November 8th, 2005
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Cooking, product placement, and the boys of autumn
As I previously failed to expand on, last Thursday was Bunka no Hi, which is a national holiday, originally honored as the former Emperor Meiji’s birthday. Many of the Japanese holidays are founded as such. It is seen as a day for promotion of culture and the love for freedom and peace. Individuals devoted to community and the arts are honored with auspicious awards from the government and such. We had a gorgeous November blue sky and initially I planned to take another bicycle trek (this time without perhaps losing anything along the way), to the far east side of town. However, I had the good fortune of sharing a picnic, a (better) bottle of wine, and some of my moderately well-received lemon and ginger stir-fry.
So the day was spent in Inokashira Park, which was also apparently the plan for much of Tokyo, as it was quite full of families and large-tarped groups of docile party goers. Japanese people love to congregate outdoors and share food and beverage, spending long hours drinking and laughing. It’s something I didn’t have much of a chance to experience when in the States, but a pastime I’ve grown quite fond of since moving here.
While reclining with bananas, I slowly became aware that a young boy, probably about nine or ten, was calling to me. Onii-san, is the Japanese informal term for “big brother”, or in general any young man from middle school to his twenties. There are many other terms that go well beyond “mister”, each corresponding to a certain relationship or age of the individual. Since I’m quite often referred to as Oji-san (uncle) or worse, Oyaji (father/middle-aged man), I was quite thrilled to be called as such, especially since I’m often gauged to be in my mid-thirties.
In any case, the boy was calling to me because he wanted to play catch. Now societal conventions may cause one to feel awkward or try to avoid such a situation, but I love playing with anybody, especially kids, so it wasn’t hard to get me off the blanket. Unfortunately, I fell into my old routine of thinking too much, and threw it too high and far for him at first, my motivation being that he probably wanted to look cool, so I didn’t want to patronize him with a weak toss. This resulted in a lot of him fetching the ball until I got the hang of gentle, under-handed grounders.
I think we had a good time, until at one point he scampered away, to what I assumed were his parents, so I sat back down. However it turns out he was there alone, and so blindly affable that he would just throw the ball at about anyone passing by to get their attention or someone to play with. After having a difficult time finding any passing couple or closed group of picnickers that were accomodating as I was, he came back to me [at this point I was catnapping], to tell me that my t-shirt was riding up and my waistline was showing.
“Hazukashii ne.” (Isn’t it embarrassing?)
Following this he circled around and since I was laying on my back with my eyes closed, he asked if I was sleeping. He then proceeded to lay down himself on the blanket before saying, “Good night.” After a few seconds he continued to the generic child faking-sleeping noises that I remembered using too well. When this didn’t get a reaction he started petting my hair, and I found myself uncontrollably thinking about Of Mice and Men. At this point I broke my silence and asked him what he was doing in a playful sort of way and he ran off again for a while before returning to throw his ball into the overhanging tree limbs (where it eventually became stuck for a good five minutes until the breeze shook it loose).
It was one of those experiences that left you feeling so mixed-up you weren’t sure whether it made you happy or sad. I hope he eventually found some friends to play with.
After it grew dark and cold enough that lounging in the park had lost its lustre, my stomach got the better of me and any efforts to stroll about sightseeing were cut short by a pressing need for food. Though I had greatly enjoyed my last visit to Miss Saigon, the signs outside a particular “dogs ok” cafe caught my eye. It’s a tragic experiment doomed to eternal failure, but everytime I see some new indie place advertising pizza, my heart (or more precisely my tongue) flutters and I get my hopes up just a little bit that I may find some hearty, passable pizza on this blessed little island. So we climbed the plywood steps and supped upon nama ham salad and the house pizza, which actually wasn’t half bad, being loaded with cheese, mushrooms, and what I suppose were potatoes on a (comparatively) thick crust.
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The catch at this place though wasn’t the Ebisu on tap, but the blatant hipness of all the PSPs hung around the place. Spider-Man was playing by the door, Everybody’s Golf was at our seat, and several other titles seemed to be positioned at choice tables. No (freebie?) expense was spared to accentuate the Sony theme; the tabletop was even a PSP advertisement.
Despite my predilection to fiddle with things electronic in nature, especially games, I showed a sign of maturity I think and turned the system face-down and ignored it for the duration of the meal. It must be those twenty-six years catching up to me.
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