition before, but recent events have given me pause to consider the issue again.

Last week (or was it the week before?) I developed a narsty cough but showed up at work diligently nonetheless. I say diligently but I'm sure others would called it stupidly, for who wants to sit next to an audibly sick person? I for one, do not.

However, not being able to take time off, I came in anyway and tried to be as courteous a cougher as possible. The next day, I arrived to my secretary in a mask. Exploring the possibilities, I can only think that she was sick herself, or else was making a passive aggressive gesture to encourage my donning of a mask as well.

Parasols, manic thank yous and apologies, and secretive toileting I can do, but I cannot get on board with wearing a mask when sick here. It looked like my secretary was wearing a small white muzzle. This put me in mind of a tiny dog I saw the other day fitted with a tiny muzzle, which made me wonder whether it would even be able to get its petite mouth open wide enough to do any real damage.

I think masks look creepy. I realize with stuff like swine flu around, there has been a big contagion scare, but this mask obsession has been around in Japan far longer than the flu scare. I understand the implied courtesy behind wearing a mask when sick and I'll admit to turning away from someone openly coughing, but the look is too freaky for me. I don't want to become known as Contagious Whitie (as opposed to Eating Whitie, Audibly Peeing Whitie or Ostracized Whitie - hey! collect all three!), but I am a bit stumped as to what to do when sick at work other than religiously taking my over-prescribed medicine from the Dr. I would love to know the statistics on whether common cold transmission is lower here or whether these masks are a total farce. I of course am inclined to think that the masks are fairly useless and have become more of a cultural thing, but I have most definitely been wrong before.

For the time being, I will just have to wonder whether my secretary is trying to beam a message at me from behind her little white mask.

Please do it again, man

2010-08-06T18:03:00.001+09:00

We can safely assume now that Mrs. Creepy has had a baby and yet she still looks positively geriatric in the August Metro poster. I find it interesting that they have used this young afro'd Japanese guy as the beacon of courtesy this month. I am a bit of a fan of Japanese men in their native footwear in the summer, but doesn't the rest of his look seem a little dated? I think a yanki guy would be a more accurate portrayal, as I can only assume that this guy with his Hawaiian shirt is supposed to represent the "type" of people in Japanese commuter society who are not courteous. And if that is indeed their intention, then a regular old fucker of a salaryman would be spot on, no?

You'll have to excuse my tone, but I have just gotten back from a mini tour of the big summer festivals up in the Tohoku region and it was a harsh fall back into reality to be confronted with all the jerks in their suits, the subway and yes, the Kaisha. I've been totally immersed in festival fever for the past three days, in and out of three different cities, and the drum and flute melodies that were floating around in my head immediately fled like startled children upon my return to the corporate world. If there was a sound effect, it would be that of a record player that's been bumped, sending a nice scraa-atch sound out of the speakers. I don't think I would do very well in the countryside - I thrive on concrete and the smell of new clothes in boutiques - but the last week has made me want to run away and join the matsuri circus. Did I mention that my chaperones on said tour were the beau's parents? I went up there by myself like a big girl, minus the beau, and was accordingly treated like a young lady in Jane Austen's time: on the road alone and susceptible to highway robbers and all other manner of bad characters. There are no real horror stories to tell on that front, but I think we ended up drinking at a snack in Aomori city despite the beau's dad telling us it was a regular watering hole. Pictures to follow.

Under my para para para

2010-07-29T20:39:00.000+09:00

It's happening, I am slowly becoming the wayward gaijinette who is falling prey to the native customs. I'm long past using the Sound Princess and carrying my purse in the crook of my arm and this past week I took it to a whole other level: the parasol, or sun umbrella, if you will. Summer after summer I thought that I could avoid the parasol, thinking of it as one of those things I could get away with in Japan but nowhere else (except other Asian countries that place a premium on milky whiteness), but I have succumbed gentle readers. I found myself rustling through the sale racks at oioi (or "Marui" if you must), with determination to walk out of there with either a fabulous wide-brimmed hat a la Hollywood starlets in bygone eras or a parasol.

I will admit to being a bit of a vampire this summer - rarely venturing outdoors on weekdays until twilight - but when I am outside I'd like to avoid sunburn and with my tall nose and all, sometimes sunscreen just doesn't cut it. There's also the grease factor and I'd rather not use sunscreen when I am only going to be exposed for less than 30 minutes. Perhaps you have seen some of the summer fashions of the sun-conscious faction around town these past few weeks. I wouldn't exactly call them fetching with the black arm "warmers" and what I can only call "Asian lady visors." I first encountered the ALV in Vancouver, where the older Chinese ladies like to rock out in the summer wearing these over sized visors that you can pick up at the suburban Asian malls.

Determined not to fall victim to this, uh, trend, I thought a tasteful hat or parasol would shade me from the harsh rays. During my foraging attempt at oioi, I nixed the hat idea after seeing some "young" versions of the ALV. Turning to the assortment of parasols, I discovered that a) they are fucking expensive and b) there is no such thing as a stylish parasol. The last time I owned a parasol I was a little girl: it was candy red and ruffled with a white plastic handle and for some reason I want to say that my uncle picked it up at the horse track. I was the shiznit at five with my ruffled red parasol and pink feather boa. At 26 I still wouldn't mind being the shiz but with a little more grown-up added to the mix. I'm as drawn to sparkle as the next girl and still rock gold bamboo hoops at times, but I was hoping for a modern and stylish parasol that screamed neither "little girl" nor "old Asian lady."

The sale area was a bit overwhelming and I almost talked myself into buying a white ruffly parasol with a purple print that would be more suited to a lolita cosplayer walking around Harajuku than a Kaisha geisha. Everything was either lacy, adorned with rhinestones or printed with ugly flowers. WHY MUST EVERYTHING BE CUTE? And fugly cute that that. I tried to reason that the turquoise parasol with cut-out bow trim fit my bill but in the end settled for an off-white model with only one rhinestone on the whole thing. Stingy of me, I know. Thanks to the sale and some gift certificates, I barely paid anything but the parasol was originally 10,000 yen. $100 for a lousy piece of moving shade!!! Imagine how thrilled I was to discover it raining this morning.

Sting me white

2010-07-29T11:55:00.000+09:00

Comments have been responded to! It may take me a while but I do appreciate them. Now on to regular programming...

I have to be extremely careful when I'm at the drugstore because while some of the products bear seemingly familiar names and logos, one of Japan's charming little idiosyncrasies is the propensity to add a little oompf to regular products by either mentholating them or adding a whitening agent. I may joke about being the resident whitie at the Kaisha, but frankly, I don't want to get much whiter than this.

A girlfriend of Indian (dot not feather) descent once used a skin cream from Japan that had an almost bleaching effect on her skin. She relayed the story of how her and some school friends shared the product around and she ended up with strange, patchy markings on her neck. Not only the Japanese brands, but some well-known European cosmetics companies also offer "white" product lines for the Japanese market. I can't begin to understand the chemistry of it, but I would be hard-pressed to believe that whitening your skin is not damaging.

While there may be no cosmetic damage, mentholated products also intrigue me. When I was a student here with a minor rash, I soon discovered that the ointment I had bought for it contained menthol, not an ingredient high on my list when I am applying it to skin delicate and raw from being scratched. Luckily the drugstores here do carry "normal" versions of the product you seek, but for those masochists out there, there is always the methol version. I wouldn't call the beau a masochist by any means (he would definitely answer "s" when posed with the common-in-Japan question of "s or m"?), but he has become attached to a mentholated body wash that apparently leaves you feeling fresh and rejuvenated. I tried it once and the pain I felt in certain areas I can only liken to that felt when bathing in the dead sea as a teenager. It really gives a new meaning to the phrase "fire in the hole."

Once while "holidaying" up North at the beau's family home, I had to buy some contact solution at the local 7-Eleven having forgotten mine in Tokyo. The following morning when I went to put my contacts in my eyes, sur-fucking-prise! mentholated contact solution! If that doesn't wake you up while simultaneously giving you a stoned, blood-shot look, I don't know what will.

For the menthol-inclined smoker, Japan is a veritable paradise. Not only does Marlboro sell "Black Menthol" brand cigarettes (best described as the king of all menthol cigarettes), but Kool has a line of cigarettes where you have to physically pop a menthol capsule embedded in the filter with your fingers for the menthol goodness to seep out. High tech, I know.

This is my version of a gaijin public service announcement: please take care so that you don't end up bleached or stung by some unexpected menthol dear readers - it's a bit like navigating a jungle out there.

Children of the corn

2010-07-12T14:50:00.000+09:00

Katakana throws me through a loop sometimes and encourages bad habits. When I can't think of a word in Japanese, I often throw a Japanese accent on it and hope for the best. The best being the other person understands what the hell I am babbling (or babbring?) about. I suppose this could be compared to visiting France with limited French knowledge and Frenchifying English words in the hopes it translates. That's not all though, I am terrible about pronouncing katakana words properly, which is easy for me to do when the Japanese word is close to the English original but with some unexpected vowels. I used to say shocoreto for chocolate, instead of chocoreto, throwing a continental spin on the first "ch" sound. I realized my mistake when ordering chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins and the woman behind the counter corrected me.

My Japanification of words does not always work, as I found when I tried to say masturbation with a Japanesque accent. The details of precisely why I was saying masturbation in Japanese are not important, but I did find out that the word is actually onani. This has its roots in some other language but I unfortunately cannot find the link I was looking for so you'll have to take my word for it. Incidentally, the word for fart is not faato, but onara. With so many titillating words crowding my head, it is easy to mix them up. Luckily however, asking "did you just masturbate?" when you wanted to say "did you just fart?" is not such a horrible mix-up, for you could probably safely ask the latter of someone you feel comfortable enough with to enquire after their gas. It's definitely not as bad as saying that you want to smoke some pole when you had intended to tell your boss that you wanted to eat chanko stew.

This past date night with the beau, we went to Corn-Barley in Shibuya, a dining bar with a wooden interior that has a fairly impressive and cheap selection of bourbon. The name of this restaurant sounds (and looks) like corn valley in Japanese, and no matter how many times I am reminded that the name is actually Corn-Barley, it is forever imprinted in my mind as Corn Valley, so that each time we go there, I am surprised to learn that we are not visiting Corn Valley but Corn-Barley. This could also be an indication that my mind is turning into a sieve. I will leave you with a piece of advice: don't use "dining bar" to describe a dark moody restaurant that probably has a bar in addition to tables where you can partake in wine and food, to someone who doesn't live in Japan. It may be a handy term here to describe the plethora of trendy holes being dug all around Tokyo, but it's not actually English, contrary to what your mind might be telling you.

*I realize my feed has not been working, probably because I fucked with it. I think I may have fixed it, but if not, kindly let me know.

Sound Princess Headache

2010-07-12T14:25:00.000+09:00

It could be said that I am becoming obsessed with this seemingly innocuous button that spews forth the sound of rushing water to cover any embarrassing sounds during my toilette. But you would be too if you had to concentrate with every fibre of your being to ensure that you got all your business done during the Sound Princess's run time. For reals, I have to either pee really quickly before the sound stops or press it a second time to extend my window of safe pee time. There is added stress when things are taking a little longer and there are other occupied stalls - I have to constantly reassess whether to press the button again or whether I can get it all done before the sound runs out. I don't want to be one of those girls who keeps renewing the SP, because that would give it all away wouldn't it. I know how I look at other ladies when they come out of a stall after extending their safe time more than twice or having just had a one-on-one coochie spa session with the bidet feature. Some women feel so paranoid I can actually hear them increasing the SP volume once it gets going. Yes, gentlemen, you can turn the volume up. You can also yank frantically on the toilet paper roll to add to the symphony being conducted in your stall. The latter technique is most often applied when I first step foot on the tiled bathroom floor, alerting some other toilet-goer to the fact that she is no longer alone. It's almost guaranteed that the moment my heel hits tile some previously solo toiletter is pulling on her toilet paper roll for dear life.

Today I have an SP headache. It could just be left over from an intense session at Dan last night (ladies in Tokyo, try this!) but some days I can't handle the cacophony of faux rushing water. It's not just the sound either, but the creeping exhaustion that comes after constantly worrying about whether my toilette sounds are being fully covered. On days like this I turn down the volume on my SP or I forgo it altogether, piggybacking some other woman's SP, which is all fine and dandy until it runs out and I am caught out mid-pee. It's like hanging off the edge of a fucking cliff. Thank god we all wear heels because if the warning tap tap tap of our soles didn't signal the need to employ the SP, we would have a serious problem on our hands.

Skeletons in my locker

2010-07-09T22:30:00.000+09:00

When I recently decided to splurge for a long-term locker rental at my gym, I had to sign a contract one of the clauses of which had a long list of things I was not permitted to store in the locker. Scanning down the list, "dead bodies" kind of jumped out at me. Is this common or special to Japan, where people seem to like cutting up their victims and stashing them all over the place like a sick treasure hunt?! Freakay. I personally don't know how us ladies could possibly fit even a severed hand after the mountain of beauty products and electrical appliances.

In more selfish news (?!), the beau and I are taking a little jaunt down to Kansai next month to pop our Osaka cherries. If any of you gentle readers are feeling charitable (especially after I used the words "recos"), I am looking for recos for food and drink, which is basically all I plan to do down there, save for a quick look at Osaka castle. Sleeping recos would be appreciated too, particularly cheap places or love hotels with freak-a-leek themes! Comment below or hit me up by email to the right. If I was the kind of blogger to sign off with "xoxo" I would do so here but I'm not so, uh, thanks in advance?!

July Manner Poster

2010-07-07T17:05:00.001+09:00

The post title speaks to how I feel about the recent posters: uninspired.

I would be remiss in failing to acknowledge the new character introduced this month. Can I call him Muscle Daddy? Is that cool? He reminds me a little bit of the new tobacco hunk in town who has been popping up on some blogs recently. Perhaps this is a new advertising trend in urban Tokyo.

