Blue Mansions
by Rey Ventura

"I've been working here for more than eighteen years now. Here, you are good while you are strong. When you become old-you are nothing! They throw you out in the streets"- Filipino migrant scaffold builder in Japan

1.
Gabriel lives along the banks of the Nakamura River. There he has built a shanty under the Shuto Expressway, a mammoth, multi-tiered superhighway that connects to the Yokohama Bay Bridge. It looks like the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco. He calls his dwelling a "Blue Mansion" to amuse himself. Blue is the color of the vinyl sheets he uses to wrap and roof his "mansion."

The English word "mansion" or the French "maison" had become "manshon" and "mezon," respectively. Japanese real estate agents exploited these foreign words to describe a pricey flat or an apartment in Yokohama City.

The phenomenon of "Blue Mansions" started in the late 1990s. Those wandering tachimbos (day laborers) who are too weak or handicapped to qualify for a job are its pioneer builders. Their idea of squatting probably came straight from Manila's Home Along the Railways, where rural migrants had built their shanties. But here in Nakamura, it is different: they squat when they cannot find a job. In Manila, they squat while looking for a job; sometimes, they still squat even if they have found a job and some even become professional squatters. During elections in Manila, politicians court shanty dwellers for their votes and make promises of shelter for every head of the family and a job for every able-bodied citizen. In Nakamura, nobody makes promises to the squatters; even the police seem oblivious of their existence.

Gabriel became homeless to survive. He had to be homeless to provide a home for his family back in the Philippines.

Now, along a 200-meter stretch of the Nakamura River, there are about a hundred Blue Mansions built side by side; they look like coaches of the Japan Railways. The dwellers in them are mostly Japanese, a few are Koreans, and more than a dozen are Filipinos.

As is our habit in Manila, Gabriel and I crossed the road in the middle of traffic. We leaped over the fence. Behind the fence, a big notice that warns: "Tachiiri Kinshi (Entry Prohibited)."

"Do you know what this means?" I asked him.

"Yes," he grinned. "If it's in red, it means 'prohibited.'"

To enter his Blue Mansion, Gabriel pushed a cut portion of the mesh wires that enclosed his dwelling. We ducked through it like thieves trespassing in a junk dealer's backyard. Inside his one-tatami (single mat) "mansion," he lit a fat candle.

"Please bear with me; I have no light," he said.

His home's roof and walls were of discarded plywood, rusty steel sheets, flattened corrugated boxes, and panels from old appliances. He had a television and a stereo set but could not play them because he had no electricity.

"I'm finding a way," he said, "how to have power." He planned to bury a small generator to suppress its noise. He used to own a truck battery but it could no longer be recharged. His walls were insulated on all sides with boxes of bric-a-brac: used clothes, used tools, old electronic equipment, and assorted pieces of gomi (desirable junk).

On the wall, beside his bed, was an enlarged photograph of his wife and three children. Beside this picture was a frame filled with various ribbons ('honors') indicating his two daughters' high scholastic achievements.

"My eldest," he said grinning, "always has honors. She really took after her father."

We laughed.

He had been living in a "Blue Mansion" for over a year now. He left the Higashiyama Building after lodging there for some twelve years. Burangko kicked him out when he failed to pay his rent just for three weeks!

"...I'm an embarrassment to our friends here and to my family back home. They don't know I've become a squatter here." His three kids in the picture looked well nourished.

"On my first night here, I cried. It was my first time to cry in Japan."

"Why did you cry?"

"I was so ashamed of myself; I'm an embarrassment to our friends here and to my family back home. They don't know I've become a squatter here." His three kids in the picture looked well nourished. Each day, he said, he "talks" to the picture and prays to Mother Mary.

"I'm lucky," he said. "I'm still healthy and can still work."

Indeed, he was lucky; he could still be considered lucky. How could he have survived in Japan this long on just sheer cleverness and industry? There must be some good spirit within him.

"Last year," he said, "it was so difficult to get a job. No job, no room. Squatting was my only way to survive."

2.
In 1988, I was a tachimbo in Kotobuki and lived there for almost a year. One cold evening in 2001, I returned. Returning to it was like returning to the scene of a crime. I returned to visit old friends. I also wanted to know if I could possibly get a job in this yoseba (Labor Center)—could I be a tachimbo once again?

