Smoke of the havan and Tokyo neon lights

Smoke of the havan and Tokyo neon lights

Lautoka, 2005 — If I look down at my feet today, standing on the pristine pavement of Shinagawa, Tokyo, I see polished leather shoes suitable for a teacher at an international school. But if I close my eyes and travel back twenty years, the leather dissolves into rubber. I am wearing a pair of black Bata sandals, the strap of which had snapped weeks ago. My father didn’t replace them; he sat down with a needle and fishing net line and sewed them…