Yohei and I
I tried to be elegant for 5 seconds
Diana and Atsushi
I'm in a kimono eating cotton candy whoohoo
Diana won the enka contest yayy
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I just ate more strawberry yogurt than the average human being should probably consume in one sitting
Don't forget about all the random links strewn about the blog. If it's dark pink, it'll redirect you to a photo someplace.
I have spent the last two days wandering around downtown Shinjuku, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tourist, clutching a water bottle and sporting the remains of a horrible sunburn bestowed upon me during one boiling Harajuku afternoon.
After having my senses constantly barraged by music and flashing lights and people screaming advertisements and people walking and talking and yelling on their cell phones and babies screaming and old people sneezing, all I want to do really is take the happy private line back to Tanashi, close my door, and have it be silent.
Shhh.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Quiet.
Thaaaaaaat's it.
Unfortunately CRAZY PASSIVE-AGRESSIVE GIRL won't stop running up and down the stairs in her crazy slippers that make an obnoxious clapping noise and echo throughout the building. What do you possibly need down there? Couldn't you have made one trip? Here, don't bother, I'll get it for you, just stay the fuck up here!!!
In other news, more cultural observances from the home front.
1. Man Purse
It has come to my attention that the majority of Japan's hip male population between the ages of 16 and 45 have developed the curious trend known only as the man purse. Coach, Guess, Givenchy, and more are common household names among both elegant ladies and their male counterparts, who feel more than confident getting on a train with something like this, this, or even something like what our friend Robert Downey Junior sports on his day off.
Yohei has one similar to our friend Bob's here, with the brand name Adidas across the side in big brown letters, with a pink bear claw he won from a crane machine dangling from one of the straps. You can call it a messenger bag if you want, but especially if it's hanging off your shoulder with two short straps, you're just damn lying to yourself. After being around it so much, I guess I can see the functionality of it. Can't fit your oversized cell phone in your pocket? Man purse. Have too many large bills of cash to cram inside your wallet? Man purse. Your perfect Japanese hair won't stay in place and you need some emergency hairspray? Man purse.
2. Tank Tops
Tank tops--there are none. Yeah, you can buy them in department stores. But I have yet to see one Japanese female who is sporting only a tank top. Even in this 95 degree weather, the girls are almost always buried in ridiculous layers like this, and somehow manage not to sweat. Unfortunately, tank tops and jeans are essentially the only clothes I own. So upon getting on the train looking like this, minus the puppy, I get stared at for being a whore for even longer than I normally would. Which brings me to:
Reasons I Get Stared At On The Train
1. I'm white
2. I'm wearing a tank top
3. I'm eating a muffin
4. I have huge tits
5. I have facial piercings
6. I dress like a character from The Crow
7. I use excessive profanity
8. I usually have a guitar on my back
9. I'm silently busting out some wicked air guitar with my headphones in
I already got stared at for reasons 4-9 back in the states, so as long as nobody gets on my back about it, I'm totally cool. Sub number 3 brings me to main number 3.
3. Eating Outside
Eating outside--you don't. If there's a cafe with outdoor seating, by all means, go ahead. But if you were to order a hot dog, take it outside, and walk along the city streets cramming it into your face, my bet is that you would receive a plethora of horrified glares and hear angry mumbling within earshot before your second bite. The Japanese are too polite to tell you so, of course, but eating outside is almost as bad as taking a whiz in the middle of an alley. If you're not bothering anyone else, who cares, right? These guys care. If you buy a slice of cake from a cake stand, you take that motherfuckin' cake home and you eat it. If you buy some takoyaki from a street vendor, you either stand right there until you've finished it, or find the closest table and don't leave until you've cleaned your plate. Today I ordered some kind of tropical smoothie blend from Excelsior Cafe, and because I didn't feel like sitting around inside I walked around with it. I already get weird looks, but they were even weirder at that point. Fuck off, I thought, as I swung my waterbottle and adjusted my tank top straps. I'm a foreigner, I can do wha ah want.
