by Seneca Baytosh

Osaka wasn’t on my itinerary. I had allotted my time to Kyoto’s pristine temples and narrow
streets. It was a decision I was satisfied with, though after several days of ceaseless negotiations
with family members about where next to go and what next to eat, I was ready for a change of
pace. When a friend reached out—one whom I’d met in a different country during a different
summer—asking if I wanted to meet in Osaka, I said yes without hesitation. What better way to
embrace my newfound adulthood than with a night out in a new city? So, one late afternoon, I
boarded a local south-bound train in Kyoto Station and escaped for a while.

Forty-five minutes later, I stepped out into my home for the evening. The differences struck me
immediately. If Kyoto felt composed, Osaka was unruly. Soft lantern-light was replaced by
glowing neon. Skyscrapers of glass and concrete stood in place of low, wooden townhouses. The
air felt heavier, alive with oil and exhaust. Everything, from the signs to the people, was a little
louder, a little brighter, a little less put together.

Dylan was waiting for me outside the station when I arrived. He was Australian-born,
half-Japanese, in Osaka indefinitely to care for his aging grandparents. He described himself as
being “in-between things,” though exactly what he was referring to was unclear. I had only spent
time with Dylan two or three times before, yet he greeted me with the warmth and familiarity of
a childhood friend.

“Been a while bro, it’s great to see you,” he said, beaming all the while. “How’s Japan treating
you?”

We moved through the pleasantries quickly. As we walked to the subway, I listed off all of the
places I had visited thus far wistfully, recounting stories about the historical sites, the hikes, the
foods I had tried. I asked him what life in Osaka was like. He launched into tales of his many
escapades in the city— wild nights spent drinking with friends and strangers alike. He asked me
what I was planning on studying. I gave out the usual placeholder, political science, with more
certainty than I could really lay claim to so as to better cover up my lack of direction. I made
sure not to linger on the topic.

“How are your grandparents doing?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re alright. You know how it is.” For an instant, a twinge of weariness came over
Dylan’s youthful, jubilant face, only to vanish as quickly as it had emerged. “You’re gonna love
it here. There’s nowhere like it.” His hurried reassurance swept away the uncomfortable subject.

Doors Opening

A woman’s disembodied voice chimed as we stepped into the crowded subway car. We jostled
into the mass of bodies. Surrounding us stood people of all flavors: office workers with
time-worn faces, stretched from hours of furrowing their brows. Fashionable social media types,
taking pictures and chatting. Students in uniform debriefing the day’s troubles and laughing
amongst themselves. All of us united by a common, palpable urge to take a load off and unwind
from the stresses of the week.

“So where are we headed?” I asked Dylan breezily.

“The real Osaka.” His answer brimmed with promise.

When at last we arrived at our stop, Dylan explained that we would be exploring Nishinari-ku,
Osaka’s roughest district. Historically a hub for the Yakuza, prostitution, and day laborers, it had
developed a reputation from the city’s more upper-crust denizens as seedy, dangerous, and to be
disregarded. It was also, Dylan asserted, the best place in town for a night out.

First however, we had the matter of food to attend to. I hadn’t eaten since the morning, and was
itching to get a taste of the culinary capital of Japan. Dylan led me through a series of alleyways
before we emerged onto a bustling street. On each side of the road there were countless dive bars
marked with gaudy, glowing signs which bathed everything in a golden light. In the distance, a
hulking tower of interlocking steel bars loomed. I recognized it from pictures of Osaka as
Tsutenkaku tower, the crowning architectural achievement of the New World district. Gesturing
at the building, Dylan explained how it had been modeled on the Eiffel Tower.

“The Japanese,” he said, “love French shit.”

“That so?” I replied, squinting at the tower. The resemblance was there, if only distantly.

“Oh yeah. They’ll work really hard, save up all their money, all just to take a trip to Paris. Then
they get there, see that it’s a normal city with normal city trash and normal city problems, and
can’t take it.” He shook his head. “Get sick, start throwing up, you know.”

“From disappointment?”

“From the shock of it, I reckon. There’s even a term for it— Paris syndrome.” Dylan said. The
very idea of it seemed ridiculous to me. I pictured heaps of Japanese tourists puking and
trembling at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe. We stood for a moment under the blinking tower,
before Dylan broke the silence.

“Come on,” he clapped me on the shoulder. “You must be starving.” We ducked into a
kushikatsu joint. The air inside was heavy with cigarette smoke. Dylan ordered for us without
consulting the menu. Skewers of pork, mackerel, lotus root, and octopus began arriving in
waves, each one dipped into batter then lowered into the fryer before emerging, golden-brown
and sizzling. We tore into our food with the ferocity and hunger of wild animals, not so much
eating as inhaling each delightful morsel. Pockets of fat burst in my mouth with scalding heat
and flavor all at once. Each bite burned, but I wasn’t about to stop. There was no space for
conversation— one could barely hear anything through the hissing of the fryer and commotion
outside. All that remained through the curtain of noise was the food in front of me and the steady
rhythm of bite, chew, swallow.

