With 2002, I managed to receive a bonus, which I didn’t realize because it was all in Japanese and I simply accepted it without asking how much, etc. I had been worried about getting fired and it was a common joke at the company because of all the pressure as well as a deprecating sense of private self-loathing for working in that type of a place. But my boss and the managing director simply pointed to some numbers and it went over my head. I think I was more stressed about surviving as the various departments played against each other in an internal war that the public never could witness. For myself, I was just a cog in a massive corporate wheel and still being shielded from the real dirtiness of the banking politics.

Sometime in the winter though, a major incident occurred that would affect me for the rest of my life. Because the move to Harajuku caused me sleep deprivation, I was struggling with my schedule, although I was more of a late night person, who did projects in the evening to occupy my free time. Also, I was going out and occasionally visiting a shady place or two such as that one club in Akasaka. However, at some point, especially with the coming of winter, I slowed down and had a hard time getting out of bed. I think part of that is simply due to my body not reacting to the cold and later I believe I either developed or discovered that I had seasonal depression where the winters affect me the worst.

At any rate, one day the 2nd in command sent out an admonishing email about being on time at precisely 9am, which was very Japanese. Because the previous year saw someone who had been hired as a contractor (I think) and had been fired due to “lack of energy” (which was he was kind of useless), I took the warning seriously as I was someone who had been coming in late a few times. I think the email was a passive aggressive way of indirection without targeting someone like me. But it was clear that I probably was one of the people that it was intended.

The following day, I again had woken up late because it was severely cold and I struggled to get out of bed. So I rushed to the train station where outside it had been snowing, something I wasn’t used to. By the time I arrived at Akasaka, the usual foot traffic had disappeared because most people were probably inside their office. But I couldn’t afford to wait on the escalator, so I rushed up the stairs, grabbing the ice cold railing with my bare hand while wearing a heavy coat. I still was pretty out-of-shape as I wasn’t exercising and had a very poor diet. By the time I reached the top, I was out of breath and only could think about getting to my seat.

Inside, the Akasaka Park Building was an absolute furnace and the elevator leading to the 22nd floor (which was where I worked) made me burn up with my oversized coat. Still, I wasn’t thinking clearly but I started to sweat from the ordeal and blew into the office, hopped into my chair and dumped my coat onto the back of the seat. The world started to spin as the room was burning up and before I knew it, everything had gone black.

I woke up a few moments later (not even sure for how long) as my boss and someone else were carrying me outside. Apparently, I blanked out and they sent me to the nurses so that an ambulance could pick me up. I wasn’t used to any of this and thought it was like those days back in elementary school where I’d run so hard that I would nearly puke. It was that kind of feeling. But they weren’t taking any chances. Because of the aforementioned delay on certain benefits (like health insurance), one of the administrators accompanied me to the hospital. I had been placed on a gurney and later given an MRI scan. They found two calcium deposits in my brain that had formed which looked like two miniature aspirins and told me I had a minor stroke. I was devastated and this weird feeling over my body where I was still shaking made me realize that this was far more serious than I had expected.

The administrator ended up handling the insurance aspect and I was sent home for a few days to recover. Everyone looked at me differently from that point on and I had to look at myself differently. People admonished me for my bad diet and habits. The doctor mentioned that I had a fatty liver too even though I only started drinking in Japan and that my triglycerides were high. But I was effectively a 40+ year old man in a late 20s body. At that moment, I knew my real youth was gone and that work was starting to take its toll on me.

If there’s one positive lesson I ever got from my mother, it’s that she would tell me that my health was the most important thing to protect. The bitter irony is that my family was horribly negligent on that especially my father who seemed like Superman until he would have his stroke the following year. My lead offered to show me how to cook better because obviously my health would impact his situation. Also, a few people said they’d hit the gym above us with me, which encouraged me to start working out again.

