Rory and I made our way from Tokyo to Yokohama to see my son.
After we arrived at (name withheld)'s house, her parents took us all out to lunch at a restaurant in Chinatown.
During spring break last year, I flew into Seattle from Detroit and Mike and the Castle brothers picked up me up at the airport.
Once we got on the freeway, Mike asked Hey, are you hungry?
I hadn't eaten all day, so I told him yes.
Let's take him to Chinatown, said Chris.
I was a guest, so I didn't want to be rude, but during the ride over to Chinatown, I kept thinking Oh, I get it. It's because I'm Chinese, right? Yes, let's take him to Chinatown! God forbid we park at Dick's and he suddenly tell us that he only eats Chinese food because of his ethnicity.
Later that week, we drove up to Vancouver and spent most of our time in (surprise, surprise) Chinatown. Again, I didn't say anything, but in my head I screamed I didn't come all the way up here to go to fuckin' Chinatown, goddammit! I can do that at home!
We had a nice lunch in Chinatown. I hadn't eaten real Chinese food in a while. Panda Express is not Chinese food.
We spent the night at (name withheld)'s house.
The next day, when my son had a doctor's appointment, Rory and I went to the Electric City in Akihabara. Rory had never been to Japan before and he insisted that sometime during the trip we (or he, rather) visit the land of the electronic product shops that I had told him about.
Few electronic products interested us, however.
I bought a VHS copy of WWF Backlash 2000 for $60 (U.S.) at a wrestling store and Rory bought an action figure of Kevin McCallister from Home Alone and one of Leatherface from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I saw an action figure of The Bride (in the yellow Bruce Lee suit) from Kill Bill on display outside the action figure store. I wanted to buy it, but it wasn't for sale.
Walking back to the train station, we saw a hentai store and eagerly entered. Inside, a bunch of guys casually browsed through shelves full of digital hentai titles. I thought it was cool how no one was ashamed to be seen shopping for cartoon pornography.
In the center of the store was a computer demonstrating an interactive hentai title. The user could zoom in on the artwork for a closer look and finger cartoon images of women with a mouse cursor shaped like a pointing hand. If you fingered an image long enough, cum would splooge out of the recipient's vagina. Great minds at work in Japan.
On a sidenote, if a man drew a face of a woman on a tissue and then jizzed on it, would that constitute bukkake?
As we exited the hentai store, I saw a plasma screen on the sidewalk showing clips of hentai titles. No one walking by (and in Tokyo, there's always a deluge of people in the streets) was offended.
What's more, this hentai store was located right next to a video game store. There were little kids playing video games on the sidewalk only a few feet away from this plasma screen showing hentai. No one was offended.
On the other side of the video game store was ANOTHER hentai store with its own video screens on the sidewalk. No one was offended.
A situation like this would never work out in America.
When we got back to (name withheld)'s house in the afternoon, no one was home. I opened the gate and rang the doorbell a couple times, but no one answered, so we just sat in the driveway and waited for someone to return.
While we were waiting, two middle-aged men wearing suits walked by the house, saw a half-open gate and then walked around the front of the house looking for something.
I thought How considerate of them. They must have seen the half-open gate and decided to check for any suspicious activity.
Then, the men approached us and one of them said something to me in Japanese.
Huh? I replied
Oh you don't speak Japanese!
Yeah. Sorry.
Where are you from?
America.
America! Ah-so… What is your opinion of Japan?
What kind of question is that?
I HATE IT! We should have bombed even more cities during the war! We should have scourged the whole shire when we could and rid the world of you bright industrious hobbits! Remember Pearl Harbor!
It's…uh…very fun.
Ah. We are Jehovah's Witnesses. We are going around the neighborhood speaking to residents. Good day.
See, if I was white, they would have ignored me like they did Hornblower.
But I get it. It's because I'm Asian, and we all look the same, right?
I should have told those Jehovah's Witnesses to look me up if they ever came to America.
I'd take them to Chinatown.