As for Creepy, he reminds me a little of the jerks who try to read the fucking newspaper in the early morning train crush, expecting those around them to allow for extra elbow room and frontal berth. I, girl who is getting crotch-pressed the fuck out of on all sides, do not need to tell you how I feel about this practice. What can I say gentle readers? It's July and I am hot and bothered!

Commuter Survival Tutorial Vol. 1

2010-06-23T17:04:00.000+09:00

I think it appropriate to begin this potential series (potential as you never know whether I will make it past the first installment) with a focus on umbrellas and how to use them to your pedestrian advantage. Why appropriate? you may ask. We've now entered the rainy season in Japan, a time when, at least personally, internal commuter rage is at its annual peak.

As an aside, I would much rather use the word "monsoon" to describe the month-long rains we see here every summer as it sounds much more hardcore than "rainy season," which makes the speaker sound like a pussy to someone hailing from the Pacific NW. Talk of weather here is a bona fide national pastime, but for the cajillion times a year people tell me that the summer is hot, it is really fucking hot. Sweat running down your crack hot. For the number of times I am warned about tsuyu (rainy season, whatever) in Tokyo then, you would think it would be some big production every year, when in reality, I don't notice it all that much. For me, "monsoon" conjures the heavens opening up and violently raining down on the peons below who go rushing out into the street to wash themselves. That doesn't exactly happen here in Japan. This doesn't mean however, that we can't pretend it does. And we do, really, despite that fact that people have it much worse in other regions of Japan and Asia when it comes to typhoons, rain, and snow. What am I getting at? For all the chow chow on weather here, I wish there was at least something fiercer than "rainy season," to describe the phenomenon that, if not particularly awesome in reality, certainly is in our collective conscious.

But back to what you came here for. Commuter skillz.

1) Ever walk down the street and have to constantly dodge people who are checking their cell phones, talking to their friends or gazing into the sky? Ever had one of them run right into you? You must not be using your umbrella properly. When it's not raining, you can employ your umbrella the way a crotchety old man might his cane, and use it to fend off irresponsible pedestrians. See a salaryman engrossed in his cellphone and heading right for you? Hold your umbrella out at a 45 degree angle from your side and the threat of this jabbing him will tear his attention back to the main task at hand - walking down the street. The threat of getting hit by an umbrella works with surprising frequency and indicates to me that people are paying attention, they simply don't care unless it's them getting hit. Is there a huge stream of people coming your way and forcing you to walk in the gutter? Stick out that umbrella and threaten to run it along each and every one of them, much as you would a stick along a row of metal bars. The crowd will part like the red sea and you will make it through unscathed. ***If you're past the preventative stage, your umbrella can also be used for restitution. A quick but sturdy accidentally-on-purpose tap on the offender's leg will have them thinking twice about not being a conscientious commuter in the future.

2) Ever have trouble getting down the stairs at a station on a busy morning (in addition to the shit eyes everyone gives you as you try to squeeze down along the banister)? This is where your sopping wet umbrella comes in. When it's raining, I never fold mine up until I am in the actual station. Instead, I hold it out in front of me like a jousting lance and watch as the commuters climbing the stairs suddenly don't feel the need to get all up in my face anymore. It's funny how afraid people are of a little water. Maybe Japan's rain is more dangerous than I thought?

3) Once you're on the train, don't think your umbrella's work is done yet. You can employ it as a warning device to anyone whose crotch is getting to close to your face if you are sitting, or, if you are standing, to someone who is breathing down your neck. A certain Foreign Salaryman has employed the delightful term "crotch presser," which makes me giggle and cringe at the same time because it is so bang on the mark. So how does this so-called warning device work? Well, despite being rather primitive and entirely manual, quite well. You simply use it as you would when walking down the street: eyes straight ahead, pretend to be examining a poster depicting a cure for pattern baldness, and allow your umbrella to accidentally-on-purpose (this is a key concept, really) wack into their leg and it's amazing how quickly they get the picture. I almost want to applaud them.

I'm not condoning random acts of umbrella violence, but simply showing you how, when employed with skill and light force, your umbrella can help to improve your daily commute through the sweaty crush of salarypeople. Good luck out there.

Learning to be Japanese

2010-06-19T12:30:00.002+09:00

At my most recent kimono lesson, the only other student there was a new person and it reminded me of how far I've come. Seeing the sensei repeat everything over and over while using hand gestures put things in perspective for me. I sometimes get discouraged during my lessons if I can't remember something, or if my sensei gives me a direction from across the room and upon me not understanding it, comes over to show me. By my own fault, this makes me feel like I'm not good enough for kimono, or like I'll never be as good as my Japanese peers, which is of course not necessarily true. Language and body movement aside, it comes down to skill and maybe some natural grace.

Watching and listening to this new person's lesson reminded me that just because I can't do something here, it's not because I am foreign or not Japanese, but because I haven't learned how to do it yet. This is something that can be so easily forgotten in Japan, where I often feel clumsy, big and like a giant sore thumb. I think it can be easy to get down on yourself living here, especially when you feel so different. I catch myself unconsciously telling myself that the reason I can't do something is because I'm not Japanese. Looking at Japanese people and thinking how well they do something (whether it is kimono or conducting oneself in a social situation) has nothing to do with them being Japanese, and everything to do with the fact that it is simply learned behaviour.

I'm not articulating myself very well so I will just say this: in no aspect of my life here do I feel desperate to fit in with Japanese people, save for my kimono classes. I look at these women and how incredibly natural they look in kimono, putting it on, and dressing others in it. I fret about sitting seiza and looking like the dumb foreigner who has to sit with her legs to the side and even then they cramp up. I worry that my teachers will be more lenient with me than other students because I'm foreign (totally not the case), while at the same time wishing I was a bit more spoon fed because sometimes I don't understand the words they are using and this school is my lifeline to kimono - kimono dressing is taught to us like we have mothers or grandmothers to sew shit for us or to pass on old kimono wisdom. Most of my fears above are unfounded. These women that I admire have learned everything that I admire about them, or had help from elsewhere. They weren't born in kimono and for them, in this day and age, learning about kimono is a choice, not something that happens by osmosis. This is somewhat comforting, especially as I progress in the higher level master class, where the teachers have no qualms about bluntly telling you what you're doing wrong.

Postcard from the Kaisha: perfect harmony

2010-06-16T07:44:00.000+09:00

Picture it, my secretary and I are sitting in our cubicles formerly of the white ghetto, and out of the corner of my eye I can see her eyes hovering above the partition. Looking back at my screen there is an email from her asking me to do some work . I am tempted to look over at her and acknowledge receipt of the email, but she is staring at her screen with an intensity I imagine comes from trying not to look at me. I have to repress a little smile that involuntarily forms at the absurdity of it all. I send her the stuff she needs, wondering if we will be greeting each other in the mornings by email from now on, and half expect her to vocalize her thanks. Instead, she sends me an email, thanking me for my trouble. We are each essentially pretending that the other is not within physical reach. This must be what it feels like to be in perfect harmony with another human being.

I may have to begin surreptitious construction of a wall that will run along the top of the partition, obscuring her from my view if I am to keep up this farce.

The Event of the Season (I)

2010-06-09T15:00:00.001+09:00

You may not have asked for a frothy white wedding with a dress change in the middle but that is exactly what you're going to get. If asked my initial impressions of the wedding of Baby Mama and Baby Daddy, I would tell you that it read like an instruction manual on how not to get married. And I'm not even talking about the whole baby up the hoo hoo issue either. But we'll come back to all of that later.

And just to give you plenty of advanced warning, there was even a special guest at the wedding! See if you can guess who.

After preening around the hotel lobby like three black peacocks, our gentlemen escorts joined us to catch cabs over to the hotel where the wedding was being held. The beau's cousin who I can't understand he speaks such a strong Aomori dialect, had come down with someone I think is the beau's uncle. I had just met him the night before and by met I mean was in the presence of for several hours but not formally introduced until after the first round of beer at dinner. By the time I yoroshiku'd him it felt a bit late and contrived but who am I to argue with tradition. Before the said dinner, the beau's mom had me in the elevator alone and asked when we were getting hitched. I tried to look aloof slash cute and told her to discuss it with the beau. Let him deal with it. This will not be the last of the corner-the-whitie-RE:-marriage-game and I frankly wish I'd of at least gotten an invitation to it so I would have known what to expect.

While I realize every detail of the wedding down to the cue to start crying was left to the hotel's wedding planners, the beau's parents knew absolutely nothing about what was going to go down in terms of contrived chapel ceremony or what have you. We had all received little cards in addition to the main invitation, inviting us to join a ceremony beforehand, so I was really looking forward to the English teacher moonlighting as a fake white priest (the priest part being fake mind you, not the white part). When we arrived at the hotel and were ushered into the formal waiting room however, it started to seem as if there wasn't going to be a wedding ceremony and I was starting to wonder why the hell we had been told to show up an hour and a half before the reception (read: drinking) began.

At last we were all called down to the basement of the hotel for the one and literally only, family photograph. Going down the hallway to the room, we got our first glance at Baby Daddy and Baby Mama, who were posed for photographs in front of some cheap-ass white arch that was being strangled with fake ivy. Under fluorescent lighting. Despite my protests, I was included in the family photograph. Plus one point for the beau's family because I was truly included in the circle of trust; minus one point for Baby Mama's family, who will forever have to contend with some random white bitch lighting up the only professional photo they have from their daughter's wedding.

Moving along though, we do have a schedule to keep. After the photos the reception hall was opened and as guests started wandering in, we wondered when the hell the actual ceremony was. Before entering the reception, each guest has to "check in" and this is the point where you hand over your hard-earned cash wrapped in a special envelope. Being the classy couple that we are, the beau and I gave our money in an envelope made from a cute furoshiki from a local shop, so that BD and BM can re-use it to wipe up spilled breast milk or something in the future. Are you interested to know how much we parted with? I may have mentioned before that people were telling us up to 100,000 yen is standard as siblings of the couple but this is kind of extravagant and frankly out of reach given the short notice (ha). When giving money at weddings, it needs to be in an amount that cannot be divided into two even numbers (signalling eventual divorce, etc.) so we settled on 70,000 yen, which is still pretty fucking ridonculous if you were to ask me for my honest opinion.

In exchange for our cash, we were each given a seating plan for the banquet room, presumably so that we could both seat ourselves and know which tables to visit to offer up bottled beer/respect. Not that this should come as any surprise, but at weddings here the seating arrangement is almost the exact opposite of its Western counterpart. BM and BD sat alone on a raised platform and the tables closest to them were for people from work. Then radiating out from that you have the tables for friends and finally, out in Siberia, the tables for family. People from work are given the highest honor while family members might as well be put in a separate dark room. Or even a closet. Sitting on every chair was the standard large shopping bag containing gifts from the bride and groom, said to equal about half of what we just relinquished at the reception desk. We will discuss this later.

After being seated, what followed was a two-hour circus complete with dramatic light shows above us, a fiery torch ritual and of course, a costume change.

Inappropriate clushes

2010-06-08T17:29:00.000+09:00

We all have them don't we, crushes on people that aren't necessarily our usual "type" or even, dare I say, mildly attractive? I'm not sure if it's a result of low self-esteem issues or that I'm pretty much over the fucking moon when people actually talk to me here, but I have a developed a small list of crushes that I am going to share with you in this all-exclusive tell-all.

Gyoza man: this guy who runs a gyoza shop by my apartment is actually physically attractive. He is one of those very special Japanese men that can get away with (nay, should have) long hair tied back in a ponytail. Call me un-PC but he is a modern day samurai and this is fucking hot.

Smoking professional: professional at the Kaisha who is not only not typically attractive but smells like smoke. I honestly have no idea why I like doing work for him (no connotations there, please) but I seem to find him charming despite the way he shuffles down the hall in exhaustion looking as if he is about to fall over. Maybe it's because his secretary once told me he never grins at her the way he does me...

Easy cool guy professional: cute, young and well-groomed professional at the Kaisha. He does not have a dorky accent when he speaks English and speaks it with confidence. He signs his emails "Best, Kenji" and I think this is super cute and not a little cool.

Dapper professional: we weren't ever totally sure of his orientation but Other Whitie and I used to dote on this extremely well-dressed professional at the Kaisha. He makes argyle sing and looks exceptional in pink and grey. He even has a slight British accent to boot, despite being Japanese, which is so freaking cute. American accents on Japanese do not achieve this effect.

Tokyo Metro guy: he is responsible for my safety during the morning rush hour, maybe this is why I've come to crush on him. The sure and steady way his white-gloved hand points his flashlight down the train platform makes my heart flutter. He doesn't have the buffest physique, but I am a sucker for uniforms.

NHK guy: he arrives at all hours of the day, even on the weekend after the dinner hour. He little oyaji face peers up into the security screen inside my apartment waiting for me to open the door so he can charge me for NHK, something I rarely even watch. I do not open the door for him. OK, this last one is a complete lie but I couldn't help myself.

Any inappropriate crushes you'd like to share with me?

Weekend in snapshots

2010-06-07T17:16:00.000+09:00

Back in business.

Remember when I went to try Heineken's super cold beer and felt like a gullible victim of false advertising? Well I am pleased to say not much has changed. I tend to shy away from lining up for things although it is all the rage here and really, how can you truly know the value of something if you don't have a line to judge it by? Let me tell you a little secret: I have my suspicions that people line up here because of the line. Everyone is dying for a little exclusivity so if you see a line here, well shit, whatever it is must be worth lining up for.

I do make an exception for beer that is chilled below zero. Asahi has set up a temporary standing bar smack in the middle of Ginza that is open until mid-August where they will be showcasing their Extra Cold Super Dry (don't you just love stringing adjectives together) for 550 yen a pop. And, gentle readers, let me tell you, it is tastay. It doesn't do anything exciting like burn your tongue off, but it is extra cold. If you like the sensation of your gums burning, I suggest you order their 3-kind mapo tofu dish and take a little spoonful of the one on the far right. I suspect they do this so that you will order more beer, and nothing the beau can say will convince me otherwise.

