POP POP!

Ask any Japanese student what their hobby is, and 9 times out of 10, the response will be "listen to music" (gerunds, it seems, are not in vogue).  With an entire generation sequestered in rooms just sitting there, listening to music, I was curious as to what kinds of tunes were holding them captive.  Based on their responses, it appears that most of them are caught in the sticky sweet web of J-pop and K-pop (J for Japanese, K for Korean).  Oh yes, there is the occasional ode to Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, or Avril Lavigne, but true love is reserved for the likes of Kara, Girls' Generation, EXILE, and AKB48.  The latter two groups are particularly popular; EXILE is a male group 14 performers strong, whose most notable member is named Atsushi.  Atsushi, a self-proclaimed Boyz II Men devotee, is infamous for wearing sunglasses everywhere, making him look more like a poster boy for the yakuza than a boy band.   

Atsushi. From http://item.rakuten.co.jp

AKB48, on the other hand, blows all other ensembles out of the water, with 64 members.  That's right, SIXTY. FOUR.  In fact, I read somewhere that it holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest pop group in existence.  That's not including Aimi Eguchi, AKB's "newest member," who was eventually revealed to be a fictional person, her image actually a mash up of the features of other AKB48 stars, Photoshopped together.

Aimi Eguchi.  From http://www.asianbite.com

Pop music encourages an interesting sociological study into what Japanese people find entertaining, if not attractive.  For the most part, it seems to be androgynous young males (kireo) and young women who are made to look younger than their actual age.  As one of my friends recently wrote to me after discovering an AKB48 video on YouTube: "Felt like it was sexualizing 12 year olds.  Couldn't watch.  Still listening though.  Still horrible."  Also popular are the child performers like Mana Ashida, whose hit "Maru Maru Mori Mori" is ubiquitous.  The trend appears to be that all of these acts exemplify the "cute culture" that is so popular in Japan, even though we as westerners think they are a little weird (be sure not to miss 3:28).

The merchandising for these groups is a fascinating business model.  Clothing, towels, school supplies, cell phones, and even foods are branded with various pop groups.  Need internet service? Sign up for AKB48 internet, and, among other things, you can create a virtual love child with any of the group's 64 members.  Want to ensure that your favorite AKB starlet is included in the main lineup?  You can buy a ticket and vote in the election (or hope that your choice wins in an epic janken, or rock-paper-scissors, match).  

Each year, the English Speaking Society at my high school selects one or two songs to perform in front of the entire student body at our school festival in September.  This year they've outdone themselves with two J-pop numbers, "Share the World," and "The Boys."  If you click on the links, you can hear the songs in their entirety.  I'll say no more about them, but if you do give them a listen, please try to envision me, the other (male) English teacher DL, and a group of (sweet, innocent, awkward and very young) high school girls singing and dancing along.  

GOD WILLING AND THE CREEK DON'T RISE

Greetings from a water-logged Japan.  I'm sure there's an ark floating around here somewhere... We are smack in the middle of tsuyu, or the "rainy season," and yesterday marked the 3rd typhoon we've survived in 11 months.  The weather was so dire that afternoon classes were canceled, prompting a loud cheer to go up throughout the school.  I, however, was feeling less cheerful when I arrived home from school dripping wet and had to wring out all my clothes before hanging them to dry.  On the other hand, this puts into perspective the two-piece maroon rain suit that one of my predecessors bequeathed to me.  

The real vexation of the rainy season is that it has limited my mobility, thus giving me less and less fodder for blog posts.  However, stick with me.  Rainy season has to end some time. On the upside, the hydrangeas are rioting in bloom.

STRANGER DANGER

A few months ago my supervisor suggested that I leave school early so I could "go study Japanese culture."  Wink wink.  Needing no further encouragement, I set off for home, and on the way was approached by a man I've never seen before.  "Are you a foreigner?" he asked me.  This was not a rhetorical question; he waited for me to confirm my gaijin status before he took out a bunch of business cards.  This in and of itself is not unusual- I've had teachers, strangers, even students proffer me their cards before. It's actually quite sophisticated.  But this individual took out his business cards, pointed at the kanji and said, "I am doctor."  I studied him closely.  Late thirties, pronounced limp, at home in the middle of the day wearing jeans and a rugby shirt, with a ring of some yellowish substance caked around his mouth that I don't want to think too hard about.  "Yeah, right" was my first thought.  But because I realized that he was not quite right in the head, I smiled and nodded in an attempt to play along.  A mistake, as it turns out.  It got weird after that.  First he attempted to take my pulse by barely pressing his fingers to my wrist- I suppose to demonstrate his doctor skills.  Then he motioned for me to follow him up the street (which was the way I was walking anyway).  I followed, but when he indicated that I should walk into his house, every after school special from my childhood came flooding back to me in brilliant color.  I firmly told him no and backed away, but not before he made another attempt to take my pulse.  Which I guess is better than being found dead in some guy's bathtub (which happened to a British subject a few years back), but it's still creepy.  I haven't seen the man since, but it shook my conception of Japan as a safe haven, free of the dangers that plague other countries.  

