Month: May 2022

Is this real or just my imagination?

I’m basically a God(zilla) in this strange nation…

“Hello, Tokyo…HELLO, TOKYO!”

I tell you what, finally getting to visit the Land of the Rising Sun was just so ----- exciting. While I wasn’t technically a fake 80’s rock star, I couldn’t help but thinking that this is what it must have felt like to have been Spinal Tap visiting Cleveland for the first time…

Yes, as I pre-call it, ’twas the Spring of 2025, and the proverbial Japanese cherry blossoms were in full bloom. And thanks to an invitation of dubious sincerity from old friend who had resettled across the Other Pond, I had loaded up the family and hauled them across the Pacific Ocean to enjoy these world famous blossoms and all the other cultural experiences this strange and foreign land had to offer.

Soon enough we were finding our way through the airport, and that was when I noticed that we seemed to be attracting quite a few stares. I found that surprising, ‘cuz surely they had seen their share of super-Caucasian middle-aged men in a cosmopolitan metropolis like this, right?

We had almost made it to the respite of our taxi when we were stopped by a random Japanese couple.

“Shashin! Shashin!” I heard somebody excitedly chatter from behind us.

“The heck they talking about!?!” I muttered to myself as I whipped out my handy pocket Japanese-English dictionary.

“Shashin! Shashin!” They were pretty intent on getting whatever it was that they wanted.

Soon enough, I found “Shashin” in my dictionary–though, had I looked up sooner, it would have been obvious from them frantically pointing at their phone that it was a “photograph” that they wanted.

“Well, if it’s a selfie with the White Devil himself that you want, than it’s a selfie with the White Devil you’ll get!”

I mean, I had no better guess as to why they insisted on getting a picture with me, but hey, what harm could it hurt in humoring them? I tried flashing the ubiquitous Asian peace/victory hand sign for the pic, but they stopped me with their broken Engrish:

“No, no, rike this.” Both of them pressed their palms together and stood on one leg while placing the foot of their free leg against their knee.

“Is that…is that Tree Pose from Yoga???” This situation just continued to get more and more bizarre.

But, as it turns out, I’m a huge fan of the Tree Pose, so it was no problem for me to handle their, uh, “interesting” request.

So, there we stood in the middle of the airport, the three of us in Tree Pose, as The Elder took a picture of us on their phone.

“Domo arigato!”

They profusely thanked me before heading on their way. But as they walked away, I could clearly see they were already posting our picture to social media.

What in the world were they up to?

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I proceeded to hail a taxi.

“Oh, those clazy Asians…”

“ようこそ ハワイのサーフィンヨギ !”

My entire family stood there in shock in the middle of Shibuya Crossing–“the Times Square of Tokyo”–trying to comprehend what we were looking at.

There above us, plastered across the giant LCD screens on the side of one of the buildings was…a really tan version of me?

“Okay, this is getting creepy…first off, we’ve had to stop and take pictures with what I guess are your fans 8 times in the 2 hours we’ve been in this country. And now…this? Is there some secret life of yours that I should know about?”

Honestly, “overly suspicious of a possible double life” was the last response to the situation from the Boss Lady that I had expected.

“You kidding me right now? I have no ----- idea where that picture of me came from. And when would have I had the time to sneak off on a Trans-Pacific flight to build an international fan base? I’m just as confused as you are, Babe!”

“Well, I for one think it’s impressive that my very own Daddy is a world-wide superstar. Even if he has no clue why, it’s still pretty danged cool!”

At least The Younger, our 7-year-old daughter, ever the optimist and drinker-of-life-to-the-fullest, was enjoying the weird-as-hell moment we found ourselves in.

The Elder, the pre-teen problem-solver that she was, then pointed out something that seems patently obvious in retrospect:

“Well, from all the Ryan’s World that I watched when I was younger, can tell you that ‘ようこそ’ means ‘Welcome!’ in English.”

