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September 2nd, 2024

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

The first thing I noticed in Japan was my familiarity with all of the nation’s iconic exports.  The bright signage of Nintendo, Muji, and Uniqlo stores illuminated my walk from Narita Airport’s baggage claim down to Tokyo-bound train tracks.  These franchises have permeated globally, giving Japan a reputation of artisanal expertise and cunning efficiency.  Growing up in America, knowing nothing about the land of the rising sun besides its culinary, cultural, and capitalist inventions, led me to imagine Japan as a fantasyland of samurai, sumo, and sushi.  The little glimmers of Japanese essence that found me back home, like loose cherry blossom petals that floated on a light breeze across the Pacific, riveted and inspired me.  When I was in elementary school, my dad would often greet me at dismissal with two scrumptious onigiri rice balls, the perfect reward for a long day of learning.  The ergonomic ingenuity of the snack’s packaging, to my twinkly little eyes, was as marvelous, impressive, and mind-blowing as my favorite Magic Treehouse book or Curious George episode.  That’s Japan.  Artistry, care, and tenderness are present in its smallest details.  

I was eager to arrive in Tokyo before summer’s conclusion so that I could meet up with a former student of mine: Dylan “Dee Nice” Levine, incredibly talented singer and skateboarder, born to a Japanese mother, is in Tokyo until next week, at which point he’ll be required to resume his attendance at Brooklyn’s Community Roots Charter School.  This past school year, I picked Dee up from Community Roots every Monday.  He’d deliver me his insights, inquisitive thoughts beyond what I assumed ten-year-olds were capable of, as we’d ride the R train from Clinton Hill to my teaching studio in Gowanus.  Unprompted, Dee would utter gems such as, “You know, Abraham Lincoln didn’t actually care about freeing the slaves; he just wanted to reunite the north and south” and “It’s completely unfair that I got in trouble for breaking up a fight during lunch today; why would my teacher punish peace?”  I cherish the memory of those one-on-one commutes so dearly.  My awe towards the pupil’s sharpness and maturity only increased whenever we commenced our lessons: Dee’s effortlessly impeccable singing voice, upon ringing its first note, rivaled the talents of Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, or any other legend of old-school R&B.  In fact, he dismissed all other genres.  This Gen Alpha, SpongeBob-watching, Roblox-playing kid exclusively listened to the magically rebellious pioneers of mid century Black American music.  He’d suggest learning songs by Stevie Wonder, Little Richard, and Percy Sledge while renouncing the validity of Queen or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  He refused to sing anything he wasn’t passionate about, but when he did open his mouth, everybody within earshot was liable to shed a tear.  A spirit of divine greatness lives in his larynx.  Beyond that, he’s an absolutely fearless shredder on his skateboard, even dressing and acting the part of a full-grown NYC skate rat.  He’s the coolest kid I’ve ever known, let alone taught, and I’ve missed him dearly during my travels.  

His parents are no less awesome and admirable: Yukari, his mother, a Tokyo native who emigrated twenty years ago, works tirelessly in fashion, diligently distributing her favorite Asian clothing brands to the style-hungry American market.  All the while, she dresses herself so impeccably that I often itch to rob her closet.  The last time New York Fashion Week rolled around, she hired me to help set up her showroom for Yan Yan, a handcrafted knitwear brand founded by her friends in Hong Kong, and I ceaselessly obsessed over the stunning handiwork of the garments as I carefully folded each piece.  Yukari responded, in a stroke of characteristic selflessness, by gifting me an item of my choice.  Jason, his father, a New Jersey native who sports an orange beard so long that it cascades down past his sternum, is a certified yoga instructor who’s founded his own after-school skateboarding academy.  Needless to say, Jason had his son skating down ramps as soon as he could walk.  His finesse on the board is relaxed and gentle.  His teaching style is nurturing and empowering.  Both practices evidently reveal his yogic training.  

