This was a story that seemed more likely to have come out of a visit to Tokyo but that's the enduring beauty of living here. Shanghai likes to mix it up a little for its residence and give you a taste of life from many far-flung locales. It's good that way. So anything can and everything does happen: even dining with the yakuza.
I should have realised something was up when permission was asked from four men on whether or not my friends and I could sit at their table. Their table was surrounding a tepanyaki hotplate where a chef was making himself busy doing chef things. The men themselves looked like comic book characters: the boss, the silent guy, the joker, and the guy who most definitely knew how to use a gun.
They were in a jovial mood as at the end of their meal they were on the liquid last course. As three Australians in need of an all you can eat Japanese gorge-fest we obviously posed no threat, so they allowed us to sit and the bonding began.
It started with the tattoos. Those that may not be aware, the Virgin Mary sits on my shoulder and it can be best described as pretty. They acknowledged its prettiness and in response the boss lifted his shirt, revealing the five entwining snakes full-body number. It most definitely would not be described as pretty. Anyway, I was in. Yakuza member number five, token white guy, whatever you wish to call it.
This, as well as all other points of conversation, was met with a loud call for cheers and the downing of tiny sake cups.
I sat next to the guy who I decided was the bodyguard, or hitman, or chief hard-arse, as he cast a watchful eye over everything. So while watchful eye was watching, the boss kept engaging me in conversation. Actually, due to his inebriated state he really just engaged me in the same conversation at least eight times. I varied my answers to make it sound like were getting somewhere.
The joker was their local rep. Now whether he was in the same business I wasn't sure as he held himself a little differently for the rest, more gangly than gangster. Of course, my previous organised crime experience was pretty limited but he appeared to be the fourth member of the band. What was evident was the hierarchy of the group, there was silence from all as the boss spoke and all listened respectfully to whatever it was he had to say.
He also led the cheering and thankfully that wasn't too frequent as although they had a head start I was a useless drinker. I was weighing up the Yakuza etiquette faux pas of declining to down my sake versus vomiting the same sake on his shoes.
Maybe that's exactly what was on silent man's mind as he remained, well... silent, and the bodyguard may have allowed the corners of his mouth to raise a little. Or perhaps he had a twitch. He was sober by the way as what good was a drunk bodyguard to anyone?
At one point the boss informed the table that he was a bad man and displayed his three mutilated fingers that lacked their top halves. This was the price paid for transgressions in the organisation of men with tatts that are not considered pretty.
Now whether that meant he was out of the game or had made mistakes I didn't ask. I thought they were more second date questions after all.
And as quickly as I was in, living the gangsta life, it was over. It was time for them to leave and do whatever it was that yakuza members do after a meal, so they informed the restaurant owner that all our meals were on them. When I say 'on them' I mean on their ongoing tab that the owner wouldn't dream of making them pay.
I may as well stay on the vice theme and inform you that there is a sex shop at the end of my street. This realisation is relatively new to me so hence the rather random information – rather like a child who has just learnt a secret and needs to blurt out. Of course, it took a little while for me to discover this as: A, I'm slow and B, it looks like a chemist, complete with middle-aged women in lab coats so it can really be considered a camouflaged sex shop.
This knowledge did not come about because I have been inside looking for aspirin but because the place is bathed in bright lights and floor to ceiling windows. There are no secrets here, so the entire world can see you perusing the blow-up dolls. Interesting fact: There only appear to be blonde blow-up dolls, which strikes me as funny in China but then again I suppose that means the average Chinese man can indulge in two fantasies at once.
In the entire time I have been aware of this place I think there have only ever been three or four occasions where there have been customers. Naturally they are never who you hope they will be. Well, personally I have never hoped they would be old tradesmen gawking at the merchandise and giggling like school girls.
Oh and by the way, I don't live in the equivalent of vice central, just a lovely corner of the old French Concession which is filled with shoppers pretty much at all times. The Chinese are amazingly practical people so of course that would translate in how they treat sex – sterile and pharmaceutical without the hang-ups of religious guilt that's associated with it in the west.
I might bring that up the next time I find myself at dinner with my gangster peeps as I would rather like to hear their take on the subject. Who knows, they may even tell me they own the place and pick out a nice blonde doll for myself while they put it on their tab.