I will admit to being a fan of the show in public and a skeptical one of the first movie to you here, so it was only natural that I go see the second movie this weekend. I figured if it was terrible, I could simply severe its connection to the show in my mind, which is basically what I did for the first. In my mind, Sex & the City ended in the last episode of season six. This most recent movie was embarrassing. At first I thought the lack of laughs from the audience came from poor translation but in retrospect, part of it probably came from the simple fact that it wasn't that funny. Or sad for that matter. The movie's treatment of Islam was appalling and while I get what they were trying to do when they had Samantha throwing condoms around and gyrating in front of a group of religious men, it made me cringe. And then of course there was Carrie's wide-eyed little girl look as she took in the wonders of the Middle East, which wasn't dissimilar from the clueless look she had plastered on her face in Paris. I understand what it's like to be in a new country where you don't speak the language or culture, but these four women are shown to be completely out of fucking touch. I shouldn't have expected much, that's true, but given their age, salaries, lifestyle and purported wisdom, the SATC ladies look like a bunch of crass first-time tourists (not to mention they only hang out with white people at home). Props to all of you who visit other countries without acting like this and bigger props to those of you living in Japan as graceful as you can be as a foreigner. Lord knows it ain't easy.

After seeing the movie I couldn't wait to get online and read all the scathing reviews, which I have now done. I then moved on to Metropolis and this gem of an article where they round up four Japanese "versions" of the SATC ladies and interview them. Thank god they did, because the woman who was supposed to be Japan's answer to Samantha threw out this nugget of poop, the ramifications of which I am still considering:

Q: The women in Sex and the City have such melodramatic love lives. Is that true for you, or for your friends or Japanese women in general?

A: The characters' lives can't really be compared to the ones of Japanese women...My friends, or perhaps Japanese women in general, are more virtuous and have better morals than people would imagine.

Does this mean she thinks Japanese women are all thought of as floozy sluts willing to spread their legs for brand-goods? I would love to know what she considers to be virtuous and moral qualities in a person. Srsly. Funnily enough, I didn't encounter any women like this when I went for a pre-movie drink at the Oak Door bar in the Hyatt. I recall reading somewhere that the scene at the Oak Door was akin to that at Heartland but with higher monetary stakes. I would tend to agree with this wise person and add that not only is the financial standing of the men higher, but the age too. That goes for most of the local women there as well, who I'm sure were virtuously looking for some investment banker strange. Fun times.

How to make me want to cut you, bitch.

2010-06-04T21:36:00.002+09:00

Rock up to the yellow parallel lines on the train platform indicating where the doors will be and stand on the left side, which puts me on the right (in other words, you dictated the side I stood on). Despite this clear demarcation of directional duties when it comes to which side of the door we will step to when the train pulls up (not to mention years of social training and conditioning), decide to try and step diagonally towards the stopped train so that you are in front of me (i.e., on my side). When, as we wait for the doors to open, I try to assert my territorial power and jockey to get in front of you, if only to teach you a lesson, start to push your whole body into me so that when I don't back up you are putting pretty much your entire body weight into me. Feel that physical passive aggressive tension? That is me not backing down. When the doors finally open after what feels like an eternity of pushing against each other, try to shove me out of the way with your arm so that you can get into the crowded train first. When that works and I shove you back, poke me with your fucking umbrella once our backs are facing each other in the middle of the carriage. You must have me mistaken for someone else with my hair like Goldilocks'. I have you beat in both the weight and height division, lady. I was having a pefectly fine day until now. I could really put the hurt on you if I wanted but instead I am standing here, fuming to myself about what a rude fucking woman you are, didn't your mother teach you better and haven't you lived here long enough to understand the train lining up rules!?!

This is why I get headaches.

Please do it agaaaaaaain

2010-06-04T14:25:00.000+09:00

And agaaaaaaain. How appropriate, especially given we are about to head into the rainy season and then another hot and wet Japanese summer.

Not that I use the phrase "hot and wet" on a regular basis, but when I do, it always brings to mind a snippet of dialogue from Good Morning Vietnam, the soundtrack to which I had memorized well before seeing the actual movie. I didn't even know what the Vietnam war was but I could recite things like "It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle." I could tell you it was "Time to rock it from the Delta to the D.M.Z.!" for years and the DMZ could have been the name of a mall for all I knew. My parents had a cassette tape of the soundtrack and used to play it over and over on road trips. I must have been 7 or 8 at the time but I can still sing all the songs and mouth along to the snippets of dialogue between them, the only difference being now I actually know what a poontang is.

I suppose I should give some commentary on this month's poster instead of detailing the history of my filthy mouth. The good Samaritan this month has a striking resemblance to a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, perhaps even more so in the second box where he appears to be accosting Creepy Sweepy. He even looks a bit hot in the third box, but maybe that is just in contrast to Creepy's meek facial expression. Guy just can't catch a break. Bon weekend gentle readers!

Fingers, not legs, crossed.

2010-05-28T20:48:00.000+09:00

I have been to a number of places in Tokyo for, as someone once eloquently put it, female problems. Some have been better than others but in general it all feels very sixties housewife visiting the ladies doctor only to be told she has caught "hysteria." One clinic I went to even offered a "bridal check," which name alone makes me shudder. Apart from the white-glove lady attitude and hoist-me-up-and-spread-em torture chairs, one thing I have received at all of them is praise for my vigilance in receiving annual check-ups. This despite the general feeling I get that annual checks are not highly encouraged (apart from ward offices) outside of these clinics and once you visit one, well, you hardly need encouragement then, do you?

I don't think doctors here enjoy visits with patients unless there are cold, hard symptoms. Case in point: I visited a doctor last month about a persistent sore throat and when he couldn't figure out what to do upon noting that my throat was not inflamed, he immediately suggested shoving a camera up (down?) my nose. More recently, I visited the lady doctor about something that, while not an imminent threat, had been bothering me for almost a year. There was also the small matter of when I put it into google, it popped up alongside words like cancer, HIV, menopause - none of which I hope apply to me. Don't be alarmed dear readers, I probably just have an imbalance (haha), but it's driving me to distraction.

When I explained it to the lady doctor she gave me a look that I have interpreted as and you are coming to me, why? She hemmed, hawed and sucked some air through her teeth (ostensibly to kill time and make me think she was concerned) and eventually suggested I go off the pill. Which I have been on for eight years. Which if combined with another form of birth control makes me feel invincible, or at least immune to a baby. The lady doctor wasn't very encouraging and I felt like she was just giving me some homework to do so she wouldn't have to see me for a few months. We sat there blinking at each other for a few minutes while I waited and hoped she would come up with some more suggestions but she wasn't going to throw me a crumb. Fuck, I got more information off google than her.

In conclusion, I am going off the pill for a few months to see what happens, and by that I do not mean see if I get pregnant. I'm not thrilled to have to go off it and am more than a little paranoid about landing pregnant, especially in light of recent situations that include potent sperm that is related to the beau's. So dear readers, keep your fingers crossed for me - I have too much to do before I even think about sex as a procreational activity.

Down the hatch

2010-05-26T17:12:00.001+09:00

I was enjoying an iced latte at the corner Starfucks in Nihonbashi after work two evenings ago, when I thoughtlessly ran my tongue around along the inside of cheek and noticed something was missing. Now I don't usually sit on the corner tonguing myself but for whatever reason I did and I have my unconscious mind to thank for that.

You may have already guessed, but the Kaisha is not exactly the kind of environment where facial piercings are embraced. Shocking, I know, but stay with me here. Child that I am - and notice how I didn't qualify that with "rebellious" for I didn't have much to rebel against as a teen - I am not ready to give up my piercing. Despite being an aspiring corporate drone, I cannot bear to take it out yet, even though it's so small some people don't even notice it. So for most of the week, I leave only the back part of the jewellery in, and it generally doesn't protrude from my face. I guess you could say I am going undercover at work, pretending to be a well-heeled office lady when really, I just wanna rock up to a bar with my facial piercing and order a stiff drink. Only I am so not a badass.

When I was interviewing for jobs here, an older slightly pervy male acquaintance from my Waseda days suggested that I take out my piercing for interviews in Japan. I was kind of offended, thinking he should know that I know piercings are not job appropriate. But of course, I was forgetting that the mere fact I have a facial piercing must mean that I don't know what is appropriate, good or proper. I remember years ago a family friend emailed my dad an article about the relationship between pierced adolescents and academic performance, sexual risk-taking and the parent-child relationship, which caused him to scoff since I excelled in school and him and my mom knew pretty much most of what I was doing. Incidentally, this (now ex) friend turned out to be a lying scoundrel who had cheated on his wife for the duration of their decade-long marriage.

Not that North America has become so liberal on tattoos and piercings in public, but compared to Japan, it's pretty out there. I don't expect to work as a professional anywhere with a facial piercing but piercing is on the whole a lot more accepted, common and accessible across the Pacific. All reactions to my piercings in Japan have been of surprise, amusement and curiosity. I'm sure it helps that I don't usually look like a much of a wack-job. If you go to one of the more youthful areas of Tokyo (Shibuya, Harajuku, etc.), piercings are fairly easy to spot but I've rarely seen them on anyone older than teenagers or not part of a "scene" that tends to attract pierced followers. This isn't at all surprising in the country where new graduates who have streaked their hair with brown during university dye it back to a uniform black once they enter the job market. Earlier this year I was accosted by a guy with homemade fliers while walking through Shinjuku station. He implored me to take one and attend the heavy metal live show it was advertising. When he kept bugging me to take one despite telling him I wasn't interested, I finally turned to him and confessed that I was more into hip hop, but thanks. I'm not sure that a purple pencil skirt and heels scream heavy metal but maybe he had noticed my piercing?

In the seven or so years I've had my piercing, I've never swallowed it. During my Pure days it used to come unscrewed from talking a mile-a-minute at a club or violently making out with someone outside a club, and I somehow recall once rooting around in the pavement cracks at 6am trying to find the front half that had fallen off while waiting for the Koenji McDonald's to open. I don't know, I guess I used to be kind of classy like that. On and up, that's what I always say.

Frankly, I think the fact that I haven't had to replace the jewellery I wear in the piercing since I left Japan at the end of my year on exchange may be a testament to moving on and up. I actually lost both parts of the jewellery a couple times while on exchange, which always left me desperately phoning around Tokyo to find a place open that could replace it before the hole closed up. During one of these times I met a super nice and laid back piercer guy from back home who gave me the down low on piercing in Japan. He even went so far as to suggest that I leave instructions in Japanese on how to take my piercing out in my wallet in case I ever got into an accident. His reasoning was rather than figure out how to unscrew it, a Japanese doctor would tear or cut it out. Lovely. Another time I met a great deadlocked Italian guy who would serve you iced tea in the bright airy tattoo studio he worked out of before sticking you with a needle.

Did you know that most places to get pierced are medical clinics here? I didn't and am unfortunately too lazy to try and find the law about it but there are very few piercing salons, studios, what have you, for the express purpose of man-made holes. I know body modification is regulated by law overseas too, but for some reason in Japan this has resulted in clinics offering piercing as a medical procedure, rather than the ubiquitous incense-fused shops overseas. To tell you the truth, I would much rather go to a piercer whose profession it is to get your hole healed, than to a quack doctor who took a quick course in body piercing before adding it to the menu. Not that they're all like that but you know the way my mind works.

Back to my evening Starfucks session. It quickly dawned on me that I had swallowed my jewellery during the course of the day and had nothing to put in the hole to keep it open. One of the places I went before was closed, and the other no longer in existence, so I began to scroll through pages of Google babble bullshit before finding only three piercing studios in Tokyo. The next day I ended up at Extreme, which is a short walk up the narrow road next to Forever21 in Harajuku. People, if you are looking to get a hole opened in Tokyo, go here. Clean, professional and the two guys who run it are really nice. And OCD about sanitation. They didn't have the size I needed so I have a glass retainer in until my order arrives. I am almost tempted to get another hole but unfortunately, there's nothing I want done. So now here I am with a bit of glass sticking out of my face and hoping that no one notices and that the fluorescent office lights don't catch it when I am talking to someone. But wait, I never talk to anyone, so in this case, my systematic ostracization is actually working in my favour. Yes.

Circle of Life and the one where I find a use for the Sound Princess

2010-05-26T07:20:00.001+09:00

I'm not sure where to even begin to tell you the truth, but I figure some Christmas-covered cock is a good way to start.

I know I don't often post pictures, which would help to break up my wordy and lengthy diatribes, but I can't help but share this with you, dear readers. I can't tell you whether they just forgot to take down the Christmas lights or the his and hers bell set is always adorned with a light display. It was my first time at this Chinese joint that we wandered into after a string of places beginning in Aoyama and ending with Heartland, home of foreign men in polyester ties. I was both surprised and delighted to glance over while wiping my hands on my oshibori and find this bell and dong (?) set. Long story short I threw my credit card at the cab driver when we pulled up to my apartment building and jumped out to enjoy my Peking duck a second time. The next day on our way to lunch I pointed out the crime scene to the beau and was dismayed to find a small bird enjoying my Peking duck in the rain. If I wasn't such a hearty girl I would have turned right around and hid under the covers but I was hungry so I told myself some unfortunate salaryman had made the quickly disappearing mess and soldiered on. Charming I know.

This weekend was full of discoveries, for I have finally gotten on board with a pro-Sound Princess attitude. Sure I'll use it as much as the next kaisha ho, but I really don't like the idea behind it. You may feel similarly if you are female and in Japan. Come back and tell me how you feel when you're heaving into the toilet on Monday morning but don't want anyone to know. The Sound Princess came through for me, and for that, I am thankful. But not pregnant, so don't get any ideas about me following in Baby Mama's footsteps.

