Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Cheapskates
安 I was out on Saturday for a dear friend's going away party. We started out at a restaurant bar where the beau's friend works because she asked to have it there and he gave us a good all-you-can-drink deal as a favour to me/the beau. I haven't been out with a group of foreigners to any kind of establishment offering all-you-can-drink since I was a student here. I'm not above it, that's not the point, but I don't go out with the aim of getting sloshed anymore and if I do get drunk it's on alcohol that was paid for by the glass not on a how much I can consume in two hours basis.
I should have known things were going to get hectic when the guys started talking about how much they would need to consume to make it worth their 2500 yen (not much) and that because our final destination Muse is pricey, they would need to make the most out of it. Bottom line is I was embarrassed and mortified by the end of it all. There ended up being about 25 of us and there were guys and girls who were ordering 6 drinks at a time! I felt so bad for our bartender friend, I think he was just as surprised as I was. The group was a mix of teachers and visitors to Japan and I understand teachers don't make a whole lot, but there is a difference between pinching pennies and being downright cheapskate gluttons. Maybe I'm turning Japanese but I couldn't believe that despite the fact that they knew the bartender was a friend, they treated him like some lackey at an izakaya ordering several rounds of drinks before the ones they were drinking had even been touched. Maybe it isn't a Japanese-Western thing, maybe it's just you either have social decorum or you don't.
I love my friend but I couldn't believe how things had turned out with her friends and I couldn't apologize enough when I swung by the bar again after dancing at Muse. If you can call it dancing. What happened to having space where you can actually bust a move?! The most I could do on Saturday was bop up and down it was so crowded which frustrated me so much I left early. I hadn't been out dancing in forever and I had so looked forward to a good ass shaking but it just wasn't meant to be. What happened to the days when there was dancing at least once a week?!
That aside I'm not sure what I'm going to do without my friend here. With her down I'm basically at zero again. I have a couple "friends" here but we're not good friends, I can't call them up anytime to hang out and I don't even want to. I find as I go up in my twenties the more I realize who true friends are-the pick up where you left off friends. There will always be friends, acqaintences and people you click with on some level but the real friends are the ones you want to see any time and who you don't have to watch what you say with. It may sound pretentious but I can't help but just write people off who I don't really click with these days-I'd honestly rather spend my time alone than hang out with people just to be around others. I bet you're thinking beggars can't be choosers right? Well even if that is the case I have really learned what it's like to be alone (and lonely sometimes) these last couple of years in Tokyo and I don't mind spending time by myself. Still though, I do see friends together when I'm out and about and can't help but feel envious that I don't have any good friends here. Or I'll meet someone who seems like a potential keeper but they already have friends and don't have room or time for more. That's the thing though, it takes time to become good friends and I don't have that kind of time. It seems adults don't have that kind of time and I keep wondering if I'm ever going to meet someone in Tokyo who I can really call my friend. I need someone now!
I went to school with the friend who is leaving when we were 13/14 and I haven't lived in the same country as her since that time. There is something so special about old friends like that, the ones who knew you at your dorkiest, when you were all awkward and innocent. I saw her again when I was 18 and then last year when she moved to Tokyo. We've been meeting weekly since. I will probably never live in the same country as her again after this, after finally taking for granted us being together again. I'm going to miss you K!!!
Monday, June 23, 2008
When maids harden tighten
I went out on Friday night to Departure Lounge in Azabu-juban (or just Juban to those who have earned the right to call it that) for the first time. It didn't quite live up to my expectations of a lofty place in the sky with plush armchairs and marble bar counters but I'm still glad I checked it out. According to the website the space is supposed to evoke a feeling of being in a top class international airport lounge but it was more just a lounge with high ceilings. But I digress. After having lived in Japan for a while I am somewhat immune to "Engrish" and the confusing wacky phrases littered around the city. On the elevator up into the clouds we passed a restaurant called "harden tighten". You heard me. Upon first glance I thought maybe it was some kind of members-only sex club or something but it seems to be just a regular old restaurant with a titillating name (see my keitai snap above).
