Cut the clap.

DISCLAIMER: the title of this entry is not a reference to the myth that Japanese people mix up their "l's" and "r's". "L" doesn't exist in their syllabic alphabet, and the closest thing it has to an "r" only slightly resembles an "l"...anyway...

I’m on a very long holiday right now, and I love it. I have a life beyond public school education and English conversation classes – I can go exploring in Tokyo.

Nestled in between the super-hip neighbourhoods of Harajuku and Shibuya, Yoyogi Park is like the chill out space of a three-room club. It attracts creative individuals looking for a place to do their artistic thing, more often than not, varying degrees of pop group and a near residential tribe of dread-locked percussionists but it also sports jugglers and dancers wielding fans or Santa costumes (depending on the weather).

Yesterday, I discovered in a large concrete boulevard (the starting point for last weeks’ Tokyo Pride March) small pockets of break-dancers. I’ve always found something slightly ludicrous about hip-hop; I simply can't, won't and don't stop. This could be down to a combination of the absolute nonsense some rappers come out with, and bad luck – I’m assured that there is “intelligent” and “right-on” hip-hop out there, but I haven't found enough to convert me. To be fair, my own record collection hardly displays Wildean wit, but lyrical content becomes insignificant when one is witness to the astounding acrobatics on display to the tune of ripped wax.

Back in Kawasaki, itself no stranger to street performers, one such dancer had attracted a crowd of Friday evening shoppers. His backward somersaults were accompanied by a hip-hop soundtrack and the audience doing the unthinkable – there are few things I hate more in the world than rhythmic clapping. The appreciation of a good performance is dulled into shameful silence when one discovers their fellow punters have been reduced to a legion of imbecilic sycophant sea lions.

That’s a rather unkind analogy, reminding me of a trip to the dilapidated dream that is Coney Island, and my first and only attendance to a Sea World style performance. The audience was made up of an elementary school outing and a couple of squadrons of US Marines, clapping the rhythm of a turgid sub-Ibiza house drone, whilst a graceful, beautiful creature of the deep, a sea lion no less, spun round on a back flipper. Our entertainer didn’t clap once, and I was with him on that, although I would have given him a fish had I the chance. Truly, he was a seal of quality.