Musashi-Koyama’s drinking quarter is said to trace its roots back to the postwar black markets, the alleys still preserve old two-story wooden houses

Woman and man in lane — A man and a woman walking down an alley

Leaving Musashi-Koyama Station and walking a short distance, one suddenly comes upon a drinking district that still clings to the air of Tokyo’s old downtown. Narrow alleys run in a tight grid, and by day the place feels wrapped in a precarious stillness, like a rehearsal for ruin. Yet at night, red lanterns glow, and drunkards shuffle through alleys too narrow for their swaying steps. Seen by day it looks half-abandoned, but imagined by night it becomes part of a boisterous ecosystem.

Two figures walk down one such alley. The young woman in front wears her hat low and keeps her eyes fixed on her smartphone. “Walking while scrolling” has become so common across Japan that it might as well be archived as a cultural artifact in a museum of modern manners. A few steps behind her is a man in a white jacket, his eyes fixed not on a screen but on the path ahead. He seems to be striding briskly, though perhaps it is only the claustrophobic press of the alley that makes it appear so.

A bit of trivia: Musashi-Koyama’s drinking quarter grew alongside one of Tokyo’s largest covered shopping arcades, Palm (Parmu). Said to trace its roots back to the postwar black markets, the alleys still preserve old two-story wooden houses. Look up, and you’ll see power lines tangled overhead like a spider’s web, a coexistence of civilization’s refinement and its chaos. Tourists may call this retro charm, but for locals it is nothing more than the backdrop of daily life. For a traveler like me, poking my camera into the alley is equal parts curiosity and idle research.

Yet neither the smartphone-absorbed woman nor the white-jacketed man pays me any heed. Their natural disregard makes the alley feel all the more ordinary. In truth, it is my wandering, camera in hand, that disrupts the scene. And so, in the spirit of Uchida Hyakken, I mutter to myself: perhaps the cats of this town are laughing at me.

Musashi-Koyama Station on Google Map

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