4. Hair
The hair in Japan is both fascinating and sometimes horrifying. In adults ages 30-50 I guess, the hairstyle is standard--black and just below shoulder length for women, cropped short and slicked back for men. But for the teenagers and young adults, shit has been known to get kinda out of hand. A recent trend for women is something clean and simple--piling all of your hair on top your your head in a bun so you uncannily resemble Buddha. Otherwise it's usually one of two things--pulling your hair back into an oversized scrunchie (yes, they are still very much in style here...if you don't have one that matches your outfit, you're lame), or just letting your hair dry after you get out of the shower and be done with it. The women tend to put basic effort into their hair, but seem more focused on the fashion aspect of their daily look. Men, however, go for the gold. A fair amount just kind of grow their hair out and let it dry--these are usually the kinds that you find with an oversized backpack, tattered converse, reading a book of manga on the train--but most of them have customized their hairstyle to defy gravity and shock and awe those they walk past. Mostly their hair is dyed, anywhere from a chocolate brown to a light blonde, just above the shoulders, with either pieces individually flipped and curled, or teased to all hell. It's ridiculous, no doubt. But I'm not gonna lie, 90% of the time, it's hot as hell.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Cutural comparisons and emo sorrow
Two more new entries below this, yowmean.
This post is a strand of intercultural observances I have made regarding romantic social interaction in the Japanese culture and also an excuse for me to bitch about my problems.
So, it is more possible than not, that in my last 4 or so years of formal 'dating' I have gotten the wrong idea of the general routine. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in North America, it generally goes a little something like this:
- Co-ed meets co-ed
- Flirting ensues
(optional step - gossip churns among friends and it is confirmed that both parties share interest in the other)
- One co-ed asks the other out on a lunch or coffee or dinner date
- The other co-ed agrees and a date is had
- Subtle hints are dropped
- MANY hints are dropped
- At the end of between 1-4 dates, one co-ed kisses the other, confirming their attraction and their desire to be with the other person
- You kind of talk about being in a relationship, but are mostly too giddy to, and start holding hands or something as a mostly unspoken confirmation that, yeah, you're more or less 'together'
From my observation/personal experience, this is the way shit goes down in Japan:
-Co-ed meets co-ed
- Flirting is attempted by both parties but is more or less thwarted by awkwardness
- One co-ed asks the other out on a lunch or coffee or dinner date
- The other co-ed agrees and a date is had
- Subtle hints become swallowed in a sea of awkwardness
- At the end of 1-4 dates, one co-ed walks the other co-ed home, and leaves because no one knows what to do
- The female of the party confesses her attraction to the male party
- The male party considers if he'd like to make a jump on the offer
- If so, he confirms the fact that the two are officially dating
- It's now okay to hold hands and kiss each other
Now, call me ultra-modern, but I'd rather deal with dumb ass American dating routines then with the passive-aggressive, super-awkward, unspoken social boundaries that the Japanese operate within. Whereas in America it's generally easy enough to slide through steps 1-5 within a few days, I am and have been stuck in Japan's step 6 for weeks now because there are no hints to consider and no signs of reciprocated attraction.
I would call myself crazy, but I have more or less received confirmation that this is so from numerous females who have shared the same experience. I'm not asking anyone to leap out of their skin and get down on one knee, but the simple phrases of either "I like you" or, "I don't like you" would speak volumes in this particular situation and be more appreciated than an insulin shot amidst a rampant diabetes attack. I suppose relaying my own personal experience would be the best way to convey my confusion:
A few weeks ago, I meet a guy. Tall, gorgeous, kind of a snarky jerk, and thus grounds for my immediate attraction. For some reason that I cannot fathom, he seemed to take interest in me. So he asked me on a date. We went on a date, and it was kind of awkward, especially considering the language barrier, but overall I'd say it was a success. He got me a guitar catalogue. A good chunk of time and a few double-dates later, I got him a ridiculous t-shirt that has a bunch of gundam robots on it (long store) and he lol'd extensively. I chat with him on the internet every night, which kind of gives grounds to open up more because it's a lot safer--it also allows more time to look up words the other person is using that you don't know in an electronic dictionary and respond accordingly as to not look like such an idiot. It's always weird when you can talk to someone via text on a level that you probably wouldn't even dare to approach in person. I think it's that way in America, too. Anyway he didn't seem to mind hanging out with me too much yesterday, and gave me a protection charm from the temple he went to the day before.
