169: Phantom on the Tokyo Metro

[bunkymag]

After reading the first 2-3 pages I was gearing up to tear into the author through this comment box.. it is guys exactly like that who give gaijin such a bad name here. Spot on with the 2 years, 200 characters mix of misplaced pride and self-effacing rubbish they all seem to spout too. Nice work! Glad I read it to the end!

 

[quixotic dissonance]

I loved it! The observations were spot on! I was just in Tokyo for a month and half with my boyfriend (now ex), who has been teaching English there for the last 4 months. All the Caucasians there looked like they were people you would never bother with in your own city. The ones I met, who teach English, were losers who didn't fit into their own society, had yellow fever or were 'in search of adventure', i.e. running away from real life. One guy had a Japanese to warm his bed on weekends, and another to be his companion/ bird the first two weeks he was there. I felt terribly sorry for the Japanese girls who were dying for change and the experience of western culture, but had such a slimy pick to choose from and the crap that they had to put up with. Great story, wonderful insights, and so true!

P.S. Chiba is pretty dead and ugly. Yokohama might be a nicer option.

 

[kastanok]

Astounding. For someone who's spent his life in suburban middle-England (only last week having taken his only trip on the London Underground) it felt like a transportation. I love the kind of descriptive techniques you've employed, giving the reader enough to -feel- of the setting and do the rest of the work themselves.