The professional tourist, p.1
The Professional Tourist, page 1
The Professional Tourist
Noah Chinn
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue — Departure
Chapter 1 - Arrival
Chapter 2 — Establishment
Chapter 3 — Acquaintances
Chapter 4 — Red Tape and Classroom Politics
Chapter 5 — Surviving Hanna
Chapter 6 — The Road to Routine
Chapter 7 — Takashi
Chapter 8 — Introducing the Professional Tourist
Chapter 9 — Hanna. Again.
Chapter 10 — Tour-ism
Chapter 11 — Things Get Worse
Chapter 12 — Hanna Day
Chapter 13 — The Kakapo Shuffle
Chapter 14 — Tie Club
Chapter 15 — The Big Game
Chapter 16 — Borrowed, stolen, what’s the difference?
Chapter 17 — Odd Jobs
Chapter 18 — Dear Diary
Chapter 19 — The Trouble with Takashi
Chapter 20 — Summer in Japan
Chapter 21 — The Long Walk
Chapter 22 — Oracles
Chapter 23 — Loose Ends
Chapter 24 — Descat Ex Machina
Chapter 25 - Departure
Epilogue — Arrival
About the Author
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Dedication
Type dedication here
Prologue — Departure
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot — Little Gidding
What could be sold had been.
What he needed fit in a single knapsack.
What he could not part with was distilled to a rosary and two photographs.
Whatever else was needed he would acquire later on.
He looked back at what had once been his home, now just a house awaiting new tenants or a wrecking crew. One was as likely as the other in this city.
This city had never really been his home. Not sixty years ago when he first arrived, not thirty years later when he returned, and not now. It was a pause between moments. A place to be in-between.
Home was already with him, as it had always been.
One journey ends, another begins. His only regret now was there was no one to follow him.
He slung the faded green knapsack over his shoulders, and began the long walk from Yokohama to Tokyo.
Chapter 1 - Arrival
“When beginning a life in a new land, the first few days are always the longest. The brain recognizes that it is in a completely new environment. As a result, it processes everything it can in minute detail. The new day feels much longer than the routine day, where the brain can switch off and ignore that which it is already used to.”
Toshio Asano — In the Mind of the Professional Tourist
The first thing Az saw when he left the confines of Narita Airport was a Starbucks. It stood defiantly in his path, giving his hope of a unique Japanese experience a very American middle finger.
For a moment he just stood there and looked at it, head cocked like a puppy, his knapsack sagging on one shoulder. It was identical to the ones in Seattle. He might as well be in Seattle: same music, same tables, same chairs, same décor. Having never actually seen a Starbucks being built, he wondered if they infected the bottoms of buildings like some kind of fungus made from mutant cappuccino.
Next thing he knew he was holding a venti-sized double-mocha latte with non-fat milk. A froth moustache was on his face before he realized what had happened.
“Dammit!”
The ride into Tokyo was also a letdown. As the sun set, all the buildings were shrouded in silhouette, but what he saw failed to impress.
McDonald’s, Mr. Donut, 7-Eleven’s, and Wendy’s signs flitted by. Even signs that were technically Japanese, like Sony, TDK and Fuji were old hat. It wasn’t like he’d expected masked ninjas swinging down the city canyons like Spider-Man, but this was too American. He had traveled across the world for this, bled his savings dry to start a new life. So far he might as well have been in Vancouver or L.A.
Ka-clak ka-clak.
At least the train’s interior was interesting. With the exception of some product names and phrases in bizarre English (“We Can Help You With Our Pleasure!”), Az was completely lost. It made him acutely aware of how isolated he was — all alone in a city of twenty-five million people. He was still an hour away from Shibamata, so to keep himself distracted he let his Imagination wander through the advertisements.
Ka-clak ka-clak. Ka-clak ka-clak.
A genie with the body of Atlas proudly indicated the size of his penis with his thumb and forefinger, while an astonished woman looked on. Perhaps it was a warning against steroid abuse. If it was supposed to be an “after” result for Viagra, Pfizer would be out of business within a week. It turned out it was for a loan company, and the genie must have been indicating how low the interest rate was. Az liked his version better.
Ka-clak ka-clak.
The ad next to the genie had a kid on the floor watching TV, but you couldn’t see what was on the screen. Judging from the look on the kid’s face it must have been a snuff film his daddy had made and forgotten to hide. They sure don’t give that kind of education in school, do they, Akira?
Ka-clak ka-clak. Ka-clak ka-clak.
More ads hung from the ceiling, which swayed as the train shuddered along. One seemed to be for a newspaper. A picture of the Prime Minister sat beneath a towering vertical headline, so tiny it looked as if it were being crushed by an avalanche of large, angry Japanese symbols.
Ka-clunk ka-clunk.
The lights flickered and dimmed, but nobody seemed to worry. The businessman across from him continued to read his porn. At least, Az assumed it was porn. Maybe the girl on the cover was just interested in motorcycles. Really interested. The magazine probably went out of its way to show how into them she was, in all kinds of enthusiastic positions with leather boots, a thong, some rope and not much else.
