青出於藍勝於藍 日本成功複製美國文化

Kamakura Shirts owner Yoshio Sadasue opened a New York store on Madison Avenue. (Raymond Patrick)
日本人Yoshio Sadasue在紐約的麥迪遜大道上經營着這家“鎌倉襯衫”

Acouple of years ago I found myself in a basement bar in Yoyogi, a central precinct of Tokyo, drinking cold Sapporo beers with big foamy heads while the salarymen next to me raised their glasses to a TV displaying a fuzzy, obviously bootlegged video of an old Bob Dylan concert. The name of the bar, My Back Pages, is the title of a Dylan song. Dylan is, in fact, the bar’s reason for being: Japanese fans come here to watch his concert videos, listen to his tapes and relive the ’60s in America, a time and place almost none of them witnessed firsthand. As I heard yet another version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" roaring over the speakers, with some drunk Japanese fans now singing along, I thought how strange this phenomenon was
幾年前，我坐在位於東京中心區域，代代木的一家地下酒吧喝着滿是泡沫的札幌啤酒，旁邊的一個工薪族正對着一臺播放着盜版，失真的鮑勃迪倫早期演唱會的電視舉杯。這家酒吧的名字叫做“我的過去”，這是鮑勃迪倫一首歌的名字。事實上，鮑勃正是這家酒吧得以存在的原因：日本的粉絲們聚在這裏看他的演唱會，聽他的唱片，重溫美國60年代的生活，一段他們並沒有親自體驗過的生活。接着我聽到有酒醉的日本粉絲跟着喇叭裏喧鬧的另外一個版本的“Mr. Tambourine Man”合唱，我覺得這個場景真的好奇怪。

The American presence in Japan now extends far beyond the fast-food franchises, chain stores and pop-culture offerings that are ubiquitous the world over. A long-standing obsession with things American has led not just to a bigger and better market for blockbuster movies or Budweiser, but also to some very rarefied versions of America to be found in today’s Japan. It has also made the exchange of Americana a two-way street: Earlier this year, Osaka-based Suntory, a Japanese conglomerate best known for its whiskey holdings, announced that it was buying Beam Inc., thus acquiring the iconic American bourbon brands Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.
美國對日本的影響遠遠超過了遍佈世界的快餐產業，連鎖商店和流行文化層面。日本長時間對美國事物的癡迷不僅僅使他們的電影產業規模更大更好，更適合拍攝大製作電影或者生產百威啤酒，也使人們能夠在這裏找到一些更純粹的美國。也使得對美國產業的交易變成了雙向道：今年早些時候，總部位於大阪的著名的威士忌公司三得利，宣佈他們收購了Beam Inc.。這樣，他們也就獲得了著名的美國波旁威士忌品牌：Jim Beam（沾邊波旁威士忌）和Maker’s Mark。

In Japan, the ability to perfectly imitate—and even improve upon—the cocktails, cuisine and couture of foreign cultures isn’t limited to American products; there are spectacular French chefs and masterful Neapolitan pizzaioli who are actually Japanese. There’s something about the perspective of the Japanese that allows them to home in on the essential elements of foreign cultures and then perfectly recreate them at home. "What we see in Japan, in a wide range of pursuits, is a focus on mastery,"says Sarah Kovner, who teaches Japanese history at the University of Florida. "It's true in traditional arts, it’s true of young people who dress up in Harajuku, it’s true of restaurateurs all over Japan."It’s easy to dismiss Japanese re-creations of foreign cultures as faddish and derivative—just other versions of the way that, for example, the new American hipster ideal of Brooklyn is clumsily copied everywhere from Paris to Bangkok. But the best examples of Japanese Americana don’t just replicate our culture. They strike out, on their own, into levels of appreciation and refinement rarely found in America. They give us an opportunity to consider our culture as refracted through a foreign and clarifying prism.
日本人能夠完美地模仿或者說改良外國的文化，如服裝風格，烹飪技巧和雞尾酒製作。不僅能模仿美國文化。很多技藝精湛的法國廚師和熟練的那不勒斯批薩師實際上是日本人。日本人有一種能認清外國文化的本質然後在日本本土把它複製出來的本事。 在佛羅里達學教日本歷史的Sarah Kovner說 ：“我們在日本看到，對技術的精通是人們普遍追求的，在傳統藝術上人們如此，打扮成原宿娃娃的人如此，日本所有的餐館也是如此”
日本人對外國文化的複製很容易被人認爲他們只是因爲喜愛而模仿罷了，就好像趕時髦的布魯克林的新美國人膚淺地模仿人家巴黎和曼谷的文化一樣，日本人只是另一個版本罷了。但是那些典型的日裔美國人模仿的可不只是我們的文化，他們（在沒有導師的情況下）認識和改進事物的水平在美國可是很少見的。他們爲我們提供了一個國外參照物或一面清晰鏡子，讓我們認識本身文化的不足之處。
A jacket at Workers reflects the line’s focus on recreating 20th-century American work clothing. (Raymond Patrick)
Workers公司的這件夾克反映了美國20世紀的工作服裝。
（Raymond Patrick）

