Home » Japan » Deafened by the Roar of Pachinko ... or how to embarrass lesbians without really trying

I was always under what was probably a poorly uninformed impression that Japan was a quiet, understated country. In my few (wasted) years in high school Japanese class I learnt about the culture of a quiet people, who respected tradition and weren’t amenable to the loud, disrespectful ways of us Westerners (hence the trainee Japanese teacher who came on exchange to Maclean High School for a few months and after one period of our Year Nine elective Japanese class she was so shaken by our loud and outrageous behaviour she took off the remainder of the week and steeled herself against any further aural assaults by refusing to come to any more of our classes).

Deafened by the Roar of Pachinko ... or how to embarrass lesbians without really trying

Patrick Gatland
2007-01-23 12:54:33

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to all things Japanese. Now I am no Japanese expert but I failed to see how me applying my own condiments to
a dish really can be classed as disrespectful - especially as I had seen another diner do it 5 minutes earlier - but before I had even time to think BL1 and I were engaged in a epic wrestle of the Japanese mayo. Through gritted teeth I was saying (so as not to be disrespectful to those around me) “give me the fucking mayonnaise” while she was chiming “no, no, no - I’ll die if you do it. It’s so disrespectful!” (BL2 nodding warily). Wishing my lucky stars she was right I wrenched the bottle, quickly grabbed the other, stood up and proceeded to layer the Okinomiyaki in as skillful fashion as I could muster. I must have done an OK job (or made such a fuss that people had started to notice) because the table (of Japanese) next to me applauded my efforts which was missed by BL1 as she had slid down her chair so much that all I could hear being said from under the table was a muffled “disrespectful”.

On that note, there is certainly something to be respected about a country that has the level of attention to detail as Japan does. Whether it is the post-sale wrapping - do I really need that third bag for my purchase of a single orange? - or the most perfect of sushi presentation, Japan has to have it just right. My favourite example of the Japanese going that extra step further than most is on the JR (Japan Rail) Yamanote line. This line conveniently does a ring around most of the major hubs of Tokyo and if you ever spend time in the capital you (and the rest of Tokyo’s population) will board one of these immaculately clean trains bound for Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ueno o Harajuku. On my first trip on the loop I was impressed how at each train station the melody announcing that the train was due to depart was different. That’s right, at all twenty odd stations there is a different high-pitched, partially annoying but oh-so-happy ring-tone-like ...