Japanese Observances: The Revenge

Nothing Says Individuality Like A Pink Hello Kitty Tassel
Should you happen to pay a visit to Japan you will notice that thousands of Japanese men and women, regardless of age (although mainly teens), educational background (although mainly highschool kids) or religious beliefs (although mainly…errr…Jedis…well, two out of three ain’t bad, isn’t that right, Meat Loaf?) will be walking on a slight slant. I assure you this has nothing to do with the construction of the sidewalks or the latest V8 advertising campaign (do they still do that bit anymore?)but has everything to do with appeasing the Great Beast Keitai Denwa. Here in Japan you are not judged by your wealth, fame or how much land you own. It is not the car you drive, the size of your home or the how large the screen of your television set is. The clothes don’t make you here so just turn right around from that GAP and Banana Republic because you could just as well be scrounging around the rickety bins of the neighborhood Sally Ann. But away your diamond earrings, Mrs. Trump, they will do you no good hear. I see you are eating caviar and wine from the 1600s. I’m sure it’s all quite exquisite but if you are trying to impress the Japanese, sir, I can assure that they could care less. No, sir, what makes you rich in the eyes of the Japanese, what instills upon you an aura of greatness, my friends, is how much crap you have dangling off your cell phones. No joke. Come now, have I ever lead you astray before? Okay, fine, have I done so this week? With the out of control cell phone culture that has attacked Japan like a fourteen-year-old will attack the Maxim magazine he finds under his older brother’s mattress it brings with it the options to accessorize and boy howdy, the Japanese like to make cell phone accessory statements. What you will find dangling from the antenna of these phones will be collections of charms that define the individual either by showcasing their favorite cartoon character or their strange infatuation with the color teal. These things are like cell phone earrings. I suppose in many ways I can see why the Japanese school kids (for the most part) adorn their keitais with such elaborate festoonery. Here we have a group forced into uniforms where they spend the better part of their young lives looking just like everybody else. When their first phone is bestowed upon to them, an event not unlike, say, a Bar Mitzvah, these kids will attach three, four and I swear folks I have seen up to twenty charms and trinkets to personalize one of the few items that they can. Medium sized stuffed animals can even be seen dangling from these phones. Cell phone attachments are found in shopping centers and connivance stores and can carry quite the cost but this does not seem to burden the Japanese who I’ve seen gathered around these charms in careful calculation of their purchase. Riding the train for the first few weeks here I thought how strange it was to be hearing wind-chimes but it was really the sound of these charms jingle jangling creating a soft musical symphony with the rumble of the train. Again, this fad is mainly carried on by teens but every so often I will have to stifle a burst of laughter as I bear witness to an 80-year-old woman gingerly removing a cell phone from her purse that has about 75 Hello Kitty charms, looking very much like the tassels found on graduation caps only, you know, with a Hello Kitty in some kooky costume, hanging from it. I really do believe the amount of dazzle you can create with these charms and cell phone collectibles defines your social statues and can make and break careers. I have not seen him yet but I am sure if the Prime Minister were to pull out his phone there dangling from it would be several golden Snoopy, Chip ‘n Dale and Stitch trinket as extensions of his power. Really, how do these people manage to keep upright or even lift the phone to their ears. This is the very reason they invented Bluetooth Headsets! Some of these kids have to be very careful as a trinket or two more and they might find themselves with torn tendons in their wrists. Somebody could make a business here out of cell phone aerobic work out videos and clubs. There I go again, giving my ideas away for nothing.

