And then I went to Tokyo.
I don’t have the exact figures on hand, but something like seven zillion people live in Tokyo, and they all cross the street at the same time. Since I returned home, I’ve been telling all my friends that the single most astounding thing I saw in Japan was-seriously-the sight of Japanese people crossing the street in Tokyo’s Shibuya district at 6 p.m. on a Saturday night. Like two marathons starting simultaneously on opposite sides of the block. Like Moses putting the sea back together. It ain’t like Times Square, where jaywalkers break rank and shoot out from the sidewalk, thinning the flow. No, for starters, Tokyo’s got at least four Times Squares. So there’s that. But there’s also the equality of velocity, the patient precision, the absence of dodgers and weavers-I tell ya, it is frikkin’ scientific.
I was overwhelmed. There, I said it.
The other things that fascinated me about Tokyo were cuter and bite-size, not overwhelming, not intimidating. But the following examples stuck out. They were overlaps between the megacity cultures of New York and Tokyo and proved ultimately how different these two places are.
- The Jingoistic American Blockbuster
My two travel companions and I were fortunate to schedule our trip after the opening of “Pearl Harbor” in the United States but before its opening in Japan, close enough so that we witnessed ads for the film on Japanese television. So how exactly does a Hollywood studio sell a movie about a Japanese surprise attack, told from the perspective of tragically besotted Yanks, back to the movie’s historical villains? Simple. 1) Pray that everyone in Japan forgets that it was Japan that attacked Pearl Harbor, or 2) don’t remind them by leaving out Japanese people from the commercials. For all you’d know from watching these ads, Pearl Harbor could’ve been attacked by the Muppets.
Best of all, at the very end, you get to hear what a thick Japanese accent does to the English pronunciation of “Pearl Harbor.” In and of itself, this isn’t funny because accents are not funny. But try to imagine one of those ultraserious, deep baritone movie announcer voices saying it. Think James Earl Jones saying “Poo Hah-bah” and, gosh darn it, it’s really funny.
But all I could think watching the ads was, “Those poor saps.” Because, having seen that three-hour piece of junk, it’s clear to me that exporting “Pearl Harbor” is our revenge on the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. And being the turncoat that I am, I wanted to warn them. Maybe with a little help they could shock us again-you know, turn the tables. “Pearl Harbor” could be a thoroughly enjoyable smash hit in Japan because all of that gruesome dialogue is in English. I wanted to tell them not to subtitle the movie, that as a silent film, “Pearl Harbor” could be a classic.
- Tales From the (Terrifyingly Prompt) Subway
In Japan, the most common subway reading material is comic books. Lots of businessmen, in full suit and tie, fill their time on the trains reading very thick comics. Whenever I spotted one of these fellows, I tried to angle around and get a glimpse. I’d heard about Japan’s fixation with pornographic comic books, and I couldn’t imagine what other kind a grown man would be reading. (Of course, here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. we like our nudie pics photographed or at the very least pixelated, but never-pish posh!-handdrawn.) But of all the men on the subway I saw reading oversized comic books, I can only confirm that one was pornographic. Content of the others couldn’t be verified.
The other Tokyo subway pastime, much like here in America, is listening to music on a Walkman. Or it would be, anyway, if the country hadn’t evolved about three light years beyond us. My companions and I each brought a Discman on the trip, but by the third day, we felt so out-gadgeted that we were calling them eight-track players. Everyone in Japan who listens to music apparently has a portable MP3-player, most commonly versions made by Sony. One looks like a fat Magic Marker, the other like a metal cigarette lighter. They’re sleek, they weigh about 1/84th of an ounce and the sound quality is astonishing. And, of course, their music never skips because-duh-no CDs. They are so much smarter than us. I can’t believe we beat this country in a war.
Actually, we do one thing better: the music itself. Japanese pop music-or, as we took to calling it, Japanapop-is horrible, just like all other Asian pop. I will say, though, that Japan does the best job, out of all the Asian countries I’m familiar with, of imitating Western pop. To close out this item, here’s my all-time, desert-island, top-five ranking by nation of Asian pop: 1) Japan. 2) Vietnam. 3) Singapore. 4) Taiwan. 5) Hong Kong. (Yes, I know Hong Kong’s not a country, but that city produces some of the snaggliest pop I’ve ever heard. Even if I’d been exposed to Fijian pop by now, I’m sure Hong Kong pop would still rank last. Their singers are so bad they turn all of them into actors just to shut them up.)
- Quick Fashion Tip (Girls)
If you want to look like a hip Tokyo native, the cool thing to wear, it seems, is a Boy Scout or Cub Scout uniform. Cub Scout unis are better because the color (navy blue) is bolder and the size (prepubescent American boy) is usually just right. We saw these in several vintage stores and on actual Japanese girls.
- How Styx Taught Me Japanese
My philosophy about traveling in a non-English-speaking country is that, to get by, you really only need to learn two phrases of the native tongue, so long as you can point with tremendous acuity. (I swear this isn’t because I’m a boorish American, though I am, but because I have absolutely no gift for foreign languages. No idea why.) Those two phrases are “thank you” and “excuse me.” In Japanese, the latter is easy and fun to say: it’s “sumi-masen.” No problem.
But for some reason, I just couldn’t seem to remember “thank you,” which translates to “arigato.” I had to keep looking it up in my Lonely Tourist guide. Meanwhile, one of my travel companions kept humming “Mr. Roboto” by Styx (the seminal 1970s prog-rock group). Must’ve seen that Volkswagen commercial we saw before we took off, I thought. Since I’m an idiot, he actually had to sing the chorus aloud before I put two and two together: “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto…” Domo arigato!! “Thank you very much” in Japanese!! I didn’t forget it again for the rest of the trip. Of course, I had Styx in my head for the rest of the trip.
- Quick Fashion Tip (Boys)
If you’re a guy and you want to get filmed live and be simulcast on the big-screen Jumbotron at the Tokyo Dome, no problem. Here’s what you do. 1) Go to a home game for the Nippon Ham Fighters, the worst, most ghetto baseball team in all of Japan. The stadium will be virtually empty. 2) Show support by buying a Nippon jersey. Put it on as soon as you get back to your seat. 3) If you’re as obviously American as the three of us, the Jumbotron operator will be so astonished you’ve come to a Ham Fighters game and bought a jersey that he’ll find you by the sixth inning. This will cost you about $60, but you will be on that thing for, like, 15 seconds, dude. No joke. So worth it.