“Now only if we could figure out what ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’ means, then maybe we could get to the bottom of this mystery…”

“Ahhh, it’s nice to finally get away from the crowds, isn’t it, fam?”

After being relentlessly hounded for fan-pic after fan-pic–all of them demanding we assume Tree Pose, nonetheless–I finally decided to give everyone a break with a relaxing visit to Chidorigafuchi Park.

It was only natural that we would end up in C-Park, as this was one of the premiere spots to enjoy the cherry blossoms–and wasn’t that half the reason we were there in the first place? Plus, as an added bonus, there were all sorts of sculpture art to enjoy at the same time (The Boss Lady is infamous for her pastime of “watching art”).

“Holy. Sh*t.”

I was kinda shocked at the words coming out of my wife’s mouth. Normally I’m the one to drop a cuss word or two in the family.

“Hey Babe, I don’t think the girls are quite old enough to hear potty-words like that coming out of your pie-hole…”

No response. She seemed to be frozen in shock and/or awe at something over my shoulder.

“What in the world are you starin–“

My mouth stopped dead in its tracks as I turned and saw what it was that she was staring at.

There, in front of us, in the middle of beautiful park halfway around the world from our everyday lives, was a bronze statue of…me?!?

“Uh, Dad, why is there a sculpture of you doing the Tree Pose next to a palm tree?” The Elder had an inquiring mind that wanted to know.

“Hey check it out–here on the plaque is that strange inscription again, ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–maybe it’s time we ask the Googles what that means?”

Leave it to The Younger to point out the obvious fact that we could have done a bit of internet sleuthing this whole time (but personally, I kinda enjoyed revelling in the mystery of it all–shhh! Don’t let the kids know!).

The Older snapped a pic of the plaque on her smart phone and plugged it into Reverse Image Search.

“Let’s see…ah, yes, here it is right here! ‘ハワイのサーフィンヨギ’–it looks like you’re known in these here parts as the ‘Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’. Says here they erected this statue in honor of an unknown Haole in Honolule who was a popular tourist attraction at Waikiki Beach from 2011 to 2013 before he mysteriously disappeared. According to his Wikipedia page, ‘The Hawaiian Surfing Yogi’ was known for his elaborate public post-surfing stretching routine. In fact, for a couple of years there was actually a Japanese social media challenge where tourists would mimic his poses and try to take pictures with him without his knowledge. Most famous of these poses…”

“…was the Tree Pose. Yes, kids, I suppose it’s true: I am indeed the infamous Hawaiian Surfing Yogi–though this is the first I’m hearing about it!”

“Those crazy Japanese tourists must have been pretty good at taking pictures of you without you knowing it, eh, Dad?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But now that I think about it…I do vaguely recall during one of my stretching sessions noticing an elderly Japanese tourist off yonder making a horrible attempt to copy my moves. I tried my best to ignore him, but I couldn’t help notice that he was killing it with his tour group. Indeed, his fellow travellers all seemed to be getting a good chuckle out of that joker’s antics at my expense…”

At that point, the Boss Lady piped up with a pity summary of all the events that had transpired.

“The point of the story is, girls, that you gotta be somewhat careful when ‘doing your own thang’ in public. You never know who is watching, and you could unwittingly become an international celebrity like your father here, for better or for worse.”

She then turned her attention to me:

“And as for you, don’t go getting any ideas about lightening striking twice. You may have fell ass-backwards into fame this time, but I promise you, there aren’t going to be any alien archeologists in the future stumbling across your obscure blog and thinking to themselves, ‘Hmmm, so this is what the typical Earthling’s life looked like…’

“Ignore her, girls: I’m telling you, one day far in the future, in a galaxy far away,there’s going to be a sitcom based on my writings. I’ll be the intergalactic Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Zeta Reticuli solar system, all because I was never ashamed to ‘do my own thang’…”

This episode was brought to you by Google Translate and one very over-active imagination.

Content created on: 13/14 May 2022 (Fri/Sat)