March Madness time! It’s time for Excerpt Monday. For those of you who are new to it, check out the details on the blog: Excerpt Monday. All are welcome, published and unpublished.
Of course I also double booked myself. I’m over at Unusual Historicals blogging about The Art of Chinese Calligraphy. I should have consulted Cindy Pon whose the brush painting artist — but instead I did some research and found some really intriguing information about it that’s actually quite useful for my manuscripts. Come see if you have time (it goes live after 5am) : Arts and Music: Chinese Calligraphy
This month is part four of my chance encounter story in Tokyo
By the time we reached Akasaka station, Scott popped the question. “So when are you leaving?”
“I go back to Seoul tomorrow night.”
We had slowed our steps and pedestrians flowed by on either side of us, all dark-haired and golden skinned. I could blend in and look exactly like one of them. Then again, I couldn’t.
“Any plans?” he asked.
“Well there was the tea ceremony.”
We both chuckled at that.
“Nothing big. I just like to look around.” I shrugged. “I heard the Tokyo fish market is a must see.”
I had a once in a lifetime chance to visit Tokyo and my big plans were to sleep in a capsule and visit the fish market. Thankfully, Scott didn’t laugh at me. He shifted the backpack over his shoulder and looked thoughtful. His short brown hair fell carelessly over his forehead. I liked that. I still do.
“If you want, we can meet here tomorrow morning and take the train,” he offered.
Then he paused. That pause told me things. There was a slight catch in his breath as he waited for my answer. My heart started pounding.
It wasn’t a date. It was too easy to be a date. We both played it out that way. We agreed to meet at nine and then he disappeared up the escalators into the station. Casual. Friendly.
I wasn’t expecting to meet up with Kent and Mari-san for another several hours and it was too early to check in, so I wandered around looking inside shop windows. With Scott gone, I was enclosed in a bubble of silence. I knew about ten phrases in Korean. In Japanese, that number was more like three. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the chit-chat until small talk became impossible.
That was the hardest thing about this consulting job. The people in the office spoke enough English, but every single exchange was hard work. After hours and on weekends, I was left on my own. I had to translate prices in my head, carefully work out each question and listen carefully for answers where only every third word made sense.
Most of the time I didn’t mind being lost and wandering. It made me appreciate what my family must have gone through when they had first come to the U.S. My grandmother was a tiny little bird who only knew about five words in English, but she’d go anywhere and do anything. She was fearless. I decided to take the train to Shibuya Crossing. I could be fearless too.
I emerged from the station beneath the glow of three massive digital screens. There is a phrase my mother uses: As bright as the day. The neon glare of Shibuya was as bright as the day. I became nothing but an anonymous speck, caught in an onslaught of people coming from all directions. If I didn’t move, I’d be trampled underfoot. So the tide dragged me forward while the lights flashed overhead. This was Times Square multipled by ten.
I had this nagging feeling that I should be doing something to make the most of this experience, but I had no idea of where to go or what to do. In the end, I didn’t go into a single store on Shibuya Avenue. I let the crowd carry me while I absorbed its energy, taking in every sign, storefront and restaurant. There were so many images and everything was in startling colors; red, yellow, electric blue. Billboards and icons and moving lights shouted at me. Maybe this was what advertisers had to do to get anyone’s attention in such a densely packed metropolis.
I floated along feeling cosmopolitan for being here and, at the same time, completely clueless. The details fail me. All I remember was the crowd and the lights. I remember feeling as if I had somehow been transported into Blade Runner. I stood there, with the heart of Tokyo beating around me, and it was like nothing else in the world.
This is a crowded weekend with the lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day today and Mardi Gras on Tuesday.
And of course it’s also Excerpt Monday time for February! For those of you who are new to it, check out the details on the blog: Excerpt Monday. All are welcome, published and unpublished. (more…)
This EM tried to sneak up on me, but I caught it. Ha! Excerpt Monday was started by authors Bria Quinlan and Alexia Reed. Unpublished and published authors post excerpts every month. They’ve added many new features such as holiday free reads and new releases too. Check it out on the blog: Excerpt Monday
This month is a continuation of the opening I posted last month. The working title of it is, “My Thoughts Return to Shinjuku”. Perhaps as it unfolds a little more, a little muse might suggest a better title?
The funny thing about re-reading part one — There is no elevator as our protagonist goes to the tea room. But I remember…oops, I mean…I imagined this elevator scene so vividly that the tea room simply must be on the second or third floor. I’ll have to fix that in edits. And the fact that the protagonist’s name sounds familiar is purely coincidental…
From last month:
But I was already late. And the formalness of the woman’s kimono and the meticulous room made me feel all the more gaijin. I hurried across the stones in my socks and knelt down onto the mat. The guy next to me was, like me, wearing jeans. 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 for the tea ceremony to continue. Read Part One
Part Two:
The hostess returned to the front of the room in tiny steps, the looped knot of her obi swaying back and forth behind her. The muted lantern light cast a reverent glow. A tray had been set with a kettle and bowls as well as other implements. She served us each a bubble-shaped purple jelly on a paper doily.
“Traditional Japanese sweet,” she explained.
And then the polyphonic tones of Beethoven’s Fifth cut into the proceedings. I sliced into the bubble with a toothpick-like utensil while she pattered to the back room to grab her cell phone. Thank goodness it wasn’t mine.