Indecent Proposal

2010-05-26T03:19:00.001+09:00

As I told you in my previous post, I met an older distinguished gentleman (is there any other kind?) at a party in Hiroo a while back, who essentially tried to make me his sugar baby. Did I happen to mention that he smokes a pipe?

This codger was older than anyone at the party by at least twenty years (I'm guessing he's in his sixties, although frankly, he could be in his seventies and blessed with those good Japanese skin genes), so I initially wrote him off as an old kook who had shown up at the wrong party but had potential as an interesting conversation partner. The warning signs began to litter our conversation but for the first little while it was quite pleasant hearing his stories about Tokyo back in the day and I almost considered sitting on his lap (and possibly crushing him) like Santa so I could loop my arms around his leathery old neck much as I imagine one does to their grandfathers when young, while he explained the concept of yase gaman, or fake stoicism. The term apparently dates back to the Edo period, to where he traces his own family lineage, making him an eddoko. This must explain his penchant for Minato-ku (apparently he never leaves it) and disdain for anything outside of the Yamanote line (Asakusa is not Tokyo according to him). I suppose my own humble area of Nihonbashi makes me about as good as someone from Saitama or Chiba in his eyes. Lucky for me, it didn't disqualify me from the running and Mr. Yamamoto soon pulled out a business card from the pocket of his dapper suit and told me to call him. On a landline. You'd think the first idea into my head would be I'm not calling you but instead, I wondered Isn't he worried about his wife picking up? Let's go on a date, he said.

Apparently there isn't a Mrs. Yamamoto, so I suppose you could say I met one of Tokyo's most eligible bachelors. Eligible and without cellphone. When asked about this, he told me they were a pain in the ass but that I could call him on his landline anytime, day or night. After a brief discussion on the demerits of young Japanese people today, it came out that I was Jewish and thus intellectually brilliant (his conclusion, not mine). I was mildly impressed that he had actually met real live Jews before and said yes, I would be delighted to join him for some matzo ball soup at a deli in Mita. His ease with stereotypes should have tipped me off to the disparaging homophobic remarks he would later make (qualified with but the gay bartender is a nice guy), which propelled me away from him and into a conversation with a young artist.

Now dear readers, allow me to tell you what he pulled out of his pants: a pillbox. I don't know why he thought I would want to know about his health. No, actually that is a lie. I do know. Mr. Yamamoto began to tell me about some strange illness he had and opened the lid on the box to show me at least 20 tiny pills of various shapes and colours. Then he patted me on the arm and assured me that he was fine, in good health and not to worry. I did not need to know that he can still get it up, but umm kay. Things also started to go downhill when he told me to walk behind him up the stairs so that I could catch him if he fell. Is this guy looking for a girlfriend or a geriatric nurse, I do not know, but he must have seen both in me. I'm trying not to be flattered.

I passed him on the way out the door and he reminded me to call him to schedule our date. I said I would for sure and accidentally on purpose misplaced his card. What can I say? It's all in a day's work for a green-eyed geisha.

Do it again!!

2010-05-17T07:10:00.001+09:00

This put me in mind of the Last Word a few weeks ago that had me thanking my lucky stars it hasn't happened to me...yet. Frustrating experiences like that in Japan often leave me wordless (hard to believe I know) and I always come up with the best comeback several minutes too late. Maybe this is best to preserve what small ounce of harmony I have left.

I don't have the whatever to analyze this month's poster, so quickly before I am out the door for work: things I am loving and hating this week - you be the judge:

Flipping through travel magazines researching a long weekend jaunt to Shanghai (Japanese travel mags have the best pictures)

Tickets to the Dreamgirls musical in Shibuya next weekend

Beer gardens have started to open for the summer

Possible trip to Osaka in August to chill with the yakuza gangsta-style (or should I say, steez?)

Sugar daddy propositioning over the weekend (more on that later)

The secretary who keeps coming over and speaking to mine in a volume 11 whisper for 30-minute stretches about what I can only guess are her konkatsu activities - last week's little nugget of charm included some guy she first pronounced ugly and then ratcheted it up to "medium looks." When my secretary said that medium wasn't so bad, this charmer had the gall to say she was only interested in ikemen. I think she needs to have a good look in the mirror while playing back a recording of her voice.

The Head Secretary - the queen bee of our office hive if you will - has moved in behind me, causing the two secretaries in my quad to officially freak the fuck out. The HS rules over all things secretary-related and I can only imagine what decision went on behind closed doors that led to her being seated behind me when I personally feel she was perfectly fine on another floor. With everyone on their toes now, I can probably look forward to a return to painful and unnatural silence, where the rustle of a plastic bag could get you shot.

Funny how I have so much (some may argue too much) to say about certain topics...

Dating myself

2010-05-06T20:59:00.001+09:00

Last night I took myself out on a solo date. Living in this neon jungle I always look forward to nights out with friends but I also kind of revel in my own loneliness some nights. This is not a throat-clenching loneliness that comes from a long day at the Kaisha, nor the startling feeling of desperation upon discovering there are no close lady friends to talk to. This loneliness is a little exciting - discovering that I am on my own time, with no agenda, I walk down the street both anonymously and conspicuously. And no one knows where I am. The sad alone times I can do without, but this is an exhilarating feeling to know that I can move through the city completely alone and decide to rejoin civilization when I feel ready again. I guess camping does this for some people.

One of my favourite solo date nights is to visit the used English bookstore in Takadanobaba to pick up a few books before heading across the street to Malabar, home of the lushest nan bread in Tokyo that when dipped in curry rivals chocolate for me. I sit there thumbing through my new-used books and dipping bread and when I'm done I'll wander the neighbourhood before having tea time at St. Marc Cafe, where it is absolutely impossible not to order one of their Choco Cro ("choko kuro"), or chocolate croissant. The chocolate starts to slip out the end of the heavy pastry as you work on it and is really something to behold. You can't run away from the choko kuro, I have tried. I would be hard pressed to choose between a nan & curry and a choko kuro, so I don't - it's date night.

Judgment Day, bitches

2010-04-29T14:08:00.002+09:00

This morning instead of getting some much-needed sleep or exercise I took my ass to a mini field trip organized by my kimono school. It was quite literally down the street from where I live, at a wholesaler I have passed by many times on my way to loftier times with a Suntory highball. We listened to a very old and small man speak about a dyeing technique that has been around for hundreds of years and is now only used by four people in Japan, all of whom are also getting up there. This has nothing to do with what I'm about to tell you, but I figure a little background information never hurts.

After the lecture while women were swarming around ordering bolts of yukata fabric, I ended up talking to the shacho, who happened to mention seeing a large group of foreigners near the local station with the words "trial day, May 21" on their T-shirts. He had no idea what trial this referred to and thought I might know, because you know, whities stick together. We discussed this several minutes with one of my teachers, murmuring over what this group of whities could be going to trial for.

On our way to lunch later, who should the beau and I spot but one of these trial whities. It also turns out that the shacho can't read Japanese because the lone guy's T-shirt said "judgment day" but I had not clued into this yet so when we walked by and he looked like he might hand us a flier, I asked him what the trial day was on his T-shirt and when he looked confused (in retrospect probably because he doesn't even know what's on his T-shirt), I asked what was going down on May 21. I figured it was a labour dispute or cross-border kidnapping case but the guy looked at me and in all seriousness said, "the end of the world." I must have looked a bit confused and I honestly almost asked him if he was joking, because the next thing out of his mouth is that "it's written in the bible." Well then. My people are only down with the older version of that book. Cue me power-walking away and asking the beau why the fuck I am running into bible thumpers in my small Tokyo neighbourhood.

Thank god for iPhones, as I was able to quickly ascertain that a certain Christian group had sent people to Tokyo for a couple weeks to teach the sinning Asian masses about Judgment Day next year. I'm not a huge fan of proselytizing and even less so when they come to Japan to distribute leaflets. Why not put the money towards people who literally need saving, like those down in Haiti? I'm not sure how many fliers whitie-on-the-corner managed to beg off onto people, but I've a sneaaaking suspicion that Japanese people aren't going to be particularly receptive to a religious salesman. They weren't a couple hundred years ago and I don't think much has changed. Even I was taken completely unawares when I probably would have been more hip to the situation had we been in Canada or the States.

I'm now heading out to see the Azuma Odori geisha dances in Shinbashi, to see how they measure up to those in Kagurazaka, which I have been attending every year. I may be getting judged next year, but at least I am feeling pretty fucking cultured.

Getting purdy

2010-04-23T21:41:00.002+09:00

I suppose if it was my own wedding I would have been more careful, but I woke up at 6.30 last Sunday morning with the distinct feeling that someone was sawing a serrated edge of some sort into my skull. I had intended my fake fiance debut to be calm, cool and headache-free but instead I opted for numerous beers, a bottle of white and two glasses of champagne the night before. This was definitely not the way to look radiant and heavenly.

I felt trapped in our 17th floor hotel room with nothing resembling a drugstore in walking distance and open at that hour. It was like being on a roof when someone's stolen the ladder. Plus there was the small matter of the 7.30 am salon appointment I had to make a few floors down. Just as I was descending into a pit of fuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccckkkkkkk, I thought I remembered catching a glimpse of a lone Advil at the bottom of my make-up bag months ago but a) didn't trust my memory and b) even if it was there I had probably already used it to quash another bout of irresponsibility. I held my breath as I approached the clear bag and would have shrieked in joy upon finding my saving grace would it not have set off another round of throbbing pulses in my head. I brushed off the lint and darkish smears and popped that sucker fast.

I somehow made it to the salon looking vaguely presentable (clothed with make-up and wild hair), marvelling to myself at the quick-acting Advil. The beau's mom and aunt were also getting their hair did so we sat in a neat row in front of the mirrors, caped in 1960s salon pink. I had numerous conversations with the beau in the week leading up to the Event of the Season and while he wanted me to go with something very grown-up and chic, I was thinking something more along the lines of subdued 109-girl. I refrained from relaying this to my stylist but we briefly discussed what to do with my bangs and that the main theme for the back was volume. This was about all I could handle at that hour and I fervently prayed that despite my lack of instruction, I wouldn't walk out of there with Southern beauty pageant hair. After getting rollered, the stylist began to craft what I can only describe as a mini-Antoinette do on the crown of my head, with a subtle nod to traditional Japanese hairstyles at the front. I figured with the volume I had happening at the back, I really didn't need any more ornamentation but she talked the beau's mom into buying me a kanzashi (hair pin) to stick in the front part of my nest. Yes, it contained both diamantes and pearls, but was more Breakfast at Tiffany's than princess cosplay so I let it go.

Our next stop was the dressing room, where we all took advantage of their kitsuke (dressing) services. I had planned to do it myself but I knew with an early morning deadline and the sheer pressure of the event, I would start schvitzing just looking at my kimono, so I tacked it on to my salon appointment. There is nothing like getting dressed like a professional - you simply can't get that much torque on your own - and the dresser had me cocooned in a matter of minutes. Going in, I wasn't sure what to do with my obi, as again, the beau and I had conflicting ideas about what was appropriate. He said I should go simple and elegant and just do a double taiko (drum) bow, which is what his mom and aunt would be doing as it is the most formal style. However, since I'm not married and am younger than Baby Mama and Baby Daddy, my kimono teacher said I could also do a more fun and elaborately shaped bow. My dresser and I compromised these two ideas, and she tied a double taiko in the back but with wings coming out of it (um, yeah). If we get to the heart of my feelings on the matter, just because someone didn't use a condom doesn't mean I should sacrifice the eligibility to wear a louder style that my age and single status affords me.

As we left the salon, I felt like I was being sent off to prom by ten Japanese women, and until the elevator doors opened, both my dresser and my stylist hovered around me doing last minute touch-ups. What can I say, it was showtime.

In case it isn't obvious, I am the slightly taller one at 5'6.

Postcard from the Kaisha: Bathroom Edition 2

2010-04-16T14:16:00.000+09:00

Although you may call me a liberal for believing that women should have the right to do their bathroom business without the aid of a rushing water sound device, I do have to draw the line somewhere, and that somewhere happens to be gargling. Really ladies, are we doing this outside the house now?

It's bad enough that I must contend with the occasional sound of gargling and the even graver offense of what I can only call horking, when passing by the men's bathroom, but put me next to a Secretary in the ladies' room who has taken the liberty of throwing her head back and having a good old throaty gargle, and you can bet money on the fact that I will turn and give her a dirty look. No she will not see it, but it does make me feel better and not a little smug that despite my Pee Free morals, I will not subject others to the offensive and frankly gross sound of liquid being kept in motion in my throat by a stream of air from my lungs. We are not talking about prissy feminine bubbles in the throat here people, but about a deep watery pleghm sound that could rival those coming from behind the door with an icon of a human in pants.

I realize these women have probably been told that they should gargle to avoid the flu but really, let's keep this shit at home. Or, if we really want to be lady-like about it, start installing sinks in bathroom stalls so that the Sound Princess can do double duty. Yukity yuk.

Learning how to talk nice

2010-04-08T18:28:00.000+09:00

This past weekend I went to see the annual geisha dances in Kagurazaka, a yearly ritual I have had since moving here. The beau even decided to escort me this year, despite feeling the same way about Japanese dance as I do his fishing game - meh. When it was finished we went out to a couple places in the area and happened to run into his kimono wholesaler customer, to whom I went for advice when I was purchasing my kimono a few months ago, at a bar. The beau was on a bathroom trip when the Wholesaler arrived, so he greeted him and affirmed that yes, that was his girlfriend sitting across the bar. When he returned, the beau, in true paternal fashion, told me to go and greet the Wholesaler, thanking him for his previously sought advice.

Now, I am not a child, and I like to think that despite my potty mouth and otherwise occasional questionable behaviour, I am pretty good in professional settings and around parents. My mouth and manners clean up real nice, so to speak. When it comes to Japanese however, I am constantly thinking about the wording I use with VIPs, and fretting that I'm not being polite enough. I wasn't even sure if the Wholesaler knew who I was, our visit at his office being so brief.

