Tokyo Stories: Getting lost in translation

A lot of the interesting things that happened on my Tokyo trip were the incidental moments, things that frankly, got lost in translation with often humorous results, so I thought I would mention a couple of those here:

Music transcends barriers

As many of you will know, I'm a Gackt fan, and as any Visual Kei fan will tell you, designer h.Naoto often designs many of his sometimes down right crazy outfits. It was whilst in Harajuku that I stumbled across the designers boutique where I bought a punk rock tie. On returning home, I realised it goes with nothing that I own but hey, let's get back to the story. Taking my purchase to the counter, I am ever thankful that I decided to wear my An Cafe t-shirt that day.

The cashier immediately saw my t-shirt, her eyes lit up all sparkly, like they do in manga and she started talking in Japanese to say what I later figured out to be, "I love An Cafe too." I then said I saw the band in London and used that universal phrase understood by all An Cafe fans: " I love An Cafe. Miku rocks." Which was followed by a thumbs up. As I began to leave the shop she then gave me a map with all the local hang outs and explained where else I could also explore. I understood none of it, but it was the thought that counts.

(Trying to) order in Japanese

For much of my trip, we had our translator Phil, but one evening three of us decided to venture off on our own and order dinner. Standing outside a restaurant with fake plastic food in the window, we finally realised our dilemma. How the heck were we going to order food? I was amazed to learn that another traveller (I use that term lightly, tourist would be more accurate, but traveller makes me feel more like Kino, so please indulge me.) Mike had the exact phrase in his phrase book which said, "I would like a table for three people." Amazed at our sheer luck we were then about to go in. But after standing outside the shop window for five minutes and looking very gaijin, I took the lead and went in.

If your Japanese sucks, resort to plan B:

Hand movements.

Holding up three fingers, I said, "three people," and then slowly said, "English menu?" Which did the trick and we were carted off to our table.

Now... what you get on an 'English' menu can be equally baffling as Japanese. We went to an Italian style eatery, but reading the menu we came across a dish entitled Seafood spaghetti which said, and I'm not making this up:

Spaghetti with seafood and a selection of stuff.

Mike gallantry ordered it, simply to find out what the mysterious 'stuff' could be.

When a soda, may not in fact be a soda.

Another quirk about Japanese culture is ordering drinks. I ordered a melon soda which turned out to be a neon green concoction, the kind of stuff that you would see in a mad science laboratory billowing creepy smoke. And in case you are wondering, it tasted nothing like melon. This then started my craze to buy strange drinks such as one called Pocari Sweat or fizzy drinks which never tasted like what they claimed on the tin. It was a good way to loose change in those vending machines, but Grape Fanta, tastes nothing like grape. My hunt continues...

McDonalds: Japanese style and eavesdropping

Okay, at the start of my trip, I had promised myself I would not eat in a McDonalds. After all, I hadn't travelled half way across the world to eat in a McDonald's, right? But with a hungry tummy in Akihabara, I caved. I know, I'm weak. Walking up to the counter, I said "chicken burger" and the chirpy sales assistant flipped over the Japanese menu to reveal English underneath. Wahey! I thought.

The chicken burger turned out to be teriyaki style in a nice bun, nothing like the fast food we get in the UK. It was when I went to throw away my rubbish that I got confused. Japan is big on recycling, and chucking what into where was mind boggling. After five minutes of standing like a zombie a college guy offered to help. I thanked him as without his assistance I would have been standing in front of the bin for ten minutes, defeated by a recycling bin no less! He asked where me and my Australian friend were from. Saying London, he said my accent sounded British and it was then I realised that he had moved near to us to listen to our conversation, to practise 'understanding English.' It then made me realise how eratic my conversation had been:

Journalism. Robots. How the English dub has messed up Death Note. Fansubs: YouTube or Veoh. Dreams. Why doesn't Grape Fanta taste like grapes? L has his own TV show. I can't talk and eat at the same time (But damnit! It wont stop me trying anyway!)

Feeling embarrassed but thankful, I walked away. After hearing that conversation, he must think all foreigners are weird.