The thing was that I wanted to be gung ho about this situation as it put attention on me that I didn’t want. I was certainly embarrassed and back then had no way to really communicate how I felt. These days I look at myself back then for being exceptionally foolish. If there was one thing I did learn over time from this incident, it was that no job is worth sacrificing your health. Whenever I look back on this incident, I think about Emilia Clarke’s own stroke during her Game of Thrones filming. I know she talks about it more and has her SameYou organization to help people with brain injuries. Like myself, Emilia underwent that issue at a young age, which shows that it can happen to anyone. But I will say that I knew the stroke had changed me somehow. I felt I had slowed down and a part of me had died. Ever since that time, I had been worried especially because of both my parents suffering strokes, having high blood pressure and other things that make a person feel they can combust especially under a job that induces unnecessary amounts of stress.

The other positive as I mentioned was doing more for my health. I stopped being as lazy and focused more on exercise. My boss was a bit of a nut and I would see him walk to work (he lived in Shibuya). Even in the rain, he would come in with a drenched white collared shirt and tie and tell me, “It’s just a little water.” However, that did inspire me to walk a lot more. Since I lived in Harajuku, it wasn’t hard to get back home. Basically, a straight shot up the main road then hang a right at Omotesando Dori. I think in this period, I started to really develop a love for the city in a different manner where I understood the benefits of this type of layout.

For instance, during Hanami season, I would walk through Aoyama-Botchi (cemetery) at night where the lamp posts would highlight the gorgeous pink scenery. You would see the various yattai parked at corners where you could get real street food. Then along the path you would see various people having their private cherry blossom picnics (yes, at night!). One of my favorite memories was when I walked near a Japanese group that were sitting next to the graveyard path on a large beach towel with a sushi platter and KFC meal. As I passed them, a Domino’s Pizza delivery guy on a scooter came and handed them a pizza, IN THE GRAVEYARD. I was hanging out with an Australian guy who rode his bike and we just observed this and laughed. Later, I told my friend Keiko who responded with, “Only in Japan.” Yeah, no kidding.

Speaking of Keiko, I need to mention her. Keiko (or K-chan as her friends and I would occasionally call her) was someone I met through one of those classified ads as someone looking for help with English. I didn’t have much luck with classified dating compared to my other gaijin buddies but I decided to try this out, having set my expectations really low. Turns out Keiko was someone who worked fairly close to where I was living in Harajuku at the time. She was a jewelry designer and had a very unique character that was dramatic and more like someone you might believe would appear on a J-Drama than a quiet person sitting at a desk drawing up designs.

We would hang out regularly and she would bring her friends along as they too wanted to learn English. I think at some point I showed her my apartment and there was a joke shared between us (and her friends) about dating me or living with me where she’d just have to roll out of bed to get to work. I think she lived towards Yokohama so her commute was far, at least to me. But Keiko was pretty stylish to me, really cool and fun to hang around with. She would make me laugh all the time because of her antics. She wasn’t wild but just had that dramatic personality. I discovered a lot of really cool restaurants with her, places I wouldn’t have gone by myself like Vampire Cafe as well as a curry nabe spot in Shimokitazawa.

But I recall distinctly one night after having dinner in Shibuya, it might’ve just been the two of us. We were heading back to the station slowly as it was late and she said something odd to me like, “We make a nice pair, huh?” If my head wasn’t so far up my anus back then, maybe I would’ve believed there was something between us. I don’t think at that time she had a boyfriend either and I probably had my eyes elsewhere (not just Reina or Norika Fujiwara mind you). But I know I missed a great opportunity. Keiko later got married to a different Australian and had a child. And when I left Japan I found out that she was sad and missed me. Things like that made me wish the Japanese would just speak their mind at times (outside of when they would get drunk) because she was really cool and probably would have made a great wife back when I was looking for one. Maybe the only issue I had with her was her smoking. But I know she eventually quit so my life would’ve been much different if I had been more intent on settling down back then.