In true Japanese fashion, I wasn't even properly introduced to the Wholesaler when we went to him for advice. The beau had spoken of me to him before and he knew who I was, but there was no Wholesaler, meet G, G, meet Wholesaler. Because of this, I felt like I was in a don't-speak-until-spoken-to relationship with the man, and wasn't going to get up and brazenly interrupt his intimate conversation with his geisha companion just to say Whassup. I figured if he acknowledged me I could then start kotowing. Apparently this is not the case and the beau kept insisting that I get up and go over there. I eventually made him come with me to smooth out my entrance, and I launched into my politest thank you so much for the other day - thanks to you I was able to buy my kimono. A family sale? Why yes, please do me the favour of letting me know about it and I will certainly come by. Tra la la. My lovely friend who was with us also popped up and according to the beau's later assessment, led an excellent segue that landed her an invitation to the family sale too.

Later than evening, I asked the beau if my greeting had been appropriate. He said it was fine but this led us to further discussion on the ins and outs of etiquette here. I explained to him that had we been in Canada, I would have jumped up right away and said hello to the acquaintance, but this being Japan, I was unsure of how to act towards someone I had half-met once and as a result, felt it better to be seen and not heard. Apparently I was way off and should have immediately made my way over to him to pay my respects. I'm not sure what it is that paralyzes me but I think part of it has to do with feeling like my "respects" might be shaky to begin with and not wanting to bother the person, I wait until I'm spoken to. I would call this the "less is more approach." I now see the errors of my ways.

At another point in the evening I was struck completely by surprise when one of the geisha I know who had danced earlier that day, asked me if her performance had been OK. What do you even say to a professional like that? I was a bit dumbfounded and managed to mangle out a response, assuring her that it had been fantastic. Here too, things are a bit murky for me. At the dance she gave me profuse thanks for coming and I thanked her for arranging my ticket and told her that the dances had been great. Beyond this, how much am I to compliment her without sounding like a blithering idiot? This is one of the things I will just have to learn with time but I'm thinking I need to start being a little more vocal when my inner voice is telling me to shut up. For now, I can only dream of the day when my Japanese manners are so flawlessly executed it brings a tear to even the most steely polite Japanese woman.

II. Licensed to ill

2010-04-08T17:08:00.000+09:00

In the week leading up to my test I went to my school several times to practice but since I wasn't taking lessons, I could wear my normal clothes. This actually proved to be more of a hindrance than anything, because practicing dressing a mannequin while wearing kimono yourself trains your body to move in a certain way and you become accustomed to the restricted range of motion imposed by the kimono. Wearing my work clothes was a disconcerting feeling - not having long sleeves or the need to kneel with my legs firmly together. Once one of the teachers watching me warned that my movements were changing when I wore Western clothes and to pretend I was wearing kimono.

The morning of the test I went to pick up my kimono, obi and nagajyuban that had been finished literally just in time. This made me a little nervous because I had no time to practice with the kimono and to soften up the obi a little. Everything was folded into tissue paper and then wrapped in paper kimono bags.

I opened them up one by one and was almost afraid to touch each piece, lest I mark it with my mere mortal touch in some way. I do realize that I will have to overcome this in order to get my cost-per-wear down. The end of the fabric bolt of both the kimono and obi were also tucked into the packages, as they contained stamps and seals with the information on where the silk was woven, dyed, embroidered, etc.

And here is a sneak peak of the obi before I took it out. You'll have to wait on the kimono, I will post pictures in my wedding post-mort in a couple weeks.

I will never forget what it felt like putting the kimono on for the first time. It fit like a fucking dream and I don't think I would have ever known precisely what that feels like without trying on a made-to-order kimono. It's all very well getting any kimono wrapped around you, but when it is made to fit, the difference is palpable. The silk was heavy and cool to the touch and because there was plenty of length on the sleeves and height, the way it draped was noticeably different from any other kimono I've ever worn. It is this feeling that the kimono belonged on my body that has slowly changed my way of thinking from are these women fucking crazy buying new kimono to maybe they know what they're doing after all.

Dressed in my new finery at the school, my main teacher quickly ran over how the test would go: when our names were called we were to enter the room bearing our props in front of us like we were carrying a tray; we were then to bow and go over to our mannequin, put down the props and wait for the gun to go off; finally, we were to bow once again while saying please look upon me favorably or however you like to translate it, and begin our dressing fervour. The tatami room had been transformed and there were now five stools lined against the wall for the teachers, two mannequin in the middle and a tall folding paper screen behind which we had to wait to be called. There was one other student taking her test that day, and we smiled nervously at each other as we folded and took inventory of all the ties and undergarments we would need to dress our mannequin. My hands wouldn't stop shaking at this point and I couldn't banish the look of terror that had crept across my face. Despite telling myself that I was just there to dress a mannequin in front of five women, I was buzzing with nerves as I waited behind the screen to hear my name. My hand may have even turned purple at this point...

I. Licensed to ill

2010-04-07T07:51:00.000+09:00

Or at least to dress someone in kimono.

It's been a couple weeks since my test but I will be feeling the financial strain of it probably until the fall. I ended up having another jaw-dropping experience shortly after being told that I needed to buy a formal kimono, which entailed me buying an extremely expensive piece of wood. 60,000 yen expensive to be exact.

On the last lesson before my test, my teacher gave me a piece of paper outlining the test day schedule, with instructions to be in formal kimono, with hair and make-up done. And to bring the test fee - 60,000 yen. I just about choked up my tea that they put out at the end of every lesson when I saw that figure. I take my kimono dressing seriously but what on earth could justify a $600 test fee? You can probably take a test to pilot a plane for less than that and with kimono we are only dealing with fabric, not heavy machinery. I stewed on this for a few days, trying to decide whether to push back my test date, or at least let my teacher know that I would have liked to be informed of the fee a bit earlier because surprise! I don't have 6 Gs sitting in the bank, nor does my nonexistent filthy rich husband.

A delicate issue to say the least. Do I just put up and shut up? The real me wanted to call my teacher and ask her to explain the fee, after telling her that I hadn't been expecting such a sum of money and why didn't they tell me sooner?! but the foreigner undercover in Japan wanted to just say shou ga nai (it can't be helped) and pay the damn money. For the first few days I began to harbor a lot of resentment towards my teachers whom I had previously had nothing but the utmost respect for. I felt cornered and uninformed - why had they not told me months before the test that I would need a nice kimono (and 60,000 yen test fee)? Surely they have met with surprise before from students caught kimono-less and unaware, and especially being non-Japanese I don't have any kimono hand-me-downs from female relatives. I love that they treat me like all of the other students, not dumbing down anything or trying to simplify the verbal explanations during my lessons. On the other hand, there was a small part of me that wished they had thought a few steps ahead, which may have raised flags as to whether I a) would actually have a formal kimono (not a far stretch as they have seen my casual off-the-rack kimono) and b) knew about the test fee (not having lived in Japan my whole life, I am not acquainted with how expensive seriously pursuing a stream of learning is here).

So there I was, feeling left in the dark, and wondering whether I would have guessed my fate in advance had I been Japanese. There were tears of frustration shed. I tried to imagine what senpai before me had done when suddenly faced with lifestyle-interrupting expenses. I refuse to believe that not more than a few women were unpleasantly surprised to learn they would need to purchase a kimono for their test. This went on and on for a few days until I finally called my teacher and simply asked. I told her that I hadn't known about the fee and was a bit surprised at how high it was and she explained that it had been written on a piece of paper I'd once been casually handed before even beginning the course. Perhaps in an effort to make me feel better about it, she told me I would be getting a plank of wood with my name on it bearing the national certification. Well if I'm getting a plank of wood out of the deal...

This is definitely a rich woman's pursuit.

Please do it again?!

2010-04-07T07:15:00.000+09:00

Changing it up I see, they did a little fliparoo on the yellow/white balance and the wording this month. Creepy's life is one long sob story: first his mistress has a baby and now he has a broken leg. Perhaps the two have a cause and effect relationship. That is all - this month frankly bores me.

I guess fiance is better than ho on call

2010-04-06T17:21:00.000+09:00

The wedding is only a few weeks away, dear readers, and you know what that means. Time to get my hair did, my nails pretty and my face facialized. If any of you are tuning in after some time away, I didn't suddenly get engaged or pregnant, I'm preparing for the wedding of Baby Daddy and Baby Mama (do I have to stop calling them that once it's legal?), which is, I assure you, going to be the event of the season.

I've touched before on some of my qualms about my presence at the wedding and just how the beau's family is going to explain their dirty little secret that is the child-free white girl shacked up in sin with their eldest. As it turns out, I need worry no more, for there was a flurry of phone calls shortly before I went back to Canada between Tokyo and the Great North, during one of which the beau's dad asked slash told him that I would be introduced as his fiance. At Japanese wedding receptions everyone receives a seating plan that includes each guest's name and seat location. I will be sitting at the family table on Baby Daddy's side so you know there will be trouble when some guest's eyes are cruising along the names written in kanji until they fall upon some English name written in our ugly foreign alphabet and someone is going to have some explaining to do. Namely, about just who that mysterious whitie is.

Problem solved. While still rather unorthodox, it is better to have a fiance at the wedding than a girlfriend, especially when we are talking about the chonan, or eldest son. Call me mildly cynical, but I can't help fantasizing that guests' will deem us odd for being together four years and attending the wedding of the younger brother while being unmarried ourselves. God forbid I don't get married right away and start popping out some babies. I have never been a dirty family secret before! Whatevs, if anything untoward is said, I will just point to the bride's stomach, although frankly, it will probably still be concave at that point. And really, who are we kidding - I am practically gagging for something dramatic to happen for your reading pleasure. Unfortunately for you, it is a lunch reception, which means there will probably be less time/alcohol to fuel any outbursts. I'll try my best though, promise.

As amused as I am by my new role as faux undercover fiance, I was touched when the beau related a phone conversation he'd had with his mom some weeks ago. She lamented to him that she had wanted us to get married first, not to keep things in their "natural order" (order of sons that is, not marriage then baby order), but because she's been wanting me to officially join the clan for some time now. At one point in the conversation she told the beau that she would send him money to borrow for an engagement ring, one that he would have had to select and give to me within about five days as she wanted me to have it before I went off to Canada. You see, she is concerned that my parents are concerned that I have had a boyfriend for such a long time with no immediate wedding plans. I think that is the least of my parents' worries, especially given they were together for ten years before marrying and having me. I don't think this is necessarily a cultural difference however, for I'm sure there are some of you out there that have gotten the when are you getting married/having kids pressures from family.

So there you have it. We are T minus two weeks on this joyful event and I still need to find an obiage and obijime for my kimono and a bow tie for the beau. Even if we did get married, custom dictates that wedding invitations here rarely include a plus 1, so this could be our only wedding together in Japan ever. I am determined to enjoy myself. And my ability to drink champagne.

The one about the yakuza and the hotel room

2010-04-01T17:01:00.000+09:00

If you had asked me how I ended up in a hotel room with a card-carrying yakuza one recent weekend night, I would have been hard pressed to come up with a short explanation. This is not going to be a tale of an illicit tattooed love affair, so you can put that out of your mind right now.

It wasn't just the yakuza and I. We were joined by a wrist-cutter, a girl woman, one of the beau's baito (part-time worker) and the beau himself. That I found myself on the 6th floor of the Smile Hotel clinking beer cans with a member of organized crime is all the beau's doing, really. He is the one who started fishing in the first place.

The beau, bless his analog heart, is not a technology man. He didn't use a computer growing up and so has missed out on what used to be the novel idea of "online community." Missing out on chatroom socialization ("14 y/o blond with green eyes looking for fun"), he hasn't had the experience of connecting with people he doesn't know via the Internet. Until the fishing game. God knows what compelled him to start, but he is now playing a fishing game on his cellphone with hundreds of thousands of people around Japan. And by extension, learning what it is like to have online friends, a concept most of us have long since first experienced. Do you remember what it was like first talking to people over the Internet? I do. I was on my island in the South Pacific and felt liberated to be able to talk to people online, and boys in particular, given I went to an all girls' school. Let's not go there though.

So this particular weekend several of the beau's fishing buddies descended upon Tokyo from distant locales: Y-san the Kansai yakuza, Wrist-cutter (so named because she has made public her habit and the beau takes calls from her at all hours to talk about her problems) and Girlwoman, a smoking and drinking dynamo who looks about ten when she pulls her sweatshirt over her folded knees and sits on the bed like a dumpling. It was so cute watching the beau get ready for his first Internet meet-up, I felt like I was sending him off to his first day of school. And would you know it, I couldn't resist sneaking in a little "don't tell anyone where you live" spiel as he was stepping into the elevator.

I hadn't intended to join this meeting of fishing minds at all and had a date with a dark bar in Asakusa that evening, but on the last train home I get a call from the beau telling me to come to the Smile Hotel. How could I resist? The chance to meet a real live yakuza doesn't come along very often in my life as a salarygirl.

The hotel door opened and there was the baito, urging me to come in to the capsule-sized room. As I shook hands with Wrist-cutter and Girlwoman, they both looked at my hand clasping theirs as if it was the hand of god on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. And I'm not even being narcissistic here, promise. These girls were from the boonies but come on, there are foreigners they can touch in the boonies too, am I right?! I'll admit it was kind of cute, I haven't encountered any foreigner-deprived Japanese in a while and they are always extremely eager for any morsel of foreign strangeness thrown their way. As I shook hands with Y-san, he remarked that I looked like a doll. I like him immediately.

