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Backyard Coffee and Jazz in Kyoto

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592 points wyclif | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.648s | source
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dataviz1000 ◴[] No.44357576[source]
I entered a jazz izakaya in Kanazawa with only two stools and no room for anyone else. There was an old man on one stool and a bartender in his 70s or 80s. It is rude to tip and they will not except it but offering to buy a drink for the bartender is encouraged. I ordered a Japanese whiskey and offered the old man and bartender one. There were piles of knickknacks and maybe $15,000 worth of stereo equipment including a record player, planar magnetic speakers and a vacuum tube amplifier in this little room. I heard the distinctive sound of Sonny Rollins saxophone and used the translation app to say I saw Sonny Rollins play live at the Monterey Jazz Festival and he played an encore of La Cucaracha for close to two hours where his band eventually left the stage and he kept playing and playing. The bartender pulled out a Sonny Rollins record from his stack of vinyl and put it on the record player. The three of us sat there for 40 minutes not saying a word listening.

If you are in Kyoto, I recommend a similar style bar called Brown Sugar. They tend to have these types of names, for example, in Sapporo there is one called Jim Crow. [0] However, if in Sapporo, I recommend the half note. [1] Most bars and restaurants for that matter will not serve me because I do not speak Japanese, so they say. If I wanted a drink I would stick to Karaoke and jazz bars. I made some friends in Kyoto who were finishing their 4th year studying engineering at University of Kyoto who were from Africa -- these kids are African royalty. They spoke perfect fluent Japanese and they couldn't get access into bars that would let me in. So the names are fitting and likely they know exactly what they mean.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=sapporo+japan+bar+jim+crow

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=sapporo+japan+piano+ba+half+...

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criddell ◴[] No.44357725[source]
I recently heard Craig Mod[1] in an interview. He has walked thousands of miles in Japan and has produced books that document some of what he has seen. The photographs he has published online are beautiful, but I've never seen any of his books so I can't comment on those.

Anyway, in the interview, he talked about places that sound like what you are describing in the first paragraph but he called them kissas.

[1]:https://craigmod.com/

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1. dataviz1000 ◴[] No.44357957[source]
Oh, my. I'm scratching my head wondering how this is the first time I have ever heard the word kissas. [0]

[0] https://xkcd.com/1053/

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2. csa ◴[] No.44358350[source]
I’m fairly certain that it’s a shortened version of 喫茶店 (kissaten).
3. joseda-hg ◴[] No.44358985[source]
I was aware of Manga Kissas[0], which are a bit more famous in general, I assummed it was a generic extension of the term

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_cafe

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4. astrange ◴[] No.44361143[source]
"Kissa" just means café, but when you'd use the word is complex.

Basically in Japan Japanese words feel retro or else appropriate for personal and family life, while English words feel clean and modern/corporate/business-y.

So a Japanese word like kissaten gives the impression of somewhere from the 60s that's full of old people and you can't breathe because of all the cigarette smoke. But it also specifically means a coffee shop and not a bar I think, so there wouldn't be alcohol.