Tonight, I was gonna go see my friend (who I haven’t seen in a long time) spin records in Shibuya. To catch the last train there, I had to leave from my station at 12:25am and transfer to the final train leaving from Musashi-Kosugi at 12:42am. At 12:20am, my local station attendant came out and made an announcement in super-fast Japanese.

It took awhile to figure out what he said, but basically, the Nambu line (my train) would be late leaving Kawasaki cause it was waiting for the Tokaido to arrive. There must have been a problem with the Tokaido line, and if the Nambu didn’t wait for the people on that ill-fated train, they’d be doomed to a night in Kawasaki.

Yeah, for those who don’t know, Tokyo public transportation does not run all night. Most train lines stop sometime between 12:00am and 1:00am at night. If you miss that last train, you’re stuck there until sunrise. So if you’re planning on going out to a club, you’d better be prepared to stay out for the long haul…till like 5:00am, depending on what time your train home starts running.

That’s why I like taking the last train to clubs. I’m getting old, and don’t have the stamina to party from 9pm-5am, but partying from 1am-5am is doable.

So anyway, the Nambu line was 10 minutes late, meaning there was no possible way to catch the Tokyu Toyoko line from Musashi-Kosugi to Shibuya at 12:42am. So I had to give up and go back home, cursing JR for their flaky ways.

Why am I pissed at JR?

JR (Japan Railways) was once controlled by the government, but is now a private company. Unlike cities like San Francisco, or LA, Tokyo’s public transportation system is comprised of many different companies, JR being the largest.

As I mentioned before, the train I needed to transfer onto at Musashi Kosugi was the Tokyu Toyoko line, which is run by the Tokyu (”Tokyo Kyuko”) Corporation…one of JR’s competitors. So basically, by having the JR Nambu train wait for a late JR Tokaido train, JR was looking out for itself. Anyone else depending on the Nambu to transfer to the last Tokyu train was screwed!

I was lucky, as I could just walk back home…but I wonder how many other poor souls are spending the night in Musashi-Kosugi tonight thanks to JR looking out for itself. You know you’ve been in Japan too long when you start getting this pissed over a train that’s only 10 minutes late! But hey, the last train is no joke.

Actually, I was only slightly annoyed until I got home and called my friend to tell him I couldn’t make it. But I went through the roof when he passed the phone to someone who simply said, “Hello?”

I instantly recognized the voice to be one of my old-school friends from California. He recently arrived in Japan, and came to the club to say hi and surprise me! Of all the nights for JR to screw me over, why did it have to be tonight?!

I’ll never trust JR again!!!

The first time I came to Japan, and a train was delayed, a friend explained to me that there’d been an accident. I was shocked, cause I’d heard that Japan’s public transportation system was one of the safest in the world. After hearing the word “accident,” I imagined a train crash, and started worrying if anyone had been hurt.

I asked my friend for more info, but he told me there was no crash. The “accident” was that somebody had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. ‘What a terrible way to go,’ I thought, but what shocked me even more was when he told me that it happens all the time.

At the time, I found it hard to believe. But now I realize that my friend was right. It does happen all the time, and so much so that it doesn’t even phase me anymore. Whenever I see a train delay caused by an “accident,” I know someone has just made the final leap.

It’s easy to feel detached from it when all you see is a flashing notice on the screen at a station. But when you are at the scene of the suicide, it’s a little more intense.

When I arrived at Kawasaki station last Monday, I heard there’d been an accident on the Kehin-Tohoku line. I knew it was a suicide, but had no idea it was at the actual platform in Kawasaki station until I saw a huge group of people staring in the distance.

I couldn’t see what they were looking at, but I figured it out when I saw four guys in uniforms run over there with a stretcher, some rope, and a blue tarp. They were the clean-up crew, coming to take what was left of the body off of the tracks.

If I wanted to, I could have gone over to get a closer look at the carnage, but out of respect for the deceased, I decided to move on. But lots of other people seemed excited, and were running over to get a peek of the mangled body before it could be taken off the tracks.

For me, I’d never want to die in such a public manner…with people gawking over my twisted body and taking pictures with their cellphones. I felt sad for the person who died, and can hardly imagine how hopeless they must have felt before jumping in front of an oncoming train. It was a sad thing to see.

Luckily, there’s a spare laptop computer around here, but it’s super slow, and a nightmare to work on. I went to Kawasaki today to check out prices on memory for it, but as I suspected, everything was overpriced there. Looks like I might have to trek out to Akihabara (Electric Town) and see what kind of deals they’ve got going on.

