Look for Trouble It Finds You!

I recently watched some YouTube video's about Yakuza, aka the Underworld (not the movie, the actual underworld). Lifestyles of the real nightlife in Japan. FYI I see there is a new Underworld movie about to be released (the trailers look deceivingly good. The story kinda plateaued for me, then dropped faster than Felix Baumgartner from the stratosphere).

I remember my High School Japanese teacher (who I mentioned many times is a white guy) seemed to have all sorts of trouble with the Underworld. I hope his stories were true (there as no vampires in them). Even if they weren't, they were highly entertaining and led me down a path to the dark side. You might call him (Darth VADER!) and he is not my father (that I'm aware!)

In these YouTube videos a couple American guys are talking about drinking and clubbing and looking for girls. They don't care if the girls have boyfriends or not. That seems to be where the problem starts (foreshadow. It doesn't matter what country you are in, that won't end well, and no I don't know from experience).

One guy states "Those MOFO's do NINJA sh#t to kick our asses! They are always training to beat someone". I laughed, its a statement with semi truth.

Watch out you will never see them coming!

Let me emphasize you NEVER judge a book by its cover. You might be thinking this nerdy mofo who is 5 feet tall, can't do sh#t, then ninja’s might pop out at you. And he undoes his suit and inside he has ninja clothes on, swords and throwing stars.

The samurai spirit or mentality is still alive in Japan. As I mentioned in previous posts I saw some mofo’s do some crazy “Ninja” sh#t.

I saw people get choked out, arm breaks at judo. My own ribs and almost neck break (and I'm 5 feet tall and 100 pounds).
I saw little old men with no muscle do wrist locks or me and other people and make them scream like little girls (I usually scream that way in all honesty). It was impressive to say the least (and I have the marks on my body to prove it). Let me know if you can find out any voodoo techniques to pass those body marks to someone else (or if you met Dr.Strange. I'm not sure he's real yet, I'll check out his Marvel documentary to make sure his magic is legit).

In Japan a lot of children learn Judo or other martial arts. The school I taught at only had Judo, but they did a workshop on SUMO (I wasn't interested in seeing the loincloth on myself or others so I skipped it). Other schools may also have karate, kendo, aikido etc. There must be some that teach how to throw ninja stars called "shuriken" in Japanese. I hope they don't lace them with poison, kids would be dropping left and right.
After school those kids (or shall I say mofo's) are still training the same martial art or a different one. So they train day, night, weekend. Of course they are going to be proficient (aka able to kick ass with ninja sh$t). This should come as no surprise.

Let me express that there are no MCDojo's in Japan. If you don't get that word let me break it down for you.

Hmm, only a few months to get a black belt, must be legit!

You cannot buy your belt in Japan, you have to earn it. In Canada, there are a couple companies (especially karate based ones, don't wanna mention names or I may have a lawsuit coming).
People pay to buy each belt. 
In Japan, at minimum you must put the time in. There are many crappy lower level black belts, but it doesn't mean they didn't spend 1000's of hours training (and doing ninja sh$t too).
A black belt of lower rank is seen as the beginning of the path, but here its seen as the end.
Once you are higher ranked, your skills will be so good, you may be learnt how to be invisible and touch of death (that's sarcasm, so don't expect it to be real, as for the Marvel Universe and Dr.Strange's magic the jury is still out).

So the moral of the story is simple, you might think that you being muscular and 6 ft 1, with 200 + pounds on a little scrawny Japanese guy means something, but it doesn't.

If you throw gas on the flame and try to steal someone's girlfriend, you may be in for a beating (and I may join in too).
Just cause you are a gaijin (foreigner) doesn't mean you have the right to be an as$hole.

Heed my words grasshoppers, for I am the ancient one (just like in the Dr.Strange movie, like how I used that three plus times?) By the way, the ancient one (in the comics) is supposed to be Asian but they hired a white for it. That's nice. 
Hollywood is so with the times ;-)
On that note since its almost election time in the U.S. so is Trump. LOL!

LOL. And this guy might be President? You Americans are so funny.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6hudSMxomg

Other funny stories from this blog 

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related/ and maybe less amusing )

http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/ 

My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)

http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Roppongi, Six Trees of Separation

Roppongi, Six Trees of Separation

Ah the night life, traffic lights and liquor. All a good mix.

