The Yakitori Story

“Her face is OK, but here teeth shua fucked up”. Like the blast of a New York Taxi, the comment honked out underneath the gargantuan nose of The Ugly American. In the fashion industry much is taken at face value.

“Allergic to metal, ha! I new that was bull shit.” So went the retro pajama producer’s take on my Japanese interpreter.

I had traveled halfway around the world to attend the 1994 Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Leisure and Recreation Fair. This is really just an excerpt of a much longer journey, one started in 1990 amongst the skateboards and lengthening side burns of San Diego. For several years it zigzagged between Las Vegas and my hometown of Salt Lake City. New York was the furthest my reggae-inspired surfwear show been so far.

The trade show is a key way for manufacturer’s to find new customers. For me it was the only way. The $8,000 I had gotten from a college friend to start my Natty Threads® sportswear company was pitifully low.

I only have my naiveté to blame, but I was constantly playing catch-up. You could spend eight grand on trade shows alone. Only through a subsidy from the Japanese government would I be able to come to Tokyo and swing a couple of pickaxe strokes towards the elusive Mother load.

Sachiko Shinohara, was the young female interpreter I had been assigned. She really wasn’t allergic to metal. She didn’t wear a wedding band because she wasn’t married. The ‘allergy’ was a respectable way to put a couple of innocent periods on my hospitable advances, like the dotted eyes on a moonfaced Hello Kitty doll. For centuries much in Japan is done so one won’t “lose face.”

This evening she had to run off to her day job, translating for CNN. So as exhibitors coagulated underneath the harsh fluorescent lights of the Sunshine City exhibition hall, I found others to go sup with. In a town of 80,000 restaurants you better have some idea where to start.

Off we shot through a tangle of skyscrapers, smokestacks and elevated train tracks. Tokyo is a city as dense and layered as I had ever seen. As our subway car weaved through the in-penetrable underbrush of über, urban sprawl, characters of the kanji, katakana and hiragana alphabets slashed up the bright omnipresent sinage. Only the desirable English logotypes that topped the signs provided me calm.

Our scout was a bold, young JETRO Interpreter. (Kiki was ironically also the nickname of my sheltered Mormon paramour back in SLC.) This Kiki was dressed in a school bus yellow business suit, her long black hair bounced along as we approached the Shinjuku station.

Along with three other Japanese trade show workers we were lead by Michael, a twenty-something Floridian ex-pat skater, He lived in Japan where he toured with Holiday on Ice. He had brought over his doting Streisand-molded Mom to the JETRO show to help with a side business; selling surplus Russian army boots to this country of mega-millions.

Those in the know had picked a gritty section of the city renowned for it’s inexpensive convivial style of eateries. These houses of hospitality were aimed at the country’s many ‘salaryman’ offering an equal mix of food and beverage.

Down an alley we went to a dark, smoky tavern. This was the flagship store of what had become a large chain. The original interior was paneled in worn wood. Hand-painted cloth signs gave off a distinct pre-war vibe. Cooks dressed in navy robes and huddled around a large circular grill, cooking skewers of meat.

We cordoned of the largest table in the place and the wild rumpus began. Starting off with the namesake Yakitori, typically chicken, but we had a bunch of American’s so we had better get some beef too. Michael, set on impressing the bevy of young Japanese interpreters promised that he would buy their dinner.

Malt Beverages have long been a building block of my diet. The Japanese versions were appropriately un-assuming and polished. Like a German camera, the Japanese took foreign brewing knowledge and made it their own. That happened in the 1600s.

Beer in Japan is typically sold in large 22 oz bottles. Asahi and Sapporo were OK, but I had taken a liking to Kirin. I liked it more when presented with a unique custom: In Japan it is considered gauche to pour your own beer – your drinking partner did that. “Kampai!”

The restaurant specialized in small tapas-sized dishes. Our guides were there to educate. In their native tongue they called out the orders. “More chicken skewers, pickled tofu, chicken meatballs and Octopus.”

Octopus. That one was a little tricky for me. Beautiful eggplant color but as rubbery as the models that illustrated the menu of nearly every Japanese restaurant. The grazing had turned to gorging. Dark glass bottles stacked up as the vendors imagined their orders.

The girls continued, naming beef tongue, sashimi, chicken skin and cucumbers. They began to giggle. Michael began to fidget as his eyes rolled back; calculating the bill in his head.

No one was going to get rich that day or the next. Foreign trade began in Japan over 500 years ago. It was a long process. Each and every boot, bead or balm would be analyzed and scrutinized - carefully tested and calculated. Nonetheless another ‘Kampai’ was ordered by a middle-aged backpack salesman from Barstow.

And then Kiki went in for the kill, ordering smoked eel and fried potatoes. Michael was losing it. As this Jewish-American prince pried open his wallet. I thought ‘you had to be the big shot - you’ll never win against these people, don’t even try. They’ve just been doing it too damn long and they work too damn hard.’

I paid my share of the bill and grabbed a stamped stainless steel ashtray and asked the help if I might take it. To this day I’m not sure if I should consider it a spoil or shrapnel.

The others were already out the door. Kiki went her own way, assumedly to meet up with a male companion. The rest of the group got on the train and back to Ikebukuro. We exited the subway station onto streets as gaudy and crowded as Times Square and headed to a coffee shop for something sweet when suddenly a Toyota pick-up appeared.

It slowed down and in stop motion, out of the bed jumped Kiki, her gold suit appearing out of the ether. How did she do that? It was a cosmic dance through the metropolis. Everyone cheered, even Michael.

As she strode ahead down the crowded sidewalk, a group of well dressed young men were walking toward us. In the center was one who was holding a piece of frosted cake. Slowly he looked up.

Without a word, Kiki leaned forward and bit heartily into this neat, trim stranger’s snack.

Time stood still for a moment . . . until the entire group erupted into laughter.

White icing covered Kiki’s smiling lips, but she hadn’t lost face.

The man with the cake smiled.

I smiled.

The journey continued.