Advertising is the mother of commerce. -- Japanese proverb

One of the first big projects I worked on for Yamaha was the FZ750, which debuted in 1984. The first true supersport machine of the modern era, the FZ750 featured a revolutionary 5-valve DOHC 4-cylinder engine slotted into a lightweight double-cradle frame. This was the first of Yamaha's Genesis machines. The catchword implied a synergistic relationship between engine and chassis, in which the design of each complemented the other. The signature feature of this model was the 5-valve cylinder head. Using three intake valves instead of the conventional two, this design exposes more valve area and results in more flow at small and medium valve openings than two larger intake valves. The result is a wide spread of satisfying power at low and medium rpm. And because three small intake valves have less individual weight than two valves offering the same total area, lighter valve springs, and a higher rev ceiling can be used.

Another key feature of this model is forward-slanted cylinders, allowing the use of straighter, more efficient intake ports, downdraft carburetors and straighter exhaust pipes, all of which improve engine performance. A further benefit of the slanted cylinders is more weight on the front wheel, for improved handling (this is the synergy part). But, I digress.

So, there I was in my tiny apartment in Ikuta, on the outskirts of Tokyo, sitting on the tatami mats behind what had to be one of the first word processors ever made. I was translating reams of propaganda for this revolutionary machine that I had never even seen, when the phone rang. It was Nakada, my boss at the ad agency (I've changed his name for the purpose of this article). Would I like to meet him for drinks that night in Ginza? You bet!

Ginza. The very name conjures up visions of wealth and power. If the mega-sprawl of Tokyo that author William Gibson called the world's default setting for the future can be said to have a heart, Ginza is it. By far the most sophisticated few square miles in Japan, Ginza boasts the best department stores, the most exclusive boutiques, the most respected art galleries and the most expensive accoutrements.

Uptight and standoffish during the day, at night, Ginza lets its hair down. The streets suddenly fill with well-dressed men and women. Every restaurant is packed, and those unremarkable back-street buildings that looked so drab in daylight are transformed by neon into pleasure palaces filled with cozy little bars and members-only clubs—all staffed by beautiful kimono-clad lovelies. Ginza by night is a place where everything can be had for a price, and the price is always very high.

It's almost impossible to describe the supercharged atmosphere of Tokyo during the booming eighties. This was the heyday of Japan's economic miracle. The air itself seemed to vibrate with energy. Everything was possible, everyone was getting rich, and a bubble was still something that little children blew with soap. The bookstores were filled with self-congratulatory titles such as: Japan as Number One and The Japan That Can Say "No." Japanese companies had just purchased Rockefeller Center, and the big trading companies were importing glacial ice from the South Pole to serve in drinks because of the cute popping sound made by the trapped bubbles of ancient air.

Even today, in the post-bubble economic wreckage of 21st Century Japan, Ginza's late-night streets are literally lined with V12 Mercedes, big BMWs, and squat Cadillacs—their Armani-suited drivers waiting patiently for their bosses to wobble down to street level.

Nakada and I meet in Lupin, a small basement bar on a dead-end ally off Miyuki Street, just a few blocks from Frank Lloyd Wright's oriental masterpiece, the Imperial Hotel. It was in the bar of the Imperial Hotel that Richard Sorge, the half-German, half-Russian spy and leader of the 20th Century's most successful espionage organization, milked his contacts for info. Many historians credit Sorge for Russia's defeat of Germany in the war, for it was he who informed Stalin that Japan would move south into Indochina, rather than north into Russia, allowing Stalin to shift his forces westward and defeat the Nazi hoards. Earlier, through his contacts at the German embassy in Tokyo, he had also informed Stalin of Germany's impending invasion of Russia—information that Stalin chose to ignore, with disastrous consequences.

Sorge was the poster boy for what the German writer Margret Boveri called das Jahrhundert des Verrats, the century of betrayal. As the Far Eastern expert for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Sorge not only betrayed his German friends and hosts, he also betrayed his idealistic Japanese informants who believed he was working for the Communist Party—when he was, in fact, working for Red Army Intelligence.

A man of powerful intellect and diverse skills, Richard Sorge was also a motorcycle rider. On more than one occasion, his habit of blasting around drunk on the late-night streets of Tokyo almost deprived the Tokko (Secret Police) of their prey. But, again, I digress.

Lupin, too, has its history. It is famous for being the former hangout of Osamu Dazai, Ango Sakaguchi, and other famous "beat" writers of Japan's burai-ha (The Decadents). Their depraved lifestyles, outrageous sexual escapades and persistent drug and alcohol abuse ended, for Dazai, in a double suicide with his girlfriend in the Tama River in 1948—all of which endeared him forever to a generation of Japanese young people. To the further discredit of these so-called Decadents, I could find no evidence that any of them rode motorcycles.