Into the fire Matsumoto Kozo’s flame-grilled burgers are Los Angeles-inspired. (Raymond Patrick)
在Matsumoto Kozo的火烤漢堡，是受到洛杉磯的啓發而出現的。（Raymond Patrick）
Seiichiro Tatsumi drove America’s back roads to collect the old bourbons that line Rogin’s Tavern. (Raymond Patrick)
Seiichiro Tatsumi 在美國鄉村小道上驅車收集年份較久遠的波旁威士忌酒，圖片上就是自己酒館裏所收集來的波旁威士忌。
（Raymond Patrick）

Into the fire Matsumoto Kozo’s flame-grilled burgers are Los Angeles-inspired. (Raymond Patrick)
在Matsumoto Kozo的火烤漢堡，是受到洛杉磯的啓發而出現的。
Matsumoto Kozo named his Tokyo burger joint, 7025 Franklin Avenue, after the street address of the Hollywood hotel where he once lived. (Raymond Patrick)
Matsumoto Kozo以他曾經住過的好萊塢酒店所在的街道地址來命名這家位於東京的漢堡店。

Shirts
襯衫

A Japanese company called Kama-kura Shirts opened on Madison Avenue in Manhattan in 2012, just blocks from Brooks Brothers and J. Press, the icons of American preppy wear, what cognoscenti call "trad"and the Japanese call "Ivy style." (Never mind that Brooks Brothers is owned by the Italians, J. Press by the Japanese.) I track down Kamakura’s founder, Yoshio Sadasue, at his headquarters in Tokyo, above a Kamakura Shirts in Ebisu. He is sharply dressed in his trademark style: a button-down shirt with a distinctive collar roll, what Sadasue considers the essential feature of his design. I ask why a Japanese manufacturer opened a New York store to sell American-style shirts to Americans.
一家名爲kamakura的生產襯衫的日本公司2012年在曼哈頓的麥迪遜廣場開業了。距離布魯克斯兄弟和普萊斯店面只有幾個街區之遠。這兩家公司是美國生產畢業生禮服的代表性企業，行家們把這種服裝稱爲“傳統式”，而日本人稱作“艾維式”。（不用說布魯克斯兄弟公司老闆是意大利人，而普萊斯的老闆是日本人。）我在位於東京ebisu的公司總部找到了kamakura的創始人，sadasue。他筆挺地穿着該公司標誌性產品，領尖帶有鈕釦的襯衫以及獨特的領口設計——sadasue認爲這是該公司產品的重要特徵。我問到爲何日本公司會在紐約開店，售賣美式的襯衫給美國人。

"This style originated in America, of course," Sadasue says. "But there was a period of time when Americans forgot their own style."
他說“這種式樣確實產生於美國，但美國人忘記了他們自己的這種樣式已經很久了。”

Kamakura Shirts are made in Japan. Sadasue doesn’t sell them through department stores or other retailers because he wants to keep prices low and profits high, particularly for the independent factories that produce for him. As with Tateno at Workers, there is an undercurrent of respect for what those factories do and a strong desire to make sure that they can keep doing it in Japan.
kamakura襯衫在日本製造。sadasue並沒有通過百貨商店或者其他零售商出售，因爲他想保持低價，獲取高利潤，特別是要讓爲他們生產產品的工廠獲得低價和高利潤。就像Workers品牌創始人Tateno一樣，這些企業家對日本工廠總是充滿敬意，並且強烈的希望這些日本工廠可以繼續堅持下去。

This movement of American style across the ocean to Japan and back to America with a Japanese twist is happening more frequently. The most famous example is probably Daiki Suzuki, who was design director for the quintessentially American brand Woolrich Woolen Mills and now produces his own menswear line—Engineered Garments, a Japanese-run American brand that manufactures its unique take on vintage Americana in New York and sells it in both Japan and the U.S. One of his former employees, Shinya Hasegawa, now has a Brooklyn-based line called Battenwear that offers his interpretation of American outdoor wear from the ’60s to the ’80s. I had never encountered the brand in the States, but I found it in Kyoto.
美國風格漂洋過海來到日本，再經過日本改造後返回美國，這樣的情景屢見不鮮。最著名的例子或許是suzki，他曾是經典的美國品牌Wolrich woolen mills的總設計師，目前建立了自己的男裝企業——工程用服裝公司——這是在紐約的一個日本人經營的美國企業，產品採用獨特的老款美國設計，向日本和美國出售。曾經的職員hasegawa現在也在布魯克林擁有了一家名爲battenwear的工廠，對60到80年代的美國戶外服裝進行自己的詮釋和生產。我從未在美國見過這個品牌，但我在東京發現了它。

