Tokyo Junkie - Robert Whiting

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      Some historians called the build-up in Tokyo before the Games “The greatest urban transformation in history.”

      “I like the smell of freshly dried asphalt,” he exclaimed, “It means progress.”

      Dr. Sato was my student, actually. He was a plastic surgeon who wanted a private English tutor. He had placed an advertisement on the bulletin board at Sophia University, a Jesuit institution in Yotsuya, central Tokyo, where I had started taking evening courses, and I had answered it. We met for the first time at his clinic in the West Ginza one evening after he was finishing up for the day, and after a brief interview I became his teacher. Just like that. You could do things like that in those days as there were a limited number of native speakers of English in the city—only a few thousand American civilians including businessmen, diplomats, judo students, intelligence agents, Mormons preaching the word of Joseph Smith, and ex-Occupationaires who had stayed on to seek their fortune—and countless Japanese wanted people they could practice speaking with, especially with the Olympics coming up.

      Like other Americans in the capital, I found I could be sitting quietly in a kissaten or bar and someone would approach me asking, “May I speak English with you?” I even had people come up to me on train station platforms and ask me to correct their English pronunciation. I could stand on a street corner looking lost and in no time someone would walk up to me and ask, “May I help you?”

      Most Japanese had some exposure to English, which was taught from middle school on. Missing from the curriculum built around grammar and translation, however, were conversation skills. Private English conversation schools proliferated to fill the gap. There were in fact more schools than there were teachers to staff them, with the result that ten-year-old American students at private schools in the city were also taking part-time work as English “teachers” to Japanese adults.

      Dr. Sato was in his late forties, a slight, impeccably tailored man with slicked-back hair, who smoked Rothmann’s cigarettes and carried a gold Dunhill lighter. Most of the patients in his plastic surgery practice were women, he explained, in rather good English, nightclub hostesses in the area who wanted their eyes un-slanted, their noses un-flattened, and their breasts and hips augmented in the belief that this would enhance their professional appeal.

      “I want you to know that I like Americans,” he said. “I remember how kind they were during the aftermath of the war. They handed out free food and candy for Japanese kids. They were a lot nicer than the Japanese militarists ever were. Imperial soldiers were arrogant. They’d hit you just for looking at them the wrong way. I’m not saying I’m glad Japan lost the war, but the problem with Japanese is that they don’t know how to be equal. They either kiss your feet or sit on your face. They can learn from American democracy. I want to improve my English-speaking ability because I want to meet as many Americans as I can during the upcoming Olympics.”

      He said that he wanted to meet for a “conversation lesson” once a week, on a Friday or Saturday evening, for an hour at his clinic, followed by dinner somewhere, and then proceed to a club. His treat. On top of that he would pay me ¥10,000 a pop. All I would have to do was talk to him and correct his English.

      One time he invited me to an establishment down the street from his clinic to show me the results of his labors. Le Rat Mort (The Dead Rat) was an intimate Ginza nightclub that, the doctor explained, was the most exclusive and most expensive of its kind in the entire city. (Some cynics speculated that the strange name was the result of a misrendering of L’Amour—“L” being indistinguishable from “R” in Japanese. Otherwise, why a dead rat should come to symbolize dedication to elegance and pulchritude remains an unexplained mystery.)

      Indeed, the place looked like something conjured up in a 1950s MGM movie musical, featuring a marble floor inlaid with mother of pearl, deep leather sofas, Picasso paintings on the walls, and gold lighters and ashtrays. Le Rat Mort, said the doctor, had the most impeccably mannered and attentive women in the city. Its owner had imposed certain ironclad rules for his charges to obey to ensure that this was so, and they went something like this: Always report for work perfectly groomed and wearing a brand-new dress. Always smile. Always flatter. Always be interested in what a client has to say. Never, ever forget a returning customer’s name, his favorite drink, or his favorite song (which the piano player was expected to tinkle out immediately upon the client’s entry into and exit from the club). Never let a customer’s cigarette go unlit or his glass remain unfilled. Never forget the old Ginza adage: “The ideal woman is dumb on the outside but clever underneath.”

      In return for the perfection he demanded, Le Rat Mort’s owner paid his hostesses the highest salaries of any such establishment in Japan.

      I was blown away by it all—once again a crazy trip through the Looking Glass, when all I had done was answer an ad for an English tutor. It was certainly a different level than I was used to operating on. Sumo stars, rich plastic surgeons, gorgeous hostesses. What the heck was going on?

      The doctor, married with a wife and three young children, explained to me that the girls were not the sort you took home on short acquaintance. To the regulars at Le Rat Mort, the club was not a vulgar “dump” like, say, the Mikado with its twelve-hundred hostesses, where it was so easy to sleep with the girls on the first night. There, all you needed was money, although, admittedly, a lot of it was required. Le Rat Mort customers wanted the psychological chase and conquest that their club offered, one in which numerous visits were required to develop a relationship, which was not merely paid-for lust but nearly indistinguishable from true love. Sato himself had a mistress there, he said, adding that he’d even introduced the mistress to his wife, who had given her approval of the relationship because it freed her from the burdensome duties of the marriage bed and allowed her to concentrate on raising the kids. “Welcome to Japan,” the doctor said with a hearty laugh.

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