He hasn't touched me, he hasn't really given me the slightest hint that he's actually interested in me, and I'm ripping my hair out trying to figure out what's going on. I'm down for step 7, but seriously, you can't expect me to confess how I feel about you if there's absolutely no way I can neither confirm nor deny that you are interested in me at all. I don't claim to be a charmer--good lord. When I was 13, I had pigtails and braces and wore my pants too high and never got a second glance from anyone I would even fathom being interested in. I'm still that awkward 13 year old freak, knocking things over every 5 minutes and snorting when I laugh. But I'd like to think that I've maybe dated enough in America to kind of know my way around the arena, whereas here I'm just dead. Lost.
And I wouldn't be as frustrated if I didn't care way too much, which is a problem that hasn't really presented itself since high school. You kind of figure out that you dig a person way more than you probably should, and when sometimes when they smile it makes you want to die, but also makes you want to live forever because even if you weren't the source of that smile you'd rather they just be happy.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Akihabara
There's one more blog you probably haven't read below this one. Go read it if you're into being linear.
I can see the city lights, we're here."
At 10:30am last Tuesday, I was due to meet Diana Garnett, Atsushi Kurogi, and a very intimidating Yohei Kato at the Electric City exit of the Akihabara station. I left my apartment maybe an hour in advance, and still managed to be 10 minutes late. Normally I wouldn't have cared, but seeing as how I am more that slightly attracted to a particular member of the party, I immediately went into severely apologetic Japanese person mode, which probably made things more awkward than they should have been. If I wanted to go on about the mind-numbingly tense attraction and severe social ineptitude, it would make for pages and pages of quasi-entertaining reading which will probably come later, but, not now.
Upon exiting the station, the effect my senses experienced was similar to those that Leeloo underwent when she de-boarded the rocketship to Floston Paradise. Tall buildings stretched for miles, tightly packed together to create only enough space for thousands of Otaku to cram through. The building signs flashed and rotated, stacked up on top of each other to advertise the special products each floor offered. Hundreds of small buildings and street vendors lined the streets, beckoning people in to buy their porn, costumes, giant rotating beef on a stick. Happy hardcore rave music spilled out into the streets from small shops, adorable women in maid costumes waving signs and singing into microphones, their powers of cuteness luring the susceptible passersby into taking their coupons, submitting to their smiles, and buying thousands of yen worth of electronics and sweet strawberry shortcakes. Street vendors yelled at the public to buy their electronic accessories; thousands of meters of cables of every thickness and calibre wrapped around giant spools, LAN cables of every length and color, every converter cable you could ever dream of having. The tart smell of crepes wafted by as girls in costume danced in synchronized hand-waving patterns, advertising their cafe. The latest anime debut played on a wall of stacked screens outside of a DVD shop, accompanied by its hyperactive techno theme song. My head spun. 10:45am, and my mind had gone numb from the sensory overload.
