Getting lost to find myself

Several things reward the early-bird: the number from Angkor, extending its rosy pink fingers, the gem of an uninterrupted stretch of road in over-spilling Cairo en-route to tahajjud. A worthy contestant involves no sunrise or tranquillity but speed, fingers and fins.
At 3, Ginza is dishevelled and misplaced. A drunk passes, legs crossing like fingers across a piano, sans elegance. Sony, Gap, Gucci… until seamlessly, like hearing the glug fade, stalls replace the brands. “No entry” reads a sign taped to a police. Surely, human sign-post was not in his job description. He points to a room, no words wasted. Inside, the fatigued litter the floor, waiting. An hour early, yet I’m last. What reward awaits? Tuna auction.
On a concrete floor speckled with drains, they lie, some the size of a Labrador, others a large seal. With round eyes and mouths agape, blocking emotion at the sight of them lined militaristically, tails sawed off is hard. Evidently, tuna do not swim in coquettish bite-size pieces, ready to adorn rice, yet, food origins are oft-forgotten, and the sight’s raw. If courtesy is a Japanese trait, here mustn’t be Japan as men glower and vans skim toes as trade begins.
The auction-master expels a breath of numbers, a Buddhist chant. The carcasses radiate white wispy smoke. The bidders, muscles taut, flash fingers. As abruptly as it began, it stops. A body, looking like a silver log, is hoisted into a crate. Orderly and efficient. Even the crate is a snug-fit. Pens scribble, laughably primitive, compared to electric toilet seats and automated taxi-doors but it is a perfected science, without excess.
This is how it’s traditionally been, because what’s to change? Even after the smell of fish has left my hair, the thought lingers as I’m asked if I would like two bags for my hot and cold food, one or two chopsticks, points for my purchase…Perhaps the ubiquitous 24hour stores and over-friendly clerks are what’s foreign, derailing from fundamentally Japanese finesse.