Outside a Korean tachinomi (a drink-while-standing bar cum sari-sari store), some Filipino tachimbos were drinking beer. Seated on empty crates and tin cans, they formed a wide circle. They were in their work clothes: jikatabi (split-toed light shoes), baggy trousers, and loose jackets. They were jashiba (scaffold builders).

I had been away for ten years or more, but I could still recognize many faces in the circle. I recognized Dado-tall, pony-tailed, and with a mustache; he is one of the Kotobuki pioneers. There's Rudy, an Ilocano-still full-bearded like Jesus Christ of the calendars and still has a naughty grin. There's Dante, also pony-tailed like Dado, but with pierced ears, which have more than a dozen dangling little earrings. A few years ago, he asked me to film his youngest daughter's debut at a five-star hotel in Manila. There's Gabriel, the seaman from Negros Island, who jumped ship and became the model of subsequent jump-shippers; he was wearing a balaclava. The rest of the men, I haven't met before.

They immediately saw and recognized me as I approached.

"Oh, it's Rey!" Gabriel pointed his twisted mouth to me. Everybody looked in my direction. I'm a new face to most of his mates; he filled in the rest of the group about me. He told them we used to live together at the Higashiyama Building; that I was one of the first Kotobuki Boys. I introduced myself and, like a politician seeking reelection, I shook each one's hand firmly. A tall Kirin was offered immediately to me.

Dado, Rudy, Dante, and Gabriel held up their beers for a toast; the rest followed suit. We too raised our cans. "Kampai!"

"Here's one lucky countryman of ours," Gabriel said. "He goes in and out of Japan with no problem." He had immediately put me in an embarrassing situation.

"That's not true," I said. "I can only come here when I have enough for the plane ticket."

"Yes," Rudy seconded, "I really envy our friend. I've been here for sixteen years but haven't visited our country once. I wish I were like him."

"Why?" one of the new faces asked me. "Are you married to a Japanese?"

Dante answered for me.

"And he's a journalist," Dado added. He knew I had written a book but had not read it.

"But I'm a poor journalist." I said.

While girls from China and Korea offer massage (and extra massage) services to passersby. But girls from the Philippines work in snack bars, so they are not usually seen soliciting favors on the streets.

I joined their circle; I sat between Gabriel and Boyet, a small fellow. Boyet always made faces and toyed with his dentures.

"Pare (mate)," Boyet said, "please introduce me to a Japanese. I want to have a Haponesa. I don't mind if she's old."

"Do you want to bang your head against the wall?" Dado asked with sarcasm. "Learn from those who had been there. Better abandon your illusions."

Dado's Japanese wife had divorced him several years ago.

Dante said, "With the size you've got, do you think a Japanese will give you a damn?" Everybody laughed. Boyet's height always became the subject of jokes.

"Listen," Boyet stood. "We're in Japan. We should at least experience a Japanese!"

"That's easy," Dado said. "Punta ka sa Hindotdecho (Go to Hinodecho-The Village Where the Sun Rises)."

It was a place where girls from Brazil, Colombia, and Thailand offer quickies under the dimly lit rail tracks. While girls from China and Korea offer massage (and extra massage) services to passersby. But girls from the Philippines work in snack bars, so they are not usually seen soliciting favors on the streets.

"It's expensive," Boyet said. "Ang gusto ko yung mahal ako; hindi yung mahal (I want somebody who loves (mahal) me and not someone who is expensive (mahal)." He was booed for his overused pun.

"Don't oppress our kababayan (countryman)," Gabriel said patting Boyet's back. "Remember, it's not size that matters; it's the diameter!"

There was a round of applause. Gabriel raised his beer once more. "Kampai to our friend; welcome back to Kotobuki!"

3.
Gabriel is today's oyakata (foreman) at the gemba (jobsite); today, he is treating his "boys" to a drink.

"When are you going home?" I asked as I continued to enjoy their hospitality.

"I don't know, mate," he said. "I still don't have enough savings." He has been in Japan for almost eighteen years, and still not enough savings!

"In my first years," he said, "I earned nothing. I was exploited by the Yakuza." Apart from food, lodging, and little allowance given him, he was not paid any wages. He worked at a small construction firm and his boss was a gangster.