I perched on the bed, keeping up my doll-like facade, and the drinking commenced. Y-san cracked open an Asahi Superdry for me and we clanked to the fishing gods. It was funny to see how this group of previous strangers was now acting, having spent the evening at dinner and karaoke before retiring to the hotel room. They were still calling each other by their screen names but after a couple slip-ups by the beau and his baito, everyone rattled off their full names, seemingly relieved to give up the pretense. Wrist-cutter even started crying at one point when the beau started waxing on about how great it was that this group of people from all over Japan (and the token Canadian) could get together and socialize like this. He made it sound like an invention akin to sliced bread.

As for Y-san, what a sweetheart. And he had all his fingers too. He kept extending an invitation for us to meet him in Osaka and never having been there, we are definitely going to take him up on the offer, for what better way to explore Osaka than with someone "in the business." Don't even ask about when he took his shirt off and pulled down his pants. Swoon. I am not a fan of tattooed men in general, but this mostly has to do with the tattoos chosen - ugly, tasteless junk. Maori men and Japanese yakuza however, I make an exception for. Y-san had a full back tattoo of a gorgeous koi (carp) that covered his butt and finished behind his knees. He even let me touch it. I get a little tired of the repetitiveness of the word kakkoii in Japanese to mean cool, but shit this man embodied it.

At one point in the evening the beau told me this would be an excellent chance for a Q&A session in case I had any yakuza-related questions burning to be asked. I wish I had known earlier and I would have brought a list! We talked about the tattoo thing and the cutting off of fingers (he hasn't fucked up that bad yet) but had I known I would be in the presence of such a man, I would have gone prepared. Y-san was extremely sweet but upon request gave us his "work eyes," which are pretty frightening to behold. I couldn't believe how easily he could just switch off and I'm sure for him, that night afforded him a rare opportunity to be fisherman Y-san instead of yakuza Y-san.

When your nails are all you've got

2010-03-30T07:52:00.000+09:00

What you see above is the very thing that got me through a body-emptying experience with the stomach flu this past weekend. I never knew nails could be such a comfort but when your hair is dirty and plastered to your head and you're sporting back-corner-of-the-drawer ratty underwear and the last clean t-shirt you haven't soaked in fever, pretty nails are like a beacon of light. A port in the storm. Swim to the lighthouse!!

As I played fetus on my bed clutching my stomach with one hand, I had time to stare at my other, which would have looked positively claw-like in its twisted, limp positioning had the nails not been adorned with glitter and 3D art. Yes you did read correctly: I just used "nails" and "3D art" in the same sentence bitches. When I drank my millionth glass of Pocari Sweat, noting, in my delirium, that it might as well taste like sweat, I saw four shiny red dots rise closer to my face as I tipped the glass to my lips and my nausea washed away. Clutching the heated throne, I couldn't help but congratulate myself on having such cute nails as I dry heaved into its depths. Too much?

This flu completely derailed me and left me whispering sweet nothings to my stomach in the dark, promising favours impossible to bestow, like no alcohol and no chocolate. The day I got hit I considered not seeing a doctor despite the toilet getting so much action the beau was getting jealous, but as I later rationalized to my mom, doctors here always give you something for visiting. I wanted that something and I wanted it to stop whatever war was being waged in my stomach.

So in my most attractive outfit of leggings, white tennis socks and sneakers (only this level of illness could compel me to wear said items in combination), I grannywalked to a hospital down the block with a plastic bag in my pocket for unforeseen emergencies. When I first stepped foot inside the hospital I thought I had misread the sign outside and that it actually said "Dante's Inferno", for that, dear readers, is how hot that shit was. I wonder if they get more money from patients with fevers because they were pumping uncomfortable hot air throughout the hospital like it was going out of style. I had the pleasure of filling out one of those forms with the tiny boxes designated to fit your whole address, the ones that set you up for failure and you can't help but colour outside the lines. By this time my tongue was practically lolling out the side of my mouth and I prayed for quick relief as I swayed back and forth like a grand old ship.

I found one of the heat-breathing monsters in the waiting room I was sent to, its huge gaping rectangular mouth spewing forth hot air that rolled over me in prickly waves. Bathroom time. Sitting out in the waiting room again. Why do the old salarymen seem to be visiting this place in droves? Do they give out the good pills here?

Back to the toilet and this time it is urgent. I can see a nurse heading in before me and she quickly takes the Japanese squatter stall and starts pumping out the Sound Princess tunes. My situation is far too dire to bother with such silliness and I figure, hey, she must have heard this all before. So I squeeze myself into the Western stall - what do you know, it's one of those stalls cut so tight your knees hit the wall in front of you. I can't even kneel there is such little room, so I bend over as far as the ass/wall partnering will allow and start to dry heave loudly and desperately into the toilet. The nurse must be panicking by this point because the Sound Princess volume hits a crescendo (they have volume control dontcha know) followed by a hasty exit and the door opening onto footsteps in the distance. The bathroom door opens onto the waiting room so you can rest assured the waiting patients all heard my performance.

I come out of the bathroom to a room full of ugly salarymen giving me the side stinkeye and the nurse immediately calls me in asking, are you OK? Lady, I almost said, the oyaji to my left can tell you that. They must not get very sick people in this hospital.

But it's all in the spirit of Japan's pseudo-socialized medicine right? The government pays for 70% so you get to keep 30% of your health issues private. I couldn't care at that moment what the waiting room heard from the bathroom, as they quite possibly heard my whole conversation with the jolly doctor from behind the curtain that only provides visible privacy. The good man pronounced it a "cold caught in your stomach" and sent me on my merry prescription way.

Across the street to the pharmacy where I get to fill out another patient history form, recalling for the second time that hour any allergies or past illnesses. What is the point of this really, when the doctor has prescribed me meds based on this very information already, and my general info is printed on my health insurance card? I think they wanted to see whitie faint.

I almost did and begged the pharmacist to allow me to sit while she carefully explained all the drugs. Then back across the street to the hospital where I sat in a toilet stall for 5 minutes to garner the energy to make it the one block home without keeling over.

Mission accomplished. Meds ingested. Electrolytes replenished with sweaty Pocari Sweat. Resume fetal play on the bed.

Japanniversary

2010-03-18T04:45:00.000+09:00

It seems as though the Tokyo Metro has gathered a host of previous characters to celebrate my Japanniversary (yesterday if you're wondering). And look! A prince has been born!

Do you remember your Japanniversary? Do you celebrate or mourn it? Mine have come and gone without much to do but they always give me pause to remind myself why I am here. More than the date, the smell around Tokyo at this time of year when the wind picks up is what makes me nostalgic. I know, I shouldn't wax on about luscious spring air when what you really want is more of my snarky tales of Kaisha terror but I love the smell of March and April. It makes me walk slower on the way home so that I can inhale it ferociously. It reminds me of my first week in Nakano getting settled into my apartment and upon the realization that I had come back to a Tokyo void of anyone I knew from my uni days, thinking, well now what? Well now what indeed. If you had told me I would be here now doing what I do and shacked up with a Japanese man I would have slapped you.

The smell reminds me of listening to Slum Village's most recent album on my iPod as I walked to catch the last train out of Nakano to meet the beau in the first weeks of our courtship.

The smell reminds me of late night walks by myself out to Koenji or Asagaya, times I embraced my loneliness and enjoyed the quiet neighbourhoods sometimes punctuated with a small lit-up sign.

The smell does not remind me of the School, which is perhaps not so surprising given I was shell-shocked for some time after arriving for that first day.

I don't know what it is about Tokyo that makes me observe my time here to the day, but I can't imagine doing the same anywhere else in the world. Maybe it's to keep from feeling like the city has swallowed me whole.

Summer come early

2010-03-17T17:19:00.000+09:00

I am back from a self-sponsored trip to Vancouver and as much as I'd like to say better than ever, I feel like I've rolled out of a Christmas holiday - less money and more poundage. I knew what I was doing however, when I embarked on my one-woman economic stimulus plan to help the city back on its feet after vomiting money at the Olympics, and the extra trips to the gym are totally worth the poutine, alcohol, Purdy's chocolates and wheels of cheese that have my ass in a death grip.

Some trip notes:

-Weekend nights on the Granville strip are for amateurs and I am shocked by the number of neanderthals allowed to live in the city.
-With a train actually running underground (amen), Vancity now feels something akin to a real city.
-All India Sweets and the Mongolie Grill (the dirty one on W. Broadway) are just as good as they were when I was a high school student just tryin to make it.
-Being escorted to a house party in a real live Vancouver Special by four gay boys is excellent fun until you get to the actual party and have to take your boots off on dirty shag carpet.
-Hello delish $5 smoothies, how I have missed you. Ditto hot dogs on the corner.
-Casual unscripted conversation is totally OK with people you don't know. And the eye contact is mind-blowing! ! !
-Wearing heels in daylight there is the equivalent to wearing them to a day of tree planting set off with a classic string of pearls.
- I love the smell of North American drugstores: that illicit mix of magazine gloss, plastic shampoo bottles and brightly coloured candy wrappers.
- Some of my best clothing finds come from consignment stores in this fair city.
- I now kind of understand how people like the whole "sea and mountain" thing the city has going on. I'm not hugging any trees though.
- Hello Whole Foods, where have you been my whole life?! I think I need to become a high-powered attorney just so I can shop there on a semi-regular basis. Really and truly.

Getting back mid-week has been a shock to my system but I am extremely pleased to let you know that I haven't had any pedestrian rage or salaryman stabbing fantasies yet! I'm sure my post-trip orgasmic glow will wear off in less than a week and I will be back to my healthy bitchy public self. But for now, I am bouncing down the street in the mornings to Rihanna's Disturbia and marvelling at how undisturbed I actually am. I'm still not entirely sure what I want to do in the next couple years (I had secretly hoped my parents would hold these elusive answers) but I feel refreshed and ready for at least another six months on the island before a break.

Despite my well-documented aversion to handing out omiyage, I went ahead with the proverbial shooting of one's own foot and bought some fragrant creme-packed maple cookies for my bitches at the office. I even brought my Secretary and Sunshine an ugly-cute Olympic stuffed animal keychain each in order to encourage better international relations over the quad partition. I figured that if that fails, at least I have something to stuff into their mouths when they are chattering at a fever pitch during lunch while I am trying to work.

I went through the same pattern of pass-the-omiyage procrastination that I do every time, where I try to coax myself into eating most of the omiyage myself so that I don't have to give it to many Secretaries. I ate the two or three broken cookies but couldn't rationalize any more. Then I cleaned my desk, wallet and purse, watered and toileted myself and stared at my calendar for a while before strategizing and pinpointing the targets of my omiyage blitz. Read: Secretaries I think are nice. The two sitting next to me are not all that bad but when the devil from down the hall comes by at lunch all conversation hell breaks loose. Devil is definitely not getting a taste of the sweet maple nectar.

I don't know what it is about passing out omiyage that causes me to sweat, quite literally, but props to Japanese societal pressures, they have most definitely taken effect. I even found myself blushing (or was it flushing?) while making small talk with each Secretary, causing me to wonder if I was going through puberty or perhaps menopause, both stages I had previously thought myself quite far from. When I got back to my desk I felt like the office heating had been turned up to a million degrees and taking off my cardigan barely offered any respite. Thank the sweet lord my omiyage quota has been filled for at least half a year and maybe, just maybe, the cookie-munching Secretaries will pass along a kind word about me to someone.

It's a good thing I like instant ramen

2010-02-18T03:56:00.000+09:00

After a few late-night conversations filled with stress and worry, I decided to keep my appointment to visit the tonya-san (wholesaler) with my kimono school's Headmistress. We met early on a Saturday and on the way, she asked me what colour houmongi (formal "visiting" kimono) I was hoping to find. She also assured me that I should be straightforward in my opinions on the kimono I would be shown, and not be afraid to say that I didn't like something. This pep talk would have been helpful a week earlier, since from the moment I made the appointment a feeling of impending kimono doom had been seeping into my consciousness. Despite the beau's insistence that I need not buy anything unless I truly loved it, my teachers' confidence that I would go to the tonya-san, find a kimono and have it all sewn up to measure by my test was more than a little disconcerting, for the equation left no room for me not loving something.

The tonya-san was located in a fairly drab office building but once inside their main office, it is one huge tatami room with rolls of kimono fabric piled on the floor and stacks of obi material and half-sewn kimono on shelves lining the walls. Headmistress and I were invited to sit and partake in tea and cake while one of the employees, Yamada-san, brought over a pile of kimono she had picked out for us to view. We quickly looked at each and then made "whassup" and "ish don't think so" piles. Despite thinking that making a kimono to order would take care of all my height and sleeve length worries, I discovered that wasn't entirely true. Depending on the positioning of the pattern on the fabric and by extension, my body, some designs would look unbalanced or too small on me, a veritable godzilla at 5'6. I also learned that some patterns look "lonely" depending on placement and sparsity.

I slipped on a pair of tabi slippers (imagine a pair of tabi socks had been cut off before the heel) and Yamada-san strapped a white collar to my chest to give us the best idea of how a kimono would actually look on. The kimono I tried on all had a few loose stitches put in here and there so that when draped properly, we could see where the pattern would fall and whether it indeed looked lonely or not. I tried on a black houmongi, thinking it looked like a possibility but as soon as I had it on my shoulders, I knew that there were no other contenders in the whassup pile. Not only is black my favourite colour, but the pattern was chic, a mix of bamboo, plum blossoms and chrysanthemum sweeping up from the hem to the knee, with a few plum blossoms on one of the shoulders and the back of the other sleeve. No one does asymmetry like the Japanese, no one.

Obi were then brought out to match and the guy who seemed to be in charge made me a price, as they say, on a gold and white brocade obi that caused Headmistress to gasp that she would buy it if I didn't. I had brought a bolt of silk to make a naga-jyuban, the robe that goes under a kimono, so Yamada-san then took my measurements (height, wingspan, bust and hip) for the tailoring. Jokes were made by the guy in charge and Yamada-san about my plentiful bosom and how I could spare some to give to Yamada-san, who claimed to be practically concave. Only in this wonderful country. We then sat down to talk business, the fun part over. This was the point in the show that I had been dreading, for I really wasn't ready to make a decision on the spot. Everyone else, however, was raring to go.

