Word: ginza
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Before they can celebrate the New Year, the Japanese must eradicate all memory of the old. Last week they were eradicating it with kamikaze-like abandon in a venerable tradition called bonenkai (forget the year past), and nowhere more suicidally than on Tokyo's gleaming Ginza...
There is quite a ritual to the occasion. First to come to the Ginza each after noon are the icemen, their saws slashing through great frozen blocks destined for dilution in tumblers of whisky. Next are the fragrant wagons of the noodle vendors, trailing plumes of steam in the neon sunset. Then come the girls-300,000 of them-to work in the 3,000 clubs of Tokyo's six sakaba (drinking quarters). Wispy-bearded Santa Clauses, a legacy of the American occupation, parade in sandwich boards that proclaim the virtues (or lack of them) of such establishments...
...theater at its most negative. Through a misty drizzle, the gleaming forest of black umbrellas and red, blue and yellow banners moved down Tokyo's neon-lit Ginza. "Down with the Sato government!" bellowed the Zengakuren students, Socialist Party workers and Sohyo union members, as they marched past hordes of riot cops in blue plastic helmets with Plexiglas face shields. Then the drizzle gave way to a pelting downpour, and what had been billed as the boldest anti-government "demo" in five years sputtered out like a drenched fuse...
...revelers in the Ginza cocktail lounge looked like any other gathering of Japanese junior executives: a bit soft around the middle, a bit busky-cheeked from golf and gin, affluent and amiable. The song they were singing sent a charge of shock through the bar: "Monday and Monday, Tuesday, Wed nesday, Thursday, Friday and Friday.". It was a battle song of the Japanese Imperial Navy, extolling daily dedication to the glory of Nippon. As the singing died away, the men spontaneously turned to reminiscences of Rabaul and Savo Island, Bataan and Okinawa. "Wasn't it great," said one, "those...
...from a few score to a present-day 539 in the heart of the city. One parlor was installed in a former bar with the pool behind the counter and the bar stools used as perches for fishermen. Saburo Kamekura, manager of an air-condi tioned establishment on the Ginza, To kyo's Fifth Avenue, claims 1,000 cus tomers a day. There, pretty young girls in Bermuda shorts cry "Sugoi! [terrif ic!]" when customers land a big one. Kamekura boasts that he is performing a badly needed service: "When it comes to doing away with the strains...