Anyway, I’ve got a quick story about something traumatizing I witnessed while walking in Kawasaki…a man picking his nose in broad daylight. Now seeing this is no big deal, and to tell you the truth, I’m pretty used to it by now. Not a day goes by that I don’t see somebody digging for gold on the train, or out in the street.

But what shocked me most about this kook was that he pulled his pinky finger out of his nose, took a quick look at it…and then shoved it straight in his mouth! I thought I was hallucinating, but my friend, who was with me, saw it too.

We started laughing in disbelief, and my friend shouted, “Tabetta!” (He ate it!). The guy must have heard, cause he looked right at us. I thought he might feel ashamed, but you know what? He just kept sucking on that filthy fingertip, on a busy street, in front of the whole damn world!

No shame, whatsoever.

At my school, each student was assigned a locker where we could keep our books, lunch, and other belongings during class. Each locker had a built in combination lock, and it was up to you to guard that combo with your life. This was a difficult task, as everytime you opened it, there were hundreds of kids crowding around, any one of whom could be sneaking a peek as you twisted the dial.

I never told my locker combo to anyone, but somehow, somebody got it, and started stealing from me. The weird part about it was what they stole…

One day, at lunchtime, I went to my locker to grab lunch and meet up with some friends. When I opened the bag, I noticed something was gone: my sandwich. At first I thought I was losing my mind. Why? Because I made my lunch every morning, and I distinctly remembered making a sandwich on that day.

Everything else was in the bag: a drink, some chips, an orange, and a cookie…basically, the very items any normal kid would want to steal! Who would steal a sandwich, and leave all the other good stuff? It all seemed too strange, and I tried to put it out of my mind, assuring myself that I must have been half-asleep when I made lunch in the morning.

The next day, I made sure everything was in my bag before putting it in the locker, but come lunchtime, the sandwich was gone…again. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, and there was no more denying it:
Some punk had my locker combination.

I ate my bag of chips that day, and thought about the predicament I was in. My friends shared their food with me, but I couldn’t freeload off them everyday. What could I do? The school wouldn’t help me. It was run by a bunch of clowns. As I said before, the locks were built into the lockers, so the only way to change the combo was to have a specialist come down and do it.

The sandwich snatching went on for almost two weeks, and I was becoming more and more curious as to who the culprit was. One day, I was hanging out at my friend’s house, and we were looking around in his kitchen for some grub. He was half-Japanese, and his dad liked to cook, so there were tons of Japanese ingredients over there. One time, his pops cooked sushi for my family, and I remembered how my dad almost died when he mistook the wasabi for guacamole. Hmmm, I wonder what a wasabi sandwich would taste like?

My friend liked the idea, so we squeezed an entire tube of wasabi around the center of a piece of bread. Then we surrounded the wasabi with peanut butter and jelly, and after putting the second slice of bread on top, it appeared to be a good old-fashioned PB&J. ‘Wow, I can’t wait to eat this tomorrow.’ I thought as I put it in a ziplock baggy.

But unfortunately, I was unable to try my wasabi sandwich. You see, like clockwork, the sandwich theif struck again. When I opened my bag at 12:00 pm, everything was there, minus my tasty sandwich. ‘Oh well, I hope they enjoy it,’ I thought. ‘Maybe they’ll even complement me after lunch on my cooking.’

I waited all day for something to happen, but nothing did. The next day, I brought my lunch to school, with a turkey sandwich, and come lunchtime…surprise, surprise…the sandwich was still in my bag! Same thing the next day, and the day after that.

In fact, for the rest of the year, nothing was taken from my locker ever again. I never did find out who the perpetrator was, but I can only imagine their surprise after swallowing a tubefull of wasabi.

Lesson to be learned, don’t steal from the cook.

Some of the quotes from the party people are classic, so I wrote them down for those who can’t hear cause of the muffled sound:

(Filipino kids)
“We come here for the breakin”
“The breakin’. We wanna see everybody break down here. We heard everybody breaks down here and they got the #1 breakers down here too.”
“We wanna show ‘em our stuff.”
“Yeah, we wanna break with them too. We wanna show what we can do with it.”

(Girl in the red)
“This place is the best, it’s the best place to come see breakers. There’s no place in the Valley to go see ‘em.”

(Blonde girls)
“A lot of people told us about the breakin’ stuff and we just come to watch.”
“It’s interesting. I mean, it’s um, fun to pick up different things, and try out new clubs and stuff.”

(Arcadia girls)
“We come down cause we like the music here and the atmosphere and it’s…kinda casual it’s…I don’t know, you tell them..”
“It’s not real trendy you know, we don’t see all our friends from Arcadia or Pasadena here. It’s a different crowd.”
“Yeah.”

I wonder how many of those folks had any idea how long it would last. 23 years later, it’s still going strong, even half-way around the world, from New York 2 LA 2 Tokyo.

