Complete Works of Ian Fleming, page 299
Don’t confine your experiments in the wide and rich field of Japanese cuisine to the tourist’s stand-bys: sukiyaki and tempura. The first is an indifferent beef stew which the Japanese seldom bother to eat themselves; the latter is just deep-fried fish, which is tasty enough but not outstanding. If you must try it, sukiyaki is available at any Japanese-style restaurant; the best place for tempura, among hundreds of good places, is the Hashizen in Shimbashi.
You do not need to be daringly venturesome to try yakatori, which is charcoal-grilled chicken or duck, interspersed with green pimento and Japanese onions, and spiked à la brochette on bamboo needles. There are as many cheap and gay yakatori restaurants and bars in the swarming labyrinth of alleys around the Ginza as there are tempura and noodle shops.
Be certain not to miss the magnificent supponnabe, or snapping turtle, which is combined soup and flesh cooked at the table in private rooms at a celebrated restaurant behind the Ginza. (Addresses are almost impossible to give in Tokyo but your hotel will write the location of any of the Tokyo restaurants mentioned for your taxi-driver.) Only the poor in spirit will refuse to taste sashimi (sliced raw fish); only the deficient in taste will refuse to repeat the order. And, as is well known to all Tokyo old hands, no one ever has a hangover, no matter what his excesses have been, if before going home he halts briefly and happily at a reputable bar for some sushi (rice topped with raw fish).
For the truly adventurous, the ancient and famed Momonjiya restaurant still serves roast monkey, monkey brains and wild boar; there are haunts near the Tsukiji fish-markets that specialize in the delicious blow-fish, which can be prepared only in registered kitchens because it contains a deadly poison; and, finally, the Taiko restaurant (next door to the Show Boat cabaret) offers, very frankly: ‘Soup with sexual organs of ox and cock; sliced pork ovary with mushrooms; and sweet and sour sexual organs of ox — all 300 yen (6s.).’ These last entrées are described delicately as ‘Tonic Dishes’.
Night-clubs and Night Life
Tokyo is a wide-open city — except that there is no gambling. There is an embarrassing choice of night-clubs, embarrassing in price as well as in variety. The Copacabana is probably the best; it is run by the handsome and redoubtable Madam Cherry, who recruits most of her luscious hostesses from Kobe — in Western opinion, the cradle of the most beautiful Japanese girls. (The Japanese say that the most beautiful come from Hokkaido and Niigata.) The company of a hostess in the night-club puts you back 1,000 yen (£1) an hour. A foot-loose visitor will get more incident, value and variety for his money by roaming the colourful legion of little bars in the crowded, lantern-hung lanes around the Ginza. The names are immaterial because these little bars ceaselessly rise, fall and change hands as the shifting coteries of sincere Japanese drinkers lurch to new surroundings and find new bottles and new faces.
Two notable and intimate cabarets which should be visited and compared are L’Espoir, controlled by Beautiful Crystal, an elegant former dancer, and Osome (‘Modesty’), controlled by Dawn of Love, a voluptuous former geisha from Kyoto. Both these cabarets compete for the patronage of Tokyo’s smart intellectual set, writers, artists and politicians (men only, of course). Gaijin are discreetly and carefully screened.
Hints for Sake-drinkers
Don’t be fooled by the apparent mildness of good sake. Sake has an alcoholic content of twenty per cent. It should be drunk warm, with food, and is much better for serious drinkers when poured into no-nonsense thick china mugs instead of the conventional porcelain thimbles, which smack of the tea ceremony to good flagon-men. Sake continues to ferment with age and does not keep much longer than a year even when bottled and sealed. Nor does it travel well. So there are no such things as sake cellars or sake vintage years.
There is a delicate sweet sake, amakuchi, and also a more robust dry sake, karakuchi. Tokkyu means ‘special class’; ikkyu, ‘first class’. Any type of sake from the Okura Company, especially tokkyu Gekke ikan (‘Laurel Crown’), is excellent; these brewers are purveyors to the Imperial household. Another top brand is the Kikumasamune of Nada (karakuchi), which goes well with grilled fish and octopus, but not with tempura.
