Social secretary to a UN ambassador doesn’t sound like a typical first job for an art school graduate. Yet in 1982 after circling an ad in the New York Times with a red magic marker, there I was.

People would ask how on earth did I get that job and I simply explain that I answered a want ad placed by a recruiter. You folded up the help wanted section of the broadsheet newspaper, getting ink all over your fingers, and looked for jobs that sounded interesting. Then you typed – on a typewriter – a cover letter and put that, along with a copy of your resume into an envelope, put a postage stamp on it, and mailed it to the address specified in the ad. Back then one could actually get interviews based on the quality of your letter and resume without having to outguess algorithms. 

The recruiter liked that I was half Japanese. I was also 22 and cute. A perfect candidate for this job at the Japanese Mission to the United Nations that could only be described as decorative in function. 

While many of my friends were waiting tables and struggling to pay their rent, this was an easy job that paid well, enabled me to save money, live without roommates, be able to buy nice clothes, and most important, buy cameras. Although I graduated with a degree in painting, I wanted to be a photographer. For an impatient person, the medium seemed more suitable for making imagery in volume. And besides, there was so much to see in New York – even if it had all been covered before by far more capable people. 

Other friends whose parents were able to get them internships or junior positions at high-profile companies to ensure that they would never sink below their social ranking, sneered at me for having this job. It was silly and subservient. This was 1982 after all, the dawn of status-driven yuppies. I didn’t have those kinds of connections. It was either sink or swim if I was to stay in New York after graduation. And leaving was out of the question. I needed to let myself actually experience failure before going home as one. 

Satoshi Nakajima (not to be confused with Satoshi Nakamoto although wouldn’t that be something?) – was the ambassador’s attaché and real secretary. He was only a couple of years older than me and as an attaché, he was at the lowest level of what would become a lifelong career in foreign service (he is now an ambassador himself). 

He had a small office adjacent to the ambassador’s corner office at 866 UN Plaza, just north of the Secretariat building – the green glass Le Corbusier landmark that is fast getting buried in an ever-changing Manhattan skyline. The ambassador had a bell – like the kind you see on front desks of old hotels or Wes Anderson movies – and he would ring it whenever he wanted something which was several times an hour and when he did Nakajima would come running out of his office bowing obsequiously. “Hai, hai, taishi.”

Talk about being a yes man. And he took out the frustrations of his own subservience on his own 3 direct reports – including me. He was bossy and humorless. 

I did have a way of getting back even if it was only for my own amusement. I would have my friend Kevin make prank calls to Nakajima’s direct line, cluing him to when he was alone in his office. “Call now, he’s there!” I would whisper into the phone. Kevin would call the number but not say anything and Nakajima would answer the phone, “Harro? Harro?”, while cocking his head like a confused dog. I would be practically choking at my desk trying to suppress my laughter. 

The main responsibilities of my job were maintaining the ambassador’s social diary, handwriting thank you notes and invitations on official stationery, making and serving tea. My friends were right. I was nothing but a glorified servant in a Japanese office version of Downton Abbey. So, these juvenile pranks made things more bearable.  

Hired not long after I started, the other social secretary – the one for the deputy ambassador – also reported to Nakajima. She was a bland young white woman whose father had served in the Kennedy administration though I don’t remember in what capacity. She grew up privileged in a DC suburb in Virginia, but she was now a Sri Chinmoy devotee and lived with other followers in a communal living arrangement in Queens. Sri Chinmoy was a spiritual leader who maintained a presence at the UN for years. After a couple of weeks into the job, she started to wear saris to work, to everyone’s surprise. “Hehhhh? Hunto?” Her eyes were the brightest thing about her. They always seemed really glassy, like she had a fever or something. Maybe it was just her feverish devotion. She went by the adopted name of Upasana. And she was vegan.

The ambassador’s chauffeur, Robert, was Nakajima’s most important direct report since he had a lot more responsibility than writing invitations and serving tea. He was a big, half black, half native American (so he said) ex-cop. He was in his 50s or 60s, always meticulously groomed and bore a slight resemblance to Cab Calloway. He carried a pocket comb and frequently used it on his heavily oiled hair. He used way more than a little dab of hair creme. He was also oblivious to the under-the-breath racist remarks made about him by the Japanese. I didn’t speak Japanese, but I understood enough – I knew words like “kokujin”. 