And just for fun I though I'd include a photo I took in Akihabara a few weeks ago. The top floor of Yodobashi Camera is a restaurant floor so the beau and I wandered around for about 20 mins before finally deciding on a place. I love restaurant floors but we always have a hard time deciding what to eat because it's like, what if we don't ever come back?! We have to find the best place! Anyway as we were leaving we walked by a restaurant and I spotted a maid's legs through the low window. See the frilly apron? I guess she was on a paid date perhaps? I haven't heard of maids going on paid dates like hostesses but maybe they do, or maybe she freelances...
And just for fun I though I'd include a photo I took in Akihabara a few weeks ago. The top floor of Yodobashi Camera is a restaurant floor so the beau and I wandered around for about 20 mins before finally deciding on a place. I love restaurant floors but we always have a hard time deciding what to eat because it's like, what if we don't ever come back?! We have to find the best place! Anyway as we were leaving we walked by a restaurant and I spotted a maid's legs through the low window. See the frilly apron? I guess she was on a paid date perhaps? I haven't heard of maids going on paid dates like hostesses but maybe they do, or maybe she freelances...
Friday, June 20, 2008
A concubine in nature
I was reading something for work the other day that actually made me laugh (it's been a long week). The passage was going along as normal as can be expected when a new character was introduced: "Tanaka-san's wife (a concubine in nature) appeared at the restaurant..." A concubine in nature?! I immediately contacted the person who had translated it to confirm whether
a) The wife was being slandered for her sexual promiscuousness
b) The wife wasn't actually married to Tanaka-san
c) The wife was an actual kept woman
蓄妾 【ちくしょう】 (n,vs) keeping a mistress (concubine)
This one had me looking twice because the first character contains a kanji used with words having to do with cattle but I'm not sure if there is any connection there.
籠の鳥; 篭の鳥 【かごのとり】 (exp) (1) caged bird; (2) person whose freedom has been restricted (esp. a prostitute, mistress, concubine, etc.)
I had seen the term "caged birds" being used before to refer to courtesans in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters but had forgotten about it until today. I like the image it conjures (not that of indentured slaves but I think the term is fitting).
In cultures with concubinage systems, concubines were basically common-law wives (with the exception of those who were actually slaves) and a few more dictionary searches confirmed this. When I looked up concubine in English, it gave two definitions:
1. Common-law wife
2. Wives other than lawfully wedded wife
Then when I looked up the Japanese for common-law (内縁, naien) which is probably what the translator did, it came up with both common-law and then further down it translated it as concubine (when used in the context of a concubinage system). Still, I'm not sure why the translator thought concubine would be more fitting but at least I got a laugh out of it and have the phrase "a concubine in nature" to add to my arsenal.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
CoCoichi, my love
It's summertime again at Coco壱番屋 (CoCo Ichibanya)! I was in there earlier this week for dinner (classy I know) and saw that they brought back the chicken and summer vegetable curry I've had for the past two summers, ever since the beau introduced me to the CoCoichi goodness.What is the CoCoichi goodness you ask? It's a fantastic Japanese curry house chain gracing the islands of Japan from Hokkaido to Okinawa. When I was a student at uni here I rarely ate Japanese curry-it was OK in a fix but I found it too sweet and thick compared to Indian curry which I could eat every day. But this time around, it has become one my my staples. When the beau first took me to CoCoichi it was summer and their chicken and summer vegetable curry was my gateway curry so to speak. I couldn't believe how much my tastes had matured, this Japanese curry was great!
Japanese curry has grown on me since then and even after eating the 1700 yen curry at Tops in Akasaka, nothing beats CoCoichi's curries which are all around 600-800 yen. It has definitely become one of my Japanese comfort foods, great for colds, great for any time really.