My friend from University in Canada was living in Japan. His family worked for the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo so he invited me to stay with them. Sounded great I thought. I had forgot however, my friend was an alcoholic. Since I can’t drink worth a damn it didn't occur to me till I arrived this may be a mistake. “Dude, we are going to Roppongi tonight, let’s get smashed”, he told me. If you have never heard of Roppongi the Chinese/ Japanese characters means 6 trees. How bad could six trees be? Well, since I didn't know what Roppongi was notorious for, the answer is a lot. Its famous in Japan as a seedy place for foreigners looking to club hop, bar it up, go to cabarets, or massage girls (not neck massage) etc. As you know since its seedy there is a large yakuza (mafia) presence as well.
My friend convinced me that we would bike there and it would be awesome. By bike I mean bicycle not dirt bikes or some cool gas powered bikes as you are guessing. We started biking and I realized two thing. One I'm out of shape and two I was drunk as a skunk. There were tons of taxi’s all over the street. The traffic was terrible so we weaved, highly illegal I might add, through the taxis. I wondered if we would live the night. My friend fell against one taxi but got back on his bike and kept riding as if nothing happened. When we finally arrived, he informed me he wanted to start off at "The HUB", a foreigner bar. I said OK and followed him. We locked our granny bikes up and were just about to go inside. My friend seemed more tipsy than me and was like “Dude let’s go! Happy hour is almost over”. I wasn't too keen on drinking more. He started to run full sprint, the only problem was he didn't see the metal down door that had fallen down part way and smacked his head into it. It sounded like someone hit a gong and I started laughing. He was on his back not moving. I laughed for a few seconds until I realized he wasn't conscious. He seemed to be breathing, or at least I hoped. “Dude you OK?”, I asked. I couldn't remember the number of ambulance in Japan anyway, 112 or something, 911 doesn't work. He sat up and I noticed a gigantic goose egg on his head. I told him he had a little mark on his head. He didn't seem to care. He had just lost consciousness and probably had a concussion. Brains, what are they good for anyway. We headed into the bar and he ordered three “happy hour” drinks. I have no idea why he was having such a bad night, but his glass shattered in pieces while holding it. Literally he just had it in his hand and it shattered everywhere. I think they had the glasses in the freezer and the heat in the room made the glass unstable or something. Bah I have no idea, I'm not rocket scientist (although I do enjoy cosmology and occasionally alchemy as a side gig).
After that we left, he had drunk more than he should have. We ran into some nice Taiwanese girls. I asked them what they do and they said massage. I would love a neck massage, I was a bit stiff. I thought we were just chatting, but I soon realized they were trying to get us to come inside for a special massage. We were targets not friends. As we continued walking passed them this gigantic guy about 250 pounds came up and put his arm around my shoulders. I was making friends left and right tonight I thought. I wondered if he was from the U.S. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I soon realized this was a ploy to put his arms around us to trick us into a bar he worked at. He was big so I didn't want to say no. Once we got in, I noticed we were the only white people. I didn't really care, except that no one was speaking English or Japanese, so I was super confused what was happening. Seems like everyone was an employee and they weren't from the U.S. I saw a flag that said Nigeria at the entrance. My friend didn't care and started dancing with the girls. The music wasn't Western, not that it matters. You can bump to anything you want. I started wondering what we had got ourselves into. Then all the sudden my friend started acting a bit crazy, semi yelling and not making sense. I wondered if this was an act or he was overly drunk. Perhaps both. I read later the Nigerian bars are famous for spiking the drinks and using high pressure tactics to entice you into bars with 250 pound dudes. If you don’t believe me read Wikipedia. Luckily I didn't drink there, just entered and stood out like a sore thumb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roppongi

One of these doesn't belong here. I felt like the odd man out.

