It was for my younger brother's twelve year old birthday sleepover that my mother went to Blockbuster to rent Dune, the movie he'd requested. We were American ex-pats but I'd like you to envision a tall German woman when you think of my mother getting into our Japanese mini-mini-mini-van, like her own private clown car and driving through the concrete-walled alleys and six lane thoroughfares that would become motorcycle race tracks at night, to Blockbuster.

Among the aisles, as you may have derived from the title, she was surprised not to be able to find the movie Dune. She looked in the Sci-fi section, then Action, then the Kyle McLachlan section. Nope, nope, nope. So, being a librarian and dogged, she asked at the desk in hopes that a copy might have been returned but not yet re-shelved. Having lived in Japan about a year, at that point, her Japanese was not conversational but touristy, hopeful.

"Dune doko desu ka?" she asked the very nervous girl behind the desk.

"Doon?" the girl asked. "Chotto matte kudasai."

My mother watched her go to check the shelves. The employee returned without a video and expressed that she was ashamed to disappoint. But my mother had an idea:"Dune, Ky-ru Ma-grokorin," my mother told the girl who perked up. The Kyle McLachlan section was then checked, then a few other places, and finally the great book was brought out and leafed through for some time until, alas, there seemed to be nothing to do but accept that they did not have it.

But my mother couldn't believe that any Blockbuster, especially one in Tokyo, would have no record of a movie so classic as Dune.

"Ky-ru Ma-grokorin to Stingu," she added.
"Kyru Magrokorin to Stingu?!" Now the girl understood.

This movie had to be in their records.

She searched a bit then got the manager and had him leafing through the book as well with whispers back and forth of "to Stingu," "To Stingu!" and other exchanges my mother couldn't understand. Why the multiple computers that were almost certainly available play no role in the story is beyond me. In any case, she wound up going home with Monte Python and the Holy Grail, which was a great success at the birthday party.

The next time she went to the Higashi Koganei Blockbuster there was a full-wall exhibit devoted to Dune.

She also, on another occasion, met Jon Stewart's mother "And he has my condolences!" But that's another story.

If you lived in Tokyo in the nineties and want to chat about it, leave a comment. Or for any other reason. :)

#ex-pat #story