Weekends, outside of the onsite rotation, were mine. Instead of strictly going to puroresu shows, I started visiting outside of Tokyo like Kawasaki or Yokohama. Part of that was due to meeting another friend of Keiko’s named Masako. She was half Japanese and half Chinese and lived over in the Yokohama Chinatown. I think when Keiko didn’t get to hook up with me that one night, she figured I could be introduced to other friends of hers (and she had a LOT). So I started to visit Chinatown in Yokohama, which was cool just to see something different. But this Masako girl…she turned out to be a piece of work. I started to like her because she was pretty and seemed like a nice girl. I think at one point I even gave her a piece of equipment like a laptop. But one day she got really mad at me possibly for sending her a message while she was at work. It’s hard to tell because I think she was telling me a bold faced lie and was a two timer. When I asked for the laptop back, she got mad and tried to put a guilt trip on me, telling me, “I thought you gave it to me.” When I told Keiko what happened, all Keiko could say was, “I don’t know about her. She doesn’t talk to me anymore.” But that could’ve been another lie to placate me.

Nonetheless, I was more encouraged about exploring things on my own. I think I had gone to Kamakura at least once. I recall it being summer because the cicada/semi were out in full force and it was humid as fuck. I distinctly recall seeing one oyaji (old fart) going to a tree where a cicada was sitting and clasping his hands around the bug. Because I hate most insects, I got disgusted seeing this oyaji snatch this nasty beatle thing up with his bare hands and just carry it around with him. Later, I learned that the Japanese believed the cicada were a sign of good luck and many cherished their buzzing as it would bring a sense of summer nostalgia. It just made me sick.

I remember one time I ended up getting lost when I tried to find a temple that I visited in 2000 with another traveler and bought an o-mamori (good luck charm/pendant). Instead, I wandered around and ended up near the beaches of Enoshima. Because my friend Keiko lived in that vicinity, I called her hoping that we could meet. Instead, she just laughed but was busy sadly. Somehow, I managed to get back to the station with my feet on fire from wandering around for two hours. I did manage to see the Daibutsu (Big Buddha) at the temple so that was cool.

Another reason I had somewhat of an interest in Kawasaki/Yokohama is because my company had its data center out there by Tsurumi. On top of weekend shift, we now started to get the Tsurumi shift because the Akasaka Park Building data center was getting old and needed to be moved for better redundancy. Also, there was another data center in Hibiya near Ginza. That one was far smaller and its main purpose was to handle the mass print jobs. Finally, there was one other major DC over on Tennozu Isle for the big company that owned everything. The DC itself wasn’t as big compared to Tsurumi but had some notable things inside, which I’ll explain later.

But Tsurumi was either loved or hated depending on the person. We had a dedicated group of contractors we called the DC Team that managed the lowest of the jobs but barely above the networking guys. They handled changing parts, cabling, print jobs, tape backup, etc. and were all on a weekly shift. One of the guys told me that they couldn’t wait to get the DC shift because it was an easy job with no supervision especially the late shift. You could basically sit around and drink all night with no one caring while getting paid. I guess in retrospect that does sound like a swell job but I’m guessing with all the camera technology these days and monitoring that type of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated.

The Tsurumi DC itself was about a 10-15 minute walk from the station in a fairly quiet neighborhood. I think there was another satellite office of the other side of the firm out there but I never visited that office. The DC itself was huge and if you got weekend shift or had to be out there during lunch time, there were only 2-3 spots to eat nearby, including an Indian buffet and a convenient store. So it kinda sucked and felt more like purgatory for someone like myself who needed to be around people back then. Getting inside the DC was like entering into a fortress. Not only were you required to have your normal office badge, but the front desk security would give you another badge to access the inside. If you lost that and no one knew you were around, you pretty much would be imprisoned until someone figured out you needed help. The interior was basically a huge cavernous warehouse and extremely cold of course. There was one floor where the DC team would sit at to monitor things or repair systems that went down.

But I did say that I didn’t want to talk about work that much at least with regards to the technical side of things. And I really haven’t but I wanted to give people an idea of what being over there in the Tsurumi DC was like because of the next story. So next to me were a Japanese pair named Tagata-san and Harada-san. Harada-san was the senpai who had been at the company for 15 years while Tagata-san was the kohai. They had their own little group that handled certain applications. Harada-san seemed like he was strung up half the time and I could hear him frequently yelling at people on the other line. I would conjecture that I learned a fair portion of my Japanese listening to him scream at people every day.