Despite Yohei's strong insistence against the matter, our first stop was Atsushi's favorite maid cafe....the name of which I currently fail to remember. After getting up to the 6th floor, we were told to wait a moment. The four of us stood in the foyer of the entrance. If one has never experienced silence like smooth glass and enough awkwardness to kill a herd of wild caribou, now is the time for one to experience such. We gratefully accepted the first maid's invitation as she waved us inside. We were greeted by a room full of adorable young women in frilly maid costumes, donning bonnets, aprons, and dazzling smiles. "Irrasshaimase!!" they shouted in unison, their high-pitched voices sending a shiver of cuteness down my spine. Our maid led us to our table, her perfect curls bouncing with each giddy step. Upon sitting us down, she handed us some adorable menus, both in English and Japanese, and began to rattle off a string of specials and features in a high, syrupy voice that I could hardly understand at all. I caught words like "tea", "cake", "lunch", and "adorable", but beyond that I was mostly just dazzled by her ridiculous adorable outfit and the fact that I was in a big room full of bubbly maids. I ordered some kind of juice, probably, and she ran off to tend to other customers. Every five minutes, a new party of costumers would arrive, and the cuteness level would raise to an uncomfortably high level as they were greeting in unison by maids and led off to their table. The place filled up fast, and our maid brought us our drinks. She gave a speech to us about how much cuter our orders would taste if we put our hands together in the shape of hearts and said "Moe, moe, kyuu!" together at the same time. We did, and after we all died of embarrassment a little inside, my orange juice tasted just that much cuter. Yohei ordered tea that came in an adorable filigreed pot, and instead of the "say when," instruction usually given by servers, he was to say "Nyan~!" when he wanted her to stop pouring. His eye twitched as the tea came perilously close to the edge the cup. "....Nyan," he breathed expressionlessly, as the maid bounced up and down and stopped pouring. I nearly had a hernia I was laughing so hard.
Throughout the hour or so we were there, there were various birthday announcements and celebrations and free slices of adorable cake for those who were lucky enough to visit the cafe on their birthday. Birthday participants got their pictures taken with the group of 10 or so maids, and were publicly embarrassed as the maids walked around them and make remarks about their cuteness. We stayed and drank our drinks, making small talk and stupid jokes, watching the women bounce back and forth and get paid to flirt with oversized men with backpacks and thick glasses. We waved goodbye to the maids, who all waved back. As soon as the elevator doors slid closed, Diana and I busted up laughing, doubled over with tears running down our faces, unable to breathe.
We walked around for awhile afterward, debating on what to eat. Eventually we came to a small restaurant with menu item advertisements plastered all over the walls. We akwardly ate Sukiyaki and raw fish as rave music and voices from loudspeakers could be heard softly from outside. Walking around, we stumbled upon various hobby shops that were endless levels high, stocked full of every figurine from every Japanese pop culture movement ever in existence. I ogled at foot-high representations of the Gurren Lagann, and drooled at the molded figures from my favorite game, Guilty Gear. Rows and rows of plush Totoros and Ponyos, massive Ghibli replica castles and weapons. It was a nerd's greatest dream. It was an even greater dream, of course, if you could shell out the hundreds of dollars the figurines cost, and the thousands you would have to give up for the large replicas. It was still fun to stare, even if nobody else but me wanted to go to the hentai floors. Someday, someday..... We found a cosplay shop, in which Diana tried on a ridiculously adorable Alice in Wonderland maid costume. Apparently she's going to buy it when we return to Akiba next month.
Soon after we ventured to Yodobashi Camera, an enormous electronics store that will supply you with anything you could ever want as long as there's a switch that will turn it on. At least 10 floors high, I couldn't help but get vertigo going up and down the sets of escalators, the relentless flourescent lights drilling into my eyes and the sounds of beeping and robotic movement coming from every corner of every floor. We looked at cameras, on thousand dollar tripods with features no one would ever need. Exercise machines that essentially just vibrated you, toy robots that blinked and smiled and ran you errands on wheels. I can't remember what our mission was in Yodobashi Camera, but I couldn't get out fast enough.
