Living and Working in Japan in 2002

2002 is probably one of the best years of my life because of how much things had changed for me by living in Japan. I’m not saying it was an easy year as there were numerous obstacles, heartbreaks, health issues and frustrations accompanying that year. But everything was novel, fresh and exciting. Each day almost felt like a mini adventure, a chance where I could learn something new, meet new people, see something I wouldn’t have seen before. It’s hard to believe that year passed as quickly as it did. Where most of the world was undergoing massive change as a result of the aftermath from 9-11, I felt like this little island was a sanctuary for me and everything else was surreal. In this blog post, I take a look back at one of the happier times in my life and try to stitch together various memories of my distant life where I actually felt as though I were alive despite working for a corporate machine.

The first month of working for the bank continued to be brutal. The tiny apartment in Ebisu was driving me crazy with the nightly cockroach invasion. I remember at one point how they needed to do construction but I was so tired I couldn’t answer the door. But they banged on the front rather rudely and I had no idea why. Regardless, even if I liked the Ebisu zone itself, I knew I couldn’t stay much longer in that flat.

One thing that certainly convinced me that living in that flat was a terrible thing was how my hot water suddenly turned off one day when I went to take a shower. So no one instructed me on where the mailboxes were (downstairs) and I thought the little pamphlets that were being left on my door indicated that’s where the postman would drop off any letters. What happened is that my various utility bills had not been paid and I needed to fix all that. I don’t know if Kudo-san knew about the mailbox or paid any of it but this was one of those highly stressful events because my Japanese was almost nil when it came to issues like this and I had to do something.

Somehow I found the mailbox (don’t know how) and saw that a pile of mail had been built up over time. Son of a bitch! I think by this point I was getting really fed up with that housing agency that set me up. Luckily, my boss at my office offered to help me on the issue during one weekend rotation. We left the office during the afternoon and he had me follow him to a spot where I could pay. I don’t remember what we used but I do know later on he was fucking with me because we wandered around for sometime and towards the end of it, I was completely out of breath, my feet were dead and he was like, “You’re younger than me.” Well, it’s different when you’re living in the states and having long, traffic filled commutes with no opportunities for exercise.

On the bright side, once I start receiving my pay, things started to smooth out. But at some point I needed to get out of that crap apartment, which meant breaking my lease. The fortunate thing about working for a large gaishikei (foreign based company) is that they would help you with your move to a degree. So I was setup with some apartments that ran along the Chiyoda-sen by HR. A few that caught my attention were much larger spots around the Harajuku area. Because I was used to living in American home, I wanted something as big as possible. So I found this 3LDK spot along Meijidori about 10 minutes away from the JR station. Amazingly, that building is still around. You can see that the Turkish embassy in nearby too.

But being foolish, I didn’t do much research, checked out the spot and chose it without thinking. While the location itself in terms of general convenience was great, it honestly was far from practical. But I had no idea except that I was going to get to live in Harajuku. The company was going to take care of the reikin/shikin (key money/deposit) since I didn’t have enough and this is something that would kinda haunt me later on. But all I cared about was getting out of the cockroach trap as soon as I could. That still left the remaining issue being the lease for my roach motel. So I had to return to the rental agency and they would need to do an inspection.

When I was ready to move out, this Nigerian guy working there reprimanded me because the toilet wasn’t cleaned before I left. He took a completely different attitude towards me compared to when I initially signed the lease. In retrospect, I think this was a front to ensure that they would not only get their deposit money back, but charge you extra for cleaning. But I was completely through with that BS and just had to get a small moving company to handle the rest.

Luckily, I didn’t have much beyond a TV/VCR setup, my luggage, a futon, etc. I might not have even used a moving company because I had so little at that point. But once I moved into the new spot, I realized just how empty it was for the amount of space I gained. From there, I went around town looking for furniture. This part hurt because furniture is just horribly expensive. But I wasn’t going to sleep on the ground anymore and I needed a coach as well as some other comforts to decorate my space, especially a computer desk.

For the bed, I believe I bought that at Muji. That might’ve been one of the first things I picked up. Also, I bought a sofa, love seat and a computer desk and wire frame rack that would hold my various systems. I think I might’ve picked up a gaming system in Akihabara too.

The problem was that all these things were costing me and getting me into further debt. I might’ve been still using my credit card but needed to take care of the bills. I was still in contact with my parents, mostly my dad because he was out of work and living at home while my mom was technophobic. But they helped handle my payments since online banking really wasn’t established. But I had to get money back home and that was a chore in itself.

