Apparently it was once Tokyo’s tallest building. Just as “The Twelve Stories” tower was as well, in the days before the Great Kanto Earthquake. I was inside this “trade center” building and couldn’t see much of anything to distinguish what it was I’d entered. The lobby seemed tight and old fashioned by Japanese standards, with a warm, lived-in lobby atmosphere. I kept glancing out the window during the meeting, considering the building under construction across the street.
After the meeting my friend suggested we have Chinese food. “Oh. Right. Uh, sure.” I am usually quick to reject this anywhere outside of China, unless it’s Chinese New Year and we’re in some other part of the world. I thought to be accommodating and acquiesced without hesitation. But inside I was regretting the fact that ramen was no longer the lunchtime game plan.
My friend explained that when he used to work in this building he would frequently come up here to this restaurant. Arriving it was indeed a lovely place with an extraordinary view. Soon I was speaking Shanghainese with the waitress whose cold stare suddenly blossomed, as Chinese people in Japan tend to do, when they can suddenly relax and speak Chinese. Fortunately my friend did not want to talk about software and we considered much of Tokyo below us, discussing the evolution of the city from bust to boom to purgatory, the strata of which were discernible from that building, to that highway, to that rail line.
My friend pinched his fingers, describing the narrow band of wealth in Japan that people all exist within, suggesting that even though the rich weren’t that wealthy and the poor not that poor, both parties in Japan felt there was a tremendous gap between them. But by the measure of any other country, the band here is rather narrow. Certainly Japan has nothing like the gaping chasm that China has opened up for itself.
Friday, 4/28/17
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