Shoji Part 7

Eating had become an obsession as soon as she stepped off the plane in Japan. So, in the short time she had been there she searched high and low for restaurants that served food on normal sized plates with american sized portions. She was aware that Americans ate entirely too much but still being incubated in a all you can eat culture effects you in ways you never know until you are away from it. So to celebrate her new job Kariya and her best friend dressed up and went to the yakiniku restaurant that overlooked the river.

This was the type of restaurant that left its mark on you when you left. It was a smoking barbecue inside a poorly ventilated room. Every table had a small pit in the middle of the table. The waiter came over and took their order and turned on the fire with a small dial on the corner of the table. They ordered various types of raw meat, cow intestines, beef stomach among other things and once it was bought to them sliced on huge white plates, they would but the meat on the grill and cook it as they talked and had their drinks.

“So, are we going out tonight,” tomoko asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
“why not? We’re celebrating!” Stuffing her mouth with rice and burned meat.
“Good because I want you to meet someone.”
“wait, so you holding out on me?”
“No, no..its not that. I just met him myself and he invited me to his club.”
“His club? What, my girl has pulled a Japanese baller!” kariya leans across the table to give tomoko a high five.

Tomoko was a wild child and although she was born and raised in America. She has the grit about her to get accepted into every circle around her. As a child in San Francisco, she resisted learning Japanese and would only answer her parents in English. they tried very hard to get her to use her Japanese in the home so she would be alienated from her homeland and after a while gave up on her speaking it. she understood it but she was missing the details that put her in the “in” category with japanese. Her parents constantly worried that she wouldn’t receive acceptance in japan especially since she wasn’t born there. Imagine their shock and excitement when tomoko told them she was going to Japan.

Tomoko decided to travel and felt that her parents would only support her if she started in japan. She knew that she couldn’t go without her best friend kariya. She meet her one summer day in San Francisco, looking out of the window she saw a little girl her age wearing cowboy boots and drawing some lines on the ground of her next door neighbors drive way. Tomoko was strangely drawn to the girl and ran down the stairs and out the door to see what was so special about this girl. She found out immediately when the little girl look up at her and smiled and greeted her in japanese and proceeded to ask her if she wanted to play hopscotch. From that moment on tomoko and Kariya were unseparable in the summers and wrote each other every month during the school year.

Leaning back and patting her full stomach, Kariya sighed as she looked over at her friend. She secretly worried about tomoko because she was so impulsive with men as they broke her heart over and over again. kariya had little experience but just by listening to others relationship woos she kept that part of life at bay. She was also envious of her ability to open her heart repeatedly without thoughts of the past. Tomoko lived in the present when in love and it was a beautiful thing until the guys buckled under rainbow effect.

the ladies paid their bill and walked out of the restaurant wearing the tell-all scent of yakiniku for dinner. they went to one of the well known hip hop clubs in the area and found that indeed they were on the guest list so they were escort in and lead to a room filled with soft couches and a huge glass window that looked out into the dance floor. Everyone in this room were putting up airs like that meant something and maybe they did. They ordered their drinks and sat down and spoke in English about the people in the room. As they talked, a small guy with a oversized head with a hat and clothes to match came and sat down. His eyes dragged slowly from Kariya to Tomoko as he pulled out a cigarette. He then got very animated and as he spoke to Tomoko in japanese.

“tomoko, do you know her?”
“Yes, she’s my friend. is there a problem?”
“Uh..no no none at all. I am just surprised that you know foreigners.”
“Yes, i just met her.” smiling as she looked at me so i knew she was playing him up for the moment.
“Oh yeah, so is she an english teacher?”
“why don’t you ask her?”
“oh oh no, my english is very bad.”
tomoko looks over at me and pretends to relay the message. Kariya immediately decides that her first story will be japanese perception of english teachers so she goes into character by nodding her head.

“figures they all come here, smiling and speaking the little japanese they know to try and pick up boys and girls.”
tomoko said no more and instead sat and listened and nodded her head and laughed at all the right points. kariya excused herself and decided to start her research on the club level.

the club was full of japanese people dresses is various stereotypical ways. One corner was a group of japanese guys dresses in dickies, chuck taylors, plaid shirts with only the top button fastened, blue bandanas and had various tattoos on their arms and face. They all had this super mean grimace on their faces yet when someone mistakenly bumped into them they immediately bowed and said they were sorry. One could only imagine that the line of low riders outside belonged to this group of “eses”. Another corner had a group of guys that were all blinged out with girls on their arms wearing close to nothing. They nodded their heads in greeting as Kariya passed by and their girls snuggled in closer. The music was intoxicating and surprising on point as Kariya bobbed and weaved her way through the crowded club. She ended up having to stand up on one of the platforms to get the best view of what the demographics of the club was truly like.

Next to her was a blonde loc’d skinny guy wearing an complete burberry outfit molesting some poor japanese girl as she tried to keep her rhythm. there was a lot of grinding going on up there and Kariya wanted no part of it. there were a group of black guys standing on the stairs of the club,one dressed in a suit like the rest of security, most wearing various sports jerseys and baggy pants with a huge chain of some sort on their neck. It had taken kariya a moment to figure out what the difference was but as she walked over to them it became apparent.

