My Strong Zero's Virginity

Me and my friend once had a conversation about what would be the first thing you miss after leaving Japan. Without a doubt, my first and foremost answer would be Strong Zero. For your information, Strong Zero is a 9 percent soda mixed alcohol sold in Japan, they are comparatively cheap and strong enough to put down the most heavyweight drinkers. It also has a lot of flavours, some of them aren't bad, to be fair, its sour flavors are pretty much Umami. For me, Strong Zero is an enlightment to my way of drinking. Cheap liquid wacks, marijuana is illegal, beer is not strong enough. Strong Zero is the way for poor dusty people but ambitious to get high as quick as possible. My limits is two tall boys, then i would feel an extreme nausia and need a toilet to vomit. But this is not a story about my addition to Strong Zero, or how it makes me look like a woman who just had her second new-born baby, where the first one is still so young, thus annoying and demanding with the husband only gazing his eyes on the latest match of Vietnamese football team. This is about how my first time of Strong Zero and how amazing it is.

So here's to who my Strong Zero's Virginity belongs to, big applouse to my younger friend, Linh.

I waited for Linh at Shibuya station. It had been a long time since we met and it was the first time i met her in Japan. She greeted me with a sudden dose of affection: from afar, she ran toward me and gave me a palm tree hug. Palm tree hug is one of my high's school inside code, and it had been such a long long time, ever since the end of the jubilient highschool day that i got a palm tree hug. I like that it took little time for us to switch from greeting and procedure talks to real conversation about what we both enjoy: art, beauty, experience and language. We got on a train to Asakusa, bought eight balls of "super Karai" Takoyaki and had it at Sumida river. It was not surprising that the Takoyaki is not even close to spicy, which is normal considering the general perception of spiciness in Japan, but it was hot, giving so much sense in the cold weather. Linh talked about the time she stayed drunk for the whole night and talked to Japanese drunk poeole and the time she threw it all in front a Lawson, yet escaped the racist eyes from the staff there thanks to her Western friend's coming picking her up. The sky is a mellow ombre from deep blue to orange peach color. We wanted to walk up to the bridge to see the sunset, but we couldn't catch up with the speed of the blue gradually spreaded up to the whole sky, star and city light started to become visible, and not soon after, the whole area was entire dark blue, then faded into black.

We walked to an Izakaya near Sensouji, and had two chunks of beer. While drinking, Linh passionately explained to me some cool shutter camera speeds. She was doing major in Photography, so i expected we would take a lot of pictures when go out with her. That's why i brought my camera. Linh didn't bring any of her cameras.

After the first round, we walked around Sensouji place. It was a greatly tourist-oriented traditional area: there were lots of shop vendors selling vivid Japanese stuff, warm yellow lights were strung everywhere, giving a brilliant and holic impression, given the background of an old, big red temple, everything makes a lot of sense. This kind of scene often captured my heart, i regard it is some Japanese's unique aesthetics and culture feels. We talked about it. We agreed that we can never have this atmosphere in Vietnam, Vietnam is dirty and dusty, so the light can not be as transparent and serene like in Japan. Tokyo is so clean and nice, but we also loved the old dusty Hanoi- the city of paint sloughing yellow wall, old French architecture, and the leisurely old-fashioned people struggling in an ever-changing urban life days, the frawn of poorly-educated immigrants in the dirty smoke and wind in the street. Linh also stated that, after 3 months living there, those kinds of beauty turned to be so boring, which i can not agree with her more later on. After visit lots of temple and shrines, i became too familiar with the red temple, the hanging lights, the wooden fence of Ema or Omikuji, walking Kimono girl and the food vendors. Everywhere is the same. It rang a little crack for me at that time and dawned on me heavily later, that the beauty i once envisaged Japan is just some shallow, mould-shapedly set up rendition of a limited narrowed image of the country and and its soul

Here's come the Strong Zero part, when naturally, we needed a second round. Linh started to be excited:" I've got to introduce you this. This one is 9 percent and it will make you high as hell". She took me to oSake section in Donkihote, we bought two Strong Zero's tall boys and started to drink. Mine was either Muscat or Lime flavor. I liked it because it has actual sour flavor, not like most of claimedly fruit-involved beverage in Vietnam whose has too much sugar and aromates. At one point that i got so-so tipsy, we were still wandering and window shopping in Dokihote. The bright white light of Donkihote increased the haziness inside my mind. There was moment I was like a Mid-autumn traditional drum with the temperature of a rice cooker: my heart beat so loud, my face became so red and warm. And there was other moment when we stopped by the fish tanks at the entrance door of Donkihote. Watching the weird fishes subtly, smoothly move in the blue water calmed me down. I felt peaceful. I bet if staff at Donkihote was mad to see us, as it turned out that drinking is not allowed in their store.

Linh was crazy in love, i can tell. As she was happy and sincere with everything. She kept warming up my hand and kissing it. The Shibuya crossing was as crownded as normal. The ads, neon lights brightened up the whole upper area whereas it was darker on the ground, full of people walking toward each other. Linh was moaning, like when people are making love. I was supposed to feel shy, but i was so high so I didn't really care. I think it was fun.

She saw me off until the entrance of Den-en Toshi line. On the way back to dorm, i was sitting and leaning on . I couldn't see something clear since everything is 3D image now, nor could i take control of my head telling it to stop move back and forth. But i knew something for sure: i was over the moon. I went back home, lying on my bed with my clothes off, looking at the LED on the ceiling while my heart kept beating. I wanted to feel like this. I was stucking with obsessions and doubts on identity and trapped inside my own circle and this strong girl, with her atmost dedication to live with liberty and affection, really tore the heavy margin away for a moment. I had been trying to live as brilliant as possible but none of them is even close to this. I want to break free from my own thought and truly engaged in the beauty in life. I would like to throw myself to jump into the sea of life, trying to wash off the mud out there, chilling along a shoal of fish, untangling myself from the sea weed, seeing mellowing colorful coral, get fucking annoyed by trash that floats in sea surface and feeling the shining flickering light shine through your body while listening to the resonating sound of the sea. I didn't know how hard it is, to get out of the shallow. As it became clearly later that the goal to enjoy the beauty of life is indeed the most paradoxically vain goal ever. Despite having misinterpreted it, what Linh inspired me is real, and the feelings is real. The day I lost my Strong Zero's Virginity in Japan is the day i was deep-rootedly motivated to live differently, it is the ever first day in my long journey to find myself

#personalexperience #strongzero #japan