Tim Anderson - Tune in Tokio

The sounds of Shinjuku-spoken advertisements over loudspeakers; pop music from the Tower Records TV screen; the clinking, buzzing, and whirring of the pachinko parlors and game centers; the piercing recorded voices beckoning you into this shop or that one-whoop and holler around me as I walk. I enter this swirl of activity, feeling like one of those wide-eyed, big-headed aliens seen occasionally in Utah or Nebraska.

I pass a horde of young girls with bleached blonde hair, fiercely tanned complexions, panda-like eye makeup, foot-high platform shoes, and miniskirts of a cut that would make Paris Hilton stand back and go, “Oh, honey, cover that shit up a little!” A cute high school couple-wearing matching kilts and carrying the same handbags, made out of what looks like poodle fur-walks by hand in hand. Not to be outdone, a tall guy wearing Buddy Holly glasses and sporting an afro for the ages walks determinedly behind them, his black shirt screaming in white lettering, “So Fucking What?” Local color-check.

As I look around for something else to gawk at, a friendly looking middle-aged woman wearing flats and a skirt that is, thankfully, knee-length, approaches me.

“Excuse me,” she smiles. “You speak English?”

Not waiting for me to answer, she continues. “It’s nice to meet you. I am Miho Johnson.”

You’re who ? I think. Her English is Japanese-inflected, but her last name most definitely is not.

“May I ask, where are you are from?” she continues. She sports a matronly bob, her bangs cut straight across and hanging just above her thin, painted-on eyebrows. Though she has a smile on her face, it’s tempered with a constant look of concern. Also, she never seems to be looking directly at me. When she asks where I’m from, she appears to be reading from a cue card placed above and a little to the right of my big head.

She has made no assumptions about my nationality, so I am tempted to adopt a strange accent and say Greenland or Siberia while gently taking her hand and rubbing my nose on it, the traditional greeting in my country.

“You are from America?”

“Yeah, actually. How did you guess?”

“Oh, just thinking. How long you are being in Japan?”

I tell her I’ve just arrived, and at this her pensive face brightens. “Oh, that’s nice. I want to tell you about my church…”

Your what ? Church? They have those here? Hmm. I was actually hoping she’d be able to give me directions to a good ramen shop, a decent record store, and/or a news agent that sells English-language magazines. Perhaps I’m expecting too much.

“Church? Your…church?” I stammer, trying to think of a means of escape.

“It’s lovely place, everyone accepted. We have many meetings and enjoy. Jesus there. It’s near to here. Please, let me take you to there.”

As she places her open hand against my shoulder to lead me towards Christ, I wonder, can this be true? Can I have traveled all the way across the world from the God-fearing American South to an island known more for its electronics, its love of stately rituals like tea ceremony and flower arranging, and its raging Lolita complex than its faith in Jesus Christ, only to be witnessed to in broken English about the Good News?

“We all God child ren. Brother and sister with Christ . Jesus love you .”

Yes, I guess I have.

When I envisioned my first jaunt through vast Shinjuku, it went something like this: I would first circle the city on the Yamanote Line, starting at Tokyo Station in the east and making my way westward, through Hamamatsucho, Shinagawa, Gotanda, Ebisu, and the hot-to-trot districts of Shibuya and Harajuku. Along the way I might pick up a pair of Harajuku girls dressed fashionably in fitted burlap sacks, ten-inch heels, and Mouseketeer hats, and we would walk through Yoyogi Park arm in arm as a band of Taiko drummers followed behind us on a dolly and beat out a rhythm for us to swagger to. We would arrive in Shinjuku and immediately go for a few cocktails at a place called Hello Highballs. The cocktails would be neon blue, and they would turn our lips a fetching shade of fuchsia. After drinks we would spill back out onto the street and hitch rides with a clan of bosozoku motorcycle bandits. They would escort us into the next club, which would have a name like Stark Raving Suzuki. There, we’d have more cocktails-these smoking and gasoline-scented-and befriend the DJ, who would be in the midst of a world tour that had taken him to Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Jersey City. After his set, he’d offer us some magic mushrooms, and we’d gladly accept them. Then we’d take turns at the turntable rocking the worlds of the club kids. As the night slowly came to an end and the crowds dispersed, we’d elegantly take our leave, lock arms again, and step out into the crisp morning air hand in hand, escorting each other to the station, secure in the knowledge that we’d done a little bit of Shinjuku.

Nowhere in my wild imaginings did I consider that the first Japanese person I spoke to socially would be a forceful born-again Christian with nothing but time on her hands and a quota to meet. Because I must say that, all due respect to my parents, who tried their hardest to raise me right, realizing a closer relationship with Jesus is not what I’ve come to Tokyo for.

“Thank you so much, but I’m really not…able.” Not unless your church sells Details or Vanity Fair . Hell, I’ll even take a damn New York Dog . “I’m…waiting for a friend.”

Either she sees through my lie or she doesn’t care.

“We have meeting right now, please, you can come and we food and drink and talk and enjoy with other of Jesus people. We sing about Good News and praise God and Jesus Messiah. You bring your friend. You call from there.”

It hits me right then how important correct intonation and word choice are to evangelism. You absolutely must put the right stress on the right words or you’ll sound unemotional and disembodied, like Ira, the chatty computer screen consultant on Wonder Woman . Because of her flat Japanese intonation, she sounds only vaguely interested in what she’s saying. But she is pushy.

“You come? You come? It just this way.”

“I’m sorry, thank you, but I’m not interested.”

She appears confused, disbelieving. I decide to break it down into the simplest possible terms.

“Thank you, I no interest. No can do. Can’t. Must with friend and eat.” I figure the less sense I make to myself the more I make to her. Wrong again.

“No, please, you must not go tempting! God watching you!”

I see. And what does that mean, exactly?

“It safe in my church. Safe from tempting.”

“Thank you soooo much,” I say, backing away. “But I meet friend now. I see Jesus later.” Then she rushes me.

“Please, take this, you can visit anytime you like.” And with this she drops into my hand a flyer and her church’s business card with address and directions in English. “You no go tempting,” she says with a worried smile.

“Thank you,” I say again before turning around and getting the hell out of there. I walk briskly, lest Ms. Johnson should decide to approach again, this time with a bigger, beefier member of her church less inclined to take no for an answer. A rotund black belt named Akira O’Donnell, say. I cross the street and, since I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing, walk towards whatever is ahead of me. I stop under another giant television screen and take a look at the flyer Miho had given me.

On one side is a collection of illustrations seemingly drawn by the good folks at Marvel Comics. In the center is Planet Earth, above which stands-I’m assuming here-God, wrapped in angelic white robes, His arms outstretched, His smile twinkling, His long white hair and beard nicely highlighted by the halo suspended above His head. He stands in the center of what appears to be a meteor shower, but He’s unaffected because He’s God, and He made the friggin’ meteors, bitch. In another scene, the Statue of Liberty faces an attack by a thick red, yellow, and evil cloud. And in another, a tall, square-jawed, ruggedly handsome man, dressed in a dark blue shirt and matching cape, walks in front of a dome-shaped building, a religious gathering place, perhaps. Oh, and he’s got a sign on his shirt that says “666.” Oh, and also there are people bowing down in front of him. (I don’t blame them. Look at those cheekbones. The man is handsome . Like, Superman handsome.)