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Faced with a sudden appointment I found myself in Tokyo, Japan. When you’re a journalist and you’re granted an interview with the Prime Minister there’s not much time to dilly-dally. The man has a busy schedule and you just have to fit yours around his. So off I flew to the land of the rising sun.

The very pleasant lady at the immigration in Narita asked the purpose of my visit. To interview the Prime Minister, I answered candidly, without any desire to impress, but that was the only reason. She gave me a rather puzzled look. Which Prime Minister, she asked? In turn I gave her an equally puzzled look. Why, how many Prime Ministers do you have? I asked.

She gave me another look as if I was some poor misguided tourist not sure of where I was going. There are so many, the immigration lady said. Well, I said, as far as I know I’m interviewing the current Prime Minister. She smiled and stamped my passport. You do know which one right? I asked, as doubt began to enter my mind. May be this country has more than one Prime Minister after all? Hatoyama?

She wrinkled her brows for a second and then shook her head. No, she said, she’d never heard of that one before. Have a pleasant stay anyway.

Strange, I thought. Japan’s had a new Prime Minister for a good couple of months now. But then who am I to judge? I have trouble remembering who’s who in the Indonesian ministerial cabinet. May be the immigration lady was not an avid follower of current issues. Or may be Prime Minister was just a normal minister.

It rained in Tokyo when my camera crew and I arrived. A long incessant rain winter’s day rain that was grey with fog. I mused, the same amount of rain for that length of time in Jakarta would undoubtedly have caused knee-high flooding not to mention havoc to the road traffic.

Walking along Asakusa a young man with an umbrella for a hat stopped me and offered to take me around sightseeing on a rickshaw. He worked for the city tourism office or something. I declined politely but was impressed by his good English and friendliness. He asked where I came from and what I was planning to do. I thought I’d repeat what I told the immigration lady.

Which Prime Minister is that? the handsome rickshaw pusher asked. Again I asked how many Prime Ministers did Japan have. Many, many Prime Ministers, he laughed waving his hands. I told him I was going to see the current one of course, and challenged him to give me the Prime Minister’s name. His arms flayed around even more as if he was trying to conjure the name out of thin air. Finally he gave a shout of triumph. Koizumi!

I was non-plussed. Obviously the country has gone through more Prime Ministers than we have political scandals and suffer from similar short-term memory loss. Here I was thinking that they would be impressed with the fact that I was going to interview their number one leader, the most powerful man in the country, and they couldn’t even come up with his name!

The day was getting darker, colder and more depressing. I decided to cheer myself up by trying to look for souvenirs in a shop Quixotically named as Don Quijote in Riponggi that had a large aquarium with only two fish inside – a baby shark and the biggest fish I had ever laid my eyes upon whose name escaped me. I thought, here was a novel idea to attract customers.

I went inside the shop, which turned out to be six floors consisting of every kind of objects that I never knew existed on this planet with Hello Kitty dolls about the only things I recognized. The Kanji characters on the packets, boxes and wrappings didn’t help, as I couldn’t make heads or tails of the language let alone the stuffs inside and how to use them.

I picked up a box that actually had English on it, or so I thought. The product was tantalizingly called ‘Jesus Body’. It consisted of some kind of capsules. I read the package. It said, ‘a secret we will never discover. We will lay down for it because it is correct’ and other words seemingly in English but making absolute no sense. I left the shop empty handed.

My hotel room was slightly bigger than the bed in it with the toilet right next to the bed separated only by a tempered glass. There was no place for me to even put my suitcase.

I knew I was far away from home. Especially because the toilet was heated and had fancy buttons that shot warm water to strategic parts of one’s behind and that flushed by itself just in case you’re the forgetful type.
I put the television on. Just as I thought, all the programmes in the channels had been dubbed into Japanese.

Then a programme caught my eye. It was about Bali, the culture, the people and all the amazing things a Japanese could find there.

Well, at least here is one thing that didn’t need translation.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)