Slow burn

Featured in

  • Published 20090901
  • ISBN: 9781921520761
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm)

I WAS INITIATED into the Japanese investment-banking scene in a murky Tokyo izakaya in early 1988. Selling Japanese stocks to international investors was a new game – foreign securities firms had been permitted by the authorities to buy seats on the Tokyo Stock Exchange only two years earlier – and everybody was learning the rules as they went along. Or making them up.

‘No, no, you still don’t quite get it,’ my boss insisted, shunting aside his glass to create more space in which to gesticulate. Beer slopped up and over the edge of the glass, forming a little pool on the table. Around us, waitresses in bright blue and white happi coats weaved between the tables and emerged from clouds of cigarette smoke with trays of sashimi and tofu. Eda-mame shells lay scattered between the plates and on the floor.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Icing and salt

FictionAFTER THE INITIAL impact, Eiji's feet slide backwards, carving tracks through the salted clay until his toes grip the straw bales at the edge...

More from this edition

The real thing

FictionOUR FAMILY'S NEVER been very good at ‘family'. When my nephew was conceived my sister and I weren't even speaking, some silly argument about...

Chère Colette

MemoirAT IRREGULAR INTERVALS of between twenty and thirty years came great floods which were afterwards remembered as one remembers insurrections or wars and were...

The Ministry of Going In

PoetryThis is what happensI go insweep the floorclear the dishesinterview the Secretary of State over a flat whiteand lamingtonand ask about Afghanistan and postmodern...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.