On the other hand, Tagata-san was far more soft spoken and calm. I heard he was a bit of a playboy and was popular outside of work with the gals. But these two paired together were a hilarious duo to sit and listen to everyday. But by far my favorite was whenever Harada-san would tell Tagata-san in English, “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” Because Tagata-san was the kohai, he would have little to no choice in the matter. The best one came when one day Tagata-san tried to gently repudiate Harada-san in meekly replying, “But I have plans tonight.” Harada-san then spun around like Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers movie, placed his hands over the low cubicle wall and told Tagata-san point blank, “YOU MUST CANCEL YOUR PLANS!” The rest of us were just listening to this and cracked up loudly. It was so ridiculous that it became a running joke amongst us and we would recite the infamous, “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” line.

After I left the Unix team, I no longer had to deal with the various DC things. But my friend Thierry, who had been working as part of the Unix Engineering group, told me that he had gone to the Tsurumi DC one day and saw Harada-san there. I think they might’ve moved Tagata-san from the tiny two man team because of a change in the Unix group’s management whereupon Harada-san was instructed to finally take his Tsurumi shift. Thierry told me that Harada-san was really depressed and miserable that day but we kinda laughed given that we shared that whole “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” joke for a while. I’m certain that the irony was not lost upon Harada-san either. So you can’t tell me that there’s no such thing as karma in life.

I did mention the other two data centers. The one in Hibiya honestly wasn’t very remarkable. I think the non-tech people were mostly operations but I think that office would close later on. The interesting part was the underground area linking the station to various restaurants and passages where you could arrive at the Hibiya area or Ginza. It was amazing to see this expansive labyrinth built under the city. Not all sections of Tokyo had it but this might’ve been one of the bigger zones, which reminded me a little of the week I spent out in Toronto for an international Key Club convention.

Along the way there was a coffee shop like a Detour or Excelsior. But I distinctly remember this odd person sitting at one of the tables outside just zoned out. Urs (my lead) and my boss (Joe) also noticed him since we would occasionally come down that way. Each time, this foreigner white guy was always there. I think he might’ve had blue hair because we bequeathed upon him the name “Blue Man” and would joke about this guy. Sometimes, he would be passed out on the table. None of us knew what his deal was though. I think Urs spotted him one weekend and saw him praying. Joe might’ve tried talking to him as well since Joe seemed to find bizarre people amusing. He kinda reminded me of someone you’d find up in UC Berkeley wandering the streets and yelling imprecations at the world for no reason except to get noticed. But Blue Man is an example of one of the various oddities you’d encounter out there that in a way became normalized to me as time went on.

The other major DC was in Tennozu Isle. You had to take the tram from Shinbashi to get there. Unlike offices I was at, the main company owned the building I believe (I mean it’s one of the biggest banks in the world if you want to take a guess). This place was even more corporate and uptight than the Akasaka Park Building spot. And I think this was the only time I had ever been to that office. We might’ve gone down as a field trip so that I learned about this other DC that we never had to deal with. Once you got inside, you were instructed to take off your shoes to avoid static electricity. Probably, the most fascinating piece of tech there was the Casio Unix system. Yes, they had Casio Unix of all things. I have no idea what it ran, how you’d logged in, what the system ID was, etc. I just knew that there was Casio Unix being used. And we had a lot of different flavors besides Sun including HP-UX, and AIX.

The other remarkable thing was a group of people in a small room that were monitoring all the Autosys jobs in the company. Autosys is enterprise level automation piece of software that monitors and runs your batch jobs like an intelligent version of CRON with a GUI. So this group sat and watched this GUI all day long. If a job ever went into the red, they’d either page you or call you. One of my coworkers told me that they were kinda jealous about that team because they had good bento served to them. I would’ve agreed about the bento until Joe revealed how these people were more or less expendable if there ever was a fire. The DC would go on a lockdown mode within 20 seconds or so for which all the O2 would be sucked away and a special gas would spray to put out the fire. That was the only way of saving the DC as it was located in a high rise, which meant you’d get a Towering Inferno type of scenario if something did break out. But it also showed what the bank valued more.

