Tune In Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries Read Online Free

the tiny flame over the curved metal end of the curler. When she believed it to be hot enough, she put the piping apparatus up to her eye and gave herself a set of shapely, luscious, twenty-four-hour lashes. I feared she’d put her eye out if the train should make a sudden jerk, but even with the rolling and swaying of the carriage, the girl’s expert grip on her tools and the precision with which she performed her tasks continued uninterrupted. Amazed, I looked over at the toddler. He was still staring at me .
     
     
    The train pulled into Shinjuku Station, through which two million people pass in a typical day. I wasn’t sure which exit I should go for, but I realized it wasn’t up to me when I found myself eased down the nearest staircase by the sheer force of the crowds tugging me like an undertow. They decided I would go out the south exit. That would be fine.
    So here I am, staring at a giant television screen full of wide-eyed, dancing preteen cherubs and wondering (1) if Japan has its own Britney Spears, and (2) if she’s a cheap dime-store floozy like ours. I hope so.
    As a large portion of the two million Shinjuku-goers hustle past and slap me with their shopping bags, I wonder where to go. I have no plan, no idea where anything is. I just want to see some local color. I continue walking ahead and through a concrete courtyard directly in front of the exit. Lots of young folks are hanging out, strumming guitars, playing bongos, simply posing, leaning against railings, comparing wacky hats, and so forth. Up ahead, people sit and slurp at a steaming mobile noodle bar right next to a punk rock band thrashing it out on the sidewalk, surrounded by a dedicated horde of twelve-year-old girls offering their support.
    The sounds of Shinjuku—spoken advertisements over loudspeakers; pop music from the Tower Records TV screen; the clinking, buzzing, and whirring of the pachinko parlors and game centers; the piercing recorded voices beckoning you into this shop or that one—whoop and holler around me as I walk. I enter this swirl of activity, feeling like one of those wide-eyed, big-headed aliens seen occasionally in Utah or Nebraska.
    I pass a horde of young girls with bleached blonde hair, fiercely tanned complexions, panda-like eye makeup, foot-high platform shoes, and miniskirts of a cut that would make Paris Hilton stand back and go, “Oh, honey, cover that shit up a little!” A cute high school couple—wearing matching kilts and carrying the same handbags, made out of what looks like poodle fur—walks by hand in hand. Not to be outdone, a tall guy wearing Buddy Holly glasses and sporting an afro for the ages walks determinedly behind them, his black shirt screaming in white lettering, “So Fucking What?” Local color—check.
    As I look around for something else to gawk at, a friendly looking middle-aged woman wearing flats and a skirt that is, thankfully, knee-length, approaches me.
    “Excuse me,” she smiles. “You speak English?”
    Not waiting for me to answer, she continues. “It’s nice to meet you. I am Miho Johnson.”
    You’re who ? I think. Her English is Japanese-inflected, but her last name most definitely is not.
    “May I ask, where are you are from?” she continues. She sports a matronly bob, her bangs cut straight across and hanging just above her thin, painted-on eyebrows. Though she has a smile on her face, it’s tempered with a constant look of concern. Also, she never seems to be looking directly at me. When she asks where I’m from, she appears to be reading from a cue card placed above and a little to the right of my big head.
    She has made no assumptions about my nationality, so I am tempted to adopt a strange accent and say Greenland or Siberia while gently taking her hand and rubbing my nose on it, the traditional greeting in my country.
    “You are from America?”
    “Yeah, actually. How did you guess?”
    “Oh, just thinking. How long you are being in Japan?”
    I tell her