Now, after years and years of apprenticeship and thousands and thousands of unpaid wages, he has become a skilled worker; he is now an expert jashiba builder, a professional scaffold man. He's no longer the innocent Visayan lad from Negros teased by everyone because of his accented Tagalog. His accent "dissolved" during long years in the company of Tagalog speakers; his tachimbo's Nihongo also improved and is more polished now. As a foreman, he now earns as much as 18,0000 yen a day. He no longer stands at the corner looking for a job; instead, teheishi (labor recruiters) call him on his cell phone when they need him and other Filipinos.

Unfortunately, jobs had become scarce. This month, he could only work for ten days. During other seasons, he could work for fifteen to twenty days.

He has been jobless for a week. Armed with his day's wage, he gathered his "boys" to celebrate. They had not sipped a beer for several days.

When he was a seaman, his cargo ship had landed him in countries in Europe, North America, and Asia.

"When I go home," he said, "I have something to tell my children and friends. I won't be ignorant about the world."

"I've been working here for more than eighteen years now. Here, you are good while you are strong. When you become old-you are nothing! They throw you out in the streets. Look around Kotobuki. See how many old people are left rotting on the pavements?"

"When is that?" I asked.

"Not now," he said. "But I tell you, Japan is not my home."

"Why?"

"Japan has this," he gestured using his thumb and forefinger to form a circle. "But she doesn't have this." He pointed to his heart.

"What made you say that?"

"Look!" he said, "I've been working here for more than eighteen years now. Here, you are good while you are strong. When you become old-you are nothing! They throw you out in the streets. Look around Kotobuki. See how many old people are left rotting on the pavements?"

Not far from where we were drinking, a commotion started. I stood and went toward the noise. Near the steps of the Labor Center, a Japanese in crutches was begging for mercy from two middle-aged drunks. The man was apologizing profusely. However, despite his pleadings, the two thugs continued to hurl bakkeros and kunneros at him. Not satisfied with cursing, the thugs started to maul him. Taking turns, they punched him in the face and kicked him until he fell down. Even with the man's nose and face bleeding and his crutches smeared in red, the gangsters continued. The Kotobuki machos stopped only when a fellow thug intervened.

I rejoined the circle. The two gangsters swaggeringly walked toward the Nakamura River. They walked past us but never said a word nor looked in our direction.

"Fucking cowards," Dado cursed, his jawbones in sharp outline visibly restraining his anger. "Why fight invalids? Gangsters without balls!"

"Yakuzas are only good at yelling," said one. "They are scared of a real fight."

"They don't know how to fight," said another. "They only fight in numbers, when they have swords or guns."

"Try challenging them," Gabriel said, "man-to-man, a real fist fight; they will think twice. Or they will turn on their keitai (cell phone) and call for help from their fellow cowards."

He remembered his former employer who never paid him his wages.
"Had that putol (man with an amputated finger) stopped me and my companions from leaving the gemba," he said, "we could have buried him alive then and there."

He was in the picturesque countryside of Nagano; he was working with four other Filipinos. They dug roads; they demolished old houses; they poured concrete on the foundations of buildings. For four years, they had endured daily doses of bakkeros and kunneros. They didn't mind so much the small amount of food and the meager allowance allotted to them; but they did mind the daily humiliation. When the promise of payment failed to materialize, they decided it was time for some reckoning. One winter night, while lying in their heater-less bunkhouse, Gabriel revealed his plan to his companions.

If the Yakuza boss comes again empty-handed (i.e., no pay envelopes for them), they would leave the gemba. If he refused to let them leave, they would not let him see another day; they would butcher him. Putol, smelling real danger, let them go. Gabriel and his companions then returned to Kotobuki where they were originally recruited.

Now, Gabriel knows the smell of a Yakuza; he gets to meet them everyday in Kotobuki. He often bumps into them in their betting stalls for horse race, boat race, and bicycle race. Sometimes he would play in their pachinko parlors; but he would never drink in their sunakkus (snack bars) or omises (pubs). He never allowed himself to be exploited by a Yakuza again.

"I've learned my lesson," he said. "I've paid a very dear tuition fee."

4.
Cans of beer of different brands were being passed around. Though most of the drinks were bought through Gabriel's generosity, each man gave his half a dozen share. The group's drinking speed is alarming. I could not keep up with them; I kept on declining a bottle.

...to consider Kotobuki as a hometown was really something extraordinary; it meant your complete assimilation into the world of tachimbos.

I asked Gabriel, "As a Koto pioneer, if you were given a chance to become a Japanese citizen, would you take it?"

"Of course," he said, "because then my visa problem would be gone. But only for that reason!"