On the bright side, the cafeteria at this office was quite good. It was much bigger and meant to serve the larger corporate foothold since the Akasaka office had more variety and accessibility to great spots. But the lunches were cheap and satisfying, which is what counts, right?

Moving from the surrounding Tokyo zones, I eventually made my way to Hakone. Like Kamakura, Hakone was such a different type of Japan since I had become accustomed to the loud, big city of Tokyo. Hakone is mostly known for its hot springs where the air smell like sulfur. There’s a lake and a special ropeway that gives you a nice little scenic tour of the zone.

I might’ve gone in the fall because I do recall it being cooler and greener.

Heck, I have photos that show the overcast sky and you can see the mist rising from the hot springs.

I made my way down to the lake but didn’t stay long as it was getting late and it would take two hours or so by train to get back into Tokyo. But it was a nice momentary escape from the bustling city noise.

Speaking of escaping, I am going to escape for a moment as this blog is getting extra long and I don’t want to have too much in a single post. I’ll continue to piece back my memories of 2003 for tomorrow.

The post Living/Working in Japan in 2003: A New Hope or Does the Empire Strike Back? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

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.

The post Living and Working in Japan in 2002 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I think at this stage, I still hadn’t discovered the Narita Airport Limo Bus. Since we’re on the topic at this time, let me just say that the advertisement as being “easy” is absolutely true. They manage your luggage, take you to your drop off point (usually a major hotel) and from move your luggage off the bus once you’re done. In addition, you get a nice view as you head into Tokyo and the bus has a restroom in the back, which is great after a long flight. On the way back, instead of dealing with a passport inspection at the airport, the bus handles that aspect directly. So you’re getting pretty hassle free care for about 5000-en or so (last time I used it at least) which is totally worth it. First time travelers going to Tokyo should absolutely use this. So that’s one tip from me.

At any rate, the other major concern from me was getting my key back from Kudo-san, who was still staying at my place. Since I might’ve been on a prepaid cellphone still, most of the communication was handled through email while I was back in the states. I can’t recall exactly how I got my key back though. It could’ve been a meet or maybe it was him leaving the key under the door or something like that. But if there’s one thing about the Japanese, it’s that they’re generally pretty trustworthy about these things and if the key was left under the door, I could almost guarantee it would be there (unless some shady foreigner knew about it or discovered it).

I’m sure once I received the work visa related stuff back in the states I had to continue correspondence with my future boss as well as the bank’s HR to ensure I wasn’t going to flake out though. So I don’t know how much time I had in between getting back to my flat and starting the new job. But it was still pretty cold as it was probably the beginning of April when I returned.  Also, when I was in the states, I probably had to pack new clothes because the job required professional clothes (no tie nor suit, but you needed dress pants and a collared shirt)

Regardless, my first day for work was absolutely one of the most exciting days of my life. Yeah, in retrospect, it would seem like an average day for anyone, but to me I was entering a whole new world. I was finally here. I made it! I know I woke up early because work started at 9am on the dot (which is something that would affect me down the road) but at that point in my life, I had far more vigor and enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to start my new Japanese job.

My apartment was located 10 minutes away from the Ebisu station. I tried to trace where my old place was but it’s been over 20 years and so much has changed that I recognize almost nothing in the area besides the train station and a Yoshinoya that I might’ve eaten at a few times. But the whole place is completely different from what I remember and it makes me sad in a way. Nevertheless, the way you’d get to the station was a straight walk from the quiet neighborhood. I didn’t appreciate that the location was actually peaceful until later when I would move to Harajuku and nearly lost my sanity for a year dealing with the constant street traffic of Meiji-dori. So I wish I could’ve appreciated the zone a lot more.

Because you had numerous businesses in Ebisu (even Morgan Stanley at the Beer Garden), you would see people dressed up walking to their respective companies. I think Fujitsu might’ve had a satellite office as I recall that morning a fleet of people coming from the station to that office. It was pretty impressive as I was used to people casually driving into work in LA. In fact, most people take the public transit to get to work as parking is costly and owning a car almost prohibitively expensive in Tokyo. In fact, for all the trouble it’s worth, I can’t see why anyone would want a car in Tokyo outside of it being a status symbol.

