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. . . CONTINUED
If you guessed "Akaya Nishiwaki, a.k.a. 'A-chan,' Yuka Kashino, a.k.a. 'Kashiyuka,' and Ayano Omoto, a.k.a. 'Nocchi,'" then you were absolutely RIGHT! (Any other guess was wrong, I'm afraid.) Nocchi was in front, A-chan was closest to me, and Kashiyuka was on the other side of A-chan. The first and only thing that ran through my mind was a thundering, "
IT'S PERFUME!!" Thank all that is holy that I didn't choke or otherwise freeze up, 'cause acting on pure instinct I simultaneously raised my hand, waved, smiled, and said the Japanese equivalent of good-bye: "Sayonara!"
Then the heretofore-unthinkable happened: A-chan and Kashiyuka both turned to me, made eye contact with me, waved to me, smiled sweetly at me, then said, "Sayonara!"
.
. .
. . .
Now, I may have been a little too subtle about it, but over the last two years and four months it's possible that I dropped one or two clues that would lead you to believe that I was somewhat favorably disposed toward the Japanese electro-pop group "Perfume."
I was most likely a bit vague, but over the last 28 months, if you had looked at my posts and read really hard between the lines, you may have concluded from a few of them that I rather like the band "Perfume."
In fact, if someone were to accuse me of being a fan of the Japanese trio "Perfume," there just
might be
barely enough evidence in this forum to convict me.
With that in mind, can you imagine how I felt in that exact moment? Can you
begin to comprehend what that was like for me?
Here's the only thing I can compare it to:
Jersey Girl, picture yourself in an airport, sitting there minding your own business, when all of a sudden Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood walk by RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU about four feet away. You smile, wave, and say goodbye, then Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turn to you, make eye contact with you, smile at you, wave at you, and say, "Goodbye!"
Did you picture it? How might you feel, do you think?
Well, what amounts to my precise equivalent--yes, my
EXACT, PRECISE EQUIVALENT--happened to me in that moment.
The whole thing began and ended within approximately 1 and 1/2 seconds. But let me tell you, I sure wasn't the same after as I was before.
I was awestruck.
I was dumbfounded.
I was overwhelmed.
I was flabbergasted.
I was in a state of near-disbelief.
In fact, it was a such a perfect storm of all of those things that my brain did an emergency shut down. My physical body could only sit there in a state of stunned, utter silence.
When I recovered enough to move, I noticed that A-chan had gotten in line at the nearby airport Starbucks, while the other two stood around to wait. I then walked into the bathroom for my originally-planned pre-flight, um, bladder-emptying session. I then did what is, for us guys, the near-taboo thing of striking up a conversation with the complete stranger at the urinal next to me. I said something like, "Would you believe me if I told you that the members of probably the most popular musical group in Japan today, their equivalent of the Rolling Stones, are standing literally 50 feet away from us right now?" He reacted about the same way any of you would react to being told that. Now, I take fewer pictures than anyone I know, but after I left the restroom I knew that nobody here would believe me unless I got a photo or two. Heck, I would probably start doubting the reality of the event
myself without some shots. So, being as surreptitious as I possibly could, I took the following two:
To the far left is Kashiyuka, with the long hair. Right next to her is their security guy. To the far right, in the gray sweater and standing adjacent to the pillar, is Nocchi. Sure, their backs are to us, but as I said in Part III, when it comes to Perfume I'll take what I can get!
I then rotated the phone a little to the left and took this one:
You probably can't see her too well, since she's wearing a black poncho-type shawl of sorts, but that's A-chan at the far left, below and a little to the left of that overhead light. No, she's not wearing a tiara or anything; that's simply the light reflecting off her hair. I guess she must wear it "down" when not doing official Perfume stuff. At the far right, again, is Kashiyuka.
Yeah, I get it: Their backs are facing us, so I guess I can't prove that the three in those pictures are who I'm saying they are. But I pinkie swear to you all that I'm not lying.
Time to go back to the boarding area and wait. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I made a point of walking past Kashiyuka just a few feet away from her, you know, just to say I did. I progressed a little farther, stopped, then took a quick peek behind me. She was staring down at her phone pretty intently, but it was very obvious that it was her. Yes, the face that had graced my computer's desktop as its background image for so long was right there, literally in the flesh.
Turning and pressing on, I got to the boarding area and was pleasantly surprised to see Perfume's choreographer sitting by herself. (You know a band is famous when even their
choreographer gets famous.) In Japan, titles go at the end of last names, so "Mr. Smith" would be "Smith Mr." And "Sister Jones" would be "Jones Sister." Japan has an extra convention: If someone is a professor, an instructor, or a teacher, then "Teacher" replaces "Mr.," "Mrs.," etc. The Japanese word for "teacher" is "sensei," and the choreographer goes by her first name--Mikiko--so both the members of Perfume and the rest of the world know her as "Mikiko-sensei."
Whew! Why not get a photo of her, too?
After that, I reasoned that she probably wasn't as used to fending off rabid fans as the other three are, so I decided to roll the dice and thank her for all the great dance moves she's taught the girls over the years. (If you've seen any YouTube videos of Perfume depicting them at age 15 or older, well, those were Mikiko-sensei's dance moves.) I went up to her, extended my hand, shook hands with her, then thanked her in Japanese for all the great dance moves she's taught Perfume. She looked up at me and said something that I only caught the tail end of, since the boarding area was a bit loud. It was something like "_____ skillful!" I replied, "Yes, their dancing is skillful all right," but she clarified that she meant
my Japanese was skillful. I said the equivalent of, "Wow, what a privilege to be praised by Mikiko-sensei!" and then continued bantering for a bit. I explained that I'd flown 945 kilometers for no other reason than to attend last night's concert, and she reacted by opening her eyes wider and dropping her jaw a little. I then explained that I owned a message board and had made Perfume it's official J-pop group. (Which message board, you may ask? This one, believe it or not.) I then described how others here were rooting for me and would be waiting for my write-up.