"But don't you love Japan?"

"Does she love us?" he asked. "Does she care for us?"

"Yes!" I said. "She lets you work as much as you want and has not arrested you."

"I'm not a criminal," he said. "I work hard and I work for Japan."

Boyet, who had been quiet all evening, suddenly sprung into action. He stood in the middle of the circle with a big can of beer in his hand. He's already losing his sobriety and wobbling but he managed to sing:

"Kotobuki wa ore no furusato dayo, ore no machi dayo!"
Iniibig kita Kotobuki; aishiteiru Kotobuki.

(Kotobuki is my old village, my hometown.
I do love you Kotobuki, I love you Kotobuki).

I was surprised to hear such a declaration; to consider Kotobuki as a hometown was really something extraordinary; it meant your complete assimilation into the world of tachimbos. During my time here as a tachimbo, it was common to hear remarks such as: Kotobuki is paradise. But never someone saying: "Kotobuki is my furusato (old hometown)." It was doubly surprising to hear them talk with ease in Nihongo. More than a decade ago, we only spoke Tagalog and barok (broken) Nihongo. Now, Nihongo was fast becoming the Kotobuki Boys' second language. There were even instances when they could express themselves better in Nihongo than in their native languages. However, their Nihongo was distinct-the language of a tachimbo-frank, rough, and cheerful. They spoke Nihongo the sort of which I would not dare use before Mr. and Mrs. Mori.

"Sabishiikattara, kochi oide yo! (Whenever you're lonely, just come here and we'll cheer you up)," Rudy said. He was being kind to me again; perhaps because I, too, am an Ilocano.

"Firipin ni kaeranai yo! (I'm not going back to the Philippines)," Boyet stood again. "Firipin ni kaeranai yo!" He has been in Japan for ten years. He went on dancing and singing inside the circle again.

"Ko . . to . . bu . . ki . . . Ko . . to . .bu . . ki mahal kita.
Mahal kita, mahal kita Kotobuki.
Ikendeng mo, Kotobuki, ikendeng mo
Kotobuki, ikembot mo, ikendeng mo

(Kotobuki I love you
I love you Kotobuki
Swing it, Kotobuki
Kotobuki sway it; swing it).

This time we applauded him.

Gabriel and the rest of the group are mostly in their late thirties and early forties. Their faces are bruised, scarred, and weather-beaten. They look fit though they seem to be older than their years. They seem to have adjusted well to Kotobuki life. They seem to be at home.

However, the most frequent topic of conversation is on the prospect of getting a job tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If there is one shared preoccupation, it is about the uncertainty of jobs.

They no longer talk about the migmig (immigration agents) or the parak (police). They no longer discuss who was caught or deported. Safety or security, it seems, is no longer a relevant topic. Now, they only talk about the finer points of the day's work: what went wrong, how to be more efficient next time, and how to impress the boss and their Japanese co-workers. However, the most frequent topic of conversation is on the prospect of getting a job tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If there is one shared preoccupation, it is about the uncertainty of jobs. Almost like a prayer uttered at every appropriate moment, they would say: "I wonder if there will be work tomorrow. I wish I could get one."

5.
Gabriel has been in Japan since 1987. When I first met him, he had luxuriant hair and a full set of teeth. Now, he is a different man. His hair is gone and so are his teeth.

"How's your family?" he asked. He knew I married Mayumi and that we have a daughter. On several occasions at the Higashiyama Building, he saw Mayumi come in and out of my room.

"They're fine," I said. "My daughter is in Grade One. She speaks Nihongo better than me."

He laughed. "That's always the case," he said. "Children do better than adults."

"And your family?" I asked.

He drew out his wallet, pulled out a folded section in it, and spread it out before me. The right-fold shows the Virgin Mary's image, and on its lower margin is a phrase, "Mother of Perpetual Help." The left-fold is a faded picture of a woman who looks like a shy mother of three in the country, with all her children around her.

"My wife and children," he said. "They're all made in Japan." His kids were all conceived and born in Yokohama. He sent them home to the Philippines when the eldest turned three years old.

"I cannot raise three children in Japan," he said. "The cost of living here is too high."

Gabriel was a seaman who ended up in Kotobuki when a Filipino whom he met at a disco persuaded him to jump ship. He immediately abandoned life at sea and never boarded a ship again. He fell in love with Kotobuki and with a woman who worked as a house maid for Western expatriates living in the affluent district of Yamate.