By the time I got to the station, my heart was racing both from being out of shape and from the general excitement of the morning. To get to my office, which was located at Akasaka next to the TBS building (yes, the TV station), I needed to use the Hibiya-sen and transfer at Kasumigaseki for the Chiyoda-sen. It was really annoying because it was a roundabout way to get some place that was central. I’m sure if I wanted, I could’ve walked but I wasn’t as familiar with the streets of Tokyo by that point. Also, who wants to walk in pants especially during the humid summers? (I could’ve changed once I got to the building but that’s a different story)

The Akasaka station itself isn’t really that impressive compared to other lines because there’s no transfers intermixing. The Akasaka-Mitsuke station though has more overlap and later on it would be one I’d use to get around more conveniently. But I was still a novice with the trains and subways so that wasn’t an option. Also, I still had been buying my train tickets and probably would do so for a while because I wasn’t familiar with the monthly passes nor Metro cards like Pasmo. Most of that probably is gone in favor of using mobile devices but that whole system was a pain because everything was fast pace and you had to insert your ticket, rush through a gate that was open until you grabbed your ticket on the way out. And if you lost your ticket for whatever reason, well, I’m fortunate that I never did that. But getting those doors slammed on you once in a while sucked.

Getting out of the station was easy but getting up to my building was a pain. Once you were out of the station though, you occasionally could see the weather woman from TBS outside, which was kind of cool because TBS was such a big thing to me back then as we’d get some of their J-dramas back in the states. With the hundreds of TBS employees ascending the stairs or taking the escalator, I kept thinking to myself looking up at the massive buildings, “Will I ever get to meet Norika Fujiwara in person? Maybe Ryoko Yonekura?” I was such a fan back then and my head was filled with dreams that would eventually get crushed by reality.

The stairs/escalator itself was massive, going up probably 2-3 stories themselves. This is significant because later that year during the winter, I had a major incident which I won’t discuss here. But it was something I had to get used to especially because I had to get back down and still have bad acrophobia. Either way, it’s something I had to deal with for a year and a half.

I don’t remember how the exact morning went for me at the new office. I do know there were badges and you might’ve needed to show them to the guard to get in. But the building’s bottom itself had other businesses like a conbini (convenient store) and a health clinic, maybe a restaurant as well. Nonetheless, I didn’t have direct access to the office and would go through HR, spending the morning filling out paperwork for my insurance, etc. Also, I didn’t have a Japanese bank account so I needed to get setup with that as well and an ATM cad.

The HR head was a bit of a controversial figure in the company. One of the guys who work in Market Data used to call the HR director Catbert (from Dilbert) because he was EXACTLY the same in character, except Japanese. Apparently, he never smiled either and I might’ve said some joke that caused him to laugh. But I can’t remember. The rest of the day I think was just getting setup and meeting my new coworkers. The group was the Unix systems group and inside we had teams for different purposes. Mine was going to be Unix Data where we were building an inventory management system for all the parts and information on each of the servers (for which there were roughly 1k for the company). I wish I was more politically savvy back then because I should’ve done more to try and fit in but I think I’m simply anti-social and focused on my new group.

I do remember grabbing lunch with my little group over at a Thai tabehoudai (buffet) spot which was really good. I doubt it’s still around but we had several versions of curry. But it was to get introduced to my lead and two other coworkers, one of who was a Japanese native and another guy sharing the same last name as me named Bryce who was from Hawaii. Bryce was a really funny guy too and super laid back as you might expect from someone coming from Hawaii. He reminded me of various other Japanese Americans I grew up with back in LA so it was easy to talk with him.