If you haven't been to CoCoichi-go! They have both beef and pork curry bases, with over 25 curry topping varieties including korokke (croquettes), omelets, various chicken/pork/beef katsu fried cutlets, cheese, vegetables, seafood and hambagus. I personally wouldn't recommend the nato curry, nor the fried quail egg curry, but I'm not a huge fan of nato and non-chicken eggs freak me the fuck out. I also saw they have a limited time croquette filled with edamame and potatoes that I will have to try next time. The best part is you can mix and match toppings, change up the spiciness level and choose how much rice you want-it's just magical I tell ya!!
I can't really introduce CoCoichi without mentioning that it is a salaryman haven. Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea and thinks I am introducing gourmet fare, be forewarned. It's gourmet enough for me and you can't beat the price. Unfortunately however, it's basically salaryman fast food which means the inside decor is yellow and brown plastic lit up by fluorescent bulbs. Nice right? And you will rarely see women eating at these joints. When I'm working I'll duck in for a meal but I'll often get it to-go to avoid feeling like I've entered alien territory. There's obviously nothing wrong with salaryman fast food and I personally embrace it, but it can be so depressing sitting in these places, nary another female to be found. I always think Yes!!! Female curry lovers!! on the rare occasion I see another woman eating at CoCoichi.
The beau once pointed out a ramen place in Roppongi to me that has divided its long counter into very small booths so that women will feel more comfortable getting down and dirty with their ramen. I understand that. When I'm out for a meal during work which is more often than not alone, I would love some cheap and nasty salaryman fare but I also don't want to have to rush through my meal so the next guy can sidle up to the counter (I might go so far as to compare it to animals at a trough but without the mess). I also don't like feeling like I'm in a fishbowl as I get that enough at work. I guess that comes at a price doesn't it? At least I still have CoCoichi!
Not quite the Last Word
I keep meaning to write about this article on overbearing Japanese mothers and their sons that was published in Metropolis magazine a few weeks ago but I kept forgetting until I read some letter to the editor responses in this week's issue. In the article entitled The Mother of all Mothers: For Japanese men, dysfunction starts in the cradle, the author C.B. Liddell claims that sexism in Japan and the unrelatability of Japanese men to women is all attributed to their fucked up mothers.
When I got to the end of the article expecting at least a punchy ending, it just sort of fizzled out . I will be the first one to rant about messed up male-female relationships in Japan and the cult of the Japanese housewife, but this article was over the top and completely out of touch. Yes, there are mama's boys in Japan but who doesn't know at least one in countries other than Japan?! Not only that but Liddell fails to even touch on the fact that part of Japan's population problem is attributed to more women working, marrying later and deciding not to have children, if not much later in life than earlier generations. So where are all these crazy housewives? He doesn't even qualify what generation he is making these sweeping generalizations about either, so he's still not off the hook.
Even if Liddell is drawing his examples from the countryside, I don't think there is even a dividing line between city and country anymore. Take for example, the beau's mom. She is of the baby boomer generation and definitely lives in the country, has worked full time her whole adult life and raised three boys at the same time. (This is however, vastly different to her and her husband's parents who both had 9 or 10 kids!!!) The beau and his brothers were taught to pitch in around the house, folding laundry and getting the rice cooked before she got home from work, and none of them appear to have strange residual mommy issues. So his mom wasn't a housewife, but I really don't think that's the only factor contributing to socially inept men here. I could be reading too much into it, but how convenient is it to blame the problems of these grown men on women? Why look at these problems as the product of a particular society when you can blame them on the women, many of whom are housewives because society dictates that is what they should aspire to?!
For Liddell to say "This whole unbalanced society-from the drunks on the last train to the ridiculous caricatures of women called hostesses to the lonely housewives slowly going dotty over their morose, 'fatherless' kids-all goes back to one source: the Japanese mother" is not only a stretch but makes me think maybe Liddell has a personal vendetta against not only Japanese mothers and women, but Japanese men too. Why not also talk about how women contribute to messed up male-female relationships in Japan? Liddell lists the rigorous schedule the hypothetical Japanese boy embarks on from the age of 2 but what about the hypothetical Japanese girl? She gets music lessons and is sent to juku cram schools too, so why all the mother bashing when it only relates to Japanese men?