I asked her if she goes to every Perfume performance, and she replied in the affirmative. After a very small amount of additional banter I decided to quit while I was ahead and beat a hasty retreat, saying that I needed to get going.
In the meantime, Perfume had walked behind me and hunkered down in the corner, sitting on the floor in a circle with three or so of their staff members and/or stage crew. They were playing some sort of game that I never did figure out, laughing and having a good time:
Kashiyuka is behind the left leg of the security guy; you can see her long hair. A-chan is sitting directly to the right of him, while we can see Nocchi's profile to the right.
As you all know, when waiting to board a flight, you have to sit
somewhere. So I thought to myself, "Why
not sit near those who are, in my universe, the 1964 equivalent of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison?" So I meandered over and took a seat within the second row away, facing away from them (some members of their tour crew were in the row closest to them). I sat there for a while, quietly soaking in the unbelievable fact that the band, and all three of its members, that I love so dearly and deeply were just behind me.
Alas, prior to this Mikiko-sensei had also moved to this area and was sitting in the same row, two seats away from me, but in the seat that was facing the opposite direction. In other words, back-to-back, but two seats down. Sure enough, my flight to Salt Lake City was departing from Gate 4, while Perfume's flight to Los Angeles--their next concert was taking place there the very next evening--was departing from Gate 5. They called for First Class passengers to begin boarding the L.A. flight, then A-chan, Kashiyuka, and Nocchi stood up and got in line. In the meantime, my flight had already begun boarding, so I stood up to check on its progress. I was hoping to remain unnoticed, since I'd already said goodbye to Mikiko-sensei and didn't want to look like a hanger-on, but she saw me, turned, and smiled. I said, "Sorry you had to see me again," but she said, "No, it's okay!" I guess my Japanese had caught the attention of the tour crew members across from her, so I said "Oh, I like being the last one on the plane, because it's easier to maneuver and to get your stuff into the overhead compartment" (a true statement, by the way). They agreed with me. Mikiko-sensei asked me if I was going to L.A. too, but I had to disappointedly explain that I was going to Salt Lake City instead.
As I walked away, I simply
had to share the fact of Perfume's presence with
someone, so I walked up to two seated complete strangers--a mother and her daughter--and started explaining what I'd told the guy in the bathroom, albeit in far more detail, adding more information about their domestic popularity. After I stated that the three of them had just walked through their gate, the mother explained, "I wish you had told us a few seconds earlier!" After some more banter the daughter looked Perfume up on her phone, then after pulling up an older photo she showed it to her mom. Her mother said, "Oh, they're adorable!" I had to explain that they're older now, 30 years old as opposed to them in their 16 year-old state in the retrieved photo. Anyway, now that she'd looked them up, she'd be able to check out their music. Did I create another fan?
As luck would have it, although my flight was scheduled to depart about a half hour before theirs, my flight boarded late. As I was in the back of the line for the coach passengers, all of Perfume's stage crew, supporting players, etc. had gotten into the back of their own line. Mikiko-sensei was at about the same place in her line as I was in mine, and I said, "Thank you for talking to me!" One of the aforementioned crew with whom I'd spoken in the previous paragraph told me about the upcoming Coachella performance, but I had to exasperatedly sigh and explain that I just couldn't attend. She said, "No, I mean they're live streaming it," so I responded that I'd heard that and would've course be glued to the screen when it happened. I think the rest of the crew--approximately 8 to 10 others--were bemused to encounter a clearly Caucasian guy speaking fluent Japanese, 'cause by this time I obviously had their complete attention and they were all looking at me with slight smiles on their faces. Right before we walked into our respective gates, Mikiko-sensei stopped dead in her tracks, smiled at me, nodded, and said, in English, "See. You. Again."
You know, one can often tell when a farewell is stated as a mere formality vs. whether it's stated sincerely, and in my heart of hearts it came across as VERY sincere. How cool was that?
On the plane, I of course couldn't restrain myself from getting the attention of the guy in the seat next to me, saying something like, "Would you believe me if I told you that the most popular musical act in Japan, who has routinely sold out the biggest venues in the country for the past 10 years straight, is sitting in
that plane next to us, right now?" He, too, probably hadn't been expecting to be regaled with such information.
Back in Utah, driving back home, I was still in a state of shocked euphoria. After having been personally acknowledged so kindly by Kashiyuka and A-chan*, well, my fan-hood increased by three or four times. I was no longer satisfied with just making periodic announcements of their goings-on here on MormonDiscussions.com; I wanted to print up business cards with their logo on the front and links to some of their YouTube videos on the back, handing them to everyone I passed. I wanted to create a web-comic starring them as models and performers by day and crime-fighting superheroines by night. Gadianton can tell you whether I have the illustrative skills to make that last part happen.
You know, I wonder if the members of Perfume themselves realize that they have so much power that a brief, one-and-one-half second acknowledgement by them can elevate a person's day to
ONE OF THE SINGLE BEST DAYS OF THAT PERSON'S ENTIRE LIFE. As you may have gathered by this thread, that's exactly what happened to me.
*
(If you're wondering, Nocchi was far enough forward that I didn't see her reaction, if any. I've since learned that she's the most introverted of the trio and therefore the least likely to interact with fans, so she may not have had a reaction at all. But that's okay--like I said, when it comes to Perfume, I'll take what I can get--and BOY did I get a lot!)