Part of what’s going on is simply the globalization of taste, culture, cuisine and the way that, in the modern world, you can get almost anything everywhere. But Japanese Americana is more than that. There’s a special way that the Japanese sensibility has focused on what is great, distinctive and worthy of protection in American culture, even when Americans have not realized the same thing. It isn’t a passing fad. It’s a long-standing part of Japanese culture, and, come to think of it, as more Americans are exposed to U.S. products revived or reinterpreted by Japanese designers, the aesthetic is becoming part of American culture, too. If you ever wonder which of the reigning American tastes, sounds, designs or styles will last into the future, there’s no better place to answer that question than in the stores and restaurants, the bars and studios of Japan. They often know us better than we know ourselves.
在現代，品味，文化，美食和烹飪方式正在發生全球化， 你幾乎可以在任何地方獲得任何東西。但是日本人對美國文化的應用並非如此而已。當美國人自身還未察覺的時候，日本人卻能憑藉敏感的審美找到美國文化中那些好的，獨特的，有保護價值的精華。這並非是他們一時的興趣，而是一種長久以來就存在的日本文化。而且，想想看，當更多美國人接觸到了被日本設計師們復興並重新詮釋的的美國商品時，這種日本的審美也逐漸變成了美國文化的一部分。如果你還想知道哪些地方將會在未來引領美國人的味覺、聽覺、設計以及風格樣式的潮流， 那最好的答案就是日本的商店、餐館、酒吧和工作室，因爲他們通常比我們更加了解我們自己。

Kamakura’s Three Hundred Club Shirt boasts 20 to 22 stitches per inch on a single needle seam. (Raymond Patrick)
Kamakura 的“三百俱樂部襯衫”每一英寸的縫合處都要縫上20到22針。
Owner Seiichiro Tatsumi enjoys the bourbon and cigars at his bar, Rogin’s Tavern. (Raymond Patrick)
Seiichiro Tatsumi在他的Rogin酒館裏面享受波旁酒和雪茄。
A collection of vintage buttons adds to the authenticity of the American work wear at Workers. (Raymond Patrick)
許多老式鈕釦增加了美國工人服裝的真實性。

Burgers
漢堡

For years Matsumoto Kozo owned and ran a restaurant in Tokyo, cooking yoshoku, which is the Japanese word for the Western food that came to Japan over 100 years ago. Then Kozo got a chance to go to America and manage a couple of restaurants for Japanese investors. He moved to Los Angeles and lived in a strange little hotel called the Magic Castle, just a couple of blocks uphill from Hollywood’s tourist strip.
多年來，kozo在東京擁有並經營着一家餐館，主營yoshoku，這是日語中對100多年前引入日本的西餐的稱謂。之前kozo有機會來到美國，爲日本投資者打理兩家餐館。他來到洛杉磯，住在名爲魔法城堡的小旅館，從好萊塢景區上坡，到旅館只有兩條街區。

One day there was a big barbecue party down by the pool. This was the early 1980s, and the glamorous, glittering, feline cast and crew of Cats were bunking at the Magic Castle, too. It was their day off. When they saw Kozo and his family come out of their unit, they insisted that he join the party. They were grilling burgers over an open flame. But it was 3 in the afternoon and Kozo had already eaten. So he asked if he could wrap up the burger to enjoy later. No way, the Cats said, you can’t save a burger like that. You’ve got to eat it here and now. It wasn’t his first hamburger—he’d eaten one before at McDonald’s in Tokyo and at MOS Burger, a Japanese chain. But this flame-grilled, all-beef patty was something categorically different.
有一天，在游泳池邊組織了一場盛大的燒烤派對。當時是80年代初，當時歌劇《貓》的劇組人員正在參加派對。當看到kozo和家人走出房門，他們堅持kozo加入晚會。他們在篝火上烤漢堡。當時是下午三點鐘，kozo已經吃了午餐。因此，他問是否允許他把漢堡打包稍後再吃。他們說不可以，你不能這樣子保存漢堡，必須及時吃掉。這並不是他第一次吃漢堡，他之前在東京的麥當勞以及日本連鎖店摩斯漢堡裏都吃過，但這次的火焰燒烤、全牛漢堡完全不一樣。

