About a week ago, I was walking west along Senkawa-dori on my way home from the new branch of my gym that’d just opened by Nerima Station.  I came across an Italian restaurant that, having lived in the neighbourhood for 4 years, I had often passed, but never actually gone into.  Deciding to depart from my usual dining out schedule, I went in and gave it a go.

The restaurant was certainly good at what they cooked, which was Italian food (mathematically, it was actually the subset of “Italian food” consisting of the union of “pizza” and “spaghetti”), but I spent the meal reading my book and feeling like something was very wrong, without being able to put my finger on it exactly.

Standing at the cash register, waiting to pay my bill, my answer finally came to me in a flash:

It was the decor.

The place was done up like a stone-walled cafe somewhere in Rome, which certainly fit the style of the food appropriately.  The problem was that someone had obviously gone to the “stick random crap on your walls” school of restaurant design, and decorated the walls with items including the following:

• An advertisement for “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show starring Annie Oakley”
• The sign from a cobbler’s shop somewhere in London
• A wagon wheel and wood barrel as might have been found on a homestead on the prairie
• A 1970s-era Heineken advertisement

Once I noticed what the problem was, it was impossible to avoid being bothered by it.  Oh, I’ll probably go back — the food was decent — but it did get me to thinking about “foreign restaurants” in general, and whether they’re really “authentic”.  In this case, I’m not talking about food whose taste has been altered to suit the local palate.  That happens almost everywhere.  I still have to remind the Indian shop down the street that when I say spicy, “I don’t mean spicy for a Japanese person, I mean spicy for a westerner.”  And I’m sure that we’ve all had “Japanese food” back in our home countries that’s not much more than strips of beef drenched in sweet teriyaki sauce.

What I am talking about is “atmosphere”.  Trying to decompile the thought process of the person who decorated that restaurant, I figured out where he was coming from:  “I have a Western restaurant, and here is all this authentic Western stuff to put on the walls!  It matches!”  And from the point of view of a lot of his customers, he’s right.  Hell, it took me a while to notice, and I’m familiar with the cuisines, languages, and geography and timelines involved.

This made me wonder how many restaurants there are back in Toronto that are analogous.  I wonder if some of the Vietnamese restaurants that I enjoyed on Spadina had random Chinese and Japanese stuff on the walls.  Who knows whether that Ethiopian restaurant on Bloor is full of Congolese flags and Sudanese knick-knacks?

Anybody have any interesting similar experiences to share?

Ramen truck by Ikebukuro Station

I admit that I’ve always loved “ramen wagons”.  Like any other mobile food vending cart, it parks in areas of heavy foot traffic, and has stoves in there so that the owner can make up some fast food to serve his hungry customers.  Unlike most other mobile food carts, however, the food is not meant to be taken away, but eaten on the spot.  The walls of the wagon fold down to become the table that customers eat at. 

Some “ramen enthusiasts” (this is Japan — of course there are “enthusiasts” dedicated to ramen) will tell you that the only true ramen is that which comes from the back of a truck.  I won’t go that far, but I will say that I do really enjoy these trucks.  There’s something about sitting at the oasis in the middle of the heavy foot traffic in front of the station, warming yourself up with a nice bowl of pork ramen, and chatting away with the other customers, most of whom are..  well-lubricated.. after a night on the town.  For some reason, eating at one of these ramen trucks comes with the expectation of joining in whatever conversation is happening around the tables — each truck turns into a sort of “mini party”, so there is almost always some fascinating conversation to be had, such as the following that happened last Friday night:

Drunk Guy #1: So where are you from?

Drew: [usual smart-ass answer] Nerima.

Drunk Guy #1: No, before then.

Drew: [pointing to "Canada" hat] Canada.

Drunk Guy #1: And you’ve been living here for…

Drew:  The better part of 5 years now.

Drunk Guy #1: Oh, you must be on a tourist visa then.

Drew: No, I have a job, I work.

Drunk Guy #1: [to Drunk Guy #2] Hey, this guy here is from Canada and he has a job here!

Drunk Guy #2: [comes over] You’re from Canada?  That’s great!  I know a lot about Canada!  I have one thing to tell you, a catchphrase from your home country.  Are you ready?  [puts his hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eyes]  ”Yes we can!”

This view is from the window directly behind my desk in my 6th-floor office by Higashi-Nakano Station. The view looks Northbound at the construction on Yamate-dori, which has been ongoing since I came to Tokyo and probably for a while before then. The main result of the construction was the (so far) 6-kilometer Yamate Tunnel on the C2 Loop of the Tokyo Metro Highway. Now that the tunnel has been open for a year, they’re going through and refinishing all the roads that they tore up, as well as building interlocking brick sidewalks and a row of trees on each side of the road.

