Unplugging at the Sanja Festival

May 23, 2017

I probably spend what would be defined as an unhealthy amount of time on the Internet for someone who is not a tween. With most of my friends living outside Japan, a career as a freelance writer with clients in the U.S., and a preference for reading the news in English, I am always well connected.

It’s not a bad thing in itself, but spend enough time on the Internet and you’ll eventually find some appalling stuff. Recently, a few curious clicks led me to a widely read forum for foreigners for Tokyo and their relationship advice. Of course, this was going to be bad, but given that I consciously choose to spend my time watching true crime shows, I am, by nature, morbidly curious. I kept reading.

There’s a strange fetishization of white male foreigners here in Japan, which places them in somewhat high demand, regardless of physical attractiveness or the ability to be interesting. As a non-white, foreign, male co-worker once described it, certain women seem to want to live out a fantasy of having a white, "exotic," boyfriend, based on information and stereotypes gleaned from Hollywood chick flicks, and white foreign men seem only too happy to oblige. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise to read a poster saying:

“…[W]hat she really wants is this funny athletic white guys attention and love for a day or maybe the weekend or more. And if she doesn’t, who cares, theres ten more out there that do…” [All typos and spelling errors from the original.]

I know. I shouldn’t be surprised. The last time I made the mistake of hooking up with a guy here, he mentioned my “great English,” which was almost as offensive as his attempts at sex which bordered on the truly horrendous. The reminder of how disposable women seem to the English-speaking guys here was the final straw in a shitty week that was at least entertaining when Trump was involved, but not so much when you realize that your potential dating pool is full of dicks.

As if sensing the impending doom and gloom, my sister texted me last Saturday about checking out the Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa. It’s a huge festival that features neighborhood mikoshis – large, portable altars – hoisted along the main road of Asakusa Shrine. It’s a three-day event, with the purification ceremony taking place on Saturday. Mikoshi were transported to the shrine, raised up as it was purified, then carried back to its neighborhood. It may sound zen, except that it’s built a reputation as an event at which yakuza show off their tattoos with pride.

We were, admittedly, looking for yakuza, but found out later that the tattoo-baring took place on Sunday. Despite the fact that we missed out on the tattoos, the event is like a textile designer’s dream. Every neighborhood has its own unique happi, a short-sleeved garment worn at festivals, which boasts its own crest, design, and colors.

The energy of the event was palpable as the heavy mikoshi swayed one way, then another. Each neighborhood team set up a human wall to control the lurching, as those carrying the mikoshi shouted out a rhythm. A predominantly working-class neighborhood, the men were bigger and burlier than most you’d see in Tokyo and the strength and energy required to transport the mikoshi – one usually requires forty people to lift it up – are impressive.

The irony of escaping from the disgust from reading a forum for foreigners at a Japanese traditional festival isn’t lost on me. As a third culture kid, I live in a space where everything seems a bit off and strange, where nothing quite fits. Where you’re stuck looking one way but identifying as another. Where you end up living online because you can’t begin to relate to most of the people around you. And where, apparently, when one culture disappoints, you end up seeking some sort of cleansing effect in another.

Yesterday, walking home from the gym, thinking about living in Japan, a rap song from long ago, made for a yakuza movie, began to play in my head. Along with lyrics about violence and social ostracization, there were two lines in particular that I had always liked, that had always replayed in my head.

“tteyuuka,” he sang, “yononaka naseba naru.”

It’s a Japanese proverb that translates literally to “if you take action, it will become.” And while I may not be making best friends here any time soon, or plunging back into the dismal dating pool that is Tokyo, or feeling less like an alien, maybe, having a good day here – unplugged – isn’t all that impossible.

Motown House

February 20, 2017

“Are you sure?” the guy asked his friend at the door, “this feels kind of weird.”

We were in Roppongi – the notorious, kind of seedy, club district of Tokyo – at a bar called Motown House, and the Bruno Mars was blaring. A friend had invited us to go out, mainly because a friend of hers was bartending that night. “A trip advisor reviewer claimed he got drugged and robbed there,” my sister had announced the day before, “but it’s Roppongi, that happens. Besides, we know the bartender, she’s probably not going to drug us.”

That same bartender, who was quickly becoming the only reason we were there, had also described the clientele as “an interesting, older crowd.” We’d imagined professionals around our age, in their 30s and 40s, grooving to some soul and offering interesting conversation. We’d been about 15 years off the mark, and the only soul we’d heard in the past two hours was a techno remix of Jackson Five’s “ABC.”