My company had set me up with Tokyo Mitsubishi because you could find their ATM almost anywhere, as my boss had explained it. True enough, inside of Tokyo, you might be able to find a Citi ATM but outside of Tokyo, it gets much harder to find those types of things, which is critical for a cash based society. And as a side note, the nice thing about having that Citi ATM is that you could use a card like Washington Mutual (back in the day before the subprime loan problem crashed the financial market) to withdraw money if you didn’t use something like traveler’s checks (which probably is unnecessary these days). The other function Tokyo Mitsubishi had for me was international money transfers. I always hated doing these because you had to have information like a routing number and they were exceptionally precise where one wrong detail and you needed to refill a form from scratch. I might’ve even had to get a hanko at some stage but I can’t recall ever using it, instead preferring my normal signature. Regardless, I was able to send money home to help pay for that mound of debt building on my credit cars.

Once I got settled into Harajuku, I immediately learned of the mistake I mentioned from before: the loudness. All day long, I could hear motors going up and down the street of Meijidori. The construction of the apartment had three of the room facing the main street so there was nowhere for me to hide in avoiding the constant noise. I think at some stage, I might’ve even tried sleeping in the tub because I was becoming sleep deprived. The main issue was that the building was older, probably made in the 70s and not of more modern materials. The key material you need for these types of buildings (btw, this was considered a “mansion” which is a concrete, multistory building in Japan) is teikin-kon (teikin concrete). Teikin-kon provides much better insulation from noise and weather. Also, you would need double windows to prevent any noise pollution. So while the exterior and general location might look nice, the actual interior sucked ass.

And even if this place was near one of the most famous stations and zones in Tokyo, it really wasn’t meant to be lived in. Food was going to become a problem as there were no local markets in the close vicinity. And unlike living in LA, I had no car to pick things up. That would’ve cost me an extra amount and I wasn’t going to buy one (which is a whole different nightmare in terms of getting a license out there).

In addition, I was still under a budget where half my monthly salary was going to rent, which meant having little to live on as an expat. You see, most Japanese people out there don’t make a lot of money. But they’re compensated in two ways: 1) the company typically pays for their commute (with an upper limit of 20000-en on average except for special cases); 2) you lived with your parents. In America, I was able to survive and save money, even though most of my jobs paid bad up to that point because I was living with my family. Out in Tokyo, everything on me. I had to wake up to this new reality quickly of being on my own and having no aid.

Nonetheless, I still was able to eat reasonably well. One spot that Harajuku had that I had become very fond of out there was a Tenya. Someone showed me Tenya over in Akihabara sometime in winter (maybe Kudo-san?) and I was an addict. I kept thinking to myself, “Man, I’m going there everyday!” Guess what? I don’t think I went there once while living in Harajuku. Ah, irony you kill me! But there was at least a 7-11 nearby so I probably ate that most of the time beyond whatever was being served at the company’s cafeteria or around the Akasaka area.

Another favorite spot of mine in Harajuku became the late night family restaurant Jonathan’s. I think there might’ve been one I hit around the Tokyo Dome but the one in Harajuku was along Meiji-dori with the Omotesando-dori as the cross street. I often would eat there late at night when I didn’t want to bother with the 7-11 or some other spot. I always loved their hamburg steak and ebi-fry meals. But the one thing I detested was the smoke.

Smoking in Japan was pretty common back then. In fact, I attribute a lot of my “colds” from heavy 2nd hand smoke inhalation. Some of that started to get curb later on with areas like Chiyoda-ku banning it with heavy fines. That wouldn’t stop the addiction. But you’d often hit up restaurants like a Jonathon’s or numerous izakayas with smoking sections. I always tried to take the non-smoking areas but you couldn’t get away from it. That’s one thing I absolutely hated about Japan.

Because I moved away from Ebisu, I wasn’t going to Com Inn as often. So the little group of friends dispersed sadly. The girl in the group was someone I liked too as she was quite pretty. Never knew what happened to her but she stopped going to the conversation cafe. I continued visiting there and met all sorts of interesting folk. Sometimes, I’d give people my meishi (Japanese business card), which might’ve seemed impressive because I was working at a respectable bank. But I think most people in reality didn’t care as I was so low on the totem pole my position didn’t make a difference to anything. It still was a nice way to introduce myself and what I was doing (my technical title was Systems Analyst, which was a way to avoid the word “engineer” in getting my work visa as Japan is strict on the types of visas giving out based on your pedigree)

I remember meeting some very pretty women, whom, I think were all models. I know one was for sure because all my attention went to her. She was tall and extremely gorgeous. Older than me by a few years. Unfortunately, she had issues finding work because of her age and unlike certain peers, she never broke through to the geinokai (celebrity world). But I acquired her phone number and would occasionally text her.

