Hello Tokyo.
For thirty years I’ve dreamt of going to Tokyo and for three decades it was out of reach. Prohibitively expensive for one, not to mention impossibly far away. For me, it became a mythical super city of the technoverse. I grew up in the eighties when Sony dominated. As a twelve year old with a brand new Walkman in hand, Japan was beyond cool, the home of Hello Kitty and company men who, it was reported, sometimes slept under their desks. Dedication, manners, discipline, were Japan’s hallmarks, the antithesis of the sprawling, chaotic American culture that I knew.
Through watching Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson traipse through the city in Lost in Translation, and by indulging in Anthony Bourdain’s excursions into the world of food and Manga, and by reading the magical
tales spun by Haruki Murakami, I pieced together a collage of the city in my mind’s eye – as fanciful as a Studio Ghibli movie. As humans, we can’t help but fill in the blanks, our imaginations only too happy to supply a fluffed-out version of a person, a place, a thing that we don’t really know. In some cases the embellished version is safer, more sanitized than the real thing, and in others, more terrifying.
A month ago, when I finally touched down in Tokyo, stepping on the Asian continent for the first time, I had to square my amped up version with the real deal. It was disconcerting at first. Instantly, the fantasy I’d concocted disintegrated and the city became like any other metropolis I’d visited, requiring astute navigation and mental elasticity. Yes, technicolor Tokyo more than lived up to its reputation of neon lights and pristine cleanliness, even their tiny blue garbage trucks were freshly painted and gleaming. As advertised, the subways were remarkably smooth and Tokyoites composure transcended the brutally oppressive heat and humidity. And yet, once I cleared customs, my impressions of the city were grounded in actual interactions and experience.
Colored by my own curiosity and predilections, my version of Tokyo will always be mine alone. I was open to the order, the primness, the attention to detail, where other visitors might chafe. I was okay with carrying my garbage with me and waiting in a long, hot, endless queue for the most delicious ramen I’ve ever tasted. While I noticed an emotional reserve in public, I was touched by the friendliness of the woman who, unbidden, pressed subway fare into my hand when I struggled to find enough change. Or the shopkeeper who offered up free lemonade and some precious ice cubes for our water bottles on seeing that we were withering from the weather. I didn’t feel ‘other’ as I’d expected, but felt the city stretch, albeit very politely, to accommodate me. These are the human nuances that our imagination can’t envision.
Now, Tokyo is less the bright lights and extreme fetishes that I’d once imagined. It is layered, complex, contextual, relatable and far more interesting. I can’t wait to return. The experience of finally traveling to a place that I’d once mythologized, reaffirmed the confines and prejudices of my imagination, reminding me how important it is to actually engage and experience places (and people) on terra firma.