Changing Impressions of Japan

My perceptions of Japanese society have definitely changed radically since last semester when I was planning my trip, and from when I first arrived.  I like to think that I was not one of those people who idealize Japanese society—I have long been well aware of the fact that every country has its problems, and Japan certainly has many.   However, there is one impression that really stands out in my mind.  Before I came here, I had several friends and acquaintances who had already been to or lived in Japan.  They all said relatively the same thing: You’ll never be truly accepted by the Japanese people.  You’ll have a great time, but it may also be really lonely.

This made me a little worried, until I arrived here.  How wrong they were, I thought! Everyone here is so eager to be friends.  I certainly made a lot of Japanese friends in my first few weeks here. However, I have since become familiar with the “gaijin hunters” of Kansai Gaidai and I’ve realized that my friends at home were right.  While I have made several wonderful Japanese friends here and I’ve often been astonished at the kindness and generosity of the people here, I often feel excluded and I have come to realize that I’ll never be accepted in mainstream society here. 

I also think I somewhat pictured Japan as a very exotic place before I came here.  I thought it was so different and its customs so strange.  However, I’ve realized that people are pretty much people no matter where you go, even given some experiences that seemed incredibly bizarre to me—such as, for example, having to fill out paper work to retrieve a pair of gloves I had left at a train station minutes before.  The streets of Kyoto start to seem strangely reminiscent of Boston, if you replace temples with churches. 

I think that this lesson has broadened my mind in a lot of ways.  I have made friends with people from all over the world, not only Japan.  I no longer view any one’s habits or customs as so strange, and I think I’ve learned to accept people with all their respective baggage and differences.  I’m really glad I came to Kansai Gaidai.  Some experiences were bitter, some were sweet, and I don’t think I can say anything about this semester was truly disappointing.  Thank you, Kansai Gaidai!

Sightseeing in Japanese Culture

Something that has really interested me ever since I came to Japan is the way that Japanese people flock to their own historical sites and sightseeing attractions.  As for me, I have always felt that Americans tend to somewhat neglect their own landmarks.  In my hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, we have several tourist attractions—museums commemorating the witch trials, wax museums, fortune telling, even a world famous art museum.  However, it kind of seems as if no one is interested.  Some Americans will travel to Salem to see them, but most of our tourists are foreign and those of us that live in the town are somewhat less than enthusiastic. 

I’ve been to several Japanese landmarks since I’ve been here.  In Kiyomizu-dera, I had to fight against crowds of tourists—the grand majority of them Japanese—to take pictures of its world-famous view, or to drink from the wishing fountains. 

At Kinkaku-ji, it was almost impossible to get a picture of the temple because there were always tourists blocking the view—again, most of them Japanese. 

Most of these attractions have also been very commercialized (this is not exclusive to Japan, but it is interesting).  At Ginkaku-ji, you could buy anything from bookmarks to cell phone charms of the famous temple.  Lots of Japanese tourists snapped photos of themselves posing with their traditional peace-sign pose.  At Kinkaku-ji, there were vending machines selling soda and Hagen-daas ice cream.  Even the bright yellow Omikuji machines at the temple seem kind of out of place—neon yellow and metal next to stately wooden temples. 

It’s not only old ladies and school children on trips who frequent these places—they’re very popular date spots as well.  And yet, the younger generation doesn't seem too interested in the history of these places--they mostly just want to snap photos and buy phone charms.  I went to Kinkaku-ji with a few Japanese friends, and we passed by a waterfall that looked as if it was a bit special.  I asked them if there was any significance to it, and they just said "Uh... it's a waterfall? We have no idea."  I wonder why this is.

Something Missing

When I was planning my trip to Japan, sexuality and gender studies was my primary interest.  There is so much in Japan that falls under this category that is simply fascinating to me.  The geisha, hosts and hostesses, the role of homosexuality in modern Japanese society.  This last category is what I want to talk about in this blog post.

Something I did in the last few weeks, and it was one of the most enjoyable days and nights I’ve ever had, was get made up by two gyaru and then go out to a gay club in Osaka.

This club was packed with Japanese people and gaijin alike, and several fantastic drag queens as well as a group of male go-go dancers.  I had a wonderful time dancing with my friends and was several times pulled up on stage to dance with the drag queens and/or go-go boys.  There was, however, something that seemed a little lacking all night.  Where were the girls?

There were a lot of straight girls, to be sure.  They came because they had gay male friends (I actually befriended a Japanese gay man who introduced his girl friend to me saying, “She is fag hag.”  I was impressed) or because they were fans of boys’ love, etc.  But where were the lesbians?

