The smallest of talks

Go have a drink, see what happens

Those of you who know me well know that I’m not the type of person that naturally starts and leads conversations, and this has not changed a bit. I think I’m getting a little better at it, but I’m still an introvert at heart. Add the language barrier to that, and my ability to have any meaningful conversations is very close to zero, without being technically zero.

The language is still a blocker, but I’m glad I can say a few words and ask some basic questions. It might only last a very short time before we switch to english, but people really seem to appreciate that I’m at least trying. I’ve also tried to return the favor whenever I could, to the people who were brave (or drunk) enough to tell me the few words they knew in english, french, or even german.

“AF7890” is the title of a post I have in my drafts. It refers to a 2h30 flight between Seoul and Tokyo that doesn’t exist anymore. I was supposed to sit in one of these on March 12th, 2020, but for reasons we all know, this never happened.

I ended up telling this story to the employee of the coffee place where I had breakfast a couple of weeks ago. I told him how eager I was to visit Japan, and how the journey I’m on right now is just a trip that was delayed for about three years.

He opened up and told me he was only supposed to be in Uno temporarily, to deal with the paperwork for the family house he just inherited. The airspace was completely closed a few days before he was supposed to return to the U.S., so he had no other choice than staying here. He ended up finding a job here and living in the house he initially wanted to sell. He’s now trying to convince his family still living in Brooklyn that they should all move back to Japan.

I love to think that there are millions of stories like this one, that I want to listen to.

I can also tell you about another exchange I had at the counter of a small bar in Kyoto, sometime last week. Once this guy understood I was from Berlin, his eyes opened wide and he proceeded to ask me if what he heard was true.

When I asked for clarification, he came up with a ton of questions about the Berlin nightlife, on things as specific as some corners inside the Berghain (I answered “yes, definitely”), the underground floor at Trésor (“not sure, but it sounds like it could be true”), or if I ever attended a Boiler Room (“yes, but I don’t remember much about it”). All these stories were straight out of a fairy tale from him. When I told him he should come to see it with his own eyes, he replied that he doesn’t speak german at all, and that his english wasn’t good enough to travel confidently.

I tried my best to convince him that language will definitely not be a problem for what he wants to do, and the fun he wants to have. I genuinely hope he can overcome this fear and come to Berlin, one day.

It was late at night and I was looking for an open restaurant near my hotel in Nagoya. I ended up in a small izakaya, held by two guys who seemed just old enough to be allowed to drink.

I told them that I was at the football game the day before, and when they got that I was from France, they suddenly seemed very excited. I think they never met someone from France who knows about football. They started to shout the name of every single french national player they knew. I think they got the entire 2018 squad right, almost as if they knew that we prefer not to talk about what happened last winter.

There were two women on my left who just came back from a baseball game, visibly sad that their local team lost on this night. I felt sorry for them, and even more sorry that I didn’t know anything about baseball except for Shohei Otani, just because I’ve seen him on every single television since I landed in Japan. This was just enough to keep the conversation going, and for them to ask me “what else are you planning to do while in Japan?”.

I said I had absolutely no idea, and that I’m not following any set itinerary. Given the general direction I’m heading, they told me the obvious thing to do would be to keep going along the south coast, through Fuji and Yokohama, in order to reach Tokyo very quickly. The other possibility would be to go north, and travel to a less famous part of the country. According to them, tourists don’t usually go further north than Nagoya.

Tsuruga is a tiny harbor city on the north coast. It’s where I’m writing you from.