In my most polite Japanese at a pre-pubescent pitch almost ready to break, I asked if I could think about it until Monday, the latest point at which I could place an order that would be ready for my test date. I did think about asking Headmistress what would happen if I didn't have my own formal kimono for the test, but decided it probably wasn't a question that had ever been asked. Yamada-san wrote up a detailed estimate for me, listing the individual prices for the kimono, naga-jyuban and obi and those for the tailoring. When she handed it over it felt like it weighed 10kg in my hand, despite being a transparent piece of receipt paper.

I can see why women here are intimidated by the kimono industry - the aura of untouchability alone is enough, but combined with a lack of ability to say no, and I now understand the stories I've heard of women getting in over their head on impulse kimono purchases. The beau, bless him, knew time was a-ticking and directly asked his customer if we could visit his wholesale company, an invitation we would normally have to wait for. So when Monday rolled around I visited my second wholesaler that week, price estimate in hand. Again, big tatami room, rolls of priceless fabric. The customer was very obliging and looked at photos I had brought of the kimono and obi. After scrutinizing the 10kg paper, he concurred with the price, saying that he would have charged me similar and that the same kimono sold at a department store would be around 100,000 yen more. His second opinion meant a lot to me and ultimately gave me the strength to pick up the phone and place the order.

I'll post on my sweat-inducing test later but let me just say that once you have tasted the sweet nectar of an order-made kimono, you cannot, will not, go back. In the words of the ever-wise Michael Kors, it fits like a dream.

Last Friday evening...

2010-02-15T07:21:00.000+09:00

I was walking home from work when I ran into my Secretary, who happened to be heading in the same direction. Much to my surprise, she said hello and didn't run off in the opposite direction. I took the opportunity to make small talk with her and she was extremely obliging. This feels so civilized, I thought as I inquired as to where she lived. I can't remember what she answered now but after changing trains several times, once at a station that looked remarkably like the one in Wellington, we arrived in my neighbourhood, Secretary by my side.

She didn't seem to want to say goodbye just yet, so I invited her in for tea. Our living room was five times as large as I had remembered and the beau, surprised to be receiving an unannounced visitor, played it cool and began to make dinner. My Secretary still wouldn't leave, comfortable as she was with us, so we had no choice but to ask her to stay for dinner, an invitation that she readily accepted. The three of us sat on the floor, eating dinner and talking about her two children (I didn't even know she was married). I believe it was sometime in the middle of this pleasant conversation that I was either drugged or woke up.

Gentle readers, what am I to do, I can't escape from this woman, not even in my dreams!

Day out with mama and papa

2010-02-12T07:07:00.000+09:00

Did I happen to mention that the beau's parents were coming to Tokyo to meet their very soon to be daughter-in-law? If I did, forgive my lack of updates - BM is still very much pregnant and not exactly going anywhere so I lazily figured an update could wait.

Since the beau was not able to take work off, we weren't able to go to the meeting of the families, but not for lack of trying. For weeks I tried to coddle the beau into taking work off so that we could join in this fortuitous dinner. If this was an anthropology study, I would be one hell of a participant-observer. Even when my begging fell on deaf ears, I considered all manner of devices to be in that room, if not physically, then at least in real-time. At one point I believe I was even looking at a tiny bug device on the internet that I dreamed of planting on the beau's mom while I listened outside in an unmarked van. Have we met? I am a gossip-hungry whore and was gagging to know how to navigate the etiquette minefield of two Japanese families brought together by unprotected sex.

The kind of Japanese societal protocol that would be on display at this meeting haunted my dreams for days and I couldn't help but lament at not being privy to what was sure to be one hell of an interesting cultural experience. I can only imagine the normal level of etiquette and thoughtfulness that would go into two families meeting for the first time, but couple that with a wedding a la shotgun and the ensuing drama, and oh, the endless possibilities! Not that among some families Back Home there wouldn't be some tension in this kind of situation, but I was dying to know how it would be handled by two Japanese families. Would there be self-deprecation and apologies exchanged for the general irresponsibility of their respective children?

Let me just say now that I attended the dinner neither in human form nor electronic, and all I have to go on now are microscopic crumbs of information the beau throws my way, much the same way you would throw food scraps to a starving and mangy dog, just to make it go away. Why he doesn't take a more active interest is beyond me. Last night over wine and cheese that created a dirty sock taste explosion in my mouth, the beau called BD a grand total of 3 times during the course of our conversation because I kept asking questions to which he had no acceptable answer. As a result of this, I have a much better handle on this situation and am now starting to look for pictures of what updo I will sport to the wedding.

I did have a very civilized day out with the beau's parents however, who will now be referred to as mama and papa. You should know this choice is not an arbitrary one, for that is what their children call them and what they now call themselves. Not a rare occurrence in Japanese families, but one I think is rather unfortunate, is the near complete loss of one's name once children are born. You become mama /papa, or okaasan/otoosan. Not only do your children refer to you by these titles but you refer to each other by them too, and even yourself if you are speaking in the third person. If the beau ever calls me mama he is going to get a healthy does of I ain't your mama so that we are very clear on roles. In case you were wondering, I try to avoid calling the beau's parents anything at all, which is quite easy in Japanese, but if I have to, I use okaasan/otoosan. They call me Geisha-chan or Whitie. *

But I digress as usual. The four of us started out with lunch and then I went to see kabuki with mama and papa while the beau took off like he was running from a forest fire. The kabuki-za in Ginza will be torn down in a couple months, so now is definitely the time to see it. Kabuki is not the kind of thing I like to see on a regular basis, but once or twice every couple of years keeps it interesting. I'd never sat through an entire program at the kabuki-za before (5 hours) but our close seats combined with the earphone guide (surprised and impressed me) prevented me from "resting my eyes" more than once or twice.

Kabuki was followed by dinner and drinks, 5 hours of them to be exact, at which time we all quite literally rolled home. There wasn't too much talk of BD and BM, mostly because mama and papa were to meet them the following evening. Mama was definitely worried about the kind of person BM is, and pressed the beau and I for details. The beau in turn, told them everything we had gleaned from the dinner with them last month, minus the hypothesized trajectory of BD's sperm. Mama and papa were fairly apprehensive about the meeting, so I hope that their fears have been somewhat allayed by now. They still seem to be in shock and not altogether approving of the whole situation, but as the beau said, there will be a grandchild soon, and that will probably soften any hard feelings. Papa also gave us a little pep talk about the wedding and said that he was counting on both of us to be there, yoroshiku etc. etc. Snark aside, I am touched that I will be included in the wedding, for it is anything but normal to have an unwed kimono-yielding whitie sitting at the family table. I have no doubt that while everyone will be polite, there will be some interesting conversational tidbits to dissect post-nuptials that relate to me being foreign, unwed to the oldest, in kimono or all of the above. I'm actually a bit nervous if you can believe it. Weddings here involve so much protocol and special etiquette and since I am not a true family member but being counted as one just mixes things up even more. I think I will just keep my mouth closed except for when a champagne glass is at my lips, a living and breathing doll.

The real gem of the evening has nothing to do with the Shotgun Saga but with mama and papa. They are now in possession of their first passports. Ever. When they told me that they had applied, I almost swooned, it was truly sweet. Since the beau and I announced our intentions to move overseas next year, they are getting prepared for visits. Their first passports. I have to repeat it to believe it's true. As someone who had her first passport and international jetset at age 2, it was humbling to hear and really put things into perspective. I am excited to take them to Canada one day and I know the beau is too.

That is about it on the Shotgun Saga front - stay tuned for the wedding in April and wedding preparation minutiae. For the time being, I am trying to turn my focus back to my own life, content not to be the centre of a saga recounted on some bitch's blog.

*J/K. OBVS.

Postcard from the Kaisha #1056

2010-02-08T23:13:00.000+09:00

Just when I thought I could use the word "swimmingly" when asked how work is going, the movers came to the Kaisha. Both Secretaries in my quad finished their periods of banishment in my gaijin ghetto and have been moved elsewhere. While I was rather pleased to no longer have to worry about carefully and sloooowly easing tissues out of the box so as not to make a sound, or only selecting silent foods (read: baby food) to eat at my desk, my noise-ridden paradise was short lived.

I started getting suspicious when my Secretary, who has been known to ignore me for weeks on end, started wiping down the desk opposite me. Why bother foreshadowing when you know where this is leading, where it always leads, to me feeling constrained and fucked and not in a kinky way. Minutes later Sunshine, the only Secretary who smiles genuinely at me with any frequency, started bringing stuff over to the other empty space. Being a normal functioning human being, she told me that she would be moving into my neighbourhood. This does not bother me, in fact, I am even secretly thrilled that maybe, ten months from now, we will go for lunch. Meanwhile, my Secretary is now carting stuff over to the desk that lies just over a very low barrier from mine. As obvious as her aversion to me is, I figured social mores would win out and she would at least throw a mumble my way to the effect that she will now be, for all intents and purposes, facing me for a stretch of hours every day. Call me naive, but she didn't make a peep at me, so I am back to pretending that she doesn't exist.

This occurred on Friday and over the weekend, I somehow managed to forget about the whole situation. When I say "somehow," I mean two nights in a row of imbibing that left me with a bruise of unknown origins (first time in ages, YAY!), a memory of a broken wine glass underheel set to a Rhianna song and a conversation with a man from Egypt during a short stint in a hookah bar. And of course, no memory of late Friday. Imagine my sheer and unbridled joy when I rocked up to my desk on Monday morning and found sparkly stuffed toys lining the demilitarized zone.

It has now been two days and both mornings it has been me that initiates the Good Morning Exchange with my Secretary. This would be possibly forgivable if she was arriving before me, but such is not the case. I am engrossed in work when she arrives and only when I wish her a pleasant morning does she do the same, without looking at me. I can only conclude that something is actually wrong with her, socially or mentally. She obviously cannot cope in simple interactions with me and although I feel affronted by her extremely off behaviour, by both Japanese and Western standards, there is not a whole lot I can do. Whether she is scared of me, disgusted by me or just plain socially retarded, I have giving up trying to figure it out and am now turning to religion, praying for her short stay in what was my solitary confinement.

Yes, please do it at home

2010-02-04T07:12:00.000+09:00

They must be following my life over at the Tokyo Metro, how apt is this poster as I wade through the murky waters of an upcoming shotgun marriage (April, people, April!!!!). I'd always assumed that Creepy was past child-bearing age, I'm not sure if it was his sweater, his glasses, or his vacant stare, but I was quite surprised to see that he impregnated Mrs. Creepy (or Miss, after all it is all the rage now in Japan to have babies out of wedlock). Almost as surprised as when I heard of the union between Baby Daddy's sperm and Baby Mama's egg.

Does anyone else recognize the couple from last February? Last year they were exchanging chocolates and whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears while Creepy looked on with a busted leg. They obviously haven't learned much this year (maybe they don't ride the Metro in real life?), as they listen to the latest from Smap while Creepy's baby mama looks like she's about to lose her water. What do you think gentle readers? Will we see Baby Creepy appear in posters a few months from now, or will Creepy kick his baby mama to the curb after rubbing up against some young hot thing on the train home one day? Your guess is as good as mine.

Foreign accents as the new must-have accessory

2010-01-21T10:36:00.000+09:00

As is inevitable when everyone around you is reflecting back on the decade, I've been doing a little myself. I started in 2000 when I was 16 and have gotten stuck there, my mind refusing to budge forward from that sweet, sweet time. Still a fairly new transplant to Canada, I found that turning on my Kiwi accent was an excellent way to garner attention, particularly from the male sex. Neither of my two accents had availed themselves to me so favourably before but when I was 16, I used my adopted "foreign" accent to charm a handsome member of the football team and a university student who should have known better.

I don't recall whether it was ever a conscious decision, but from my first day at primary school in New Zealand, my five year-old self was acutely aware that I was not speaking the same language as the bare-footed children running around me. I don't personally remember the bare-footed part but have adopted this memory as my own after hearing my mom (mum if you will) recollect the mild horror she experienced seeing all the primary school children running around bare-foot in winter. We weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The first time I had to consciously turn on my Kiwi accent was on Canadian soil, where I knew if I didn't concentrate, I would effortlessly slip into my generic North American one. Growing up it was a different story, at school I went native Kiwi and at home I used the same accent as my parents and it was only when they pointed out that they couldn't recognize my voice at a public-speaking event at school, did I become fully aware of my accent schizophrenia. I still don't know where I'm from.

For all the years spent unconsciously polishing my accent like the good silver, it didn't take long to give it up when I was no longer around people who don't pronounce "r" at the end of words. I dabbled in my Kiwi accent during the first year in Canada, but gave it up for good shortly after my sixteenth birthday. I don't know if that's what charmed the university student six years my senior and home on winter break, if I was just sooo cute with my quaint little accent from the South Pacific, but I never went out with him more than once. Either way, with the exception of probably very few, you must question the third-year college student who is interested in a 16 year-old high schooler.

It was easier to drop the accent, which had become a vestigial appendage in my new high school with lockers, no uniforms and lunches off school premises ("like in the movies" my girlfriends in NZ would say). I met my high school sweetheart and there was no need for a trendy foreign accent, we were so tangled up in each other.

I don't know if I would use ironic to describe my current situation, but speaking almost exclusively to my partner in a language not my own is certainly something. Fill in the blank. I do my best to not speak Japanese with a North American accent, but I highly doubt the beau finds my "foreign" accent sexy. There is nothing sexy about me speaking Japanese, for tell me, what does sexy in Japanese look like for members of the fairer sex? High pitched squeals? Certain Japanese men are damn sexy when they talk (have I mentioned my penchant for rolled r's??), but what about when they are speaking English? English spoken with an Asian accent is generally not romanticized by us in the West (it is the stuff of badly played stereotypes). Think about references to sexy foreign accents in film, books and conversations. The Europeans, British, Kiwis and Aussies have a monopoly on it!

