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Nov 23 2015 6 Comments

Old Tokyo bar owner: A portrait

Over 30 years ago, when he was a relatively young buck in his early 40s, the fella below opened his own bar. Yet despite his age, and all those years doing pretty much the same thing every day, his enjoyment and commitment to carry on remains completely undimmed.

old Tokyo bar owner portrait

Categorized: Food and Drink, Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Linda says

    11/23/2015 at 10:09 am

    Another one that makes me wonder how much I’m missing when I visit Japan because I am not a drinker.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/23/2015 at 2:25 pm

      With plenty of food always available, going in and having a soft drink and something to eat would be totally fine. Oolong tea especially is always a popular option.

      Reply
  2. cdilla says

    11/23/2015 at 6:04 pm

    I wonder if, back in the day, he was a salaryman working somewhere in Shinjuku and after a couple of decades working long competitive days in the office and winding down in the bars of Golden Gai he took the opportunity to switch uniforms and has never looked back, always able to remember the besuited misery of his previous life.
    I love my work now and never a day goes by that I don’t smile broadly remembering how bad it was working in a large office, never for a moment taking for granted how fortunate I am. Perhaps I’m seeing the same in his smile.
    Sorry, just musing. It’s just as likely he was a farmer, or a baseball player.
    Amazing how a single moment in time showing the contents of a 2mx1mx1m space suspended in a photograph contains more story potential than a boxed set of hollywood blockbusters 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/23/2015 at 9:20 pm

      Wonderful to hear you got so much out of the photo. Equally great to hear how much you now enjoy your work too.

      To be honest I think he may well have mentioned what he did before, or at least hinted at it, but for the life of me I can’t remember. It was late on, and it was the last bar, so apart from those numbers I noted down, things are more than a little hazy…

      Reply
  3. willy says

    11/24/2015 at 9:30 am

    Wonder why ‘freezer’ is in big green letters. Maybe somebody kept putting fresh fish or something not to be frozen in there by accident.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/24/2015 at 11:00 am

      Bit of an odd one, isn’t it? I’m barely competent at best in the kitchen, but I’m still well aware of what is a freezer, and what isn’t!

      Reply

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