I’d spent the week peregrinating around Tokyo. It had been mild and humid with occasional downpours of tepid rain. I stopped to crouch down and tie the laces of my all terrain Scarpa walking shoes. My sleek calves throbbed from the walking I’d endured. My newly made acquaintance used this opportunity to purchase a bottle of Kirin spring water from the combini (convenience store). Tokyo was the world’s largest metropolis, and with a population of 37 million people, it dwarfed the population of a country such as Australia. To compliment the walking, we boarded the Ginza Metro line to Shibuya Station. It wasn’t the most efficient route but I had intended to travel every line.
I’d had a secret fascination with the world’s metro systems for some time. At home, London held the world’s oldest rapid underground tube system, each line celebrated with its own personality. The Bakerloo line carried an air of nostalgia. The Victoria line scurried somnolent faces to work. And the Northern line, the less said the better. The newly met acquittance quizzed me with a question. “Which London Zone 1 station contains all five vowels?” My mind performed summersaults and eventually I provided the answer. I grinned. No one would out train me. I had become enamoured with Tokyo’s metro system. The fierce punctuality of arrivals was accompanied by seraphic jingles. There were no surly passengers and it was impeccably clean. There had been one exception when an inebriated 30-something man performed a furious invective on us, that I later realised contained the outro lyrics to Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name. Scowling, I steadily removed my certification stamp to unleash an act of ink-led violence, but my newly met acquaintance clutched by raised slim wrist and lowered it until I slipped the stamp back into the pockets of my olive-green corduroy trousers. “Sumimasen” [Sorry]. I apologised for my uncontrollable hypermasculinity.
The train arrived to our destination and I used the bathroom on the platform. Japanese society was built on trust and respect and there existed, such as bathrooms on tube platforms, many facets of societal benefits that the Western world could not offer. Another were the thousands of bicycles I’d sighted across the city, all left unlocked. I shivered to memories of yesteryear. My Yu-Gi-Oh collection pack stolen from my rucksack at Sheen Mount Primary School in Year 2. I wondered if my cynicism and lack of the trust for civilisation stemmed from that moment. But my brief existence in Japan had shown me amenability and compliance was possible. I shut my eyes and I whispered “I forgive and I forget” to the uncaught perpetrator. My newly met acquaintance glanced at me with puzzlement.
Shibuya, home to the world’s busiest road crossing, was littered with dazzling neon lights and carried an electric energy of wily adventure. We roamed from street to street and around each bend until a bead of sweat dripped from my dashingly long dark eyelashes onto the parched pavement. It was time for a coffee. We joined a patient queue that led us to the second floor of a beige building. It was a queue for a Maid Cafe. Now before you consider this a perverted act, we had been impetuously led to believe Maid Cafes were a staple of Japanese culture, and this was supported by the fellow customers in the queue ranging from couples to families and groups of friends.
The first moment we realised something was amiss was when we were presented with House Rules before being led to our table. I dutifully acknowledged that I would not touch a Maid or take photographs from inside. We took our table to an applause of giggles from the hosts. I immediately felt uncomfortable. Our assigned waitress, or maid, sauntered over to our table. She wore white loose socks and a rolled up skirt with a tapered cotton apron. This was known as Kogal fashion. “Where are you from?”, she asked. “London”. I replied without making eye contact. Another chorus of giggles. Confused, I continued to stare at the groundavoiding further conversation. “What would you like to order?”. “A coffee. Please.” She covered her mouth with her pale hand to in an attempt to poorly control the high-pitched laughter that effortlessly escaped through her fingers. Had she mistaken me for British comedian Michael McIntyre? My coffee took 20 minutes to arrive. It was bland and bitter. I was unsure on the beans they had used but I resisted asking. I was aware of the global coffee bean crisis in play. Brazil had experienced a freak frost and Vietnam, for so long the secondary market providers, had shifted production to the more profitable durian fruits to service the Chinese market. This wasn’t the place to engage in a coffee bean tête-à-tête. We left and I insisted we boarded the Hibuya line back to Iriya Station.
The coffee and the experience had left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I attempted to unravel the Japan’s school uniform fetish. The Kogal culture emerged in the late 1990s and presented a high-school subculture that allowed for expression and art. For so long, uniforms conveyed structure and discipline in Japan, and this core aspect of Kogal culture provided a break from the norm, with elements of fashion on show. However, the Kogal culture in contemporary Japan carried scandals of youth prosititution and exploitation. It was a complicated aspect for me to understand with complex subjectivity as young girls took delight and pride in their appearance and espoused the youth movement.
The evening arrived with a hoary fog that flooded the city’s everlasting skyline. I joined a group of seven and we sat on petite wooden stalls sharing small plates over dinner. Vicious rumours circulated the table about Karaoke and we joyfully departed to Rainbow Karaoke with unlimited beer.
I woke up earliest in the morning and in the hope to search for greenery, I went for a walk to a concrete paved park. I sat on a bench and tied my shoe laces. Maybe it was time to switch back to velcro, I thought.
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