Tokkyu Taruhe (karakuchi) from Yamagata is the Burgundy of sakes, and has too much body to accompany sashimi (raw fish). With sashimi take very warm ikkyu Taiheizan (amakuchi), which has a delicate pine tree aroma. Tokkyu Ryozeki (also from Akita) is another amakuchi type sake which can be recommended. Order Kembishi sake with tempura. When you sample blow-fish the barkeeper should thrust a fish-fin into your china mug of karakuchi sake.
Don’t drink sake with Western food and don’t drink sake after plain rice has ended a Japanese meal. Officers of the pre-war Imperial Japanese Navy preferred cold sake as a summer drink to beer. Today, young Japanese, to the regret of the old samurai class, are turning to Japanese-type whisky instead of sake.
IV. Honolulu
‘Have a good fright.’ The pretty hostess bowed demurely as I left the unfortunately-named ‘Final Departure Lounge’ of Tokyo Airport and walked out towards the sturdy, four-engined DC-6 of Japan Air Lines, Flight 614, for Honolulu. It was ten-thirty in the evening of Friday the 13th and, thanks to the international date-line, we were due at Honolulu before we had started — at two thirty-five on the afternoon of Friday the 13th. That double Friday the 13th! Here we go!
I rather enjoy flying. I like the comparative privacy and quiet of the hurtling cocoon (now bouncing as well as hurtling as we battled with the fringes of Typhoon Number Twenty, cosily dubbed ‘Emma’, which at that moment was causing havoc around Okinawa), where one can sit and read books and write up one’s notes while people come and cosset you and positively beg you to drink champagne. And Japan Air Lines, as I had expected, had, to an exquisite degree, the desire to please — almost too much of it. With the suspicion born of Scots ancestry, a tiny mite of mistrust built up just above the level of consciousness as gift after gift ‘With the compliments of Japan Air Lines’ was heaped upon me. The usual travel folder, of course, but also a sandalwood scented fan, an expensive black moire silk box containing masculine cosmetics, and finally a thing called a Happi Coat. This was a sort of waist-length kimono in black and white with a vast red ideogram on its back, which I assumed meant ‘Happiness’. Most of the American passengers put this on, but none of the Japanese, and not I, who decided to save it up as a round-the-world present for somebody. Drinks were brought and a midnight snack, and then it was time to climb into a comfortable bunk and say my thanks and farewells to the Orient before, via a deep sleep, preparing my mind for the impact of the West.
About four hours later we were almost exactly at the point of no return between Tokyo and Honolulu, and around 2,000 miles out across the Pacific. So far as I was concerned, I had just about passed my half-way flight distance of 22,696 miles around the world. I was awoken by the authoritative voice of the captain. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. There has been an explosion in number three engine and a fire, which has been got under control. I have no hydraulic pressure. We have altered course for Wake Island where I shall carry out a no-flap landing at an unusual altitude and faster than is the custom. We shall then be towed to the airport. I have made many three-engine landings and also many without hydraulic pressure, so — see you on the ground!’
Thinking, so much for a double Friday the 13th! I dressed and climbed out of my bunk to the ground. People were sitting very still and looking straight in front of them. The steward and the pretty stewardesses in their kimonos looked as impassive as the Japanese are supposed to look. The steward bustled up and moved a Japanese from my seat and apologized. The passengers from the front of the plane had been moved to the back while the fire-fighting went on. I gazed out of the window at the dead, blackened engine that now drooped somewhat from the horizontal. A beautiful dawn was coming up over the cloudless horizon. We had come down to about ten thousand feet and the flat calm looked positively inviting. I remembered Monsieur Bombard’s instructions about survival at sea. One must not struggle, but remain calm and conserve one’s energies, floating as much as possible. The salinity of the Pacific, I guessed, would be a help. I had laughed when the steward had demonstrated the inflatable life jackets. ‘This is your life vest,’ he had said. ‘This is your front-side and this is your back-side. There is a whistle to blow and a light to shine.’ Now I tried to remember the further instructions and, above all, not to inflate the thing until one was outside the aircraft. We hummed sturdily on, the aircraft vibrating slightly because of the unco-operative number three engine.