After work, it was just another day and I don’t think we ended up doing anything except going home for the evening. But somehow I survived the first day of work and probably went back home. During that first month though, financially things were really rough. My boss at some point had asked me if I needed any money but I had no idea what he meant. I thought he was just going to spot me a few bucks to get by. Later, I learned that larger firms that imported talent would give packages such as paying for a good chunk of their rent or maybe even their living expenses to a degree. Certainly, at the executive level, people were getting pretty good packages. Part of the incentive here was to help alleviate taxes (especially for a shitty country like the US where they still expect you to file even if you make under the allotted amount). So a company might pay for a portion, which would be taken pre-tax, effectively keeping you under the radar. The other reason for paying for rent was to keep employees near the office. For instance, I knew a bunch of people over at Morgan Stanley that were getting pretty good pay but living in Ebisu with 80% of their rent covered. But that’s also because Morgan Stanley’s offices were in that vicinity. So there’d be almost no excuse for being late or scrambling in an emergency.

Regardless, being the proud, naive idiot back then, I refused the offer. But that meant my life for the next 2 months would be hell because the Japanese pay cycle is completely different from the bi-weekly pay a person might receive in America. Also, you would be put on a “trial” period for several months before receiving any benefits. Now, that practice was done in America, which is stupid because it would be a way to pull a string along for employees so they’d behave. Some people usually would use that period to pretend to behave good; once that period ended, their true selves would emerge so I think that system should be killed. If you really want employees to behave, just have a contract-to-hire policy so there’s no false expectations and pay them more and give overtime. That way they can choose their own insurance and necessities.

Anyway, the real meat of the matter here was that my life would be very harsh for at least a month while I waited around for my first paycheck. My main means of survival related to food were the convenient stores, Matsuya and the onsite cafeteria that would serve fairly cheap lunches (around 500-en). Matsuya was my personal main life savior at this point because they had this crappy chicken curry priced at 290-en. Okay, it wasn’t really that crappy compared to the average American fast food joint but I think this was the lowest of the low when it came to curry quality. Sometimes, I might’ve eaten at Yoshinoya, which they did have at Ebisu and I might’ve even had a meal or two with Kris out there once we got back in contact (he kinda disappeared as per his usual) but I learned the art of Gyudon + raw egg. Really great and everyone should try that BUT ONLY IN JAPAN WHERE YOU CAN TRUST THE EGGS.

For the convenient stores, I typically hit up this Circle K on the way home. Around that period we had the World Soccer Cup going and Tokyo was infected by soccer fever. I remember going with some friends I made at that Comm Inn English Conversation Cafe going afterwards to a British pub and watching the game (even though I’m not a fan of sports). And I do have a few stories about the cup that I’ll get to but I want to stay on the top of food. The main feature of Circle K around this period was that you could buy a coca cola drink (the bottled version) at Circle K where it came with a small World Soccer Lego set. These were REALLY cool because they not only had the little figures but added play elements. And this was before Lego went ballistic and started charging up the ass for their products.

In addition to Coke, I would buy bento box dinners. One thing guaranteed in Japan about convenience stores is that the bento on average is at least good and sustaining along with having a nice variety. You could easily survive on bento alone because it’s just that good over there. Along with this, occasionally I’d try what I called the “mysterious baked” section. I call it that because my Japanese wasn’t great and once in a while you’d find some disgusting oddity or an item that you became completely hooked on. The worst items for me was anything mayo-corn or natto oriented (like harumaki/spring rolls) while the best thing I discovered was curry-pan (bread). The curry-pan is something I dream about still as it was these donut-like pieces of bread with curry filling inside. Heat that up for 30 seconds and it was a fantastic snack.

Dessert-wise, this is the main area truly lacking for me. I think I just prefer American sweets like donuts and cookies far better. Japanese desserts are a real mixed bag. The donuts taste more like bread with wax on top (like you would find at Mister Donuts), the cookies bland like cardboard. If you’re into Japanese sweets, some that I liked as a child but gradually became disgusted by are mochi filled with azuki/anko (red bean paste). However, the ice cream can be pretty good so that’s worth trying, especially the mochi ice cream (if you can vaoid the azuki ones). I think I just am sensitive to texture and azuki reminds me of poop.

