Tokyo’s Muslim

Oh no, another one.

Don’t look, don’t look… he isn’t there. I’m still the only one. There’s no one here but me. I’m the ONLY…

Oh man, he’s now moving past the Old lady. I hope he doesn’t bump into her – idiot, he’s making me look bad. I didn’t spend all that time in the Anime club learning Japanese for nothing. This is a culture of RESPECT and UNDERSTANDING, he couldn’t understand.

Stupid monkey, doesn’t he know that the seat is for old people only? We are guests here!

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an email from my girlfriend. Isn’t that cute, she’s sending me pink hearts. The bitches in Chicago didn’t send me pink hea…

Is he walking past me? Don’t look at me – don’t look at me! I’m not here. I’m not in front of you, you hairy ape. You, you gaijin, you clown. I’m with my nakamas and I’m going to write an email to my Tenshi right now!

“Dear Michiro, there is some Gaijin idiot who was standing in the train and sat in the se-ttei seki. I’m soooooo embarassed to be American! I hate America! Let’s go to Akihabara tomorrow after your work ends. I don’t mind if it is at 9. love love kiss kiss, your bestest boyfriend, Milton”

He’s off the train. FINALLY. Idiot.

I was always irritated when I saw this commercial. Not being able to read Japanese is actually a benefit, as its true insidious nature is more easily understood.

The basic idea is that a silly girl has borrowed 100,000 yen, and returns the money one month later – and only has to pay 1500 yen. At least that’s the mental picture you get if you are an exhausted salary man, forced to stare at these sorts of commercials in a packed train on the way home.

It isn’t misleading in the strictest sense, but it trivializes the difficulty of obtaining the 100,000 to pay back (not to mention the 1500 yen). There is small print that says “Please borrow money responsibly”; maybe responsible advertising would be a first step to that goal.

“The bastard cockblocked me!” exclaimed Josh, my ever-excitable American friend.

Thus I was introduced to the most dispicable character in the pick up game, the cockblock. Takayuki Fujiki, as we will call him for this entry, is a system engineer at a small Japanese company. He told me that his hobbies included learning the English language and getting drunk. I guess Takayuki didn’t realize that butting into Josh’s drunk conversations was not a good way to make friends.

Takayuki’s big problem was that didn’t know he was cockblocking Josh. He didn’t realize that jumping in the middle of two people and starting to talk in mangled English would be akin to a mental cold shower. Worse was how he wouldn’t leave regardless of the angry stares other guys gave him. It drove Josh nuts.

I’m not part of the game, and I don’t drink – but I do try to take care of my friends. Thus I was tasked with the unenviable duty of eliminating the cockblock. However, as I discovered, it was easy to get rid of him. I just bumped into him by accident, and when he spilled his drink, I walked him away (slowly) while letting Josh have his way with his woman. The second time I decided I didn’t want to have to talk to him, so I just started referring to him by Yakuza honorifics until he moved on.