Half an hour later and there was suddenly a big, four-engined air-sea-rescue plane with a yellow nose and yellow tail, belonging to the U.S. Air Force from Wake, only fifty yards away to starboard. She stayed there, dead steady, ready to throw out life rafts. A quarter of an hour later, far below us, just above the surface of the sea, two PBY amphibians of the American Navy were shadowing us ready to come down on the surface and pick up the bits. I felt greatly reassured and, remembering my soothsayer’s happy predictions and trying to forget the double Friday the 13th, I shaved and had coffee. There was a crackle from the Tannoy and the calm voice of the captain came to us again: ‘This is your captain speaking. To lighten the plane, I am about to dump fuel, so there will be no smoking please.’ (As if she had heard the announcement, the air-sea-rescue plane edged away from us.) ‘This aircraft will be unserviceable for many days. I have been in touch with our Tokyo headquarters and a relief plane is already on its way. Not much further to go!’ We all continued to stare straight in front of us.
In due course, there was the blessed island of Wake, a tiny coral island fringed with surf and with a big, shallow, pale-green lagoon in its centre. We circled gently several times, losing height, and then, only just above sea level, came in at a good 200 miles an hour. We hit the runway smoothly and the captain juggled with his engines to keep us going straight. We did a few mild zigzags and then came to rest with a screech from the tyres. The fire engines and ambulances swept down on us and then the blessed hatch opened and we were back on terra firma.
The man who achieved this satisfactory climax was Captain Stuart Baird of Balboa, California, a United Air Lines pilot loaned to Japan Air Lines. I salute him.
Wake Island, which is an important aircraft staging-point, is notable for having absolutely no air-conditioning. I had always assumed that the first civilizing benefits Americans brought to newly acquired overseas territories were Coca-Cola, corned beef hash, and canned air, in that order. It was about ninety-five degrees in the mosquito-netted Quonsett huts that are the only buildings on Wake, and we spent an exhausting day nodding enthusiastically as successive ground and crew personnel came up and assured us how lucky we had been, Bud. Wake is one of the homes of the Pacific albatross, now so much disturbed, I believe, by the aircraft that they are in danger of extermination, but it was too hot to go and visit their haunts in the mangroves at the other end of the island. Instead, I slept gratefully in the spare crew quarters and gossiped with a man with a spotted dog who was in charge of quarantined animals — mostly monkeys and parrots en route for the States after being collected in the East by tourists. He told me that, though he liked life on Wake, there was nothing to do there but skin-dive and teach parrots in transit dirty words to shock their American owners.
At eight o’clock that night, the relief aircraft from Tokyo arrived with a director of Japan Air Lines who was extremely nice and polite and thanked us all ‘for our co-operation’, though how we were to have done anything but sit tight and co-operate was not made clear. More unguents and scented fans, fresh Happi Coats and then we were out of the second Friday the 13th and drowsily bound for Honolulu.
* * *
After the zest and delight of Hongkong and Tokyo, I had been dreading impact with the West, but Honolulu let me down comparatively softly. To begin with, I had always thought those famous leis you see in the Matson Line advertisements in American magazines were made of coloured paper. But I discovered with pleasure that they are not, and when I descended from my aeroplane, I was presented with a handsome and very fragrant garland of white ginger and Vanda orchids. (I later discovered that the tariff for these leis is: orchids $3, frangipani or ginger, $1.50.) Seven o’clock in the morning, dyspeptic and unshaven, with U.S. Immigration and Customs in front of you, is not the best time to be garlanded with flowers, and when, inside the airport, I found the wash-rooms inscribed ‘Kane’ for men and ‘Wahime’ for women, I anticipated that all this aloha stuff might quickly pall. But I must admit it was a relief to get to the Moana Surf Riders’ Hotel, walk again on carpet instead of on the highly polished wood floors of Japan, and rediscover the comforts of a Western hotel bedroom and bath.
The last time I had been in Honolulu had been in 1944 when I had done a brief spell with the Office of Naval Intelligence in Pearl Harbor. Then there had been no leis and the Moana and its neighbouring Royal Hawaiian had been Naval headquarters, camouflaged in black and green. But now, stepping out on to my balcony directly above the centre of Waikiki Beach, with Diamond Head glittering in the sun to my left and, in front, the first surf-riders coming gracefully in towards me on the creaming breakers, it was impossible to recall the days when Honolulu had been a fortress and Pearl Harbor a mass of unsalvaged wrecks. Yet behind this tropical tourist façade, Hawaii is still, after Okinawa, America’s forward naval base in the Pacific, the advance post for the Early Warning Defence System and, at this very moment, the centre from which the cones from the latest guided missiles were in the process of attempted recovery. And, since my last visit, Hawaii had come of age. She had become the fiftieth State of the Union and her population of over 600,000 had almost doubled since 1944.