Having this bird’s eye view has not only given me something to look at when I need to take my eyes away from the computer (my coworkers are now all convinced that I should have been a civil engineer), but it’s also given me great insight into the road construction process. Great care is taken to minimize interruptions to traffic flow. In the attached picture, you’ll notice that the 2 northbound lanes have been shifted onto the sidewalk (rather than simply reduced to 1 lane) to allow for the construction on the island in the centre of the road. You should also be able to see in the right-hand side of the picture, some leftover lines in the road from where the southbound lanes were similarly shifted to allow for the construction there.

This construction (at least on the section of Yamate-dori that I can see from my window) will be ongoing until October, 2009. After that, I guess I’ll have to find something else to look at.

Now that Softbank has finally included email traffic in its unlimited data transfer fee, I can finally start up the Picture of the Day again, and I won’t have to worry about going broke doing so!  Note that we’re not talking about high quality photos here, just a quick mobile-phone snapshot of something interesting that I saw that day, along with a couple sentences of explanation.

The Picture of the Day will be posted on this blog, but so as to not take over the whole blog, the entries are hidden from the main page and do not show up in the main RSS feed, and will not be automatically forwarded to LiveJournal or Facebook.   You can see the Picture of the Day by selecting that category in the category list to the right, or if you would like, you can sign up for the Picture of the Day RSS feed.

Still, no matter how dingy it was, no matter how out-of-date the equipment, it was comforting to have a hospital right there, only 500 meters away from my apartment. If I got sick, my plan was always to eschew the largely-useless ambulance and take a taxi to the local hospital instead.

But. I hurt my foot a couple weeks back and limped down the street to the hospital, only to find a “we’ve closed forever” sign on it. So instead I went to the shiny new modern hospital a couple stops away on the train… Sure, they had good equipment and good doctors, and I didn’t feel like a good earthquake could shake the place apart, but it didn’t have any of the character of the 45-year-old Marumo Hospital building.

Marumo is on the route that I take when I have my weekend morning walk, and I went by the other day to see the demolition already underway… A bit sad that 45 years of serving my neighbourhood has been replaced with piles of wood and rubble, but progress marches on I guess…

Well, the cheese was visible, and tangible, and it was certainly smellable (side note: I checked — “smellable” is just as good a word as any) but I was disappointed that it was not the least bit audible.

Hrmph, truth in advertising!

I happened to see the following notice on the site this morning:

If you can’t read Japanese, it says “This is accident prevention month! Our goal is to have zero accidents!”

Thank You, Tokyo Government! I had been planning on having several accidents this month; I’m glad that someone warned me about this month’s goal before this morning’s planned blindfolded drive to work…

I figured that there are likely dozens of translations out there, but I didn’t look because I wanted to take a crack at translating it myself without being influenced by any of the others. Feel free to offer suggestions; this was a quickie 10-minute job, so I may have misunderstood something…

[As always, if you're going to post this translation somewhere else, I would really appreciate your linking back to this blog, or at the very least, not removing my name. I'm sick of seeing my translation of Robinson posted everywhere without my name on it.]

手紙　~　拝啓十五の君へ
Letter ~ To 15-year-old you

Lyrics and Music: Angela Aki
English Translation: Drew Hamilton <awh@awh.org>

拝啓　この手紙読んでいるあなたは　どこで何をしているのだろう

Dear you who are reading this letter: I wonder where you are and what you’re doing.

十五の僕には誰にも話せない　悩みの種があるのです

15-year-old me has worries that I can’t talk to anyone else about.

未来の自分に宛てて書く手紙なら
きっと素直に打ち明けられるだろう

If I write this letter to my future self, surely I will be able to honestly and openly express myself.

今　負けそうで　泣きそうで　消えてしまいそうな僕は
誰の言葉を信じ歩けばいいの?
ひとつしかないこの胸が何度もばらばらに割れて
苦しい中で今を生きている
今を生きている

Whose words should I believe now, when I’m on the edge of losing, on the brink of tears, and on the verge of disappearing? When this heart that I only have one of is constantly being broken to pieces? When I’m living through these difficult years?

拝啓　ありがとう　十五のあなたに伝えたい事があるのです

Dear 15-year-old you, thank you for you letter. I have some things that I’d like to say to you.

