Haircut Haiku

I thought of this while I sat, wrapt in anxiety, getting my hair cut at a local shop by a man working with all the precision of a lawnmower. I didn't have much time to think about it though, as haircuts are guaranteed in 10 minutes.

crew cuts, coiffes, cueballs,
salary men here abound,
vacuums on their heads.

Ueno Park

Ueno is a part of east Tokyo who's main attraction is the park - a change of pace from the exuberant consumerism that teems in much of Tokyo. The park is bespeckled with peaceful shrines and several museums, as well as camera-toting tourists such as myself.

This is the Saigo Takamori statue at the south entrance of the park, depicting a samurai warrior out for a leisurely stroll with his companion; proof positive that you can take your toy-sized dog for a walk while retaining your masculinity. Granted, having katana in tow makes for swift retaliation against insinuations of sissy-ness.

One cannot help but feel awash with peace and tranquility, if not misty perspiration, walking through this trove of spirituality and greenery. The smell of incense burning would normally bring to mind awkward memories of my freshman year at NYU (where its use was primarily to deodorize the room of the stench of beer-soaked carpeting and sex-soaked sheets, regrettably neither of which I can claim responsibility for), but in this place it is soothing and invites me to turn off my iPod and take in the scene.

Like the courtesy shower at a public pool, Shinto shrines are equipped with a small fountain outside meant for cleansing the spirit before entering. Unlike the courtesy shower, most people who know what it's for actually use it.

In addition to prayers, one can hang hopes, well-wishes and the like, outside on what strikes me as something akin to a spiritual inbox. I'd like to think these are all wishes for world peace, the end of suffering, or universal happiness, but clearly even spirits receive their fair share of spam. I briefly entertain the notion of posting my wish to find a box or two of dental floss (curiously absent in Tokyo), but think better of the idea.

Maybe I'm completely off the mark, but wasn't this type of vermilion gating the inspiration for the similarly colored eyesores put up in Central Park last year? I walk through half expecting to emerge in Columbus Circle, where I am sure I can obtain dental floss to my heart's desire.

A brief aside about floss. I was watching the World Cup with a Japanese friend when I decided to rid my teeth of an annoying fractal of the night's dinner. The look of confusion I got after I fashioned a few minty inches was indescribable. Forehead wrinkles deepened and eyes widened as I demonstrated its proper use. I found this incredibly surprising. First, for a country with an oral hygiene reputation that rivals the Brits, Japanese actually brush a lot. In fact, post-lunch brushing is a favorite activity in the hospital. Cleaning in general is something I've noticed is taken very seriously here; even the homeless do laundry. Second, I guess I just never expected flossing to be a culture-specific activity. Then again, naked public baths never made it across to America in any significant way.

Surrounded by so much history and culture, my camera begins to feel like a heavy chain of modernity around my shoulder, and a sure sign that I don't belong anywhere inside the temples. I decide against my usual choice of vanilla, opting instead for a green tea ice cream cone, instantly assured of my credibility.

Meditation is highly underrated, especially when it comes to religion. For all the time I spent at church, I didn't do much thinking about anything of great importance. During prayers, I would be thinking about what was being served for lunch. During sermons, I would be thinking about how to spend my lazy Sunday before The Simpsons and The X-Files. The one time I had to read the offering scripture, all I could think about was how embarassing it would be if I walked up to the podium with a full-on stiffy, and whether or not I could slyly hide it behind the Bible (not that anything at all about church was a sexual turn on, but I have a narcoleptic-like tendancy to fall asleep during dull oration, often waking up to find I have been visited by the morning wood fairy).

That being said, meditation is something I can wrap my head around. Instead of someone telling me what to think, or reading something from a book and being told to contemplate why it's right and how it relates to my life, I can just sit, quietly ponder, and draw my own conclusions. About life. The world. People. Happiness. Righteousness. Morality. And ironically, though with eyes closed, I'm far from sleepy.

Elevator Etiquette

As I left the hospital today, I came to the profound realization that the process of riding the elevator at the hospital displays beautifully the streamlined efficiency of Japanese culture; I could hear bells go off in my head when, having pressed the "door close" button, the doors instantly closed. Being someone with an annoying proclivity for perspiration, I almost always take the elevator when going up. I contest any accusations of laziness with the fact that I will happily take the stairs down when it saves me time, even when I'm up on the 17th floor.

