I’m getting used to drunk Japanese girls.

I’m at Captain Jerk, a Japanese-owned Jamaican restaurant and a cute girl named Ai is rubbing my hand. I’m chomping down on a particularly spicy Jerk chicken tortilla. She’s peppering me with questions. All in Japanese.
“Where are you from?”
“You are cool!”
“Why did you learn Japanese?”
“You are Jamaican. REALLY?”
“You are a designer? ”
“Do you drink tequila?”

 
She had a round, attractive face and long brown hair that fell below her shoulder blades. She went outside. Another girl came in. She had the same hairstyle as Ai, but had a slimmer face. She was Naoe. “Are you going to this event?” she said, pointing at a poster on the wall. It was filled with Japanese faces I didn’t recognize, but it was some kind of Reggae event.
“We are performing there next month.” She said.  I ooked on the date, it   said July 27th.
“Wow that’s far away, ” I told her.
“Come!” she squealed. “We are doing African dance!”

 
Her small body was bristling with energy. We chatted a little more then she and Ai disappeared. I started a conversation with a DJ who was also a graphic designer. “I made this,” he said,  pointing to a logo on his trucker hat. It looked like the MTV symbol, with different lettering. He told me about a reggae party nearby. I was ready to go because so far, my night was a bust.

 
Earlier, three friends and I had an idea. We would all wear white and call ourselves the white team. We went to a club and quickly my other three friends had girls. I tried chatting to some ladies without success, that’s when I felt like eating jerk chicken, and left.
I was starting to remember more about the party. Gyallis, (the chef at Captain Jerk) had told me about it.

 “You like dagga party?” he had asked me.

“Sure.” I replied with a smile.

Then he had handed me a flyer.

“Many sexy daggering girls will be there.” he had said with a smile.

I stood up to leave, but a group of Japanese men with orange hair tried to get me drunk first. I had only stepped out of the shop for a second.
“Press Obama!” one of them said. He was wearing a blue and red surfer outfit, complete with yellow shorts. I didn’t want to press Obama.
The jerk shop had a tradition. On the window sill, slightly above a display of different beers was a small Obama doll. A red button at the doll’s feet, if pressed, played snippets of his famous speeches. Whoever pressed the button has to buy a tequila shot.
Two of the guys up, the streetlights making their hair look like fire.
“Press, Press, Press.” They kept saying.
I didn’t press the button, but they did, several times. Within minutes I had four shots. Japanese guys can get a little touchy feely when they are drinking, and one of the guys was very forward. He kept trying to hug me, as he laughed and spoke rapidly in Japanese. I could barely understand him. He had a heavy tan, and a funky earring with crosses and little slender silver rods. One of his more sober friends chuckled and pulled him away. The guys were Keiske and Keiske, Shojo and Shinya.

 
I told them ciao and head off with the DJ to the reggae party, which was at a club called G-side. We walked a few blocks away from Captain Jerk to a quiet street. I saw the club. A large sign with a gray-chested gorrila identified it.
I went up three flights of stairs and saw a DJ I met last week Monday. Before I reached the door, a girl was touching my arms and saying “Kakkoi… Kakkoi…” (cool, cool) I  chatted to the people at the door briefly and went inside. I found out the DJ had gotten me in for free.
Inside was small and dark. A small bar connected to a kitchen was directly behind me, and a hallway eight feet wide lead to a set of shadowy stairs up to the dance floor. I said hello to some girls near me and they nearly leapt out of their skin when I told them I was Jamaican. They were both cute; one with sweeping long hair and a sharp set of bangs, the other wearing a stylish straw hat. I can’t remember their names because the girl with the hat bought me six shots of tequila.
Upstairs, a Japanese selector was screaming into a microphone. The music was fast and current dancehall erupted from a pair of huge speakers on a small, slightly elevated stage. There weren’t that many people in the place, but it was mostly girls. I went back downstairs and saw the biggest reggae scenester in Hamamatsu; a guy who called himself Gully. I told him hello. Nearby, I saw a girl by the bar that caught my eye. She had a nice body and a cute outfit. “Your ribbon is cute.” I told her in Japanese. She had a large, sparking silver ribbon in her hair. She smiled shyly and swallowed the rest of her drink. She was very pretty, with a button nose, sensuous lips and permed hair. A hot song started playing through the speakers.
“I love this song!” I exclaimed. “Let’s dance.” I said.
She nodded in that same shy way and went to the dance floor with me. Like most of the girls there she stood quietly, half-stepping to the music. Then the song changed and the girls evolved into full blown Jamaicans.
Her hips took on a life of their own. Everything moved in perfect sync to the reggae beats. I stepped towards her and she bent over. The DJ screamed something, and soon I had her in the air, grinding on a wall nearby.
She wasn’t the only one. Once the music picked up, more of the girls when wild. I danced with all of them. It was an amazing feeling at the party; sexy girls and Jamaican music… in Japan.
A support beam on the dance floor became a temporary seat for me in between the dances. At some point while I was sitting there, a sexually charged song played. It was Bragga’s Dagga Dat. I looked at the girl with the ribbon. She was a few feet away, standing near a wall. I looked at her and nodded. She took a running start and leapt unto me, coiling her legs around my back. I surged with  strength and walk/danced with her everywhere. Occasionally she was suspended only with my hand on the small of her back. This trend continued with other girls in the party.
I was surprised. The Japanese veil of shyness in these girls had disappeared. For a little while, cultural barriers were shattered. Here my culture was king, and my culture demanded that men and women dance together. I horribly exploited this, dancing and grinding until my back ached. I went up and down the dance floor, chit-chatting with people. This was when the girl with the straw hat bought me all those shots. I also realized, I was speaking completely in Japanese.
I came back to the dance floor once, and people were looking up at something. I was under a slightly covered part of the dance floor. I walked over to the support beam and looked up. The girl with the ribbon was on top of one of the large speakers. A DJ, General, was standing behind her in a thin undershirt. He looked at the crowd with lust in his eyes and smirked. Music roared from the black boxes, and he started pounding away, nearly sending her over to certain doom on the cold tiles of the dance floor. I smiled. This was fascinating.
When I left the dance floor this time, someone had opened a door in the hallway. Bright light leaked from outside, illuminating the hallway. Outside shining brightly, was the sun. I didn’t even realize the entire night had passed. I left soon afterwards wiwth a smiley face and girls to call. I strolled home in the quiet of the morning, occasionally getting flashes of the girl with the Ribbon, flying towards me, heels first.

