Out of our depth by Aneil Fatania
Out of Our Depth in the Neon Sea
By Aneil Fatania
Tokyo has a reputation. A glittering neon sea that hides a fantastically unhinged and idiosyncratic private bar culture. A few years ago four friends and I were keen to discover just how far out this culture really was. After all, the daytime mannered politesse of the Japanese didn’t seem to be hiding much vice.
After several days trawling bars in downtown Shibuya without luck, we decided to cast the net a bit wider, and look for something even further outside the typical tourist areas. We had noticed over the course of our ramblings that many of the high rises were advertising private bars. We could only assume they were bars, as all the signs were written in Japanese, and we could only assume they were private as no tourists seemed to be going in or out. Rather than be discouraged we were convinced that these places “must house the real Japanese experience!”
We were to be proved terrifyingly correct.
Trying to get into private bars without speaking a work of Japanese isn’t the easiest of tasks; the first three places wouldn’t even let us in, but that only fuelled our conviction that these must be brilliantly idiosyncratic hotspots.
We decided to try one more. On the second floor of a hidden alleyway high rise, we stumbled into Hero, a tiny one-room bar populated exclusively by a small group of drunken businessmen singing karaoke. So far so clichéd, but behind the bar was a charismatic 6 foot tall post-op transvestite accompanied by a demure Japanese young woman. Not exactly what we had in mind, but we would certainly get a glimpse of something of the beaten track.
The businessmen froze as we entered, then after a few seconds carried on singing as if nothing had happened. The owner of the bar, a 50 something dolled up Japanese matriarch, immediately tried to kick us out. But fighting our corner was the charismatic bar tender, who persuaded her to let us stay for one drink.
We timidly sat at the bar drinking, trying to adjust to the confusing mix of the joyous karaoke, boisterous trani and suspicious owner. With a little encouragement from the bar tender and the alcohol we decided to step up and grace the locals with a song. We nervously chose “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen, not sure if the crowd would be familiar with it.
Mercifully, we were greeted with rapturous applause and an invitation to stay and even a free drink or two. We spent the rest of the night trading karaoke songs with the group of businessmen and (as we later found out) their mistresses. Eventually things started to wind down (signing Radiohead’s Idioteque probably didn’t help) and we decided to head out and discover more of Tokyo.
By the end of the evening, we had learned a lot about Japan, including a few things the tourist board probably wished we hadn’t. Namely that a strict sense of hierarchy, a contempt and suspicion of outsiders masked by politesse, a 1950’s attitude to towards gender equality and eye-opening fun were all lurking beneath the surface of that brilliant neon sea.
If you’re ever in Japan seeking the true Japanese nightlife, take someone who speaks Japanese. You never know where you might end up. Then again, you learn a lot faster diving in the deep end.
Aneil Fatania is a Brussels raised, London based writer specialising in misguided rants on film and other stuff what makes him happy or angry. He is a Contributor and Deputy Editor for palebluenews.co.uk and a freelance journalist and copywriter. He should be stored in a dry place at all times. Find out more: http://www.palebluenews.co.uk/ .