Pride or Survival hr680

When I lived in Tokyo in my early twenties, I desperately tried to succeed as a musician while working at a part-time job. Although I had clearly envisioned a plan for success, reality was much more cruel than I had expected and ate into me both physically and mentally. I consumed a large amount of alcohol every night to get rid of stress and exhaustion. I knew it didn’t help as I found in the packed train car one morning on my way to my part-time job that I had left home wearing an unmatched pair of shoes inadvertently.

I abandoned a presupposed secure life for me in which I would take a husband into my family by an arranged marriage, have a child as a next successor to me and live in the family house as the successor until I die when I left home for Tokyo to be a musician. That was the reason why I wasn’t willing to ask for financial help from my grandfather who had been the master of the family that used to be wealthy. I thought I should be on my own if I wanted to live my life. Japanese people’s consensus in those days was that doing what one wanted to do for life was a childish idea since the possibility of financial sustainability in that kind of life was one in a million. Most of them believed that adults should lead a responsible life by standing on their own feet. Doing what they didn’t want to do was the norm for financial independence, and to have a family eventually. That notion had prevailed so deeply that not only my friends but also a stranger who had a chat with me and happened to know I was trying to become a professional musician scolded me and told me to live seriously.

In those unrewarding, exhausting days of my life, I heard about a music school that a renowned Japanese musician newly opened. As a conceited young musician, I thought there was nothing to learn there for me, but I saw it as ties to the Japanese music business because the owner was the best selling, top artist in Japan. Also thinking that it was an opportunity to change my stifling situation, I decided to enroll. Needless to say, I had neither time nor money for the school. To make time, I quit my part-time job. For money, I resorted to my grandfather’s fortune. Although it wasn’t a solution of my liking, or of Japanese society’s common sense for that matter, I no longer had leeway for how I looked to others. My career as a musician had been stuck and nothing went according to my plan. I had been less motivated and drinking more instead. I had been cornered to the point that my choice was either to get financial support for my dream or to die.

The music school where I started to go was like no other ordinary school. It was more like a small salon. It didn’t have classes. Students came to school to present their music. A teacher gave them some advice and an impression. It held a presentation event once a month where students sang their songs on stage in front of the owner famous musician or other top Japanese music producers. In the first presentation I participated in, I was picked as the best. Until then, I had felt other students were my enemies to beat and they had kept me at a distance probably because they sensed how I looked at them. But after that event, their attitude changed. I seemed to have earned their respect and they came to talk to me. I learned they were struggling musicians like myself and we had a lot in common. My attitude toward them softened as well. We even hung out at the family restaurant after school. They were fellow challengers and rivals among whom I tried to be the best in every presentation. As it was held monthly, I completed my song every month, which was an amazing rapid pace for me. It was as if something inside me had woken up. I drank less and less, and lost weight for the monthly stage.

The school brought a drastic change to my life. Driven by a competitive spirit, I was motivated and focused to make music more than ever. I noticed I was breathing. My stifling days were over and I found myself out of darkness.

A Super Drummer Appears! hr676

 

There used to be numerous kinds of music magazines at book stores in the mid-80’s when my partner and I moved to Tokyo to become professional musicians. Those magazines had classified ads on the last few pages to recruit band members. Among them, a magazine called ‘Player’ spared almost more than half the entire contents for the classified ads. In fact, my partner and I ran across each other through one of the ads in that magazine when I still lived in Kyoto.

One of the reasons why we came to Tokyo was that we had thought many good musicians would be found in Tokyo, which would enable us to form a band with professional quality in no time. Finding a good player had been extremely difficult when we played around the kyoto area. We recruited one after another who had never met our standard. In the end, we used a rhythm machine and sequencers in place of human members. It was the time when those gadgets had been just put on the market so that the technology was lamentably primitive. Machine troubles had been our norm in the gigs and we had bitterly learned the limitations of machine members.

Once we moved to Tokyo, we put as many classified ads as possible in the music magazines and met so many musicians. While we repeated test sessions with each candidate in the studio, we couldn’t find good enough members who matched our quest for the ones with high skill and a strong motivation to become professional. We gradually began to think that we had overestimated Tokyo.

On one of those days, we found Mr. Maejima. He was a highly motivated drummer of a bag of bones, who was refined and courteous, a dropout of college from passion for music as I was. In the studio session, he played accurately and delicately, who was the best drummer we had ever come across. He joined us as a band member instantly. We got along so well. We shared not only eagerness for success in music but also even hobbies, which made us closer. He invited us to his home where he lived with his parents. He gave me his old, first drum set that he had gotten by working part time so strenuously when he was a student, and came to my apartment with it to set it up for me. He also gave me a lot of gaming software that he had finished playing. The legendary film ‘Back to the Future’ was first known to us as his best picture. Together we ate out and even went to that famous theme park of the mouse, where I introduced him to the mouse as my band’s drummer. We were on good terms, that was quite rare for my partner and I who had no friends.

As for other members however, we continuously had no luck. We couldn’t find a bassist and a guitarist, and had to compromise with the temporary members to play for gigs and auditions. Those members played awfully in the studio for rehearsal and in the actual gigs. What irritated us most was they would make a big mistake at the important contest of all things and ruin our chance. On top of that, we were caught in a fight with the promoter of the gig who turned out to be a fraud. We were besieged with bad luck and our band had been in hot water for months.

Then at last, Mr. Maejima told us that he wanted to quit the band. My partner and I understood his feeling since a long predicament of the band added to our part time jobs for living had exhausted us as well. We were too dispirited to persuade him to stay. Nevertheless, it was so hard to see an unfailing partner leaving. A leaden heart by his leaving drove us to switch to recording our songs with synthesizers from playing them in a gig. In hindsight, it was a good decision that would work for us well.

A few years later, I received a letter from Mr. Maejima unexpectedly. It said that he had joined a new religious group and worked as a drummer of the group’s band. He suggested that I join it. While I should have felt happy for him, I felt sad instead. The fact that the mainstream of the music scene had no place for such a talented, motivated musician like Mr. Maejima. The reality that a would-be artist with good looks and no talent sold well and was adored. I knew that the world was unfair, but his letter made me realize it anew.

Decades have passed since then, and I have moved around several times. Still, I have a drum set that Mr. Maejima gave me. It’s on active service, only disassembled to components. They are used as containers in my apartment, holding my stuff including passion. 

The Unhappy at the Happiest Place hr671

 

Looking back, the bottom of my life was several years in the mid-80’s when I left my hometown and came to live in Tokyo where I was struggling for success as a musician. While I was working part-time for a living, I was making songs, looking for band members, doing gigs and selling our demos to the record companies. Those days were so energy-consuming without any luck that my mind and body had been both tuckered out. I began to drink and smoke.

It happened at the theme park in the Tokyo area which host was the mouse. I had been working part-time as an attraction cast member at the park that was newly opened only a few years back. Because it was in the midst of the Japanese holiday week, the park was quite crowded. The attraction where I worked had a full house all day and a long waiting line continued. When I was introducing the attraction over the PA system at the holding area inside, I saw a group of three peevishly-looking men in their late twenties eating popcorn. After I put down the microphone, I approached them and gently with a smile asked not to eat inside, which was strictly instructed as a working procedure. Then I noticed they were sitting on a swung chain in front of the mural painting. I went to them and again asked not to because the chain was easily detached from the poles thus dangerous, which was also what the cast member was strictly told to do. The whole thing originated with these two trivial incidents.

