on saturday (9/13?) i met up with a friend from mexico city who i really get along with - she is bilingual like me and is the only person in the world who seems to personally understand all the identity crises i've had over the years. anyway we got pleasantly drunk over shochu - which i had orginally bought for A & Y, but A said "you realize after hosting i've become pretty selective about my alcohol," so i didnt feel bad about drinking half the bottle - and caught up on the 2 or 3 years worth of history since the last time we had seen each other in Yokohama.
It's hard to explain how much I appreciate J-chan, who can understand my elementary Japanese and my gringo-Spanish and my English in a pinch. She is like the older sister or cousin I never had who not only understands my ridiculously specific and unique suffering as an estranged nisei living on the opposite side of the world from Japan, but she also has lots of valuable advice on relevant topics like sex and ... well, sex. When A told me I couldn't stay with him anymore even after I told him I had nowhere to go, she summed up my frustration in a single, brilliant sentence: Te corrieron porque no quisiste cojer. Plus she helped me to see the bright side of things: When shit happens like this, you can always count on using it as a good story later on. She has the best stories, too. But I digress.
We took the 11pm train to Roppongi, where all the host clubs, bars, and dance spots are. J-chan had found a place called Cafe Caribe online and so we went there, only to find it full of older Japanese men and women dancing as if they were in a bad musical. Of course there were random white people and other gaijin, and we ended up getting adopted by an older Argentinian man named Ruben who took us to another spot called Cafe Latino. There, they play a variety of "Spanish" music, like salsa, merengue, even reggaeton. It was pretty chill at first, but then people started streaming in, mostly Japanese, but with a few Latinos in the mix. The Japanese men were heartbreakingly in-character, dressed up to look like either Daddy Yankee or the leading male from a Bunuel movie. Then there were some awkward older dudes and some young dandies who just wanted to get with the Latinas in short, tight outfits.
I ended up dancing with one dude from Yokosuka who had spent 7 years in the DR for baseball, and somehow could speak English. That was pretty interesting. He was very impressed that I had come to Japan to visit the grave of my dead ancestors - he kept saying "That's very important that's very very important..." very probably because he was drunk. For the most part though, I was happy just watching people from a bar stool. I would go back to Cafe Latino, for sure. But if you want to go, just be prepared to stay out until 5:30am because that's the first train out of Roppongi.
It's hard to explain how much I appreciate J-chan, who can understand my elementary Japanese and my gringo-Spanish and my English in a pinch. She is like the older sister or cousin I never had who not only understands my ridiculously specific and unique suffering as an estranged nisei living on the opposite side of the world from Japan, but she also has lots of valuable advice on relevant topics like sex and ... well, sex. When A told me I couldn't stay with him anymore even after I told him I had nowhere to go, she summed up my frustration in a single, brilliant sentence: Te corrieron porque no quisiste cojer. Plus she helped me to see the bright side of things: When shit happens like this, you can always count on using it as a good story later on. She has the best stories, too. But I digress.
We took the 11pm train to Roppongi, where all the host clubs, bars, and dance spots are. J-chan had found a place called Cafe Caribe online and so we went there, only to find it full of older Japanese men and women dancing as if they were in a bad musical. Of course there were random white people and other gaijin, and we ended up getting adopted by an older Argentinian man named Ruben who took us to another spot called Cafe Latino. There, they play a variety of "Spanish" music, like salsa, merengue, even reggaeton. It was pretty chill at first, but then people started streaming in, mostly Japanese, but with a few Latinos in the mix. The Japanese men were heartbreakingly in-character, dressed up to look like either Daddy Yankee or the leading male from a Bunuel movie. Then there were some awkward older dudes and some young dandies who just wanted to get with the Latinas in short, tight outfits.
I ended up dancing with one dude from Yokosuka who had spent 7 years in the DR for baseball, and somehow could speak English. That was pretty interesting. He was very impressed that I had come to Japan to visit the grave of my dead ancestors - he kept saying "That's very important that's very very important..." very probably because he was drunk. For the most part though, I was happy just watching people from a bar stool. I would go back to Cafe Latino, for sure. But if you want to go, just be prepared to stay out until 5:30am because that's the first train out of Roppongi.
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I really like when people talk about me... It's like the multimentioned fantasy about being the main talking point in your own funeral,
but alive...
besits