The biggest club in Kyoto is called World. It hosts a slew of famous DJs every month and has a handful of house DJs that return every week. Amongst the sea of unfamiliar names, a particular night caught my eye. The smugly titled "Girly" occurs every Wednesday! Women get in free (whereas men pay a whopping ¥2500) and the music is stereotyped more or less in favor of their gender. They play a lot of Rihanna, Lady GaGa, Taio Cruz, Jason DeRulo, LMFAO, and various "Latin" club jams. Well this sounded just dandy to me, seeing as there was a ¥1000 off foreigner discount, and surely no man would pay close to $33 on a Wednesday night for a club. It would be a haven for cute bubbly Japanese girls, no doubt. But I digress.
I entered the classroom sweating profusely, and sat down for 3 1/2 hours of Japanese. Rode the subway home, left the bike at school, got my homework done, then came back to downtown. I was feeling pretty accomplished by this point in the evening, and it was Wednesday. Hit a bar with a few members of my Chinese posse from school (pictures soon), and around 12:30AM (having spent about $20 on a very small buzz) set out for World.
Now, why did I come here? Immediately I realized that World was exactly like any other club on the face of the planet. It was noisy, stuffy, there were drunk people, and there were dudes being douche pickles. In fact, easily more men than women in the crowd. We're talking like a 3:1. But of course! The program being named Girly, everyone had the same thinking I did. Shit. I'm not slick.
I explored the club, more of a series of catacombs than anything. The space could pack a lot of people into it, but overall it wasn't very big. It would be a choice venue if I actually saw a performance of some kind there. Call me ADD, but spinning music is just not something to behold. Nevertheless, the crowd on the dancefloor was fixated on the stage like shit was happening. Shit was, in a sense. Five or six girls stood in front of the DJ, dancing the way a lot of Japanese people tend to dance, kind of jumping up and down and also twisting side to side, with hand motions at appropriate times. (Lots of popular Japanese club jams have key phrases synchronized hand motions that really pump up the place with energy. Kind of like a toned-down Macarena.) It really is almost anti-glamorous, and certainly anti-sexy. Two large signs hung around them: "on stage, girls only". A blatant ploy for spectacle. Why not just get it out and make it "cute girls only" or something. The girls were, of course, relishing the attention.
There was also a "girls only" seating section, which I was relieved to see. From the amount of bombardment females faced in the club, I was happy that they had a safe haven. Nevertheless something irked me about having this be necessary. Then, on second thought, it would seem even more necessary in the US, but it would NEVER happen. Japanese society is, above all, oh so highly systematic in addressing many problems. The main problem is lack of space, and the myriad of social and psychological discrepancies associated with.
For instance: "Please do not grope the school girls while on the subway. They'll kick your ass." Unfortunately, girls face a lot of harassment, most visible when up in the club. In fact I think just about everyone may face harassment at a Japanese club.At one point, I was swarmed by three youths who incessantly touched me in a "friendly" manner, and put their arms around me yelling "Eyyyy eyyyy!" and dancing frantically. At first I thought they were just wasted so I went along with it. Then it got a little old and they were still sticking their hands in my face, even though I showed visible annoyance. Rather than try and communicate verbally I moved to another part of the dancefloor. Problem beyond solved. They completely left me alone for the rest of the night. I'm not comparing my seriously half-assed "assault" to sexual assault. I'm just saying that when people get drunk, they do dumb things, sometimes really dumb things.
Anyway, I got a lot of positive attention on the dancefloor as well. While everyone was bouncing around and hand-flapping (can't really call it fist-pumping, because it wasn't a very pump-like motion, and their hands weren't in fists), I was moving in slow motion and generally dancing a lot more rhythmically than everyone else. I was conscious of a lot of eyes being on me, and I was approached by men three separate times in a kind of "Yeah breh you be KILLIN' it!" kind of interaction. It mostly consisted of enthusiastic hand-flaps in my direction. One guy got really excited and almost made it to the level of Slam, but it was still too bouncy. Everything associated with youth culture here is so freaking bouncy. During one of my breaks, I realized that everyone was quite content doing exactly what everyone else was doing. This was the youth culture of assimilation, and embedded in the culture was the programming that every Japanese would hold more or less true to for the rest of their lives. In youth culture, one fits in through dress, hair, makeup, dancing, listening to the same pop stars etc. I was advised by a trusted source to name bands that were common when asked what music I liked, rather than bands that no one in Japan would know. As I watched people dance, I realized what my instructor in the fine art of finessing Japanese people was getting at. Bond over commonality first, express opinion and singularity second. Oh, how will I navigate this one... Oh, to feel chronically unique in a place that values sameness... But simply put, the sameness is shallow in a lot of cases. Once people get to know you a little, you can express how completely weird you are. They won't even be surprised. But not yet... Not yet...
Notice: girls on stage, dudes with hand-flapping action facing stage, motherfucker wearing a Raiders hat, didn't notice that until just now.
I did a jello shot, which in Japan is a jello sphere of vodka surrounded by club soda (fucking ingenious) to Eiffel 65, then danced until about 4:30AM.Rode my bike home, past the river, past the vending machines, past the curious dead thing, past the three 7/11s en route, past the man who looked like he was giving himself directions, past the umpteenth pedestrian ramp just slightly raised above the street, high enough so it would yield a significant bump. Stopped at Sukiya for my second bowl of raw egg and donburi over green onions and rice, stopped at Lawson's ¥100 Store for some bacon and crappy juice, got home and collapsed around 5:30AM.
Next day, I felt fine, though still sore. One can easily spend $50 on alcohol in Japan without getting a hangover, or $2 and face severe headcrush. Ate a breakfast of fried yam slices and bacon over rice, and headed off to school. Suddenly, in the Fushimi station (local subway station) I had a terrible urge to shit. But I didn't have time, because if I missed this train I would be late for school. OK NVM this is one of the two times I can be late. Rushed downstairs. Here's where it gets graphic. Afterward, there was blood. Enough blood, I thought, to warrant concern. "OMG" I thought, "I have Crohn's disease I knew it! OMG I have internal hemorrhaging from riding my bike too much. OMG OMG OMG I'm going to have to leave Japan NO!" Needless to say by the time I got to school I felt like death and was going into shock. And I was late. For the rest of the day, I was really convinced I was going to have to go back to SF to die.
So what is the moral of this story, dear reader?
It turns out that I most likely just have internal hemorrhoids, probably from the severe change in diet, or maybe from straining too hard. Maybe that's the lesson. Party as hard as you can, just don't poop too hard.
Um... lesson learned...?
Hang in there poop brother. There may be no blood in mine, but it ain't no crystal stair, either.
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