In his off-the-mark article Liddell launches a two-pronged attack on both Japanese mothers and Japanese men which not only incensed me but many other readers, judging by the letters to the editor. What he writes offends both Japanese men and women, who are shown to be respectively meek and tyrannical. The writer really cocked up what could have been an interesting and insightful article and instead of shedding light on the issue, simply reinforced some much traversed cultural stereotypes. I vote him off the island!
When I got to the end of the article expecting at least a punchy ending, it just sort of fizzled out . I will be the first one to rant about messed up male-female relationships in Japan and the cult of the Japanese housewife, but this article was over the top and completely out of touch. Yes, there are mama's boys in Japan but who doesn't know at least one in countries other than Japan?! Not only that but Liddell fails to even touch on the fact that part of Japan's population problem is attributed to more women working, marrying later and deciding not to have children, if not much later in life than earlier generations. So where are all these crazy housewives? He doesn't even qualify what generation he is making these sweeping generalizations about either, so he's still not off the hook.
Even if Liddell is drawing his examples from the countryside, I don't think there is even a dividing line between city and country anymore. Take for example, the beau's mom. She is of the baby boomer generation and definitely lives in the country, has worked full time her whole adult life and raised three boys at the same time. (This is however, vastly different to her and her husband's parents who both had 9 or 10 kids!!!) The beau and his brothers were taught to pitch in around the house, folding laundry and getting the rice cooked before she got home from work, and none of them appear to have strange residual mommy issues. So his mom wasn't a housewife, but I really don't think that's the only factor contributing to socially inept men here. I could be reading too much into it, but how convenient is it to blame the problems of these grown men on women? Why look at these problems as the product of a particular society when you can blame them on the women, many of whom are housewives because society dictates that is what they should aspire to?!
For Liddell to say "This whole unbalanced society-from the drunks on the last train to the ridiculous caricatures of women called hostesses to the lonely housewives slowly going dotty over their morose, 'fatherless' kids-all goes back to one source: the Japanese mother" is not only a stretch but makes me think maybe Liddell has a personal vendetta against not only Japanese mothers and women, but Japanese men too. Why not also talk about how women contribute to messed up male-female relationships in Japan? Liddell lists the rigorous schedule the hypothetical Japanese boy embarks on from the age of 2 but what about the hypothetical Japanese girl? She gets music lessons and is sent to juku cram schools too, so why all the mother bashing when it only relates to Japanese men?
In his off-the-mark article Liddell launches a two-pronged attack on both Japanese mothers and Japanese men which not only incensed me but many other readers, judging by the letters to the editor. What he writes offends both Japanese men and women, who are shown to be respectively meek and tyrannical. The writer really cocked up what could have been an interesting and insightful article and instead of shedding light on the issue, simply reinforced some much traversed cultural stereotypes. I vote him off the island!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Puffy-Eyed Geisha
I almost bought a dog the other night. If the credit card company had agreed to split the payment into two as is common practice here, I would have a sweet little mini-dachs sitting at home and waiting for me. I already named her too. She was already in a carrying case ready to be whisked out the door, past closing time, when my card wouldn't go through. We couldn't use the beau's either because of the plane tickets. So we said we would come back right at opening the next day to pay in cash and pick her up. And we really did plan to pick her up and named her Choco on the taxi ride home after her brown dappled coat.
How did it all go wrong? Even as I handed over my card the bells in my head were ringing. I have no problem with commitment but to commit to taking care of an animal for a decade? I want to travel and be able to come and go at this point in my life without worrying about where the dog is going to stay. I would not be prone to become a dog person, someone who treats the dog like their baby and can't do anything without thinking about the dog. Which is actually unfair to the pet isn't it? Why should I buy one if I'm not willing to make it the center of my universe? What am I going to do when we leave Japan? So many questions as to not seem like the best of ideas, and I still handed over my card. I looked over at the beau and asked him if he was thinking clearly-we'd only had a couple drinks and can both handle our alcohol but what we were about to do seemed a bit loopy.