Next to the holding area was the preshow area where the short movie was shown. In the middle of the movie, I saw some people open the door and enter the next theater, which was prohibited. I followed them into the theater where the main attraction was. They were the same men who had infringed the attraction rules at the holding area. I politely asked them to return to the preshow or go out as they weren’t allowed to skip the process. One of them said to me angrily, “You have kept telling me not to do this and that all the way! Stop that already!” They refused what I asked and tried to stay in the main theater. I explained the preshow would end merely in about a few minutes and asked them to go back. Then he yelled at me, “Shut up, ugly!”

The word ‘ugly’ had been a cue for me since I was a child. I battered a boy who uttered the word to me at elementary school. Even in my adult life, I once tried to strangle a middle-aged hoodlum and push him over the bridge-rail down to the river. In that case, I was carrying all the musical instruments and walking slowly when the man yelled at me from behind, “Walk fast!” I turned around and explained why I couldn’t do so with a heavy burden, and he said, “Don’t bar the way, ugly!” Probably because of my complex, I easily lost control whenever somebody told me ‘ugly’.

The man’s cue at the theme park made me thrust him with my both hands. He fired up as well and shouted, “Violence! Violence here!” Next moment, I found myself punching him. He looked surprised and terrified, then repeated like a child, “Violence! I was hit by an employee!” Other cast members came running toward us. Without a word, I left the attraction for the break area where I smoked a Camel.

Nobody came to me and I returned to work after I pulled myself together half an hour or so later. Neither the supervisor nor my colleagues mentioned the incident. They acted perfectly as if nothing had happened. They behaved similarly the next day, too, except for a distant attitude. Since it was in those times when companies’ awareness of compliance was low and social media where people upload their video clips was yet to come, the incident didn’t raise a fuss. Even so, I didn’t feel relieved not to be fired. I just felt sorry for the mouse who was the host of the park, that I did violence at my favorite place. I noticed how low I had gotten as a person. The sense I needed to clean up my act and change led me to quit the job soon after the incident.

I am so ashamed of my past self. I couldn’t, and still can’t, forgive my behavior. Just because I was unhappy, I shouldn’t have taken it out to others. I realized I was a foolish punk myself, and bitterly hated myself for that. The decision to quit the job was the new cue to try to become a better person. What I didn’t see was that the cue consequently turned my life for the better. I thought I was completely cornered and resigned to live at the bottom, not knowing I had gotten out of the worst already.

The Happiest Memory hr665

 

What I remember as the happiest memory in my childhood is the day that my parents took my younger sister and me to the confectionery factory for a guided tour when I was about seven or eight years old. Theme parks hadn’t arrived in Japan yet and even a factory tour was rare and unfamiliar back then while it has been popular and factories of many kinds have offered it nowadays. My father happened to find a major Japanese manufacturer offering a free tour at the factory that was a 40-minute drive from home. Since we didn’t go out much together because of my parents’ busy work, a factory tour sounded to me extra special and also to be something unimaginable. As we had made a reservation, the staff waited for and greeted us at the factory where we realized that we were the only group for the tour that day probably because it was a weekday.

A tour guide led just four of us around the huge factory and showed and explained each section in detail through the overwhelmingly big glass above the factory floor. Everywhere in the factory was thoroughly clean and all white. Walking along the long passage above the vast factory floor and looking down the machinery through the glass, I imagined that inside of a space station would be like this. I was amazed at automation. Everything was operated by automated equipment and few humans were around it, which was so futuristic. Cookies and snacks were flowing endlessly on the conveyors and hopping and wiggling as if they were dancing while they were seasoned. They looked to me some cute life-forms of another planet. My mother also looked so happy for this once. She said to me several times in excitement, “Look! That dough came out turning into these here! Look! Those pieces went in over there!” With an additional backdrop of my mother’s good mood, I was sticking to the glass, fascinated by the operation.

At the end of the tour, we were ushered to the large screening room. Many tables were set there and one of them had a big plate of confectionery on it. That was our table. The staff brought tea and told us to have as much confectionery as we liked. The short film that introduced the manufacturer’s history and business was shown on a big screen while I was munching freshly-baked, just-out -of-conveyor cookies and snacks. Since snacks were luxury for me who was raised by stingy grandparents, I had eaten neither so many of them nor the ones that were still warm at my fingertips before. We monopolized the whole thing as a single group and were treated like VIPs. I thought I was dreaming.

When we were leaving, they gave each of us a big bag filled with their confectionery as a souvenir. I was holding the bag to my chest in the back seat of our car as if it had been a treasure while the car was exiting the factory’s parking lot. I missed the place already and looked back to see it one last time from the rear window of the car. I saw the tour guide and a couple of other workers standing and bowing toward our car in front of the building. They waved to me, and I waved them back. We didn’t stop waving to each other until they became sizes of rice and finally disappeared from my sight when the car that my father drove slowly on purpose for me turned out the factory gate.

I had one more memory in which I felt the similar sense of that day. It happened at the theme park where the mouse works as a host. By then, I had already left home and begun to live on my own in Tokyo. It was a weekday in winter and the park was almost empty. When I was strolling about with my partner, the mascot of that mouse appeared with the space costume that matched the particular area’s theme. I greeted him with my partner and took a photograph together. I was chattering with him when my partner pointed at his shoe, saying, “Your shoe is tattered.” The mouse and I looked down with a surprise on it that was partly worn out indeed and he gestured embarrassment. I defended him by telling my partner that he had been traveling through space a lot, which relentless condition made his shoes worn off. Three of us laughed together. We said goodbye to the mouse and left him. I looked back a few steps away and saw him still waving to me. I waved him back. Other guests gathered around him, but he didn’t stop waving to me. I repeatedly looked back several times and saw him waving to me each time even while he was taking photographs with other guests. In the end, I reached the other foot of a bridge which arch hindered the sight of him. Yet, he kept waving to me while jumping so that I could see him. The scene of his big sweeping, waving hands toward me above his bobbing head over the asphalt arch had been burned into my brain.

Every time those two memories pop up in my mind, I feel heartwarming and yearning. I sometimes wonder why I have cherished those incidents in particular. I’m not a social character and not good at being with people. I hated people, especially when I was little. Somewhere in my deep subconsciousness, I assume that people don’t understand me and vice versa because they never treat me the way I think it should be. However, I proved wrong in those two memories. They treated me right with so much kindness, which was different from what I had believed as human behavior. I was betrayed by people in a good way and got connection instead. For a brief moment as it was, I sensed deeply connected to others and that gave me inexplicable happiness. It was totally unexpected, but extremely joyful enough to be the reason for my special, happiest memories.

The Happiest Place in Tokyo hr664

 

It was 1983 when the theme park which host is the mouse opened in Japan for the first time outside the U.S. Two years after it opened, I left my hometown and began to live by myself in Tokyo to pursue my career as a musician. My partner was the one that I had a meeting with to join my first band and I had worked with ever since. He also moved to Tokyo and settled in an extremely shabby small 50-year-old wooden apartment. We were going to find  band members in Tokyo together and to start our new band. However, things didn’t go as smoothly as we had planned and we had fretted ourselves. For a change of a glum mood, we decided to visit the theme park for the first time.