It will certainly double again before long, because the islands, of which there are eight in the group, with an area of 6,500 square miles, are becoming a tourist resort and retirement paradise second only to Florida. This is not surprising. The islands possess real beauty and an average, year-round temperature of 75°. (Half-way through November, the board on the life-saver’s cabin on the beach below my room says: ‘Air 78°, Water 75°.’) And jets do the 2,000 miles from the mainland in about five hours.
For a European, the main disadvantage of the place is the high-pressure tourist atmosphere and the uniformity of the tourist and retired population — the men either bulging or scrawny, the women unshapely, blue-rinsed, rimless-glassed, and all with those tight, rather petulant mouths of the pensioned American. If they were dressed in fashions seemly to their age-group, these elderly hordes would fade into the background; but, to me, there is something infinitely depressing in thousands of sixty-eight-year-olds in Hawaiian or any other fancy dress — the men with aloha shirts and slacks or, worse, knee-length shorts; the women in over-decorated straw hats and ghastly Mother Hubbards known as ‘muumuus’, or other hideous confections described in the shops as ‘holokus’, ‘flounced holomuus’ or, for the cocktail hour, ‘sheath tea-timers’. On the beach, as I was later to observe, these elderly ghouls looked even worse without their muumuus — huge, blue-veined, dimpled thighs, scrawny necks and sagging bosoms garlanded with leis, their broken-down, spavined spouses trailing behind carrying the coconut mats, the sun oil, the bath robes and the Wall Street Journal. And, alas, in this and in other similar resorts, there are so few young people to relieve the eye and restore one’s faith in the human race. The young people cannot afford the fare or the cost of these resorts. If I were a Sheraton or a Hilton, I would reserve a proportion of my hotel space for young and attractive people and put them up for next to nothing, both to gladden the eye of the more hideous customers and perhaps to shame them into dressing their age.
Having had breakfast and thought these harsh thoughts, I decided to get some of the bile out of my system on a surf board. By now the whole sea in front of me, to about half a mile out where the waves began to gather, was crowded with flying figures and, though I had never tried the sport before, the guidebook I had purchased at the airport said that if I could swim and ride a bicycle I could learn to surf. ‘South Sea Scotty’ Guletz, who wrote the guide, was, in my case, mistaken.
I hired a beautiful pale-blue board. It was the Malibu model, made of balsa wood and coated with fibreglass. It cost one dollar per hour. The board is about ten feet long and weighs thirty-five pounds. I found that even to lie on it and paddle with both hands out towards the distant starting point was no mean feat, and I was several times capsized by the waves before I even got to the fringe of the riders. (I later discovered that the beach-boy should not have hired me a surf board without having some assurance that I could handle it, particularly since the son of an American admiral from Pearl Harbor had been killed the week before in a welter of crashing boards capsized by a particularly gigantic wave.) However, knowing nothing of this, I paddled on through the speeding experts who bore down on me with every wave, and in due course I was the requisite half-mile from the shore. I lay for a while and admired the beautiful distant hills and the whizzing sunburnt nymphets flying laughing by, Venuses on the half-shell, pursued by sleekly fat Hawaiian beach-boys, and tried to keep out of the way of their hurtling boards.
This surf-riding elite, composed of local shop-girls and boys from the town who seem to have nothing else to do from dawn till dusk but ride the waves, reminded me of those other superior beings you admire from afar at other resorts — the aristocracy of ski-teachers, golf and tennis pros and the like, whom the tourist sucks up to and the women tourists pay for lessons and dance with in the night-clubs where, in their own element, they can get on equal terms with the gods. Here, ‘On the beach at Waikiki’, they were just like those other elites all over the world, getting by on those years of practising some modest expertise, carefree and apparently far removed from the stresses and strains of the common herd, and all, perhaps, with that sad ambition to marry a rich tourist.
