[CLOSED] Another newbie reporter "discovers" Japan

[maraboutslim]

Meet the Harajuku girls: they dress like Lolitas and love their labels - and now is their moment.

I kind of scanned this one but it didn't seem too bad. But it could have been written anytime in the last ten years! A few names would change and that's it. for example, those goth lolita chicks were 'last year's big story for the Harajuku teens' like eight to ten years ago. it's all old and it's just remarkable that there are enough new people pouring in from the inaka to think of it as new and worth doing....over and over and over again...and then reporters to write about it.

-Slim (who once wrote a piece on the end of harajuku hokoten for Raygun magazine...)

[Captain Japan]

[Mulboyne]

Hereinside blog quotes another board but the link has expired

well ive heard the term metrosexual thrown around a lot lately.. i first heard it used by tyler brule to describe the target audience for *wallpaper*... he said that it is someone, who whether straight or gay, leads an urban glamorous lifestyle... i think it has a lot to do with a blurring of boundaries... both sexually and geographically. the idea of the metrosexual is also one about having more in common with say someone in fukuoka japan than even ur next door neighbour... its a global jetsetting lifestyle...

[Captain Japan]

An original "newbie"...
The Japanese aesthetic
Chicago Sun-Times

Anyone who has traveled to Japan has come away impressed by the orderly nature of Japanese society. Such symmetry would inspire Frank Lloyd Wright after he first set sail for Japan on Valentine's Day, 1905.

Leaving his six children behind, Wright and wife Catherine went to Japan with his clients Cecelia and Ward Willits of Highland Park. They embarked from Vancouver, B.C., on the Empress of China, and returned to Oak Park on May 14, 1905.

Deeply inspired, Wright then began work on Unity Temple, now considered one of his crowning achievements. A Japanese influence can be found in the temple's asymmetrical layout and architectural details, including its hanging lamps, woodwork and windows (which resemble ramma, perforated ventilation panels over sliding screens). Some historians suggest that Unity Temple was inspired by the Toshogu Temple, which Wright saw when he stopped in Nikko....the rest...

[Mulboyne]

The UK Independent has done a guide to Japan. Not terrible but I did notice this in the article on London's Japanese restaurants
Go Easy on the Wasabi

Consider the case of Nobu Matsuhisha, perhaps the most famous Japanese chef and restaurateur in the world, whose New York-London-Milan-Malibu chain, part owned by Robert De Niro, is the expensive eatery of choice for stars with love affairs they wish to publicise. When he started, Nobu used to offer gaijin (foreigners) pure Japanese food, but it was commercial suicide; foreign palates needed a bit of East-West fusion to ease them into the ways of Japanese cuisine. Transport one of Nobu's European or American restaurants back to Tokyo intact and it would raise Japanese eyebrows. Wealthy Japanese would not baulk at paying a fortune for top-quality dining, but they would decline to pay this much for what, to purists, is a vulgarised smorgasbord. Sushi and tepannyaki on the same menu? You might as well marry pâté de foie gras to chicken korma.

Nobu has been here for some years now
A Fast Track Travel Plan
Something Japanese to Declare
The Traveller's Guide to Eating In Japan
Tofu Soup for the Soul
Sumo Sustenance
Living the City High Life
Tsukiji Fish Market
Paradise with a Dark Side
Quality not Quantity
When to Stand on Ceremony

[Samurai_Jerk]

Transport one of Nobu's European or American restaurants back to Tokyo intact and it would raise Japanese eyebrows.
Nobu has been here for some years now

But is it "intact"?

[Taro Toporific]

Yes, those funny Japanese eat seaweed: No-way-Jose' does seaweed make up 10% of their diet.
Everybody knows that a balanced Japanese diet consists of: one third caffeine, one third tobacco, and one third Cup-o-Death Ramen(tm).

Kelp may cut cancer risk
Knight Ridder News, February 9, 2005 - 12:54 am
... In Japan, where brown kelp seaweed makes up about 10 percent of the diet, women have lower rates of breast cancer than in the United States. ... ...more...

