Do the Pachinko!

パチンコ　Does Pachinko get your heart pumping? The rushing sound of the little steel balls, the flashy lights, obnoxious arcade game music, the heavy smoke?

My first encounter with pachinko was during a high school trip to Kyoto. We didn't have a lot of free time but on one of the evenings the cool group to which I belonged, decided to go out and buy alcohol. I remember snickering about the name of the store (Liquor Mountain) and then being amazed they had just sold a sixteen year-old a bottle of rum (or was it vodka?). A couple of us went even further and bought cigarettes from a vending machine (OMG!!), and I even found the flattened box a couple years ago while I was cleaning out some stuff at my parents' house, which I had kept as a memento-Hope Lights. Shorter and smaller than regular cigarettes, Hope Lights come in a small white box with a picture of a bow and arrow. How cute. How hopeful. Hope I don't get cancer.

On our way back to the hotel it started to rain just as we had conveniently happened upon a pachinko parlor. We all went inside and posed in front of the blinking machines for photos and then ran around picking up lost balls off the floor. I still have a couple of those too.

Fast forward a bit to when I found out that the beau plays pachinko. You what?! I asked, trying to conceal my disdain. This was several months in and I had neglected to ask him if he played pachinko on our first date, something I had always reserved in my mind for low-lifes. When I used to commute to school in Takadanobaba I would walk by the lines of mostly men and young blond Japanese guys waiting around for the parlors to open. And then I found out that the man I love is a Pachinko Player. Time to readjust my thinking? Strangely enough once I found out that he plays, all of these other previously unidentified players started coming out of the woodwork. His father, some young university students we know, part-time workers at bars and restaurants that we frequent. Every one's doing it! Some for the money but most for stress relief. I personally find entering an environment filled with a non-stop metallic waterfall sound and the smell of stale smoke to be stress inducing but what do I know? I didn't grow up here.

I would have to stage an intervention if the beau was actually losing money and ended up in debt to loan sharks like one of his close friends (charming I know) but when he comes home and offers to take me shopping with his winnings or out for some nice expensive meat, my stress is reduced. I even forced myself to tag along a couple times, you know, play the supportive-of-your-hobbies girlfriend role. And to be honest, despite my worst intentions, I did enjoy myself on those few Sunday afternoons, sitting side by side amongst the deafening roar and sucking in all the smoke I could ask for.

On those afternoons I also had a chance to observe the other patrons of the pachinko establishment and they weren't all deadbeat salarymen and peroxided youth. There were other couples, pairs of women and even some women on their own. And of course the requisite bunch of old women, possibly trying to make up for time lost years ago when they were sitting at home while their now-immobile husbands were off at the P Parlors (just to clarify, I mean pachinko parlors, not pink parlors or penis parlors). Granted I don't think I can speak to the deadbeat factor of the previously sighted couples and women, but at least the demographic spread was broader than I had imagined. Of course everyone stared at my white ass because really, what is a white girl doing in a P Parlor? To get into the carnival atmosphere once I even wore my Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction wig and pranced down the narrow aisles between the seats flashing smiles here and there. That day I won us around 70,000 yen and there was constant traffic behind my chair as people vied for looks at Whitie Winning it Big. I felt like reminding them skill and luck at pachinko has nothing to do with nationality.

Pachinko is everywhere. In the countryside it is some of the only entertainment around. There are people who are "professional" players, not holding down a job and relying on their pachinko winnings to get by. In recent years even the pachinko establishment has tried to clean up its image, producing one yen parlors (where the amount of money used is much less), smoke-free parlors and couples' parlors where there are rows of two machines paired with a love seat. The thing about pachinko is, I still don't like it, but I can certainly understand its place among salarymen working their lives away for very small salaries and those who don't fit the salary mold, working outside the salary-realm or holding down several low-paying jobs at once.

If you ever do catch the p-bug, I would highly recommend the game based on a period drama about a band of old skool assassins called Hisatsu Shigotonin. It's the only game I play and if you appreciate a combination of old Japanese movies and tacky Vegas lights, it may be the game for you.

