Nights In TOKYO (A Travel Memoir)

First Class

In April, I boarded an Air Canada flight - first class. I had worked for a year as a graphic designer with decent pay, decent hours, and I felt devoid of soul. Drained and compressed by a capitalist machination intensified and channeled into a pressure nozzle of a small start up business. I sat at home every night soaking in a mindless bombardment of Japanese or Korean TV shows to try to de-numb myself. I picked up my guitar and nothing would come. I picked up a pen and my hand was still. As if life had come to a dead end, being at the bottom of a well and someone had cut the rope up. "Mr. Wind Up Bird, are you down there?" So I quit, returned home, and proceeded to write and record the five-song EP within a month. I was liberated. I had learned something. Inspiration came as waterfalls, copulating with all-day straight-edged shut-in hardwork. And I was in a rush to pursue liberation: I had more than enough tough skin and confidence, maybe some arrogance, from navigating through workplace politics and state bureaucracy to brave my solo three-month trek. And coincidentally, more than enough funds to fly business class for the first time.

First class, of course, had its privileges, and many of them. The first came in the form of a new sense of snobbish dignity. On my back was my Taylor guitar gig bag and all, Macbook in hand, shades and a jacket with a high collar. My fellow privileged passengers were all much older. Truly business class. I was wondering what they did for a living, what kind of company they worked for. If they were satisfied with their more than decent paychecks or company business trip budgets. If they felt a suit and tie was dignity or a leash. What their spouses and children thought about their frequent travels. If they had Airmiles and Starbucks Gold cards. How many holiday hours they had. And then in my mind, I would imagine them wondering about me. There's no way a short baby-faced Asian boy with a sweep of fuzzy gelled hair and a backpack could possibly make money on his own. Probably a rich kid, or maybe a musician on a tight schedule? I chose to dream up the latter. I was a musician on this trip. I would insist. I had a hundred or so CDs in my luggage in the undercarriage of the plane. I had another ten in my backpack, ready to dish out like business cards. Along with my guitar, they somehow gave me confidence. They were a statement. An identity. I eagerly put on my new suit of clothes. Above me, the ceilings soared endless, the gaping cavern of a titan's ash white ribcage.

One of the Air Canada staff, a hair-in-bun woman with a forced smile and red lips tried to stop me at the kiosk.

"Sir, this is Priority Boarding only."

I showed her my boarding pass.

Her smile changed instantly, into some sort of appreciation or scorn all in one. "Welcome aboard Air Canada, sir."

Indeed it was a warm welcome. They said different things to us in the first class section, immediately tended to coats and jackets and bags. Just show some money and suddenly you've got your own entourage. They asked if I would like to stow my guitar down with the strollers under the aircraft, to which I immediately refused. The guitar's wood is vulnerable to the atmospheric temperatures, I said. They apologized and offered to help put it up in my storage carry.

Originally, I had doubts about being able to bring a guitar as a carry-on. I had read articles and horror stories about check-in agents refusing to accept guitars on aircrafts, and forced musicians to check them in as extra over-sized luggage. Only to find it damaged severely upon arrival. Snapped necks, warped bodies, chipped tops. Thousands of dollars of damage and a priceless amount of sentiment. The owner would probably need psychological counselling afterwards. Unless you're a guitarist or a mother, you wouldn't know how that feels. Of course, the airline would refuse to compensate for any of it. As a solution, there were some who had to buy an extra seat to strap in their guitar next to them. On the other hand, professional musicians would have flight cases, massive monstrosities, black and rectangular like rifles or rockets, and the inside would be packed to the brim with padding. Outside it would be wrapped in layers and layers of heavy duty tape. Guitars are fragile things. But I was traveling first class this time. I asked if it would be okay to stow my guitar on board. The agent, all smiles, said "oh, of course!" The business class compartments were much larger anyway. To this day, I still have no clear answer whether gig bags can go on planes or not.

In any case, I had a bed for a seat on the aircraft on the third row. It was cryogenic pod shaped, angled away from the aisle, lit on both sides with these strips of blue-ish ambience, a television screen in front displaying Bienvenue à bord Air Canada, and curved half-walls like white sails all around; I disappeared into my own world. It was incredibly quiet. It was like a cockpit of its own, steadily squirming through time and space. Or perhaps a high tech coffin. I didn't know whether I was to feel comfortable or feel confined. Somewhere, as if from a great distant shore, I heard the quiet hum of the engines.

I raised the leg rest and reclined into a lounge, and a flight attendant came over and offered me a zipped up black case.

"While we wait for boarding, would you like anything to read, eat or drink, sir? We have wine or juice." She was young and attractive, had a brilliant smile. Her blonde hair was swept over her shoulder. I see a red maple leaf on her chest.

I smiled as calmly as I could and asked for some orange juice. It came to me minutes later not in a plastic cup but in full-bodied white porcelain beauty. It was cold. The heavy man across the aisle of whom I could only make out a balding head had propped up his black socks and was reading a newspaper. Something about Stephen Harper on the cover. In the pod behind me, the man was busy chatting up a flight attendant, a wine glass in hand. Drink, that was the first thing some of these passengers had to do. Instead, I pulled out my chargers, laptop and earphones and set up my own entertainment studio. I wrote a few notes on my phone. Something about my excitement at returning to "the land of dreams". To the land of inspiration. Fired it off on Facebook and Twitter. "Have a safe trip," came the replies. "Tell us about it after." I didn't say anything about flying business class. My parents told me it would evoke jealousy and criticism. Though I was more convinced they would be jealous at the unbelievable promotional discount prices I had gotten. I snuck a picture of my leg room instead.

Looking at what I had posted on the airwaves somehow felt like an out-of-body experience, an omniscient third person narrator. Something was churning within me as I realized my flight was slowly hardening into concrete reality. The seat beneath me was in fact my living space for the next fifteen hours. Toronto, right outside the window, this grey formless stretch of runway and elevated umbilical cord corridors, the flatness of the green beyond that. Our little matchbox house in the suburbs beside farmland and rolling hills - white fence, blue doors, mowed lawn and all. Golfers nearby, double garages and BMWs. You never understand the blessing of having a home, a room, the familiarity, a taken-for-granted comfort zone, that middle-classed North American financial security, until you leave it.

This restless sensation sat at the base of my chest, the collision of nostalgia, anxiety and anticipation. I had traveled a lot, but not alone. Whether they had been volunteer missions trips, family vacations, school excursions, globe-trotting started and ended with others. It was a first, among many other firsts - an entire journey made of firsts. I was on my own. The world was made new. Revisioned, recreated from my own experience and my own perception.