Maybe we’d arrived too early, we thought. Yet, with everything just a bit off – the older women who appeared to believe in the sex appeal of brown, knee high boots with a reasonable heel, the overweight men who seemed limited to staring with half smiles, the working girls that were about two decades past their prime – it made for some fantastic people-watching. Alcohol mixed with blatant desperation turned the slight hip swaying into frantic bouncing to an imaginary beat a fraction of a pulse off the rhythm coming out of the speakers. An undernourished woman arrived in a fur hat three times the size of her head and threw off her coat to dance with the grace of a push puppet on speed. Her much older date shuffled his boot-clad legs to Justin Bieber, his eyes covered by dark sunglasses despite the dim lighting. A Korean girl arrived with her stoic boyfriend, and proceeded to jump up and down, mosh pit style, through every single song. Two Japanese salarymen were doing what looked like interpretive dancing. Another was falling asleep on his feet at the bar. A guy came in high, and pantomimed conducting an orchestra with a glass of red wine.

The bright side of being trapped in a virtual circus was that it was easy to find people who were normal. They usually came in with trepidation, looked horrified, and left within fifteen minutes.

“Is it always like this?” An Australian guy shouted in my ear as he looked around the room, mentally clutching on to his sense of dignity.

“I don’t know, but it gets worse the farther back you go,” I shouted back.

While the harmless drunks and weirdos save Motown House from being completely awful, the bar is still exceedingly creepy. For about ten minutes, a group of us kept our eyes resolutely fixed on different spots in the bar while a guy that looked like Michael Moore crossed with John Wayne Gacy stood next to our table and stared at us. On my way out of the bathroom, a South Asian guy stroked the back of my head. A drunk Japanese guy simply stood six inches behind one of our friends for about an hour.

“I work for the CIA,” a white-haired, American guy in a suit tried to tell my sister.

“No, you don’t,” she said flatly, “if you did, you wouldn’t tell me that.”

“Okay,” he conceded, lamely, “I work for the U.S. Embassy.”

“Yeah?” My sister said, sensing another lie, “what do you do there?”

Our breath of fresh air was the older Asian guy in a Hermes tie featuring bunny rabbits, who, completely wasted, insisted on trying to dance with every butch lesbian in our group. He happily accepted rejection yet remained optimistic and immune to the creepy desperation permeating most of the room. He bounced to the beat with us until we realized it was midnight and escaped the smoky confines of Motown House to catch the last train.

I came home to an anguished whimper-bark and a dog – normally too lazy to get up to greet me when I get home – practically vibrating with happiness.

“Do I smell like an ashtray?” I asked as she jumped and wagged excited circles around me and sniffed my mascara, “did you miss me?”

On the ride home, we had talked through hoarse throats about how terrible Motown House had been, the Michael Moore/John Wayne Gacy serial killer, and the possibility of that bar becoming a part of my future if I didn’t find a life partner in the next ten years. My sister had apologized for dragging me there, as if going out with her didn’t always involve slightly outrageous events. But even with the high percentage of creeps there, it’s hard to write off Motown House as a bad bar. Like watching Hoarders, it’s an experience that can turn your far-from-perfect life into one that is much more worthy of appreciation. Suddenly, I can point to my safe, repetitive life where I spend most nights with an ungrateful dog with pride because I’m not a regular at a bar seemingly designed for the comfortably desperate.

Should I ever need another reminder, fortunately, Motown House is only a short subway ride away.

A Year of Reunions

November 8, 2016

“It’s been the year of reunions,” I said to Adam, over omurice. It was his last day in Tokyo and we’d spent it wandering around Shinjuku and Harajuku and indulging in my favorite pastime of eating too much food. I was referring to a few friends I’d reconnected with (a friend from high school and a roommate from college, both of which I hadn’t spoken to in at least a decade) as well as to seeing Adam in Tokyo again (we’d lost touch for about a year). Though the origins of each of those friendships were vastly different, it seemed that cycling – like an embarrassing moment that you play over and over in your head, reliving it to react differently – always lingered in the background. My old college roommate had gotten addicted to cycling some years back, and my friend from high school was now a hardcore endurance athlete. New friends brought memories of training rides and red-lining my way up mountain passes, too. “Do you do sports?,” a gym buddy asked as I got under the barbell for some squats.

While I currently spend more time in the gym than on my bike, the past weekend spent at Cycle Mode with Adam Hansen and the exceptionally welcoming people at Ridley was really bringing back that lovin’ feeling for bikes.

Incredibly, this was my first ever visit to Cycle Mode. Held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba prefecture, it took up two separate convention hall spaces, which were connected by a small passageway. Unlike Interbike, Cycle Mode is focused on presenting new products directly to consumers. To that end, most bike brands offered free test rides of almost all of their bikes, and this didn’t mean a simple loop around the building. Cycle Mode organizers had set up a winding 1.2km course exclusively for testing the bikes, which came in an impressively wide range of sizes.

As Adam did sign and meet sessions at the Ridley booth, then talks at the main stage of Cycle Mode, I wandered around taking pictures of people touching stuff. Ridley was kind enough to invite me along to Adam’s signing event at Y’s Road in Ochanomizu, as well as a talk and private party hosted by Cycle Terrace in the Aeon Mall where I became the unofficial interpreter.

