His Own Worst Enemy

Down the street from our neighborhood, on the way to the train station, there is a strange bar/karaoke/restaurant place built from cheap plywood and patronized by some of the older residents of Okubo. It is garishly decorated with Christmas lights and hand-painted signs, and the crooning of the ancients can be heard while walking by on my way home every day.

But this post isn’t about that place.

Actually, this post is about “Tomato House”, which is a small shop that shares the same building as spooky karaoke place. It is advertised as a 便利や (benriya – handyman). Maybe it is the husband of the karaoke shop owner, maybe it is completely separate, but it always has a sign that says “OPEN”, even when it clearly isn’t.

I first noticed Tomato House a year or so ago while walking to work, and at first it just was a maroon building with a sign saying “Tomato House – Benriya” in Japanese on the side. The sign was hand painted, and appeared to be very casually done. After looking up benriya in my dictionary I decided that I wasn’t really interested in his services, and kept walking.

Months later apparently business wasn’t good, and you could see him starting to realize it. Out came a big sheet of low grade plywood, hung on the side of the building. This one described the services he performs and had a cute picture of a handyman drawn on it. Unfortunately the plywood is such a low grade that it is not a uniform color, and the guy just wrote on it with color markers. It was pretty much impossible to read, even as I walk right by the shop on my way to work every day.

But the nail in the coffin was something he wrote on the bottom of the sign – “from 10,000 yen”. Talk about a customer killer – he set his bottom limit at more than a hundred bucks, and looking at the outside of his shop I don’t think anybody is going to get that much value for their yen.

Months later he hung out a smaller sign next to his (perpetually) “OPEN” sign – this one said “I am available to work NOW”. I can’t say that the fact surprised me.

So when you stand a few steps back and take in the entirety of Tomato House with spooky karaoke bar next door strung with Christmas lights and cheesy signs you can really take in the flavor of my town. It gives us a lot of entertainment to walk by and see how the places evolve. A couple of months ago the karaoke place hung out another hand painted sign in English – “Welcome”.

Maybe they are looking for an international visitor. I just don’t think I quite have the courage to walk in there yet.


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