“Good evening” an older Japanese man said to me in English as he passed, entering the coffee shop I was sitting in front of. I looked up from my computer where I was doing some work and replied, ‘good evening.’ My eyes once again focusing on the screen in front of me I secretly hoped that was the end of the conversation. Too many times I had been taken away from what I was doing by people wanting to ‘speak Engrish.’ A moment later, however, he emerged from the shop and sat at the table next to me. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you but…’
‘No, no, not at all,’ I smiled back continuing to type away at my project. A moment later, ‘Do you come here often?’ Without looking up from my computer, ‘sometimes, I usually rotate around to different cafes, you?’
And so an exchange between us began. It wasn’t very steady, every couple of minutes a question, an answer, but pretty soon I wasn’t able to concentrate any more and decided to take him up on an actual conversation. A few of the things he had said caught my attention.
‘Thirty-eight years in the US? That’s pretty long.’ ‘Well, I worked with National Geographic, not the magazine but the TV show, and I found myself hacking through quite a few jungles, not very safe.’
‘An antique shop that doesn’t actually sell antiques, what exactly do you do?’ ‘Well, I’m retired and I have a few other businesses that give me a good income, I just bought a house in Shiga prefecture for my son, one of the old traditional style ones that needed to be fixed up.’
“Richard Gere, how the heck do you know him? And Mark Hammond?’ ‘Mark Hammond belonged to the gym I went to and a friend introduced me to him because the guy was looking for someone who cooked Japanese food, the rest, well, one just leads to another. Hollywood is pretty connected.’
‘So you were buying plane tickets from the Chinese mafia, but you didn’t find that out until the FBI came knocking at your office in Hong Kong, and selling them at a huge profit?’ ‘Yeah, it was great. Had to stop once the FBI came. Nowadays it’s just not possible with the market…’
If half the stuff this guy was saying was true, wow. He looked down at his watch, 8pm, ‘better go home and get some sleep. Here’s my business card, next time your around here stop by my shop and we’ll have some coffee or go out to eat.’
‘Where exactly is your shop?’ I asked looking at the card. If mailmen find it challenging to find an address in Japan my search was sure to be hopeless.
‘It’s right down the street, follow me.’ I stood to follow, eyeing my computer wondering if I should take it with me. ‘Don’t worry, it will be fine.’
It really was just down the street, about a minute to be exact. He opened the door to a small dimly lit shop hid between to larger brightly lit buildings. The floor was concrete and smelt slightly of old house. Old looking shoji (rice paper screen on wood frames) stood around.
He pointed to the large one of tigers on the left, ‘That one is a couple of hundred years old. Worth maybe $30 – 40,000 depending on the buyer.’ Pointing the one in front, ‘That’s silk, maybe two or three hundred hears old, interesting?’ Finally to the right, ‘That one was in a museum for a while, featured in a magazine, it’s over four hundred years old. Look at the gold paint, you can’t fake that age. The gold paint on the other shoji is only two hundred or so years old.
Any older is really hard to find.’
He took me further back into the shop into the living area. I noticed an ancient looking wooden person carrier (from the Meiji era or earlier) sitting to the side in much better condition than those I had seen in museums. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said opening the small door to reveal some Tupperware bowls and old rages, ‘I sometimes put flowers in there when it’s on display but it used to be for carrying people around.’
At this point my jaw was irretrievably on the floor but after a few more ancient shoji I noticed he was getting tired and I was starting to worry about my computer so I took my leave promising to get in contact again for some more coffee soon.
All that from a simple ‘good evening.’ If I hadn’t humored him and had instead gone back to work I would have missed out on seeing those beautiful works of art, making a new friend and hearing all those crazy stories. All those times we say inside our head, ‘oh no, not again,’ could actually be opportunities for things we can’t even imagine.
Oh, and my computer was still there when I went back to the café.
Only in Japan.
Hey…I’m beginning to enjoy browsing your blogs. It gives me a little insight into your off-beat life and experiences. We’re good. Hope you are too.
Thanks for letting me know. Life here can be pretty interesting sometimes.