I continued going to the various joshi puroresu shows and may have a few pictures from stuff in that late 2001 period (including an ARSION show that had Miyuki/Ryo Maeda). Part of the voyage there that time around was to try and find this pretty Thai girl I got setup with in Uguisuidani. If you know anything about that zone, then you’ll realize what type of girl she was. I actually found several pictures of her too and still am sad nothing further happened. Instead, I met another girl from Indonesia or Mayasia I believe who simply gave me a rub down because I was too distraught in learning the girl I met (her Japanese name was Natsuko) supposedly got married and left Japan. So I was pretty heart broken over the incident as I had waited for roughly a year in the hopes of seeing her again.

One thing I’ll mention here is that a year before I met this guy name Bob. He was Japanese but actually raised in America. He had this fatherly quality and was very approachable but he introduced me to that spot over at Uguisuidani since my Japanese was horribly limited. Later, he brought me into his room at the New Koyo and showed me an old article from a newspaper in San Francisco. Apparently, Bob had been involved in some sort of drug lord and was a muscle. But he ended up getting caught and went to prison for 10 years before being deported back to Japan since he never got his citizenship. His friend (the boss guy) apparently was still sending him money to help the guy out since Bob lost everything. Eventually, Bob would take over at the counter at the New Koyo but you’d never suspect any of that from him.

Anyway, the thing was that Bob showed me around a few places. For instance, in the previous trip, he introduced me to an English Conversation Cafe over in Ebisu called Com Inn. I don’t think it’s around anymore, which is a huge shame because I used to meet a lot of people (including two girlfriends) at that place. Along with that Bob showed me a few “night spots” since I started gaining more interest in Tokyo itself as well as taking advantage of the social aspects.

While staying at the New Koyo, I met another really shady Japanese guy who had limited English. He kept talking about his business, which apparently involved some sort of food operation. Both kept talking a spot nearby called Yoshiwara/Soapland. I may have encountered the word Yoshiwara in an academic setting back at UCI where we read a piece about the bath house. I had no idea that the actual district was composed of rows of brothels! So the shady Japanese guy had me get magazine called Manzoku that you can buy at almost any convenient store out there. Manzoku effectively is a massive advertisement for the various sex shops around Tokyo (including places like Saitama). They had me look through some of ads until I found one that seemed reasonable. The Japanese guy kept hounding me about the girl and possibly knowing her. But I honestly think this guy was full of shit.

As I write this, one other incident around this area involved a Canadian guy who was visiting from Nagoya that I met at the New Koyo, who also had shown me this spot. Now, I can’t remember if I met him at this juncture or the previous year. But I remember how I might’ve been in the lobby using the internet and this guy shows up plastered. It might’ve been the morning of the next day or even the afternoon. But he comes over to me and we start talking because I was interested in his work, which involved some technical solution for a major printing company in Nagoya. He brings out his keitai (before the whole iPhone style craze started) which had a limited digital screen and shows me an image of an attractive person. Then he asks, “Do you think this is a guy?”

At first, I had no idea how to interpret this situation. But apparently, the Canadian guy had gone to a club in Roppongi, where certain patrons targeted unsuspecting foreign men (mostly white guys). These patrons (Filipino and maybe Thai from what I heard) would dance with the guy, get them severely drunk and ask to take the guy to their place. So the Canadian had exactly this situation happen and he mentioned that while at this person’s place, they made out but wouldn’t let him to touch this person’s junk. In turn, the Canadian became suspicious but apparently they didn’t have intercourse and eventually the Canadian somehow stumbled his way back to the New Koyo, which is why he asked me.

Later, when I went to another bar with someone else I met at the New Koyo (which turned out to be some tech producer from LA who became a friend), I saw a similar incident with two guys (yes, the stories are becoming a digression here). Now, I suspect this incident happened during this trip. But it was at some downstairs bar/club in Roppongi, the name, of course, escaping my mind. It was at night as people were getting off of work. My friend wanted to hang out and dance at the floor but I was still shy and not dressed well for the occasion. Instead, I just observed the crowd. Two attractive young female characters entered and my friend whispers to me, “If you were really drunk, you wouldn’t know the difference.”