The cafeteria at work was decent though. They had a nice little meat sauce spaghetti lunch, ramen or udon curry. Some companies have these bento carts downstairs. When we eventually moved to the Harumi Triton Tower in Kachidoki, I would start hitting up more of those carts. But I learned down the line that it generally wasn’t good to eat from those carts since the food might stay out for a while (and I did get food poisoning on two different occasions). But those places generally are pretty cheap for what you get and decent tasting.

However, Akasaka has to be the best place I’ve worked for food. The sheer variety and upscale nature of the restaurants were amazing. Maybe the best restaurant I’ve eaten in that area was a French spot called Asterix. I don’t think it’s around anymore but they used to do the whole 5 course meal thing. It was 5000-en (~$50) but amazing food. Working in this zone certainly spoiled me and made me realize just how bad American cuisine was especially because I had been eating fast food almost all my life (after the fact that my mom hated cooking and probably the only person on earth that could burn water)

At any rate, I had to pull back on going to puroresu quite a bit at this stage just from lack of time and the need to conserve money. In fact, as time went on, my budget grew exceptionally tight and sometimes, I would only eat once a day if I was lucky. And if I ate, it probably would’ve been Matsuya or bento. Part of the reason for my tightness was that Japan is (or was) a heavily cash based society. Even if I could use my credit cards, it wasn’t justified not to mention they might put a lock on my card. Not to mention, I was already heavily in debt and unable to send money back home and I had zero desire to burden my parents with more of my financial woes (they had their own). So I did my best to avoid using my credit card and would scrounge up change to eat.

In addition, I had no internet. My apartment was old and not setup for an internet connection. Work had internet but it was heavily filtered behind a reverse proxy (Apache Squid). In that manner, they could cache content as well as catch anyone trying to view suspicious sites. I’m sure at this stage, the net is even more heavily monitored as things were increasingly become stricter by the time I left. So once in a while, I was using an internet cafe to connect.

Truthfully, I wasn’t as big of an internet addict at that point because the content wasn’t as good compared to now (or maybe the last 10-15 years especially with the growth of social media and especially streaming services). Instead, my entertainment was for once having an actual life. I would go to that English conversation cafe fairly regularly and make friends there. I’d pay less than the typical Japanese guy because I was still considered a foreigner. People generally liked me there though because my English was fluid and I had a background in teaching and could explain things well. Sometimes you’d meet other gaijin who were trying to find their way or make a little extra money.

I met one male model over there who mentioned he worked with Norika Fujiwara. At one point, I did see a commercial of his with Norika Fujiwara. That made me a little jealous I must admit. Then there were these two Irish kids who came over on a hope and a dream. Neither had a degree and were probably just surviving in some crappy flat or a spot like a New Koyo. But the conversation cafe paid them enough money to survive and eat. I remember hearing one guy telling his sister/friend that he made some money one day and was really happy. But it was clear they were both directionless and just looking to escape their homeland sadly. That made me appreciate having a real job (despite not getting paid the entire month and starving most of the time)

Sometimes after Com Inn closed, I might’ve hung out with some people from there. I had a small group for a week or two and we’d go over to the pub for checking out the World Soccer Game. I know everyone at the office was really into it and someone even brought in a TV to check out the play offs. But living around Ebisu during that period was something else. I remember one morning on a Saturday, I had just gotten up and started wandering the streets. Unlike most days, Ebisu that day was just dead. I thought we were hit by a bomb or the plague because it was unusually dead silent. All of a sudden, a massive roar erupted where tons of Japanese people were screaming, “Yatta! Yatta!” (we did it!) as Japan had won their game for the day. Some kids on a motor scooter drove around yelling as I stood around dumbfounded realizing just how attentive the Japanese were for this series. And they did really well too but didn’t edge out Turkey and another country from my memory.

All I could think about in this period was just how lucky I wasn’t back in America where Bush was fucking up the economy and things were going to absolute shit with everyone’s rights being slowly eroded as the war against the Al Quaida was about to pick up. A shame I couldn’t escape back to Japan but at my age and energy level with all the shit going on, I doubt I could these days. Le sigh.

The post My First Working Month of Working in Tokyo appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.