Li Jianhong’s Japan Diaries, Day Two

by Ben

Li Jianhong’s account of the second day of his Japanese tour last December.

December 10, 2006
Today the weather was beautiful, and my objective was to buy a second hand guitar. On this trip to Japan, I didn’t bring a guitar; I just planned to buy one I like after arriving. Before leaving I had already found a lot of second hand guitars on Yahoo Japan.

Around 10:30 am we arrived at Ochanomizu 御茶ノ水, Tokyo’s most centralized area for musical instruments. There’s a street lined with musical instrument shops on both sides, where every kind of rare guitar can be found. Of course, there are also rare and precious second hand instruments. One store specializes in buying instruments from the ’60s and ’70s that were formerly played by various celebrities. As the quality of an instrument goes up, the price soars; we could only gaze through the shop window, desperately counting the zeros on the price tag. What can you do with such an expensive guitar? Strum it once, and there goes 1,000 yen; strum it a second time, that makes 2,000…

Passing by several shops, I took a liking to a Fender Tele Deluxe. The original price was 120,750 yen. It was made in Mexico (I didn’t even consider the American ones; there’s no way I could afford them). The protective film on the pick guard had already been torn off, so even though it was a new guitar, the price was reduced to 72,450 yen. I really liked it, but to make sure I had found the best value for my money, I walked the entire length of the street and compared with other stores.

In one shop I bought a second-hand Ebow. I’d wanted one of these things for a long time. Once I saw one on Taobao (a Chinese online store), but the asking price was nearly 1,000 RMB, so I didn’t buy it. Here I spent just over 300 yuan for an Ebow that was just like new, including packing case, instruction manual, and instructional tape, a complete package.

Before going to Japan, I had heard that Akihabara 秋葉原 was a good place for electronics, and it wasn’t far from Ochanomizu, so we walked to Akihabara. This section of the road made for a very pleasant walk; the ground was strewn with falling leaves, some evergreen trees offered shade, and there was historical architecture along the side of the road. We ran across a place, and I wasn’t sure if it was a temple or a Shinto shrine, with a wooden panel that read “Historical Site Yushima Seido.” Inside I was surprised to find a Confucian temple built over 400 years ago.

When we arrived at a tall building proclaiming “Ishimaru 石丸電気” in big letters, we had reached Akihabara. There were old and new shops, one on top of another. We saw cameras, iPods, video cameras, computers, all kinds of stuff. With enough patience and care, I’m sure you could find anything your heart desires in these piles of electronics!

Next we went to Shinjuku 新宿, which was absolutely full of young people. I was especially amazed to see so many intrepid girls braving the cold December air in short skirts. Wow, what troopers! It made me think that in all of Japan I might be the only person to put on two pairs of pants before stepping outside. If you tried to go into the long thermal underwear business, you could lose a lot of money here.

We strolled by several of Shinjuku’s instrument and CD shops. If you like jazz music and find yourself in Shinjuku, you’ve got to swing by the Shinjuku Jazz Shop. From bottom to top both floors are packed with jazz albums for sale. The bottom floor sells new products, and the top floor is mostly second hand. There were four very full shelves of free or avant-garde jazz, with albums by artists like Sun Ra, Moondog, Anthony Braxton, and labels such as ESP and Tzadik. I wasn’t exactly set for a shopping spree, so I satisfied myself by surveying the spoils. Then returning to Ochanomizu, I bought that Fender Tele Deluxe.

In the evening, Marqido went to pick up itta at the airport, and afterwards itta invited us all out for a tasty evening snack.




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