[goldenboy_ge]

Great stories!

[Samurai_Jerk]

Kelp may cut cancer risk
Knight Ridder News, February 9, 2005 - 12:54 am
... In Japan ... women have lower rates of breast cancer than in the United States.

You can't get breast cancer if you don't have breasts.

[Charles]

You can't get breast cancer if you don't have breasts.

I have bad news for you: even men can get breast cancer.

[L S]

Kelp may cut cancer risk
Knight Ridder News, February 9, 2005 - 12:54 am
... In Japan ... women have lower rates of breast cancer than in the United States.

You can't get breast cancer if you don't have breasts.

I had heard breast cancer was rare here, so I was shocked when my good friend who is a 36yr J-girl had to have mastectomy b/c of it recently. Maybe she fits into that small percentage but I am guessing more young J-girls will have more risk as they give up nori for McD.

[gomichild]

Breast cancer - the thing is that you just don't know - I'm only 33 but still get checked every year - the reason - checks can't hurt.

One issue with cancer is you really don't know - sure they are factors that can contribute - but even so it can sometimes just happen. Considering my experiences of late it's less to do with enivronmental factors and more with just bad luck.

[L S]

Breast cancer - the thing is that you just don't know - I'm only 33 but still get checked every year - the reason - checks can't hurt.

One issue with cancer is you really don't know - sure they are factors that can contribute - but even so it can sometimes just happen. Considering my experiences of late it's less to do with enivronmental factors and more with just bad luck.

You are right...it's smart to get checked even at young age, but I don't think that is engrained into J-girls here. It's like gynecological exams here....a lot of J-girls have never been. It blows me away. .....little off thread ne...

[gomichild]

Most people in companies have to get fully checked out every year for health insurance at least once a year. This is maybe not a bad thing.

[FG Lurker]

Most people in companies have to get fully checked out every year for health insurance at least once a year. This is maybe not a bad thing.

The checks are pretty cursory though, especially for those under 40. It seems once you pass 40 companies tend to shell out more cash for a better exam.

[Captain Japan]

Sex is far from taboo
Shepparton News

They have a lot of sex in Japan.

It's not something they boast about, but they certainly don't hide it either.

I'm not just talking about having a good shag or any controversial sexcapades by the celebrated few (there is plenty of that), but a seemingly openminded national disposition towards the very act that brought us all here.

In Tokyo's neon-driven sprawl, sex is literally flashed at you on every corner.

The famed and widespread "love hotel" establishments let you take a "rest" for a couple of hours with your partner for about $50 in the interior design of your choice - log cabins, beach bungalows, Hello Kitty playgrounds, mirrored palaces to name a few.

It's not taboo to frequent them, just convenient.

In a place like Tokyo where space is at a premium, the luxury of real privacy can sometimes only be bought, and the price of a love hotel is far cheaper than the alternatives.

Once you live there for a while, love hotels become just another creation meant to make life easier - nothing more, nothing less....the rest...

[Mulboyne]

[American Oyaji]

what do you mean by jacks it in?

[Mulboyne]

what do you mean by jacks it in?

Gives up writing the column

Jack in: Slang Verb. Stop doing (something). E.g."I'm going to jack in my college course after the vacation, it's too much like hard work."

[tatsujin]

South African rugby player Jaco van der Westhuyzen starts his new column from Chiba in Japan:
iafrica.com: Welcome to Chiba

Contrary to what you may think, the food in Japan is excellent &#8212]

I said I would report back on the Shinkansen experience, and what an experience it was! Travelling between 200 and 300 kilometres an hour is quite an experience, but what impressed me more was the luxury we were travelling in. It was almost like flying first class in British Airways!

I give this column three of four more weeks before he jacks it in.

I love the fresh-faced rosiness of these newbie-in-Japan pieces - having read this who could resist going?

I wonder is there any columns out there from FGs who have lived in Japan for a few years?

Then again, I suppose it could be argued this forum is one giant column

[Ketou]

what do you mean by jacks it in?

