Tokyo, 3/20/12 (pictures pending)

The Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo is famous for guess what? Fish! And therefore, sushi (it’s Japan, after all). So for breakfast I feasted on fresh, raw fish atop rice and seaweed. Ah, sushi, one of Japan’s greatest treasures.

For lunch, I picked out a tuna roll and a mixed roll at a nearby sushi-bento place and decided to eat it in Ueno Park. The park was super crowded, (it turns out admission to Ueno Zoo that day was free! Score!) but when I began eating, starting with the tuna roll, alas! An unfortunate discovery! It was not tuna, the lovely fish, but natto, the slimy, fermented beans! How could I have made such a regrettable error? But as they say, mottainai, (don’t waste) and so I braved on and continued eating, using soy sauce rather excessively.

While I was eating, an older man approached me.

(In Japanese)
Older guy: “Wow, your good!”
Me: “Eh?”
“You’re using chopsticks!”
“Oh, no, I mean-”
“Wow, you understand Japanese too! You’re a super talented foreigner. And wait, is that natto you’re eating?!”
“Oh, well yeah-”
“Wow! Lots of Japanese people don’t even like natto.”
“Ha ha, perhaps-”
“Chopsticks and natto and speaks Japanese! Wow. Isn’t that rare?” (begins talking to the older woman I had sat down by)
Older woman: “Yeah, that is rare!”
Older guy: “Chopsticks and natto. I can’t believe it…”
I swear, he made me believe I was the best foreigner ever. I didn’t try too hard to tell him I hadn’t been able tell the difference between fermented beans and fish. Some people are just too nice.

That’s not to say I haven’t had some unpleasant encounters. Another scene from Tokyo: Me and my African American friend were approached in a station by a guy who started talking to us (well, to her, he acted as if I wasn’t there until towards the end) in English about how Jamaicans want to return to Jamiaca but African Americans don’t want to return to Africa. He occasionally would ask my friend what she thought, and used her responses as a starting point for more of his own theories. Though he started out seeming mostly conversational and keen to hear what my friend thought, it quickly turned to rants about various things, cumulating in his final point that all whites are arrogant and that he hates them all. Then, rather caught up in a huff, he swiftly turned around and walked away to catch his train, presumably. A truly uncomfortable meeting. Recalling it makes me sad. I wish we could have really had more of a conversation; perhaps it could have been good for all of us.

Other than this, I would say my encounters with Japanese strangers have all been pleasant and quite enjoyable. Such as the Korean lady I met in Gosho, the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. I was taking a picture of the stray cats she was feeding, and so she offered to take my picture with them (which I didn’t really want but also didn’t want to refuse). And so we got to talking about all sorts of things, from how she hates living in Japan (because of the many prejudices against Koreans) to the nearby bookstore where she got this art magazine for only a hundred yen, to her daughter living in San Francisco and even on Facebook and meeting strangers on the Internet. Though at times a very serious conversation, it was a very ii kimochi (good feeling). She is the kind of person I will most strongly associate with Japan after my stay here. And for that I am glad.