Thursday, November 10, 2005

My New York Minutes - Chapter 5

1977



1977 was the best year of my life.




So far. In January, I left for Japan. The flight from Kennedy Airport took 14 hours non-stop. The time difference was 12 hours, so day and night were completely switched. It took Brenda, Sharon and I two weeks before we slept through the night. There were (mostly) mild earthquakes almost daily, usually around 5 o'clock in the morning. There were vending machines on every corner in Tokyo, even in the residential neighborhoods. The company that brought us to Japan was owned by a man named Simon Tse (Simon Say). He put us in a nice Japanese-style apartment in a decent but ugly section of Tokyo. It was a high-rise building and we could look out at night to see the vending machines casting an eerie glow over the neighborhood of cement buildings. I loved the food in Japan. We would go on a day-long photo-shoot and our interpreter, Junko (joongko) would stop and buy us box lunches to take along. They would come in a balsa-wood box, fragrant and beautifully presented. A little fish, some vegetables, rice. So perfect. If eaten in a restuarant, a steaming washcloth with lemon or sandalwood scent would be presented before and after the meal.

The photo above was taken and then painted in some way to look like an illustration. I didn't know what it was for until I walked into a large department store on the Ginza, which is Japan's answer to 5th Avenue. There was this floor-to-ceiling poster in a dimension that would have done justice to Times Square. I never knew what Payday Service I was offering but was comforted by the image's scant likeness to myself. Brenda was with me and as soon as we walked in I said, "Oh my God, that's me". That happens a lot when you are a model.


The Japanese used mostly caucasian models, but they dressed us up to look vaguely Japanese.


The main thing I remember about Japan is Brenda. She was beautiful. She did a lot of work for Clairol. Here she is on a bottle of shampoo. Brenda was on the kind for oily hair. They always used a brunette for oily hair and a blonde for dry hair. The one for normal hair had Dorothy Hamill. Brenda's hair was not oily. Eventually I loved her, but at first I hated her.


She was interested in her Jewish roots and had decided to become Orthodox. This meant that she couldn't eat any shellfish and had to sit and do nothing on Saturday. She talked to her mother on the phone - from Tokyo to New Jersey - for hours. She complained that she had nothing to eat. Simon Tse was leaving for a business trip to America. Brenda's mother arranged to give him some food to bring back for Brenda. About a week later, pale and sweating, Simon staggered into our apartment with a large Tourister suitcase full of cans of Barney's Kosher Meatballs. It was so heavy, it cost him over $100 to take it on the plane - it exceeded the weight limit. In Japan, the custom is to remove your shoes when you go into a building. There will be some paper shoes at the door and you leave yours and put on the paper ones. Brenda wore Frye boots and wouldn't remove them. We went to a traditional inn in Kyoto where she stomped across the rice paper mats in the quiet lobby of the tiny inn. The Japanese never show their feelings but sometimes they show anyway. We had a driver named Tak. Tak was big by American standards, but by Japanese standards he was huge. He had a slow, sweet smile and spoke not a word of English. Brenda imitated him. Whenever he spoke she said the same thing in Tak's deep voice. She didn't speak Japanese but she was a gifted mimic. He didn't get it for a long time, either because of his language barrier or his generally friendly, open manner. Junko got it and I could see the distress in her face. I will not forget the look on Tak's face when he finally realized the beautiful American model was mocking him. Finally, one day in the limo on the way to a job, I turned to her and hissed, "You are such a bitch". She stopped after that.

One night, a man called the apartment. His name was Charlie. His family lived in Japan and owned a successful import/export business. His mother was French and his father was Israeli, but Charlie spoke English and had gone to college in America. He knew the phone number of our apartment and knew that models usually lived there so sometimes he'd call to get dates. He took us out. He loved Brenda. She let him spend money on her, but privately dismissed him because he was shorter than she was. He took her home to meet his parents who loved this conservative Jewish girl their son had managed to find in the middle of Japan. They spoke French in the home and Brenda was fluent - not even a trace of an accent, we were told.

We were there 3 months. I was glad that I got to see Japan and I was glad to go home. Home to my roachy apartment, and to loud and wonderful New York. But some images stayed. I climbed a mountain in Kyoto to see an ancient Buddhist temple, shrouded in mist and silent. Some giggling, uniformed schoolgirls asking to have their picture taken with me. Eating raw jellyfish with Junko in the beach town of Kamakura. It was widgy but not too bad.

It wasn't until I got home that Brenda and I became friends. She called me. "Do you want to work in France?" she said.

3 comments:

Don Cummings said...

I LOVE THIS JAPANESE TALE!
And this Brenda. It's so easy to love and hate a Brenda in any order.
How amazing that you got to model around the world. Keep it coming!

Anonymous said...

Hooray!! Simon Tse!! This is proof that your life is indeed a novel!

Dan said...

I'm making the Payday Service photo my computer desktop.