I don’t know for certain if the following series of events happened in 2002 or 2003 and I’m unsure if I had actually met her in 2002. But at some point, I learned she was “working” near my office in Akasaka and invited me for a drink to her establishment. Turns out, she was in a reasonably classy hostess bar spot. My belief is that almost all pretty women in Tokyo at some point work at a hostess bar; or at least maybe during a certain period. It’s just really easy money for them where all they have to do is sit down and drink with some loser and make them forget their problems. And the loser ends up paying the drinks.

Here, they served dinner which was nice since the food was legitimately good. But the ultimate goal was for them to get you to buy a bottle of expensive liquor. A lot of these hostess bars are establishments where they’ll have you buy a bottle and split some of it while mixing it with water. A typical bottle might cost anywhere between 20000-40000-en. And it’s up to the hostess to get you to drink as much as you can so they can get you to buy another. That’s on top of the hourly fee they’d tack on to be with one of these women.

Being the young naive sucker I was at the time, I easily bought into this system. The thing about this woman in particular (whose name I can’t remember at all) is that her face resembled a J-Pop star named Reina Miyauchi, whom I was absolutely obsessed with at that time (and for some time; btw she looks like a baba now and more like a buzzard). So I didn’t care; I just wanted to be around with this woman. And I was socially so awkward with the Japanese barrier being a stigma the entire time. Maybe we practiced some English when she got drunk and I learned a thing or two about Japanese. But I just wanted to be around her and couldn’t wait until my job was done so I could go visit. Naturally, this activity started to cost me. I didn’t really feel just how badly Japan was putting me into debt until I would return. But again I was young and dumb back then. And I kept going to see her, maybe not nightly but at least once or twice a week.

This woman though had her own set of issues. I guess at one time she was married but had a miscarriage. She told me a story about that and how she still thinks about the unborn child. I could tell it really affected her and probably her marriage as well. Also, I think she was really bitter about her life and career. She talked about Nanako Matsushima and Norika Fujiwara as her peers. She basically said that Nanako Matsushima was a bitch in real life (which may explain her J-drama Yamato Nadeshiko in 2000) and she called Norika Fujiwara “fish face” (because of her puckering lips/cheeks). She also called Norika Fujiwara her kohai and that she had helped Norika out when she got started. Of course, both actresses went on to become major celebrities in Japan. But I could sense the jealousy from this person, which might’ve been a common trait since the models out there almost seemed like a dime a dozen.

Despite the fact that I knew something was wrong with her psychologically, I felt bad for her. Maybe because I sensed something was wrong like permanent mental and emotional damage from the harshness of the geinokai, the pressures of being a woman in that society, etc. However, I was just another suitor and she knew I liked her. One night she told me she knew from the other women who worked there that not did I like her but that she reminded me of that Reina girl. She tried to explain to me that shouldn’t be the exclusive reason for liking her, which was true. But I couldn’t explain how I felt back and the entire time for that evening, I was emotionally breaking down, realizing that I had been used that whatever sympathies I might’ve had for her was misdirected and that once again not only had I been led on but I wasted my time.

Sometimes the “club” (as I now remember her description of the place) would have a musical where someone might do karaoke. So they were playing ABBA’s Dancing Queen. I was sobbing to myself while this melody supposedly of happiness was playing loudly. I silently got the check and paid then ran off while the woman waved, knowing I would be gone for good. These days I can’t help but feel profoundly sad whenever I hear Dancing Queen since it reminds me painfully of that night where my heart would be broken. I figured if I used Dancing Queen as a song for a TV show or movie that I’d write, it would be for a sad scene, an irony of the humiliation I would endure time and time again in my search for love on this planet.

I don’t think I ever told that story to anyone and kept it buried for ages. It’s always been there with me and I think I tried to forget about by moving on. At one point, I started to write a drama where I had the woman in it in mind but it never went anywhere (like a lot of my stories). Perhaps, that story is best served being told here where the truth about it can come out finally. Honestly, I had mostly forgotten about her. I can’t even remember her face outside of how she was very beautiful. But cold too. She could put up a professional mask but I knew inside was a dead bitch.

