They’d need to be silver trays that look vaguely salty and certainly a well-scrubbed, not just once, but every night for many, many years. I’ve had dinner. But it’s a dinner in Tokyo that was more like picking at small plates of bar food than a proper, filling, meal and as often happens I’ve approached home hungry.
I looked as I approached the canal. At the corner across the street there were lights. Lamps lit beckoning the end of the evening. I didn’t go there. A few doors back I went up and had a look and it turned out to be a sushi joint. I had sushi for lunch and, a fleeting commodity, it doesn’t matter. I’ll order some select nigiri once again.
I’ve just popped a piece of saba in my mouth. It’s good but not great. Perhaps it’s the end of the day and all good sushi has its’ one day and one day only to be fresh. On the other hand perhaps it’s entirely irrelevant and it’s simply a matter of where it was sourced and not when it was served.
The proprietress came and asked me in English if I spoke Japanese. When I confessed that I did not I took the time to insist that I could in fact speak Chinese. Did she? No. She did not. But the lithe, otherwise completely nameless, and unassuming lad next to her was apparently from China. “Ahh, really, great. Where you from?” And soon I knew that he was from Fujian. The kid from Fujian knew where the bathroom was.
George Orwell wrote “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Somewhere out there, a Chinese person is waiting to write “down and out in Tokyo and Osaka.” Remember how remarkably Orwell depicted the hierarchy of the crazy Parisian restaurant environments? This young gentleman is the tip of the Chinese column here in Tokyo. Just how many illegal or otherwise Chinese immigrants are there in Tokyo? How does the city look from the eyes of a young Chinese person who like Orwell, could take it or leave it.
Wednesday 4/26/17
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