Finally, I had to relent. I leaned back on my seat with a satisfied sigh. At the table beside us, four
salary-men were deep into their third round of beers. Their jackets hung from the back of their
chairs like shed skins. One man had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, another had draped his
tie around his neck carelessly. They swayed to and fro, their voices rising and falling in uneven
bursts.

“They’ll be up at six,” Dylan murmured while nodding towards them. “Back at the office, that is,
like nothing ever happened.” There was the faintest note of pity, or maybe contempt, in his voice.

I wondered what their days looked like. Hours of meetings and paperwork under harsh
fluorescent lights. Here in this golden haze of beer and oil they could shed that weight for a
while. Their energy was enticing, but the repetition of it all unnerved me. From work to bar to
work again— when did it ever stop?

We finished eating and stepped back into the night. Dylan led me a few blocks south, where the
crowds thinned and the lighting was dimmer. We had reached the heart of Nishinari-ku. Here, the
buildings were squat and concrete. Everything had gotten quieter. The sidewalks were stained,
paint peeled from shutters, and while not especially dirty by US standards, it was certainly
grimier than anywhere else I had visited in Japan. Outside a low-slung house, a group of older
men sat on plastic crates, smoking and talking amongst themselves in low voices, their
belongings gathered neatly at their feet in plastic bags. Dylan pointed down an alley towards a
collection of high-rises.

“That’s Kamagasaki. Largest concentration of homeless people and day-laborers in Japan.” He
shook his head. “You won’t find it on maps. The city took it off to clean up their image as part of
a slum-clearance effort. It’s fucked up.”

I wasn’t sure what to say and simply nodded. The city had grown eerily calm. Dylan explained
how many of the people living there didn’t even exist legally. In Japan, your residence is directly
tied to your identification. Without a home, you can’t be identified. Johatsu. The evaporated
ones, they were called. People who, when faced with shame and responsibilities too great to
carry publicly—failed businesses, affairs discovered, mounting debts—choose to disappear
rather than endure the fallout. It was a side of Japan I hadn’t thought about, let alone seen. I may
not have vomited, but the dissonance between my prior experience with the country and what I
was now faced with unsettled me. What kind of burden could be so great that non-existence was
preferable? Certainly none that I had ever endured.

“They just don’t go back?” I asked.

“Sometimes they can’t, sometimes they don’t want to,” he responded. “A lot of them are at peace
with it.”

We wandered into a small bar with no sign outside. The lighting was soft and amber. In the
corner, a television played a baseball game with the sound muted. Two middle-aged men sat at
the counter, their cheeks flushed. One was explaining something intensely to the bartender,
punctuating each sentence with a tap of his glass. Dylan ordered us drinks, before stepping out to
take a phone call— something to do with his grandparents.

I wrapped my hands around the cold glass and tried to look occupied. The man nearest to me
turned, studying me with open curiosity rather than suspicion. Up close, I could see the deep
lines carved around his mouth, the shine of sweat at his temples.

“American?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes,” I replied, bowing my head slightly. “Washington kara kimashita. From Washington DC.”

“Ahh, Washington!” The other man swiveled on his stool, grinning. “Kirei, ne? Very beautiful.”
He laughed. We went on in mixed broken English and Japanese. I explained that I would be in
university soon, and was taking part of the summer to travel around Japan. They peppered me
with questions. My answers came clumsily, searching for vocabulary and filling in gaps with
gestures. I gleaned that the first man, Masuru, had a company job. The other, who I learned was
called Gota, worked construction. Eventually, our conversation flowed more and more naturally,
shifting to topics of baseball, Osakan food, and Japanese cultural norms. Later on, Dylan slipped
back into the bar. In the moment I didn’t think anything of it, but his face seemed paler than
before. Perhaps I imagined it though, for just as soon as he rejoined us at the counter to pound
back a shot, the color returned to his cheeks. The five of us—the two men, the bartender, Dylan,
and me—drank and chatted and laughed for a while before eventually saying our goodbyes. Just
as I was getting up to leave, Masuru stopped me. “Young. Lucky,” He slurred before patting me
on the back and sending me on my way.

Back outside, the air felt cooler and more refreshing than it had earlier. Dylan and I walked back
towards the station in a quiet stupor. As we waited on the platform, I thanked him for such a
memorable night and we promised to keep in touch. On the train north, I watched Osaka recede
into the distance, its flashing neon skyline steadily dimming. In the morning, I would return to
Kyoto’s temples and my family’s careful planning. My obligations waited patiently across the
Pacific. In a month I’d be in college. The thought of my future no longer felt abstract, but solid.
Inevitable. Across from me, a salaryman slept upright, his tie re-tightened though slightly crooked, his briefcase resting heavy in his lap. In the morning, we would return to our lives—to existence—and begin anew.

###