I suppose in a way, I was fortunate about being in Tokyo because it’s very easy to meet people especially at a place like that Com Inn. For whatever reason, I continued to attend the Friday and Saturday monthly parties. I met one guy who was trying to run a company or be a business guy. He had a group of friends and I eventually had my own house party. What a mistake that was because I had almost no furniture and no idea what to do along with a limited budget. The guys were pretty cool people and I recall one guy getting exceptionally drunk and passing out on my sofa. Then another guy grabbed his nutsack and tried to wake him up. I think that’s the only time I ever witness an alarm clock like that. Even then this drunk guy must’ve been practicing the Shaolin Ballz of Steel technique because he wasn’t moving.

Among that group there were a few other girls. One ended up marrying my friend (Sugi-san I think was his name). There was another really pretty girl that I started to like and I would have lunch or dinner with a few times. As I am a very slow type of person when it comes to social development (i.e. relationships), I tried to be cautious. A friend of mine at work who was dating someone once a week at least gave me some terrible advice on why I was failing: if I didn’t ask the girl out by the third date, that was it. Come to find out it was somewhat true out there. But again, it really depends on the person. More importantly, it depends on if the girl likes you back. Also, my friend told me that I needed to be more intimate to show affection.

Growing up, I was not a physical person. I always felt highly uncomfortable whenever people touched me. I was never molested as a child but I simply hated being touched. I think part of it might be because of how it didn’t seem “cool” to be touched since I used to hang around with kids in elementary school who would make fun of anything remotely “gay” (which in retrospect might be just about everything; but I think those guys were closet gays and definitely assholes). At any rate, I recall on the third time seeing this girl, I hugged her and she asked what I was doing. It wasn’t a sexual hug just a sudden one. But that was another last time scenario, although I probably wasn’t as broken up over it compared to the model.

There’s more that would happen with Sugi-san and one of his friends but I’ll leave that for another day. Instead, I’m going to pivot back to work since I believe I hadn’t been pushing the dating aspect as much compared to later. Also, in that 2002 period, I was a lot more outgoing and ambitious. Since my managers were all into the Linux gig, I started to become influenced and wanted to learn more on my own. Sometimes, we’d all hit up Akihabara and look around. There was one store selling old Unix servers like Sun systems.

In turn, I started building my own breadbox because I had been using Fedora at work. It wasn’t really supposed to be allowed because the company had standards all issued from the NY office to be obeyed. However, our MD (managing director) permitted it while we had a Solaris workstation for anymore serious server work (which was pointless because I could just SSH into a machine). Anyway, I started working on building a joshi puroresu website at night with J2EE, Tomcat, EJBs via JBoss (which was “free” but any support would cost you an arm and a leg). I won’t go into the technical details of exactly what I did but let’s just say I spent all my waking hours at home compiling and trying to build this thing because I still wanted to be a software engineer.

And yes, I still was going to shows but not as frequently. My friend Jessie was also back in Japan and lived closer towards the dojo, which was in Edogawa-ku. We’d grab dinner here and there and sometimes I would get the opportunity to hang out with someone like Mariko Yoshida. Maybe it was on one of the previous trips but I actually got a private dinner with Jessie, Mariko Yoshida and Manami Toyota over at the Outback Steakhouse in Shinagawa. Because I was a nut, I bought Manami a $200 necklace back in 2000 and gave it to her at one of those AJW Garage shows in Meguro. So that night Manami wore it for me and we talked. Of course, I ended up paying and it was a really nice night.

With regard to Mariko Yoshida, I befriended her for a short period and we would hang out and grab dinner once in a while. I remember going to one spot in Shibuya with her after she had a hard day of training in sambo (which would explain her style in ARSION). Where my job and wrestling were things I attempted to intersect, I told her that I was hoping to help bring some friends from the company down to see because I thought we had over 14k people. I was right about the company as a whole where the number was more like 200k but that was global. The office itself and supporting spots might’ve been 1200-1400 tops. You can see I was dreaming and not really living in reality though.

