Drowned in Translation
Originally, I was
fantasizing about writing a piece titled 'Seven Lessons of
Tokyo' where as a writer I would be able to penetrate into
the dark soul of the city and bring light to its hidden
secrets. Unfortunately, the
only 'secret lesson' I was able to learn from my
orchestra's recent trip to the Japanese capital was that
you will look like a true idiot if you walk through this
city in the pouring rain without an umbrella.
Honestly, I didn't notice how immediately the Japanese had
their umbrellas up when the rain started to fall. It
was so minimal at first that I enjoyed roaming through the
cypress-lined paths the Meji shrine in the spring rain,
taking in deep breaths of the moist air while the illusion
of silence in the heart of a city with over 12 million
people wrapped itself around me. The beauty of a
traditional Japanese wedding ceremony unfolding in front of
my eyes had me spellbound, and the steady drizzle only
added to the poignancy of the moment.
However by the afternoon, as I made it over to the Tokyo
International Forum our concert, there was no sign of the
shower letting up. The temperature had fallen too,
and I made a note to myself that I might want to find an
umbrella afterwards in Ginza, Tokyo's main shopping
district, located just next to the Forum on the other side
of the Yurachuko train station. I wanted to buy some
presents anyways and several others in my orchestra had
spoken of a 'great little paper shop' hidden between the
hallowed temples of the Mitsukoshi and Matsuya Department
Stores. "You will find the most wonderful
things at Ito-ya!" said a colleague to me.
After coming out of the
concert relatively unscathed (apart from having to sign
several autographs and pose in two pictures), I headed back
out into the rain and into a floating sea of umbrellas in
every shape and form. "I can handle this," I thought
to myself. "Just go to Muji next door (Japan's 'no
frills' store) and buy yourself an umbrella before heading
over to Ginza." However as it turned out, almost all
of the umbrellas, except for one or two in pink, were
gone. "Christ!" I thought to myself. I wasn't
ready to confront Tokyo's fashion mile with a pink
umbrella, but still, I was in no mood to give up for the
day. My time was limited and if anything, the rain at
least gave a Blade Runner-like poetry to the gaudiness of
the neon lights around me. I decided to dodge the
rain drops as best as possible, try to find the paper
store, and along the way hope that a suitable umbrella
would turn up.
It was a very bad
decision.
Getting soaking wet from
head to toe, I soon realized that 'dodging raindrops' was
futile. I was getting strange looks too, as if
my lack of carrying an umbrella was an unspoken
crime. A second Muji on Ginza Street also turned
equally fruitless, so I hurried into Mitsukoshi next door,
Japan's oldest department store. Shaking myself off
as best as possible in the entrance it was then that I
noticed how others were carefully packing their wet
umbrellas into a machine that dispenses long condom-like
plastic bags provided for the customers in such
weather. "Fascinating," I thought, but a rack with
dry towels would have been better. That's when things
suddenly turned bizarre, because no sooner did I step into
the store than a salesperson came up to me and greeted me
with a towel to dry myself off. Somehow she must have
seen me beforehand, and handing it to me she bowed
vigorously and said something in Japanese, her hands
directing me over to the store's assortment of
umbrellas. I quickly got the point, and muttered
"Arigato gozaimas!" ('thank you', which in Japan is useful
for pretty much everything) before heading over to select
my obligatory umbrella. Unfortunately the cheapest
model Mitsukoshi offered cost 3,500 Yen, approximately 35
dollars. Hoping that the saleswoman wouldn't spot me
again, I slipped back out of the store, feeling like a
thief for not having bought anything .
Back in the driving rain, all of Ginza was an inkwash of
umbrellas bobbing madly up and down about under the
darkened sky and the blaze of neon signs. The
traffic loudly sped by as I pulled the collar of my suit up
tightly around my neck and on through the crowds, cursing
myself for my own stubbornness. Not only was I
soaked, I was getting hungry too, and my feet were starting
to hurt. Moreover, the hyper-audio-visual experience
of Ginza at night was starting to annoy the living hell out
of me.
At the next corner I spotted an AM/PM Convenience store on
a side street and decided once again to get out of the rain
to buy some rice balls wrapped in seaweed. As I
went up to the cashier I happened to notice that to my
right there was a tiny collapsable umbrella on sale for 500
Yen. I grabbed it- the thing barely covered my head,
but it was at any rate better than the water torture I had
been submitting myself to for the past hour.
Relieved, I headed back out into the rain, armed with a
grenade-sized rice ball in one hand and the umbrella in the
other. "Now let's just get to the paper store," I
said to myself, "and then I can head back to the
hotel." Relaxing back into stride, the only thing
that kept on shocking me was seeing the reflection myself
in the store windows and realizing just how much I must
have stuck out among the Japanese. Fortunately I was
somewhat hidden under the umbrella.
I soon found Ito-ya, with its nine floors of paper and
writing utensils, which for me was like arriving at the
gates of heaven. The smell of paper and ink seemed to
just greet me at the entrance, raw materials just begging
to be touched and felt and looked at.
Another umbrella bag dispenser was set up too. But as
I stood there, sticking my tiny umbrella into it, part of
the umbrella's frame, which wasn't fully collapsed, got
caught in the bag. I tried pull it back
out. It snapped, leaving me with only the telescoping
tube in my hand. 'F***!' I cursed to myself
loudly. The rest of the umbrella was stuck in the
dispenser and my despite my frenzied attempts to pull it
out, I only seemed to make matters worse by jamming it in
even harder.
Meanwhile, the rest of Tokyo had gathered around me in
embarrassed silence, obviously wondering why an American
had just uttered the most caustic words in the English
language in front of an ordinary umbrella machine. It
was too much for me, and when one of the store employees
finally rushed out and extricated my ruined umbrella my
face was burning with embarrassment. He handed it to
me in stone faced silence. I stammered 'Arigato gozaimas!'
and quickly fled, feeling how the gates to heaven had
suddenly closed on me. But it was as if in that snap
of the handle, all of the noise- the cars, the rain, the
whining banter of the sales people, and the pop-like
jingles of the elevated train line combined with the
overabundance of neon had suddenly reached critical mass in
my head and exploded. "Effing umbrella!" I kept on
muttering to myself as I made my way in the rain to the
train station. Of course I hadn't taken the receipt
with me, but with my Japanese, it wouldn't have helped
anyways.
By the time I had made it
back to my station I had calmed down enough to decide that
a beer and some ramen noodles were necessary to fully rein
myself in before making the last sprint in the rain to my
hotel. There was an internet cafe across the street
from the station, and as I entered I was greeted by a
waiter who again quickly ran off to get me a towel.
Returning, he asked, "You like hot tea?" "Yes,
please and a Beer," I replied. "A big... beer, please"
"Hai!" he replied smiling, pointing me to a free computer
and handing me a menu. I sat down, relieved to be
finally somewhere where it was warm and dry and had Miles
Davis playing in the background. I ordered my bowl of
noodles and set myself to the task of checking my
e-mails. Even if the keyboard was constantly trying
to flip my text into Kanji, the world finally seemed to be
back in order again. The ramen arrived piping hot,
the beer was ice cold, and the smiling faces on Facebook
reminded me that 6000 miles away from here I would soon be
able to laugh at tonight's tragedy.