Japanese youngsters « Yuri Kageyama

Tokyo Flower Children 5

Winchester Nii Tete hails from a famous family of drummers in Ghana. And Tokyo is so lucky to have him.
His playing is energetic, joyous, dignified, virtuous.
Behind him is Teruyuki Kawabata, leader of Cigarette She Was , a composer/lyricist who plays the guitar, percussion and other instruments.
On his right is Keiji Kubo, a language expert who totally respects aboriginal culture, and plays the bass/didgeridoo.
On Winchester’s left is Haruna Shimizu, also with Cigarette She Was, who someday wants to have her own cafe-on-wheels.
I get in a lecture mood when I hang out with such talented pure-spirited people.
I have told Winchester he has beautiful eyes.
I have told Teruyuki his “Jounetsu wo torimodosou” is a great song.
I have told Keiji his girlfriend Akiko is “KawaYUUUUUI!”
And so, at the Pit Inn in Shinjuku, the other night, I told Haruna she must stick with the man she chooses to love because loving someone isn’t about weighing the pro’s and con’s to get a good deal.
Too many Japanese women are still waiting for that deal _ like they are prizes to be won.
Love is not something you receive from someone else. It is all and only about your Self.
It’s a lifelong battle _ like Art and Life.
Love endures through tick and thin, through sickness and health, through the good times and the bad.

Tokyo Flower Children 4
Tokyo Flower Children 2
Tokyo Flower Children
Tokyo Flower Children 3

Toyota opens a shopping mall

Talk about desperately seeking buyers.
Toyota is opening a giant shopping mall in Yokohama with 220 stores and restaurants, including Uniqlo, Wolfgang Puck’s and pastry stores, to be there where people hang out _ not wait for people to come to dealerships.
The scenario is that you introduce the idea of buying a car to people who are shopping.
Japan auto sales are falling lately to 27 year lows.
Analysts say people _ especially young people _ don’t want a car, even if they get one for free!
Kids who grew up in a more affluent Japan don’t covet the same status-symbol items their parents did.
Manufacturers have been struggling in recent years with the challenge of developing models that meet young people’s lifestyle needs.
Maybe one day there’ll be a hit car every Japanese is going to want _ like an iPod or a cell phone.

Story of Miu 8

Continued from Story of Miu 7.