It occurred to him that his Imagination was preoccupied with sex today, and wondered if it meant anything, aside from the obvious.
The train droned on into Tokyo as night fell.
Az had a job waiting for him. He knew a guy who knew a guy, who got him a contract with one of the hundreds of language schools in Tokyo. They’d even found him an apartment; all he had to do now was sign the lease. They told him it was a sweet deal, the kind people who wanted to teach in Japan might spend years waiting for, and who would leave a rabid Rottweiler in his bedroom if they heard he had it handed on a silver platter like this. But sometimes that’s the way life worked. For most of his life it had worked the other way.
Karma owed him.
Getting a decent job back home was all but impossible. Up until he graduated he’d worked the night shift at the Vids ‘N’ Cigs down the street, where he’d earned honorary degrees in both Cinema and Movie Trivia. The most exciting thing that ever happened there was when a twelve year-old with a five-o’clock shadow painted on tried to buy porn and cigarettes.
He was driven out of Redmond in shame when he applied for a job at Microsoft. Sure, the website said you only needed a B.A. to be a technical writer, but the woman with the Snidely Whiplash sneer and moustache in Human Resources told him that reality didn’t work that way. A master’s in computer science was the minimum she’d consider, unless he had five years of experience, which she could somehow tell by his clothes he did not. Given their incomprehensible manuals, he thought being able to write would have been more important.
This was the first time he had ever left America. His trips to Vancouver didn’t count; in his mind a different country couldn’t be closer than the next state. This was his chance to get a new start. Put his old life behind him, start a new one, and see where it went. Rebuild, regenerate, revitalize... and other metaphorical crud that started with “re.” He had as many reasons to go as he did not to stay, and Nadine fell into both categories. The decision made itself.
A month later he was on a twelve-hour flight to Narita, watching five progressively worse movies on a five-inch TV screen embedded in the economy-class chair in front of him, wondering if all the Japanese girls were as cute as he imagined they would be.
There was something off-putting about meeting a real estate agent after dark. It didn’t help that the agency’s office was a small, windowless burrow, lit with flickering fluorescents and hidden away in a back alley so obscure that the taxi driver had to check his GPS computer three times — and still managed to get lost.
It felt like he was arranging a deal with the mob rather than leasing an apartment. Considering the extortion that took place next, maybe he was.
“Key money? I need money for a key?” Az’s tone and attitude screamed “I’M NEW! SCREW ME!” but he couldn’t help it.
“Hai. Two-month deposit in advance, plus first and last month rent. Plus damage deposit.” The school had referred him to this agent, probably because he spoke English reasonably well.
“A deposit, huh? So I get it back when I leave?”
“No. It is key money.” Something in his voice made it sink in; this was money for the privilege of renting the apartment. They called it Key money. Az called it a bribe. Whether it was to the
“Ah.”
“Sign, please,” said the agent, pointing to the lease. It was in Japanese. For all Az knew it could have been a confession. He hadn’t even seen the apartment yet, but the company had arranged this and really, what choice did he have?
He glanced at the monthly fee and had to fight off a panic attack. He reminded himself to “drop two zeros, drop two zeros” when visualizing what yen was worth compared to dollars.
It was still damn expensive, even with two zeros dropped.
The blue LED on the dashboard flashed 10:00 as they wove through the neon-soaked streets. He was moving into what they called a 1DK, meaning it had one bedroom plus a second room that doubled as a dining room and kitchen. Had it been big enough to also act as a living room, it would have been called a 1LDK. He wondered how big it would be. It sounded small, but how small?
For a moment, Az wished he had done more research about Japan. At least then he’d be better prepared for this. Part of him was glad he hadn’t. If he’d known too much it might have scared him off. But he was here, and his return ticket was conditional upon working at least six months at the school. It was a powerful incentive to suck it up and get on with making a life.
Driving on the wrong side of the road didn’t disorient him as much as he thought it would. Of course, he wasn’t doing the driving. Even at this hour on the outskirts of Tokyo there were the bright neon signs of countless stores, many of which were completely foreign to him. Restaurants, clothing stores, drug stores, bookstores — one of which insolently told its customers to “Book Off” — and an awful lot of casinos clogged the streets. At least, he assumed they were casinos. Inside the car he could hear the white noise of nightlife all around.
The car veered from the flood of neon and cruised into quiet darkness. Not a soul to be seen. Houses and buildings stood silent, illuminated by pale orange streetlights.
“We are here,” said the agent as they pulled into the tiny lot of an apartment building.
It was large. It was probably yellow. It looked like a giant brick turned on its side. They took a rickety coffin-sized elevator to the third floor where the agent fumbled with a key — larger and somehow more mechanical-looking than the ones Az had grown up with — and let him inside.
It was small. It was off-white. It looked like a dollhouse, and he had been shrunk down to fit inside. From the doorway he could see the whole apartment. Straight ahead: an empty bedroom with a ten-inch TV. Right: a mini-kitchen with mini-stove and mini-fridge. Left: an open bathroom door where he could see what could only be described as an ingenious use of space.