When Robert would drop the ambassador and his high-level friends off for lunch at some elite restaurant knowing they’d be there for at least a couple of hours, he would drive up to Harlem and get his own lunch. He would often go to Sylvia’s. This was before it became a soul food tourist destination. Sometimes he would bring back individual-sized sweet potato pies for me, Nakajima, and Upasana. They were delicious and she scarfed them down too. None of us told her that they had lard – and lots of it – in those pie crusts. You would think that growing up in Virginia that she might be familiar with this kind of food. Maybe she didn’t know any black people. 

Robert was in the kitchen at work one day, very engrossed in the controversial Penthouse issue featuring Vanessa Williams. The one in which the former Miss America was photographed in black and white with another woman. He was deeply concentrating on the centerfold while absent-mindedly eating a pork chop (from Sylvia’s no doubt). I was tempted to say boo, but I didn’t. Just quietly got some tea and tiptoed out without him even noticing.

Hayashi, the legal counsel, was another character. I could see diagonally across the hall into his office. He used to take his shoes and socks off and clip his toenails into the wastebasket while his door was open. He subscribed to Shutterbug, a camera equipment magazine, but also kept porno magazines inside his desk. I saw them peeking out of his drawer one day because he was always asking for favors if he saw that I wasn’t busy even though I wasn’t his assistant. From what I could see it was hardcore bondage and rapey-looking stuff – not like the tastefully nude Penthouse photos that Robert was looking at. Even though I was a budding photographer I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the cameras in Shutterbug. I would rather find out on my own thankyouverymuch.

There were some celebrity sightings at the job if you can call it that. I served tea to Jeane Kirkpatrick, then US ambassador to the UN under the Reagan administration. She was tall, towering over everyone in the office. I served tea to Benjamin Netanyahu who was the Israeli ambassador to the UN at that time. I really wanted to tell him as I bent down to pour tea that I thought he looked like my Armenian dentist.

One time I was tasked with bringing a Japanese flag over to the Delegates Dining Room to set up for a dinner. This was one of those big flags that goes next to a dais. Just as I got into the elevator of the Secretariat building wrestling with this gigantic, unwieldy Japanese flag, a short Indian woman with a white streak of hair like the bride of Frankenstein and a couple of her turban-wearing bodyguards got in. It was Indira Gandhi! To say that security at the UN was a bit lax in 1984 is an understatement. Not more than a month after that elevator ride, when she was back in New Delhi, she was assassinated – possibly by those same bodyguards.

Every year a special delegation would arrive from Japan for the General Assembly. They would present their case – the return of the Kuril Islands, snatched back by Russia right after the end of World War II, to the Security Council. Their arrival was always very serious and somber. I don’t know what they were expecting year after year with this same request. The answer was always the same. Russia, with a permanent seat on the Security Council, always said nyet to giving back these islands. If someone were to do a children’s book of this dispute (because that would surely be a best seller), they might illustrate Russia as a grouchy bear staring down at a bunch of ants, Japan, with a half-eaten cookie placed between them. I’m simplifying a complicated history, but the islands are just as strategically important as ever on today’s tenuous international chessboard. 

Visitors from Japan brought gifts as is customary. Usually these would be fancy sweets or tea from the best shops in Tokyo. The packaging was beautiful – fine textured paper and sturdy boxes. Often they would be regifted to me by the ambassador – handing them over to Nakajima who would then give them to me. On weekends I would take these goodies on the Amtrak to see my mother, still living in Massachusetts at the time, and she acted like they came from the emperor himself. Years later, after she passed and I was going through her things, I found a few of these gift boxes that she kept. And now I’m keeping them too. 

Four years was long enough at this job. I now had enough of a cushion to carry me through dry spells as I tried to be a photographer. If that didn’t work out I could always get the thick, Sunday newspaper on a Saturday night and start searching the want ads.