外ジョーダン 001: Naming Things (ft. Sephiroth)
On unintentional dajare, sours with Sephiroth and a curated map of the best spots in Tokyo
Hi! I’m Jordan — a freelance writer and consultant, and I’m currently living in Tokyo for a year, so I’m starting a newsletter about that inside the Postmode architecture. It’s called 外ジョーダン, or gaijōdan! Here’s the key art I cooked up in Photoshop:
Why gaijōdan?
My name written in Japanese is ジョーダン, or Jōdan in Romaji (you elongate the vowel and drop the r; sounds like joh-dan). Thank you, Michael Jordan, for making that part easy to cross-reference.
When I first got here, I was caught off guard by a question from one of the clerks at the Ward Office, which is where you go to fill out your moving-in forms. So I opened my translation app of choice and said the following, sanding down my accent so it was plain English: “My name is Jordan, and I’m a freelance writer.” Here’s what VoiceTra gave back to me:
My eyes widened, Looney Tunes-style, as my brain came to a startling realisation. Does my name actually mean ‘Joke’ in Japanese? I couldn’t show this to the clerk without debasing myself, surely. I ignored it in the moment, got through the interaction, and figured it was my poor pronunciation, but I’ve since asked my partner’s Japanese tutor, who has confirmed my fears. The reel below lets you hear it in action:
It’s written differently depending on the context, of course, but both readings sound exactly the same. So, for about two weeks at this point, I had been walking into Starbucks and waiting for the server to shout ‘Joke?’ into the fuzz of domestic coffee-needers, only for some bumbling Geordie lad to step forward in response. Nice one.
As for the rest of the name, it’s because I am, now more than ever, a 外人 (Gaijin) — a foreigner in Japan. A legal alien, as my fellow Bernician Sting might say. Put it together, and we have Gaijodan: Outside/Foreign Joke, or Outside/Foreign Jordan, depending on whether it is heard or read.
I’d call it wordplay, but in Japan, this stuff is called 駄洒落 (Dajare), which can be translated as ‘useless wit’. Dajare is the Japanese equivalent of what we call dad jokes, and there’s a whole website ranking the best ones. Not sure mine would make the cut…
What is gaijōdan about?
To make the understatement of the year, there’s a lot of stuff going on in Tokyo. There’s certainly a lot more happening here than in Gateshead in the North-East of England, which is where I hail from.
And, as a writer, I’m constantly itching to get my lived experience down on paper. After a decade in games media, it’s the only thing I know how to do, really — yap about where I’ve been, what I’m eating, what I’m getting into, how the language-learning is going, and what I’m learning about Japan as I humbly wade into a country I know precious little about, despite being obsessed with much of its cultural output.
With that in mind, a bunch of this will be games, music, fashion, and internet culture-related, as that is my typical oeuvre. Here, look at this for a teaser:
I’ve been to so many pop-ups, gigs, exhibits, and events over the past three months that my brain feels like it's about to burst from all the input. In that time, I’ve made plenty of daft mistakes we can all learn from, but I’ve also ticked a bunch of items off my bucket list and knocked back lots of ice-cold liquid in ridiculously nice places. So here’s my attempt to widen the lens on what it’s like to live in Tokyo as a foreigner in 2026.
More than just exorcising memory demons, though, I’m writing this to help people visit Japan and have a properly memorable time, beyond the basics you can easily Google. I want to explain how things work here in my own way, simplify what took me days to figure out, and create a series of travelogues you can refer to if you want to know whether something was fine, worth it, or completely shite.
おすすめは何ですか？
As an olive branch for this unproven ident, I’ve created a Google Maps list with Sarah Thwaites, collating some of our favourite spots in Tokyo. This will evolve as I write more issues of this newsletter. It’s meant for first-time visitors, so there are some can’t-miss landmarks mixed in there alongside the hyper-specific hidden gems for chowing, shopping, observing… : https://maps.app.goo.gl/icd8Hu1ctyRgPFRSA
⋆♪(oᐛ)o～(BGM)♬┏(・o･)┛✧𝄞˚𓍢ִ໋🎧ྀི⋆♫⋆(づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ
I also want to end each newsletter with some music I’m listening to atm. Here’s an older mix that put me on to the Galway DJ Kettama, who makes dark big-room house that sounds like it could be in Tekken Tag Tournament. Enjoy!
Alright, that’s me, tell your friends, tell your family, tell your mate with the fedora and the replica swords, and please look forward to the next issue of 外ジョーダン!