Back to buttons, if you've ever cared to notice, most American elevators seem to have a built-in timer preventing hurried riders from selfishly closing the door on everyone else. I know this because I always press the close button frantically and impatiently as soon as I get in (assuming it's empty), even if a fellow passenger is a few moments away; no, especially if he is a few moments away. Time waits for no man, so why my ride up? Should they manage to slip past the closing doors in T1000-like fashion, I simply motion apologetically towards the "door open" button, as though my good intentions had somehow been thwarted by faulty wiring.

But here in the land with an airtight social contract, there is no need for the politeness delay. So far, every time I've entered the elevator, the first person in instinctively stands in front of the buttons, holding firm the open button and politely asking his or her compatriots their destination floor as they enter. Only after everyone is inside is the close button pressed, honor preserved, harmony intact. There is even a sign outside the elevator bay depicting a stick man rushing into a closing elevator, with a giant X across it. In America we also have helpful signs of etiquette, although usually they indicate "no shirt, no shoes, no service;" or, occaisionally, that dog poop is not to be left on the sidewalk. The differences in the standards of politeness are truly amazing. Already I've learned how to say "sorry," "thank you," and "excuse me," in more ways and in more situations than I imagined possible. Even for someone as naturally apologetic as I am (I often apologize for taking up too much space, or for awkward silence, both of which are of course absurd and beget more awkward silence), I have yet to firmly grasp the nuances of these social graces.

And so it stands, a microcosm of Japanese culture, riding peacefully up from the 1st to 2nd floor, without even a whisper of annoyance.

Akihabara, Huzzah!

Akihabara, the old electronics neighborhood located appropriately on the eastern side of Tokyo (east is older, west is new and poppin'), is pretty much what I thought all of Tokyo would be like based on stories from friends and media stereotypes back in high school: lots of flashing lights, enough used electronic parts to easily build a Nintendo from scratch, and video porn. Thankfully, I was wrong about Tokyo, and the video porn; it's all on DVD now.




The shear variety and number of gadgets, parts, video games, and computers is mind numbing. I can say with near certainty that if the A-Team were let loose in Akihabara, they might end up starting World War III. And win. Invite MacGyver, and you've got a recipe for the apocalypse.

One thing there is a severe shortage of here are guys who play sports that don't include time-attack Super Mario (see above), or taiko drum DDR (see below). One of the breast surgery fellows I've been scrubbing in with described the guys in Akihabara as "manure." While this may not be a fair generalization, I should offer that this fellow was formerly chief resident of digestive surgery, which gives him about as much manure identifying authority as a person can have; quite literaly, this is a man who knows his shit.

Akihabara is also devoid of humans of the female persuasion, at least in free-willed flesh form. I happened across these lovely ladies in a figurine shop, perched between shelves of Dragonball Z characters and Star Wars spacecraft:

Truly these are figures of action. Who needs kung-fu-gripping GI Joe when you've got eagerly-fellating Sailor Moon? I resisted the urge to purchase one (for novelty sake, I swear), but then finally caved in thinking I could somehow justify having it as a conversation starter, or objet art, or another equally high brow excuse to have a masturbating nurse sprawled on my desk. Somewhere in my closet at home, I'm sure, Optimus Prime's hormone circuitry is being overloaded with the possibility of losing his virginity protocol.

Meetings Suck

So far this week in the inpatient ward of the breast center has been zero fun. Rounds are no fun. Rounds in the palliative care ward are especially not fun. The cases are interesting, for sure, but I think I would go insane or clinically depressed if I had to work there everyday. There is no room for sarcasm or complaining amidst such mortal gravity, two things that daily sustain my sanity. The remaining splinter of faith I have in (a) God has been darkened today.

Surgery on the other hand has been great fun. The choice of operating music here ranges from classical, to classical, to a random oldies American Bandstand-type mix tape. Scrubbing in is like getting past the velvet rope into the hottest club in the OR, the sterile field. Finally, an impregnable wall of personal space! I like to wash three times, even though none of the attendings do; once to clean, twice for luck, and three times because the sponge feels so good.

Speaking of clean, my floor is currently littered with bits of egg shells. The Japanese diet, while delicious, is minimally portioned. I've resorted to supplementing meals, snacks, and afternoon coffee with hard boiled eggs.