In those days, the concept of a theme park hadn’t been pervasive in Japan and amusement parks were just big fairs with common rides for kids. I had no idea what a theme park meant either when I first visited there. Although I hadn’t even dreamed of that, the visit came to have changed my life significantly.

As I stepped in the park without any particular knowledge nor expectation, I was instantly shocked. What spread in front of my eyes was a world that was totally different from the Japanese one outside. All the buildings were pretty and cool as if they had been popped out of picture books or foreign movies. One of the areas duplicated a street of an American remote town which looked so attractive. Other than numerous authentic quality attractions, amazingly professional shows were played everywhere with great dancing and singing from the cast. The true entertainment was there. Also, not a single piece of litter was spotted on the ground. The moment someone dropped one popcorn, a cleaning worker appeared from somewhere and swept it in a flash. Each and every worker was kind and smiling. Even when a small child vomited, they didn’t make a wry face but cleaned with considerate treatment. The park’s number of visitors were not big because it had been only two years since the theme park opened and it hadn’t gotten so popular yet. That made it perfect with no crowd and I imagined that the intended concept of the person who came up with this park’s idea almost truly got materialized. Furthermore, Japanese signature courtesy and earnestness was added to that. The staff were standing straight in front of the attractions without slacking, waving at the passing guests with a smile and a bow. At the restaurant, they served with excellent attitude and speed though there was no custom for a tip. It seemed this was the very place that the world should be and a utopia that wasn’t believed to exist in the real world.

There was one more huge aspect that captured my heart. Since I was a child, I have had difficulty with being with people. Because I didn’t have a friend when I was little, talking to stuffed animals was my habit to relieve loneliness. To my surprise, in this park, man-sized stuffed animals appeared one after another all around and lived there as the residents, waving at the guests or looking at merchandise at the shop or teasing the staff. From up on the stage of the revue, they were singing toward the guests that dreams would come true. The world I had dreamed of did exist there and I became a captive to this magical park.

The day filled with emotion and excitement came to an end and the park’s closing time arrived. I didn’t want to leave. I strongly wished I could stay in this place. With tears in my eyes, I went through the park’s gate into the city of Tokyo where I now got to live and grungy anxiety and frustration engulfed me every day. I took the bus from the park remembering what my mother once told me when I couldn’t sleep. She said that if I waited patiently in my futon, a bus would eventually come to pick me up and take me to the dream world of stuffed animals. I finally understood she had unknowingly meant this bus and this park. Tokyo used to be the dream place for me who was born and raised in a rural part of Japan. But when I got there, Tokyo turned into mere somber reality. Now that I saw an earthly paradise like this theme park, I began to fancy myself living there or in some place that at least looked alike.

Ten years later, I was living in California, speaking English instead of Japanese. I hadn’t even dreamed of that kind of my future on that day when I first visited the theme park.

Living by Myself in Tokyo hr663

 

When I left my hometown for Tokyo and started living by myself there in the mid 80’s, quite a few second-run theaters for movies still remained. Those theaters showed two or three films at the price of one new film. The best experience of mine was when I saw ‘Top Gun’, ‘Taps’ and ‘Back to the Future’ as an all-night triple feature program at a second-run theater in a suburb of Tokyo. Those films were already a bit old by then and the show time was the middle of the night, so that the price was incredibly low accordingly. I left my apartment at night, ate out for dinner, got hamburgers to have inside the theater and was immersed into the movie world until dawn. The main attraction for me had been ‘Top Gun’ that turned out to be so-so. Instead, I was deeply moved by ‘Back to the Future’ although I had thought it would be a silly 50’s comedy judging from its trailer. The film became my best one and had held that position for many years to come.

 Back then, I had just moved to Tokyo to become a musician in spite of all the opposition from my family and friends. I had been feeling unsettled constantly because of anxiety and loneliness, which stemmed from uncertainty of my future. I had been clueless about whether I would be successful as a musician and how my life would unfold itself. I saw ‘Back to the Future’ in that state of mind and the story and the ending of the film encouraged me immensely.

When I lived in my hometown with my family, many rules bound me. To begin with, that all-night movie experience was a dream within a dream since my curfew was as early as 9 p.m. Other rules were abundant. Singing while eating was forbidden, a gap between the body and the edge of the table must not exist during the meal, whistling or playing the piano after dark was prohibited, some ways of talking to my grandparents were banned, walking with audible steps inside the house wasn’t allowed, chewing something in the mouth in public was regarded as an act of barbarity, and so on and on. But once I began to live by myself, I was freed from all the family rules and everything was left to my discretion. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I woke up when I felt like it, since I didn’t work at an office. I slept until evening at times, and rarely cleaned or did the dishes. The bathroom got moldy. While I appreciated freedom, I realized how slack I really was. My music career didn’t go well either. I had expected I could find my band members easily as Tokyo was the biggest city in Japan where so many aspiring musician gathered from all parts of Japan. The reality was Tokyo simply had too many bad unmotivated musicians. It was extremely hard to find a member whom I desired and my band just kept breaking up. That was far from what I had planned as life in Tokyo. I sometimes got tempted to doubt if my decision to come here was the right one even though I hadn’t had any other choice.

When I finished to see the movies all night and left the theater, it was early morning in the real world. I headed back for my apartment. The train had started running and many commuters were walking hurriedly and gloomily toward the station already. They used the train bound for downtown that was an opposite direction to where I was going. I was waiting on the empty platform for my train while watching them waiting on the nearly overflowing platform. When their train came, they pushed and crammed themselves into the cars. The station workers additionally pushed their backs from outside to squeeze as many passengers as possible in and the train doors barely closed. Minutes after it departed, the platform got filled with commuters quickly again. I stepped in the empty opposite train and yawned in the seat, remembering ‘Back to the Future’. When I decided to live by myself in Tokyo that was a far and unknown big city, I was afraid and trembled for what my life was going to be like. I gave up my right to an inheritance by leaving my family, and a possible steady income by quitting college. I was alone by parting from my family and my friends who disagreed and didn’t support me mentally. I threw away everything which wasn’t easy for me. But as Marty’s father dared, I had dared in my own way and left for Tokyo. I hoped that action of mine changed my future. In a good way, I wished.

Tokyo hr659

 

The tiny close community of a small village used to be the whole world for me who was born to a farming family living in a rural area of Japan. The sole window to the outside world was TV through which I had encountered what I had never seen in my daily life.

Back in those days, Japanese TV dramas were made and shot in the capital city of Japan, Tokyo. The city view and the people's way of living in Tokyo looked so cool. Everything from fashion to lifestyle was completely different from things in Kyoto where I lived. On TV, Tokyo seemed like a future world decades ahead to me. I was hooked by one particular weekly crime drama which was shot on location all around Tokyo. Every location looked as if it had been in a Western country and the detectives in the drama were extremely stylish. I was absorbed in seeing that exotic world every week and had spent the other six days of the week waiting for the drama. As soon as I finished watching that show, I would rush into my room and write out the entire show in the notebook. I reproduced all the lines of characters and all the settings by depending on my memory. Since there was no way to record a TV program as a video cassette recorder was yet to come, I read my notebook over and over again to watch it inside my head until the next show was on air. In hindsight, the world of TV dramas was fictional which didn't exist even in Tokyo, but I was too young to realize that.

