Tim Anderson - Tune in Tokio

“Oh shit,” I think, clasping my hands together. “She’s not gonna cough. She’s gonna puke. Yes, yes. She’s gonna puke. I wish I had my camera!”

Sure enough, she starts heaving, and this being a woman who has recently screamed that she is going to make someone eat the dogshit, she doesn’t engage in it quietly. Her whole body shakes in its seat, throwing itself into the task of getting rid of whatever horrible and noxious thing lives within. Our conversation stops dead, and Midori, Kenji, and I look at her with the kind of expression you have when you drive past a car accident hoping to catch a glimpse of a dead body.

She heaves and wretches and heaves, like a freshman at her first frat party. I lean closer, disingenuously hoping I can coax the puke from her stomach.

“Uuuaaaaaahhh! Oooahhhhh!! Uuuahhhh!” she screams. By this time, the entire café has gone uncomfortably quiet, its patrons wishing to God she would hurry up and toss her cookies so the staff can clean it up and we can all get on with our lives.

She wretches once more and leans forward over her teacup. Then, silence. She leans back, smiles, and as regally and serenely as she’d arrived just a few minutes earlier, she stands, carries her tray to the drop-off, and steps out into the street.

We watch as the Empress of Ginza strides by the window at which Kenji, Midori, and I are sitting. She laughs maniacally as she walks, and Kenji, laughing, says she said “dogshit” again. And again and again. Also “dick,” “asshole,” and the Japanese equivalent of “motherfucker.”

Our conversation loses its momentum after she departs. Both Kenji and Midori seem sad that she’s gone. It is certainly the most exciting language exchange we’ve had. We stay a few more minutes, finishing up our coffees and allowing Midori time to finish what she has to say about John Malkovich’s Hole and for me to explain to Midori and Kenji in English what the phrase John Malkovich’s Hole means to me when I hear it. A fresh batch of embarrassed laughter from them and we’re off.

We leave and begin walking back towards Ginza Station, chatting in English about work and plans for the weekend. It’s about ten now, and the pedestrian traffic has died down a little bit, though up ahead there is still a sizeable group of people gathered around the street performer and his Stradivarius-wielding puppet friend. As we pass quickly by, I can hear over the swelling of “Greensleeves” a distinct hyena-like cackle.

I look at Kenji and Midori, and we all nod in agreement.

Her majesty the Empress is in the crowd.

And she is amused.

# of salarymen witnessed throwing up on train platform after midnight: 15

# of times salmon eaten for breakfast: 7

# of times lied, said I’m from Switzerland: 1

That guy you knew in high school who wore his Boy Scout uniform to school? He moved to Japan and stole everyone’s girlfriends.

The western wind of Japan whispers the story of a lone white man from a tiny town in North America (or was it England?) who came to the land of the rising sun to seek his fortune, to see how they live on the other side of the world, or to simply experience his first fourteen-hour plane ride. He was a modest man, a clerical assistant at the local community college in his mid-to late twenties, with ice-blue eyes and a bright, friendly face. Also, freckles, buckteeth, a birdcage chest, and a mullet that curled up on the edges.

He had never really had a girlfriend, unless you count the poster of Princess Leia he’d had on his bedroom wall since 1977. But something deep within him told him that there was a place in this world for guys like him, and that it was probably not in any English-speaking country. More likely it was in faraway Asia. So he got a job as an English teacher in Japan, packed his bags, and came to the great city of Tokyo to explore a country that had always held a certain fascination for him, with its famous sculpted gardens, traditions full of nuance and studied elegance, and amazing technological feats like Fujiyama, until recently the fastest and tallest rollercoaster in the world. Also because, if the Internet is to be believed, the high school girls are all total slags and really short skirts are part of their school uniform.

This mysterious stranger hoped to God he was in for a major life change. And sure enough, something magical happened when he deplaned at Narita Airport, boarded a train, and headed towards Tokyo. People took notice of him. At home he was nothing, a nobody, an eyesore. A piece of lint. A yellow sweat patch on a dirty old white T-shirt. A pocket protector. But as he settled into his new life in his new country, he became blissfully aware that he was no longer Invisible Vince from Vicksburg or Nobody Nick from Newcastle. Yes, in Tokyo, he was GaijinMan. And he had three dates this week.

There’s a saying here amongst us gaijin folk, reminiscent of that proverbial “tree falling in a forest and no one being there to hear it” question: If a white guy in Tokyo is rambling on and on and on about absolutely nothing interesting and there’s no one remaining at his table to hear it except for his Japanese girlfriend who can’t understand him anyway, does he still need to be bitch-slapped?

Actually, I just made that up, and I’ve never actually said it out loud, but the more I quietly ponder this question while studying at a café or reading on the train or browsing at the record store as I’m forced to listen to the unabridged ramblings of some Western goofball explaining the Fourth of July (or was it Guy Fawkes Day?) to his newly minted Japanese girlfriend ™, the more I think the answer is a resounding, “Good God, yes! Somebody shut him up!”

We gaijin are here for many different reasons. There are the lost souls like me, desperately in need of a battery recharge, who are convinced that living for a few solid years in a country that is completely devoid of Big Gulps and commercials for Plavix might just allow us to find ourselves; there are the nerds who have been obsessed with Japan since childhood and refuse to leave the country until they can properly read a daily newspaper (these are the ones who end up in Kyoto and will be there until they die); there are the artists, writers, photographers, musicians, and/or actors (not to mention architects, entrepreneurs, and other professionals) who for one reason or another have found their niche in Tokyo and feed off it for creative inspiration; there are the folks who use Tokyo as their base so they can travel easily to other parts of Asia; then there are the guys like my former roommate Sean whose number-one priority and sole reason for being in the country is to screw Japanese girls. But no matter what brought and keeps us here, we all have one thing in common, and that is that the moment we walk out of our doors and into the Japanese world outside, we are different, special, and interesting without even trying. Even if we are the most retarded people to ever emerge from our hometowns, here in Japan, where 99.9 percent of the people are Japanese, we are mysterious and exotic. And in my case, unnecessarily tall.

I saw my first GaijinMan when I was living in Fujisawa and almost stopped dead in my tracks. He had oily black hair parted on the side and combed over. He had a face speckled with acne. He had patches of beard scattered here and there. He had a briefcase with papers sticking out of it. Most amazing of all, he had an impeccably dressed, porcelain-skinned, drop-dead gorgeous Japanese girl on his arm. And she was smiling and intermittently leaning her head down on his shoulder as they walked.