Yeah, you know what I’m going to say next… “Women are stranger”, and indeed I am in agreement with The Doors that it certainly seems that way to me. Yesterday I was walking back to Tokyo Agricultural Library after taking a break from McNamara’s Corporatism in South Korea, when I spied that most unusual of sights. A western woman. It was strange I know, but I’ve been in Tokyo long enough to know that most foreigners look on you as if your presence is spoiling their authentic Nihonese experience. So I shrugged and kept walking.
Ever found yourself in the position of thinking “I don’t walk to walk behind her in case she thinks I’m following her”? Well walking in the gate I made my way to the right, a path that would take me past the run down brick building on my right towards the concrete Corbussier nightmare a little further on, on my right.
Anyway it seems that no matter how much I diverge my path from hers she alters her course till she is once more stomping on the head of my shadow, like a scene from a 1950’s thriller. Though I imagine it’s hard to imagine film noir with heat shimmer coming off the tarmac and images of illusory camels in the distance; wobbling as if transposed onto the shiny flexible half cones used to tan the underside of your neck.
So I continue walking back to the library and she continues walking in front of me and then off to the side of me. She comes to the sign that says. This is a door, but it’s not being used as a door but rather as place to hang a helpful sign, which reads ‘please walk around the building to the door that is being used as a door’. Spying her confusion I walk over and say the entrance is around the side and that I’m heading that way.
She walks in and I stay outside eating my ice cream. When I’m finished I head and take up my McNamara again. It occurs to me that perhaps the place on the shelf where I got this book would have other tomes of equal relevance to the one I’m holding. So I walk upstairs into the baleful glare of the western woman I’ve just helped.
It’s lovely when a stare is an accusation, isn’t it? I shrug feeling rather miffed thinking ‘well be like that’ and continue onwards. I then find another book with some interesting things in it. The title being something like Restructuring the Korean Economy for the 21st century. Take my advice and read it. It has a racy plot, some interesting characters but sadly less sex than the Bible with nary a beget or begat in sight.
Anyway still troubled by my encounter with Miss Judge and Jury I head downstairs to look up some other things on the computer index. She walks out and away and doesn’t look back. If she were driving that would have been a criminal offence.
