The Remembrance of the Laundry Gate (Part 2)

Higashi-Nakagami turned out to be one of those towns in Japan that were left undeveloped in a way that allowed a few relics of the postwar period to coexist with buildings with the more modern appearance. The izakaya in the town I stopped by for another drink that night was one of the shabbiest I’ve ever seen, but that’s exactly what I crave most in a situation like that, or anytime for that matter. The inside of the place was as cluttered as one could imagine. It was being run by a woman who appeared to be in her 50s.
I was amused that when I ordered beer she said she was running out of beer and would go out to buy some if I really wanted beer. I said I would rather like to drink spirit with oolong-tea and the deal was made. Fearing she might see me as someone who escaped from a nearby mental asylum, I was reluctant at first, but being drunk as I was, I finally asked her about the laundry gate and I was relieved to hear she knew a lot about the place and she added that all her neighbors knew it well. There used to be a bus stop whose name was exactly “Laundry Gate,” or “randory geito (as pronounced by Japanese),” which has recently been changed into a more ordinary and boring “Nakagami-nichome” or something like that. The laundry gate was one of the gates of the US air base there that let trucks full of laundry for soldiers in Korea or Vietnam pass through. Once washed and neatly folded at cleaning facilities within the base the uniforms were flown back to Vietnam. So the story goes. The song, written and composed by a singer born in a nearby city in the Tama area, is about her relationship with a girlfriend who was a member of a family that got transferred to Japan to serve in the base. The song centers around the departure of the friend from Japan but seems to be more of a metaphor of the aftermath of the US base's withdrawal from Tachikawa city than a personal account of her friendship, with the last part of the lyrics going like this: “After she had flown back home, I don’t know why but the laundry gate became deserted.” Sure enough, after the base had been transferred Tachikawa was no longer as vibrant and energetic a city as it used to be. That’s what people say about it.

The best part of the night was that the owner of the izakaya was so casual and talkative she told me everything about the town and how she's been feeling about and struggling with things that were going on in and around the area that is somehow different from other parts of Tokyo because of the US presence there.