another work-a-day earthquake, ho hum
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
It is impossible to be blase about earthquakes. Or so my Japanese colleagues tell me. But tonight when a long low quake rolled through the city, I was atop the building enjoying a huge party thrown by the building's management. I cried out and reached for a railing, while around me everyone murmured words that I have to assume were to the effect of, "oh, is it an earthquake, yes maybe a 3.5 - oh ha ha look at the tall Gaijin over there clutching at his heart".
I mean, it's all very exciting and you're half hoping that maybe it will be entertaining more than anything else, but... the ground is bending and twisting and moving around! All in all, I'd rather be sitting in a park than standing on a twelve-storey building when the next one strikes.
As for the party, it was a fun event. I work in a building that's part of "Mitsubishi city" - a big collection of towers that the venerable company (their auto division is the oldest car company in the world, I believe) has been building over the past forty years. It is immediately adjacent to the park surrounding the Imperial palace, and it is a prime spot for a mid-Summer's night uh well booze up with bizarre door prizes. It's a good thing I learned how to say "it's a pleasure to meet you" yesterday "Yuroshiko onegaizamasu", because that phrase sure got a work-out today.
How bizarre were the door prizes, you ask? I chose a set of sponges for my door prize, because I'd won from a set that included seran wrap, tin foil, covers for the fan thingie (grange?) above the stove, and inserts for your home deep-fryer. The toys were on the order of Hello Kitty-esque (Winnie the Pooh and Disney have replaced Hello Kitty, it seems, but you get the idea) toys for small children that even the young men seemed to appreciate (I watched one showing off his small purple mirror with a Disney decal). This may sound like an odd selection of door prizes, but they were on par with some of the bigger stuff. My one colleague (a young-at-heart fellow named Katto) won a fax machine! A fax....
I gave the sponges to a 'friend' of Jonathan who's just moved into her first apartment.
I learned something interesting tonight. If I'm not mistaken, the Japanese have a thing for the date "1492", when Christopher Columbus discovered Hisanolia. Apparently the numbers can be read in a way that means "we've discovered a new country". I don't know if I have the story straight, but that's what I believe I heard.
Tokyosiders do many things well, but one thing that stood out tonight was how I could stand around chatting with everybody in the company. People didn't break up into their stupid cliques and snub you the way they do in fusty Toronto.