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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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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).

Touching down in Tokyo I had prepared to present my quiet, humble self and was certain that I would be unable to communicate with anyone at all. Instead, what I experienced over the next week was one of the loudest, most outrageous and gregarious (and not least of all generous) cultures that I have come across in my year of travels.

As soon as I made my way out of the Tokyo Metro I was set upon by a Japanese girl who demanded to
take me to wherever I was going because I looked “lost”. As I hadn’t even had time to pull out a map on the way to my hotel I wondered if she was referring more generally to my state of being but we’ll leave that deeper discussion for another day.

Armed with my (now extracted) map which she demanded I fish from my things she dragged me from shop to restaurant to police station (with her elderly mother in tow) asking for directions. After failing to find my hostel she found their number and gave them a ring and then escorted me all the way there, happily chatting to me about what she was up to that weekend and nearly dying of shock to discover that I was Australian - her husband was from Melbourne.

Suitably impressed, I touched base at the hostel and then headed to Harajuku to see the famed Harajuku girls. As you all are probably are ...