First evening in Tokyo

June 11
4:13 am

So, I have been lying in bed for at least an hour contemplating my choices: should I lay here until 6 and rest my body, or should I get up, write a bit, go for a jog, and then do the day? Obviously I’m heeding the latter.

Last night’s dinner with my Fulbright alumnus was a wonderfully charming experience. The gentleman my group of 4 met with, Mr. Shigeru Tabe, is a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics from Meikai University. He spent 2 years on a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor back in the late 60s. He spoke very good English and had a fantastic sense of humor. He walked us into a very traditional middle-of-the-road Japanese restaurant situated about 10 minutes walking distance from our Hotel in the Akasaka district. The area consists of narrow streets full of shops, restaurants and bars, a rather happening locale. Walking there, we noticed not only just how clean the streets are, but also how quiet they are. Imagine walking down any street in New York City. What do you hear? The constant noise of honking, talking, the voluminous noises of city living. Here, we heard cars, but people’s voices were low, and we did not hear one honk from a car the entire evening. The lack of noise pollution was a very pleasant surprise.

Writing about the sundry food dishes that Shigeru (which means “prosperity” in Japanese) ordered for us would not do the spread justice. I did take some photos and will try to upload them. We ate sashimi (raw fish), ebi (fried baby shrimp, body, legs, head and all), several salads, lots of radish in various forms (daikon), as well as salmon roe and edamame (soy beans). I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the other items (there was a fried egg dish, a burned fish dish and several other things), but they all came to the total of 16,875 yen, which is around $168.




We were all given a large sum of yen for food expenses and were instructed to pay for this dinner, despite the fact that traditional Japanese culture would require us to allow the host to pay if he so desired, which of course, he would. Again, we were instructed IN FRONT OF THE ALUMNI to not let this happen. Sure enough, when it was time for the bill, Shigeru disappeared, presumably to get the bill, and then returned a few minutes later insisting that we be his guest tonight. He had a glow about his face and a knowing grin which belied the fact that he had already paid the bill. Of course we declined and refused and insisted as per our dictum that we would be paying, but he gave us this knowing smile and finally one of the women in my group exclaimed, “You already paid the bill, didn’t you?” to which he simply smiled an reiterated that he wanted us to be his guests tonight. His opinion was that Americans had been so kind and gracious to him during his Fulbright stay back in the 60s that he wanted to repay that kindness by treating us to our first authentic meal in Japan.

But being the Americans that we are, we still wouldn’t accept, totally. It turns out he has a son attending a University in NYC. Well, I live in CT, and one of the other members of my group is from New Jersey, so we insisted that he give us information to contact his son, and that this summer when we return, we would meet him in the city and treat him dinner. He finally agreed.

Shigeru left us around 9:45 to take the train back to Kamakura, his hometown, which is around 1 hour south of Tokyo by train, and which happens to be where the Nobel Prize winning author Yusanari Kawabata used to live before he committed suicide in 1972. Kawabata is the author of the novel Snow Country, which I also plan to teach when I return. Shigeru was actually an acquaintance of Kawabata and knew all sorts of interesting details about him. Small world. After we said good-bye to Shigeru, we wandered back through the lively streets of the Akasaka district, teeming with young men an women, all dressed very well—the men mostly in suit coats, white shirts and black pants, and the women in an array of very stylish skirts and blouses.

We came upon a book store and I asked the clerk “Yasanuri Kawabata hon wa doko ni arimas ka?” which means do you have books by Kawabata? To which he replied “upstairs.” Once there, another clerk assisted me and through my broken Japanese and her broken English, we managed to find the novel Snow Country in the original Japanese. So I bought it. With the book in tow and jet-lag setting in, we managed to end a wonderful evening with Shigeru, a charming and generous man who gave us a magnificent first impression of Japanese culture and hospitality, and a man who actually knew Yasanuri Kawabata personally.

I’m off for a run. More later.