You'd think one maid cafe would be enough for the average Akiba visitor. But oh, no. Atsushi, Akihabara master, led us down some strange streets to an unmarked entrance. Upon entering, we were greeted by another maid. But this time, there was no heavy makeup or glitter or excessive frills. She was makeup-less, tousled hair in a messy braid, carrying a thin silver tray. Wondering wtf was going on, I looked around. The wooden tables and chairs were stressed to look old. Customers' shoes creaked on the wooden floorboards as they walked. An old wooden ladder led up to rows and rows of books lining the cafe. It then donned on me that this cafe wasn't modern--in fact, it was reverse modern. It was made up to look like a cafe from the 1700's. Dumbfounded, I followed my party to our table, which had paint chipping and peeling across the top. The tea was endless, so that was exciting. We also got a pamphlet with our cafe experience that I guess detailed that each employee of the cafe was there representing a different character from an old cafe manga. There were a few female characters, and one male. They were identifiable by their brooches. Looking around, I searched for the male employee, and let out a squee of Zuka happiness as I realized that he was very obviously a she. I bubbled to myself silently about my love for crossdressing as we ordered small cakes and split them. I started making weird jokes about the banana sauce, and finally things got a little less awkward. For, like, 5 minutes. Though the effort to make the cafe look throwback was definitely effective, the attempt to match the books to the theme was not. We leafed through a dinosaur pop-up book perplexedly before leaving the cafe.
Yes, I know the last post is gone. No, I don't care. Yes, it will be back soon.
Big Wave 21 Community Kitchen
Extra oil and msg
Shut up and eat!
Too bad, no bon appetit!
Shut up and eat!"
A bit ill at ease about my classes at Tamagawa being over, I sat around today strumming my guitar and chatting with Americans on Skype. Not wanting to dwell about the end of something so awesome that was snuffed out so quickly, I went to the grocery store and bought a ton of random shit to cook with--considering I'll be hanging around the apartment a lot more in the future to do my complete lack of any agenda at all, I'm probably going to need to, you know, eat. I wrote a few more verses to a really sappy confession-of-love-song before getting frustrated with my bad Japanese grammar, downing an entire carton of orange juice, and going downstairs to make some damn food.
My cooking skills are basically limited to the following: spaghetti, miso soup in a packet, noodles in a styrofoam cup, chicken breasts, ground beef, eggs, and toast. Today was an eggs and toast day. I grabbed my eggs, toast, and fake spreadable butter in a plastic tub, as well as my new David Sedaris book "Me Talk Pretty One Day", and schlepped downstairs after making really awkward eye contact with a Chinese girl. I entered the kitchen, an explosion of pink walls with intricately painted trees winding up and down the sides, climbing up to the ceiling. There was a Japanese(?) girl in the kitchen already, cutting up some lemons and maybe putting them into alcohol or something. I don't know--she makes me feel really awkward. I see her every night, she's always here, hanging up laundry or handwashing some article of clothing, and she never says anything to me. She kind of makes me feel the way your mom would when you've done something bad, and she knows it, and you know she knows you know it, and she's giving you the silent treatment to emphasize her intense disappointment in you. In an effort to evade passive-agressive-mom-girl and her weird lemoney sangria, I started whistling, and went to turn on the stove.
The stove is a rather large issue in my day to day life. You don't just turn a knob. You have to like, turn the knob, wait for the flame to puff up with a little click, and you have to push the knob in in a certain way and keep it there in order to get the flame to keep burning. I don't really get it, at all, because I didn't grow up in the goddamn stone age, so cooking dinner is always kind of an exciting challenge.
me: *puts down eggs, bread, fake butter* *deep breath* Okay. *turns knob*
stove: *click* *fire puffs up* *goes out*
me: *deep breath* ....okay. *turns knob*
stove: *click* *fire puffs up, stays for a minute* *goes out*
me: *turns around*
mom-girl: *cutting lemons* *glares at me*
me: *turns back around* Ooookay then. *turns knob*
stove: *click* *puff* *fire goes out*
me: *turns knob*
stove: *click* *puff* *fire goes out*
mom-girl: *drops knife on table in frustration*
me: Okay--okay, okay. *turns knob*
stove: *click* *puff*
me: ....Okay?
stove: *fire still burning*
me: Hah! *turns around*
mom-girl: *gathers things and leaves*
I proudly melted some butter and cracked some eggs. After a few minutes, the Japanese dude whom I briefly spoke with before entered the kitchen with a basket of food and a stereotypical surgical mask on his face.