Joe Elliot Wants His Wardrobe Back
Speaking of fashion there is another trend here in Japan that evokes an age long faded in the memory of many. It was a time when legends walked the earth. A time when the days were simpler and you could go to the picture show for only five bucks and still have enough money for a chocolate shake and a piece of warm blueberry pie from a waitress with purple hair who smiles when you say she can keep the change. I, of course, am talking about the 80s! Oh, the 80s. The foppish, self indulgent 80s. How can one not look upon a decade of such loony decadence and not find a little spot of nostalgia to latch onto within yourself? The Japanese are choosing to keep the fires of that generation burning…at least in their lower extremities. Let me make something clear, the Japanese are very up to date on the current fashion trends. In fact, they are probably the most stylish of people you could find outside of Beverly Hills. The women walk in heels the size of the Petronas Tower but skirts that would be invisible if they were any shorter. You will find these ladies carrying quaint little handbags and then men bedecked in designer clothes and overpriced sunglasses like their Western counterparts. The radio mixes in the atrocious sounds of American Top 40 with the equally atrocious sounds of Japanese Top 40 and all around me on the trains you will find people cuddling the latest technological gizmo of choice. Yet if you happen to be able to divert your eyes from the olive skinned beauty near the train door (oh lord, how hard it is to not look like a creepy stalking Mormon in the presence of such beauties) and if you glance down you will see a fashion trend gone the way of the dinosaur, the dodo and the career of Michael Jackson. Yes, those are indeed ripped jeans. I remember when ripped jeans became all the rage sometime in the mid-80s when the Glam metal bands and pop groups started sporting them. Soon we were all engrossed by the Rend Your Wardrobe Culture and much to the disdain of our parents we were tearing up our jeans with scissors and butter knifes in an attempting to emulate our idols…our Billy Idols. Man, sometimes, as a grown man, I just want to Rock The Cradle of Love and I don’t care who sees me. Sigh, but the cradle of love don’t rock easy. Is it so wrong to be Dancing With Myself? Really, ripped jeans were sort of silly looking back upon it now. Honestly, we were only wearing half a pair of pants there but somehow we enjoyed having less and would endure the frigid ventilation in the winter months because somehow the holes in our jeans made us cooler than a Häagen-Dazs in Antarctica. I was never so bold to go all the way when it came to tearing up my clothing in the name of high fashion because I knew after seeing the video for Pour Some Sugar On Me there was no way anybody was to out-hole the jeans of Joe Elliot. Half a pair of pants and half a drummer, Def Leppard were the catapult of the craze and soon one could find large fashion graveyards of torn denim in the closets of youth Nation Wide as they all made their attempt to “step inside” and “walk this way”. I never did understand ripping the pocket of your jeans because you just totally decimated the pocket purpose. Now where were you going to put your hockey cards, genius? The Japanese, like I did, do not go the Full Elliot and only tend to have selected rips and tears but they are keeping the dream alive and somewhere Joe, the originator, is smiling in his tattered Levis.

Line-ups Schmime-ups!
Today I was nearly worked up into a red-hot fit of line-rage! Actually, no, this was not line-rage. Line-rage is what was experienced by inpatient jackasses back at the video store who couldn’t wait five minutes to pay their ever important cable bill because they were illegally parked outside and were fearing the long ticketing arm of the law. It was such a joy to count the veins growing ever larger in their pulsating necks as the seconds ticketed away. No, what I felt deep down inside me a’bubbling crude was anger, furry that is, vehemence, better called a Lack-of-line-rage. There seems to be no standards set here for lineups and it is a huge annoyance at the train ticket booths as there I stand behind the person currently popping quarters into the machine in what is already a pitiful attempt at a line. This zigzag of people weaves as you wait because everybody just leaps in front of everybody else to get to the ticket machines. People will just step in front of you as though you were Claude Rains or something. You half to keep making tiny motions towards the machines because if you don’t budge within half a second of the person vacating the ticket booth you will be usurped. If the machine next to you opens up you are not let through but sniped. You have to move fast, like trying to merge on the highway, as these people will crawl through your legs to get to these machines before you. It doesn’t just end there. Although the voice above asks us all to wait in two lines for the train doors to open everybody just clutters there on the platform and charge onto the trains as the people trying to get off push against the flow of soon to be passengers. Again, the Japanese continue to leave me flabbergasted by their contradictions because they are perfectly willing to wait at street crosswalks for the lights to change. Even if there are no cars for miles if that light does not say walk (and some of them actually do SAY walk) they are statues on the corner waiting for the colors to change. Try to get them to be this diligent in their ticket machine purchases, though. Velvet ropes, folks. Velvet ropes can change the world.

Badges? Badges? We Don't Need Your Stinking Badges! But We'll Take Those Yellow Hats, Though
I mentioned the school uniforms already in a previous installment of this ever-popular series but failed to reference the pins you can find on these uniforms. Some of my kids will come to class still in their school outfits, the girls looking like Sailor Scouts ready to do battle with Queen Beryl, and once in awhile they will have some kind of pin or ribbon on their lapel. At first I thought it was a sort of award given for, well, I don’t know punctuality, mathematical proficiency or amount of ninjas killed in a single outing…whatever they give awards for here. But these ribbons and badges represent the school or age level they are in. Okay, I understand this one now. Good. Great. But what the hell is up with the multicolored hats? These caps are for the wee kids and I have seen them in blue, pink, red and yellow and I deduce they also represent your age or school but I think a better explanation might be the kids are dressed in these bright colors so that they can be easily recognized in the crowds during class outings not to mention the simplicity of organization. Okay, all the yellow heads to the left and all the pink heads to the right. They come complete with matching coats and when the yellow groups are about they resemble a gaggle of ducklings complete with waddle. It really is quite adorable when you come across these colorful kids as they look like Asian Cabbage Patch dolls that fell into a vat of paint.