I’d like to say thank you to the teachers who helped me out over the past year, and to the awesome students who came through for my last Voice sessions tonight. That really meant a lot to me! We’ll keep in touch for sure.

Sure enough, off in the left-hand side of the restaurant, I saw a small sign labeled, “AIR,” that had an arrow pointing to the stairway. I walked down and saw a staff member standing at a podium with the guest list. People were telling him, “I’m DJ So-and-so’s friend,” and all that…trying to get in for free.

Finally, I got up to the front of the line, and he completely ignored me. I’m used to people at a club telling you the price when you try to walk in, but this dude wouldn’t even look at me! The people behind me walked up and tried to get in on the guestlist. He talked to them for awhile, and continued ignoring me. Finally I said, “Ikura desu ka?” (how much?), and he told me I had to pay downstairs. ‘Thanks a lot, bigshot,’ I thought, as I walked on down.

The next group of staff were really cool though, and I payed them and entered the club. The place was packed and reeked of cigarette smoke mixed with sweat. I spotted my friend right away and we made our way to the bar. I ordered an Oolong Hi (Oolong Tea and Shochu), and my buddy got a bottle of water.

“What a rip-off!” he said…for a super-small, half-bottle of water, it cost 500 yen (that’s almost 5 bucks)! My Oolong Hi had as much water (in the form of ice) as his bottle did, and was only 600 yen. ‘Damn, I better stick to the alcoholic beverages!’ I thought.

We made our way to the dance floor, but nobody was dancing. A show was about to start, and the crowd was gathering around. The DJ dropped a beat, and some dancers came out and started doing their thing. The crowd went wild, and a couple of groupies started pushing and shoving to make their way to the front. There were a few different dance shows, and most of them were pretty good, but nothing to write home about.

But the last group had some serious skills. These guys were busting out head spins and windmills like there was no tomorrow. People started whipping out their cellphone cams to catch it all on film. I just got a new phone a couple of weeks ago, but it’s all in Japanese, so it’s taking me forever to navigate through all the options. I haven’t figured out how to shoot video clips yet…but I did manage to take some pics.

Yeah, I know, these pics are super blurry. But hey, these guys were moving at breakneck speed, and it was pretty dark in there! Next time I’ll try to get the action on video.

Looking one year back, I feel pretty silly for anticipating such a reaction, but hey, I come from America! People have been killed there for simply wearing a turbin on their head (Remember the poor Indian guy after 9/11?). People in Japan can be just as racist as anywhere else, but it’s more of a passive racism.

Anyway, I found some of the specials this year very interesting. There was one about the doctors of Unit 731, the Japanese medical unit responsible for carrying out sickening experiments on POW’s and civilians. It’s not the first time I’ve heard about Unit 731, but maybe for some Japanese it was.

Last year, huge anti-Japan protests in China were sparked by controversy over the handling of the Japanese military’s atrocities during WWII in certain schoolbooks here, as well as Prime Minister Koizumi’s repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine (a shrine for Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals). I remember discussing it with some students here awhile back, and most of them couldn’t comprehend why China was so pissed.

It seemed the extent of their knowledge about WWII was, “The Japanese military did some bad things.” I mentioned “The Bataan Death March” and they looked at me like I was from outer space.

My friends, ages 25-35, have told me what they remember being taught about WWII at school. Basically, not much about the war itself, or the causes of it, and instead, a whole lot about Hiroshima and the total devastation caused by America’s bombing campaigns. It’s funny, cause what I remember from my American public school education was almost the opposite:

A lot about the war and the bad guys who started it…then Hiroshima. Basically, that a lot of people died, but this prevented the deaths of many more. There weren’t many details, just some numbers on a page of how many died. So it seems both countries have a habit of glossing over their misdeeds, but this is probably true for most nations around the world.

The first time I saw a documentary on Hiroshima, I saw the faces of people dying from radiation sickness. It was so sad to see the look in their eyes. It was a look of hopelessness, as they most likely knew they were going to die. At that moment, I understood the pain the American military caused the Japanese people.

That’s why I thought it was really good to have a documentary about Unit 731 shown here in Japan. I talked to some Japanese friends who watched it and were shocked to hear that such acts of barbarism actually occured. Maybe now they’ll have a better understanding of the Chinese viewpoint of the war.

Every country twists history to suit their own needs, but this only enables the horrors of the past to repeat themselves.

I tried not to think about it as I boarded the plane, and embarked on my first trip out of the country. Luckily, I chose Singapore Airlines cause they have TV screens in all the seats. I was able to watch movies and play video games and this helped take my mind off the flight. The food was pretty good, and the service was excellent. I started thinking, ‘Hey, this flying scene ain’t so bad after all.’

