Is there any point in adding my voice to the chorus of praise for “Lost in Translation? No? Whose blog is this, anyway? I loved that movie for so many reasons, but it was especially poignant for me having lived in Tokyo, oh god, 17 years ago. I was a DJ and program director for an English-language cable radio station called FM Banana, naturally “our weak FM signal was on 87.7, which can be pronounced in Japanese, in a kind of cutesy-poo way they use for this kind of thing, as “ba-na-na”. I also hosted a very small TV show on a very large cable network, Tokyu “sic” Cable Television, which was in its infancy. “They considered putting my face on a t-shirt to give to subscribers, but that idea died a quick death.”
Watching Bill Murray trying to work with a director who speaks no English cracked me up, because I did that. Our director, Menju-san, began his career working as a ticket collector for the massive Tokyu zaibatsu “they own a subway line and an entire suburb, among many other things”, but they made him a TV director because he had a master’s degree in urban planning. Of course. He didn’t speak much English, but he always knew when I had screwed up and would politely ask for another take. It was one of the strangest and most enjoyable times of my life, despite the fact that I was forced into a Santa Claus suit on three “3” separate occasions: once to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with a grammar school choir backing me up. Menju-san told me I would be doing that about ten minutes before we started shooting. I have it on tape, and if you’re nice to me, I won’t make you watch it.
Considering the size of Tokyo, I was amazed at how much I recognized in the movie. When Charlotte makes her first foray out of the hotel, she gets off the train at Omotesando, which was my stop for work. When she and Bob have their awkward lunch, it’s supposedly in Daikanyama, the neighborhood where I lived with my parents. But for me, the most evocative moments of the film are the insomnia sequences, with both characters lying awake in that peculiarly-Tokyo pre-dawn light, a siren wailing in the distance. I remember that so well, and it reminds me of walking out of a basement nightclub I frequented called Cleo Palazzi, leaving at 6:00 a.m. once the trains had started running again. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more dissolute.
I know that the phenomenon of Engrish “we called it Janglish” is pretty well covered on the web, but here are my favorites. Somewhere in the house I have containers of all of these products:
a sports drink called Pocari Sweat
a non-dairy creamer called Creap, for “creamy powder
a beer called Penguin’s Bar
a yogurt drink called Pokka White Sour, with the legend “Its sweet taste of sour yogurt will extend on your tongue softly, and be a sweetheart”
I also have an ashtray from a gift shop near Mt. Fuji that features two penguins on water skis. It says, “Let’s Attack Water Skiing!
There is a pro baseball team called the Nippon Ham Fighters.
My train ride to see my now ex-wife, The Mighty Frith, passed an apartment building with a sign reading “My City Home” That’s not funny until you know that the Japanese have a hard time with “ci and pronounce it as “shi” Hearing someone talk about a Honda City was always fun, too. “And the photo above might be a little more amusing now.” Nissan had a domestic model called the Langley “named after CIA headquarters?” and another called the Laurel “which came out “ro-re-ru” and I wondered why they inflicted that on themselves.
It got to the point where the Janglish had to be really good to even warrant a mention. As a newcomer I roared at a t-shirt that said, “Let’s Jogging With Me” and the line of Basic James Rabbit consumer goods “featuring a bunny in a waistcoat looking at his pocket watch and saying, “She should be along here now”, but after a few months those barely elicited a snicker. For one thing, it was a constant bombardment. My father’s morning walk used to take him past the Aoyama Health Club, which had a plaque out front proclaiming, “Where Young Men and Women Meet to Exchange Sweat: Since 1983”
Dang. Now I miss Tokyo. And being 20. I don’t miss Pokka White Sour, though.