(Scene: A Kyoto-style restaurant on the 14th Floor of the Takashimaya Department Store in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The delicately shaped servings in modern geometric cups and plates line a wooden counter facing wall-to-wall glass that overlooks a noontime luscious view of Shinjuku Gyoen garden.)
Miu (Fingering traditional “tenugui” cotton towels the restaurant has given as napkins): Cool!
Me (Trying not to sound too curious): And so how’s it going?
Miu: OK.
Me: You were telling me you picked up … met someone, right, the other day? And so what’s the latest news?
(Silence for several minutes; waiter from the other side of the counter brings cups of tea.)
Miu: Yes, there have been developments. He said we were supposed to meet at Alta in Shinjuku _ that was, I guess, last weekend _ to see a movie. But I didn’t go.
Me: You didn’t go.
Miu (Shaking head): But I did meet another guy. I went to a different club with some other friends, and there was this other guy.
Me: That’s great.
Miu: Actually, I am building a database.
Me: What?
Miu: I figure you have to be scientific about this procedure. (Begins to explain hurriedly) My Japanese really improves, spending time with these guys. Free lessons! (Laughs.)
Me: And so how does the database work?
Miu: It’s easy. You collect phone numbers. It must be harder for males but for females, you don’t have to do much.
Me: And how many have you collected?
Miu: Lots. I haven’t checked.
Me: Like 10? 20?
Miu (Giggling:) More like 100.
Me: Gosh. How can you possibly keep track?
Miu: That’s the challenge. You have to take good notes _ oh, you’d know about that. How do you keep track of all the people you interview?
Me: I have to write down the person’s characteristics on their meishi. Thank God Japanese are into their meishi.
Miu: What do you write?
Me: Like “did most of the talking,” “said nothing,” “glasses,” “made joke about such and such.” It’s tough. They tend to be all male and old and wear dark suits.
Miu: Similar problem here. All male, young, eager to get into bed, very very boring!
But I write down what they said and stuff. And I can sometimes even take their photo with my cell phone. My cell phone has a better digital camera than my camera.
Me: At least, you are getting around and meeting a lot of people and learning about Japan. And no sense rushing into settling down with one person. Maybe I could have gotten someone better if I had held out, too. (Sighs)
Miu: Oh, don’t say that. You have a great marriage.
Me: Thanks. So what do you do with all that information? You call one of them up randomly when you need to go out or something?
Miu: Something like that.
Me: Your generation _ there is so much technology available like SNS, e-mail, messaging, all that, to connect in so many ways maybe you don’t feel like you’ve checked out all your options unless you build this … database. (Miu shrugs as they eat with lacquered chopsticks soy-flavored grilled fish, chopped seaweed and daikon in vinegar sauce and miso soup with tofu.) The world was a simpler place when all you did was sit around at home and wait for a call on that fixed line.
Miu: You didn’t do that, did you?
Me: Of course, I did. Everybody did. What if he calls and you’re out? You’d miss that chance to go out with him, right?
Miu: How can you stand it?
Me: Right, it is quite oppressive, isn’t it? (Pauses) Yes, you’re right. The new technology is progress. But don’t you feel that Japan is still stuck in the 1950s as far as images of women?
Miu: What do you mean?
Me: There aren’t that many outlets for older women still, except maybe flamenco classes for housewives or something. We know studies say more women are working and some are even successful. We see them on TV. But the most desirable roles for women are defined as young and cute because it’s the men who are behind the definitions. I mean, look at the U.S. presidential race. What a contrast.
Miu: But maybe Yuriko Koike will run for the LDP presidential race, and there you go: Japan’s first female prime minister.
(Miu and Me laugh.)
Me: What comes to mind when you hear “obasan?” Nothing good, right?
Miu: No one wants to be called “obasan.” That’s like the worst derogatory thing in Japanese you can call a woman.
Me: There is “babaa.”
(They laugh. Waiter brings dessert, a traditional rice-cake pastry with fruit and sweet black beans )
Have you noticed what word the sales people at Shibuya 109, the Kyoto “maiko” and night club hostesses use to refer to older women to avoid saying “obasan?”
Miu (Visibly curious): No, what?
(They sip tea.)
Me: “Oneesan.”
Miu: Oneesan.
Me: Forever young _ although older. But I think this shows how society hasn’t recognized the value of the female after women have gotten past their roles of reproduction.
Miu: Oh, wasn’t there some minister who got in trouble for calling women “reproductive machines?”
Me: Exactly. That mentality. There are lots of women in their 30s and older who truly dread being called “obasan.” If it hasn’t happened already, then it could happen any second. Horrors!
Miu: Moment of metamorphosis. Society decrees you useless for preservation of the species.
Me: I like being obasan. I am proud of being obasan.
Miu: OK, obasan.
Me: Obasan is a title that you earn as a woman when you grow older and wiser and better. Sounds a bit like sour grapes, doesn’t it? But I think I learned so much about womanhood _ maybe “personhood” _ through my motherhood _ or through my son, I guess, having a child.
Miu: That’s wonderful.
Me: All the years my son was growing up, his friends who spoke Japanese would call me obasan. They would look at me with those big innocent eyes of theirs, trusting me because I was their friend’s mother. It’s respect I earned not only because of my relationship with my son but also my son’s relationship with others. That’s why I get to be obasan. It’s real and very beautiful and full of dignity. Not some derogatory place in the hierarchy as defined by sexual desirability, work performance, whatever. It’s deeper than all that.
Miu: It is. And it should be like that.
Me: Women should be proud of being obasan.
Miu: Of course.
Me: Obasan Power!
Miu: That’s a good way to put it.
Me: But all you see in the Japanese media much of the time are obasan rushing to bargains, gossiping, taking flamenco lessons.
Miu: What’s the solution?
Me: I’m not sure. Data show Japanese women are choosing not to get married and not to have children, even if they do by some miracle get married. (Looks into Miu’s eyes.) I try to tell young women this every chance I get, but it’s the most important experience in life to have a child, OK? No one really told me this. I was so lucky I did get married and have a child. The common wisdom back then was that women had to prove we could be just as good as men. And so worrying too much about marriage and children was seen as backward, something that women who weren’t “liberated” (Holds up her hands to make quotation marks in the air with her fingers) did _ not women who wanted to make something of themselves and have careers.
Miu: I want a child. Maybe not now. But I want a baby someday.
Me: You will. You will. And you have plenty of time. To build databases and everything else.
Miu: This database I am building isn’t about that though. I’m not sure what it’s about. But I don’t want to be trapped into someone just because he picks me out from the crowd. Why do I have to wait for some coincidental accident in the office elevator or some freakish event like in a TV drama to meet someone?
Me: Maybe old-style Japan was on to something when they had omiai. That’s pretty orderly. So Japanese.
Miu: Then I wouldn’t have to spend all this time on a database.
Me: Someday you will meet that special person _ that man who will throw that whole database out the window.
Miu (Silent then): How do you know?
Me: You’ll know. You won’t have to ask.
Miu: I will hear my heart go thump thump. Uh-oh, I think that’s just the music blasting off at the club. I probably won’t be able to hear it _ it’s so loud in there (Laughs).