Suddenly, it became clear what kind of characters I saw were. So I became fascinated and observed from the side. Eventually, two unremarkable white guys entered and started dancing with the two female characters. My friend nudges me and exclaimed, “They don’t know!” So we both started watching the situation unfold. The two white guys danced and were completely enamored by the two female characters. As the night progressed, I noticed one couple started making out with each other. Then his partner spoke a few words and the two disappeared and my friend and I just stared dumbfounded. I might’ve made the comment, “Oh, that guy is going to wake up to a big surprise in the morning!”

That left the remaining pair. The same thing happened to the other white guy where his “partner” whispered something into his ear. Then the guy looks down while the female character bails from the establishment. The white dude comes over towards us, grabs his jacket with a dejected look and admits, “All this time I’d been dancing with a guy and I didn’t even know it.” Then he takes off.

Anyway, always loved that story. I have one of my own similar when I wandered around in Shinjuku Kabuki-cho the year before but I’ll save that one. All I can say is that I didn’t get far for better or worse.

But back to the Canadian guy at the New Koyo. He’s drinking water/tea as he’s recovering from his hangover (I definitely think it was in the evening due to what will follow). We might’ve gotten dinner or something to eat. But he did mention that he discovered another Red Light spot nearby. Interested, I decided to take a walk with him around the Minowa/Shitamachi zone. It was winter and quite cold. Along the way, we were hit by a cloud of stench as lined up against a wall were numerous blankets and comforters hiding a bunch of homeless people. The Canadian said that he knew of my university because one professor had written on the poorest section of Japan, which was this area apparently. The thing is that most people probably don’t associate Japan with having a homeless problem if they’re coming from outside the country. However, just like other places in the world, Japan suffers from capitalism and high cost of living while the downtrodden get tossed to the side and become voiceless and left to rot. Later, one of the front desk workers at the New Koyo (not Bob) mentioned that many of those homeless around the area would perish in the winter and I do remember along the street at some point there had been a soup kitchen setup to feed them. Very somber and vivid image that I can never shake and wish I could have taken a picture to show the unglamorous side of Tokyo/Japan.

As we continued our journey, we passed by a small shopping district. It was one of those more traditional setups where you have an overhanging above a wide open walkway with small stores on either side. There might’ve been one of those pull down garage mechanisms to close the place off after hours. But as the location shut down, I noticed more homeless taking shelter underneath. Also, for what it’s worth, back in the day before the revitalization of the station, Ueno similarly had a homeless situation where many would take shelter in the station at night. I don’t know if that still holds true since many of the encampments around Tokyo might’ve been cleaned up in the later half of the 2000s. And if you’re wondering where William Gibson got the title for his first chapter in one of his Cyberpunk novels, it would’ve been when he visited Shinjuku at one point where piles of cardboard boxes near the station most likely gave him a visual of what he thought the dystopian future might look like. Actually, the real dystopian future is more about the actual disappearance of the lower class of people where they just are discarded to the side like trash and keep getting pushed elsewhere and displaced by NIMBYs and governments who kowtow to big business.

I can’t recall the exact steps to get there from the New Koyo but you take the back streets leading to a large road where there’s a gas station. A sign above reads “Yoshiwaramon” (I believe) but the street may have a different name these days. The one street you use is narrow and comes out to a moderate size street and crosswalk. From there, in the next few blocks ahead and to the left/right, you can see various gaudy signs advertising what may pass as hotels. But these aren’t hotels but Soapland spots. Soapland is comparable from what I’ve read/heard to a Turkish bath. But effectively, they’re where prostitution happens in a controlled manner. Prostitution in Japan has a strict definition where the direct exchanging of money between a customer and the girl (maybe guy too but I have no idea about that) and the explicit act of penetration makes the thing illegal. The way these operations work is that the girl “rents” the spot in the establishment while a front desk clerk takes the money. From there the girl makes her percentage. What goes on behind the closed doors is unknown to the establishment just like the other love hotels you might see dotting metropolitan areas (like Uguisudani).

