Playing with the boys

I work with more men than women these days. Clever men with knowledge, self-assuredness, decisiveness, forgiving forgetfulness, and liberating disregard of unimportant, needling things. But the following words from Franny and Zooey do bring a smile to my face; it is very much like this working with them sometimes:

“..standing around in hatless, smokey little groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated waiting room, talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries”.

Tokyo Impressions

I am in a hole-in-the-ground Thai restaurant in Akasaka. Thai music is playing in the background, the air is somewhat musty, understandably so (we are 2 floors underground) and I just spotted a wispy spider wave its legs above the door frame. My fellow diners are two Japanese guys drinking Singha, and a pair of Americans talking loudly in a corner.

Tokyo has trash - two empty cans of Coke in a park flowerbed. People do not walk as quickly as Hong Kongers. It is very clean here. The fizzy drinks are amazing. Women do not like to show their toes and thighs. People do not speak English, although they may understand it. Caucasians are more reserved here than I’ve seen them anywhere else.

I don’t know what I was expecting. But I appreciate Japan most for its acceptance of quiet. Silent mode equals manner mode. It’s okay to not talk, or want to talk. There is no need to project through words. No one minds. The relief is like a deflating balloon in your skull. One gets to know another slowly, acknowledging that layers are not to be discovered all at once. This is nice.