When he moved back to Japan a few years later, Kozo thought back to that afternoon at the Magic Castle. He found a place in a residential Tokyo district called Gotanda. It was big enough for a restaurant and a little garden. This was 1990. There were a handful of burger joints already in Japan, but they served burgers as a fast-food snack. (Now there are around 2,000 independent Japanese-run burger places, Kozo says.) He built a real restaurant with a station for grilling burgers in the middle. He enlisted the help of a friend to design a menu that was suitably American, printed on brown paper, with a logo that featured a chef holding a spatula and tossing a plate. He called it 7025 Franklin Avenue, the street address of the Magic Castle Hotel.
當幾年後他回到日本，kozo想到了在魔法城堡的那個下午。他在東京的一個名爲gotanda 的聚居區找到了一個地方，足夠開個餐館和一個小花園。那是1990年，日本已經有了幾家漢堡連鎖店，但他們只是把漢堡作爲快餐來銷售。（kozo說，現在日本已經有2000多家獨立的漢堡店。）他開了一個餐館，屋子中間有一個臺子用於烤漢堡。他列出菜譜，一位朋友幫他設計了美國化的菜單。菜單印在棕色紙上，上面有個標識圖案，顯示一個廚師拿着鏟子，擺弄着一個盤子。他把餐館命名爲富蘭克林大道7025號，也就是魔法城堡在美國的地址。

Kozo still mans the grill nearly every day, though he does have a Nepalese chef who has been working by his side for years, and whose daughter cashiers and waits on tables. The cheeseburger I order, made from Australian beef, is simple and superior. The char is unmistakable, and the meat has a consistency and flavor, so familiar at home, that I have never seen replicated abroad.
雖然一個尼泊爾大廚已經在他身邊工作了許多年，但kozo仍舊每天做着燒烤，大廚的女兒作爲收銀員和服務員。我點了一份乾酪漢堡，由澳洲牛肉製成，簡單卻美味。烤的恰到火候，牛肉均勻，味道鮮美，像自己家裏的味道一樣。在國外我從未品嚐過類似的漢堡。

I ask Kozo whether he’s been back to the Magic Castle or to the States since returning here in 1985. "I've never been back," he says, tears forming in his eyes. "I always wanted to go, but I haven't made it yet. Which is kind of amazing, since this whole business is thanks to America. This is what I found in America and wanted to bring back to Japan."
我問kozo1985年回國後，是否再回過魔法城堡或美國。“我再也沒回去過”他眼中泛着淚花說。“我總想回去，但都沒成行。這有點讓人驚訝，因爲我的所有生意都要歸功於美國，我在美國發現了這種做法並且帶到日本。”

Work wear
工裝

Takashi Tateno keeps an office in a simple studio above his wife’s hairdressing salon on the outskirts of Okayama, a medium-sized city in central Japan. In fashion circles, Okayama is famous for one thing: making the world’s best denim, using looms that date back to the 1950s. But Tateno isn’t a denim head. His brand, called Workers, adapts all sorts of American work wear from the 1900s to the ’60s—railroad jackets, canvas dusters, flannel shirts, double-kneed pants. Moreover, he’s obsessed by the American workers who manufactured these garments in their heyday, and the skills, techniques and tools used to produce such high-quality clothing on an industrial scale.
岡山是日本中部的一箇中等城市。Tateno簡陋的辦公室坐落在在市郊，在他妻子經營的理髮店上面。在時尚圈中，岡山以加工世界上最好的工裝而著稱，使用織布機的歷史可以追溯到50年代。但Tateno的企業並非工裝方面的領頭羊。他創建了名爲工人的工裝品牌，產品由美國在1900年開始直至60年代的所有工裝改進而來，包括：鐵路工人的防護服、三防布、法蘭絨襯衫、膝部加厚的工裝褲。此外，他還一直着迷於在美國全盛時代生產這些工裝的工人們，他們的技術、技能以及在如此高質量工裝的工業化生產中所使用工具。

Before he hatched the idea of his own collection, Tateno spent years making clothes himself and working in a factory. At the same time, he launched a Japanese-language website that was absolutely alone in its single-minded pursuit of knowledge about the plans, patterns and procedures that old American work-wear manufacturers used to make their garments under such labels as Crown, W.M. Finck & Co. and Can’t Bust ’Em. Tateno journeyed to the United States multiple times to sift through archives and contact heirs to now-defunct clothing manufacturers to see if they had information about their ancestors’ businesses, and to buy up examples of the old clothes he loved so he could dissect their construction.
在總結出自己的理念之前，Tateno花費數年時間親手製作服裝並且在工廠參與工作。與此同時，他還創建了一個日語網站，完全一門心思的學習舊時美國工裝製造商的設計、式樣和加工工藝方面的知識。這些美國工廠創造了包括：皇冠、芬克以及康巴斯特在內的優秀品牌。Tateno來到美國花費大量時間查閱檔案，聯繫已經落敗了的舊時工廠的繼承人，瞭解他們前輩在工廠經營方面的信息，並且還購買了他喜歡的那些老款服裝樣服，以剖析服裝結構。