As usual, Nakada looked tired. His is not the kind of tired that goes away after a good night's sleep or a relaxing weekend. This is the ground-in fatigue of countless hours on jam-packed commuter trains, of subsisting on coffee and cigarettes in day-long meetings, and of working ten hours a day six days a week for years on end. The bags under his eyes, and his sallow skin give mute testament to the endless grind of overseeing domestic and overseas advertising. He smoked heavily and was on his second whiskey and water when I arrived.

I worried about his health. A new phenomenon called karoshi, death by overwork, was making the news. Otherwise healthy men in their forties and fifties would simply collapse and die for no apparent reason. Like soldiers fallen in battle, they were found randomly—lying on the sidewalk somewhere, briefcase in hand—dying with their boots on, so to speak. Further investigation invariably revealed that they had been working virtually without rest for many months or even years. Their bodies had simply surrendered a losing battle.

"You know, Nakada" I said, after we polished off our first bottle of sake, "I could write a whole lot better about this 5-valved wonder if I actually had a chance to ride the thing." "I'll see what I can do," was his non-committal reply.

Although Nakada had every reason to be grumpy and to bitch about his life, his good manners and self-effacing ways remained. He exemplified the Japanese proverb: konnan wa toku no motoi, adversity is the parent of virtue. He avoided talking about himself, his influential position, or his recent trip to YMNV in Europe. Instead, he asked what I'd been up to, how the work was going, if my wife was well.

I wanted to ask him about his family but I'd heard that he and his wife didn't get along and that his son and daughter had left school and were estranged from him. So, we carried on one of our usual one-sided conversations where he asked me about my life yet I hesitated to inquire about his. What I wanted to know was how the status and money of his job could be worth a shattered family and broken health, but that's one of the questions one simply doesn't ask in modern Japan.

Nakada is a member of what the Japanese of the early eighties were calling the shinjinrui, the New Humans—what Americans of a few years hence would call Yuppies. Fashionable, well-paid and working for the best companies, they were the elite of Japan's self-confident new workforce. Simply being employed by a company like Dentsu marked Nakada as someone who had gone to a top university, excelled in his studies and passed the rigorous company entrance exams.

As a further status symbol, since Nakada is a member of the Creative Division, he is not required to wear a monkey suit, cut his hair short, or suffer any of the other dehumanizing indignities of most of his fellow employees. In other words, the creative guys are cool. Long hair, sweaters, and no ties being the norm.

One thing everyone at Dentsu has in common, though, is that they all work like fiends. A 12-hour day is normal, and a weekend spent at one's desk is nothing special. Like most of his co-workers, Nakada seldom sees his family. By the time he arrives home at night, the kids are usually asleep, and since he leaves for work early in the morning to catch his train—a 90-minute trek, door to door—there is little time for imparting fatherly wisdom. As a result, his kids—like most children in modern Japan—are raised by their mother.

The bill for two whiskeys and two small carafes of sake? A cool $200, all on the Nakada's expense account, of course. Rolling out into the damp night of the rainy season, we jostle happily with the late-night crowd, everyone glowing with that alcohol-induced buzz that makes Ginza at night seem like the greatest place on earth, Japan the world's most wonderful country, and us, the luckiest people alive. A small group of men in front of us, feeling no pain, have their arms around each other's shoulders and are singing an old folk song. Solitary drunks wobble down the sidewalk wearing blissful smiles. Young couples walk hand-in-hand, lost in their emotions.

Random street crime is almost unheard of in Japan. This reassuring sense of security encourages a feeling of brotherhood and goodwill towards man. Can these be the same hard-charging samurai salarymen who, only this morning, like faceless automatons, jammed the trains in their lookalike suits and ties? Like the pop-off valve on a pressure cooker that prevents it from exploding into a thousand pieces of deadly shrapnel, Ginza vents the social stress of life in Japan. Without it, everyone in this overcrowded little country would soon be at each other's throats.

On our way to Shinbashi Station, Nakada and I stop at a yatai, a small, wooden-wheeled cart lit by a red-paper lantern from which an old man sells ramen—steaming bowls of noodle soup. "Hi guys," he says, as if he's known us all our lives. "Sure is chilly tonight." His other patrons make room for us with a smile. In the cozy intimacy of a shared meal, we are all soon chatting like old friends.

At moments like these, under the wet Bladerunner sky, the Westerner in Japan feels he could live here in happiness forever.

Nick Voge lives in Japan and writes an occasional (and popular) column for SuperBikePlanet.com