Bits and bobs
Since 1945, the Japanese have gained 5 inches in height, according to Newsweek. I'm not tall here. Strange how outdated stereotypes are still in wide usage; it's as if the speeding up and globalising of trends and information hasn't really done anything to shift how we feel about different cultures.
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My initial torrent of words has subsided - I'm working about 40 hours a week at the moment, just treading water in the financial department. God, I'm poor here. Not quite grindingly poor, but poor enough to hold onto one-yen pieces and arrange them into a nice pile for use in desperate times. I'm even poorer now because I've given up my fare evading, or fare reducing ways. Not because I feel morally obliged to pay the exorbitant fare, but because the high-pitched beeping which signals a child ticket finally got to me. I just can't do it anymore. For the first month and a half, it was fine - I knew little or nothing about the culture, and silent disapproval meant nothing. Now, I notice old women eyeing me off, I can feel the eyes of the station staff following me, adding it to their list of gaijin transgressions. The psychology of it is astounding - it draws attention, and society polices itself, removing the need for ticket inspectors. For a week or so, I got desperate and turned my music player up loud as I passed through the gates - if I couldn't hear it, it mustn't be real. But then that stage passed as well and I became even more concious of invisible eyes. I could do it blindfolded with music, but that's about it. God, I've been policed. It sucks. Now, I have to splurge the equivalent of 20 bucks on the eight trains it takes me to get to work and back each day. Sure, I get the money back from my employer, but not for a month.
---
The tax rate here is 10%. It's a pittance. While on the one hand it's great - especially for me - it's got interesting flow-on effects throughout Japanese society. The government is pretty weak as a result - not much in the way of a welfare state, and the army was never allowed to be rebuilt after WWII. What this means is that, paradoxically, in probably the strongest group society in the world, the nation with the strongest sense of togetherness, you're more of an individual, in some respects. But then there is the strength of the family unit - one problem feminism faces here is the fact that the state measures its population using the unit of families, not individuals (the American Christian Right's wet dream) - and the role that the zaibatsu play in their employees lives. In the zaibatsu, the megacorporations, and to a lesser extent in the smaller corporations, salarymen are looked after from birth to death. A salary that rises automatically with age, a great pension scheme, insurance, etc. So the role of the state in providing welfare has been decentralised, the slack taken up by the businesses and the family. As a result, politics is a nest of coziness between government and big business; coziness and the remarkable success of the Japanese model (at least pre-1990) means that even now, people rarely, if ever, talk about politics, which is an abstraction. Nearly everyone seems middle class; there are a few rich, and a few poor, but a tiny number of homeless compared to America.
On a side note, it's fascinating to see how product consumption is entirely free of cynicism. In the West, advertising companies have an uphill battle against our skepticism. Will that product really make me look beautiful? Is it really that tasty? Many ads build a postmodern self-satire into their ads, or better, simply try to make their consumers laugh. Here, it's much easier; the ads for products are riddled with childlike ideals. These baked goods will make your body healthy. This drink will make your day happy. These clothes will make you attractive. And people believe it. It's a nation of unquestioning consumers, believers in the cult of consumption. And who can blame them? After all, products saved Japan. After WWII, exported Japanese products earnt a reputation for being cheap and nasty. The tireless work of generations of salarymen turned Japanese products into cheap and good, and then broadened into expensive and high-tech. In a very real sense, by their uncomplaining consumption, the Japanese are paying homage to their products, the products which made them the second biggest economy in the world.
Tonight, I walked through Dotombori, an arcade that Lonely Planet describes as something out of Blade Runner. Not far wrong. A 50 metre tall Asahi beer can; a mammoth picture of a woman in black leather, advertising Oakleys; neon gods.
---
Tonight, another izakaya, more random connections. A snippet, Japanese to American - "Your country beat my country in World War II, remember?" and there was a small but noticeable pause around the table.
---
Kiyono and one of her friends went to karaoke on Friday night; I tagged along, exhausted after a week of squealing one-year-olds (a new batch have come in, and they wail and shit and shit and wail and I think I need a new job) and we walked through Umeda, braving the throngs of sleek young men in suits, inviting women to host bars or men to hostess bars, and paused at a konbeen (convienience store) and there was a rack of flesh mags, and Kiyono picked one up - breasts mashed with hands, fading to more sedate pictures of posing girls wearing not so much, and then, another few pages, a picture of Kiyono herself, wearing a school girl uniform; sultry, pouty, legs encased in frilly black lace. She pointed and laughed and her friend teased her about the stupid pose and the night moved on, but I gotta admit, I freaked out a little. It wasn't a porn mag, where the girls have no contact with the men who masturbate to their image; it was a hybrid, a hostess magazine, with ways to contact her. It's a fine line between hostessing and sex work - the pay is better the more you're prepared to do - and I would really, really like my brand new girlfriend not to be having sex for money. The problem is, how do I delicately bring up the question?