Tateno ushers me into his upstairs space. One room is filled with all kinds of clothing, everything from the work wear he collects to contemporary Italian jackets by Boglioli. There is also machinery, including an ancient riveting machine, plus old sewing-machine accessories that Tateno purchases so the factories he hires to produce his collection can make things to the exact specifications of, say, 1924 or 1942, with the same tools in use back then.
Tateno帶我來到他樓上的房間。有一個屋子裏堆滿了各式各樣的工裝，從他收集的各式防護服到由貝格里尼設計的現代意大利夾克衫。還有他購買的老式縫紉機的零件，據他所說，1924年或42年購買了這些零件，目的是爲了當時能夠使用與美國同樣的工具，生產規格完全一致的工裝。

"When I learned to sew and tried to make these garments myself, I began to realize just how intricate the work was, what kind of tremendous skill level was required to turn out such huge quantities of high-quality garments," Tateno says. "These were produced at a time when American workers were the most knowledgeable and skilled in the world."
“當我學習到縫紉，並且嘗試自己製作這些防護服時，才意識到這項工作是如此精細，需要極高的技能才能生產出大批如此高質量的工裝。”Tateno說“生產這些服裝的美國工人是當時全世界知識和技能水平最高的。”

Though the kind of skilled manufacturing he admired in these garments had largely disappeared in the United States—a consequence of apparel production moving abroad and garment workers no longer finding work—he saw older Japanese people around him in Okayama with high-level sewing skills. And so he realized that if he could unearth the manufacturing secrets behind these old garments, he could make them in Okayama—and perhaps make them even better than the originals.
由於美國將服裝這類產品的生產轉移海外，服裝廠的工人們紛紛失業，儘管他所羨慕的這些技術熟練的美國服裝企業中大部分已經倒閉，但他在岡山看到自己周邊還有很多年長的日本人仍具備高超的縫紉技藝。因此他感到如果他能夠揭開在這些老式防護服背後的技術機密。他便能夠在岡山製造這些防護服，甚至或許比原來的更好。

The cult of the artisan is ensconced in contemporary urban American culture. This is the ideal of a person who can handcraft a pair of jeans or a necktie, conscious of the most minute details of fabric, workmanship and authenticity. The era Tateno’s clothing harks back to is not the age of the lone artisan laboring over a single creation, though; it’s the era of packed factories in Pennsylvania, Virginia and California churning out thousands and thousands of high-quality garments at a reasonable price, all because of the workers’ skill. The irony is that this ideal of the American worker, which sounds like something lifted from old-school union advertising copy, can be hard to find in America today.
對熟練技工的狂熱已經躺倒美國現代城市文化的歷史中。工人專注於紡織材料、加工技藝以及關乎可靠性的每個細節，手工打造一條牛仔褲或領結的情景已只存在理想之中。 然而Tateno的服裝所處的已不是單個工匠獨自創造的年代，而是賓夕法尼亞、弗吉尼亞和加利福尼亞的工廠中以低廉的價格成批出產千千萬萬套高質量服裝的時候。所有的一切都因爲工人的技藝問題。具有諷刺意味的是美國工人的那種似乎由老式學堂演化而來的理想，在今天的美國已經難覓蹤影。
Bourbon
波旁威士忌酒

When I headed to Osaka a few months ago, my friend Nick Coldicott, who lives in Tokyo, urged me to visit what he contends is the best bourbon bar in the world: Rogin’s Tavern. Knowing Nick’s command of the spirits universe, I take a commuter train out to Moriguchi, an obscure little town about half an hour from the center of Osaka. When I emerge from the station I can see a neon light spelling "Rogin's" in English. Inside it is dim, with a long wooden bar backed by hundreds of bottles. American jazz comes from an ancient-looking jukebox in the rear.
當我幾個月前往大阪時，我住在東京的朋友Nick Coldicott敦促我去參觀他認爲是世界上最好的波旁威士忌酒吧：Rogin’s Tavern（羅金的酒館）。我知道Nick對酒精非常的瞭解，於是我乘坐了一列通勤列車前Moriguchi ，一個距離大阪市中心大約半小時車程的無名小鎮。當我達到車站時我可以看到一個霓虹燈拼寫的英文“Rogin’s”。裏面很昏暗，裏面有一個很長的吧檯，後面排列着幾百瓶酒。一個古老的點唱機裏傳來了美國爵士樂。

Nearly every bottle is bourbon, though there is a smattering of rye and sour mash. I can see bottles from the 1800s next to obscure export bottlings of Jim Beam next to standard-issue Jack Daniel’s. Seiichiro Tatsumi, an older man dressed elegantly in bartender’s attire, emerges from the shadows and says hello in English. I tell him I am a friend of Nick’s, and he reaches for a bottle nestled behind the register. "You want to try a 1904?" he asks.
幾乎每瓶都是波旁，雖然有少數的黑麥和酸麥芽漿。我可以看到很多19世紀年份的酒瓶子，還有用於出口的佔邊·波本威士忌，儘管瓶身略顯模糊，還有標準的傑克丹尼爾。（佔邊波本威士忌：始於1795年，歷經佔邊家族七代釀酒師，始終保持產品的最高品質併成爲全世界和全美銷量第一的波本威士忌 。 傑克·丹尼 世界十大名酒之一 1866年誕生於美國田納西州蓮芝堡，單瓶銷量多年來高踞全球美國威士忌之首。是美國最古老的註冊酒廠） Seiichiro Tatsumi ，一個年長的穿着得體的酒保服裝男士，從陰影裏浮現出來用英語說“hello”，我告訴他我是Nick的朋友，於是他拿了一瓶酒過來。“你想嘗試一下1904年的佳釀嗎”？他問道。