Years went by and I became a musician. By the time two years have passed since I joined my first band, the band not only had played gigs around Kyoto but also had made guest appearances and had our songs played on local radio shows from time to time. We had made some connections with music producers who came down to the western part of Japan from Tokyo as judges for some live contests. However, our progress was limited because all the major music labels of Japan were based in Tokyo. My partner and I began to consider moving our base to Tokyo as we were geographically too far off to make a career in music.

Moving to Tokyo was a big deal to me. While I seldom attended, it meant I would quit college once and for all. As a much more serious matter, an old Japanese custom didn't allow a successor of the family, that was me, to leave home. For me, leaving home meant abandoning my family and all the privileges. Although it seemed crazy to throw away everything when I had no idea how to live on as a musician in Tokyo, I felt living there would be better than staying in my family's home for the rest of my life. I preferred eating hamburgers and french fries from McDonald's to eating home-grown vegetables from my family's fields every single day. I knew it wouldn't be healthy, but at least I would be able to eat what I chose, when I wanted. To sum up, moving to Tokyo was all about freedom. I was more than willing to jump into the free world where I would make all choices by myself instead of the old fixed rules and customs. 

Oddly enough, things went unexpectedly smoothly once I made up my mind to move to Tokyo. Various kinds of obstructions that had been seemingly difficult to be cleared resolved themselves almost magically. The moving day arrived sooner than I had imagined.

I was waiting for the bullet train bound for Tokyo on the platform in Kyoto Station. A friend of mine came to see me off. She was surprised that she was the only one for me there. "Even your parents don't see you off?" she sounded bewildered. I wondered what awaited me in the outside world of my window. I was both looking forward to it and afraid. 

Despair and Hope hr631

It happened a long time ago when I lived in Tokyo. My partner and I had dinner at a restaurant one night after we hung around the mall. We came back to our apartment that we had rented on the top floor of the building as our home and the office for our record label.
When I tried to turn my key on the front door, I noticed the door had remained unlocked. It was weird. I may have forgotten to lock the door when I left, which was highly unlikely since I was fussy about locking and couldn’t leave without making sure that the door wouldn’t open by trying the knob for a couple of times. I got in feeling dubious, but our apartment didn’t look unusual. Then my partner suddenly said, “Why is the cabinet open?” My heart began to beat fast with overwhelming uneasiness and I hurried into the bedroom that had a balcony. The tall window to the balcony had been smashed broken. It was a burglary.
I called the police right away while my partner was gingerly looking into the bathroom, the closet, and behind the drapes to see if the burglar wasn’t still hiding. Those minutes were the scariest as too many movie scenes flashed back to me. Thankfully, there was nobody. The police arrived quickly since the station was ironically only a block away from my apartment. Such a location apparently wasn’t safe enough to prevent burglary.
The policemen came in and looked around. As they saw the messy rooms, they showed sympathy saying, “It’s played havoc, huh?” It was funny because my apartment had been messy as it was long before burglary. But probably thanks to it, the burglar didn’t notice an envelope that held a few thousand dollars for the bills and was mingled with scraps of paper on the table. Instead of cash, a dozen of Disney wrist watches that was my collection, a cheap wrist watch that was my partner’s memento of his late mother, an Omega wrist watch that I received from my grandparents as a souvenir of their trip to Europe decades ago, and one game software were missing. Actually, those items had been the only valuables in my office apartment. Other than those and litter, my apartment had been quite empty. The reason was simple. I was near bankrupt at that time.
I had started up my music label with my partner and it had grown steadily as business. A person I had trusted offered substantial financial support and I took it. I rented this apartment and hired staff with that money. Then the financial supporter tried to take over my label and threatened to suspend further finance if I refused. Amid horrible disgusting negotiations, money stopped being wired into my account. The label came to a standstill for lack of funds. I laid off all staff and saw what took eight years for my partner and I to build from a scratch crumbling down. The blow was amplified by anger and self-loathing from the fact that I was deceived by a person I had trusted. Despair and emptiness led to apathy. I stopped doing or thinking anything and had played a game every day.
In hindsight, if there hadn’t been burglary, my partner and I would have kept paying the costly rent for the apartment and playing a game until we spent all the money that was left. But something clicked when I saw the very game software I had played every day picked among other many games to be stolen, and the glass window of my dream penthouse apartment smashed. It marked the point where I hit the bottom but also was a wake-up call. We moved out the luxurious apartment immediately and rented a cheap studio apartment in a small two-storied building.
That move left some money in my bank account. The deposit of the penthouse apartment was returned, too. Also, I received an unexpected insurance payout. The expensive rent of my former apartment included a damage insurance. The insurance company assessed the damage based on the report I submitted to the police. For some reason, they calculated the payout more than the total price of what were stolen. I discussed with my partner about what to do with the money. We decided to go to California. A new start form zero. And that was to be the beginning of all these, everything that I do at present. My works have been taken to the world by that decision, made by the burglary.

Self-made Turmoil hr604

I started off on a customary winter trip to take breath out of my town that is enclosed by the mountains and had been buried in snow. The itinerary of this winter trip was three days in the Tokyo metropolitan area by staying for two nights at the hotels near Narita Airport although I didn’t take the plane. The reason why I chose to stay near the airport that I wouldn’t use was simple; there are a lot of inexpensive hotels around the airport and a huge outlet mall is close. My favorite Tokyo Disney Resort isn’t far so that I can drop by before I take the bullet train home at Tokyo Station. I got up unusually early on the morning when I set off with my partner. We waited for the local bus at the curbside bus stop in front of our apartment. The snow covered the mountains, roads, houses that were all white, and even more was coming down from the white sky. The bus appeared from the white on schedule and took us to the train station. At the station, I was to receive the bullet train ticket on the ticket machine that I had booked in advance. The price gets reduced 35 percent if it’s booked online one month before. By inserting the credit card which number is registered on booking into the machine, the ticket comes out automatically. I have used the service for numerous times and been used to it. I inserted my card into the machine as usual, and the slot spit the card instantly instead of the ticket. It had never happened before. I put the card in again, but it came out again. The monitor showed an ominous message, “Not a valid card.” At that message, I remembered something horrible. My credit card would have expired before the trip. I had received the new one after I booked the ticket, and I had to replace my old card in my wallet with that new one. The dreadful fact here was that I had forgotten to do so. I clearly visualized my new card sitting in my room. I panicked. I threw myself on an unrealistic possibility that I had unconsciously put it into my wallet. I rummaged through my wallet for the card that couldn’t have been in there, babbling “No, no, no, it can’t be happening, no!” The bullet train that I had booked would depart in 20 minutes that wasn’t enough time to get back to my apartment by cab for the new card. I just madly repeated to rummage through my wallet over and over for the imaginary card. Sweat came down. I was panting for breath. My partner stood beside me and asked me what was going on. He looked scared not at what was just happening but at my panic mode. I kept yelling at him, “Card! Left my card! Caaaaaard!” I came up with the last solution. The only way to get my new card here was to use the force or psychokinesis or mind power or whatever it’s called that is supernatural. I pictured and concentrated on my new card in my room strongly enough to shiver, closing my eyes and believing that it emerged in my wallet when I opened my eyes. I looked through my wallet yet again, and of course, the card wasn’t there. I was on the verge of crying. I calculated roughly how much money I would lose by this mistake. The discounted deal for the ticket would be gone, the train also would be gone, the entire schedule of the trip would be disrupted. To sum up, this trip was determined to be ruined already. And seeing in my head figures of the rough total amount of money that would be wasted almost made me faint. My partner tried to get me come to my senses and I remotely heard his voice saying “Why don’t you consult with an operator at the ticket booth?” I staggered toward the booth and asked if there was any way to get the ticket. She told me that I could if I had the reservation number. I had forgotten about the existence of my smartphone until that point. I looked up the confirmation email with my trembling hand and found the reservation number. Beneath the number, I saw four digits. They were the last four digits of the credit card number that I used for this booking. It stunned me. They were not the four of my new card. Suddenly I remembered. When I booked, I purposely tried not to use the card because I acknowledged the expiration would come between then and the trip itself. So, I used another card that I rarely used. And I had that card with me in my wallet now! I jumped and said to the operator, “It’s here! It’s this card! This card!” The operator handed me the ticket. It looked like a dream ticket now. I felt that supernatural power worked in a different way, after all. The operator seemed puzzled and gave me a dubious look as I thanked her a million times with tears in my eyes. I hurried to the ticket gate, got the dream ticket scanned, caught the bullet train, and sat in the seat I had booked. It turned out that I made a big turmoil for nothing. I was ashamed myself whose simply poor memory caused this ridiculous, totally unnecessary fuss. It drained me completely by the time the trip actually began. As if to prove it, a headache also started along with a trip...