 

I’ve
 held a few titles in my life. Writer, Intern, sometimes traveler… but now I can 
add a new one to the list:

SQUATMASTER.

I worried about using tiny toilets in Japan. Not because of my monstrous size,
 but small toilets are like little divas; they need lots of attention and they 
can snap at any moment. The mechanics of their use can be troublesome. The
 knobs to flush are really tiny, and if the bathroom is equally tiny, good luck
 trying to flush, or reach for the roll of toilet paper directly behind your 
shoulder blades.  I frightened 
myself with these images constantly before I came to Japan, imaging myself 
stuck in a bathroom unable to leave because I wouldn’t be able to grab any 
tissue. As time passed I realized I wouldn’t have to deal with this issue,
 because almost everywhere I went, there were no toilets.

Just holes in the ground.

These are the toilets of the future. Simple and to the point. You pee in the floor, 
you squat to take a dump, but you better aim carefully. The first time I saw on
e of these “holes”, I thought it was just a urinal, but then I saw a roll of 
tissue paper beside the smallest garbage receptacle i’ve ever seen. In the last
 few weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a cycle of eating that finds me 
at home should I need to use the throne. But the first time I saw the shiny
 porcelain toilet, gurgling in the ground, I new eventually we’d meet again.
 That was yesterday.

Yesterday

I’m in the bathroom, and I’m debating. I’m wondering if I should clamp up and wait
 five hours before I go home, or lose my squatting virginity. I stand in the
 shadows of the dark bathroom, looking through a stained glass. I laugh at 
myself and remember the term ‘Squatmaster’ from high school in Jamaica. When 
you need to use a really digusting public bathroom, you don’t sit on the seat,
 you squat over it to protect yourself from diseases and infections. I’d never 
been in a situation that required the use of this technique. Now, in Japan, I’m
 pacing around in a small bathroom with tiny blue tiles, figuring out my
 strategy. I said what the heck.

I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. It was very small–no more than
 five square feet–and I stood there, figuring out the logistics. Number one, I
 have bad knees. I can barely dance much less squat carefully to get rid of my 
body’s excreta. Number two, there were any variety of unknown things that could 
happen once I turned around, and pulled my pants down. I crouched, feeling 
quite infantile. Then I smiled, because for millions of Japanese people, this 
was normal. My pants came down with a swoosh.

Then I realized, I should have hung up my pants. Overhead was a hook on the door,
 but it was too late, I’d already started. I felt a little panicked. Where my 
pants going to get smudged, or wet? I barely had space to move, much less 
manouver. I treid reach back for the toilet paper, but my hand kept hitting a
wall. “Dammit.” I said, trying to shuffle properly. I couldn’t move. Any 
movement of my feet a few inches to the left or right and my pants would be
 soggy with toilet water. Or I’d dunk a shoe in the toilet. I glanced up at the 
hook again and groaned.

My thighs were hurting now and I could feel it in my knees. This certainly wasn’t 
the sweet relief I’m accustomed to. I wondered if people squat and read. It 
didn’t seem likely.

I brought my self up into a half crouch, my entire body trembling. Making sure 
not to get my belt or pants wet, I slowly removed one shoe. Tiny beads of sweat 
formed on my forehead. My level of concentration was high; I felt like I was
 diffusing a nuclear weapon. I took off the other shoe, shaking like a leaf. I 
got my pants off and went back into the normal squat. It was a good thing the 
doors were small, I could hang up my pants easily.

I breathed more easily, but it wasn’t over. I was concerned about aim, because if
I didn’t aim properly, I’d be the obvious culprit and I could never some into 
the establishment again. I was skating on thin ice. I tried to remember my 
early potty lessons. All I got were a few blurry images of a smelly yellow
 potty from twenty years ago. The ease with which little kids do what they had
 to do eluded me, I almost laughed.

I grunted and shuffled forward. I was good to go.

After I was done, I hit another snag. Toilet paper. The toilet paper was on a roll in
t he corner of the bathroom. I had no space to move. I couldn’t turn around to
 grab it, and now my legs were really starting to feel it. I wondered how the 
hell people were comfortable doing this.

I took a deep breath. Above me were two replacement rolls on a tiny shelf above 
my right shoulder. Slamming my elbow into the wall as I reached up, I grabbed a
 roll. I paused as I held it in my hand. Wiping logistics had changed. The way a 
person cleans themselves changes drastically when you are stooping and 
trembling. I missed the comfort of my toilet.

I was wearing a long sleeved shirt,
 which made things even more interesting. One slip up and I’d be scrubbing the
 end of my shirtsleeve for a while before I came out of the bathroom. Thirty
 seconds later, I was done. No scuffs, no smudges.

I stood up and my thighs screamed with relief. I felt massive in the tiny space;
 this kind of thing was definitely not designed with me in mind. Images of small 
Asian men and women squatting on millions of these things popped into my head.
 Talk about culture shock.

I slipped my pants back on and did a proper hand wash. I never thought a daily 
bodily would function could double as a workout. This, I said to myself, will
 not become a habit.