My first international tour was a three month gig in Japan – working Tuesday through Sunday – eight shows a week – except for the last two weeks when the company jacked up the number of shows to ten a week. Most of the engagement was spent in Tokyo although we did get to spend two weeks touring various cities around the country – Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, etc.
At the time, Japan was a pretty rigid society. Rigid in that everyone seemed to follow the exact same set of rules. For a Western mind where the rights of the individual are the center to our ideology, it was a real cultural jolt to be in a society where the collective ideal is greater than its individual participants. The first sight that met us as we wandered around Tokyo that first day was hundreds of school children – all dressed in identical outfits down to their matching gloves and hats. We had barely gotten settled that first week when one of our translators killed himself by jumping off a building. The explanation given was that he had been ill for quite some time and felt ashamed that he could no longer contribute to the company. Our Japanese hosts seemed to take the news calmly. Wow – that was the moment we knew that we were playing with a different set of rules.
Manners are what make a society move along smoothly. Expected gestures, actions and words that basically allow the person that you are interacting with know that you respect them – or at least acknowledge their existence. All I have to say about Japan was that they had taken manners to a new height – the constant bowing, the levels of bows, the gift giving, how you addressed someone and the most annoying unspoken rule – never saying “No”. Apparently it was impolite. Because the company was to tour the country – it was left to the company manager Pamela and I to continue some of the negotiations in Tokyo. We left most of our meetings confused. When we asked a question, we always got the same answer “Hi” which means “Yes”. We were never sure whether “Yes” meant “Yes” or whether “Yes” meant “No”. Our confusion probably contributed to the lengthy negotiation process (several weeks). I’m still trying to figure out why they have the word “No” in their vocabulary – I mean – why have a word you don’t use?
Taxis at the time, didn’t like to stop for foreigners – and it was pretty easy to spot most of us. I understood their reticence – What’s the point of picking up a bunch of people who couldn’t speak your language? How are they going to tell you where they want to go? If we were lucky enough to get a taxi to stop for us – we carried a never-ending supply of business cards for both the hotel we were living in and the theatre – they truly were our only means of communication. Those business cards were the foreigner’s savior. If we got lost, all we had to do was stop someone on the street, whip out our little card and they would point us in the right direction. Sometimes however, we really needed a taxi and rather than spend precious time trying to flag a sympathetic driver down – we put Pamela on the street as our decoy. Pamela’s mother was Japanese and more importantly – Pamela looked Japanese. One night, a taxi driver got a lesson about judging a book by its cover. We were traveling from the nightclub district with some friends from the US embassy. Pamela was once again on decoy duty. A taxi stopped for her immediately and we all jumped in. The driver turned to Pamela and asked for directions. Pamela stared at him and shrugged her shoulders. The burly Irishman who was sitting in the front seat answered him. The driver’s mouth dropped open in amazement. Our Irish friend had grown up in Japan and spoke like a native.
Three of us (Hayley, Matt and I) acquired some diehard fans while working in Tokyo and like everything else in Japanese society at the time – they took it to a new extreme. It began with Hayley, who started receiving notes of praise – along with food coupons for various restaurants throughout the city. All of us were confused at first. We did clue into the fact that the writer felt Hayley was too thin and that she needed to eat more but it was only when we finally met him that it all started to make sense. Hayley’s fan was a sumo wrestler. The wrestler attended a fair number of performances and given his size – it really wasn’t hard to spot him in the audience. Now I have to take a moment to explain that the tickets for our shows were pretty expensive by what was then the current Japanese standard of living – so the wrestler’s continuous presence was pretty impressive. I’m not sure who came up with the bright idea first, but it was decided that the sumo wrestler should be invited backstage during the intermission so Hayley could meet him and thank him personally for his generosity. One of the theatre staff escorted the wrestler to our downstairs dressing room hallway. Hayley with the help of a translator thanked him. Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He fainted. Have you ever tried to move an unconscious sumo wrestler? He lay in the hallway throughout most of the second act with us pole-vaulting over his body to get by.
Matt’s fan was a teenaged girl who waited for him outside of the theatre most nights. The minute that she spotted him, she would scream in ecstasy – an ear piercing, off the charts scream. For weeks, Matt would get startled by high pitched screams emanating from different locations around the theatre. He was not pleased. She screamed, he glared. The fact that I started calling him “John Lennon” didn’t add to his bad mood. Two days before we left Japan, the kid finally figured out where our hotel was and spent hours standing across the street and waiting to catch a glance of Matt. On the last day morning in Japan, Matt and I were sitting in the hotel café, looking out the window at the passing traffic – and the kid – patiently standing on the sidewalk on the other side. I begged Matt to have pity on the girl and at least talk to her. He finally relented. Matt went across the street and returned to the café with the kid in tow. He bought her a cup of tea and we sat in awkward silence. Our transportation to the airport arrived. The three of us walked silently downstairs to meet it. As we were boarding the bus, Matt turned to the girl, mumbled a quick good-bye and kissed her on the cheek. We left the hotel accompanied by the sound of joyful screaming.
My fan was Mr. Saito. After one of the shows, I returned to my room at the hotel. I opened the door – stopped in my tracks – backed out of the room, closed the door and started back to the elevator. The room I had just walked into was filled with roses (which was pretty easy to do because our rooms were the size of large US closets). Obviously I was in the wrong room. I got my bearings back and realized that yes – that was my room. My room – filled with flowers. Hmmm. The flowers came with a note from a Mr. Saito. He had just seen the show and he thought that I looked like young Julie and sang like her too. Wow – I was confused. There wasn’t a Julie in the company. It took a bit of time – but with subsequent notes I finally figured it out. He thought that I looked like a young Julie Andrews. Again – hmmm. In my estimate that could only mean that the man was blind – and tone deaf. Roses continued to arrive daily to the point that my room had begun to resemble a funeral parlor. And like Hayley’s wrestler, Mr. Saito came to many performances – although I didn’t know who he was. His presence was always announced by a note sent to my dressing room. The tone of the notes began to change – he was urging me to meet him after the show. Personally – I was beginning to freak out. The first rule of safety in any woman’s book should be “Don’t go meeting strange men in foreign locations”. The rest of the company took pity on Mr. Saito and urged me to meet him. I finally agreed – with one condition – Tim would pose as my boyfriend. We met Mr. Saito and he turned out to be an OK guy – a little weird for my tastes but still OK. He worked as an executive for one of the big steel firms, lived with his mother and was in the market for a wife. I was a candidate for the position. Happily, he eventually accepted defeat in the pursuit of me and we stayed in contact for a couple of years. I don’t know if he ever got married – or if his wife resembles young Julie.