An Iranian izakaya owner / painter in Tokyo

FTV recently aired a news feature about a very interesting foreign resident of Tokyo:

• The focus of the report is Mansour, an Iranian man who owns and operates an izakaya called Kamon (“Come on”) in the Itabashi area of Tokyo. Mansour speaks fluent Japanese and loves to make corny puns while preparing drinks and food for his customers. Every single food item on his menu is an amazingly cheap 399 yen, and the portions are huge. Many of the offerings are typical Japanese dishes, but there is also a special menu section of Persian food. (More details on the izakaya can be found at Daily Portal Z.)
• When they eat at home, Kiyomi cooks the meals for Mansour and their daughters. Since Mansour works at his Izakaya most of the time, the full family is only able to have a meal together once a week.
• Mansour first came to Japan about 20 years ago to study the language. He had a big moustache at the time, so Japanese people would often tell him he looked like Mario. He met Kiyomi while they were both working at an izakaya, and they got married in 1991.
• Back in those days, the Japanese drama Oshin, a story hardworking and impoverished rural Japanese, was popular in Iran. Mansour’s mother would often mail rice, ketchup, and other foods to him, even though he would repeatedly tell her that people in Japan were as poor as the characters in Oshin.
• To make some extra money to pay for his daughters’ education, Mansour has a part-time job driving a cement truck. He also carefully shops for the best food deals when obtaining supplies for his izakaya.
• While very busy with work, Mansour still manages to devote some time to another activity: painting and sculpting. His oil paintings have been featured in galleries and exhibitions across Japan, and his dream is to one day open his own gallery. Images of many of his works can be found on this website.
• Mansour is well-liked in his community and always participates in local festivals. He is shown dancing and holding his neighborhood’s banner as part of the Itabashi Agricultural Festival. A local woman says that people love to see him carrying the banner. She says she has pretty much forgotten that Mansour isn’t Japanese, and says he’s like a son to her.
• The report ends with Mansour taking his family to the 40th Nitten exhibition at the National Art Center.　　Over 140,000 paintings are submitted each year to the contest, and one of Mansour’s paintings has been chosen to be displayed as one of the 2,000 winning entries. The painting took him about a year to complete, and his wife and children have not yet seen it. Much to the joy of his family, the painting on display is a portrait of his daughters.

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