The other night, I ventured into Shibuya with a group of friends to celebrate someone's 20th birthday. If you have seen "Lost in Translation," you have seen Shibuya. If you haven't, imagine a place with the size and intensity of ten Times Squares.
For a society that is, admittedly, largely homogenous, I may as well have been in New York or San Francisco or Paris. Lost in translation? Hardly. Just walking through the tree-lined and neon-signed avenues, I spotted a Boylston Bar, a London Hub Pub, and a Jamaican souvenir store. As our group made its way into the French restaurant, La Fabrique, I wondered, why the overwhelming obsession with so many different cultures?
Yes, American cities are crawling with restaurants and stores and bars that feature various ethnic themes, but we're the melting pot of the world and so it doesn't seem so unusual to me. In my own neighborhood in New York, I know a Japanese-American family that owns a restaurant, several Italian-American families that own their own food businesses, and an Israeli-American man that sells books only in Middle Eastern languages that he imports every few months.
But the majority of these Japanese establishments are not owned and operated by French-Japanese, Caribbean-Japanese, English-Japanese, etc, but by the native Japanese themselves. It seems that Tokyo sells foreign and international goods at a better rate than a Honda dealer in the States. There is such an attraction - almost desperation - for something other than "Japan" around here, yet, subtle nuances of Japan are never quite erased from the scene. The results are often fascinating.
Despite its attempt to sell itself as "Straight Out Of Paris Heart [sic]," La Fabrique was a whirlwind of culture shock. The menu screamed "Italian!," the d?©cor said "Art Deco!," and the English-speaking wait staff dressed in rather traditional Japanese formal wear. In fact, the only things remotely French about the place were the snippets of French poetry on the walls. My friends and I wondered, why the decision to appear authentically Parisian? Even with its contradictory menu and interior design, what about Paris and France is so much more inviting to Japanese clientele?
Intrigued, I approached our waiter and asked why this was labeled as a French restaurant when there wasn't a single item of French cuisine offered. He laughed and explained to me that, "The Japanese just love and adore France." The aura of French elegance and style is apparently something the Japanese have been capitalizing on for years. My Japanese friend Rie told me that French is one of the most popular languages to learn among college students and business people in Japan, despite the fact that it is also one of the most difficult languages for them because of the pronunciations.
Indeed, it's rare to walk a few blocks around Tokyo without stumbling across a panya, or bakery, which is almost always saturated with the red, white, and blue stripes of the French flag. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Christian Dior all trump any other international designers here. After Japanese and English, French may be the next most frequent language seen on the streets.
After faux-French dinner, our group proceeded to another themed bar and restaurant whose popularity is really quite interesting to me: Rastafarian. This was the third Rastafarian establishment that I had been to in three weeks, and by no means were my friends and I specifically searching for them. The name of the place was "Abyssinia," and its logo was a green, yellow, and red striped map of Africa.
At this point, if someone tried to tell me I was indeed in Tokyo, I would have laughed. If it weren't for the Japanese couple with dreadlocks and Sean John garb at the table next to us, I could have forgotten where I was for the next hour.
The owners of Abyssinia are an Ethiopian couple who heard of a steadily growing African movement in Japan about five years ago. Equipped with enough money to buy a place smack-dab in the center of Shibuya and an eager audience of young Japanese adults into hip-hop and Rastafarian studies, Abyssinia was born. The owners speak a decent amount of Japanese, primarily thanks to people they've met in Tokyo, but there is also a large amount of English around the place, as it is the language they are more comfortable with.
Bob Marley, The Toots, and Stevie Wonder blared from the sound system. The menu was mostly Ethiopian food. Green, yellow, and red were everywhere you turned and the tablecloth was a homemade creation that featured information on various east African traditions and culture aspects. My friend Shota explained that it all stems from a large interest in hip-hop and reggae music here. From the musician's backgrounds to their lyrics to the rasta wristbands they wear, the young Japanese don't want to miss out on anything.
The night ended on a similar note as we were all transported back to the United States at a hip-hop dance club. Not a single non-American hip-hop song was played. My friends and I knew every single song, every single word, every single artist. The amazing thing was, so did the throngs of Japanese people around us. After I was blown away by a group of Japanese girls rapping along with Eminem, Shota shouted over the music to me, "You know, it is a fun and easy way to learn English, man!"
It made me wonder what cities in the States would be like if they were modeled after Tokyo. What if our restaurants were all in foreign languages and the majority of our nightclubs chose to only play foreign music? If I learned anything from my Shibuya experience, it was that the title of "melting pot of the world" can be interpreted in so many ways and can be found where you least expect it. Like a Japanese guy with dreadlocks.
