Talking Japanese- Part Few

 

Japanese The Man

And as we proceed from last week... ah! Where were we? Oh yeah aaaahm... the quasi-interview. So the place is Mobay Proper, 3 pm, your average day, the place isn't very lively, just a few kiddies doing some after school bit, workers milling and mulling about. Then it hits me, I wonder what he looks like seeing we've never met. I instantly deduce that he won't be Japanese or even really look the part or even be a Black Chiney, because often enough thats just how things work in Jamaica and Mobay especially. I've met men with names like 'tallis' and he was short, 'biggas' who are small, I know a "gunman" who only ever had a board green gun, so as it seems Jamaicans have a sense of irony and paradoxical if not oxymoronic way of labelling and tagging people. So I just guessed on him not being really anything near Japanese in appearance. As soon as I finished that thought he pulls up and my theory is proven right. Our star and feature character, in fine Jamaican style, is not really anything near Japanese for real. The man who comes to sit and talk is undoubtedly Japanese, but just not a Japanese-Japanese if you get what I mean. This Japanese, the Jamaican Japanese however, is evidently a Samurai, or at the very least a warrior, as it is impossible to neglect to notice the scars this man bares, and on seeing them I remember a No Fear, T-shirt that I have or had, which says, "Scars are tattoos for the brave."

On starting the quasi-interview, I promptly announce, "Ahhhhhm, I don't really have any questions per se, because, I don't usually do interviews and I don't know how to right a Q & A article, I do have some broad vague ones though, but really I just want to get a jist of things..." To which he responds "Ok, you just want to get the essence... Ok" and so, with that we took a little walk down history lane. In uncovering Japanese's history, I uncover more of Montego Bay's history, he is linked like another historical figure, September, you do remember September, right? Well if you don't he was the slave from Salt Spring I did a little feature on last November I think. Anyway I digress, he too, like September, is linked to Salt Spring as much as he is linked to Barnett Lane. Seems Salt Spring is more of a revolutionary focal point for this city. As he recants tales of his adventures in the second city, the story is littered with all the 'it' spots you hear the elders refer to in their own old fables of Yesteryear, he harks back to an age when Tate Street was still a suburban-esque type of set up. The tales also incorporate legendary characters in the city too, some gone long ago, some not too long ago... men like Rucko, men like Goosie and others.

One of the few questions I did ask him was, how did he see himself? Seeing that sometimes with legends, the myth or the tale sometimes isn't the reality. Most of you will have heard of him as one sometimes might have heard of maybe Santa Claus, Sam Sharpe, Jesus or the Black heart man, sometimes we can't seem to find out who these characters really are. From the horse's mouth, Japanese is a leader, a role he has always found himself in he says. From Jamaica to the USA to Prison and back to Jamaica again. His life it seems to me is one of charting courses, and off the beaten path. Without being boastful, almost with a sense of regret, and what seemed to me a just a glimpse of what he used to be, with just a tint of pain and a hint of maybe passed tragedies, he says "A me mek nuff yute know seh dem can fly out an do dem ting, me mek dem know the running inna Mobay, me mek dem know seh people can fly out an do this and that, me mek nuff a man reach a farrin... enuh." At one instant he even recants his time in US prisons where he says "ask Owen or Colin or dem man deh when mi deh a lock down, me still at the helm, an a nuff lock down them gimmi." He went on further to elaborate about how this kind of time gave him the solitude to look inward, to read more, to learn more... to become a writer. However, the depth of Japanese doesn't end there, he went on to say to the effect that the leader he was, isn't the leader he now intends to be. "Mi know the yute dem have a different idea of Japanese, but that was then, mi a go try show dem supm different yah now..."

One of the different things that he has just put on the ground is well, you know... "Japanese Thursdays" Barnett Lane, the talk-about event in the city these days. However, his re-invention and evolution hasn't been without some doubts, as he lets me know. "Just the other day, I was at the station clearing up the legalities of my likkle dance, and when I had finished sorting it out... Mr. So and so (some Police personnel) another police entered the room and Mr. So and so said this is Japanese, when the other says we just come out of a meeting bout you..." to which he responds "About what and why?" as it turns out the top cops in the city had been meeting to discuss none other than Japanese. He goes and links all the hierarchy and clears the air that they have nothing to fear, what they expect isn't what they are going to get. He wasn't disturbed by the eyeing and all of the hubbub that surrounds him, he even expected it. He is glad for it even, as he puts it "Japanese a go be supm different and mi waan dem see dat."

Before we closed though, it seemed Japs, had one last card up his sleeve, a question, does he know me or someone related to me, I gamble and opt for the family member I know everyone knows, Mobay's most popular Granny, and spit out "hmmm my Grandmother, you probably know her, it seems everyone does!" What's her name he asks "Dorothy Thompson" I reply. To which he says "Dorothy Thompson... Mrs Thompson from Tate Street... mi madda used to work fi ar enuh. Mi know seh mi muss know somebody fi you, who is your mother Juilette?" The answer of course is yes, we make a quick sweep down the family tree, and then go over to my Aunt (Judith, a childhood friend of his) and Stretch to make a quick chat on "its a small world after all."

Japanese it seems is inextricably linked to Montego Bay, Montegonians and surprisingly the Montegonian. Such is life. Well ladies and gentle people thanks for holding it out with me another week, and hope you learned something about our history in the second city from this little two part-er, which just barely peeps under the surface of Japanese and even Mobay. Till Next week.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
http://yahnyk.blogspot.com
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

Ps. Big up Colin aka Missa MAC aka Mr. Pang... whose contribution was critical to the coming together of this article.