Hokkaido Highway Blues

he chewed whatever up and spat it out, and not in a shy way. Rodney Dangerfield should tour Japan. I have no doubt he would become a star among salarymen as he tugged on the ubiquitous, symbolic necktie. I get no respect! No respect.
    When their compatriot sat down, another man got up to sing a spirited version of, what else, “Diana.”
    “ ‘I so young and you so old/Zis my darling, I been told.’ ”
    “He wrote that for his babysitter,” I said to the man nearest me. The man turned and, seeing me in the seat beside him, jerked his head back in shock. The only thing he could think to say—the only sound he could think to make—was a long, breathy “Waaaaa!”
    Soon the entire table had noticed me and they welcomed me into their fold, insisting I sit beside their section chief who, I quickly surmised, was top dog, so I made a point of chatting to him excessively and, when he used a few words of English, I complimented him to high heaven on being such an internationally minded chap. That was all it took. Free beer and food.
    Of course, I had to sing for my supper, as is the custom. But crooning your way through “Love Me Tender” is a small price indeed for all the cold Sapporo and free snails you can eat.
    My presence signaled a shift of topics. From interoffice jealousies and who was incompetent and who was not (as always, the ones who were hopelessly incompetent were also the ones, by strange coincidence, who were not present), they began to discuss violence in America. This is one of the all-time favorite topics in Japan.
    The section chief was a frowny-faced man, bald, with a tight toupee. He kept plying me with beer, and then whiskey water, while the conversation took a familiar turn.
    A few years ago, a young Japanese exchange student had been shot and killed in the U.S. because he went to the wrong house. An American homeowner, seeing the boy prowling around his yard, came out brandishing a gun and yelling “Freeze!“ The Japanese boy, apparently thinking the man in the shadows had yelled “Please!” took a step forward, and received a bullet through the heart. It was a shot heard round the world. The killing made front-page headlines in Japan—at about the same time that another killing took place: a Filipina hostess, held captive by her Japanese employers, was beaten to death. A Japanese doctor dismissed it as an accident, and no one was ever charged or convicted. But the first-degree murder of a Filipina lady, and the massive coverup that followed, were relegated to the back pages in Japan, while the death of a young Japanese boy—dead because of a tragic misunderstanding—prompted rallies, angry protests, and a public plea by the boy’s parents. Rarely had Japanese hypocrisy been more blatant.
    My circle of Akita businessmen was also concerned, in a pornographic sort of way, with violence in America. They all had their pet theories about the matter, several of which were real eyebrow raisers. In wit and insight, this group was not quite on a par with the Algonquin Round Table. One man declared that the problem was that all white people were racist—a statement that was so ludicrously self-contradictory I didn’t know how to respond. Whites were racist against blacks, but Japanese were not. Why? And here I quote, for it was such a memorable statement: because “our skins are slightly darker, so we can understand both white people and black people.”
    Another man immediately chimed in: “That’s why blacks in America always riot at night. It makes them harder to see. It’s very clever, don’t you think?”
    In the middle of witty repartee such as this, two more men arrived, and from their wobbly stance and unfocused gaze it was easy to see that they were already halfway looped. There were more introductions. A clammy face, a leer, a drunken flabby handshake. He was the Senior Vice Supervisor and he introduced me with hushed humility to the Vice Senior Supervisor, who clearly trumped everyone else at the table, and the seats were rearranged appropriately, with me sandwiched between the two men. “I have heard so much about you,“ said the Vice Senior Supervisor enigmatically. “Please keep up the good work.”
    I assured him I would and we shook hands with great sincerity. Drinks kept arriving as if on a conveyor belt, and soon the room began to sway.
    I was trying to steer talk toward Akita bijin, but none of the men were interested. “It’s a myth,” said one. Another