Story of Miu 6 with links at end to previous chapters.

Flower Children 4

Image from Loic Bizel‘s Fashion in Japan .
My story from 2004.

Thoughts from Today:
Flower Children by definition don’t want to hurt other people.
They choose jobs with that in mind.
Besides obvious choices like becoming musicians and joining the Peace Corps, some career choices are more common than others among Flower Children:
Firemen because they save lives.
Paramedics because they save lives.
Schoolteachers because they help kids become better people.
Journalists because we try to tell the world the “truth” and help people make up their own minds about what’s right and wrong.
At one point, big-name companies like manufacturers also attracted engineers and other people who wanted to make things like cars and jet engines to help make this world a better place.
But somewhere along the way, getting jobs at big-name companies became an ends in itself for many Japanese.
The message was: Study hard to get in the best university possible, where a job with a big-name company will be guaranteed by your junior year.
That’s why we need Flower Children today in Japan.

Flower Children 3

In any age, Artists get monetary support from others _ the king, the church, the modern market. The means of support affect the Art (eg., portaits of noblemen, Biblical paintings, modern art). In Tokyo today, Artists get support from a community of Artists, who in turn get support/make money as freeters in the straight economy. This distinction becomes easier to understand if one looks at the true function of Art as giving spiritual fulfillment to people who aren’t Artists, those people who are straight and make money. It’s like going to church. Art like religion is “necessary” in every society to remind people of the meaning of life. Because the Artist possesses that special power, the Artist gets money from those who make money, so that the Artist can be free of straight-world commitments to practice that power. If Art becomes funded by a community of like-minded Artists (salaryman/freeter masses), Art becomes very different from Art nurtured in the 20th Century modern art scene of the West. Tokyo Art is not combative. It does not try to make a point. It reaches out to others in harmony like a psychotherapy session. There is no prize committee, rich patron/gallery buyer, even recording label/producer to impress. Sincerity is critical: Are you really an Artist? Or are you more interested in success/money/the straight world? If you are truly a Tokyo Artist, then you are “in” no matter how untrained, how off-key, how absurd your Art may be. But you must Believe.

Flower Children 2

The Moon Stomp in Koenji is smaller than most American kitchens, and it really does have a kitchen, where sweet-smelling pizza and hot spicy curry are getting cooked up, but what’s really cooking is the music. Descend from the streets into that tiny smoke-filled club, packed with kids in hats and T-shirts, and music is feel-good, giggles-provoking and so harmonious Japanese-style it’s like soaking in sudsy lukewarm tubwater. Merrychan is a trio that performs original Japanese-language versions of Cuban and other Latin music. Hearing Japanese sung and yelled in Latin fashion is somehow funnier than you’d think. Speak about identity crisis and parodying Japan’s imitative modern music scene! See how “Gerohaita! (He barfed!)” almost sounds Spanish? It’s that wit in not taking oneself too seriously that makes these musicians rise above their otherwise proficient but pretty hunkydory (I mean, how could a bunch of Japanese kids beat Los Van Van?) musicianship to something unique, and something definitely entertaining. No wonder the crowd (of about 30, half of them members of the other performing bands) is ecstatic. Funyakotsu-ting was a geeky looking pudgy guy with glasses and a T-shirt with a picture of a donkey that said in English: “Bad Ass.” He sang/narrated/even performed karaoke with a guitar. A far cry from a demonstration of musical technique or artistic message, the almost-freak-show “otaku” performance exudes a strange utterly disarming charm. Several fans sat in the front row with multicolored light-sticks and swayed them in time to the music on one tune. Most straight-ahead but just as hippie-spiritied was Cigarette She Was , a folk/pop band led by guitar-strumming singer Teruyuki Kawabata (in photo above on top of flower as a flower child should be). The groups were selling their CDs for something like 200 yen, the equivalent of $1.50.　Admission was 2,500 yen for an all-you-can-eat meal-included evening of music. Japan is so affluent and peaceful the dreams go on without a reality test as they do in other parts of the world. Young Japanese are rejecting the older generation’s definitions of a proper “salaryman” life (preferably at a big name company). They will earn their keep (freeter-style or otherwise) but play/laugh at Moon Stomp.