Checkout hr591

I got up early in the morning on the last day of my latest trip. The reason was simple; I was going to the hotel’s exclusive fitness club one last time before the checkout invalidated my free ticket. I passed through the heavy double doors of the club again and the clerk ushered me as a personal guide as it happened last night. Since the spa and the locker room don’t open until noon, there is a special locker room for a member who uses the pool in the morning. It was much smaller, but robes, towels and amenities were fully provided. The morning light liberally came in through the glass-dome ceiling and filled up the poolside. I had the large pool facility all to myself again, the whole morning through. It seemed as if the gorgeous pool was reserved just for me. I doubted if Bill Gates even had this scale of luxury. I saw my room through the glass ceiling and spotted my partner who was standing by the window. While I was taking a Jacuzzi on the poolside, I waved at him. He waved back and looked a little sad because he couldn’t enjoy this free treat due to his atopic eczema. On one hand I felt sorry for him; on the other hand, I enjoyed to the maximum such a luxurious, refreshing, and dreamy time that I had never had before. After I took a shower in the elegant shower booth, I left the club. It was about noon and I passed the members who were coming in. It is said that the gap between the rich and the poor is generally small in Japan. I had thought there weren’t so many mega-rich people in Japan as in the States until I came here. But now I realized quite a few mega-rich Japanese people existed, as I actually saw the members who apparently paid the five-digit membership fee. I hadn’t known that because they lived in a different world from me like in this club. I wondered if I could ever visit this club again and wished strongly for that. I came back to my room, packed in a great hurry and checked out. I didn’t forget to have expensive coffee and tea for free one more time at the hotel’s privileged lounge before I left. The receptionist was the same person and got familiar since I came here three days in a row. She knew I used the lounge for free and I felt embarrassed. When I left the hotel, I missed it more than ever now that I experienced the fitness club. I got to another shopping mall by train, bought a skirt 80 percent off and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant that we rarely find in Japan. As the mall is adjacent to Tokyo Disney Resort, I saw the fireworks of the park from the mall for free. I took a train again to Tokyo Station and looked around the shopping area while I was waiting for the bullet train on which I had booked the seat. Just when I was looking, half-off stickers began to be put on packages of sushi. I got one of those and had it on the bullet train with the leftover wine from the hotel that I had brought in a plastic bottle. Although I was exhausted from lack of sleep and swimming, I really wanted to do this trip over from the beginning. I pondered when it would be that I could take a trip like this one. While I recalled the heavenly sensation I had when I was swimming alone in the pool inside that fitness club, the bullet train ran through several long tunnels and sent me back in my town that was packed in deep snow. I took a cab to my apartment. It was a blizzard. I could see nothing but hammering snow out the windshield of the cab. With that near zero visibility, the cab was running into darkness at breakneck speed toward my accustomed world…

The Beginning of A Winter Trip hr587

The mountainous region where I live is in the depth of winter and it snows day after day. Now that the snow covering the ground has accumulated over my own height, I was having a sense of claustrophobia. That’s a cue for my annual three-day trip to the Tokyo metropolitan area that doesn’t have much snow. I set about arranging this year’s trip online. I successfully booked the room in a hotel of the Japanese luxury chain at a greatly economical rate by making the best use of coupons and their off-season promotion. The stay would come with preferential treatment at no extra cost as part of the promotion. To get to the Tokyo metropolitan area, I need to ride the bullet train that is expensive. But I got a 35% discount for the ticket by reserving early in advance. I was all set to get out of snow. Although it had snowed every day, it rained on that particular day when I set off on a trip in the morning. Rain is more troublesome than snow. I would take a local bus to the bullet train station. The bus stop is near my apartment but it has neither a cubicle nor a roof. When it snows, I can pat off the snow that comes onto my clothes while I’m walking to the bus stop and waiting there. But in the rain, my one hand is occupied with an umbrella as I carry all the bags, which would cause awkward walking that inevitably wets me. I would freeze while I’m waiting for the bus. I bore an unexpected expense and called a cab. The dispatcher told me it would take long to come to pick me up due to high demand. Since I had the bullet train to catch, I gave in to my umbrella and walked toward the bus stop in the rain. I felt miserable while I was waiting for the bus with many bags around me drenching. Out of the bus window, I saw snow plains beneath which were parks, rice paddies and sidewalks. The road was plowed, but the snow was pushed off to a long, tall snow wall alongside. The lengthy massive white wall was taller than the bus and it looked almost like a snow-made tunnel. I started to feel claustrophobia again. I cheered myself up by thinking I was soon in the snow-free city. I made a wish for a nice trip upon the closest mountain that had turned completely white. On the platform for the bullet train at the station, I found many Chinese families and tourists. That suddenly reminded me about the Lunar New Year during which Chinese people took vacation and traveled. The hotel I was staying at might be crowded with Chinese tourists as well. I couldn’t believe why I was so careless that I’d forgotten about Chinese New Year. Among the gleeful Chinese tourists, I stood waiting for the train with a long face. Rain and the Lunar New Year seems more like a bad omen, and now I became unsure as to whether or not this trip was the right move…