“Moshi-moshi.” She spoke in hushed tones in the back room while we ate.
The coconut-flavored jelly slid cool down my throat. I took my time picking at it as there was nothing else to do while we waited. The hostess was still talking on the phone when I finished, so I folded the paper carefully in my hands and glanced over at my jean-clad counterpart. He shifted on the mat, but otherwise remained respectfully still. He had light brown hair, short and unstyled. His jaw was slightly square and the look of him invoked an immediate sense of familiarity. I darted my gaze away before he could return it.
I remember how I stood in a subway train a month ago and realized, ‘Hey, I’m not shorter than everyone here’. This was the first time in my life I was surrounded by people who looked like me; Asian faces on every street, in every restaurant — and not just the wait staff. Why should that feel like a Twilight Zone moment? Like that woman who wakes up from the operating table and is mortified when she sees her own face.
The Japanese woman returned to take us through the rest of the ritual: the respectful bowing, the whisking of the powder and water into a froth. I held the tea bowl in both hands and drank deep. True green tea tastes like boiled grass. The stuff they sell in the States is usually a doctored version.
The phone only rang once more before the ceremony was completed. We paid the hostess for our cultural experience and she zipped the yen notes into a small silk purse.
Out in the lighted hallway, I could see my tea companion more clearly. His eyes were the same color as his hair, brown and common. He had that everyman boyish face that you saw many times over in the US. Only here in Tokyo could he achieve any sort of distinctiveness. The backpack slung over his shoulder made me think he might be a graduate student.
“That was interesting,” he remarked.
“Yes, it was.”
The stiff formality of the tea room remained with us as we walked to the elevator. Once inside, we grew even more quiet as we stared up at the lighted numbers, counting each ding down. The top of my head barely reached his shoulder.
“The cell tone added a real authentic touch,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “Especially when it rang the second time.”
“And I felt like such an ugly American for being late!”
We laughed together in the close space, poking fun at how we had come expecting a rich and somber ritual.
“I’m Scott.”
“Jeannie,” I replied, and we passed into the second phase of casual meetings.
———————
This month’s links:
Don’t forget to come back on the first Monday of February for New Release Monday. See what’s coming out and enter to win a free basket of New Releases.
It’s that time again! I just couldn’t stay away from Excerpt Monday. I’m switching gears a little and posting the beginning of contemporary short story that I’ve been working on off and on. I had to remove all the posts for excerpts that may have been contracted or will be on submission soon, but I figured it will be a LONG time before I try to publish a contemporary or a women’s fiction piece.
This story is based on a short visit I made to Tokyo while working abroad. Enjoy!
About Excerpt Monday:
Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.
Excerpt:
Yotsuya Station, Tokyo
I rushed up the steps of the subway station, weaving through the thick of the crowd as politely as I could. There were multiple exits up to street level and my navigational instincts told me that if I could get outside, if I could just see sky, I’d be able to figure out where I was. But my instincts sucked and they didn’t seem to improve no matter how many new cities I went to.
Out on the sidewalk, the city buzz of cars and pedestrians took over and I cracked open my copy of Lonely Planet: Tokyo a moment before realizing that I had to step aside from the oncoming rush of people. I made myself as small as possible beside the stairs and stared at the glossy map at the center of the book. When I found my location, I stabbed the dot with a finger and looked up, searched for street signs, looked down again, and turned the map sideways.
The tea ceremony at the New Otani hotel was scheduled for 2pm on Saturdays for the price of 800 yen. My cell phone read 1:54. I started walking fast even though I wasn’t sure where I was going. Being five or ten minutes late wasn’t a big deal in Los Angeles time with traffic and crowds and everyone drunk on sunshine, but here it seemed outright disrespectful.
It turned out the hotel was close. Hard to miss too, being a forty-story complex of polished steel surrounded by Japanese gardens. Somehow, I did miss it and had to double back. I stuffed the Lonely Planet into my bag as I approached the glass doors.
“Welcome to the New Otani. How can I help you?” The concierge spoke English in the overly precise tone that came from study.
Darn it, how did they always know? I wasn’t Japanese, but I was Asian and looked it. No one ever mistook me for a traveler from Hong Kong or Korea. Even before I said a word, they somehow knew I was American.
I had to brush my hair from my eyes. “I’m here for the tea ceremony?”
He nodded once and gestured with an outstretched arm, looking crisp in his black suit. I was sweating in my sneakers. Maybe it was the sneakers that gave me away.
At the end of the corridor, a sign on the tea room door reminded visitors to be respectfully quiet in observance of the ceremony. By now my phone read 2:15. I stood staring at the sign, deciding if I should knock. As I reached for the handle tentatively, a woman in a purple kimono opened the door. Her hair was done up in an elaborate knot.
“Tea ceremony?” she asked in carefully pronounced English.
Yes, 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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I emerged from the station beneath the glow of three massive digital screens. There is a phrase my mother uses: As bright as the day. The neon glare of Shibuya was as bright as the day. I became nothing but an anonymous speck, caught in an onslaught of people coming from all directions. If I didn’t move, I’d be trampled underfoot. So the tide dragged me forward while the lights flashed overhead. This was Times Square multipled by ten.