“Hey,” she exclaimed as she stepped up on the stairs towards them.
The tallest one looked down at her and started laughing as he spoke in another language to the guys standing with him.
“What is so funny?” An suddenly enraged Kariya shouted over the music.
Everyone stopped laughing but no one spoke to her. She stood there for a minute waiting for an answer. She looked at each one of them making notes of their identity for future reference.
“Assholes,” she said huffily as she turned away and walked back to the room where Tomoko was.

She rushed up to tomoko as told her in an upset voice, “See you at home, I’m leaving!”
tomoko reached at her quickly and was pulled up by Kariya. Looking back at the man she has been entranced by for the past couple of hours she said “I’ll be right back, ok?” He nodded his head and lowered his lids as he examined the situation.

As they rushed pass the clubgoers and into the bathroom. Kariya went into a rant like no other that sent all the females who were in the bathroom out with the quickness.

“These motherfuckers all up in here acting like they better than somebody. who the fuck they think that are? Fucking fakes! Acting like they Americans! I can’t stand their funky asses! Damn fugitives!”

tomoko knew to let her ride the wave of anger. She opened her purse, added a little more foundation and some lip gloss. She pulled out a pack of gum and popped a piece in her mouth and offered a piece to Kariya as if she wasn’t ranting at all. Kariya looked at the gum as if it was something she had never seen before. She stopped talking and slowly reached for the gum.

“Now that, that’s over, their is someone who wants to meet you!” Tomoko said quietly as she knew the currents had shifted within Kariya.
“Why do they want to meet me?” Kariya inquires cautiously.
“Cause they saw you when we came in and found you interesting.”
“How can someone find another person interesting just by seeing them from a distance? That’s crazy!” Kariya’s voice got stronger as if ready to release into another tirade.
“What if I told you they have seen you around but never felt right approaching you?” Tomoko knew she had to keep this girl calm.
“Oh so, I got myself a stalker on my hands and you are just gonna....”
“Girl, shut the fuck up” Tomoko interrupted angrily because she hated when Kariya sabotaged meeting men prior to even meeting them. “Now you are gonna go out here and meet this damn man and if you aren’t feeling him then and only then can you take your ass home!”

Kariya looked incredulously at tomoko and couldn’t help but follow her back into the crowd building. Sitting next to the club owner was one of the DJs, He was te one kariya pegged as the best looking one, he was stocky and had a little facial hair and he his musical rotation showed that he has some connection to America. He stood up when they walked up and looked only at her. kariya noticed the japanese girls lookin thru the window with a face of jealous curiousity.

“hello, my name is Minami” He spoke to her in English.
“Hi, I’m Kariya, nice to meet you.” She replied.
They sat down and began talking about basic things and then the silence settled in. She was going back and forth in her head on whether she should reveal her japanese profiency around tomoko’s ignorant man.

“Do you speak any japanese?” He leaned over and asked her as the waiter brought a round of drinks to the table.
“Yes, I do! I thought you would never ask!”

After that the conversation flowed non-stop as Tomoko’s club owner friend’s mouth gaped open in shock. He knew then that all the things he had said about her in japanese was comphrehended. Kariya left the club that night after exchanging numbers with Minami and making him promise that they would hang out again.

He was true to his word and made sure to invite her to all his shows but that was the jest of it.

Weeks passed and Kariya worked on her first story, Japanese interest in the English language. One day, as she sat at the station in the editing room. She heard one of the resisters asking where she was. Even though she had been at the station for a couple of weeks people still pretended that she wasn’t there. She peeked her head out of the closet size room and call to him.

“Here I am, Mr. Aoki! How are you today?” As she opened the door wider so he could come inside the small room with her. He was a very short and conservative dressed man. He had a comb over and a slight overbite. He sat down in the comfy chair which meant she had to resume in the hair metal chair. The room was a wall of TVs, VCRs and control boards.

“So, Kariya lets see what you have for us.” He says somberly as if the results meant life or death.

Kariya smiles and takes her finger and puts it on the knob and turn it counter clockwise until the screen was black. She then hit a green button and the screen begin to change to first rainbow and then into a classroom of little tots saying their ABCs. The screen then moved to a group of women around a table with an english book and then to a business man studying English on the train. The three screen then joined together as Kariya’s voice tapped in giving the statistics of Japanese people studying English. The tape was cut exactly to 25 minutes and it was a great piece of work that was honest and culturally sound. As the screen faded to black again, Kariya tapped the yellow button causing the tape to pop out along with a mini disc.

“Give this tape to the program director and tell him to play make room in the evening lineup.” Mr. aoki puts his hands in his suit pocket and pulls out something that resembles a tube of lipstick only its the stamp with his signature, he takes the tape and stamps it and hands it to Kariya. She is standing there in disbelief and telling herself to close her mouth and breathe as her fingers grab the tape.

“After that get your things.” He stands up and puts the haruka back in his pocket and walked toward the door.

“Www...why?” she stammers thinking all type of negative thoughts yet conflicted since he just told her in his way that her segment was worthy of airtime.

“Because you are going out with me. Now hurry along!” Mr. Aoki opens the door and walks out leaving Kariya shaking her head at him. He likes her enough to invite her out for drinks. This is an important ritual in Japanese cultural to go out drinking with the boss. She had been waiting on this moment since she started at Fuji. She take a deep breathe of relief and drops the mini disc in her bag as she walks toward the program director’s office with her first segment.