Changing Impressions - Part 1

In the name of wrapping up this blog, talking about culture, and most of all having fun, I have chosen not to do something terribly academic for my "changing impressions" topic this week. The good news? You get two posts. As I will be leaving Japan in less than three weeks, I thought I'd try to wrap up my stay and my blog at the same time. What better way to do it than a top 10 list? How about two?

This first post focuses on the negatives since that was the harder of the two lists to come up with and because I want to get all the whiny, complaint stuff out of the way first. They're in no particular order and they're purely opinion-based, so feel free to disagree. I'll be anthropological in my explanations for what some of these items are. First, the list:

Ten Things I Won't Miss About Japan
1. Practically Towering Over Everyone When in High Heels
2. Fish for Dinner with the Head Still Attached and Staring at You
3. Constantly Having to Explain Where Arkansas is, Even to Americans
4. Keigo
5. The Rarity of Mexican Food, Real Cheese, and Peanut Butter
6. The vending machines that sell tickets to be redeemed later
7. Japanese style toilets
8. ATMs that are closed at night and sometimes on Sunday
9. How there’s never a garbage can when you need one
10. Having NO Heat in the middle of winter.

And now for the discussion:

Mexican Food, Real Cheese, and Peanut Butter

As I have mentioned before, I am from Arkansas where the three main food groups are Mexican food, cheese, and peanut butter. Please don’t get me wrong—there’s a fantastic Mexican restaurant in Shinsaibashi and you can occasionally find real cheese and peanut butter at over twice their American price in some of the larger supermarkets. And it’s not that Japan doesn’t have fantastic food substitutes—it does! It’s just that I prefer to eat Mexican food at least twice a week, not once every two months; and at home I eat cheese and peanut butter nearly every day. I suppose you never realize how much you like something until it’s gone.

The reason, by the way, that these three items are so difficult to find in Japan is that all three must be imported. Japan, as a small, mountainous country, does not have the space needed to raise cattle or corn, so any products requiring large quantities of such foods must be imported, making them rare and expensive. The only one of the three that confused me was the peanut, because I thought those could be grown anywhere. A little research proves that they are, in fact, grown in China, which is problematic as my China post shows.

Vending Machines that Sell Tickets to be Redeemed Later

This is probably best explained through a story. To buy our textbooks at Kansai Gaidai, we must go to the main office building, put in our money, and receive a ticket from a vending machine. The ticket is then redeemed at the CIE building for the book. If, say, during that two minute or less walk from one building to the other, the ticket becomes lost in your wallet… Well, you just have to go back and buy another ticket.

It’s actually a fairly intelligent idea of the part of whoever thought to have vending machines that sell tickets—because it eliminates the need for a register and money earned is stored in a much safer place. Many institutions, such as the Kobe Port in the photo above, use these kinds of machines for ride tickets, food tickets, book tickets, etc... I can understand the reasoning behind it, no problem.

Japanese Style Toilets
I heard about these before I came to Japan, but I wasn’t expecting them to be as prevalent as they actually are. Go to any train station, temple, shrine, or nearly any other public place, and you’re sure to find these. Sometimes that’s all there is. It’s essentially an elaborate hole in the ground.

ATMs that are closed at night and sometimes on Sundays
Most bank ATMs in Japan are actually inside the bank, so when the bank closes, so too do the bank machines. The ones that are within train stations or within their own little booths on the side of the street close shortly after darkness sets in. And the ones in your local convenience store? Well, as far I have seen, they just kinda turn themselves off. Maybe in some convenience store I haven’t been in, they stay open, but in all the conbini near my house, the machine just is not working after it gets too late at night.

Why is this? Well, in the case of the bank machines inside the bank, it makes sense that when the bank closes so do they. In the case of all other bank machines, I guess it is to discourage theft. But, is this honestly a problem in Japan, which prides itself for having one of the lowest crime rates in the world?

How There’s Never a Garbage Can When You Need One
Though Japan has an over-abundance of vending machines, it does not have near as many trashcans. They seem to have very specific habitats, such as restrooms (though not always), classrooms, and train stations. But on the street, you won’t see any trash cans. Even on trash day, you won’t see trash cans. Instead, what you’ll see are piles of plastic bags on the side of the street for the garbage men to pick up and throw in their trucks. And what kind of trash is in the bags depends on the day of the week (for instance, yesterday was newspaper and beer can day, in separate bags of course). Which, while I think that it is awesome that most Japanese seem to separate their trash and recycle certain things, sometimes you just need a trashcan and there isn’t one.

Having No Heat in the Middle of Winter
A few things about Japanese houses: first, they are not as insulated as US houses and second, they do not come with central heat and air conditioning. This is fine for most of the year, except in the hottest months of summer and the coldest months of winter. Summer was not so bad; so long as I had my fan, I was alright. But then again, I come from Arkansas, where temperatures are much hotter, and I don’t have air conditioning there either, so I’m quite used to dealing with the heat. It’s the winter that is unpleasant. There is no central heat, so instead we use electric heaters and electric mats. Or, well, my host family did. I was not quite so blessed. They only gave me the electric heater and mat in February, just in time for the snow. Previous to that moment, all I had to keep me warm were hot baths and three blankets.