Since 1945, the Japanese have gained 5 inches in height, according to Newsweek. I'm not tall here. Strange how outdated stereotypes are still in wide usage; it's as if the speeding up and globalising of trends and information hasn't really done anything to shift how we feel about different cultures.
---
My initial torrent of words has subsided - I'm working about 40 hours a week at the moment, just treading water in the financial department. God, I'm poor here. Not quite grindingly poor, but poor enough to hold onto one-yen pieces and arrange them into a nice pile for use in desperate times. I'm even poorer now because I've given up my fare evading, or fare reducing ways. Not because I feel morally obliged to pay the exorbitant fare, but because the high-pitched beeping which signals a child ticket finally got to me. I just can't do it anymore. For the first month and a half, it was fine - I knew little or nothing about the culture, and silent disapproval meant nothing. Now, I notice old women eyeing me off, I can feel the eyes of the station staff following me, adding it to their list of gaijin transgressions. The psychology of it is astounding - it draws attention, and society polices itself, removing the need for ticket inspectors. For a week or so, I got desperate and turned my music player up loud as I passed through the gates - if I couldn't hear it, it mustn't be real. But then that stage passed as well and I became even more concious of invisible eyes. I could do it blindfolded with music, but that's about it. God, I've been policed. It sucks. Now, I have to splurge the equivalent of 20 bucks on the eight trains it takes me to get to work and back each day. Sure, I get the money back from my employer, but not for a month.
---
The tax rate here is 10%. It's a pittance. While on the one hand it's great - especially for me - it's got interesting flow-on effects throughout Japanese society. The government is pretty weak as a result - not much in the way of a welfare state, and the army was never allowed to be rebuilt after WWII. What this means is that, paradoxically, in probably the strongest group society in the world, the nation with the strongest sense of togetherness, you're more of an individual, in some respects. But then there is the strength of the family unit - one problem feminism faces here is the fact that the state measures its population using the unit of families, not individuals (the American Christian Right's wet dream) - and the role that the zaibatsu play in their employees lives. In the zaibatsu, the megacorporations, and to a lesser extent in the smaller corporations, salarymen are looked after from birth to death. A salary that rises automatically with age, a great pension scheme, insurance, etc. So the role of the state in providing welfare has been decentralised, the slack taken up by the businesses and the family. As a result, politics is a nest of coziness between government and big business; coziness and the remarkable success of the Japanese model (at least pre-1990) means that even now, people rarely, if ever, talk about politics, which is an abstraction. Nearly everyone seems middle class; there are a few rich, and a few poor, but a tiny number of homeless compared to America.
On a side note, it's fascinating to see how product consumption is entirely free of cynicism. In the West, advertising companies have an uphill battle against our skepticism. Will that product really make me look beautiful? Is it really that tasty? Many ads build a postmodern self-satire into their ads, or better, simply try to make their consumers laugh. Here, it's much easier; the ads for products are riddled with childlike ideals. These baked goods will make your body healthy. This drink will make your day happy. These clothes will make you attractive. And people believe it. It's a nation of unquestioning consumers, believers in the cult of consumption. And who can blame them? After all, products saved Japan. After WWII, exported Japanese products earnt a reputation for being cheap and nasty. The tireless work of generations of salarymen turned Japanese products into cheap and good, and then broadened into expensive and high-tech. In a very real sense, by their uncomplaining consumption, the Japanese are paying homage to their products, the products which made them the second biggest economy in the world.
Tonight, I walked through Dotombori, an arcade that Lonely Planet describes as something out of Blade Runner. Not far wrong. A 50 metre tall Asahi beer can; a mammoth picture of a woman in black leather, advertising Oakleys; neon gods.
---
Tonight, another izakaya, more random connections. A snippet, Japanese to American - "Your country beat my country in World War II, remember?" and there was a small but noticeable pause around the table.
---
Kiyono and one of her friends went to karaoke on Friday night; I tagged along, exhausted after a week of squealing one-year-olds (a new batch have come in, and they wail and shit and shit and wail and I think I need a new job) and we walked through Umeda, braving the throngs of sleek young men in suits, inviting women to host bars or men to hostess bars, and paused at a konbeen (convienience store) and there was a rack of flesh mags, and Kiyono picked one up - breasts mashed with hands, fading to more sedate pictures of posing girls wearing not so much, and then, another few pages, a picture of Kiyono herself, wearing a school girl uniform; sultry, pouty, legs encased in frilly black lace. She pointed and laughed and her friend teased her about the stupid pose and the night moved on, but I gotta admit, I freaked out a little. It wasn't a porn mag, where the girls have no contact with the men who masturbate to their image; it was a hybrid, a hostess magazine, with ways to contact her. It's a fine line between hostessing and sex work - the pay is better the more you're prepared to do - and I would really, really like my brand new girlfriend not to be having sex for money. The problem is, how do I delicately bring up the question?
posted by Doug @ 4/18/2005 12:55:00 am
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