Can you picture your friend saying, "his sexy Japanese accent made me swoon"? Her broken English may be cute, but do you think it's sexy? (Don't answer if you are turned on by the phrase "me love you long time".) In becoming accustomed to speaking another language, it is so easy to forget that you very well may have a foreign accent, dashing or not. While the beau's English is charmingly brokedown, I don't think of him as him on the rare occasion he attempts English; he becomes another person, with a new tone of voice and the dynamic of our relationship experiences a power switch as I become the language authority. This took me a while to figure out and in making this discovery, realized that while I can hold a conversation with him in Japanese, I'm the one speaking a second language, I'm the one making grammatical errors and sometimes butchering words. How can the beau stand this? I will be sure to ask him one day soon, for I don't know how tolerant I would be if the situation was reversed and it was the beau with the foreign accent. I'd like to think I would be patient and kind, but if I am honest with myself, I quite possibly wouldn't get involved with someone who loses part of their humor, intelligence and sexiness by simply speaking a language not their own.

While I have gained another foreign accent in recent years, it is with more trepidation that I consider it, for I will never be able to truly gauge just how much of me is being lost by living in Japanese with the beau, a compartment of my life where it is arguably the most important to be yourself. I am confident that most of me translates, if not through words then through non-verbal means, but I worry that I lose my funny quips in Japanese and my maturity, and that the beau will never be able to know the part that doesn't translate. On bad days, it feels quite tragic.

Kimono blues

2010-01-14T07:23:00.001+09:00

My kimono school Principal is taking me to a kimono wholesaler this weekend, and the wholesaler in question is opening only for our visit. I am shaking in my zori.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Being in the water trade, the beau knows some of the cooler movers and shakers in society, like traditional pudding makers and owners of kimono wholesale businesses. At the end of last year, a customer of the beau's in the kimono biz invited us to visit him in the new year and have kimono made. He promised to give a discount and not to pussy-foot around prices, something kimono wholesalers are oftentimes notorious for. This is obviously a fantastic opportunity but has yet to eventuate. Nonetheless, I have been looking forward to having a kimono made to my measurements. Whoever started the trend in guidebooks of stating that kimono are one size fits all should be shot. One size doth not fit all. If anything, having a kimono made involves the taking of more measurements than it would take to tailor a dress. Measurements you can't even fathom but that all come together to make a kimono that fits you perfectly and has a small amount of room to order preferences of collar width, etc.

Now that I have been at my school for almost two years, I feel guilty wanting to wear some of the used kimono I have, knowing perfectly well that the sleeve length is too short or the length unforgiving. I know I shouldn't, for if young people don't loosen the rules a little (and the older generation allow for this), the pleasure and custom of wearing kimono will simply die out. My school isn't strict per se, but if the subject of wearing colorful antique kimono of the wrong size comes up, my teachers say it's too bad (they too are too big for some older kimono) rather than bend the rules.

Where does this long preamble bring us? Ah yes, to my last lesson. My teacher had me agree to a date for my certification test and then casually drops that I need to be in formal kimono, because you know, I have at least 10 folded up and waiting in my closet. Upon learning that I don't have one (which frankly isn't much of an imagination stretch), she tells me to wait and discuss it with the Principal. This is where I quite possibly made a fatal mistake. Unthinkingly, I told both women that I planned to have a kimono made at some point this year, but as of yet hadn't begun thinking about it. I will never know whether if I had kept my mouth shut they would have come up with another solution for me, or whether what followed was simply inevitable.

The Principal immediately started talking about making me an appointment at a wholesaler to pick out some silk and have a kimono made for the upcoming test. Really, what could I say to that? In the real world, lots. In Japan, a whole lot of nothing. Before I knew it, I had agreed to meet the Principal this weekend and go to the wholesaler together to pick something out. It happened so fast I don't recall there ever being a point where I was asked if I wanted to make a kimono in less than three weeks, but I'm fairly confident there wasn't. Things didn't slow down until I asked the Principal how much I should expect to pay for a decent but lower end formal kimono. When she told me, things went into slow-mo and her voice suddenly got as low as a man's. Nearly 200,000 yen. I have to write it small so that I might stop thinking about how BIG it is.

That is more than one month's rent. A week-long getaway for two to Thailand. 110 trips to the cinema. 133 glasses of champagne at Orange. 2000 orders of small fries at McDick's. And yes, as someone will surely tell me, a lifetime of enjoyment wearing it. If I got married, I wouldn't even buy a wedding dress for that much! If I were to do a cost-per-wear analysis, I would have to go hungry on the days I wear the kimono, for my food budget for the day will have been eaten (haha) up by the money-killing monster kimono. THE HORROR!

All of this of course flooded into my mind as my school building receded further into the distance behind me. I waffled between stressing over what to say if I don't find something I like at the wholesaler and soft, polite anger at my teachers for not telling me well in advance that I would need a formal kimono, for not offering an alternative solution and finally, for assuming that I have yen sewn into my mattress with which to order a kimono at the drop of a hat. I don't blame them however, for I doubt they lay awake nights wondering whether I, lone whitie of the Kaisha and lacking a Japanese mother, have a formal kimono. I do question their sanity a little, in thinking that I will so easily have a formal kimono made for my test at the end of the month. It seems a few other students have done so in the past, but I have to wonder if they went hungry for the months post-test in order to pay for their new kimono.

Because kimono has become less and less common, the environment surrounding it has become a bit stiff in some regards and not a littly hoity toity. In my conversations, I've learned that there is a nervous aura surrounding a visit to a wholesaler or kimono store, which leads to women feeling pressured to make exorbitant impulse purchases. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the above alleged students felt pressured to buy something and felt they couldn't walk out empty-handed. My school is not commercial by any means, nor have my teachers given instructions on what to buy before, but the fact that the Principal seems to equate my visit to the wholesaler with a kimono ready to wear in three weeks has me worried.

I don't feel I should have to cancel this weekend, as the opportunity to visit a wholesaler is not one that comes along often, but I am a little wary of the fallout if I don't find something I would go hungry for. For that really, has to be the criteria when it comes to making such an expensive decision. Maybe if faced with square one again, my teachers will offer a less frenzied and expensive solution. And if not, I'll have another blog on my hands.

Meet Baby Mama

2010-01-13T05:39:00.001+09:00

Or perhaps I should have entitled this, how to turn 100 yen into 100,000 yen

After some additional terse phone calls, it was decided that the beau and I would act as family ambassadors and meet with Baby Daddy and Baby Mama on behalf of the beau's parents. This obviously thrilled me to no end, for who would scoff at a chance to become involved in a family drama that is not one's own?

I took my role very seriously and in an effort to project an appropriate level of welcome-to-the-family hotness, went with a new little black dress, purple peep-toes and a fur-trim cocktail coat. If there was one thing I wasn't going to be apart from Japanese, it's out-dressed. We had heard from BD that the future mother of his child is very pretty and as he said in Japanese, a girlfriend one can be proud of. Being from Saitama, I figured this could go either way (apologies yet again to anyone in Saitama).

Before heading out to meet them, the beau held a last minute conference call with his parents, and from his answers I can only assume they were telling him to find out every last detail they wanted to know.

Well, find out we did. The beau allowed us momentary pause after the first kanpai before he kicked off the interrogation. Questions were asked and answered, allowing us to ascertain BM's age, occupation, the occupations of her parents, marital status of her siblings, food dislikes and religion. That last bit was found out rather by fashion accident, for in addition to a simple cotton black dress, BM had adorned her chest with a crucifix, which made the beau feel entitled to ask if it meant she was Christian. As I'm sure you have guessed, she isn't and we were informed the cross has no meaning. My memory is a bit hazy but I may have even echoed this sentiment with murmurs of assent, or even ACTUAL WORDS to the effect that this is what the girls are wearing these days. My sparkling wine must have been spiked, for as you can also guess, I am not an advocate of wearing crucifixes (crucifixi?!) unless you want to reference your homeboy JC. We'll call it a Madonna lapse for now.

Apparently one sunny day not so long ago (literally), BD met BM at the liquor store she works at and that was that. Baby made, wedding planned. Charming story really. I will give BD some credit however, for he did present BM with a ring on her birthday which, even if it wasn't then, is now an engagement ring. This is before the unimmaculate conception so at least we know they kind of like each other. I really couldn't care less whether their baby is born out of wedlock or not, but it is of some comfort to know they are not getting married simply because you apparently can't tell a 27 year-old to get an abortion (more on this fascinating fun fact in a later post) .

We had quite a pleasant evening actually, save for a harshly worded soliloquy by the beau strongly urging BD to stop acting like a pussy and arrange for his parents to meet those of BM. I admit I was quite taken with the speech, and had to agree that BD needs to grab this situation by the balls and begin acting like an adult. This includes involving his parents and ensuring they don't feel completely left out of everything way up in snowy Aomori. I feel for them, for BD expects them to listen, nod and show up at the wedding with bells on, without allowing any room for the inevitable shock that set in upon receiving that first phone call.

BM seems nice enough, although I really didn't get much of anything from her, which is to be expected from a first meeting under the circumstances. She doesn't like vegetables and is far too thin for someone growing someone else (not acceptable and average Japanese woman size, but bones-visible size), but apart from that I didn't glean much else from the meeting. I could snarkily break down her face for you, her dress sense and her overall demeanour, but really, what's the point.

The conversation did take an unexpected and juicy turn when the beau suddenly began asking about the technical details of this unimmaculate conception. Not just whether a condom was used or not (negative, as if you even need to ask), but whether BD forgot to pull out or JUST EXACTLY WHAT WENT DOWN. A lengthy and extremely scientific discussion ensued, whereby I learned that the sex of babies is determined by how far into a woman the sperm is deposited. Lovely imagery there as I am eating small deep-fried white fish while by this point, sucking back the wine.

Although the wedding date has not yet been set, I have been invited, which is fairly exciting given partners are often not invited here. If I had a laptop that wasn't a heavy-breathing monstrosity that can't hold up its own screen, I would blog live from the inner depths of the wedding, where no unwed whitie has gone before. This is going to be exciting people! BM in true fashion, does not want to have the wedding in some hall in Saitama, but would prefer a hotel wedding in Shinjuku or Ikebukuro. If I could get past the yen signs, I would stare straight into her eyes and tell her maybe she should have done a little family planning 8 weeks ago if she thought she wanted a hotel wedding. In less than 3 months. In Shinjuku. Japan. Overpopulation. Must reserve well in advance. You get the picture.

If you were to peel back the snark, you would find that I really like BD, and always have. Ever since meeting him, we have gotten along famously and he is always quick to make sure I am well fed and taken care of at his parent's house and his restaurant. His lolicon did have me worried at times but at the end of the day, I just want what's best for him, even if it comes in the form of someone questionably younger (which BM is not). I'm not against shotgun weddings or babies, but as someone who believes strongly in the use of contraception by those with access to it, I can't help but find this whole situation a bit ridiculous. The choices that people make are theirs alone and while I do truly hope this thing works out for BD and BM, I will unfortunately have to continue with my running commentary. It's simply too good to pass up.

I will now leave you with an equation representing this situation as it directly relates to me:

A + B = C, where A is the decision not to spend 100 yen on a condom, B is the decision to have unprotected sex, and C is a monetary value of 100,000 yen that will be given by the beau as a mandatory wedding present, a kind of fine if you will, for the irresponsible stupidity of his brother. More on the joy of giving money at Japanese weddings next!

Please bestow your favour upon me this year too

2010-01-06T07:06:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year, dear readers. I have been waiting for Tokyo Metro to upload their new manner poster and even tried to snap a picture of one as I drunkenly and yet deftly hopped on the train after a double date plus one. As I discovered upon inspecting my phone once the doors closed, my attempt was a failure. Nevertheless, I present to you the January edition of the subway manner posters.

The creepy-sweepy couple still figure prominently and are as horrified-looking as ever at the depicted yoho's utter lack of social graces. I say at least he doesn't smell like rotting garlic from the previous night's yakiniku piss fest. Any one else think the young hooligan's crossed ankles look a tad unnatural?

I've gotten away relatively unscathed from the incessant New Year's greetings at the Kaisha because, as I pointed out at the end of last year, apparently ostracizing me is still very 2010. I also don't think befriending me figured too highly among weight-loss, marriage and pregnancy on the Secretaries' resolution lists for the year of the tiger. Ho-hum.

For those of us at the Kaisha whose social interaction consists of more than that with the computer, Sound Princess and elevator, one must bow and wish a happy new year to every one they know the first time they meet in the new year. And then implore their favour in the coming year. It's all fairly awk and looking at the wave of relief on people's faces when this quaint little exchange is over, you would think they had received a royal pardon from being executed. I did the dance with a couple poor souls, but the big surprise was the spitting-distance Secretary who only deigned to give me and our other quad-mate a good morning! This really did surprise me, neuroses aside, as despite her possible horror at having to truly breathe the same air as me, not greeting people in the prescribed manner is quite the faux pas. Familiarity has nothing to do with it either I have found, as I observed the beau's parents and his cousins on their knees and bending to the floor in bows one January 1st.

As with many Japanese companies, we were all knocking back sake at 9am the first day back at work. This isn't as bad as it sounds, I just wrote that for shock value. It's marginally better. Every year there is a small ceremony in the morning, where six lucky Secretaries are dressed in furisode and instructed to flank our venerable shacho (company president) as he delivers the opening speech of the new year. They then do the kagami-biraki breaking open of a cask of sake (more like a drum) and we all toast to the new year. I opted for some juice but happened to notice some bottles of Asahi Superdry so I don't doubt that someone was sculling back free beer under their desk before noon.

Over the break I got to meet Baby Mama, so stay tuned for that shebang. May your 2010 be filled with good manners!