I asked his mates if they too have pictures of their loved ones in their wallets. Sure enough, most of them have one; others have two, mostly pictures of their loved ones and an image either of Christ or The Virgin tucked in their wallets.

"These," Gabriel said referring to the faded pictures, "are my lucky charms."

As a father of three, he said, everything had been "all work and no play" for him.

After buying my share of Kirin, I thanked them for their hospitality and excused myself.

"Remember," Rudy said, "you've got friends here. When you're in trouble, you know where we live."

"I just bought a Canon EOS," Dante said. "When you're free, please come and have a look at it."

"Don't forget," Dado told me, "you're still a Kotobuki Boy. Come and visit us anytime."

"Don't worry," I said, "I shall return." I saluted them all like General McArthur and left. Gabriel, too, excused himself. He told the group he would walk me to the station. I asked him to give me first a brief tour of Kotobuki.

Like orphaned crows and street alley cats, they have taken shelter under the stairs -literally, they dwell in the shadow of the gray and dreary public institution.

6.
The smell of urine and stale sake on the pavement sticks to my skin like a mizu shobai (water trade) girl's cheap perfume. The streets of Kotobuki are littered with sake cups, beer cans, cigarette butts, phlegm, spilled noodles, used chopsticks, Styrofoam, wrecked cars, old bicycles, used clothes, and uncollected garbage. Under the huge stairways of the Labor Center, some men with soiled faces and soiled clothes are gathered around a bonfire. They are drinking and are boisterous. They have been drinking all day. These are the same kind of tachimbos I saw when I first came here in 1988. Like orphaned crows and street alley cats, they have taken shelter under the stairs-literally, they dwell in the shadow of the gray and dreary public institution.

Old buildings have now been renovated; the few spaces left vacant before are now occupied by high rises. More Korean snack bars and grocery stores have added color and spice to this concrete jungle. Betting stalls for horse, bicycle and motorboat races have proliferated. Now, more and more languages are heard on the streets: Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Chinese.

But the Yakuza's fancy cars are still parked near their gold-labeled buildings, beside their ubiquitous pachinko parlors. These gangsters still behave as if they owned Kotobuki. More surveillance cameras are now installed in every imaginable part of their buildings. Judging from the number of these omnipresent cameras, the Yakuza, I thought, must have more money or have more enemies now than before.

We took a turn towards the Higashiyama Building. For old times' sake, I told Gabriel, let's drop by at our former lodging place. I wanted to check the possibility of spending at least a night or two here in the future.

Its ground floor has changed completely. Now, there are cubicles for coin shower-a five-minute bath for 200 yen. The coin laundry has been expanded and upgraded. There are now more vending machines selling juices and other drinks. At the entrance, I noticed two slim tube cameras: one watches as you enter the building and another looks behind as you face the reception. There were none of these when I stayed here in 1988.

I called out. A fat woman appeared. I recognized her as Burangko's wife, our former landlord. How fat she had become.

"Have you got a room?" I asked.

"Nai, (none) she shouted; she seemed in a hurry.

"Are there any Filipinos here?"

"Inai," (none) she barked. If I were a Japanese, her answers would probably be: "Arimasen," (polite term for none) and "AImasen," (polite form for none) respectively.

"Sumimasen," I said. "I'm so sorry to have disturbed you." She slid the tiny glass window and disappeared.

As we went out, I glanced at the flights of stairs up to the fifth floor where I had a room before. At the end of each flight, on every wall just above the clock, there is a camera.

"What has happened to Higashiyama?" I asked Gabriel as we walked toward the Nakamura River. "Has it become The Bank of Kotobuki with its ever-present cameras?"

"Burangko is sick," he said. "He thinks foreigners are going to rob him. He should know that the real dorobo is still a Japanese."

He begged profusely (giving inappropriate honorifics to his wife) to the officer to have pity on him, his wife, and their children. We feigned complete ignorance of visa, work permits, and Nihongo.

We walked past the koban-the friendly, humble police precinct. The red revolving light on its roof is still red-to this day it still calls up a sense of paranoia in me. There is a lone policeman inside. Wandering like this, with no anxiety or fear, is something I was not able to do or had the courage to do when I was a tachimbo here. Now, I felt privileged and somewhat guilty: I am "free" while Gabriel and the rest of the Kotobuki Boys are not. But in 1988, fourteen years ago, I was just like them.

