A few days ago, I had to do work at a small clinic at the Atsugi Naval Air Station. While I was there, me and my partner, Emil, went to have lunch at this Japanese diner behind the clinic. It was our second time there and we made the mistake of going during the peak lunch hour. We ordered the special, as usual, for 650 yen. The cashier gave us our black and white tokens and we handed our tokens to the cook. That place was really packed and full of Japanese officers, sailors and soldiers. I guess that this base shares with the Japanese military. (Hence, earlier that day, I encountered a bunch of army guys with their rifles when trying to get to the clinic.) Me and Emil were the only U.S. Navy guys in the entire diner. I felt like I was getting stared at... especially for being asian in a U.S. military uniform. They thought I was Japanese I guess. Someone had finally got up and I quickly sat down. Next to me was a Japanese civilian with his face dug into a colorful magazine. He was waiting for his food. I glanced over to see what he was reading and it had shocked the hell out of me. He was looking at pictures of naked women! The sight of boobs, nipples and unshaven pubic hairs was enough to make me disassociate myself from him right away. By golly, there's women and children in this place! Well, Japanese men don't mind looking at porn magazines in public. I was wondering what was taking so long with our food. I had seen a few people get up and take their specials as well as new people coming in and taking what was theirs. People were getting in front of us! I got up and stood at the window where the food gets passed out. Emil followed suit. The lady asked me what we had ordered, and I said, "The Special". She turned around and yelled out, "Special" to the cooks behind her as if she had forgotten about us. She prepared the two trays in front of us. She laid out the miso soup, tofu, steamed rice, cabbage and roasted ginger pork. Out of sheer hunger, Emil immediately poured mayonase all over his cabbage. In my mind, I couldn't stop laughing. I looked away thinking, "No wonder why Japanese think Americans are barberic." The lady yelled out, "TWO GINGER PORK" and some girl got up and picked up her tray, looked at the one Emil had covered in mayonase. In disgust, she changed her mind on getting that one. The girl said something to the lady and the lady looked at Emil. With a stupid look on his face, Emil said, "OOPS." In a split second, the tray with ginger pork covered in mayonase disappeared. Twenty minutes later, our food was ready.
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