Cosmopolitan (10/99)

The reason why she got my attention:

I will ask a direct question this time¡K In what kind of situation does Goro kun get attracted to woman? You have written many things but I can't figure out your type of woman. Please write about the moment when someone caught your attention. (Mayumi, 27 years old.)

Recently, I was having a meal with my friend at an interesting Japanese restaurant. The place is in Minato-ku, Tokyo. It was introduced on some magazines because it had the atmosphere of the Japanese restaurant overseas. The place became somewhat famous.

Suddenly, a man showed up at the entrance. He looked around and called a waiter to make a reservation for the table, which was a secluded area of the restaurant, then, went outside. A couple of minutes after, he came back with a woman. She was wearing a baseball cap and covering her mouth with her hand. Her head was down as if she was a criminal on the news or something. She looked really suspicious but she was not a burglar with a hostage. She turned out to be in the same business as I was in. (She was a trendy actress!?)

I was not wearing any disguise but I was able to blend into the young people around. Not many people realized I was there. But, the actress, despite her maximum effort of disguising herself, the most of patrons at the restaurant were looking at her. I was really sorry for her to go through such a trouble to protect her privacy. Although I could relate to her as a person in the entertainment business, I felt the way she behaved was a way too obvious to get people's attention. She had the air of getting people's attention.

The next day, after the concert, I was in my dark hotel room watching TV while rubbing my stomach like Napoleon was doing. I guess California rolls I had the night before didn't agree with my stomach. All the sudden, I was glued on TV. It was the video of Fay Wong's live performance at Nippon Budokan. It was not because of the special affects of the concert or she was good singing. She wasn't my type. I could see that she purely liked to sing from the way she was singing. She looked beautiful spending a time with something she really likes. I think she was very kind and gentle to her beloved songs not to her audience. These two women definitely caught my attentions. The first woman's self consciousness backfired. She had an aura of actress at the place which she didn't want to get any attention. That kind of aura may be important as an actress. The second woman didn't care about people's attention, but her attachment to singing created an aura. I don't have to write which one was attractive to me. I think the aura comes out when a person became aware of "people's attention". Yet, the brightness and clarity of the aura is depending on the person's conscious of "self" or "others"¡KHowever, I don't like the word "aura" which is not easy to define. I might use the word for someone I don't know well; but, I would not use the word for someone I know. Aura can't see by myself. That's way I want to see myself from the viewpoint of others. I wonder if SMAP members have any aura now¡K

Goro this month (a little talk with Goro):

We visited him at the film location of "Akechi Kogoro", the special drama.(will be aired on TV Asahi sometime in early 2000.) Mr. Inagaki was dressing as Akechi wearing a suit in the summer high heat; yet, he was not sweating at all. He acted very cool. But, once he heard "O.K.!" from the director, he asked, "Would you give me the fun over there?" There was an orange super small electric 10-cm fun! He put the fun near his face. "Ah, this is cool." There was the great equipment behind his no-sweat acting.