A Train Ride in Japan hr585

My main means of transportation is the train. As manners and common sense vary in countries, I introduce here what a train ride in Japan is like. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, it’s just atrocious especially during the rush hours. I had had a lot of trouble when I lived in the area. It’s almost impossible to get a ride since both the train and the platform are packed with people. The train is full, which means in Japan’s case that you can’t move as you’re pressed firmly against other passengers’ bodies around you. Because I’m short and feel claustrophobia only in a few minutes, I have to pass several trains to wait for a less crowded one. That results in a long, inefficient travel although the trains run every ten minutes or less. As the night deepens, the smell of alcohol fills the train car that has more drunken businessmen, some of whom are befuddled. It used to be common that men openly spread and read porn magazines and tabloids in the car, but thankfully they are replaced by smartphones now. There are women-only cars that men aren’t allowed to get in during the rush hours. Too many cases of being groped or molested in a crowded train car made railroad companies invent this crazy sexism solution. I myself can’t count how many times I was touched or saw a man expose himself in the train. When I once squeezed myself into a packed car on my way to school, I barely got my body inside the car but my bag couldn’t. The door closed on the handles of my bag and left the bag outside. I rode for three minutes with my bag dangling outside the train, swinging violently. In daytime, the murderous congestion subsides. Instead, enters a group of housewives with large strollers that block aisles. They ignore their children who are crying and shrieking. Some passengers eat snacks, rice balls or sandwiches in the train. Some eat cup noodles or lunch in a box called bento. Even drinking alcoholic beverages is okay. But, people dart an angry look at someone who is putting on makeup. One of major complains to railroad companies is making up in the train. I don’t have the slightest idea what that means. It’s acceptable no matter how drunken or how loud you are inside the train, but not that you’re putting up makeup. I heard on the radio show that an elderly woman complained about a young lady who was putting on mascara in the train. Her point was she couldn’t allow a woman to turn up the whites of her eyes in public. It doesn’t make sense and to me, it sounds clear sexism. I almost always put on makeup on the train for time efficiency and wage a quiet battle against other passengers’ angry glances. With good or bad manners aside, trains in Japan are generally safe and a murder or a robbery hardly happens. A pickpocket steals a wallet from a drunken passenger who has fallen asleep, or a drunk beats a conductor, that’s the maximum. If you have carelessly left your belongings in the train, they’re found and delivered to a station in most cases. It may be too extravagant to complain of Japan’s trains that are well maintained, so clean, and graffiti-free. While it’s sometimes uncomfortable to share a ride with people whose likes and dislikes are pretty different from mine, it’d be better to relish the difference and be surprised by it. That may help me grow leniency. Besides, there’s no such thing as the world going round solely by my own rules after all…

Some Remain, Others Disappear hr582

Once a year in autumn, a road race of classic cars is held in Japan. The race starts in Tokyo, runs through five prefectures in four days and finishes back in Tokyo. It stops for the night at a certain checkpoint during the long journey and one of the checkpoints is a hotel in a small town where I live. On its way there, it passes through the desolate main street of my town. I look forward to this event and go out to see it every year. More than one hundred beautiful classic cars like Fiat, Bugatti and Alfa Romeo, some of which are about ninety years old, run past right in front of my eyes one after another on a narrow street almost within my reach. I can also get to spot a few Japanese former Formula One drivers and celebrities who participate in as proud owners of the cars. The promoter hands out small flags for this event to spectators along the street. They wave the flags to the cars and the drivers wave back. This year, I left my apartment a little early for the race to stroll around the main section of my town where I hardly visit. When I shop or eat, I usually travel to the city far from my town that is too small and forlorn to hang out. I walked around the center of the town for the first time in a year and found it more desolate. A small grocery store I have shopped for several times had been out of business. A bookstore in front of the train station was closed along with a restaurant across it. There was no sign of any new tenant at those locations. More and more stores are gone, as a small population of my town is getting even smaller every year. I sat on a bench at the best spot to see the race along the main street that also had more shuttered shops than before. I was waiting for the cars to come while looking through a race brochure with a flag in my hand, both of which I’d gotten at the town’s empty tourist information office. As it was about the time the cars were scheduled to pass, I was prepared with my smartphone camera. But not a single car appeared. I waited more and there were still no cars. And I noticed there were no spectators either. I made sure the date and the time in the brochure again, and they were correct. Since an unpredictable incident can happen in the race and a delay sometimes occurs, I waited patiently. No cars and no people showed up. It was getting dark and cold. I went back to the info office and asked about the race. The clerk said, “Hasn’t it come yet? It should be here, I think.” Because she sounded she knew nothing about the race, I assured that her info was false, which meant, the race shouldn’t be here. I must have gotten the right time, but the wrong place. I left the main street and hurried toward the checkpoint where the cars would eventually arrive. On the way, I started smelling a strong odor of exhaust that came from nothing but classic cars in these days. The race must have been near. I hurried on, and finally saw a classic car turning the intersection with an explosive engine noise at the bottom of a steep slope toward the checkpoint. The race did come to my town but used a different route. It had dropped down the main street as its route this year and the info office didn’t know that. With only few spectators even along the main street every year, the new route was outside the town center and there were literally no spectators. I managed to see the last one-third cars in the dark while I missed the most part of the race, especially fast cars. Like this, my town is gradually declining with fewer people, fewer shops and less information. I will watch the whole race next year near the checkpoint not along the main street. Unless the race excludes my town from the route altogether, that is…

Phone-Phobia hr579

When I was a teenager, a smartphone era was still years away to come. I came from a large family that had one phone in the house, which meant a scramble for a phone call. It was usually a three-way battle: between my grandfather, my mother and me. My grandfather used to be the chairman of a local senior citizen club and make and receive lots of calls. Once his phone time began, it lasted forever. He would pull a chair from the dining table, set it in front of the phone, sit in, spread some kind of papers and start dialing. The stand where the phone sat turned into his makeshift office desk while my parents, my sister and I were eating dinner right beside it. The background music of our dinnertime was usually his telephone conversation that sounded totally unimportant and ridiculous. The minute my grandfather finished his phone time, the phone rang that would be from my grandmother on my mother’s side. She would call my mother almost every day to report her day. It would always consist in complaining about her son-in-low. After my mother finished listening to her endless nagging, it would be finally my turn. I used to chat with my friends over the phone for hours as a habit of a teenager. Although I did that so often, I have a confession to make. I hated it. I was really loath to talk over the telephone, to be honest. But as everyone knows, the phone call is a must among teenagers. If I had confessed I didn’t like the phone and asked my friends not to call me, I would have been instantly branded as a nerd. To be popular, I kept it secret and talked with my friends by acting happy but weeping inside. I forced myself to be funny and a class clown at school although my true self didn’t want to. At least when I was at home, I wanted to return to be myself who liked to be silent and alone. But the phone call would intrude into my home and destroy my peace. I cultivated my dislike for the phone during my teenage years like this. After I graduated and left home, my condition got much worse. The phone attack from my parents began when I started living alone in a small apartment in Tokyo as a musician. Since they opposed strongly about my career choice, they denied me, insulted me and cursed me over the phone. The ring became the most distasteful sound in the world to me. I couldn’t take it any more one day and turned off the ring. I stopped answering phone calls altogether by setting the answering machine. Then playing messages on it gradually got painful and even seeing the message lamp blinking made me sick. My dislike for the telephone had evolved into phobia by then. Besides the nasty phone calls from my parents, I sometimes got prank calls. More and more, the telephone looked an entrance to hell. To this day, I jump to the phone ring and talk into the receiver feeling ultimately tense with my hands sweating and my throat drying. Every time I see someone talking casually over the cell phone on the aisle of a supermarket, I think I’m seeing someone from other planet. The other day, I was shopping online at Amazon. When I was paying with my credit card, an error message appeared on the screen that said, “The payment was failed. Please contact your credit company”. I called the company while I was twitched with fear, my fingers were trembling and even my eyesight became blur and white. It turned out that my card had been suspended because the balance in my bank account was short. My distaste for the telephone has grown deeper…