Sometime in the 1970s, someone must have held a contest for who could cram a bathtub, shower, sink and toilet into an area the size of a closet, molded as a single unit. Clearly, the winner was the designer of this bathroom. He could pee in the toilet and take a shower at the same time.
“You like?”
What could he say? “Where’s the rest of it?” “Do you have anything in a large?” “Do I time-share this place with Barbie and Ken?” It was already paid for, and the lease signed. He was stuck with it.
“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks.”
The agent smiled, gave him the key, bowed, and left.
Az dumped his knapsack on the floor and tried to make himself comfortable. He wondered where the bed was, and then remembered they didn’t use beds, they used futons. He knew futons; he used to sleep on futons; but what was tucked away in the closet was no futon. Futons were uncomfortable sofas that folded down into less comfortable beds; this was a glorified duvet that weighed twenty pounds. And why the hell was the floor made out of wicker in this room? What was the point of that? Did it double as a dojo?
He checked the fridge and cupboards. Empty, of course. He explored the bathroom again. Yep. Small.
Now he was bored.
He turned on the TV. Of the twelve channels on the dial, only four and a half actually worked. He couldn’t understand anything on the four good channels. There was some kind of game show, a serious news program, a historical movie set in medieval Japan, and something that he could only describe as total chaos. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but it involved people finding new and exciting ways to get themselves committed to an asylum. The half-channel had “The Dukes of Hazzard” on, with the General Lee jumping over a river, but only static for sound.
He turned back to the chaos show. Two people were in a bowling alley having some kind of race to eat a roll of sushi that stretched all the way down the lane. About halfway down, the audience shrieked as they had to eat through “The Wasabi Zone” — fortunately marked out in English. Japanese neophyte or not, he had eaten enough sushi to know what wasabi was. He didn’t know how to use chopsticks, but he did know to avoid that green paste from hell. The thought of eating through five feet of it as sushi filling made him slightly nauseous, and the picture-in-picture view of the audience’s horrified reaction to the scene only reinforced the feeling.
Still, it wasn’t as lame as “Survivor”. After it ended he turned in.
The next morning he made a list.
To Do:
-Food
-Apartment Stuff
He didn’t know what “Apartment Stuff” was at this point, but figured it would leap out and grab his attention when he saw it.
He stepped onto the balcony and surveyed his new neighborhood. His building was easily the biggest thing around; nothing else in the area had more than two floors. A vast canopy of Japanese roofs and tree tops spread out before him, all the way to what looked like a river. A haze settled beyond that.
“Wow,” he said to no one in particular, then left to find a grocery store.
The elevator felt even less stable on the way down than it had going up. It felt like a couple of gorillas on top of the building raised or lowered the contraption with mighty vines. It missed his stop by a full foot and slowly wobbled back up. When the doors opened it was still a few inches shy of being level. Stairs. He would definitely take the stairs from now on. He could use the exercise.
Outside it was quiet. Aside from the architectural differences and narrower streets, this felt a lot like the suburbs of Bellingham. The address for his building was
6-30-5, but the numbers had nothing to do with streets. He had no idea how they worked; it seemed completely random. On one side of the street you could have 7-24-3, and right across from it might be 9-10-22. None of the local streets seemed to have any names.
Again he felt he had been shrunk down to fit inside a miniature village. The proportions just felt wrong. There was a truck across the street, as aerodynamic as a cinder block, which could have fit neatly inside some of the larger SUVs back home. The houses behind it were two stories high, but slender. They reminded him of the classic San Francisco homes you saw on postcards, only smaller and less colorful.
This was Tokyo? Largest metropolis in the world? Technological jewel of the planet? A place where cyberpunk dreams came true? He had half expected robots selling sushi on the streets and cars cruising the sky next to giant blimps broadcasting television advertisements. On those counts he was sorely disappointed.
He headed west, he assumed. He was pretty sure it was the way he had arrived last night, so this road should take him back to the neon street with all of its convenience stores and minor luxuries. Az had already experienced just how disorienting the maze-like streets could be, like someone had a seizure while drawing up the plans. Since he didn’t have a map, he made mental notes of the landmarks so he could backtrack his way home. First, on the corner there was a vending machine, and...
Az stopped. A vending machine? He looked around. There wasn’t a store in sight. Only houses. Yet at the corner there was a vending machine, all alone. It was like finding an open diner at the bottom of the ocean. It stood before him like a huge, mysterious monolith. An all-knowing hum emanated from within. It displayed full-sized cans of its contents — soda, iced coffee, hot chocolate, juice, and something called “Aloe” with green tentacles that seemed to reach out from the can — and demanded that he choose. He chose orange.
The road had more bends than a pair of wrestling weasels, and he passed another vending machine before he found the neon street from last night. It looked pretty ordinary in the light of day. Some restaurants, a pharmacy and a video store immediately caught his eye. And, of course, a 7-Eleven.
