So here's how it went down:
I'm on a Delta Song flight from JFK to SFO. The plane is mostly packed. I'm towards the rear. Although it's around dinner time, the lights are dimmed, and most of the passengers are asleep.
"Do you have to be unhappy to create great art?"
I thought for a moment. "I wouldn't think so. Why should being happy or unhappy matter if you're a great artist?"
"Okay," Jimmy continued. "Name someone who's been happy and created a great piece of art. Music, writing, painting, whatever."
"What's up with this fascination for Japanese girls in maid outfits?" Kim asked.
Masako laughed. "In the maid cafes, the girls will treat you like a king. The Japanese businessmen love them. When you go inside, the girls will say, 'Welcome home, Master' in Japanese, then dote on you the entire time you're there."
"Do they do, um, anything else?" I wondered.
"NO Mike. Get your mind out of the gutter."
"Is it strange having her live with you guys?"
Ray shook his head. "We have a small guest room. Much bigger than what other families give to their domestic helpers."
I scratched my chin. "A friend told me that sometimes all they're given is a plank on a washing machine to sleep on."
It caught Jimmy's eye immediately. "Hey, let's stop in this shop."
"Sure," I answered.
The sign out front read "Antique Music Instruments" in a bold Art Nouveau typeface. I was surprised to see it in English. Most of the other Prague shop signs were in Czech, naturally. We walked in.
She wouldn't stop apologizing. "I am so sorry for this noise. I talked to the workmen in the building to please not begin their work until after 8:00 AM." Her English, touched by a Hungarian accent, was flawless. Still, she had apologized for her English as well.
"Hey look, there's a Mozart symphony playing tomorrow."
Jimmy followed my gaze over to the poster. "Mozart symphony, huh? That would be cool. That's a very Vienna thing to do."
I nodded. "It's not too far away from our hostel either."
There were fish guts on my pants. But I didn't mind. Just watching the fishermen slice up those large tuna was worth smelling like one.
It was 6:30am. Kim and I were wandering around the Tsukiji Fish Market. Japanese fishermen rushed about their work without a care for gawking gaijin like us.
Except for that one lady who started screaming at us in Japanese. She sounded angry, though she could have been telling us about a painful bunion on her foot, for all we knew.
I stepped out of the Airport Express and into an ant colony. Only they weren't ants, they were Japanese commuters. And it wasn't an ant colony, it was Shinjuku station.
But if you were to look at us from ten stories above, we'd probably look like a teeming mass of ants. What would seem like aimless rushing would really be targeted traveling at high speeds.
I'm convinced that somewhere in Shinjuku station is a queen. Why else would so many Japanese commuters be in a mad rush like this, if not to build out their colony and feed their queen?
Every Hong Kong street has walking signals. Just like any big city. Unlike New York City though, the pedestrians wait until the signal is green to cross.
This I didn't expect. I thought Hong Kong would be more like New York City — and that pedestrians wouldn't wait for no stupid signal and just walk whenever they wanted to.
Weekly random rambles, musings & writings of Mike Lee in San Francisco, CA