"Herro!!" he said, excitedly. Ecstatic to make human contact, I responded and asked how he had been. He said he had been well, and that he didn't mean to pry, but he had seen me playing my guitar in my room when my door was wide open...I purposely leave my door wide open while I'm in there in an attempt to draw people in so I can force them to be friends with me. We talked about music for a minute, and he asked if I knew Paramore. I lol'd, and said I did. "I play bass!" he exclaimed. "Do you know Rehacheepapa?"
"....what?" I squinted at him. It was hard enough to figure out wtf he was saying, let alone through the surgical mask. "Rehacheepapa. Rehacheepapa? You know? Rehacheepapa." Fuck, I thought. Usually I can get through the Engrish. This was a tough one.
"You play bass. You like the bass player. Rehacheepapa."
"Yes, Free. Free from Rehacheepapa." It suddenly made sense.
"Flea! Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers!"
"Yes! Yes!" We jumped for joy as my eggs popped and sizzled. Turns out he's 28, and played bass for about 4 years. I finished my eggs and slapped some bread onto the pan. You can make toast with pretty much any hot appliance. Did you know that? After my 'food' was finished, I sat in the adjoining lounge room as a bubbly Japanese game show sparkled with bobs and whistles and contestants were degraded for not passing some kind of sick challenge or other. The main door opened, and I saw a man with a guitar on his back walk past the kitchen door. I dropped the book in my hand and craned my neck to watch him walk by. I chewed anxiously as I wondered if he would come into the kitchen. Thankfully, he did, a few minutes later.
Now guitar-less, the Japanese man shoved his long, black hair into a messy bun and started shuffling through the dishes. I pretended to be thoroughly absorbed in my eggs as I half-understood their rapid, mumbly Japanese. I heard my presence mentioned and pretended not to understand. Apparently I'm not the world's greatest actress.
"This is Masa. He plays guitar, too."
"Oh, hi, I didn't see you there." I say something moronic like this, and get up to shake his hand. I found out that he's in a band called Die For City, (a play on the word 'diversity') a popular local band who plays (or used to play) around Shibuya. The band's name came from the idea that the members of the band are from different countries--apparently the drummer is American, and the singer is British. The other man busied himself making some crazy spaghetti dish as Masa and I talked about music. I pleaded with him to tell me about local clubs and live houses in Shibuya, asking him to hook me up with anyone who might want to jam sometime. He scratched his goatee and asked how old I was. I said I was 20, and they both laughed. I still don't know what that meant. I was reminded that the other man's name is Humi--I've met 497689876 Japanese people in the past three weeks, I can't feel guilty about not remembering names anymore--and Masa and I exchanged myspace urls before he left me to return to my yolky eggs.
Not five minutes later, a bald, overweight white man in a polo shirt and glasses trots in through the sliding door to ask Humi something. In a heavy British accent, he introduces himself as John. John moved to Japan on a whim 4 years ago after being bored with his life in Liverpool, and currently teaches English on a rotation in different universities around Tokyo. After commenting that he must be fluent in Japanese, he replied, chuckling, that he could hardly understand any. Which was a bit disconcerting. But, then again, he didn't seem particularly motivated to attach himself to a particular place. John was a wandering vagabond. We talked about how lovely, sexist, and safe Japan is, before he wandered off to his room.
Humi and I sat and watched Japanese game shows I couldn't understand for awhile before we eventually separated. He's probably in his room blogging right now, too.
Probably not.
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