But things took a turn for the worse.

As our plane neared Tokyo Airport, the turbulence became extreme. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before, and a couple of times, the plane felt like it was about to take a nose dive. The sound was so intense, it sounded like we’d be ripped to shreds.

The guy sitting next to me pointed out the window, and I could see the wing flapping up and down like it was made of rubber! This went on for almost two hours and I could see on the GPS screen that we were just circling over Tokyo. I started wondering, ‘What in the hell is going on?’

Inside the plane, everyone was silent. The only sounds were the shaking plane and this peaceful, elevator-style, landing-music which only stressed me out more. I looked around, and saw the expression of terror in every one’s eyes. ‘At least I’m not the only one freaking out here.’ I thought.

Then my eyes caught a dreadful sight…a green-faced flight attendant grabbing for a barf bag!

‘We’re doomed,’ I thought, ‘Looks like I’ll never get to see Japan.’ Suddenly, I felt a panic attack coming on. The urge to escape, to run somewhere, to get off that death ship welled up inside…but I manged to hold it together, and stay put in my seat. (I don’t know if any of you’ve ever had a real panic attack before, but I can assure you, it’s not pretty. It’s pretty much the worst feeling in the world)

As these thoughts of dread ran through my head, I took another look out the window, and it appeared we were descending.

‘The nightmare is almost over…just hang on a little longer!’ I reassured myself. But the closer we got to the ground, the more intense the shaking got to the point where we were bouncing around in our seats like dying animals.

We were about to touch land when our plane suddenly veered straight up again, climbing back into the night sky. ‘My god!’ I thought, ‘Why don’t we just land and end this hell right now!’

Finally, the pilot got on the speaker to inform us that we were in the middle of a huge typhoon, and Tokyo Airport would not allow anymore planes to land. We were being diverted to Kansai Airport, in Osaka.

This is typical of my bad luck, but again, I was thankful I took Singapore Airlines. They took real good care of us once we got on the ground. All the hotels in Osaka were booked, due to the flight diversions, but Singapore hooked us up with reservations at The Four Seasons hotel in Kobe.

They rented huge charter buses to take our weary rumps on the one hour drive from Osaka to Kobe, and though I was unbelievably tired, I actually enjoyed the drive.

The whole way to Kobe, we drove right through the center of an immense harbor where the night sky was lit up by fire from smoke stacks, and oil refineries.

At the hotel, Singapore once again hooked us up with a free, all-you-can-eat, buffet, and I was famished. After eating like a pig, I took a much-needed shower, and passed out. The next morning we got back on the bus for the one hour drive back, and got on our plane to Tokyo, where we arrived safely.

So that was that. A real nightmare flight on my first trip overseas. But I feel it worked out ok, cause I got to see another part of Japan for free.

His Japanese side had been living in Hawaii for generations, so he had no special permission to work in Japan either. Anyway, he found out about the JET Programme through a family friend. She’d worked through them for a year, had a nice time, and managed to save up a large sum of cash.

JET stands for Japan Exchange and Teaching, and the main requirement, according to his friend, was a University Degree.

It was the first time I heard about teaching in Japan. I was already helping out Japanese friends with English, so to get paid for that sounded pretty chill. I still had another two years of Junior High left, so University was not even on my radar, but over the years, the thought never really left my mind.

Things have changed a lot in the English teaching scene since I was in Junior High. Back then was the so-called “Golden Era” of teaching in Japan. There were less foreigners coming here, and many people couldn’t care less about living in Japan.

It was the best time to come as there was less competition for jobs and the Japanese economy was booming. I’ve heard stories of people being picked up off the streets by businessmen offering large sums of cash for private lessons. Shit, I even remember my friend’s Uncle telling us how some dude offered him a job in a Japanese porno movie!

Of course by the time I was old enough to come, “the Dark Ages” had already begun. Though inflation has raised the cost of living here, the wages for English teachers here haven’t gone up since the 80’s! Even worse, they have actually started declining in the last couple of years.

Getting a job with the JET program is like rolling the dice these days, and you’ve gotta wait about a year to see if you crap out or not. My friend, who I mentioned above, wasted a year of his life waiting for an answer from them, only to get denied for no clear reason.

Basically, they’ve got too many people banging on the door so they can afford to be real choosy these days.

I decided not to waste my time with those clowns, and instead came out here on a tourist visa to see what it’s like first. When I was living in San Francisco, one of my roommates was from Saitama, Japan. He moved back here shortly after I finished up at SFSU, and told me I could come stay at his mom’s place anytime.

A few months after graduation, I moved back to LA, and booked a flight to Tokyo.