We headed to the next bar at around 3AM. It was super stuffy and I was thirsty. My friend continued drinking and headed to the bathroom. When he came out, he was like “Dude I threw up in the urinal. I'm good to drink more”. I was like oh no. A bartender came up to us, “Someone threw up in the urinal, know anything about it?”. My friend who was a great liar answered “Ya, he had black hair and blue eyes he just headed downstairs”. The bartender went downstairs. This was the exact opposite of what we looked like. He’s smart even when he’s an idiot. I told him we should leave, since he’s an idiot. He agreed to both and we went outside. We couldn't find our bikes, so we started to walk home. Either the spot we left them was wrong or the Nigerians club guys got them. 
As we walked I saw a guy with a Nike hat that looked like Tiger Woods. He had a bodyguard looking guy with him.The next day I watched the news and it showed Tiger Woods highlights of him playing golf in the Tokyo region over the last few days. I wondered if I had seen him. 
If it was him I should have told him to avoid the Nigerian bars.

What was Tiger up to in Roppongi? Hmmmm....

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from my blog
 http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva 

Teaching for the Mafia, AH SNAP!

You might think its awesome, and yes it does sound like it.
At the end of the day you may have to cut a finger off or two though. At least that's the impression I got.

If  I could walk around with a sword that'd be cool. Chopping stuff in half. Every little boys fantasy.

I guess I should explain that I think some of my regular students had parents that were mafia aka yakuza or I think at least some underworld connections.
My general consensus was that orange spiky hair and gold chains or for that matter any sort of gold bling equaled mafia. That may or may not be true. I loved the tracksuits with gold omega watches.
I was like dude you look good, but at the same time you don't. You be hurtin'. I didn't say it out loud for fear of losing my tongue.

If you look like this in Japan with that much bling you are definitely mafia.

Anyways back to reality.

Not only were some of my students families yakuza (mafia) or at least I thought, but a friend offered me a job. A good paying job he told me. Hmmm.. What do I have to do? For the right price I might... wait, well actually 100% will do anything. Just depends on the money.
He said teach English to three little kids. Great I thought, sign me up, should be as easy as pie.
That part I was wrong. What else is new. There seems to be a theme repeated in this blog about things I got wrong.
He forgot to tell me the family was linked to the underworld, and this job might be my last. Or at least just a few fingers less. Incase you didn't know, a lot of yakuza (mafia) in Japan have their fingers cut off for each mistake. I was known to make plenty as evidenced again through this blog.
I met the three kids and tried to teach them English games. One girl kept repeating in Japanese "I hate English and I hate you". Good start I thought. She loves me. Don't people insult to show love. One finger down, nine to go.
I said OK let's start with a few fun games. "I hate games she said". Oh, perfect!
I setup the game which she then flipped upside down. My temper was starting to rise like the mercury on a summer's thermostat (I can't think of a better analogy right now). Maybe like the fires of Mordors erupting with the one ring to rule them all melting in it? (Lord of the Rings reference FYI). I have to explain it because older generations don't get it even though LOTR is a book originally and old.

OK so I was a bit mad, like Mordor from Lord of the Rings. It was a fitting mood for this little brat. I hoped she didn't have my fingers removed.

After a dreadful two hours and lots of crying (more on my part than hers perhaps) I drove back to town with her mother. So, things didn't go so well I mentioned. Your daughter is a brat, I don't think this is going to work. She begged me to continue, but I refused. When I got home I spoke to the guy that got me the job. He told me I better be careful. When I asked why, he said those dudes are connected and could take me out. I didn't know what he was implying at that point, did he mean will take me out to McDonald's? One of the children, the non brat one wanted to continue lessons, which I agreed to. They invited me to a family dinner. I spoke in Japanese and asked the father what he did. Well, various things, he said. I wondered if that involved killing people with guns and samurai swords. If yes, could I join them instead of teaching brats English, oh but not your daughter. Even if she was I wouldn't dare risk saying it.
I continued with the lessons until I was ready to leave Japan. When I informed them I would be leaving soon, they informed me very directly I was to find a replacement. I didn't know if I had an option to say No.
I wondered if that's what had happened with the guy that set me up, he was ordered to find me. I started to try to remember if he had all his fingers.
I found a super nice girl to replace me. I told her straight up I wasn't too sure what was with the family or what they did (but might be shady). She told me all she cared about was money.
That's the kind of girl you want. They also dropped her amount by $20 per hour.
Apparently the brat girl came back to the lessons and loved her. I heard she said "I love you teacher" in English every lesson.
WTF.

At least I didn't die I guess, or lose any fingers.

I was a little fearful I might have one finger become a USB drive.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from my blog
 http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva