The Amazing Adventures of Miss Ariana Okata

The Mysterious Mr. Y-San

Something pretty weird happened at work one day; at least, weird for me, but not for a lover of Orientals like Molly. I was typing up some letters for Ted when in walked his other business partner from Japan, Teruo Yamagata, or "Y-san", as Molly and I liked to call him, the manga mega-multimillionaire. I'd never seen him before, nor had Molly. We figured he was making an appearance, apparently his first trip to Vancouver ever, due to the big strike. By that I, of course, mean gold strike; I hear they don't go for the other kind of strikes in Japan, nor do I. Maybe I really am Japanese after all.

Molly spotted him first. When I noticed her mouth hanging open slightly and her staring at the front door, I looked over and saw a small, neat, tidy, impeccably groomed and sharply-dressed man standing there politely; an Oriental man. He curtly bowed and said to me, "Ohayoo gozaimasu."

He seemed to be waiting for me to respond similarly, which I didn't,because I don't speak Japanese. I had a vague idea as to what he'd said, though, so I said, "Good morning. Can I help you?"Realizing his error, his perfect, bee-stung, Japanese lips formed the word, "Oh," and he apologized.

"I am so sorry. I am Teruo Yamagata. Good morning. You are...Ari-san?"

I was surprised he knew my name.

"Hai-"

To my further surprise, a Japanese word had just popped out of my mouth,albeit one of the very few I actually knew. I corrected myself,preferring to speak in my mother tongue.

"-I mean, yes. I'm Ari. Uh, Ariana."

I held out my hand. He shook it gently; his hand was neither clammy nor overly dry, and he pumped exactly twice before bowing his upper body and head once more in a partly Japanese, partly Prussian-soldier bow. I expected him to click his heels too, which he very well may have. Nonetheless, I was impressed by his courtesy and charm.

We regarded one another for what seemed like far too long before it dawned on me that the name he'd just introduced himself as was that of the main investor in SFMC, and that Ted just might want to know he was there. I hastily but discreetly paged him over the phone.

As mentioned, Mr. Yamagata was very polite. And had such perfect English, though, of course, heavily accented. The perfect English, as Molly explained to me later, after having snooped into his personal file, was from obtaining a graduate degree in Economics at Harvard.She seemed quite smitten, and even I had to admit that my interest was piqued. Yamagata-san obviously was not your ordinary salary man.He was much cuter than I imagined our Japanese boss-man would be. And younger. Or rather, younger-looking, seeing as us Orientals look younger than we are. Accordingly, he could have been anywhere from 30to 55 years of age. My guess was 35-ish. I had thought he would be more along the lines of 60-ish and distinguished looking, with silvered hair; a Japanese corporate raider in an expensive suit tailored for the small-in-stature man. Yamagata-san was not in his60s, and his closely cropped hair was jet black and fashionably spiky.

After chatting with me for a few moments in his perfect but accented English, as we waited for Ted to emerge from his office, there was something about Y-san I found quite enticing. This was throwing me for a loop because, as stated before, Oriental guys don't turn my crank. For some reason, Y-san did, and I couldn't explain it.Perhaps it was his power within the company. He had pale skin and wasn't very tall, but he was slender and wore the most elegant suits in a striking manner. He was very quiet and still, even when he was moving. Sounds weird, I know. Must have been some kind of Zen thing, invented by my people. He also had the cutest mole on the left side of his mouth. It was quite possible that Y-san was the first Oriental man I would have actually dated but, alas, he was married,with two small children, and also seemed to be a faithful husband. I know this because he showed absolutely no interest in me. Don't get me wrong; he was extremely polite, considerate and respectful, but he never gave me the impression that he was picturing what I looked like naked, or even ashamed that he was picturing me naked, as I'm quite sure Mr. Koseki did on a regular basis, as he often blushed and looked down at the floor when I caught him staring. If not naked, then fully clothed in some kind of sexy-to-Japanese-men geisha getup.

From all this contact with men from Japan, I was starting to learn a little bit about the culture. I do love the fact they are extremely fastidious and orderly, and I love their cutting-edge technology.They are never, never late. In fact, our visitors from Japan were often maddeningly early, forcing me to rush to the coffee room to brew up a fresh pot and put some cookies on a plate. They always did exactly what they said they would do, and in exactly the same way.There's a rigidity about the culture that I find oddly familiar and comforting. The world could use more Japanese-style rigidity, if you ask me, plus their business acumen of the 1980s.

Y-san and Ted had a half-hour meeting in his office before heading out for the rest of the afternoon, ostensibly so that Ted could show him around the city in his Audi convertible and meet with a few business associates at his favourite watering hole, Apollo's. Prior to their departure, Y-san gave Molly and me the same courteous, Prussian-style bow. Ted tossed us his usual wink before heading out the front door.

"Ooh, he is charming, isn't he, Ari?" Molly cooed. She was sitting at her own desk, which was situated close to Reception. I nodded briefly but withheld comment for a few moments. Then I made a bet with Molly, a silly but fun one.

As Y-san was planning to return to the office the very next day, I decided to wear my low-cut, powder-blue angora, just to see if I could pique his interest, and Molly agreed to join in on the fun. At this point, she and I were entering into a zone we'd never entered before; direct competition for the attention of an Oriental man. In other words, the Twilight Zone; at least, for me. I had my sweater; she had her adorable freckles and black leather miniskirt, and the battle was on. It was a friendly bet, of course; no cat fights or callous remarks. We just wanted to see who could arouse Y-san's interest first. The loser would buy lunch for the winner, and I was rather determined to have the super deluxe bento box at Satsuma Sushi, on Molly's new, high-tech VISA card. She'll never lose it because she ordered it with a special key fob she can use to get the card to chirp audibly, much like an automobile's alarm system. She programmed hers to play the opening bars of Strangers in the Night.

The next morning, I did the whole thing – the water bra that pushes the girls up, the tight angora sweater than no man can resist. When I poured coffee for Teruo, I made sure to bend down in front of him when I asked him, seductively, " One cube or two?" so that he could see right down my sweater to my custom-fitted, black lace number. He didn't bat an eye. In fact, he didn't even look up from his tiny, Japanese laptop computer. He just muttered, "No, sank yu," in that maddeningly polite way he had. No bug eyes, no panting or drooling. He was his usual polite, collected self; cool as a cucumber. That was when I knew for sure there was something wrong with the man. I was starting to think he wasn't really a Japanese businessman, but a robot sent to Canada to collect data for some evil Japanese consortium bent on world domination (again). Ted insisted he wasn't an android, but I now had some circumstantial evidence that he was wrong. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have posed a problem, as I do love robots, except for the fact that Y-san was misrepresenting himself, a fact that I carefully filed away in my non-positronic brain for future reference.

As it turned out, Molly didn't have much more luck than I did. Nonetheless, we took ourselves out for lunch at Satsuma Sushi and both had the super deluxe bento box. It was delish!