A further reminder on this point occurred last week, when the last two people involved in a deadly sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 were apprehended.  The closing of that chapter seemed to relieve a lot of people, even though we go about our daily lives without any real fear of terrorist attacks or violence.  Most of the "crime" that goes on in Japan is pretty benign: having one's bicycle "borrowed," only to have it turn up again; pick pocketing by teenage hoodlums (they could learn a thing or two from Oliver & company- more often than not they are caught in the act); and underwear thieves.  Yes, this is an actual thing.  JET orientation provides a series of warnings against drying your clothes outside (dryers are unheard of here), for fear that ladies' unmentionables will be pilfered by predatory male weirdos.  One thief was apprehended with something like 100 pairs of underwear that he had taken as trophies.  I guess the one consolation in this is that the underwear are all clean?

LET'S ALL JUST TAKE A MOMENT TO COOL DOWN

Cue the parade! Japan is now nuclear-power free, after having shut down every nuclear-based power plant in the country, as part of measures taken after the big meltdown at Fukushima.  The move may be a good one in the long run, but it couldn't have been more poorly timed.  Power shortages were egregious enough prior to the national shutdown, forcing everyone to ration electricity.  However, there is now real concern about what it will mean this summer, when the temperatures can easily reach 90-95 degrees Farenheit.  It's already hot enough in the mornings to make getting dressed for work unpleasant after having taken a cool shower.  If it gets bad enough, I'm determined to cobble together an outfit of these, professional dress code be damned.  

A couple of fun links related to Fukushima (thanks to the friends who forwarded these): hipsters in Hazmat suits equipped with Geiger counters, and why nuclear meltdowns are like a woman.  


DON'T LOOK, DON'T TOUCH


Shortly after I turned in my notice at my previous job, I received an email from one of the founding partners of the law firm, summoning me to his office.  As a lowly paralegal, I was surprised; the longest conversations we had had until that point involved him stopping me in the hallway to ask if I had ever been windsurfing, and another time, to tell me about his latest vacation to a private island, where Kenny Chesney apparently lives.  However, based on these interactions, we clearly had a lot in common, and I was sure we'd have a lot to talk about during our impromptu meeting.

It turned out that RS wanted to discuss my move to Japan, and to recount to me his days as an associate, during which he lived in Tokyo for a few months while working on a project.  Then the talk turned serious as he said, "Listen, you really need to be careful of Japanese businessmen. I've heard a lot of stories about women, particularly white women, who have been harassed by some of these guys."  I thanked him for his concern, but pointed out that as a school teacher living in the countryside, I probably wouldn't interact with too many Japanese businessmen.  He reiterated the warning a couple of more times, and ended our tete-a-tete by admonishing me for a final time to be careful.  


And guess what? He was right, except that instead of being harassed by Japanese businessmen, I am groped and inspected daily by pretty much everyone at school, but particularly my hormonal high school students.  They play with my hair, measure my waist with their hands.  I've had a couple of students wrap their arms around me, bury their face in my shirt, and take a deep whiff.  "Smell good," they say.  One girl motioned that she thought I was thin.  "You're skinnier than I am!" I told her.  "No!" she shook her head, and then pointed at me and held her hands out in front of her chest, as though something had exploded.  Then there's the commentary: "You have tall nose!" "You have small face!" "Nice body!" "Sexaaaayyyy!"  And those are just the girls.  Earlier this week, I ran into one of my male students on my way to school.  Waiting at a stop light, we started talking, and he kept fingering the sleeve of my shirt, and at one point grazed the side of my torso with the back of his hand.  When the light changed, he looked straight at my chest, said, "Sexy!" and quickly pedaled off on his bike.  DL is not immune either.  Yesterday we were walking out of school together, and he said, "The most inappropriate thing happened to me today.  I walked into one of my classes, and this first year asked me, 'D, do you have big penis?'"  "That's terrible!" I told him.  "I know, right?" he said, "The worst part was that he said it so timidly.  I mean, if you're going to ask me a question like that, at least have the balls ask it confidently!"

The teachers cross the line, too.  The jokes about the male teachers who are "bad men," the comments if I wear a skirt instead of pants one day.  And there's no defense against it, no matter how conservatively I dress.  Maybe it's something about being a piece of meat foreigner.  LAL speculates that foreigners are kind of an outlet for the pent-up longings, because the Japanese think we're so liberal sexually.  However, I don't know of many (if any) foreigner here who is comfortable with these attentions, particularly the really brazen ones.  MB was walking through his class one day, when a female student reached out and pinched his butt.  He was really upset and shaken about the whole thing, and I don't blame him.  Not only is it a gross violation of one's personal space, but it's such a dangerous game.  Luckily, I don't think any adult here would suspect us of being improper with the students, but you can never be too sure.  It also makes our jobs so much more difficult, because when these awkward episodes occur, it makes us check our friendliness, and puts more distance between us and the students.   

Forget the ice suit.  I'm going to start wearing boxes to work.

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

During my parents' recent visit, they had an opportunity to meet the grannies. This was fun for my parents, and therapeutic for the grannies, who now had an opportunity to vent some of their closely-held opinions of me, the nearly-thirty, unmarried foreign woman.  These were the comments that stuck out: 

As I was setting the table for dinner: "Aha! She will make a good wife for someone."

Mr. M to my father: "Bill-san, I have three daughters, and I know how you must feel that she is not married.  You must be very worried." [To my father's everlasting credit, he did not respond to this.]

A DAY IN THE LIFE

It's been gently suggested that I should include more photos of "daily life" in Japan.  So here you go:

Preparing the rice fields.  A family of ducks is loving this right now.

"Thanks Dad"- Japanese dept. store

Shots from a temple behind my house