It is getting more frequent however that I can read at least a portion of these menus, although I have discovered that I’m not only slow to decode but also rather slow to decide, or at least, slower than my server expects me to be. They will always want to know what I want before I am ready to tell them, and I do not yet know how to say, “still looking!”
This can be, in a word, exhausting. Reading/not reading/semi-reading is something involved in going out, well, anywhere, and is one of the things that makes it exhausting to go out, well, just about anywhere. The only thing more challenging than semi-reading while your stomach's on the growl is of course, semi-having a conversation. And everything here involves conversation. Everything. Nothing is simply a cash-for-services transaction; always the conversation. And really, it’s lovely: I know I’m totally lucky for the genuine warmth and small-town attention that people shower you with here. But sometimes, just sometimes, you just want to go somewhere and eat. Eat and nothing else. Not tell someone where you’re from, or how long you’ve been in Japan, or how old you are, or how old they are. And sometimes you wish that no one would tell you how wonderfully adept you are at using your chopsticks or ask if you want to marry a Japanese girl like maybe their neice, or ask if you can teach them English sometime whenever you’re free. It’s exhausting having these kinds of mechanical interactions, without input or interval. Sometimes you just want to eat your eggs. Or you know, your squid feet or whatever.
I went in to the Udon shop and looked up at the panels above the cash register and saw one that read Udon Te-Shoku, which means “set,” and it was exactly as much money as I could spend and still ride the bus home. I rattled it out without a stutter and sat me down on a stool between two guys eating. Just a normal Joe. Cool as a cucumber. Then one of the guys finishes and gets up, and today's old guy comes in.
We specialize in old folks here. We should export them. They are like our number one national product. It's amazing how many of the folks there are rattling around in these parts. They're like lovable, crazed, ornery tumbleweed, just rolling on through. Today’s old guy sits down next to me and we make eye contact, and he says in Japanese, “where do you come from?” I have discovered that there is no way to answer this funny, no matter what you say. You can say Tokyo, you can say Just down the road there, you can say Pluto, you can say the Congo, you can say anything you want and it’ll never come of funny. So I say, America, from New York. We chat, he asks me questions. Big city? Big city. Do you like it here, too? Sure, everyone’s friendly here. New York’s different? I guess. Everyone’s mean there? No, you get mean folks everywhere…nice folks too.
He asks me, How old are you? Well, how old am I? 28, he guesses. Lower, I say. 24? Lower – 22. 22? 22. You’re…maybe you’re 38? (I always guess down as a policy, but I was not giving him more than 12 years room). Who’s 38, he asks. Maybe 42? 60, he says. I can’t believe it. He shows me his drivers license, we try to do the math. Year 20 of the Showa, he was born in. My foreigner’s residency card says I was born in 58. He’s 60. Then we are quiet, we eat our soups.
A sushi chef, he says. Yoshi-something san, I didn’t really catch it. You should come to the kaitensushi place in the mall sometime. Sure, I’ll come by. You like sushi? Everything. Maguro? Everything. Maguro’s good you know.
And then we’re quiet again, and we eat. The soup’s good, the rice is good, it’s warm inside and raining on the roof and shutters. And then he’s done, he leaves half his noodles and the wakame in the bowl. I guess he just got done. He picks up both our checks when he stands up and he says, It would make me happy to buy you this lunch. And gives me his business card, and doesn’t mind that I don’t offer him one. I don’t even have one, but I don’t say that. And then he smiles at me once, and he pays, and he leaves.
And when I walk back to work in the rain, I’m spinning my umbrella above my head and I can see all the raindrops spatter in their big hemisphere in front of me on the wet street, and I feel happy, and full, and not at all exhausted.
