2 posts tagged “yakuza”

What does your flag mean to you?

It means it's my birthday.

Well, Flag Day means that anyway.  Seriously, what has Betsy Ross done for anyone lately?  Flag Day is all about me.

This year:  34.  White cake filled with peach jam and frosted with an almond buttercream (I made it) and generously sprinkled by the kid with star sprinkles.  Salmon cooked on the grill at my parents' house.  New Mexico sparkling wine of some sort.  Top Chef cookbook received and read cover to cover.   Husband's birthday is two days after mine (well, 2 days and 6 years); my parents gave him a gun.  Now, obviously, we are never moving back to Japan.  It's funny because my husband and I talked about him getting a tattoo, and he was all, "Oh, I can't get a tattoo because then I can't go in the public baths and hot springs because they'll think I'm a yakuza."  Sure, he can't get a tattoo, but he can get a gun?  WTF?

Anyway, it was good. 

What is the worst date you've ever been on?

Oh, that's pretty easy, although I don't know if I can do it justice here.

I met this guy online (of course, right?).  I don't remember exactly how--he was the roommate of someone I was chatting with or something, and I mentioned that I have a thing for gin and C.C. Lemon, and I guess this roommate was walking by and saw that or something and also had a thing for gin and C.C. Lemon and thought we were, oh, cosmically joined or something by our trashy tastes in cocktails.  (By the way, this was when I lived in Japan.  I hadn't lived there long when this happened, just a few months.)

The dude's name was Hiroshi, I think, and he could speak some English, and we ended up chatting on the phone, and I agreed to go up to, eh, Kanagawa-ken to meet him.  Somewhere in Kanagawa-ken.  Doesn't matter because he was from Yokosuka and had--and he totally did not warn me of this before we met--morphed into one of these gaijin wannabes from being around the American military guys all the time.  Feck.  So, we meet there and he gives me a cute little necklace, and we're talking and he seems alright, and I ask what he had in mind for the evening's activities...and he says he wants to...go.......to....ROPPONGI.

Double feck.

I hate Roppongi.  I have always hated Roppongi.  For those of you who don't know Tokyo or haven't heard of Roppongi already, Roppongi is where all the foreigners (gaijin) go to party and where all the gaijin-wannabe-Japanese and all the Japanese girls who really want a non-Japanese boyfriend (for hybrid vigor!) go as well to be around all the foreigners.  Now, unfortunately, the foreigners who find their way to Japan have several general characteristics.  For one thing, they seem to be mostly men, although I have no stats to back that up--just how it seems.  They seem also to be either military men or basement-geeks who are in Japan primarily because of their fascination with anime, manga, vidya games, and the extremely realistic Japanese girls who populate those things (the Roppongi-goers seem to be mostly of the military genre mixed with some of the financial hacks who are over there working in big corporate offices).  In other words, they are incredibly obnoxious people, by and large.  This is less true of the Canadians who go there, but the Americans and Australians you tend to meet there suck.  It's nothing against Australians--just the ones who go to Roppongi.

OK, so off to Roppongi we went.  He clearly wanted to demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of Roppongi to me, so first we went to this English-style sports bar (or maybe pub--I'm not really sure what the difference is supposed to be) for some eats and drinks and...television watching.  There was rugby on the TV, and he spoke not a goddamned word to me the entire time we were there.  Fortunately, the Guinness was good and the meat pie was good, and AND we met one of his boisterous foreign friends, an Aussie or Brit (can't remember--sorry!--but he had an accent, which Americans, as we all know, do not) who talked my bloody ear off.  At least he was funny. 

And then *sigh* he hauled me over to Bar, Isn't It?  If there is a bar that embodies the worst of Roppongi--well, actually that would probably be Gas Panic, but second worst (and second most popular, or so I hear, after Gas Panic) it is Bar Isn't It?  Nnnnnngggggghhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  How the frustration wells inside of me, even now, at the thought of that bar.  Anyway, I decided that the only thing to do with this was get really fucking drunk, and I set out to do so post haste.  Turns out Hiroshi didn't dance.  There really isn't any other reason to be in Bar Isn't It?  It's not like it's got some kind of spectacular atmosphere or something.  So he just stood along the wall and drank and watched.  Finally, after zero conversation and zero dancing with him, I just went out and danced by myself. 

When I did that, I nearly instantly had a flock of Japanese guys at my beck and call.  One of them I guess got too close, Hiroshi got jealous and started storming out of the place.  So, you know, fuck him.  But also fuck Bar, Isn't It.  I left, behind him.  Game over.  Except...

Then things got kind of awesome.

I was out walking around on the street by myself, wondering if the night was salvageable, when lo! what do my eyes behold?  A staggering group of Canadian dudes (recognizable by the assorted maple leaf gear and hockey insignia--also, the "aboot" thing)!  And for some reason, we started talking.  I told them my story of woe and they adopted me.  I tagged along with them to this bar...oh, god, I wish I could remember the name or location of this bar, because it was one of the awesomest bars I've ever been in.  I'm thinking, judging by the men in dark suits and sunglasses hanging around looking threatening that it was a yakuza bar, but I'm OK with the yakuza*.  If it was a yakuza bar, I'm glad I didn't have to pay for my drinks, because I've heard those are expensive, but these Canadians were unafraid of spending their money on me.  Anyway, I remember, in addition to the threatening guys with sunglasses, cushy chairs done in pink shag (oh, yesssss) and a sex room.  Seriously.  Or, at least, it looked like a sex room since it was mainly futons on platforms, covered in animal prints, and there were, like, people having sex in there.  I didn't, and neither did any of the Canadians because we just don't do that in North America.  Ha. 

We were there for a couple of hours, and we ended up getting kind of run out of there.  It was just getting light at this time.  It seems to me there was some kind of scuffle between one of the Canadians and one of the threatening yakuza-looking guys.  Whatever.  I was drunk and impressed by the pink shag. 

So, the Canadians then huckled me over to either the Hard Rock Cafe or somewhere near the Hard Rock.  My memory is not clear.  I remember that we at least saw the Hard Rock then, because I was telling them how it was the first time I'd ever seen a Hard Rock Cafe, which was true and they were all, "But then how can you be American?  You're not American!"  We passed the early hours of the morning trying to get passably sober, eating and drinking coffee, and, um, talking about the 2000 election and NAFTA.  Hahahaha.  Sexy!

Yeah, so that was the worst date of my life.  It actually turned out fun, but that had nothing to do with the guy I was supposed to be on a date with.  The poser.  Feh. 

*I am not OK, however, with the way Uma Thurman pronounces this word in Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2.  WTF, Uma?  No speech coach? 

And by the way, this is what I think a "charmed life" is.  When I'm stuck in Tokyo, Canucks will come along to rescue me.  I can enter a yakuza bar and come out unscathed.  And I'll get to see a real live Hard Rock Cafe.