Etchi na sketchy

How can you not love the cleverness of the Japanese language? One of the ways to say "have sex" is to say "do H". Except it's Japanese so they say pronounce "H" as "etchi". Asking you if you'd ever heard of "hentai" is probably like asking if you'd heard of say, Oprah. Except hentai Overseas tends to be used to describe porn, anime, manga and other sexy stuff that is Japanese. In Japan it is an adjective that is most frequently used to mean sexually perverted. Can you see where I'm going with this? The Japanese then took the "H" from hentai and now use it all on its own as either the verb for fucking or as an adjective to describe something pervy, sexual, porny (?!), etc.

Sorry for the lesson, I thought I should preface the actual blog with an explanation for the post's title. Right, glad we cleared that up.

Last night I embraced my fear of being in a new social situation while creating art in front of other and checked out Tokyo's Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. I'd seen ads for it in Metropolis and other places around town and wrote it off as some strange-sounding cult. However, the Other White Girl and I looked into it recently, discovered it was not a cult but a very cool evening put on once a month in Tokyo, and decided to embrace that shit together. I really didn't want to go-although it sounded cool I was more into the idea of it rather than actually putting 4B pencil to paper and trying to draw someone. Let's not forget the "in public" part here. But alas in my recent attempts to improve on my at time overwhelmingly lonely and socially-lacking life, I forced myself to go.

First off, I am no Toulouse-Lautrec. Other White thought that I could have some latent talent a la my mom but I think it is safe to say I don't. My dalliances in art and poetry were just that-when I was little I would read a novel about a poet or artist and for a couple weeks after that I would try out a new career only to give it up after realizing it was a farce.

Last night I did manage to draw half the model's body in somewhat correct proportions during one of the sets. Maybe I should quickly explain just what kind of art school I was at. Originating in NYC, Dr. Sketchy's is a burlesque-style life drawing "class" that meets once a month at a restaurant in Tokyo. There is lots of drawing sexiness-last night's model was a gorgeous belly-dancer-but there are also competitions, drinking and a DJ! Fearful for my life, I thought perhaps they would put me on stage and critique my stick figures with earrings and breasts, but it was so laid back I had a fork and a glass of wine in my hands more often than a pencil. Clearly my idea of the perfect drawing class is one that involves no actual drawing of pictures.

I faced my fears and am happy I did. Will I go back next month? Probably. Do I still feel like when I walk into a room everyone knows each other except me? Definitely. I possibly mistakenly revealed to Other White that I used to sit (and stand and lay) for art classes here when I was a student, so towards the end of the night she tried to pimp me out to one of the organizers as a model. I don't think my experience of getting naked for every art class in the greater Tokyo area qualifies me for a Dr. Sketchy's class and as the organizer pointed out, it's less naked but more sexy. I can't quite decide whether to put this particular "fear" into the forget about it box or the maybe later one, after all, who doesn't like pasties and feather boas?

The March of Mankind

In honour of Respect for the Aged day, we did a little retro tour of Tokyo on the Toden Arakawa Line, which runs from Minowabashi (oft mentioned in Nagai Kafu's stories) to Waseda. For 400 yen you can get a one day pass that allows you to get on and off an unlimited number of times along the 50 minute route. I think a lot of our Japanese elders were also celebrating their day, as the passengers on Tokyo's only streetcar line all seemed to date from the Showa period, which is when the line was first constructed. Tokyo used to have streetcars running all over the place, but all that remains is the Arakawa Line. If you want to see old school, down and dirty Tokyo, I suggest an afternoon spent on these delightful trams.

Arakawa-shakomae station is right in front of the yard where all the trams sleep at night and there is an area open to the public where you can get up close and personal with some retired ones like the one above that was once bound for the Ginza. At the other stations there are local shopping streets, a sketchy amusement park, temples and down-home restaurants. We also got off at Asukayama station, right in front of Asukayama Park, and home to the Paper Museum. Unfortunately it was closed when we arrived or I would have paid 300 yen to see just what a paper museum entails. According to a plaque outside, paper has contributed to the march of mankind, so I guess they know what they're talking about.

We turned around at Otsuka station and headed in but once the fall truly arrives I plan to go back for more exploring. I'm not a train otaku by any means but I'm a sucker for anything old Tokyo and an afternoon rumbling down the tracks in Northern Tokyo and wandering around quiet neigbourhoods with no high rises was exactly what I needed.

The culturally sensitive Kaisha

The big wigs at the Kaisha almost elicited a tear from me today when they finally and after much public emailing back and forth, approved two days off for me to celebrate the Jewish new year. When I say almost I was half-expecting them to email me back with something along the lines of, bitch you ain't religious! No, but working for them has nudged me a little further from the corporate and more towards the let's heal.

