| Submitted by: Mark Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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For some reason the school uniforms here are based on Navy uniforms. We saw pretty much the same thing in Helsinki, Finland and the students there were all in what looked like Navy caps. Are high schools run on a metaphor of the Navy, the way Starfleet is in Star Trek or what is it that is going on? The must be some explanation.
It is much more common here to see people sleeping on subways than it is in New York. It must be that it is a lot safer. And also with the pressure it is a lot more necessary. We got off the subway at Shinjuku and walked to West Shinjuku. It is impressive. I think the most profitable companies in Japan were trying to out-Manhattan Manhattan. Everything in the NS building is meant to negate the image of tiny Japan. The building is 30 floors high and has a glassed-in top. It has a huge atrium that goes up the whole height of the building. There is a Seiko clock that must be six stories high itself. There is nothing miniature about this building. The computer exhibit, called for some reason the OA exhibit, was there on the fifth floor, we had been told. I was there in my photovest, Evelyn in blue jeans. A high mucki-muck Japanese businessman in a three-piece suit got on the same elevator. Physics says that heat is actually the energy of moving molecules. Supposedly you can radiate heat, but you cannot radiate a chill. Of course few physicists have worn photojackets and shared an elevator with a Japanese, high mucki-muck businessman. It is done with a very subtle tensing of the muscles of the face, but it really works. One thing that does not work is going to the fifth floor to find the OA exhibit. It isn't there. We went back down to the ground floor. It was not easy making ourselves understood but we did and the woman looked up the exhibit in a book. It had moved to the Sumitomo building. OK, we headed out with a sigh of relief. The Sumitomo Building is another fabulously expensive building across the way, perhaps just a little less impressive than the NS building.
Walking to the Sumitomo Building we passed a sale of giant carp. This is really a status fish. You know you have really made it when your personal pond has a foot-long carp or better yet several. The Emperor's pond had enough giant carp to have gridlock, but then, he IS the Emperor. Anyway the biggest we 20,000 yen though you could get some for as little as 5000 yen. These fish do not have to worry about ending up on vinegared rice.
Inside we went. But now we had no idea where to look. There was an information desk, of course. Again we had a hard to making ourselves understood. 'Away exhibit?' 'OA! Computer.' Blank stare. Then Evelyn did what I was afraid she might. She showed the listing to the woman. 'Oh, that is NS Building. This Sumitomo Building.' 'They sent us here.' 'Exhibit is in NS Building. This Sumitomo Building.' 'Can you look to see if there is an OA exhibit.' 'What company?' 'Many companies.' 'NEC?' 'That might be one.' 'NEC on seventh floor.' We tried the seventh floor. We asked on person who looked at us like we were nuts. I decided he was right. We went up to the observatory floor, took some pictures and decided to leave before we annoyed more suits.
From there we went to see the entertainment district of East Shinjuku. It took us a long time just to figure out how to get to the other side of the train station during the incredible rush hour when supposedly two million people go through. We did eventually find our way. On the way we passed a bunch of homeless people living under a bridge. A friend had said most of the poor and the beggars were Caucasians. I am not sure where he was looking, but I have seen a few of the poor and homeless, but not one was Caucasian.
What I was picturing as Ginza is East Shinjuku, a jungle of bright lights and neon. It is mostly stores outside the entertainment district. The entertainment district is not like the red light district anywhere else. It does have the *** shows and massage parlors, but there are more restaurants, and there are Pachinko palaces. We walked around taking things in, looking at the bright neon. The whole place seemed less unwholesome than we thought. And as far as the *** stuff, it seems to be treated much more openly in Japan than in the U.S. It always seems to be a covert sort of enterprise at home. And more so than ever. We now have this coalition of the religious right and the feminist left trying to suppress pornography and the *** industry. (On my last visit to the Science Fiction Shop in New York I notice that they have gotten rid of all this material written for men: Gor novels, racy French comics, etc., but they still very openly have a shelf of erotica written for women. Nobody seems to be going after that. We are nurturing a real double standard in the name of justice. And people find Japanese society strange. It is not that I would be greatly bothered if the pornography all disappeared on its own, but it is a very disturbing trend toward censorship and double standards in our society.)
Then we went to a music store outside of the entertainment district where I paid a heavy price but got some hard to find Japanese film music. Then it was back to the entertainment district for dinner. I found it hard to find a place to eat since most were sushi shops. I was sure there were a lot of good places to eat just an hour or so earlier when we were first just strolling through. And I thought we had a better selection the first time.
We passed a Mister Donut shop that claimed to have Chinese steamed buns. Throwing caution to the winds, we entered. That part is one floor down. OK. We went down and found the whole lower level had a super-exaggerated 1950s decor. Hey, it works for the Hard Rock Cafe. The music playing was a constant stream of Elvis songs. The food seemed to feature shu mi, steamed pork bun, and shrimp dumpling with either noodle soup or a noodle dish. How did they attempt to tie together 50s decor and steamed pork buns? Was this how Americans ate in the 50s? This was supposed to be San Francisco's Chinatown in the 50s. Never mind that a Chinatown restaurant would almost never play Presley music, that was the theme. Oh, and as for the quality of the dumplings and the rest of the food--just slightly the low end of mediocre. But that was about what we expected.