7.
One afternoon in the autumn of 1988, I was on my way back to Kotobuki with Pungay, a fellow tachimbo. Pungay and I had just emerged from our gemba in Sakuragicho. The cherry leaves at the nearby Nogeyama Park were still reddish. We had not reached Kotobuki yet when a police officer on a motorbike stopped us. We could have engaged him in a race in the surrounding hills but we chose to walk with him to a koban (police box) and cooperate. The parak had barely started with our interrogation when Pungay suddenly pulled out a picture from his wallet. It was a photo of his young wife with three little girls of various ages.

"Sumimasen!" Pungay apologized to the police officer. "Gomennasai! Okusan kawaiso! Kodomo kawaiso. Sumimasen! Gomennasai!" He begged profusely (giving inappropriate honorifics to his wife) to the officer to have pity on him, his wife, and their children. We feigned complete ignorance of visa, work permits, and Nihongo. After two hours of interrogation, we were released. We had a good laugh afterwards.

The little girls in the picture, I found out later, are not his children; they are his nieces. He had specifically directed his wife to "make" that picture. He had anticipated its usefulness. He also had a rosary; its cross and beads are luminous in his wallet. He claimed it saved us from doing time in jail. I didn't disagree with him. Compared with Pungay's pictures of his family, Gabriel's pictures are real; the images are sources of inspiration and strength for him.

The tandem images of family and religious icon kept in wallets, is something peculiar but uniquely Filipino to a tachimbo cum migrant worker in Japan. They serve two purposes. One: the photo of a loved one gives him a link to the Philippines, his home; it gives him continuity, emotionally speaking, and some kind of spiritual connection. It opens a window for his heart pining for home. Two: the religious image gives him some assurance, some kind of psychological stability, aside from it being a symbol of his faith.

8.
Mosquitoes have started to feast on my blood. Gabriel started to light another candle.

"When I find a regular job," he said as if making a promise, "I'll move to a proper place. In the meantime, I will bear the humiliation of being called a 'squatter in Japan.'"

"What are the benefits of living in a 'Blue Mansion'?" I asked.

"I can save at least 2,000 yen a day," he said. "In a month that's 60,000 yen-more than enough for my family back home."

"How many more years will you stay in Japan?"

"I don't know, pare," he said. "But there's one thing I'm sure of-I won't live here forever."

"Why?"

"You only come to Japan to make money," he said. "You don't come here to live here."

"Living the life of a slum dweller in Japan is the height of humiliation. Where is his self-respect? If I were him, I'd rather go home."

I bid him goodbye. Since he was an jashiba foreman, I told him that if ever he needed a hand, he could count on me. "I can be your all-around assistant," I said. He laughed but promised he would get in touch with me.

I left his "Blue Mansion" and headed toward the Ishikawa station. I crossed the bridge toward it. From a distance, I looked back at the rows of "Blue Mansions" along the river. They were no longer blue. Their roofs had become dark.

When I told a Filipino friend about Gabriel's situation, he said: "Living the life of a slum dweller in Japan is the height of humiliation. Where is his self-respect? If I were him, I'd rather go home."

For Gabriel, after a year of living in a "Blue Mansion" it had become no big deal.

On the train bound for Ofuna where Mayumi, Libnos, and I had just moved into a tiny apartment, I reflected on the idea of becoming a tachimbo again. But if Gabriel, a highly skilled laborer, had a hard time getting jobs, then how would it be for a non-skilled tachimbo like me? Even if there were an jashiba work, I would have to start all over again. It would be a new struggle.

9.
Echoes of tachimbo camaraderie, their bantering always an earful, fresh in my mind stayed with me . . .

"Kampai!" Bottles clinking.

"Everybody worked hard today." A chorus of approval.

"I thought it would take us until five."

"Had Sacho mixed some Japanese with our group, we might not have finished the job."

"Even without a crane, from the fifth to the ground, we're able to disassemble the pipes."

"That's the reason why we're being hired; with simple tools, we can do the job."

"I hope all of us will be on board tomorrow."

"But if there's only one gemba, for sure it will be all Japanese."

"I have to reach my monthly boundary; even $300 will do."

"I'm two weeks behind my rent; papa-san will throw me out soon."

"Kampai for tomorrow's luck; kampai for tomorrow's job!"

"Kampai!"

I too echo a silent Kampai.

© Rey Ventura

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