The main problem wasn't whether I could take days off, it was whether I could take them unpaid. I get 10 paid days off every year and that is supposed to cover everything. There is no separate allotment for being sick or just needing a personal day. To the Kaisha you need no personal days. I don't know many people who would then use 2 of those days to go and pray. More than that though, I don't want to be paid for a day when I'm not supposed to work. Granted this is Japan and their idea of a religious holiday is eating KFC on December 24th with their significant other, but I think the Kaisha is man enough to wake the fuck up to the rest of the world and realize that maybe everyone doesn't fit in the same box.

When I first handed in my application form I was told they would need to get approval from the Top. Preempting any confused emails I tried my best to clearly explain what is was I planned to do on these 2 days and why I was asking for the never-asked-for unpaid holidays. Although I was only communicating with one of the women in HR, for some reason she kept Cc'ing one of my colleagues and three other HR people in her replies, enabling them to read our email chain. What the mother fuck?! I can just imagine trying to get time off for something really personal and she would make sure it made the rounds to every last person at the Kaisha. Even the hot mail room boys. I talked myself out of sending her an emailed edged in snarkiness entailing how I felt about her affinity for the Cc button, as I figured it would be one less thing to apologize for come Yom Kippur.

I have had some interesting reactions from Japanese people in the past including a Japanese professor at my CANADIAN university who practically told me she didn't believe my Jewish holiday story and my teacher at an INTERNATIONAL language school in Tokyo who informed me that no, the school had no policies on religious holidays and wasn't prepared to discuss any now. In the end the Kaisha actually did right by me, despite my expectations. I had even prepared a little speech to give to one of the Top Professionals if they had decided to put the kabosh on my plans. I guess that's 1 for the Kaisha but still about 10 for me.

Geisha's acting debut

I arrived at work today to an email about the Christmas party. No not the one this month, the one in late December. I think the time span alone gives you an indication of the kind of production the Kaisha puts on for its annual Christmas do. In short, there is food and no shortage of alcohol, usually a Kaisha-made video and a stage production put on by the newbies. The stage production usually involves lip-syncing, cross-dressing and general let's make fools of ourselves. Does anyone else know and love Kojima Yoshio (he is a little last year I realize)? We had someone dress up and do him last year. By dress up I mean wear a Speedo. In front of the whole Kaisha. For someone who has practically danced around naked in front of 600 of his closest colleagues, this Professional now takes himself much too seriously.




Back to the email. In the past those of us in the untouchable class (foreigners) have not been involved in the stage production but this year they want us to participate and have asked for some skit ideas. Here are some of the ones I've come up with so far:

-A parody on the line of secretaries at the bathroom mirror every day after lunch, obsessively applying make-up and doing their part to contribute to office gossip.

-A satire on the Professional and secretary relationship. They meet at the Kaisha, get married, she quits to stay home and then gets increasingly jealous and irate after realizing that she spent more time with her Professional when they were colleagues than as man and wife. To make it worse, she is worried he is cheating on her with one of the young and barely-twenty new secretaries. There's always someone younger and more fuckable honey.

-White girl ghetto. Kind of a funny piece that also makes you want to cry: the other foreign girl at the office and I will do a small series of skits showing what it is like to be less than a minority.

-An amusing piece on the Dos and Don'ts of acting like an adult in the working world. DO introduce yourself when asking someone you have never met to do work for you. DON'T assume I can't speak Japanese and walk by my desk noting to your colleague that I must be lonely in my otherwise unoccupied cubicle quad (true story).

Incidentally, I was mistreated again yesterday. I believe I mentioned this before when I was raving about how much I heart my Kaisha but I will do a quick re-cap. When entering and exiting the elevator hall I have often had the door closed in my face by the person in front of me. Not that it's too hard to figure out, but a person who knows I work on the same floor. I had actually forgotten about the geriatric Professional until yesterday.

The first time he snubbed me we were going into the Kaisha and he gave me a dirty look like I was from a rival Kaisha and trying to sneak in, and then shut the door behind him instead of allowing me to pass through the same air space as him. Yesterday we were waiting for the elevator and this time he gave me a dirty look that said, Oh it's you again. How did you manage to sneak in this time? First of all, how did he manage to sneak through the system without being made to retire? The guy is past the golden oldies age and should be home gardening or otherwise occupied in gentler pursuits. The next time he snubs me I am going to ask him if he is on the wrong floor and actually looking for the geriatric ward in the building.

