Whilst reading Tom Wolfe's "Las Vegas" I couldn't get over the similarities between the author's interpretation of the city and my own experiences of Kabukicho, Tokyo.
I'm lucky enough to have spent six months living and working in Japan and suffice to say it left a lasting impression on me. Wolfe's text re-ignited my senses and brought back to the surface the intense feelings experienced the first few times I walked through the Japanese streets.
Literally meaning 'theatre district', Kabukicho emerged in the late 40s following a boom in post-war rebuilding. Chinese businesses were quick to buy and develop the land, with one of the first buildings being a cabaret. Now it is an entertainments centre home to hundreds of hostess bars, arcades, nightclubs and shops and is often called "sleepless town".
Kabukicho is an assault on the senses. The narrow streets are closely packed, buildings nine or ten stories high are literally draped and hanging with lights. There's neon, flashing, pulsating, flickering. Signs beckoning you to sing some karaoke, eat some yakitori, see a show. Advertisements for 'soap' entice the old business men through shimmery curtains and down into the belly of the streets to gawp at the furry-genitals of Korean working girls. Outside the love hotels bubbling fluorescent fish tanks mesmerise office girls, whilst their baby-faced lovers check out a glowing photograph of the pay-by-the-hour suites within. Then there's the noise - a constant din of shouts from bars, giggles of micro-skirted girls and excited shrieks from the arcades; where teenage boys spend all their pocket money reaching number one on the 'dance dance revolution' leader board. Cigarette smoke drifts from the pachinko parlours creating a blue haze filled with the shrill ringing of the gambling machines and the incessant tinker of metal beads falling into the winners' troughs. In the back-rooms of these mirrored parlours the Yakuza and Triads count their yen and down sinister labyrinth alleys hunched-up men sip sake in silence like a scene out of Blade Runner.
Kabukicho gets under the skin, I can't help but love it - probably as much as Paul loves Vegas.
Kabukicho sounds like a place worth going. better get my camera ready!
ReplyDelete