Comments by "" (@TheDavidlloydjones) on "FD Finance"
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When I built the first Western-style coin laundry in Japan, in Kokubunji, a western suburb of Tokyo, in 1972, my good landlord suggested that I should have a chat with the local poli-box, the stand where the most local policeman was stationed, about my idea of leaving the store open 24 hous a day, un-staffed.
I went and said hello to the cop on duty that afternoon, explained what I wanted to do, and asked politely if that would be any problem. "Where is it going to be?" he asked. "Down the street in the Nani-Nani Building," I said. He held up his arm parallel to the ground, and pointed, parallel to the railroad. "Which side of this line?" "To the street side," I said. "No problem," he assured me.
What if it had bee to th north or railroad side of the line, I asked. In that case I would have needed the permission of the local Oyabun, "The Boss," who ran the "entertainment district," i.e. the bars, pacinko parlours, and nightlife to the north of the station.
Just out of curiosity, I went to see the man. He ran a bar on the shoten-gai, the main street north of the station, and was almost alone when I entered. 'Ah, yes, I'd heard about you " he greeted me, and opened a round canned bottle of Scotch, (Is it Grenfiddich?) "A pleasure to see you." We made small talk, and he ended up pointing to a girl by the window. "Why don't you take her with you. She's a virgin."
Over the next twelve years I brushed up against that world only lightly, and for a year or so had one rock-climbing partner who at our age, about 24, had had the first one and a half colours of what was intended, over the years, to be a full-body uniform, tattooed on his back. He was disdaiined by my regular climbing club partners, but was a competent suport on the other end of a rope and a fine drinking buddy. We didn't get much into his business life, though he did take me out for a beer at the one bar which was the sum of his territory. He sketched what he hoped to come to govern over the generation from then on -- the very substantial entertainment district north of Nakano Station on the Chuo Line. If that has come about in the fifty years since, he is today retired a very wealthy man.
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