Even more than Singapore, Japan is filled with signs telling everyone to do everything. At a small neighborhood temple, I encountered a sign showing a round-eyed schoolgirl in uniform, and instructions on "How to worship." Written in both English and Japanese, they weren't just meant for ignorant foreigners, "1. Bow twice. 2. Clap your hands twice and pray. 3. Bow once more." At subway stations, there are elaborate charts showing which numbered car to get into to make your particular transfer the easiest. Near apartments blocks filled with old people, large signs encourage you to say hello and smile at the old farts to cheer them up. Sidewalks are pasted with warnings against smoking in public. Hotel lobbies forbid the use of cellphones. Has there ever been a more anal society?
In Vietnam, on the other hand, rules and boundaries are often never acknowledged or ignored, so everything blurs and blends. Very well-traveled, with three years in Africa and one in India, Samson has visited Vietnam three times. Like me, he likes to wander aimlessly, so once found himself in an alley, where he sat down at a restaurant table. Only after minutes did a woman appear to give him a cup of tea.
"I'd like a menu, please," he asked, but she looked surprised.
"Yes, a menu, please."
She laughed, "This no restaurant. This, house!"
Every state uses its educational system to indoctrinate, and in Japanese schools, kids are forced to form human pyramids, as high as ten tiers, a practice that each year causes more than 8,000 injuries requiring insurance payments. On her phone, Mieko Kawakami showed me image after image of children perilously stacked. From 1969 to 2016, there were actually nine deaths from kumitaiso, but to infuse unity and a sense of collective achievement, it persists, to the disgust and anguish of many parents.
Check out Kyary Pamyu Pamyu in her music video, "Candy Candy," sung in infantile English. At the beginning, she runs, most bizarrely, with a piece of toast in her mouth, past a row of suburban houses, with their parked cars, manicured shrubs and kids' sporting equipment. With her huge pink hairbow, strawberry colored hair and a pale pink and purple skirt that resembles an upside down lotus, deifying her nether regions, she's a kawaii fantasy streaking through drab and uniform normalcy.
In Osaka, middle-aged women are known for their short curls and preference for clothing with the spots, stripes or face of their favorite big cat, but in four days of roaming the city, from its lowest to most chichi neighborhoods, I encountered only a single cheetah or tiger fashionista. Hopefully, this regional distinctiveness is not fading. Roar on, Osaka oba-chan!
To the amusement of my Japanese friends, I kept returning to Jonathan's, a chain restaurant, for there I found an evocation of a much gentler and cheesier America. Many dishes were Japanese spins on American comfort food. Bathed in bright lights and muzak, I happily ate hamburger patty smothered in demi-glace, roast beef kissed with a mild horseradish, fried chicken, potato wedges, french fries, corn and spaghetti, the last prepared with salmon roe, scallops and seaweed. The Coke, 7-up and punch flowed endlessly at the drink bar. I felt returned to a much improved version of my school cafeteria in Tacoma, Washington. There was a curious offering called "doria," which turned out to be a rice gratin, topped in this instance by four Hiroshima oysters. Yum, yum, yum. Near the cash register was a selection of cheap toys, and the plastic coffee cups came in baby blue, pink and yellow.
Perhaps because so much has been lost, nostalgia, even for someone else's past, is a strong undercurrent in Japan. One manifestation of this is the pervasive cult of childhood, when all doors are supposedly still open. In his crisp, well-tailored suit, a virginal salaryman stares at the soft porn dancing girls while colored lights flash and hundreds of metal pellets bounce downward. Though with the world on his shoulders, he's still a child.
(Article changed on December 14, 2018 at 01:40)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
2
1