On my first day in Tokyo, Yukari courteously invited me to a party, thrown in celebration of her client’s new capsule collection.  As I made my way to the Shibuya venue, I stopped at a music store to buy Dee a harmonica, a gift that I was confident he’d enjoy.  Sadly, I wasn’t able to deliver the present directly to its recipient: upon arriving at the event, I scanned the room for Dee, looking for his short stature behind clothing racks and bookshelves, but Yukari sullenly informed me that Dee could not attend due to his obligations at Japanese summer school.  Deflated, I handed her the harmonica and asked her to deliver the instrument to her son for me.  If only I could hear him blow into it for the first time, then my heart would surely sing, but it seemed that wouldn’t happen.  At least the gift, even if I couldn’t be its only courier, would let Dee know that I was thinking of him.  

After that initial disappointment wore off, however, I had a spectacular time at the event.  The celebrated designer even asked me to model several pieces for his e-commerce photos!  Every time I emerged from the changing room donning a new number, Yukari’s sweet friends all swooned a breathy “Kawaiiiiii!” in unison.  Jason arrived thirty minutes after me, dripping in perspiration from a jog, fully decked out in gear from his athletic clothing brand, Minor Planet, just in time to recommend all his favorite Tokyo yoga shalas to me.  

On my way home from the party, I stopped at Seven Eleven, intrigued by the spectacular international reputation the franchise’s Japanese outposts have garnered.  Inside its crisp air-conditioning, behind its automatic sliding door that jingled as I stepped across its threshold, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Soft-boiled eggs with jammy yolks marinated in soy sauce, fragrant wakame salads, ready-to-eat bento boxes, juicy-ripe fruits, and appetizing sushi rolls were just a fraction of the offerings within one of the convenience store’s several fridge displays.  Where else in the world can you buy deliciously fresh salads from a twenty-four-hour joint?  As the trope goes, Japan truly is living in two-thousand-thirty-four.  No wonder its population looks so healthy and fit when high-vibrational food is available on every block, at extremely affordable prices!  

I truly cannot wait to see the rest of the surprise, delight, innovation, tenderness, thoughtfulness, and compassion that Japan has in store for me.  

September 3rd, 2024

Kichijoji, Tokyo, Japan

The first time I ever ate at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant was in London.  I was fourteen.  No meal had ever forced me to act so decisively and assertively.  Sitting at the counter of YoSushi Kings Cross, watching appetizing plates of nigiri drift by, I was presented with a choice: I could either seize the fleeting opportunity to snatch a dish that caught my eye, or I could let it pass me by.   In attempt to avoid this binary, I’d stare at a cut of salmon in contemplation of its worth as it slowly made its revolution around the eatery, but my cautious fear of commitment was always punished by some other diner grabbing the plate before I could.  Finding the healthy balance between this hungry scrutiny and impulsive overeating was a labor of practice, repeated trial and error.  What kept me coming back to YoSushi was the satisfaction of devouring my selected plates, the layman’s equivalent of fishermen eating their own catches.  Each strip of sashimi melting in my mouth was a reward for my confidence and faith.  Physically claiming my food and unwaveringly asserting my taste enchanted every bite I took with heavenly flavor, leaving me with the conviction that I was fated to choose those fish.   When I signed the merchant copy of my bill at the end of each feast, I wasn’t just paying for food, but for invaluable decision-making experience.  “Hesitation is defeat” reads a mantra deeply embedded in Japanese culture, its essence unquestionably reflected in the phenomenon of conveyor belt sushi.  

Now, I find myself in the homeland of this unique invention.  Wandering into such establishments over the past few days has only deepened my understanding of the symbolism woven into these culinary merry-go-rounds.  Last night, in Kichijoji, I waltzed into Tenkazushi – a sushi train spot with handsome reviews – unfettered by the queue of hungry locals sitting by the door.  I got in line.  As I sat behind this string of hardworking Japanese laborers, surely famished from a long day on the job, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly our procession progressed.  Every few minutes, a diner sprang up from a barstool, dropped a wad of cash into a tray, and exited the restaurant, only to be swiftly replaced by another starving customer.   The successor would grab their first plate from the conveyor belt before even sitting down.  This cuisine that I so deeply romanticized was, in actuality, unglamorously casual sustenance, mere calories to fill the depleted tanks of Japan’s working class.  Waiting for my turn to participate, I noticed that the diners before me were selecting their plates very casually, bestowing no more weight upon this choice than their unconscious sips of water.  It was just another night for them.  Beyond that, they were each just one of a hundred customers the restaurant would seat that night; why make the meal any more ceremonial than efficient?  They came; they ate; they left.  This perpetual rotation of patrons was a well-oiled machine as reliable and unremarkable as the treadmill on which our sushi skated.  The seamless dance was a model for the interdependent harmony that characterizes Japan’s collectivism.  Everybody played their part in favor of upholding a tried-and-true system.  