One more piece of titillating news on the Kaisha front. I am going to one of the Other Asian Countries in the next couple months and am getting my vaccinations in order. My sweet mom sent me a list of the ones I've had by email with a subject line that reads "immunization record with love". I clicked print and then realized the printer was going into overdrive for one of the secretaries who was printing out thousands of pages. When it looked like hers had finished I check the top sheet and my email was nowhere to be found. Computer savvy people: did it get cancelled? did it get printed in the middle of all those pages? Obviously I can't just ask the secretary if she's seen it. So either it didn't print or some client is going to find my immunization record nestled in the report we sent them this afternoon. Fuckity fucking great.

Shout out

As some of you may already know, the fabulous movers and shakers of the Tokyo blog community had their inaugural meeting this past weekend. The first part of the evening involved me being handcuffed, as it was held at the ever trendy Lock-up izakaya where they can't seem to decide on a theme so there is a little bit of mad scientist, PVC fetish, boogieman and jail theme going on. Nothing says "social science project" like a group of adults no longer able to hide behind their written personalities but I was very pleasantly surprised. I had completely different ideas about who might be showing up, not better or worse, just different, which perhaps goes to show how unimaginative I am, or bad at reading online personalities. A special thanks to the Foreign Salaryman, who put it all together and for some reason kept getting Tokyo Cowgirl and I confused (does that mean you think I'm the intense one?!).

Unfortunately the Cowgirl and I had a date with an igloo so we missed out on the alleged male bonding that took place at the after party. Will definitely not skip such a telling experience next time!

Thousands of wannabee fashionistas descend upon the Ginza

To answer my own question, I was fucking crazy to even consider going to Tokyo's first H&M store on opening day. Or the first three days for that matter. Depending on whose account you believe, between 3 and 5 thousand people lined up (for 2 to 4 hours) to shop there on opening day. I am an avid believer of fashion on the cheap so I couldn't be more thrilled that H&M has gotten its ass over here, but I do not subscribe to the sheer frenzy of these people. How could I possibly know how crazy they are? you may ask. Thanks to reader XF, I am now a card-carrying member of Mixi, Japan's online "networking" community.

Granted, if I was a Japanese person reading say, gaijinpot, I would not read too far into most of the shit that is flung around the message boards there. By the same rule, I shouldn't believe everything I read on Mixi, but strangely enough I find myself having more faith in the Japanese and their use of message boards. Thanks to computers, camera phones, and Mixi I had a play by play account of the H&M opening ALL weekend. From Friday night the message board was a hub for those crazy mofos lining up the night before, and those of us at home, to check on how long the line was getting, what kind of goodies were being passed out, and finally, to receive reports from those brave soldiers returning from battle.

If you were out and about in Tokyo on the weekend, chances are you spotted people strutting around with their glossy H&M bags. I wonder if these glossy paper bags are going to be a permanent fixture to boost the company's standing/reputation, or if they will be switched for the cheap and nasty plastic bags that are used in other countries. Shopping bags are definitely a status symbol here in Tokyo and I'm not referring to when they are holding freshly-bought goods. They are used to show everyone where you have shopped, and judging by the wear and tear on some of the Gucci and LV shopping bags I've seen, often a very long time ago. The general message seems to be, I am not wearing anything from which you can derive a brand name but I did shop at Hermes a couple years ago and I'm going to keep using this tiny Chanel shopping bag (that once probably held 3000 yen nail polish) until things start falling out of the holes in the bottom. Talk about the shame I have felt riding the subway carrying a recycled grocery bag, or worse, a Gap bag! Not only do you have to compete in the brand war using your handbag in Tokyo, you have to step it up a level by also showing off the paper shopping bag it came in!

I was recently befriended by a secretary who mistook my fake Chanel bag (bought in an apartment off some sketchy alley in Hong Kong) for a mutual love of brands. I ran into her in the bathroom last week and she was just thrilled to show me that she had the same bag! I didn't have the heart to tell her that mine cost a fraction of what she had paid. Although really, hers would have come with a Chanel shopping bag so maybe it works out in the end.