This is something I’ve been wondering about ever since I came to Kansai Gaidai.  I often feel as if gay women are just kind of… absent.  Boys’ love manga seems to be wildly popular, while its counterpart, yuri, lags behind.  I think this is because girls are drawn to boys’ love with its too-beautiful male protagonists and romanticized visions of homosexual love, while most straight boys are more interested in porn than Japanese schoolgirls getting innocently dewy-eyed over each other.

An article on CNN puts the ratio of exclusively lesbian bars to gay bars at 12 to 400—and this is in Shinjuku’s “gay district” in Tokyo.  In Kirara’s article “A Lesbian in Hokkaido”, she describes her mother’s response to her coming out as a lesbian—“Don’t worry.  You’ll get over it.” This kind of “You’ll get over it” mentality is very present in Yuri as well—love between girls is often portrayed as a phase that girls go through in high school, before they grow up and marry men and become happy wives and mothers.  Why is this?

My theory is that because women’s sexuality has historically been so undervalued, especially in Japanese society, the idea of sexual relationships with no men involved is simply baffling.  There’s also the fact that gay relationships between men have been historically condoned by society within certain cultures—for example, Buddhist priests or samurai, whereas women were seen as unclean.  This could also have contributed to divisions in the modern gay culture, reflected in the high amount of gay clubs and low amount of lesbian clubs, and relative absence of lesbians from gay or “mixed” clubs.  I’m going to Tokyo in a couple of days and am hoping to be able to learn a bit more about the gay culture there.  For now, this is my theory.

“Japan’s lesbians still scared to come out”—http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/life/lesbians-in-Japan-struggle-to-build-their-own-community-814836.  19 Nov, 2010.

Check out this link to see the full article I referenced, it's really interesting.

Kirara (1998) "A Lesbian in Hokkaido," in Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, Barbara Summerhawk, C. McMahill and D. McDonald, eds. Norwich, Vermont: New Victoria, pp. 188-199.

A reference of Kirara's article.

Kare ga Hoshii

If you are a girl in Japan reading this, chances are you are already very familiar with this phenomenon.  You meet another Japanese girl, who seems as though she may want to be friends.  While you’re making small talk with her, one of the first things she will ask you (if not the very first) is this: “Do you have a boyfriend?”  

The flow of this conversation is pretty predictable.  If you say “No”, it’s “But why not? You’re so pretty!” If “Yes”, it’s either “Urayameshi!! (I’m jealous)” or “How is he?” A Japanese girlfriend of mine tells me that this is kind of a way to facilitate conversation—it either leads to a compliment or a new topic of conversation—but that she doesn’t like to use it because it’s a bit shallow.

I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen in America, but one of the first things I’ve picked up on after coming to Japan is that Japanese girls seem to have boyfriend fever.  I’ve been wondering about it ever since I got to Japan, and I think there’s much more societal pressure for girls to have boyfriends in Japan than in America.  Again, I don’t mean to say that there isn’t pressure in America.  There certainly is.  But it seems to be so much more pronounced in Japan.  There is so much pressure not to be alone on Valentine’s Day, on White Day, on Christmas. 

This love hotel was right outside of the entrance to a temple in Kyoto.  It seems that if you're single in Japan, you can't escape being reminded of it!

 In addition, Japanese boys seem to have much higher, and more specific, standards than their Western counterparts as a generalization—it’s not just “I like blondes” or “I like cute girls”, it’s “I like a girl of this height, no more than this specific weight, who wears heels about four inches high and wears this specific fashion”.  Which, in turn, leads to my next point: beautiful, interesting Japanese girls with depressingly low standards when it comes to men—particularly Western men.

Are you familiar with this comic strip? It’s not so far-fetched—I’ve seen rather awkward, plain guys, who would draw little to no attention in America, surrounded by Japanese girls who should be far out of their league.  Not all Japanese girls prefer gaijin boyfriends, but many do.  In Christine Tan’s article on China Smack, she describes the phenomena of Asian girls with white boyfriends and gives a list of the reasons Asian women give for this, which rang eerily true to what I’ve heard from several Japanese girls; Asian boys aren’t romantic, they aren’t fun, White men are better looking, etc., etc. 

Karen Kelsky also discusses this in her article “Gender, Modernity, and Eroticized Internationalism in Japan”, in which she suggests that Japanese women see Western boyfriends as a gateway to travel, freedom, and work opportunities without Japan’s unfortunate glass ceiling when it comes to women. 

It’s not my place to suggest that they do otherwise, but it seems to me that this method of self growth leaves girls still dependant on a man.  As a feminist, I can’t help but wish that girls of every nationality could stop defining themselves by whether or not they have a boyfriend.