I, on the other hand, was fruitlessly doing my best to blend in.  Given my hair, outfit, and ethnicity, I’d lost that battle before even walking up to the restaurant.  Plus, I lacked the years of ritualistic programming that taught the restaurant’s regulars how to behave.  When the host beckoned me towards a recently emptied seat, I was fourteen again, pensive, nervous, and unsure.  I tried to feign familiarity, thoughtlessly grabbing the first plate I reached for, without even looking at it, but my jitters got the best of me: as I reached my arm towards the conveyor belt, my elbow knocked a ceramic mug of boiling matcha and the piping green liquid spilled into my lap.  I let out an irrepressible moan of pain that magnetized the entire table’s gaze to my shaking frame.  A busboy hurriedly wiped down the wet floor while I sulked.   

As badly as I wanted to flee the scene and curl up into a ball somewhere quiet and dark, I stayed put.  At that moment, I was forced to accept that I was not, in fact, a well-mannered, Japanese, working-class, frequent-customer of the restaurant, nor was I versed in any local etiquette.  I never stood a chance trying to be somebody else.  

So, I became myself.  I decided to take my time.  I enjoyed a few deep breaths.  I lifted my head and smiled.  I used a napkin to dab the hot matcha that stained my pants.  I looked out at the conveyor belt and my stomach grumbled.  I was ready to eat.  Before I knew it, I’d amassed a stack of plates taller than my head.  Tuna, salmon, octopus, and tamago swam in my stomach.  I didn’t rush to get up and pay.  I silently thanked the sushi chefs, the diners around me, and the nation of Japan.  Lastly, I thanked myself for acting so decisively and confidently.  I credit the conveyor belt as my teacher.

September 6th, 2024

Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan

Japanese warplanes blitzing Manhattan, an LAPD officer in riot gear dueling with a samurai, an orca erupting from the mouth of a mammoth, a sleeping infant using a dog skull as a pillow, a dress with twin wolves’ heads for shoulder pads, an androgynous Elvis Presley holding his fat breast in one hand and his stubby penis in the other, a diorama of Fukushima’s darkest day, a high-heeled shoe with mushrooms growing out of it, a geisha spooning with a catfish, a bathhouse scene distorted by rippling water, and a girl who turned into a mountain were some of the things I saw yesterday at the best art museum I’ve ever attended.  I brought Yuka and Lara, two friends from my hostel, to bask in the beauty of Takahashi Ryutaro’s expansive collection of paintings, sculptures, and videos currently on display at Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art.  We were so bewitched, so frozen, in the face of his amassed masterpieces that we practically had to be dragged out the museum gates ten minutes after the building was meant to close.  We could have roamed that gallery forever.  

I itched to lock myself in an art studio and spray paint mercilessly at virgin white canvases.  I longed to stain chairs, newspapers, shoes, and mannequins with the colorful hallucinations of my imagination.  The craving made me quite homesick, knowing that I could more deeply indulge in such binge-creation under the safety of domestic stability.  

The night before, Yuka and I went to a basement jazz bar in Shinjuku, where Americans, Europeans, Japanese jammed in harmony, busting through roaring standards that reminded me again of home.  Skating across Shibuya’s infamous Scramble Crossing, the most chaotic intersection in the world, I longed to be suffocated by Times Square’s claustrophobic congestion.  Crossing a bridge over Sumida River, I wondered when I’d next bike across the Williamsburg Bridge.  

Tokyo is nearly four times bigger than New York.  I once thought I hailed from the center of the universe, but I now just feel like a tiny fish in a huge pond.  

Love,

Etai