Title: The Birth of Rain and Sun, Tragedy of 3 Ashtrays
A true story of how Murakami became a writer
Blog #4
September 20, 2025
I stepped into the office and heard Kafka hissing in my head:
"Don't write Rain and Sun. You'll expose me, you idiot."
Then I ran into Lion Chang - a lion with no teeth.
"Murakami, what happened to you? You look like Hangover 1, 2, and 3 combined.
What are you now, Good Morning, Vietnam? One Night in Bangkok?"
"No boss. Just having Coffee Before it Gets Cold."
"BS. You Breaking Bad?"
I retreated to my cubicle. Suddenly a tall, fresh trainee walked past.
"Whoa. Lolita!"
Before I could blink, Danny Devito not Jeremy Irons showed up, hand on her waist.
My coinbox rattled in protest, but already emptied by last night's Tiger beers.
Life is unfair. I am now Tofu Watanabe from Norwegian Wood, destined to lose every girl.
Then my phone buzzed.
Rain's email
"Bye. I won't see you again."
Attached: one photo and one last stab to the heart.
"You act like Humbert," she wrote.
"You got your Good Morning, Vietnam. Forever Bye."
I sat down, numb. Two trainees stared at me.
My boss dumped more unpolished tasks on my desk.
I opened my laptop.
Kafka was there not metaphorically, literally blocking my mental doorway.
Three trips to the toilet, three times he screamed:
"Don't write! Don't write! Don't write!"
I grabbed imaginary insect spray.
"What are you spraying?" the trainees asked.
"Perfume from China," I said.
Finally Kafka collapsed. I began to write.
First came nonsense:
"Rain Rain Rain"
Then lightning struck. Kafka came back as an angel.
"Fine," he said.
"I give you Rain. Just stop writing"
I don't care. I wrote. " Sun Sun Sun"
But it was still raining.
*Murakami got a hangover, tried to spray Kafka mid draft, and that's how Norwegian Wood movie turned into a flop.
When I finished the first chapter, I called the trainees.
"Read this."
They looked up and said, "This is good. Like The Joy Luck Club."
And I wanted to scream.
Kakfa isn't a Chinese insect, he's a German one, living in my bathroom, not in mahjong parlor.
I remembered my boss liked people who smoked with him.
So I went into his room.
It was 4 p.m. He was already on this 61st cigarette.
"Yes," I thought," I have found my teacher."
We smoked until the office looked like Kuala Lumpur haze season.
From that day, I made a vow:
10 cigarettes a day, until I reached 60 a day.
Six chapters later, Rain and Sun existed.
And I never went back to the Kepong pub.
As for Kafka, the day I hit 60 cigarettes, he vanished.
And I felt strangely sad.
Because even though he tortured me, he was my best friend, the only one who keep yelling: Don't Write!
The boss? He quit and opened the first indie bookstore in Malaysia.
Now he's rich, selling Murakami to teenagers who think chain-smoking will make them authors.