Jonathan

http://www.simplyjapan.com
http://www.sixcentpress.jp

from below you, bottom east — on the south pacific

dave riley
australia

that is odd that virgin megastore would have a section like that. hmmm…. i doubt you would find that nowadays though…..

and as for that black van, you are correct, they are the people who oppose the western influence that their government allows in the country. they’re not about hating americans or brits. i’ve actually met a couple of them and they’re not mean people. they’re just pissed at their governement for not taking certain matters in their own hands instead of taking the western approach to certain problems….

i hope that makes sense…..

cant wait for the next part of the akihabara podcast!

I’ve really been enjoying your shows…even more so since I learned that my wife Holly and I will be celebrating our 5th anniversary in Japan next year. We first visited Japan 5 years ago and it was toy shopping heaven.

I thought of something that might make for an interting topic or question for your show.

I’ll probably have several questions for you between now and then, if you don’t mind, but something that struck me as odd - and trust me, I am surrounded by odd things here in L.A. working in the entertainment industry - was when I visited an underground Virgin Records store in Tokyo, I noticed a huge sign that said “BLACK MUSIC.”

It was a little suprising since it’s not something you’d see at least on this side of the U.S. where everything that was covered in that one section could be divided up into Soul, R & B, Hip-Hop, etc…

I knew this wasn’t done in malice at all. In my experience there I did not find people in Japan to be rude or racist in any way, which isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist. Not being from African American decent myself, I DO wonder if any of your fellow enlisted men of color have ancountered anything that could have been considered racist at all?

And perhaps this could be for the same or a separate show, but one crazy thing that did happen while we were there was a black van pulled up to a building we were in with speakers blaring this VERY LOUD brass orchestra music. We were 12 stories up and it was so loud it sounded like they were just on the other side of the window. We were told that these people were protesting western influence in their country. Do you or your wife know anything about this or were these isolated incidents from 5 years ago?

Ok, that was a lot of typing so you may have to edit. Again, I enjoy your show and I hope all is well. I’ll probably have more questions for you soon if you want.

~ Chris Beyond
editor, no-fi “magazine”
http://www.nofimagazine.com
http://www.nofiradio.com

Thanks for listening!

josh