Random Retrospective

Let me begin by apologizing for the cheap-shot title of this blog, and also disclose that I am hopping on the summer-blog-bandwagon mostly as a way to share pictures and purge my brain of thoughts which otherwise would fall on politely nodding, but probably uninterested Japanese. For anyone who has never been to Japan, I challenge you to spend some time here before you let stereotypes bias your opinion of Japanese people. The culture has fueled an impressive rate of development and innovation, and superficially it appears very similar to our own mega-city, New York; similarities in spite of two different cultural philosophies. The term analogous evolution creeps to mind. And apparently, though a $5,000 trip to Tokyo would make for a decent slice on the Wheel-of-Fortune, it was surprisingly unpopular among Columbia medical students. How is it that only 5 people applied for this?

Three weeks ago I arrived in Tsukiji, a quiet little nook in southeastern Tokyo home to the Tsukiji Fishmarket and St. Luke's International Hospital, where I spend most of the day. The market opens at 4 am, and is apparently quite a site. I will update with pictures once I am able to get my ass out of bed that early. Oh yea, and there's a Denny's.

Besides sushi and surgery, Tsukiji isn't exactly a huge tourist draw. Luckily, Tokyo is connected by one of the best subway systems in the world, at least according to me. Which is to say it's better than New York or London. Everything is calculated to the minute - what time the next two trains will be arriving, how long it takes to get to your stop; you can even plan your tomorrow according to the train schedule, saving valuable minutes to stop and buy a porno and iced coffee for the 13 minute ride. I love it here already.

So far I've taken the subway to most of the "must-see" places in Tokyo: Shinjuku, Harajuku, Asakusa, Odieba, Ginza, Roppongi, Ebisu, Shibuya; though there is certainly much more to be seen (posts to come soon). Walking around Tokyo can be daunting at times, although probably very similar to what it's like to be illiterate. Oh yeah, and deaf. Still, spending two weeks in Leiden and Amsterdam wandering around like I was deaf and stupid was good spatial map training. What does get annoying is the constant jingling of coins in my bag and/or pocket, a pile which seems to grow exponentially despite my attempts to use exact change and vending machines as often as possible. I still haven't figured out the function of the 1 Yen coin, which is worth nearly .01 cents and seems to be accepted no where. When four coins can buy you a feast of a meal (or cafeteria food for almost a week), maybe it's time to rethink the currency situation. Then again, you can also do some damage with a couple of British pounds in your pocket; is the rest of the world this keen on coins? Maybe we can add change to the list of things that we like to ignore in America: like national healthcare, or the metric system.

Last week I got tickets from the chief of orthopedic surgery to see the Yomiuri Giants play against the Orix Blue Rays at Tokyo Dome. Twice. Enough cannot be said about Japanese hospitality. They take their duties very seriously, and the duty of host is taken especially so. Baseball is another one of those things that looks just like it does in America, but watch it long enough and you'll see it's very different. Stadium food is an obvious first; I'll take grilled octopus, yakitori, katsu, and curry over a Ballpark Frank any day. Next, each player on the home team has a theme song that plays when he's up at bat, driving the crowd nuts. Eminem made it on the soundtrack...for the backup pitcher. Matsui used to play for the Giants before joining the Yankees; his theme song was Godzilla. Oh, and the beer guys? You know, the sloppy joes who scream "ice-cold beer here!" but end up sounding like "ASS ko bee, HEIA?" Not to be found at Tokyo Dome. Instead, each team employs a harem of cute, but tiny beer girls to dispense the refreshments. These poor girls!

They must weigh less than a hundred pounds, and yet they carry a keg full of beer up and down the stadium. Exhausted as they must be, they manage to cry cheerfully, "Beeru ika desu ka!?" (roughly translated as "how about a beer?"). I'll remember them next time I feel like bitching about carrying around my textbooks and laptop.

Back to the game. Each team is owned by a company, and they are identified as such more so than by home city. One of the strangest moments of the night: a former Giants star who had since been traded to the opposing Blue Rays stepped up to the plate, cheered on magnanimously by adoring...Giants fans? If Jeter had left for the Mets or Red Sox, he would probably feel a little anxious about coming back to Yankee stadium. I think. I'm actually not a huge baseball fan to begin with. Is it Red Socks or Sox?

So far I've written this post about 3 times, my laptop becoming decidedly senile and unremitting in its old age. Future updates will be short and frequent.