Gives up writing the column

Jack in: Slang Verb. Stop doing (something). E.g."I'm going to jack in my college course after the vacation, it's too much like hard work."

One can also get jack of something.

Or, someone can be a jack bastard.

[Samurai_Jerk]

[FG Lurker]

A trip to Japan
The East Carolinian, March 3, 2005

The island of Japan has all the elements one would love in an exhilarating vacation: beautiful country, bustling cities, friendly people and an attitude that prefers to enjoy life instead of rushing through it. One of the greatest wonders of the land across the Pacific is that when you arrive, you will be surrounded by a lot of people who cannot speak your language, but you will still feel their kindness and be treated with respect and courtesy.

[...]

Traveling in Japan is probably the second-most exciting adventure of the trip, second to the food, because of many ways to get around. [...] However, if you want to go somewhere far away, you can take the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train, which can reach speeds of up to 100 miles per hour but keep the ride quiet and smooth. Many bullet trains even have a quiet car specifically designated for people to sleep in. An all-day pass for five days costs barely 300 yen and individual fares can go as low as 20 yen depending on location.

(Full Story)

Yeeeeah, 300yen for 5 days on the Shinkansen. I think he needs to learn how to use a calculator... The whole story is a rather eye-rolling affair.

[Mulboyne]

The island of Japan has...friendly people and an attitude that prefers to enjoy life instead of rushing through it

This is a remarkable comment

So, of the 100,000 yen you've brought, you probably spent around 20,000 of it living in Japan for two days. With the other 80,000, you can buy a lot of souvenirs for your friends back at home.

It becomes apparent that the journalist spent his time hanging out with the homeless

[Ketou]

Or, more than likely, he has never come here.

[Captain Japan]

Arriving in Japan
Deborah Lea

Scarcely more than a week after my law school graduation, I boarded a plane for Japan with two suitcases and a backpack. Never much skilled in the art of "advanced planning," I had spent that last week stateside trying to fit my life into those bags and a few boxes. That which did not fit in either was set out on the curb for passing neighbors to peruse. That I couldn't bear to part with was packed into three well-worn boxes.

Labeling those boxes was incredibly exciting to me. I wasn't simply sending them to Japan. I was sea-mailing them to a future version of myself - one who would, I hoped, on receipt of the boxes have already settled comfortably into a life I couldn't then imagine the boundaries of. What, I wondered, would the rooms I opened those boxes in look like? Would six or eight weeks be enough time to forget what I'd packed and be surprised by my old, life, to feel distanced from it? I had so many questions, and was thrilled by the thought of so soon living out their answers.

I remember little of the flight, my eleven hours between worlds, but gratefully recall the assistance of a Japanese-descended Angeleno who helped me sort out my entry into Japan. After I quickly but confusedly cleared Immigration, this young man helped me ship my luggage from the airport to my new home and saw me down to the subway where I first became acquainted with the Japanese rail system. My initial destination was a youth hostel in Azabu-Juban. It was cheap and well reviewed, more than enough to sell me on it, if I could only find it....the rest...

[Captain Japan]

Here's some pretty choice stuff...

The oppressive gray reminded me almost pleasantly of the town I had been raised in. With little effort, I almost could have persuaded myself I was back somewhere in the States. The pervasive silence spoke the truth, though, distinguishing this markedly from any place I had ever been in the States. That so many people could be congregated in one place and make so little noise was unbelievable to me. An L.A. bus with only two passengers was easily more aurally overwhelming than this crowded car. So it was that the silence more than the language I couldn't understand informed me I was truly someplace else.

Her kindness was only unexpected because I had just arrived. Since that first awed day in Japan, I have had countless similar experiences, witnessed them and heard them spoken of. For all it is now less unexpected, its source is still somewhat instinctively baffling to me. Such kindnesses are so easily come by here, and so quickly - at least overtly - forgotten by their workers. This I will always appreciate, if, having now heard many of the conversations of my "polite" Japanese coworkers, I am increasingly nervous imagining conversations over beer later:

"Oh, I met this clueless gaikokujin chick earlier."

