Tokyo New Year's Brawl!

[E1am]

Wassup folks! I've been off-line for a while since I was on vacation. But school has started again so I have lots of time to kill.

I had a pretty good holiday. New Year's Eve some friends and I took a few bottles of champagne to a countdown in Shibuya (That was after already consuming a few pints of Murphy's at an Irish pub in Harajuku). They have a few big screens there and everyone poured out of the bars and clubs before midnight. Things got pretty wild by Japanese standards.

People were climbing up onto kiosks and the entrances to the subways. Aparently some people fell off and got injured pretty badly. A brawl even erupted in the middle of the crowd. My friends and I had to help the largely ineffective Gardian Angles break it up. One dude just opened up on me with body shots. Luckily the average Japanese guy has zero power so it didn't hurt one bit. My main concern was protecting the camera in my pocket and making sure this girl we were with didn't get hurt.

One of the dudes started punching one of my friends. Then he realized that my friend is about 6'8" (2 meters) and pushing 290 lbs (130 kg). The guy suddenly stopped, looked up, gave my friends a big hug and screamed "Akemashita Omedeto (Happy New Year)!" Breaking up a brawl in Japan was great. Here you have almost zero chance of getting seriously hurt and you're bigger and stronger than most people. So me, the big guy, and my other friend who used to wrestle and now lifts pretty hardcore, just jumped in the middle and started throwing people all over the place. To tell you the truth we could have cared less if they wanted to fight. We were just looking for an excuse to push some of these little punks around.

Then we hit a dance club (rap and reggae) called Harlem and laughed at all the Japanese people with dreds, afros, corn rows, and extensions. Some of them go so far as to get extremely dark tans and use make-up to make their lips look thicker. They're called "ganguro" which litterally translates as "face black." I kept getting the urge to scream "MAMMY!"

I guess being in the middle of a minstrel show for a few hours gave us some urges. So we went to KFC about 4:30 AM and sat in the cold on the steps in front of the Disney Store eating fried chicken and biscuits. Unfortunaltey there was no grape soda.

[Atomic]

Hahaha! As usual, Japan offers crazy times! Harlem has been open for quite a while, right? I seem to remember it from my visits to Tokyo, but you'll have to excuse me, because some of my memories are quite hazy. I don't know what's funnier--Japanese people doing the whole black thing, or Japanese people with purple/red/blue/any other weird color of hair!

I'm sure it was all better than getting stabbed at one of the Gas Panic! clubs or dealing with the weirdos that frequent BarIzntIt?

Glad to see you back!

Atomic

[SweepEm]

Hey dude, sounded like some cool fun, too bad I wasn't there to party with you.

So, you guys were the big, bad gaijin. Heh heh.

Happy New Year.

[Ryu (non-working password]

I also get stares from my husky size, and I liked it very much when I was there. Funniest is the kogal's yearly style trends.
Sounds unfortunate that happened. E1, you should pick on people your own size
Find Enson the next time he's there.

Japanese young people are getting roudier...pretty sad.

Ryu

[E1am]

Atomic,

I'd have to say that the 'ganguro' are definitely worse. The other people just look different. But the wanna-be black style gets to the point where it is offensive. It's one thing to wear a cap and get your hair braided, but making yourself up to look blacker is nuts. It's gotten a lot more extreme in the couple of years I've been here.

Not only that but they are starting to try to act tougher. Strutting around, giving hard looks, and even starting fights. You even see crews in Shibuya wearing colors. Of course they are about a decade behind. It's like a Japanese version of that movie 'Whiteboyz.'

In my town there is this crew that calls themselves Street Gang Zeroes. It's hilarious seeing them walk around. I was having a brew with some of my Iranian illegal alien friends in front of the Seven Eleven one day and they came walking by trying to look hard. I started laughing and one of my friends said, "Sho ga nai yo. Nihon de lion, hoka no kuni de nezumi." --"It can't be helped. In Japan they're lions, in other countries, they're mice."--

[Karlinhos]

thanks for the stories! gotta admit, i love them! big, tough american! lmfao!

[SweepEm]

An Iranian talking Japanese to you? Hmm, that would be interesting to see.

[Ryu (non-working password]

Hai, omoshiroi desu ne
(as interesting as a Greek speaking Japanese possibly? )

E1am, not to change the subject, but do you know info on the Jet program by any chance? If so, could you give me a little info on requirements, policies, etc.
I know a bit, but I was wondering if you might give me a bit more.

Thanks

Ryu

[SweepEm]

Hey E1, I just remembered you were going to Seattle for the holidays, so what happened?

[aseepish]

Ryu-

I have a couple of friends who did the JET thing, I think the only requirement is to have a Bachelor's degree of some sort. Of course they may have tightened them up since they were there.

Check out http://eslcafe.com/jobs/ There are a TON of teaching positions in Japan with cool benefits, airfare, accommodation, insurance...

‹C‚ð‚‚¯‚Ä�I

Tony

[Ryu (non-working password]

aseepish,
thank you very much! I'll check out the link.

Ryu

[E1am]

Ryu,

I'm on the JET Program so I know a lot. Here's a link to the official homepage.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/jet/index.html

If you want any specific info from me ask.

[Ryu (non-working password]

E1,
thanks a lot, I really appreciate this.

Ryu