Between events and after the whirlwind of a day was done, Adam and I did what old friends do: drink lots of coffee and catch up on recent life events. There was a whisky bar in Ginza, Scramble Crossing and eel in Shibuya, Din Tai Fung in Shinjuku and wandering around Harajuku. There was lots of laughing and a lot more teasing and sarcasm and giving each other shit. There were promises made to do it again next year.

I opened iTunes this morning for the first time in four days and noticed that I’d had Eminem’s “Die Alone” on repeat. Not because I’m mourning an ex, but because it seemed to reflect my feelings after I’d lost cycling. Cycling had been an answer to everything until a few years ago, when it began to bring with it a heaviness and a sense of permanent ostracization. “Why aren’t I good enough?” I used to cry to my best friend, “why does the bike industry hate me?”

It had felt like a betrayal. I’d poured my soul into cycling. I knew the races, I knew most of the riders, I knew I could write and copyedit better than whatever Cycling News was publishing. And it still wasn’t good enough. It broke my heart, and in retaliation, I had resolved to move away and past cycling, onto bigger and better things.

Predictably, I struggled. Bikes seemed to be all I knew. No other spectator sport is nearly as fulfilling, emotional, or rewarding. I still watched roadies pass enviously and continually reminded myself to do something about my currently nonexistent aerobic capacity. I looked at my hopelessly scarred knees and tried to convince myself that I was in it for the long haul, there was no going back. And yet, there was still the hurt and the fear. Could I ride solo again for years without unraveling? Will the risk of bringing back all the baggage and negativity be worth it? Was it healthy for me mentally to get back into cycling?

Releasing my iPhone from looping “Die Alone” this morning, the beats eventually slid into “Guts Over Fear” and I realized how I’d come full circle. When I had said to Adam that this year was one of reunions, I’d been more right than I’d known. It wasn’t just a year of reconnecting with old friends who’d known me before I started to ride, of hanging out with a professional cyclist who doesn’t judge me for not riding for over a year, but also one of getting back into cycling and the bike.

It’s taken a while, but I think I’m back.

[A big thank you to Kawataki-san, Haruki-san, and Edward V. at Ridley, and Glenn L. at Vittoria!]

Festive Procrastination

September 22, 2015

The local shrine had a festival this past weekend, and in the spirit of procrastination, I walked down to eat street food and scoop up goldfish with a paper scoop. Hey, I was even pretty good at it, too.

Sunday Bake Shop

September 20, 2015

I hit the gym early last week for the first time in 18 months. It felt awful.

It wasn’t the inability to lift any significant weight, the fact that I couldn’t sit without screaming for two days, or the sudden, crushing need to go to bed at 8pm. It wasn’t even the blow to my ego.

For reasons that still elude, I’ve always loved lifting at the gym. The strategic lighting that does the impossible – making invisible muscles suddenly pop and evening out sleepy skin tone without concealer, foundation, whatever – and the music of clanging plates had been a kind of sanctuary. Humming with adrenaline in the power rack, I couldn’t believe I’d left this place for so long, how fearful I’d been to crawl back.

Happy in a way I haven’t been here in Tokyo, I hit legs twice last week. “Noob move,” Josh said after I told him I did squats and deadlifts on my first day back, “I wish you were here so I could punch you in the quads.” He was right. I spent half of yesterday – my second heavy leg day in the same week – sprawled motionless on my bed, sweating and feeling clammy at the same time, tired but restless and nauseous. The stress of a few pathetic deadlifts had also touched an emotional nerve that felt intensely raw. I cried for no reason, then promptly passed out.

Through it all – the overloaded CNS manifested in utter exhaustion and a mini meltdown – I remembered a particular berry crumble cake. I remembered the chewy oats, the soft crumb of a sweet, cinnamon-scented cake contrasted against the tartness of berries, the shortbread-like bottom crust. I couldn’t move, but I would have walked to Sunday Bake Shop again if it had been open.

Open on Sunday and somewhat inexplicably on Wednesday, I’d trekked over there with my sister-in-law last week. An adorable space tucked away in Hatsudai, a long table greets customers, laden with brownies, pound cakes, carrot cupcakes, perfect cheesecakes, and small mountains of scones. The open kitchen in the back lends a view to the entire process, where trays of pastries come out of ovens and on that day, a focaccia was being prepared. Seating is limited, but the espresso machine entices lingering over baked goods with friends.

We headed home with two boxes of deliciousness. The carrot cupcakes disappeared before I got a taste, but I inhaled half of the berry crumble cake later that day. I’m still thinking about it.

“You should have tried that carrot cupcake,” my sister-in-law said a few days ago. I probably should have. Maybe after my next leg day.

Sunday Bake Shop

1-58-7 Honmachi

Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-00071

Map and website

Whisky, Owls, and Coffee

September 10, 2015

I was lucky enough to get a good friend to visit me in Tokyo a few days after arriving home. He put up with my jet lag while we checked out Omotesando Koffee...