We had started with a great evening sitting outside at Orange at Midtown, eating organic corn soup and Cajun-spiced lobster. Then we swung by a nearby bar to see if our friend the bartender was there and had a couple drinks before going to the pet shop. Everyone knows this pet shop. Anyone who has been to Roppongi has probably been inside this pet shop. Horrible lighting and small pathetic cages, cheap incense to mask the smell of piss. If you go upstairs it gets more exotic and smelly and there are monkeys and reptiles for sale. The beau and I had visited many times but always said we would buy a dog from a better, less-dodgy shop IF we ever got one. But that night we met Choco who had eyes for me only and decided to take her home on the spot.
After getting home sans Choco I started to backtrack and as much as I wanted that dog, I knew that ultimately my life would be a lot less complicated without her. I then proceeded to have a major fight with the beau that was non-dog-related. I ultimately believe that people are people regardless of their nationality/culture/whatever but sometimes I have a hard time deciphering whether certain aspects of the beau are male or Japanese. Not that I could change any regardless of which one they are, but sometimes it would be nice to know how to better interpret them.
Are we absolutely fucking crazy to move overseas in the future? Not only does my lovely beau have no English, but no college degree either. Certainly not impossible but bloody hard for the first few years and that's providing we don't kill each other in the process. He is ready to move with me no matter what but I worry the pressure of it all is going to do irreparable damage. So I carry this guilt that despite the fact that living here is "easier" I am making us take the most difficult road, which will most definitely not let up until several years into it. Somewhere between the arguing and the crying I said that no, of course we aren't going to pick Choco up tomorrow.
My eyes were so swollen and alienesque the following day I had to go into work late so as not to scare people. I have never cried as much as I have these past couple years in Japan. This country makes me cry and I resent not having such a thing as sick days at work, to be able to stay home all by myself on those shitty shitty days that come around a few times a year, and do all those things that you do on sick days and rainy days. This time I will have to rely on practising kitsuke, tying obi knots over and over again to calm me down.
How did it all go wrong? Even as I handed over my card the bells in my head were ringing. I have no problem with commitment but to commit to taking care of an animal for a decade? I want to travel and be able to come and go at this point in my life without worrying about where the dog is going to stay. I would not be prone to become a dog person, someone who treats the dog like their baby and can't do anything without thinking about the dog. Which is actually unfair to the pet isn't it? Why should I buy one if I'm not willing to make it the center of my universe? What am I going to do when we leave Japan? So many questions as to not seem like the best of ideas, and I still handed over my card. I looked over at the beau and asked him if he was thinking clearly-we'd only had a couple drinks and can both handle our alcohol but what we were about to do seemed a bit loopy.
We had started with a great evening sitting outside at Orange at Midtown, eating organic corn soup and Cajun-spiced lobster. Then we swung by a nearby bar to see if our friend the bartender was there and had a couple drinks before going to the pet shop. Everyone knows this pet shop. Anyone who has been to Roppongi has probably been inside this pet shop. Horrible lighting and small pathetic cages, cheap incense to mask the smell of piss. If you go upstairs it gets more exotic and smelly and there are monkeys and reptiles for sale. The beau and I had visited many times but always said we would buy a dog from a better, less-dodgy shop IF we ever got one. But that night we met Choco who had eyes for me only and decided to take her home on the spot.
After getting home sans Choco I started to backtrack and as much as I wanted that dog, I knew that ultimately my life would be a lot less complicated without her. I then proceeded to have a major fight with the beau that was non-dog-related. I ultimately believe that people are people regardless of their nationality/culture/whatever but sometimes I have a hard time deciphering whether certain aspects of the beau are male or Japanese. Not that I could change any regardless of which one they are, but sometimes it would be nice to know how to better interpret them.