He tenderly unscrews the top and pours a shot for me and another for himself. I take a sip. It is a brand I’ve never heard of, once made, Tatsumi says, especially for a hotel in Kentucky. It is highly alcoholic but silky smooth. Unlike wine or vintage port, bourbon is not supposed to change much in the bottle over time. And so I think of this as a chance to taste the past and experience, almost exactly, what drinkers were sipping a hundred years ago.
他輕輕地旋開瓶蓋，他倒了一杯給我，給自己也倒了一杯。我小品一口，這個品牌的酒我從來沒有喝過，據他說之前這是爲肯塔基州的一家飯店專門製作的。 度數很高但感覺爽滑。不像葡萄酒或者年份波特，波旁威士忌不會因時間的推移而產生太多變化。所以我覺得這是品味過去和歷史的大好機會，因爲我現在所喝的和100年前人們所喝的沒啥兩樣啊！

"I tasted my first bourbon in the basement bar of the Rihga Royal Hotel, a famous old place in Osaka," Tatsumi says. "Then I spent years reading everything I could about bourbon at the American cultural center. I sent letters to Kentucky and Tennessee trying to set up visits to the distilleries. I even asked for help at the American consulate. And then I finally got to visit in 1984. I fell in love with America then. I’ve been back a hundred times since. I now own a house in Lexington, and I’ve even been named a colonel in Kentucky."
辰巳說：“我在大阪的一家馳名老店--麗嘉皇家酒店的地下酒莊裏第一次嚐到了波旁威士忌，然後我花了幾年時間在美國文化中心裏學習有關波旁威士忌的所有知識。我寄信往肯塔基州和田納西州希望能去拜訪那裏的（波旁）造酒廠，我甚至求助於美國領事館。結果如我所願我在1984年得到了邀請，從此我就愛上了美國。那之後我來回日本美國之間已有上百次，我現在在列剋星敦有一處房產，甚至被任命爲肯塔基州的一名上校。”

I ask him how he found all these old bottles of bourbon. "I drive across America, only on the back roads and especially at night, when you can see the lit-up liquor-store signs in the distance," he says. “I stop at every place I pass, and I don’t just look on the shelves: I ask the clerk to comb the cellar and check the storeroom for anything old. I can’t tell you how many cases of ancient bottles I’ve found that way. I’ll try any bourbon once, and if I like it I buy more."
我向他請教如何收集到這麼多的陳年波旁酒，他回答說：“我曾經駕車穿越了美國，都是通過鄉間小路而且挑的都是晚上，因爲那時候你能看到遠處的酒館小店的招牌在發光。我在每處小店都會停留一下而且我不只是看貨架，我會請求店員清查地窖並找出所有存着的舊貨，我無法向你形容用這種方法我找到了多少波旁陳釀，每一種波旁我都會品嚐一下，只要我喜歡我就買下來。”

The next day I visit another bourbon bar in Osaka, Tonen (meaning "decade"), in a downtown neighborhood where salarymen go drinking. This is the bar of the bourbon master from whom Tatsumi originally learned. A pack of businesspeople parade into the place and one asks for one of the most expensive and rare contemporary bourbons around, Pappy Van Winkle, a bottle of which can cost more than $1,000. The bartender makes a big show of pouring this cultish favorite, laying the snifter down horizontally and swirling the bourbon inside it before presenting it to the man who ordered it, obviously the boss of the group. Then he comes over and we talk about his old bottles, and I see a glint in his eye. For someone in Kentucky or Tennessee it might be called nostalgia, but can you be nostalgic for a time and place you never knew? These two Japanese bourbon temples represent a bold act of imagination.
第二天我來到大阪的另一家位於下城區的工薪階層光顧的波旁酒館，託恩（意思是十年）酒館。該酒館是Tatsumi最早開始知道的一家波旁專業酒館。當天一羣商務人士涌入這個地方，有人點了一杯最爲昂貴並且少見的現代波旁酒——派比 範溫克威士忌，一瓶1000多美金。服務員在倒這種令人癡迷的酒時，展示了精湛技藝，他水平地擺好酒杯，令波旁酒在杯中不斷打轉，然後展示在客人面前。很明顯，這個人是這一羣人的老闆。隨後他走過來，我們聊到他買的這瓶老酒，我看到他目光一閃，彷彿某些肯塔基或田納西人懷有的思鄉病一般。但是你會對一個你並不瞭解的時代和地點產生鄉愁的情緒嗎？這兩個日本波旁酒館呈現出了大膽的想象。