The New Kyoto hr573

When I spent 40 minutes aboard the bullet train bound for Kyoto from Tokyo, an alarming notion popped into my head. “Did I miss Mt. Fuji?” It’s around this time that Mt. Fuji comes into view closely in the bullet train window. Somehow Mt. Fuji is a special mountain for Japanese people. It’s said that seeing the first sunrise of the year from the top of Mt. Fuji brings a happy new year. Many of them want to climb it once during their lifetime. They regard it as something holy and good luck. I myself try to see it every time I take a bullet train to Kyoto, and pray to it for a good trip. It was cloudy and rain looked imminent on that day of my latest trip to Kyoto. Whether the train already passed Mt. Fuji or it wasn’t visible because of thick clouds was uncertain. The outcome of the trip depended on Mt. Fuji. I felt that this trip might end terribly if I couldn’t see it, and I looked for it frantically. “There it is!” Above the dark clouds, its top section poked out clearly. “I see it! A nice trip is assured!” I was relieved and in high spirits. While I jinx it when I don’t see it, however, I’ve had horrible trips even when I saw a clear Mt. Fuji. Although I duly understand an outcome of a trip doesn’t have to do with whether I see it or not, there’s a reason why I’m nervous enough to pray to the mountain. A trip to Kyoto means homecoming and meeting my parents. Three out of every four visits, they give me a hard time. They insult me, deny me and complain everything about me. I sometimes feel my life is in danger when I’m with them because of their relentless attacks. Not to be strangled by them while I’m sleeping, I avoid spending the night at my parents’ home and stay at a hotel instead. I would rather not visit and see them, but I know it would make things worse. I couldn’t imagine how this particular trip would go especially as it was my first visit since my parents sold their house. They could no longer afford to keep their large house and its land inherited by our ancestors. Their financial crunch made them sell it where my family had lived for over 1000 years. They moved out to a small, old condominium outside Kyoto. Thinking about the situation they were now in, I couldn’t imagine their state of mind other than being nasty. The bullet train slid into Kyoto Station after two and a half hours. I stepped out on the platform for the first time as a complete tourist who didn’t have a house or a family there. To my surprise, Kyoto looked different. I couldn’t tell what and how, but it was decisively different from Kyoto I had known. It used to look grim and gloomy as if it was possessed by an evil spirit. But now it was filled with clean fresh air and looked bright. I would see all but mean people, but they also turned into nice people with smiles. I checked in a hotel and looked out the window. Rows of old gray houses were there. I used to think Kyoto was an ugly city with those somber houses, but I found myself looking at even them as a tasteful view. I’d never thought having the house I grew up in torn down and parting with my ancestor’s land would change the city itself altogether. Or maybe, it was me that changed…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.557

At the end of my last homecoming day, I got into the cab heading for the train station, saying goodbye to my mother who was merrily talking about which condominium she would move in, to my father who was weirdly cheery, and to the house and its land one last time. When I dropped out college and left home for Tokyo to be a musician a long time ago, I thought I would never come back to this house again. I have made unplanned visits since then, but I assumed it would be the last visit each time. I was accustomed to a farewell feeling toward the house in a way and I departed with no particular emotions this time either. The cab was running through my familiar neighborhood where I spent my entire childhood. It was still shabby as it used to be. The cab drove through old houses of my childhood friends where I used to play with them, and under the overhead train bridge where I ran into perverts so many times. From the window, I saw the elementary school I went to, and the sidewalk my first song came to me while I was walking on. The bookstore where my father bought me my first English dictionary and also where he spotted his missing cousin. A place where a milk factory used to be that I waved to its plastic cows beside the gate every time I passed by in my father’s car. The old temple where my late grandparents used to take me and let me feed doves. Then something struck me and I suddenly realized. It wasn’t just the house I was losing. I was losing my hometown and departing from my childhood. I would never be in this neighborhood again because it was going to be an unrelated, foreign place from now on. Although I had always hated my neighborhood, that thought brought a lump to my throat and soon I found myself crying. I was stunned at this unexpected feeling. If I hadn’t been inside a cab, I would have wailed. The cab came near Kyoto Station that was my destination. My late grandfather often took me to this area around the station that used to be undeveloped, decayed and in the miserable condition. But now, after years of intense redevelopment, it has become an urban area with numerous modern buildings of hotels, fashionable shops and huge shopping malls. It was a completely new different place and I found no trace of what I was familiar with the area. The cab stopped at the signal close to the station and there stood a new movie complex by the street. I casually wondered if it showed ‘Tomorrowland’. Then I felt I was actually stepping into it. Things and places I had been with were all disappearing and a place I had never seen before appeared in front of me. I saw a change more clearly than ever. I was leaving everything old behind and going into a new world. The world I’m walking in is unknown, but therefore there are full of possibilities…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.554

I hadn’t been to a movie theater for fifteen years. The film I saw at the theater fifteen years ago was Brad Pitt’s ‘Meet Joe Black’. It was surely a disappointing film but that wasn’t a reason why I stopped going to a theater. Back then, I lived in the States and movie theaters there were clean, modern and comfortable. They had also a reasonable matinee price. And I moved back to Japan where the movies from the States became the foreign ones. Movie theaters in Japan hadn’t been modernized yet with cramped stiff seats, and didn’t have a reduced price like a matinee. A ticket cost about $17 that was too expensive for me. On top of that, every foreign film had Japanese captions at the bottom of the screen, which obstructed each scene. Those theater circumstances in Japan were the reasons why I stopped going. But I like movies and had regularly watched them exclusively on the TV screen in my living room. My partner loves movies much more than I do. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday this year, his answer was a movie ‘Birdman’ at the theater. And for the first time in fifteen years, I got in the movie theater. While I was away from them, Japanese theaters had been transformed dramatically into modern, clean, gorgeous ones. The seats were large with padded backs and arms. The rows were placed so steeply that I no longer have trouble with someone’s head in front of me. They were just like US theaters and I loved them instantly. They also had a variety of tickets of a reduced price. Japanese captions were still there, but I managed to ignore them. ‘Birdman’ was such a good film by which I was moved so much, and I was completely awake to the charm of a movie theater. When I was leaving, I found a piece of information that said an advance ticket for a coming movie ‘Tomorrowland’ came with a pin. The film was what I had been interested in and I’m a pin collector. Since the advance ticket had a reduced price already, getting a pin with it would make the price for the film even lower. I purchased the ticket, got the pin, and set out for a trip to U.S. wearing the pin before I saw the movie. In Disney Resort, quite a few people approached me to talk about the pin. Most of them asked where I had gotten it. A cast member told me that the park had carried those and they had been sold out within a week. Those experiences made my expectations for the film higher. I saw it at the theater after I came back to Japan. I was deeply moved to tears that didn’t stop falling. It was so hard for me to mute my sobbing. The last time I cried this hard on the film was when I saw ‘Field of Dreams’. I remember that I wrung my T-shirt at the bathroom that was soaking wet with my tears. Only a couple of weeks after I saw ‘Tomorrowland’, I had an urge to see it again. As the nearest theater from my home had already ended showing it, I went to a distant theater. I was moved even more than the first time. I returned to that theater a few days later to see it for the third time. Then, as no theater around my home showed it any more, I took a trip to a theater in Tokyo by bullet train to see it for the fourth time. Considering the amount of money I had spent for ‘Tomorrowland’, I looked stupid myself. Still, I couldn’t stifle my urge and saw it for the fifth time at the same theater in Tokyo a few weeks later. A few more weeks later, I happened to know that the theater in Tokyo was the only one in Japan that still showed it, and would end that soon. If I missed this opportunity, I would never able to see it at the theater ever again. I felt I would be a fool if I didn’t see it one last time. I hopped on the bullet train yet again. The last week’s schedule for ‘Tomorrowland’ was moved to a late show slot, which meant a day trip was impossible for me because I couldn’t catch the last bullet train home. I stayed at a cheap hotel for the night to see it for the sixth time. My adventurous summer of ‘Tomorrowland’ had thus ended. It reminded me of my teenage time when I was hooked on going to concerts of my favorite band. I’ve made an advance purchase of a ‘Tomorrowland’ Blue-ray and DVD set at Amazon and now can’t wait for the release. One thing I don’t understand is that it wasn’t a mega hit…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.550