Anyway, because I was with a very apparent gaijin (actually I should say hakujin/white guy), the usual ponbikis didn’t bother us. At this juncture, the Tokyo government hadn’t started cracking down on where these people could hang out so they were more bold in being out front and center near in the streets, even at this late hour. I think most of these places might’ve closed at around 2 or 3am, which makes sense if you think about how the women were what some would call “ladies of the night.” But I couldn’t get over the gaudiness of the zone, like a mini Vegas without the gambling. And there were so many of these spots. I really have no idea how one establishment could differentiate themselves from another beyond the exterior advertisement and the girls they kept. Maybe some of the women were former models, AV actresses (adult video) or more attractive types. I think that Manzoku magazine might’ve featured a few and would talk about their “specialties.” But if you were a casual customer just walking down the street, I would not know how to distinguish one place from another.

At any rate, we would make our way back, possibly grab food either that night or the next day. But I never knew what happened to that guy. But that does take me all the back to my Soapland story. As I mentioned, that shady Japanese person and Bob had set me up with one of these places. I even managed to find out that the place still exist (I remember the name) and that it has a web presence. These establishments can arrange for a pickup usually by the station. It’s meant to be discrete since I think some business men might go during their lunch break for a little stress relief (or maybe even as a business arrangement). Nonetheless, I did read that many of these spots don’t allow foreigners. Initially, I thought it was raw prejudice for the post-WW2 era but the reasoning was a little more practical in that the rise of AIDS/diseases along with how communication would be an issue ended up making the situation a general policy.

That isn’t to say all places are like that and if you do speak some Japanese, you can get in. I knew one guy at the bank who was Indian and got in through a friend. But I think he had some rudimentary Japanese. Despite having some Japanese and being of Japanese ethnicity, I was naturally very nervous. I knew these places were run by a certain shifty organization. But the policy I have is that as long as you don’t look for trouble, trouble won’t look for you. Also, most of these joints are focused on business and making money, even if it’s nefarious.

I was let out by the driver at a small shop where I was greeted and given a photo book of the ladies. I merely confirmed the girl I saw in the ad (who had been reserved for me) and I was led upstairs to a moderate sized room with an air mattress near a shower. The girl probably was the prettiest person I had been with in my life and my Japanese was just so horrible back then in the way I’d stumble over my words. But the process was pretty simple. She would wash you with a special lotion and use her body to cleanse you on the airbed. Part of it was licking and it was intense. You could have normal sex with her but I insisted on a condom, even though she started without one. Note that these establishments supposedly enforce frequent testing but I was really paranoid. But what a woman. One Japanese friend translated the ad of her and told me that one of her specialties was a golden shower, where in those days I had no idea what that meant. I was just so naive back then.

When it was over (2 hours), the guy would call and give you a warning. Then they’d come get you, you’d say goodbye, she gave me her card and number then I would go downstairs to pay. This was one of the higher class establishments so the cost was heavy and I was already laden by debt. Back then I could afford the risk and didn’t care that much about the consequences. Stupid me.

As for the Japanese guy at the hotel (not Bob), he tried to swindle me a few times for money. I think he was just a fraud and staying at that place because he was having money issues. The funny thing is that he would brag to me about knowing some of those ladies, pointing at one girl in an ad and saying, “Her pussy stinks.” I couldn’t tell if he said that to try and appear “hip” to me with his knowledge of foul English language or if he wanted to impress me in saying he’d been with her and went twice. But I’m sure these days I would just nod and tell him to eventually fuck off.

Seeing this blog post getting a bit long, I’m going to pause it since it’s consumed quite a bit of my time and I need to do some other things.

The post Moving to Japan and the First Month Living Out There appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.