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PIECES OF PAPER
Yotsuya Station, Tokyo
I’m a child of the digital age, able to process megabytes of information as they scroll
by. My eyes are like dual monitors. Life is moving fast, and I’m flowing with it.
I was moving fast right then. I rushed up the steps of the Tokyo metro station, weaving
through the thick of the crowd. My navigational instincts told me that if I could get outside, if I can just see
sky, I’d be able to figure out where I was. But my instincts sucked.
A couple years back, I’d discovered a knack for navigating digital infrastructures and
solving problems—that’s why I was here. I was more of an idiot savant than a true programmer. In the real world of
cities and streets, I was lost. Lost.
Out on the sidewalk, the roar of cars and people overwhelmed me. I flipped open my copy
of Lonely Planet: Tokyo and huddled beside the stairway while a rush of foot traffic stormed by. The glossy map at
the center of the book told me the hotel was close. I stabbed the red dot I’d drawn there with my finger and looked
up, then looked down again, turning the map sideways. Nothing looked right.
I started walking with purpose even though I wasn’t sure where I was going. The
metropolises of the world steamrolled you if you didn’t walk with purpose. The tea ceremony at the New Otani Hotel
was scheduled for two in the afternoon on Saturdays for the price of 800 yen. My cell read 1:54.
The hotel was a forty-story hard-to-miss megalith. I missed it, walked obliviously by
and had to double back. The glass doors at the front opened automatically as I stuffed the Lonely Planet into my
shoulder bag.
The concierge spoke English in a clean, precise tone. “Welcome to the New Otani. How
can I help you?”
Darn it, how did they always know? I wasn’t Japanese, but I was Asian and looked it.
Yet no one ever mistook me for a traveler from Hong Kong or Korea. Even before I said a word, they knew I was
American.
I brushed the hair from my eyes. “I’m here for the tea ceremony?”
“Second floor.”
He gestured toward the elevators with an outstretched arm, looking crisp in his black
suit. I was sweating in my sneakers. Maybe it was the shoes that gave me away.
I checked my phone again in the elevator. 2:15.
At the end of the corridor, a sign on the tea room door reminded visitors to be
respectfully quiet in observance of the ceremony. I stared at the sign and wondered if I should knock. Ten or
fifteen minutes wasn’t a big deal in Los Angeles, between traffic and everyone being drunk on sunshine. Here, those
fifteen minutes made me feel like an offensive tourist.
A woman in a purple kimono opened the door. Her hair was done up in an elaborate knot.
“Tea ceremony?” she asked.
Yes, I was unavoidably, unmistakably American.
I made an apologetic face. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
She beckoned me in and instructed me to remove my shoes. As I tugged at the laces,
feeling more out of place with each moment, I noticed there was another person kneeling on the tatami mats at the
other end. He was the first Caucasian I had seen in days. I shot him an apologetic look, but he simply waited
patiently with his hands resting on his knees.
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