MEMORIES OF CHINATOWN, YOKOHAMA 1961

MEMORIES OF CHINATOWN, YOKOHAMA 1961, a photo by roberthuffstutter on Flickr.

AN ESSAY ON THE ROMANTIC NIGHTS OF YOKOHAMA IN THE 1960S By Robert L. Huffstutter

In the Yokohama of the 1960s, many of the lanterns were made not of plastics or glass, but of rice-papers and other traditional materials. The lanterns were strung across the streets, many with small bulbs that gave the lanterns a soft glow, a kind of magical glow. They never ceased to fascinate me. While there was not really a holiday in progress, it was a joyful time of celebration.

Another cheerful memory of the Yokohama streets is the many boughs of cherry blossoms carefully woven around the lamp posts and on wire arbors across the streets.

For many of us young men in the service, we were always in a good mood when we were in Yokohama, especially for those of us who made Yokohama's Chinatown our destination. When we were in Yokohama after dark, it was like no port most of us had ever experienced. It was a subtle party, not a the kind of party that was base or carnal, it was a party where there was loud laughter, but a party with manners.

Few of the celebrants or celebrations ever got out of hand. There was just something about the lifestyle of Yokohama, even during the nocturnal glee, that gave Yokohama nights a kind of class seldom experienced in the cities of the USA or Mexico where the parties were part of the liberty scene.

In Japan, liberty was a party, but a party with manners. With the exchange rate being what it was, the servicemen could enjoy whatever kind of happiness most had come for, and in the hours before the dawn, the music and laughter of the celebrating men and women quieted to soft whispers behind the bamboo shutters and rice-paper windows of small apartments where the young women lived. Such interludes made these impromteau romances times to remember, times they would remember with the sweet smell of exotic parfumes and powders the men would still wear the next afternoon, fragrences they would long remember as time turned them into old men far in the future.

For many young American sailors enjoying liberty, Yokohama nights most likely still defines that time-honored slogan "Join the Navy and see the world."