Sources:

Kelsky, Karen (1999) "Gender, Modernity, and Eroticized Internationalism in Japan." Cultural Anthropology 14 (2): 229-255.

Links:

http://free-extras.com/images/holding_hands-1425.htm --Where I got the "holding hands" image

http://diaspora.chinasmack.com/2011/malaysia/christine-tan-asian-women-with-white-men-suck.html --Christine Tan's excellent article on Diaspora

http://translate.google.co.jp/translate?hl=ja&sl=en&u=http://www.charismaman.com/&ei=XBe5TvO-G6TJmAXf7J2fCA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcharisma%2Bman%26hl%3Dja%26gbv%3D2%26rlz%3D1R2GGLL_en%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D578%26prmd%3Dimvns --The one, the only, Charisma Man!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/20/11-asian-girls/ --For a more humorous viewpoint, Stuff White People Like.

Moriguchishi and Doi Station

The home page for Moriguchishi includes relatively little information.  There is a link to a page about a new health plan, descriptions of the city's official tree and flower (a pink blossom called "satsuki"), a visual guide of the mayor's office.  It is not flashy or chaotic like the shopping and clubbing districts of Osaka, and there is not much of historical significance that I can see either.  I even ran into a friend on the Keihan line--dressed in a full suit and nice shoes, no less.  It was so contrary to my image of him that for a second I barely recognized him.  He was on his way to a part-time job a few stops before me.  I asked him, "Do you know Moriguchi-shi at all?" And he said "No... I only hear the name when I come through here on the way to work."  Because of this, I was entirely unsure of what to expect when I left the small but spotless and strangely homey Doi Station.

These are a few of the first views I had on exiting the stations--clean, quite roads bordered by flowers and trees, a line of small shops and restaurants.  There was hardly anyone in town when I came in, which was a shock after being used to extremely crowded streets and long lines no matter where I went.  Most of the people who lived here seemed to be older, grandparents with grandchildren, or young couples with tiny children, or people on the way to work, just passing through.

A small market selling fresh fruit and seeds for gardening.

The small town atmosphere and the potted flowers on every street reminded me of a small town in my native New England.  I was a little bit in love.

I wandered around for a little while, taking pictures.  I got the distinct impression that as a gaijin, I was an incredible rarity.

I decided eventually that I wanted to stop for a lunch, and found to my surprise a covered mall on the other side of Doi Station.  It was lined with tempting sit-down restaurants and bakeries, hundred-yen shops, and supermarkets selling fresh fruit for cheaper than I have ever seen it before.  While I was exploring up and down the street and attracting a lot of stares, I had an experience that to me seemed very quintessentially Japanese.  To my right, the covered mall opened up onto a beautiful Shinto shrine.

There was one main shrine with a bell and a few smaller ones to make prayers at, a station to wash your hands before entering, a place to buy good luck charms and souvenirs.  It made me think of my earlier ideas about connections between what seemed sacred and what seemed mundane in Japan.  A covered mall opening up into a traditional place of worship? In America, it would be unthinkable, but here, it didn't seem so surprising somehow.

For lunch, I eventually decided on a small, sit-down okonomiyaki restaurant inside the covered mall.  For 650 yen, I was given a large, delicious okonomiyaki, miso soup, rice, pickled radishes, some kind of pork-slices appetizer, and unlimited green tea.  While I was waiting, a customer who, like me, was eating alone, was seated across from me with my permission.  She looked up at me once shyly before quickly looking back down at her phone to text.  She seemed shy and a bit bookish, and reminded me a little of a children's librarian.  She seemed young, maybe in her late 20s to early 30s, and was dressed modestly.  After a somewhat awkward silence, I introduced myself to her.  She didn't tell me her name at first, although she did seem eager to chat once I had started.  What was I doing here? Was I a student? Did I find chopsticks hard to use? Where was I from originally?  I did manage to learn a bit about her, as well.  She didn't live in Moriguchishi, she was only here because of her job as an Office Lady.  She had never travelled abroad, although she would like to.  She liked to come to this place for her lunch break.  This seemed to fit what I had observed so far about Moriguchishi--it seemed like a neighborhood for older people, or people with families.  Everyone else was just passing through.  The Office Lady left before me when her lunch hour was almost up.  As I left, the staff thanked me for coming and quizzed me a bit about my origins.  "Please come again," the store owner beamed at me.

As I waited for the return train at Doi Station, I was surrounded by men in full suits waiting for the train as well.  This place was not their home or city either, just a transitory station.  As for me, I really enjoyed my visit and I would love to go again.