Back in the States I phone up bourbon bars from Manhattan to Louisville, and their responses are all the same: We have old-style bourbons, but not anything old. And then I call Keith Biesack, the beverage director at what may be New York City’s best bourbon bar, Char No. 4, and I ask why no one in America stocks anything really old. "Until very recently people didn’t think they wanted to drink anything but newly bottled bourbon," he says. “The idea that this was a drink whose past you’d want to discover through old bottles, that’s a very new idea."
回到美國，從曼哈頓到路易斯維爾我給很多波旁酒吧都打了電話，他們的迴應都相同：我們有老式的波旁酒，但都不久遠。隨後，我又給畢塞科打了電話，他是紐約市可能最好的波旁酒吧——查理四號的酒類銷售總監。我問到他爲何美國酒吧中都沒有真正的老酒。他說：“因爲一直以來人們都想喝新裝的酒，而通過喝酒來探索過去的歷史，這樣的想法纔剛剛出現而已。”

Not in Japan, I think, and I imagine Tatsumi 25 years ago roaring across the small roads of the American South and discovering bottles that only he knew to treasure.
但日本可不這樣，而且我能夠想象25年前Tatsumi 呼嘯着穿過美國南部的小路，只爲發現值得珍藏的陳年老酒時的樣子。

Jazz
爵士音樂

A few years ago a friend took me to Samurai, a jazz bar in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district whose owner, a haiku poet, stood behind the bar surrounded by thousands of maneki neko—smiling, waving cat figurines. He had a primitive video camera trained on the sleeve of the record album he was playing, and he projected that image onto the wall. Samurai had its own quirks, but it wasn’t an unusual type of place: The jazz bar and its cousin, the jazz kissaten, a coffee shop focused on jazz, are shrines to recorded music, dreamlands for high-fidelity obsessives. They offer a kind of jazz experience based on pure appreciation of the act of listening.
幾年前一個朋友帶我去了 Samurai——一家位於東京新宿區的爵士酒吧，酒吧老闆是一位俳句詩人。他站在吧檯後面，周圍是數以千計的招財貓——微笑着，揮動手臂。他用一個老式的放映機播放膠片，把影像投射到牆上。這家店有自己的風格，但在日本並非少見，比如爵士吧和爵士咖啡館——專注於爵士樂的咖啡店，熱衷於播放音樂磁帶，以成爲高保真樂迷們的夢想天堂，通過純粹的傾聽來享受爵士樂所帶來的快樂。

In Tokyo I track down James Catchpole, an American expat and jazz expert who goes by the very Japanese-sounding nickname of Mr. OK Jazz, to understand what’s happening right now to Japanese jazz culture. "When these kissa started back in the '50s and '60s, Tokyo apartments were too small to play music in," Catchpole says. "Imported records were really expensive. Jazz kissa were the only places in the city where fans could listen to the music they loved." The coffee shops became hideaways where jazz lovers could relax, hear new records and learn about trends like free jazz from others who knew the music well. In the ’60s, when jazz was allied with Japanese university counterculture, jazz kissa became organizing centers for the student protests that rocked Japan. But of course Japanese people no longer need to visit a bar or café to listen to recorded jazz. "Are jazz kissa going to survive?" I ask Catchpole.
在東京，爲了理解現在日本的爵士文化，我找到了凱奇波爾。他是一位美國移民和爵士樂專家，周圍追捧他的日本人送給他一個綽號爲ok爵士先生。“當這種爵士咖啡館在5、60年代剛剛興起時，東京的房子還太小，所以不足以播放音樂。”他說道，“並且進口的磁碟非常昂貴。所以城市裏的樂迷們只有在這種咖啡館裏才能聽到自己喜歡的音樂。”這樣的咖啡店成爲爵士迷們放鬆心情的桃花源，來到這裏欣賞新的樂曲，從深諳爵士樂的人那裏瞭解像自由爵士樂一類的流行風尚。在60年代，當爵士樂與日本大學的反主流文化結盟後，爵士咖啡吧成爲學生們組織抗議的根據地。但當然，日本人現在不再需要去酒吧或咖啡館來欣賞磁帶爵士樂了。我問凱奇波爾“那麼爵士咖啡吧還會繼續存在嗎？”