I tried some novelty that people call ‘Uber’ for the first time during my stay in California. I heard Japan also has it in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but it’s unavailable in the remote mountainous town where I live. Although I had some trouble signing up and using its app at first, I was thrilled when I saw a car actually pulled up right in front of me. I felt as if I was in a future world since I got a ride by just tapping a smartphone for a couple of times. There’s no need to call a cab company any more. No need to calculate a tip or pay to a driver either. The car was clean and the driver was courteous. And the fare for this safe, worry-free ride was incredibly low! I wondered what kind of person had devised such a remarkable service like this and admired Americans afresh. In Japan, there are too many government regulations or restrictions or vested interests that prevent new ideas and services from materializing quickly. That makes people in Japan give up easily and reluctant to try something new. They are resigned to living in patience. Compared to them, Americans are far more challenge-oriented, which always impresses me. I have had some unpleasant experiences when I used a conventional cab, but each ride of Uber was pleasant one during this trip. I used it for several times and all the drivers happened to have a positive attitude. One of the drivers immigrated with his family from Nigeria and now lives in Anaheim. He told me he had thrown away everything he achieved back in Nigeria for opportunities and possibilities in U.S. With a twinkle in his eye, he said that people could do anything here as long as they’ve got money and that he is working hard for his children’s college tuition. I gradually understood why I had to travel to U.S. by spending what little money I had and by getting over numerous troubles. Hope still exists here. When I was born in an old city Kyoto, hope had long gone. I left home for the Japanese capital city Tokyo, but it no longer remains there either. But here, I saw hope that makes people go forward. I got back to my hotel feeling it was a right decision to take this trip. I watched a twilight view out of the window. While Japan is densely populated with houses and condominiums closely line back to back, houses here had enough space between them and plenty of greenery with broad roads around. I was imagining how comfortable it would be to live here when a siren of a police car became louder and stopped right beneath the window. The police officers began to stretch yellow tape that was familiar in movies and TV shows. Many more police cars arrived and the road was blocked. Finally, a SWAT team showed up with a big black van. I turned on TV for a local evening news show, but it didn’t mention anything about this, which meant it was too small and usual to be covered. Thinking I might witness something and be murdered for it, or a ricochet might hit me, I drew the curtains and pulled away from the window…

Hidemi’s Rambling No.545

I woke up at 5:30 a.m. on the day that I set out for my first travel to U.S. in about ten years. Some last-minute preparations before going to bed and tension granted me only a three-hour sleep. Considering the coming ten-hour flight and the time difference, my next sleep in bed would be 30 hours later. I remembered my old days when I had been to U.S. several times a year. I always departed with lack of sleep and arrived with a strong headache or vomit. I was afraid of being sick again this time and added a new item to my bursting worry bank. I set off on foot to the train station near my apartment. When my partner who accompanied me on this trip bought train tickets, he found a 100-yen coin left in the ticket machine. He told me excitingly, “Look at this! 100 yen! You hardly ever pick this big amount!” He was all smiles as if the 100-yen coin would promise a successful trip. After the local train, I took the bullet train to Tokyo and arrived at Haneda Airport two more transfers later. My connecting domestic flight would depart from this airport that amazed me with the new convenient technology. There was no need to check in at the counter. We just went straight into the security gate without boarding tickets, had our mileage cards scanned with a device that gave us a piece of paper like a receipt on which our flight and seat numbers were printed, and went on to the boarding gate. It was as easy as getting on a train. I flew to Kansai Airport that I had never been before. After I received my suitcase I had sent beforehand and dollar bills I had exchanged online, I was headed toward the check-in counter of the airline I had booked. The airline has two brands, the regular one and the low-cost carrier. My flight was the low-cost one called ‘Rouge’. Although their website said we could check in with a machine, those machines were deserted and lines of people were formed at the counter instead. I had prepped for a use for the machine online, which was a waste. Since the airline has two brands, I wasn’t sure which line I should join. The airline worker approached and asked me which flight I would take. When I said “Rouge,” she repeated dubiously, “Ro..u..ge…?” She sounded like she heard the word for the first time. I was alarmed. Those who were checking in here now were most likely on the Rouge flight. But the airline worker apparently didn’t know her company’s flight. As she directed me the wrong line any way, I looked for the correct one by myself and my turn to check in came. I handed over my passport and my reservation was on the computer screen. Looking at it, the woman said, “You’re going to Las Vegas, right?” My blood ran cold. My destination was Los Angeles. What had happened to my reservation? Was there neither ‘Rouge’ nor Los Angeles? I said in a trembling voice, “No, to LAX.” She made sure of my reservation in her computer screen and said again, “Your destination is Las Vegas.” When I froze at her words, she threw me another blow by saying, “Oh, I see. You’re going to Las Vegas the next day!” My worry bank ruptured and I felt I was going black. The whole itinerary was disrupted and I couldn’t avoid going to Las Vegas. I regretted from the bottom of my heart that I had chosen this airline. I braced myself to end my trip even before leaving Japan. Then, beside me who was knocked out and almost unconscious, my partner said to her calmly, “We’re going to Los Angeles.” She looked in her screen again, nodded, gave us boarding tickets according to my reservation as though nothing had happened. The fact was that she thought LAX stood for Las Vegas International Airport. She was a professional sitting at the check-in counter and seeing customers’ reservations every day, and yet didn’t know LAX. I was about to leave Japan and cross the Pacific by a plane of an airline like this. Now I realized that I was standing on the edge. It was time to jump…