自分とは何でどこへ向かうべきか　問い続ければ見えてくる

If you keep asking yourself “in which direction should I head?” the answer will come to you

荒れた青春の海は厳しいけれど
明日の岸辺へと　夢の舟よ進め

The rough seas of adolescence are harsh, but the ship of your dreams will continue to the riverbank of tomorrow

今　負けないで　泣かないで　消えてしまいそうな時は
自分の声を信じ歩けばいいの
大人の僕も傷ついて眠れない夜はあるけど
苦くて甘い今を生きている

And when you don’t want to lose, to cry, when you don’t want to disappear, believe in your own voice. And even the adult me has times when I get hurt, even has sleepless nights, but life is bittersweet.

人生の全てに意味があるから　恐れずにあなたの夢を育てて
Keep on believing

There is meaning to the entirety of one’s life, so follow your dreams without unease; keep on believing.

負けそうで　泣きそうで　消えてしまいそうな僕は
誰の言葉を信じ歩けばいいの?
ああ　負けないで　泣かないで　消えてしまいそうな時は
自分の声を信じ歩けばいいの
いつの時代も悲しみを避けては通れないけれど
笑顔を見せて　今を生きていこう
今を生きていこう

Whose words should I believe now, when I’m on the edge of losing, on the brink of tears, and on the verge of disappearing? When you don’t want to lose, to cry, when you don’t want to disappear, believe in your own voice. And whatever your age, sorrow can’t always be avoided, but I now try to live my life showing my smiling face.

拝啓　この手紙読んでいるあなたが
幸せな事を願います

Dear you who are reading this letter,
I wish good things for you.

This is how you have to travel if you are planning on taking a suitcase anywhere by motorcycle. Coincidentally, this was also how I got a monitor home from Omiya just a week before…

I must admit that this is something that I never expected to see at a concession stand: Turkey Drumsticks

I was on my way home from the Grand Prix motorcycle race in Motegi, Japan, which as you might expect is a pretty testosterone-filled day. Luckily this car pulled into the 7-11 that I was stopped for a rest at, which balanced out the day nicely.

I really hate that the post office requires you to write “Small Package” right under your name and address like that. IT’S NOT TRUE, DAMNIT!

If I’d known that “Foreigner with Glasses” was an acceptable Hallowe’en costume, I could have saved myself so much time and effort!

Six Chinese female trainees at a dry-cleaning company in Yamanashi Prefecture got into a row with the company when they complained that they were being paid under the minimum wage, and three of them suffered injuries including a broken bone, it has been learned.

The article goes on to say that the employees complained that their monthly salary of 50,000 yen (about USD $500) was far below minimum wage, and that their overtime pay of 350 yen/hour (later raised to 450 yen/hour) was less than half of the region’s minimum standards for overtime.

When the six workers submitted a written request for their wages to be raised, the dry-cleaning company showed up at the company’s dormitory with 10 other people, and tried to force the women into a van taking them to the airport and sending them to China.  During this scuffle, one woman’s leg was broken when she jumped out of a second-story window trying to escape, and two others were also injured, presumably by the company employees who were trying to force them into the van.

The company president later visited the foreign workers’ union headquarters and apologised:

“If they were Japanese I wouldn’t have done it (tried to force them to leave). I was asked for a high amount of unpaid cash and thought I couldn’t negotiate. I’m sorry for their injuries.”

Nice.  ”You don’t have to worry, Japanese government.  I wouldn’t have tried to kidnap Japanese girls after they demand that I start following employment laws, only dirty foreign ones.  Please rest assured.”

That’s OK though; the Justice Ministry has said that the company might be punished:

“The failure to pay wages, the human rights violations and other actions constitute illicit behavior, and there is a possibility that this warrants banning the firm from accepting trainees for three years,” the official said.

Translation:  ”You might have to wait three whole years before being allowed to abuse other foreign labour in this way”.

In the “Western bloggers in Japan” community, there is often a lot of grousing about what is seen as horrendous acts of racism: “I had to see 8 whole apartments before I found one that would rent to a white man!”  ”Boo hoo, when I went to buy my iPhone I had to show a different kind of ID!”  ”A lady gave me the stink-eye on the subway!”

Truthfully that stuff bothers me a bit too, but I can’t get worked up about the small stuff when I know what kind of problems the immigrants who aren’t lucky enough to have been born in a rich country face:  Not being able to rent anything but the most disgusting shacks of apartments… working long hours in poor conditions…  in some cases, being imprisoned by the Yakuza and forced to work as sex workers for Japan’s business and government elite..  And then when finally one case actually makes the news — an abuse and kidnapping and assault case — it’s met with a slap on the wrist like that.

This sort of thing is what the “Westerners in Japan” blogosphere should really concern itself with; not petty bullcrap like iPhones and video rental memberships.