"Go to Kissa Sakaiki and find out," he says.
“去sakaiki咖啡吧找答案吧”他說。

Tokyo's tiny cafés, bars and restaurants are notoriously difficult to locate. Even with a GPS-equipped iPhone, a print atlas and the help of police guarding a nearby embassy, I spend half an hour wandering the back streets of Yotsuya, a residential Tokyo neighborhood not far from Shinjuku, before I turn the corner and see the discreet sign for Sakaiki.
東京的微型咖啡店、酒吧和餐館特別難找。即使用GPS定位功能的iphone，一張地圖冊，並且在附近大使館保安的幫助下，我還是在臨近新宿地區的yotsuya居民區的小街裏轉了半個小時，轉過一個街角才發現隱祕的sakaiki店鋪標誌。

What makes places like Sakaiki or the Bob Dylan bar survive and sometimes prosper is the fragmentation of bar, café and restaurant culture in Tokyo. An eight-seat pub stands out in New York as supremely small, yet in Tokyo there are at least three nightlife neighborhoods consisting almost entirely of eight-seat bars. You don’t need many fans of whatever it is you’re into to support a bar, café or restaurant devoted to that obsession.
像sakaiki或者鮑勃迪倫酒吧做之所以能夠生存甚至繁榮起來，主要應歸因於東京破碎的酒吧、咖啡館以及小餐館文化。在紐約一個八個座位的酒吧會顯得極其狹小，而在東京至少三個夜生活地區完全都是由這類型酒吧組成。無論如何，你並不需要太多樂迷來支撐這樣專門的酒吧、咖啡廳或者餐館。

When I enter Sakaiki, owner Fumito Fukuchi, wearing a gray newsboy cap turned backward, waves me to the bar. Seated next to me is a Swedish free-jazz clarinetist speaking English to a group of Japanese. I tell Fukuchi that Mr. OK Jazz sent me. He nods a welcome and serves me a cold beer. The place is small, warm and gently lit, with a green-shaded banker’s lamp shining on the album cover of the record he’s playing. I ask Fukuchi how he came to run Sakaiki.
當我進入sakaiki，帶着灰色報童帽的老闆fukuchi便向我招手，帶我進去。坐在我旁邊的是一個瑞典的自由爵士樂吹奏者，正在操着英語與一羣日本人交談。我告訴fukuchi是ok爵士先生叫我來的。他點頭表示歡迎，給了我一杯冰鎮啤酒。這地方很小，但很暖和。一盞墨綠色的銀行家檯燈在唱片封面上閃着柔和的光。我問fukuchi爲什麼要經營這這家sakaiki。

"I was a salaryman working in IT until 2007," he tells me, as he cleans, inspects and preps the next record in his rotation. "Jazz kissa were my hobby," he says, leading me to a coffee table covered in matchboxes from the jazz kissa of Tokyo. He picks up a matchbook that reads, "Eagle." "This is the first one I ever visited. It’s right here in Yotsuya. I read the owner’s book about jazz when I was a teenager in Hokkaido. As soon as I came to Tokyo, I headed for Eagle." Many of the matchbooks Fukuchi flips through are from jazz kissa that have long been closed. And all the other jazz kissa he knows of in Tokyo, he tells me, are run by men a decade or two older than he is—and he's 41.
“直到2007年之前我都是一個在IT行業工作的工薪族，”他一邊清理、檢查並且爲下次循環記錄做準備，一邊和我說。“爵士咖啡館是我的愛好”他邊說邊領着我到了放滿了來自於東京爵士咖啡館火柴盒的茶几邊。他拾起一個火柴盒並讀到“Eagle，這是我曾經去過的第一個爵士咖啡館，它就在這兒，四谷。當我在北海道，還是個孩子的時候，我讀了那間咖啡館主人有關爵士的書籍。我一到東京，就直奔Eagle而去。”Fukuchi收集的許多火柴盒都來自於已經關閉許久了的爵士咖啡館。他告訴我說，他所知道的在東京的所有其他咖啡館都由比他大十幾二十幾的人在運營着——而他已經41歲了。

The obvious question is why go out of your way to hear recorded music with other people when technology has made it easy to listen alone? The answer comes to me as I look around the room at the people brought together by the music Sakaiki has collected: International jazz musicians, local workers and jazz fans from all over the city are here because they appreciate the act of listening to a record together. It’s a pleasure that anyone who grew up before the era of the Walkman and iTunes can appreciate. What’s uncertain is whether the next generation will cherish the same experience.
最顯而易見的問題是爲什麼當現在技術已經使你很容易能找到想聽的音樂的時候，你還需要和別人一塊去聽錄製音樂？當我環顧房間，看見因爲Sakaiki收集的音樂而聚集在一起的是什麼類型的人時，答案就不言自明瞭：是國際爵士音樂家，當地的工人以及來自於這個城市各個地方的爵士粉絲們，他們來到這裏是因爲他們欣賞這種聚在一起聽錄製音樂的行爲。很高興在這個擁有Walkman和iTunes的時代之前長大的人能夠欣賞這樣的行爲。但我並不確定我們的下一代是否將會珍惜這樣的經歷。