Heading back to the train station we passed Jumbo, a Pachinko parlor all lit up Las Vegas style with an incredible amount of red neon. So much red neon you can feel the heat radiating off of it on your face from across the street.
This was now past 7 PM and Shinjuku was still an incredible mob of people. (P.S. Actually at 10 PM it would still be the same story. Perhaps later. The city never sleeps.) I commented to Evelyn that it was good the rush hour was over. (It loses something. You should have seen the mob of people.) They really need ticket machines in Shinjuku. There are long lines of people buying tickets well into the evening with enough machines the wait is not too bad.
The train was crowded and we had to stand. I stood facing an ad for something featuring the three tenors, Domingo, Pavarotti, and Carreras. I didn't know they were popular in Japan. In Ikebukuro we had to pass the usual gauntlet of miniskirted women and young guys handing out ads for local girlie shows. For good or bad reasons they hand them only to Japanese, not to gaijin. 'Gaijin' is Japanese for 'gringo.' There is some question as to whether it is a derogatory term. Gaijin is short for the word for foreigner 'gaikokujin.' Is it a negative word? Not taken literally. There are people at home who refer to a 'black gentleman' and use 'gentleman' in a derogatory manner. Any word for someone else can be used in a negative way. And any time you hear a word you don't know being used to refer to you, it is natural to feel a little paranoia. There is the old joke that the Lone Ranger killed Tonto because he found out that 'kimosabe' means '*******.' All you can say is that gaijin may be negative or may not depending on context.
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10/12/96 Tokyo: Feeding the Nation: Tsukiji and the Kitchen Supply District
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Well, it was time to try Tsukiji again. This is the giant fish market, biggest in the world. Luck of Leeper said the last time we tried I, it was closed for a holiday the next day. I had already been up early and working on my log before the appointed 5:30 wake-up time for the trip. By 6 we were out and headed for the market area between Ginza and Tokyo Bay. We grabbed a train and were at the market area by 6:30. By that point most of the tuna auctions were over, but there was only so much we were willing to do. Last time we were really not sure how to find the market and were wandering around. I told Evelyn that this time that would not be necessary. We could just follow the people on either side of us. How did I know they were going to Tsukiji, she asked. They are wearing boots. The tour books tell you to wear old shoes since Tsukiji is not neat. In any case it took us back to the area where we has been before. There is an outer market, really a bunch of stalls along the street. But what we wanted is the trading area. It is set back a five minute walk from the road, but you cannot miss it because there are vehicles of all sizes from little pull wagons to vans maneuvering around. In fact, just getting to the main building can be a little daunting. Evelyn asked how we should do it. I said just pick someone who look like he knows what he is doing and is going in and follow him. And keep alert.
This is by a factor of two or three the largest fish market in the world. Fishing boats come in from all over the world to sell their fish. The Japanese eat a lot of seafood, about 80 pounds per person per year. In an average day about 1800 tons of fish, 200 of tuna alone, will be sold here and about 15 million dollars will change hands. All this under one roof in a market of 55.6 acres.
We were threading among all sorts of vehicles taking out fish, and dodging fork lifts. I got some pictures of tuna and one of a man with a fisherman band around his head. The band is about the smallest headgear that can be called headgear and my guess its purpose is to collect sweat. It is like a role of cloth with a circular cross-section. It may be a half inch in circumference. Then this band is tied around the head. The tuna have a characteristic look also. Each is still frozen, so it is white. The tails have been cut off so buyers can see the fat content. Also there will be an cut toward the base of the neck for an inspection at that end. They are something like three or four feet long and are about 18 inches in diameter at the widest. On the side of the white fish will be painted something in red. It is probably the symbol of the company. You see buyers going around looking at the neck cut with a special tool.
But that is just one kind of seafood sold here in the raw. You see live octopus squirming and dead octopus. You see plastic hampers of fish still squirming. There are live shrimp and things that have long segments like shrimp but are not. There are oysters looking like rocks and giant clams with feet an inch and a half wide and four inches long. There is some sort of bright red fish you see a lot of, with eyes two inches in diameter and with eerily reflective eyes that change as you walk past. There are live crabs packed in sawdust twitching but looking like they have been breaded in sawdust and fried. Fish are being cut with jigsaws, with knives, with hatchets, and frozen fish are being cut like firewood with axes. The fish is stood up and then cut in quarters or slices the long way like you would split a log.
It takes 15 minutes to cross the floor the long way. Curiously there is very little fish smell. What we think of as the small of fish is really the smell of decaying fish. This is all fresh fish. |
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