The covered commercial arcade is pretty busy around noon but no one seems to notice the peculiar interspecies conversation going on.
Or maybe everyone does, but it takes more than granny holding consultations with her cold-blooded pet to open a breach in the Japanese mask of indifference people wear in public places.
All in all it is not seldom that amongst the shoppers of the neighbourhood an elderly woman in punk/new wave attire with a big plush tiger under her arm makes her appearance.
At the supermarket, the usually boisterous brat at the register doesn't even flinch when
handing her the receipt.
Neither does the lady with the bright green hairpiece with small toys hanging from it raise any eyebrows along the aisles of the local grocery store.
This widespread lack of reaction to visual stimuli is anyway overshadowed by the utmost indifference the spoken word is faced with. The incessant and ubiquitous announcements in all public spaces may be held as culprits in this desensitizing of the Japanese ear, try repeating "watch your step" fifty times in a row and all meaning disappears,but that would imply ignoring how the real national sport of Japan is the monologue.
That is hitorigoto, speaking to onself extensively and not without emphasis.
In a country where people will turn into words, spoken out loud, all of their basic feelings, to pay attention to what the persons around you say would amount to a full-time activity; it is then no surprise how people talking to themselves in a loud voice hardly draw any attention here.
"It's cold", "i'm tired", "i'm hungry", "what's this?": if a newborn baby had the ability to articulate his cries into words he would express thoughts suitable as background soundtrack for the average japanese social environment.
Family and work create a much deeper intimacy so that from a colleague one could eavesdrop bolder statements along the lines of "my belly hurts: it is diarrhea!" or a doubt-ridden stream of conciousness like "was it this i put it isn't it i must buy potatoes and the train smelled funny but working overtime is such where is the tape gone Tuesday evening maybe...".
In the household monologues can reach astonishing levels of stylistic complexity, a mongrel lingo reminiscent of cut-up techniques applied to the speaking in tongues of the ecstatics.
A foreigner struggling with the mastering of the local language should better abandon any hope of relying onto feedback from his conversational counterparts to pinpoint his mistakes and inaccuracies: a polite smile, a nod, a blank stare or total unresponsiveness are the name of the game here.
One may as well be speaking Lojban with a thick Schwyzerdutsch accent, the conveying of meaning through spoken words is not expected and neither it is sought after.
Now accustomed to the crowded soliloquy Tokyo's masses appear to be launched into, an attempt at dialogue on the streets draws my attention in Senzoku-dori, the run-down commercial street linking the brothels of ancient Fujiwara to the selfie-hungry crowds of Asakusa.
An unassuming elderly man, senile or intoxicated or both, halts his slo-mo stroll and stands in
front of the fishtank in the window of a restaurant.
Not yet turned into someone's dinner, fishes swim around while the old guy firmly stares at one and says in a friendly tone:"I betcha you're really tasty, aren't you?".
I smile and walk by, commenting to myself the funny scene.
