image: yhassi
“I once read about a Chinese maiden whose feet were unbound by a cruel man …”
Years ago, I went out on a date with a guy who had a job “erasing Morning Musume’s [1] pimples” at a digital editing studio in Tokyo [2]. He took me to all his favorite places around the back streets of Harajuku [3], Aoyama and Shibuya—we walked and walked. He told me how much he admired Okamoto Taro [4]. He took me to his friend’s cafe. I really felt cool, seeing Tokyo at the side of this hip Japanese dude. When I was getting dressed for this date though, for some reason I had decided to wear my green rubber flip-flops. It was a hot summer night, and I wanted to show how casual and free I was. When we met, he asked me if my feet were going to be OK, and I said, “Sure!” Well, by midnight, we’d been walking for about four hours and my feet were starting to hurt. We were standing right near the Starbucks at the Shibuya scramble [5], and suddenly I just couldn’t walk anymore. I sent him to go buy some Band-Aids for me.
I stood on top of my sandal straps and waited. I couldn’t move. It was the middle of the night and my feet throbbed with pain. I remembered a story I had read about a Chinese maiden whose feet were unbound [6] by a cruel man who left her at the side of the road, unable to walk, at the complete mercy of passers-by. I thought about that woman with her feet unwrapped, uncovered, waiting for a dashing stranger to come and bandage them in strips of cloth he ripped from his own shirt. I waited, thinking, surely a little Band-Aid isn’t that hard to find. Thinking, what if he never comes back? How will I get home? Which would be worse—walking with chafed feet in flip-flops, or walking through Shibuya with no shoes at all? 
referenced works
- Perennially popular all-girl pop juggernaut with ever-changing lineup. ↩
- Capital city of Japan. ↩
- Hip, centrally located youth fashonista central. Loved and exploited by Gwen Stafani. Wikipedia on Harajuku. ↩
- Wikipedia on Okamoto Taro. Taro Okamoto museum of art. ↩
- Quite possibly the most photographed, well known point in Tokyo. Or at least the busiest. ↩
- Foot binding is some nasty stuff. Not recommended. ↩
location information
- Name: Shibuya Crossing
- Address: Shibuya-ku Shibuya 2-15-1
- Time of story: late night
- Latitude: 35.659364
- Longitude: 139.700727
- Map: Google Maps
033 “Dewy eyes closed, her porcelain arms and legs splayed attractively”
032 “The ika had made too many turns.”
031 “A tongue was moving around my big toe, like a warm slug crawling. ”
030 “Ichor will gush out of this carefully constructed image”
029 “I wince, more than her.”
028 “Their schoolbags were puddled around their socks, forgotten”
027 “Amongst the bottles and the obscure records and the crimson velvet walls”
026 “Nostalgia isn’t an easy indulgence for amateurs”
025 “... but anyway please take one of these little cheese cakes ...”
024 “The inhabitants of the blue, makeshift tents in the bushes.”
023 “Yeah … I’m sorry too. Merry Christmas.”
022 “I was dead broke. It was winter.”
021 “The district's energy had faded to rest on my last night there.”
020 “The slightly bald salaryman didn't correspond to any memory I could conjure up.”
019 “She laughed at my effort and responded in English, ‘Long time, no seduction.’ ”
018 “In my dreamy state, oblivious to signs and announcements I often boarded the wrong train.”
017 “I was fifteen years old and it was one of those nights.”
016 “That ear of corn just wanted to go home”
015 “With his painstakingly coiffured mane blowing in the wind”
014 “Her voice, even across languages, betraying her worry.”
013 “I saw them drawing bamboo sticks from a silver rectangular box.”
012 “A simulacrum of someone else's home, equal parts comfort and loss.”
011 “Jumbled Escheresque insanity where geography in any traditional sense ceases to exist.”
010 “I could hardly make out anything apart from his glowing eyes...”
009 “Shibuya was like a stroke.”
008 “I cried for a while and wiped the dead bracken off my karate pants.”
007 “Both my tie and my disposition hang limp as I calculate the remaining distance to the station.”
006 “I once read about a Chinese maiden whose feet were unbound by a cruel man …”
005 “The Bad Girl strutted off and I was left with a ham egg pie.”
004 “I arrived expecting an irritated Japanese person to step out of the crowd and identify himself as Hideki.”
003 “The woman at the ticket window seemed surprised to see another human being. I was the only visitor.”
002 “Flanked on either side by adult manga shops and the like, the smell of yakitori in the air.”
001 “For two weeks the day began with this morning walk, our shared routine.”
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