Portrait of a Japanese Person

For my portrait of a Japanese person, I asked one of my Seminar House's Japanese roommates, Tamaki, to pose for me. 

Tamaki, or Tama-chan, is one of the sweetest, most genki people I have ever met.  Ever since I moved into Seminar House 1, she's always been ready with a smile and a compliment.  I think that one of the things I like the most about her is that she has such a bubbly, sweet attitude but she's also incredibly diligent.  I've seen her literally stay up all night to study, which is one of the reasons I chose this picture.  I wanted to capture both her amazing smile and her diligent nature.

When I think of her I also think of a story that makes me feel simultaneously guilty and grateful.  In our dorm kitchen, we have had a problem with people not properly cleaning their cooking utensils.  Especially in the case of rice cookers, this can get somewhat disgusting--rice crusted into the bowls and all.  One morning, Tamaki cleaned all the dishes and rice cookers.  Even though they weren't mine, I felt such a sense of collective guilt for my fellow students and appreciation for Tamaki.  I feel really priveleged to have met her.

My Neighborhood

I have been living, playing and going to school in Hirakata-shi now for about a month.  I feel like I've learned a lot here and made a lot of wonderful friends, and I really love my Seminar House and the people who live here.  However, if I was asked to choose which part of Hirakata-shi constitutes my neighborhood for me, I wouldn't pick the streets surrounding my Seminar House, even though I've spent so much time sleeping, playing, studying and shopping around the area.  Even though I feel comfortable here, I can't say I have ever interacted with my neighbors, apart from a "Konnichiwa" here and there or a stare and uncomfortable silence.

For me, Kansai Gaidai and the surrounding student apartments and hundred-yen stores are my neighborhood.  Kansai Gaidai is like a safety bubble--while I'm here, I sometimes forget that I'm a foreigner. 

And right outside of Kansai Gaidai are my friends' apartments, where I go to have dinner and hang out, or the aptly named "Seminar House 5"--Cafe Istanbul, the bar where you're guaranteed to run into a friend or classmate, the Lawson hundred-yen store where we buy most of our essential groceries, and New Delhi, the Indian restaurant where you can get curry, rice, mango lassi and unlimited naan for about 700 yen if you make it in time for the lunch special. 

                                          Nabe stew and Yakisoba at a friend's apartment.

To me, the neighborhood stretches from end to end of Kansai Gaidai, encompassing the student apartments, the nearby Top World and Lawson 100 yen store on one end, and Shimamura and Avail on another.  This is the place that feels the most like home to me.  That may be because it's mainly a community of students like myself--they work at the grocery shops and stores here, they shop here, they play here.  This is the community that I feel the most a part of.

First Impressions of Japan

So do you want to know something really crazy? The other night I went to a moon viewing festival in Kyoto.

Every so often I have these moments--I've somewhat adjusted to the daily grind here, and I'll just be going about my business, maybe worrying about my homework or complaining about the heat, and I'll stop in my tracks and think, "Hey... I'm in Japan!" 

I think that if I had to summarize my first impression of Japan I would focus on how closely the wonderful and the mundane coexist.  You could spend the night listening to hauntingly beautiful traditional Japanese music at a full-moon viewing festival in a beautiful temple in Kyoto, and spend the next day browsing second-hand manga shops in a heavily industrialized city setting.  Perhaps this is true of many countries, but I feel that in America at least the two extremes are not so close.  Before coming to Japan I was even told that Kyoto was ugly.  I don't think so.  The train station may have been all gritty concrete, but I felt as if around every corner were scenes of spectacular beauty.

This is a snapshot from Kiyomizu-dera, which I was thrilled to visit.  In this one trip to Kyoto, I made a wish at a Shinto shrine and drank from a fountain said to bring things like love, health and prosperity to the drinker.  I also went shopping in a department store, visited an underground mall and ate at a "Ninja Cafe" that catered mostly to tourists and served a great deal of Western food buffet-style. 

When I make a mental inventory of all the things I've done in my first few weeks here, I'm most astounded at their diversity.  To note: I have visited Kyoto twice, once to visit Kiyomizu-dera and shop and once to attend the annual Tsuki-Mi festival.  I have also been to karaoke four times, gone drinking at a middle eastern-style bar, taken purikura (print club photos) and had a birthday party at Sweets Paradise, an extremely pink buffet-style restaurant that specializes in pastries and girls' birthdays. 

These things seem unrelated, but they're not.  They are all part of the tapestry that makes up Japan.  As I see more and more of this wonderful country of neon lights, boy bands and hauntingly beautiful temples, shrines and castles, I hope to learn how they're connected.