Over the weekend I went up to Karuizawa, the charming town in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture that serves as a popular getaway for Tokyoites (and appears in quite a few anime series). While walking by an Italian gelato shop I was surprised to see a real live Italian young man, who greeted me with a very authentic-sounding buongiorno as he handed out a sample of green tea flavored gelato, something I’m pretty sure they don’t have in Italy. It was an innovative idea by the shop owner to beat the recession: get an Italian to greet customers and get them into the store, and it certainly seemed to be working. There are certain times that Japanese just expect a “real” foreigner and aren’t happy with anything less. A visit by “Santa-san” will certainly be appreciated by children if it’s a real gaijin in the Santa suit rather than a Japanese person, and if you didn’t see a real Indian chef preparing your naan in the tandoori oven you wouldn’t feel like you were eating authentic Indian curry. Western-style weddings are quite popular in Japan, and no wedding would be complete without a real gaijin minister to perform the ceremony, accented-Japanese and all, and this is actually a lucrative side-job for several English teachers I know. The ultimate spot to see real live foreigners in Japan, though, would have to be Tokyo Disneyland, where a small army of performers from various countries fill roles like Alice in Wonderland while the Japanese visitors fawn and snap photos.
Sometimes there’s no substitute for a real-live gaijin.
