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The Japanese call foreigners 'gaijin', a shortened form of the word 'gaikokujin' which literally means outside country person, where 'gaijin' simply means a more sinister 'outsider'. Ofcourse, like 'Aussie', or 'Brit', it's simply a shortened form of a word without any intended malice, but for most foreigners in Japan, there comes a time when you get tired of being referred to as simply 'foreigner'. Even coupled with the honorific ‘san’, ‘Mr Foreigner’ still sounds ridiculous. The fact is though, that the average Japanese knows so little about foreign people, that 'outsider' is an apt description.

However, whereas in other countries foreign people are often outcast, or rather ignored by the rest of society for no reason better than lack of interest, foreigners in Japan are welcomed with open arms, with Japanese being so curious and eager to interact with someone who for one, looks so different to them, and for another, is entirely different in thought-set and culture. Whilst the big cities have seen an enormous rise in foreigners in the past few years, move further to the countryside and foreigners are elevated to something of celebrity status, or perhaps more accurately, a curio. I remember being chased down the street when I was 16 in by Japanese children yelling "giant" (I was 6ft), and when Sarah and Catherine came to visit a few years back, Japanese girls were fascinated by their hair colour (purple rinse).

So anyway, the purpose of this post was just to show some photos of the people who've come and visit over my 5 years out here. I really love it when someone comes to Tokyo, as I get asked so many questions about the things I've come to view as normal, and it makes me remember what I was like when I first came out here, and everything was so alien to me, and reminds me of how much I love the place when everyone goes home full of praise about Japan and its people.

Cyrus and Chris, aka Bloos, (since we decided that with his shaved head, he looked slightly like Bruce Willis, so tried to pass him off at a fireworks festival as Bruce Willis’ son), were the first to come and visit. I was still at the student dormitory out in the sticks, so got them to stay at a backpackers’ hostel near to me. They experienced first hand the Japanese attitude to rule and procedure, with a friendly but military talk-down by the head of the dormitory about the various complications of bed linen changes.

They actually came out at the best time of year, in the summer, and probably the hottest summer I’ve experienced in Japan. At aforementioned fireworks display, we were mopping up our sweat with towels, and being herded along the street with the masses in true Japanese order and precision, so that everyone could get a view of the fireworks from the bridge. More stories on Japanese fireworks here.

Only the Japanese would think of a system whereby every person in a crowd of over a million can see the fireworks from the best location by creating an enormous, constantly moving queue threading through the town.

Next to visit were Jim and Ali. By this time, I’d moved to Kichijoji, still a good distance out from the action, but nonetheless, it meant that at least they could share some of my 24m² floor space (considered a big room by Japanese standards!) I can’t remember the month, but since there wasn’t that much going on, we did all the sights and even managed to get up ridiculously early to see the fish market in Tsukiji. The tuna are absolutely enormous, going for a couple of grand a piece, and the whole warehouse has its floor lined with frozen carcasses numbered and spread out neatly, all a bit eery like a giant fish graveyard.

Jim aka the most worried traveller in the world™, dragged me back to a burger shop to explain to the cashier that he’d given Jim too much change, and thus would be spoiling Jim’s karma for the rest of his trip. It probably sounds unnecessary just for a couple of quid, but being in Japan and being treated so well and so honestly everywhere you go generally makes people act more honest. You get the people over for a couple of weeks holiday on nights out in Roppongi full of bravado and expecting to have to fight if they spill someone’s pint, but generally for people having lived out here for a while, it really pacifies you, and you change to suit your surroundings. It’s like if you visited a really clean and tidy house, you’d never take a dump on the coffee table (unless you were really desperate). Speaking of which, that thing that looks like a pile of vomit on a coffee table is actually ‘okonomiyaki’, a pan-fried cabbage-batter-pile-of-vomit, which tastes a hell of a lot better than it looks and sounds.

Next up, Adrian, Sare, Catherine and the Helmet. Tristan came out a couple of days earlier than the rest, and was able to come out for an opening night of a bar in Roppongi. I thought it’d be a good idea to ‘borrow’ a bottle of Vodka from the bar, which we shared out with everyone, then went to fill up with water in the toilet to return it unnoticed. However, this turned to Tris and I taking it in turns on the dancefloor to down it infront of everyone cheering in Japanese “those crazy gaijin bastards are downing a bottle of Vodka!!” More on Tris' visit to Tokyo here.

When Adrian, Sare and Catherine joined, I was able to take some time off work and go traveling with them to Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone and Izu.

They visited 6 months after my tv drama had been broadcast, so we had some comedy experiences being treated like royalty on Mt Takao (where the drama had been filmed) and being accosted by kids in Osaka.

 

Straight off the plane, I dragged them out to celebrate my birthday, and they lasted well, crooning Guns n’ Roses at karaoke till the first train. For more photos see the gallery and for some more stories, here.

Then, more recently Adam came over with Natacha. Here’s a picture of Adam and me at Skool Disco in London in 2002, with Wallace trying to get in on the action with his enormous nostrils. This being the same night Mr Wallace decided to roll around the floor with his tackle out, until the security guard shone a torch on it for the whole club to see it wriggling around to the beat.

Seasoned backpacker Plowright was confusing me with lists of partially discovered, uninhabited ghost islands that he wanted to visit, so only spent a few days in the capital, until venturing further out to far-flung places I’d only heard existed by legend. I helped out with the reservations since the hostel people could hardly speak standard Japanese let alone English, but apparently one of the staff managed to blurt out a “Mr Adam! Bleakfast is Leady!” every morning at 7am on the tannoy.

Plowright, ever perverse, seemed to be fascinated with the Japanese sleeping at every possible occasion, on trains, in the streets, in their own beds... Mostly ofcourse due to alcohol, but the average Japanese salary man works so many hours that he’s famous for being able to sleep standing up in the morning commute, and it’s not unusual to see one passed out on the platform in the evening, still clutching his briefcase in one hand and using his pile of vomit as a pillow, but you can bet he won’t be a minute late for next morning’s sales meeting. These people are like robots. Drinking with colleagues after work is an integral part of the business ethic in Japan, and people turn a blind eye to drunks especially if they’re wearing suits - in Japan, if you are drunk, everything is excused as drinking is seen as a essential part of society. Here’s a photo of a drunk we found in Ginza once (the one at the front of the queue), and a schoolkid practicing for later life.

Then finally, last month, the arrival of Motormouth Harvey™, ready to entertain me with 350 hours of unedited verbal diarrhea. One thing in his favour though, the man knows his sushi! Apparently it’s pretty big in London, and trust him to have learnt the Japanese names for every crude oil stained variety washed up on Skegness shores. He made his way to Kyoto and stayed at one of the more exclusive ryokans (Japanese inns), and chose to splash out on the luxury menu, which included about 5 courses of something called pike conger, and managed to get his geisha hostess legless on saké. Here’s a photo of her at the end of the night.

Ben and I managed to have a couple of absolutely comedy nights out in the capital. The above photo is from a party near Shibuya, and the bloke is a Japanese judo champion who was telling us he could drink beer like water, and seeing as his back was as wide as Ben was tall, we needed no further evidence. Towards the end of the night, we decided to tell a random bird that Ben was infact the England football captain, John Terry. As you can see, the resemblance is uncanny.

Well, maybe not, but in a dark club it’s not a million miles off, and considering she likened me to Beckham...

Her boyfriend turned out not only to be the biggest football fan in the world, but also a veritable authority on the life and times of John Telly. Luckily, Harvey managed to answer all his questions convincingly, and had him frothing at the mouth at the excitement of meeting his all time hero, in a grimy club in Tokyo. If only there was a football behind the bar - I could have gathered a crowd in seconds with the DJ’s mic to watch as Two Left Feet Harvey™ smashed the disco ball and Champagne fountain with his Coca-Cola superskills. Here’s a photo of John Telly’s number one fan. You don’t need to be told where his thumb’s just been.

The previous night had seen a mate of mine renting out a small bar for us to use, and a gathering of 20 or so Japanese people. Ben soon got tired of trying to converse in English sentences borrowed from Billy Blue Hat, and took to seeing himself away at the self-service bar, before announcing to the room that he was about to create a “real English Martini”. I looked on in horror as he mixed 16 parts alcohol to 1 part ice, and did the Harvey samba with a cocktail shaker while his audience were mumbling under their breath something about Martini’s never being shaken and not normally having 8 different alcoholic ingredients. The creation made Shell Super Unleaded look like shandy, and after causing a couple of blokes to wretch at the mere smell of if, bartender Harvey downed a glass of it before retiring to slur Jennifer Yellow Hat to himself in a corner. Even though Ben was only in Tokyo for a couple of nights, my mates still refer to him as that “crazy bastard who makes disgusting cocktails”.

There’s that t-shirt again (see PIMPED!)
During the day, we made it to Akihabara and one of the famous Maid Cafes, which really aren’t that amazing, and are totally unentertaining if you can’t understand the ridiculous Japanese they use on the customers, pretending they are servants to their masters and doing cat impressions etc. It was far more fun out on the street trying to get a photo of them - they’re not allowed to have their photos taken outside the restaurants in which they work, and kept turning around whenever Ben got his camera out (keeping it in his trouser pocket wasn’t a good idea to begin with). To get this shot, I went round the other side and pretended to take a photo, and Ben managed to pap them on the other side when they swung around, much to their maid chagrin.

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