"Really? Was she cute?"

"Kinda, if you like weird. Mostly I helped her because she was disrupting the flow of foot traffic. Crazy gaikokujin!"

"Yeah, who understands them?!"

Since that first day, I have learned to understand I really still don't necessarily understand anything at all about Japan. Perhaps I have marginally greater wisdom than I did that first day, one which would have ended in tears were it not for the kind, unsought but welcome interventions of strangers. I now know the outward kindness does not always mirror its bearer's internal state. A few days in a staff room in Japan will make this abundantly clear even to the baby-steps beginner at Japanese. In spite of this, the fact remains these acts are kindnesses, no matter their motivation.

[Kuang_Grade]

The island of Japan has...friendly people and an attitude that prefers to enjoy life instead of rushing through it

This is a remarkable comment

So, of the 100,000 yen you've brought, you probably spent around 20,000 of it living in Japan for two days. With the other 80,000, you can buy a lot of souvenirs for your friends back at home.

It becomes apparent that the journalist spent his time hanging out with the homeless

Yeah, it's pretty bad and the ending doesn't make any sense...Although I might merely be one of those uptight squares who likes to have a return ticket already bought and paid for prior to arriving in a foreign country on vacation. The youngsters at ECU may be a little footloose and fancy free than I. While it's a big school (20K students) they don't have a very big staff on the paper.....The East Carolinian, Second Floor Old Cafeteria Complex Greenville, NC 27858

[Captain Japan]

Jeff Yang's Asian Pop Diary: Live in Tokyo
SF Gate

Flying economy class has always struck me as being very similar to the Catholic concept of purgatory: you submit yourself to mortifying torture over a time span that feels like eternity, with only the glimmering hope of a three-point landing in paradise sustaining your mortal soul. And after 15 hours in coach -- 15 hours of P.A. announcements made just as you're drifting off into REM sleep, and 15 hours of regular feedings of commercial-grade Soylent Green, that is -- any port does start to look a lot like the Promised Land ("Thank God Almighty, Cleveland at last").

But for this trip, my destination is tantalizing enough even without the sheer relief of release from airborne captivity: I'm headed to Japan, the pop-culture mother ship, home of Sony and Sanrio, Godzilla and Gainax, and Studio Ghibli.

It's strange. I've flown to Asia many times, and though I've spent hundreds of hours prowling the charmless corridors of Narita International Airport, I've never been beyond the duty-free zone and into the nation itself. How is it that I've never traveled here before? Is it really because I've never had the opportunity, or is there something else that has held me back?

There's a term used in traditional Japanese aesthetics, meigakure, which translates roughly as "the quality of remaining hidden from ordinary view." It's the idea that every work of art has an ideal viewing angle; observers should be restricted to encountering a composition only from that particular preferred direction so that its key elements can be fully and deeply appreciated and so that the less relevant ones recede into the background....more...

Overall, this story isn't too bad. It doesn't sound like he did too much of anything. I like this picture:

This was taken between Ginza and Shimbashi, near the hostess clubs. I guess the idea is for the customers to buy their hostesses these dolls. I have a feeling the author didn't know that.

[Taro Toporific]

This is "story" is a fair description of a well-observed ordinary day in Japan...too ordinary and lacking in a concrete edge with carrion crows, and soapland neon of Bladerunner-on-badhair-day.

The extraordinary start of my ordinary day
The Christian Science Monitor. March 10, 2005, By Juniper Remmerde
After six months teaching English in Japan's busy Osaka prefecture, life in this country that once seemed so exotic has come to seem ordinary for me...
....I hop on my little silver bike and set off on an adventure that seems like something from a fast-moving video game. I feel sleepy at first, but the ever-changing action around me wakes me up as I pedal through it....
...."Not 'bye-bye,' silly!" one will reprimand another. "Use English! 'Goodbye!' "
"Bye-bye," I say, laughing, as I ride my bike home - past the Buddha, over the tracks, through the market - having finished another ordinary, extraordinary day....more...