At one time, I introduced her to that Com Inn place. I wanted to help thrum up business for ARSION and would tell some of the people during a party that night she was a pro-wrestler. I think Yoshida-san was a little embarrassed, maybe even betrayed because I think she just wanted to be a pro-wrestler and not deal with the fame part. In my own defense, I just wanted to help out because joshi puroresu had been struggling and I wasn’t looking to build up social capital. I probably pissed her off though as I don’t remember conversing with her after that. If she was angry with me, I wish she had told me but that’s something I learned over time about the Japanese: we’re not great communicators. I think there’s this aversion for confrontation and showing our true feelings (and I do say “our” because I’m part of this) so there’s a lot of passive aggressive behavior, which leads to all types of frustrations. Heck, I’d argue that a lot of the best J-dramas are the result of miscommunication.

But I continued hanging out with Jessie and a few others from time to time. I remember one spot she showed me was a place over in Ginza called Carne Station. Carne Station is another tabehoudai (all you can eat/AYCE) spots that serve yakiniku (Japanese/Korean BBQ style). This spot has a wide selection and an unlimited drink bar with dessert. Because it was cheap and tasty (remember: I had a mom who couldn’t cook), I frequently visited this spot (which could’ve explained my quick weight gain back once my paycheck started to roll in). But in all honesty that combo of unlimited drinks, tons of protein AND dessert (meaning an ice cream fountain) were going to spell the end for me one night. One time, I went by myself and I learned what it meant to not only have the Asian allergy to alcohol (where I turned super red), I experienced really bad lactose intolerance. This was when I still was living in Ebisu so I was just in so much agony as I hopped on the train and the build up was getting worse by the minute. Once I arrived in Ebisu, I had a 10-12 minute walk back to the apartment where I was “hobble walking” in trying to not let it all go from one end or another. On top of that, I had to go up those rickety wood stairs to my flat. I think I was so desperate, I don’t think I even bothered closing the door. But man, what an explosion that was. After that, I never bothered combining  the three deadly forces in my bowels again. I found the restroom around the corner later but tended to avoid those because some of them had the stalls in the ground where you had to squat and I hated those, even if they’re purportedly cleaner.

Work-wise, the grind continued. Things wouldn’t get bad until the following year but I’ll save story for a 2003 post. Now, I did mention that several of the guys at the office belonged to TLUG. One night I got invited afterwards to the monthly meetup. I can’t recall the topics but I certainly recall the aftermath. TLUG was at that time, unlike anything I would expect a hardcore group of Linux users to be. But the main difference was that we were in Tokyo, meaning plenty of izakayas, bars, clubs, karaoke. So imagine having all four in one go.

I don’t recall anything about the izakaya; it probably was one of the chain ones like Watami. But the next spot we would hit was a karaoke place. This is where things started to get really surreal for me. The karaoke spots out there varied where you could just get a room and hang out while other spots had drinks and food. This one had plenty of alcohol. The 2nd in command from the Unix team I distinctly recall having those long neck beers and he kept pouring them down like no tomorrow. The thing is that during office hours, he generally would be very professional, wearing a tie and dress shirt. Way too clean. But these spots once he was with his Linux buddies things changed. Found out he was a heavy drinker but not someone you would call an abusive drunk. Just someone who really enjoyed his alcohol.

Anyway, as the beer continued to flow, I started running out of steam. But not the rest of these guys. This Japanese guy with Goku-like hair started some Japanese rendition of a punk song that could’ve been punk-ska and screamed out, “FIRE!!!!” almost like Beavis from Beavis.& Butthead whenever the lyric came up. As that was going on, this large, nerdy white guy in glasses started doing this polka dance thing that came out of nowhere, I guess to match the ska aspect of the song. My head was already spinning from having drank anything that night and I quietly excused myself as that was it for me. I’m sure the others continued on for a few more hours as they would call those instances things like “nijikai” or “sanjikai” and even “yojikai” (2nd spot, 3rd spot, 4th spot). I think good old Alberto could easily get up to yojikai (and I have a story that I’ll tell later on of that instance).

Once the year started winding down, the company would have its annual end of year party before closing down for a short period. I think two of the parties were at the New Ohtani down the street. They reserved the huge banquet hall for the entire company where I heard each seat would cost roughly 20000-en. You had to dress nice for the occasion though. And the food was exceptional. They had performances too where the 1st prize got something like $5k worth of a bonus.

If you heard about legendary dot com parties, I would say this one would’ve been on a comparable level. I don’t think my manager accompanied us to this one though but I did hang out with the other people on my team. It certainly was a great night. And I think with all great things, it’s a good spot to close out this post.