Are we absolutely fucking crazy to move overseas in the future? Not only does my lovely beau have no English, but no college degree either. Certainly not impossible but bloody hard for the first few years and that's providing we don't kill each other in the process. He is ready to move with me no matter what but I worry the pressure of it all is going to do irreparable damage. So I carry this guilt that despite the fact that living here is "easier" I am making us take the most difficult road, which will most definitely not let up until several years into it. Somewhere between the arguing and the crying I said that no, of course we aren't going to pick Choco up tomorrow.
My eyes were so swollen and alienesque the following day I had to go into work late so as not to scare people. I have never cried as much as I have these past couple years in Japan. This country makes me cry and I resent not having such a thing as sick days at work, to be able to stay home all by myself on those shitty shitty days that come around a few times a year, and do all those things that you do on sick days and rainy days. This time I will have to rely on practising kitsuke, tying obi knots over and over again to calm me down.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Part 2: Risk of looking like a lady of the night
やはりえもんを多めに抜くと商売っぽくなりがちですね. I mistakenly left this line at the bottom of the previous post without explaining it. As I was trolling the net for information on the degrees to which the collar of a kimono can/should be pulled down, I found a note in a Japanese blog about it. The author said that when walking in the Ginza one evening they saw a young lady whose back collar was shockingly low. Apparently it had been pulled down to just above the "mountain top of her drum-knot". Scandalous!
This is of course, similar to how a maiko would wear hers. Or even a geisha when wearing her kimono in a certain style. However, the young lady spotted in the Ginza was neither maiko nor geisha, and the author mentions that she didn't even have her hair up! The story finishes up with the line above which basically means, if you pull your collar down quite far you will have a tendency to look like someone in the business. Call me crazy but I think it's hot.
Back to the website I mentioned below. According to its author, this is the breakdown of pulling down your collar:
The amount one separates her collar from her neck is a way to express individuality and personality, and depending on the type of kimono being worn, there is criteria for each level. [[[Seems a bit contradictory to me but OK.]]]
Brides: pull down to the extent you can see the back.
Young unmarried women in furisode (kimono with long swinging sleeves): the amount exposed should be the size of one fist (approx. 10-11cm). [[[To put this in perspective, geisha and maiko are said to pull theirs down about two fist sizes.]]]
Formal kimono such as black crested tomesode or houmongi: about four fingers should be able to fit (approx. 7-8cm).
The site then explains that when wearing everyday kimono, the general rule is "not to pull it down too far". In other words, you can pull it down as far as three fingers will fit (5-6cm max), as illustrated by the photo in my previous post. The author then hammers home that anywhere from 3-6cm is the range to aim for because if one pulls the collar down too far, it will look sexy and erotic. "The impression that you are setting out for night work" is how it is put. Just in case we still don't understand the site states, "even if you can't tell yourself, it is very noticeable to other people, so when you dress please check yourself in a mirror".
What's interesting is that one would normally think formal equals less neck, but according to this guide, it's the everyday kimono that requires the least neck. Perhaps this is because with the various types of formal kimono (including bridal wear and furisode), you can usually tell what kind of place the woman is going. But with an everyday kimono, well, you could end up looking like a street walker. Plus, these days there are not many young unmarried women running about in everyday kimono, which leaves old, married women (by old we are talking past mid-twenties) and no one wants to see a married woman looking like a whore, right?
With that knowledge now imparted, I better make the most of my twenties! And not just with the back collar. My sensei told me last week that because I am still young (phew) I can get away with showing more of my white under collar under the front fold of my kimono. Even if people do think I've been sold into the white slave trade, I will continue to pull down my collar because let's face it, kimono look so much better with a bit of neck showing. As parting wisdom and encouragement, the collar site says "as you become accustomed to wearing kimono you will come to understand how far your collar should be pulled down. Then, your individuality will come out".
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