Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Radio free Tujiko
Here's an exerpt from Tujiko Noriko's "radio" broadcast on her webpage that I finally got around to transcribing (in Japanese) and translating (into English). I'm hoping that she'll have it posted up on her webpage in complete form sooner or later, so if you are interested in the whole thing, please just keep checking there.
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Actually, I was living in Osaka, I was also born there, but about 6 years ago, when I was 18 -- I'm 24 years old now (laughs) -- I moved to Tokyo. Recently it's like I've gotten tired of Tokyo. What I'm saying is that I want to live in a different city with my significant other. Now I'm living in a place which is, even for a filthy city like Tokyo, pretty filthy. But it's also so filthy that I'm into it. I'm living in Ikebukuro. [Ikebukuro is a large, somewhat seedy city in the Tokyo metropolitan area with a thriving red-light district.] From the station it's around a 10 min. walk through a residential area, but there are a lot of apartments and condos too. So anyway, since I'm a girl, during that 10 min. walk not that many people try and talk to me, but when my male friends visit me here, the street girls are like [Tsujiko here is impersonating a foreign accent in Japanese], "Hey there!" What else was it? Oh yeah, "Massage! Wanna massage?" (big laughter) and stuff like that. What else were they saying? I forgot! But it looks like the people who pass by them are always getting propositioned, one right after another. And then...well you can always see like 10 of those girls standing around. But you know, there are a few that you'd think were Japanese. Yeah, well...that kind of thing. Oh, and the supermarket's open really late here. Like until 5 AM. That's pretty cool. Well, whatever. OK, here's filthy Tokyo for you...
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Actually, I was living in Osaka, I was also born there, but about 6 years ago, when I was 18 -- I'm 24 years old now (laughs) -- I moved to Tokyo. Recently it's like I've gotten tired of Tokyo. What I'm saying is that I want to live in a different city with my significant other. Now I'm living in a place which is, even for a filthy city like Tokyo, pretty filthy. But it's also so filthy that I'm into it. I'm living in Ikebukuro. [Ikebukuro is a large, somewhat seedy city in the Tokyo metropolitan area with a thriving red-light district.] From the station it's around a 10 min. walk through a residential area, but there are a lot of apartments and condos too. So anyway, since I'm a girl, during that 10 min. walk not that many people try and talk to me, but when my male friends visit me here, the street girls are like [Tsujiko here is impersonating a foreign accent in Japanese], "Hey there!" What else was it? Oh yeah, "Massage! Wanna massage?" (big laughter) and stuff like that. What else were they saying? I forgot! But it looks like the people who pass by them are always getting propositioned, one right after another. And then...well you can always see like 10 of those girls standing around. But you know, there are a few that you'd think were Japanese. Yeah, well...that kind of thing. Oh, and the supermarket's open really late here. Like until 5 AM. That's pretty cool. Well, whatever. OK, here's filthy Tokyo for you...