Surprisingly though, the little heater kept my room rather warm and the electric mat made easier to sleep at night. This, according to the host family and to other friends with host families, is the way that most Japanese spend their winters and, in all honesty, it’s not bad at all. Would have been nice to have the first semester, though.

Is that who I think it is?

I've been keeping this topic for a while now, just waiting for the "Open Post" week to get here. Today's post is about a certain someone I've seen lurking in Shinsaibashi...

Do you recognize this person? Found in Shinsaibashi-suji, directly across the street from the Subway and directly above the Mos Burger. Yes, it is indeed who you think it is. Complete with ridiculous mustache and everything. The only thing missing is the Nazi flag (that's inside the store). The question is, what in the world is Hitler doing in Japan?

Well, in this instance, he's advertising for a military clothing store. Him and good ol' glory. Two things that, according to the culture in which I grew up, should never ever be seen together. So is this a political statement? No, I don't think so. First, they are more easily associated with what is inside the store than with each other. If they are meant to be associated with each other in any other way than that, both countries represent the most powerful militaries Japan has seen on its shores in recent history. Japan’s own military pre-1945 was based off of the Prussian Army (found via my Japanese Fashion book that chronicles Japanese fashion from Meiji era to present). The post-1945 Japanese self-defense force, on the other hand, is heavily influenced by the American model. Also, Japan’s greatest ally pre-1945 was Germany, whereas Japan’s largest political partner post-1945 is the US. But I don’t think that’s why this shop has Hitler and the US flag just hanging out in its display.

This store is two stories of military uniforms. Those of the US style are fairly modern and are accompanied of images of soldiers in a desert, holding some serious weaponry (photos from Iraq? Naaaaah, course not). Most of the US style uniforms are Army camouflage, with the exception of one small group of coats. The only other style of military uniform I found within the shop was German, designed to look like something straight out of the 1940s as well as more recent variations. They aren’t really separated by floor so the US camos and German military uniforms from all eras just kinda hang there together, separated only by hand-made signs that say where the clothing originates from. Other merchandise in this store includes combat boots, army tents, nets, and just about everything else you might consider military memorabilia. The only thing missing from this shop was a gun department, but this is Japan so we can’t have that… On the second floor, you aren’t allowed to take photos, so I don’t have a photo of the Nazi flag hanging over the entrance to the staff room. The sign was in English, so I couldn’t exactly use the “I’m sorry, I couldn’t read it” excuse.

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US Army coats for cold climates. In the corner where you can’t see are the German variation, according to the signs.

I’m just reporting what I saw. Again, though I don’t think there is much of a political statement to this store—the point of the store is fashion, not politics—I’m still not sure I’m exactly comfortable with the two very different ideologies presented here. You certainly would never see this sort of thing in the US, but then again, Japan doesn’t have a history of several years in which it was at war with Hitler and his atrocities. If I wore a 1940s replica Nazi uniform in the US, that would be suicide, but in Japan the point is that it is fashion. It’s not a political statement; it’s not an affiliation thing (except that you’re affiliating yourself with other people who dress this way for fashion reasons). It’s fashion, which means it’s part of that group of materials that both does and doesn’t make a statement at the same time.

And it’s an expensive fashion to follow. This was one of the cheapest prices I found in the entire store.

It feels really weird to me to see US army jackets in Japan (real or not) for sale.

Ocean, You Meet Engrish

Now that we’re back from Spring Break, it’s time to address a less than pleasant topic--midterms… So, I’ve included an extra post in which I can reminisce my spring break, discuss an aspect of Japanese culture, and avoid studying for those Japanese exams all in one go (yes, I know I’m horrible). It’s too late to count this as my “spring break post” but I thought I’d throw it in anyway to have a temporary (and fun!) distraction.

Found on the front page of the English version of the Kaiyukan aquarium information pamphlet. I ended up staying in the Kansai region over the break, so one of the things I did was go to the aquarium. The entire pamphlet features absolutely fantastic engrish, including “Please enjoy playful sea otters being popular among children,” and “Since large amount of plankton arise, schools of fish swim in this area to look for their foods.”

I want a tasty life. This store has branches all around the Kansai region and they sell all sorts of trendy stuff, from clothing to plants to dishes, to objects that would be in the “home” department of most US department stores. They have a pretty good advertising campaign going, I mean, who wouldn't want a tasty life?

A typical engrish shirt. Engrish is fashionable in Japan, much like kanji is fashionable in the US. I’d like to note that I’m not here to make fun of Japan for their bad English; after all, English is a very hard language to learn and I really have no right to talk since my own English grammar can be just as bad and my Japanese could use some work. The point is that in Japan, English is fashionable to the point where it’s not so much the meaning of the words that matters but the fact that English is on the item in question at all. And in all honesty, our kanji-fied clothing is usually just a whole bunch of pretty kanji slapped together with no consideration to the kanji's real meaning anyway, and what the Japanese are doing with English is no different. The only difference is that in Japan, english as fashion has expanded outside of clothing and onto other objects as well, such as information pamphlets, home decor, and store mottos.