November 04, 2002
TokyoFriends.com
As many of you heard on the discussion board, I actually ended up going to the TokyoFriends party.
Originally, I was seriously not planning to go. When I first heard about the party, I was completely uninterested. I tend to negatively prejudge anything that uses 'foreigners' as selling point.
This seemed to be one of those events that Japanese people attend in order to meet 'foreigners' in a safe environment. People who are hesitant to initiate a conversation with anyone of the foreigners walking through Tokyo everyday, can attend events like this in order to make foreign friends.
I ended up going to the TokyoFriends.com party because the night before, one of my friends mentioned that one of his other friends was going to some kind of 'international party' on Sunday night. Since my friend was going, I decided to check it out.
I eventually found out that it was the Tokyofriends.com party that my friend was talking about. I checked their website for details, and noticed they were looking for volunteers. I ended up running the 'uketsuke' place, taking peoples names and selling them their tickets to the party. For that labor, I got to attend the party for free! Bonus. The usual party fee is listed on their website.
If you offer to volunteer, entrance will be free, and you can help with the front desk, the clean-up, the initial setup, and other tasks that need to get done during the event. After the event is over, the organizers usually try to treat the
volunteers to a night out drinking or something. Of the eight or so volunteers that night, only about three of them had ever attended the event before.
There must have been at least 150 guests at the party. It was rather amazing. There was a pretty good mix of Japanese, and 'foreigners' as well. The Japanese ranged everywhere from college students, to 'salarymen'. The foreigners were as equally diverse, with students studying abroad, business professionals, and even military types. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any foreign women at the event.
The food was lacking, some cheap gyoza, some KFC, some meat and potato dishes, and some pizza were available in limited quantities. The drinks were plentiful however. The atmosphere was fun, and really, this party is a good chance to make some friends if you are living in the Tokyo area. During the party lots of the Japanese will insist on speaking English to you, even if you can speak Japanese, as many really have come to the event to practice their English.
The club is run by a dedicated bunch of young people, and tends to have events about twice a month it seems. Their website is always up to date with the date for the next party.
If you happen to be free on a night of one of their parties, I suggest you give it a shot.
Posted by Harvey at November 04, 2002 07:48 AM
now see, that's what I like about your site. first you tongue-in-cheek kind of dismissed the party as for suckers (which I understood completely), and then you were open enough to not only go but volunteer. props to you dude. I went to the website and I have one question that's burning in my mind: most of the people in the photos appear to be either japanese or white. as a black guy, did you notice that you were treated any different?even in a subtle way, was there any "vibe" around being one of the few if only black guys there?
Hey thanks for the compliments, and good point man, good point.
Actually, those pictures on their site are from a few parties ago, they don't update their pictures as much as they say they do.
That doesn't matter though.
As for the foreigners at the party, they are mostly Japanese or white, but even if they are white, there were few Americans, really. Some Canadian, but mostly people from Europe.
There were also a fair number of Indians, and a few Indonesians if I remember.
Now that I think back, I think I was actually the -only- black guy in the place. I have to say that I am getting really used to that though... I hardly notice anymore.
I didn't notice people treating me any different than other foreigers really though. If there was any difference in treatment, it would be have to be explained as an 'added popularity boost' if anything.
Seriously though, I may be blind to it all since I have 'been here so long' (okay, only 5 months) now...
Interesting, Harv.
One thing stands out, though...when you said that you didn't see any foreign women at the gig, you mean that the ONLY women there were Japanese?
And since you were the only Black man there, did you get the "novelty" factor working for your favor? And if so, are you getting tired of it?
And how come your text got all jacked up?
Questions, questions!
- Mizu
Actually, I am sure there were Chinese, and Korean women at the party too. Not many, in fact, from all I know, just once of each, heh. But I am sure that there were!
I am totally tired of the novelty factor...
Text is messed? Yikes. I didn't even notice. Japanese laptop giving me trouble maybe. Try playing with your Encoding settings ;)
whoops.
That text was totally messed up. I copied and pasted from M$ Word into MoveableType. Apparently it didn't like it.
My bad.