On the second evening I was invited to a Tokyo neighborhood called Tsukishima (“Moon Island”!). New and different sensory delights awaited me at a sake bar. It was the kind of bar where you stand at a long chest-high table, and you order the fruity or the dry. The bottle is cerulean blue. It appears huge, bigger than a wine bottle or a whisky bottle, yet also perfectly proportioned. Adding to the exquisiteness is the bottle’s ample label, with its stylish calligraphy.
My friends explained that nobody pours their own sake. You can ask somebody else to pour you some, or somebody else can offer to top you up, or you can do the honors for others (pour until it overflows into the saucer), but it’s rude to just reach out and help yourself.
We tried the fruity. Now I was intrigued. Nothing for it but to move on to the dry. But first… to decipher its brand name. One friend is second-generation Japanese American; the other, Hong Kong Chinese. They both grew up halfheartedly learning kanji characters and now wish they had studied harder. Sometimes his memory of what he learned at Saturday school in New York doesn't match the meaning here in Tokyo. Likewise, there’s a big gap between her Hong Kong teacher’s translations and her Japanese teacher’s. Thus it was fun to listen as they tried to puzzle out signs and menus. He translated the name of the dry as "Green House." She had it as "Eight Fairies." Neither sounded right to me. We asked the waiters but their English wasn’t good enough to break the impasse.
I realize that it's commonplace to discuss Japan's uniqueness. And I admit to arriving on my first-ever visit there in hyper-touristic mode, with all senses tuned to detect the distinctive. Yet I challenge newcomers to feel any other way. An endlessly examinable place!
