Sep
23
Through the Night
Filed Under Newspost
Happiness Joy!
Tuesday was a national holiday because of the autumnal equinox. That is the premise. The consequence is that we decided to go clubbing in Kyoto. In fact, it had already been decided two weeks earlier at Travis’ birthday party so I had no possibility but to comply. The interesting thing about going clubbing here is that it has to take all night. There are no clubs in Hirakata, so the closest options available are downtown Osaka and Kyoto. The last trains leave at around midnight so in order to get properly wasted and conquer the dance floor, the only option is to party until sunrise and take one of the first trains back home. That is not my idea, it’s common practice here.
Anyhow, we went to Kyoto at around 11 pm, took a few group photos at the station, the last of which with a random walking-by salaryman and his wife, before heading to Sam & Dave’s, a local nightclub that is apparently the place to go in Osaka. After having heard a lot of excited comments about nomihôdai clubs that cost around ¥4000 a night I was a bit disappointed in the price range of S&D’s. I have to admit, though, that the night was very enjoyable and the total expenses did not rise to unexpected heights as I hadn’t expected. The previous sentence makes perfect sense. Shut up.
The club closed at 5 am (take that Finland!) and we slowly wandered back to the station to catch the first train home. I got the feeling that each and every one of us was sleeping during the whole ride, but I’m an unreliable witness for I had already pass… fallen asleep myself by that point. I made it back home just before the Seminar house gates opened at around 7 and went to sleep soon thereafter. The whole night, including pre-party Real Gold and train tickets cost something around ¥8000 (no, you lazy asses, I won’t convert the currency into euro, or anything else for that matter), which is my budget for 4 days.
Gaijin Smash
For the sake of cultural knowledge and also for future reference, I will now explain the concept of gaijin smash. Loosely, it could be described as any circumstance that is affected positively or negatively based mainly on the fact that one of the parties involved is a gaijin. I am against the idea that a gaijin smash should always be intentional or produce a negative reaction on the Japanese side. Several such descriptions can be found here. Gaijin smashes happen relatively often, be it on purpose or not, but they can also be used heavily to one’s advantage in certain situations.
A relatively harmless gaijin smash occurred this week when we went to buy speakers with Henrik late in the night at a local electronics store. We had already bought everything and were wandering around the store aimlessly and looking for other would-be-useful electronics to buy. What we did not realize was that a) there was nobody else left in the store because b) it had been closed for 10 minutes and c) the whole place was already locked from the inside. Instead of informing us in any way, the store personnel just let us wander around trying to avoid us, while one person was constantly waiting at the exit in order to open the door and help us get out when we would finally decide to leave. This was not common Japanese courtesy. They were using their perfectly calibrated gaijin-dar to see where we are and avoid disrupting our chain of thought so they would not be forced into a communication situation. Had we been Japanese it would not have gone that smoothly.
-Antti