Here are some general observations so far about living in Japan: (posted 10.30.01)
- Tokyo and Yokohama are huge. The two largest cities in Japan and certainly in the top 5 in size in the US. They are completely modern and do not have too much in the way of "traditional Japanese" stuff - temples, statues, shrines, etc. Yokohama even has a China town, and an area with a ferris wheel and amusement park that reminds me of the all those county fairs in Florida, though there is no country music or hay. It really feels just like home, like any US city. Except for all the Japanese people, of course. Tokyo is about 10 million and Yokohama about 6 million people. The center of Yokohama is about 30 minutes by train away from the center of Tokyo.
- The subways are unbelievable. I've been on the New York Subway system, the Tube in London, the subway systems in Chicago, Toronto and Paris, but the subways here are out of this world simply because of the sheer volume of people who travel on them. There are uniformed men with white gloves whose sole job is to push people onto the train, so the doors will have enough clearance to close. It is very common and very funny for a train go by and to see peoples’ faces literally flattened against the cold plastic of the train door. The Shinjuku station in Tokyo is the busiest train station in the world, with over million people passing through its doors everyday.
- For a country that is so resource constrained, the Japanese do many things that seem wasteful. The neon lights here put everything in Vegas to shame. At any major intersection or any district where there are a lot of people, there are neon lights EVERYWHERE. Digital signs, bright lights, electronic billboards. EVERYWHERE. When I post some pictures maybe you will be able to slightly appreciate this phenomenon. There are digital TVs that are the width of a skyscraper building and easily about 10 stories tall. There is not just one, but multiple. In addition to this exorbitant use of wattage, the Japanese are obsessed with packaging. Bundles of bananas are shrink wrapped in plastic. Apples, broccoli, cucumbers, all the vegetable and fruits that are laying around in the open in any US grocery store are protected in plastic. Part of the reason is the notion of the “gift fruit”, or fruits and vegetables that are intended to be given as gifts rather than personal consumption. But at any store, be it clothing, electronics, fast food (yes, I have eaten at McDonald’s here, surprise, surprise), everything is placed in a plastic bag then that bag is placed in another plastic bag. The irony of this situation, however, is really demonstrated at the grocery store. They use all this plastic wrapping fruits and vegetables, and then for some reason they feel the need to try to stuff all of your groceries in the fewest number of plastic bags possible.
- Speaking of food, the Japanese people are ridiculously skinny. Maybe this explains their thorough enjoyment of Sumo wrestling, I don’t know. I think there are several reasons contributing to this. First, there is virtually no bread in the Japanese diet. The grocery stores sell bread, but they bags contain about eight slices. The carbohydrates in their diet are really limited to whole wheat and whole grain sources, which are way, way better for you. Second, the portion sizes here are a fraction of the size in the US. At McDonald’s, don’t try order the Super Size expecting the vat of coke and bucket of French fries. The biggest size you can get is equivalent to a medium at home. But even at their restaurants, a plate of any food is about half of what you would get in the US. Another reason is the big presence of soy (soybeans, edamame, tofu, etc.) in their diets. A typical traditional Japanese breakfast (that I have yet to try) is natto and rice. Natto is some kind of cured soybean that I am told smells horribly, but I still want to try it. Japanese people also eat chicken/beef no more than a few times a month, with the majority of their meals being served with fish (not necessarily sushi, or osushi, as it is referred to here). Finally, as expensive as vegetables are here, they are a huge part of every meal. Aki and I are like giants here, and we are definitely trying to lose as much weight as possible to fit in. That said, you can get any kind of food you want here. Fast food, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indian, etc., and these places are always packed with Japanese people.
- Starbucks is huge here. Starbucks Japan just went public and it is the NSE’s hottest stock. If I had money, I would invest. There is no other company even close to cornering the market (Pete’s, Caribou, etc. aren’t even here), and the local Japanese chains barely come close. Of course, as with all portion sizes, the largest coffee you can get at Starbucks is equivalent to a medium back home. Price of a small cup of coffee at Starbucks (which looks about the size of an espresso shot you would get back home): 298Yen to 361Y for a large (at roughly 120Y/$, that is $2.38 - $2.88). Of course, there are the ever present vending machines here in Japan, where you can both cold and hot cans of coffee, an eight ounce can going for 120Y. It’s not anywhere near Starbucks quality, but if you want some caffeine, this is a good quick hit.
- Cell phones (a “keitai”, pronounced “kay-tie”) are huge here, as they are in most industrialized countries outside of North America. The main reason they are so big here and in Europe is because land lines, or our traditional AT&T, et al phone infrastructure blows away anything else in the world and is way cheaper. So it is much cheaper and reliable over here to get a cell phone. The thing about Japanese cell phones, however, is that they blow away anything in the US. You think your slick little Nokia is the coolest thing on the planet? Think again. DoCoMo and J-Phone make stuff that is two or three generations ahead. Surf the web, play mp3s, take digital pictures, make plane/train/movie/English lesson/restaurant reservations all from your phone, all reliably, all cheap (this is in the US, but few and far between and not enough places have the architecture to support this “i-mode”).
- As with many of my perceived notions about Japan, smoking isn’t as prevalent here as people think (“Everyone smokes in Japan!!!”) But, there are vending machines everywhere that you can purchase cigarettes at. The smoking and drinking age is 20, and the new machines have a slot for you to insert your ID before it will sell the beer/cigarette to you (yes, beer is available at vending machines too, though not as widespread as the cigarette machines), but these new machines are rare. Cigarettes go for as cheap as 250Y ($2). You can pretty much smoke anywhere you want to, too (except on the trains).
- Women make quite the fashion statement here, and in general I’m still figuring out what their deal this. As I said before, all the women here are bone skinny. For the few and far between chunky ones, they are so out of luck, they better have a damn good personality because there are 50 bone skinny women for every one slightly chunky Japanese woman I see. Also, older Japanese women are so skinny and fit that it’s hard to place anyone’s age, but for the women that ‘look’ 20 – 40, the typical dress is a very short mini-skirt accompanied with knee-high leather boots, the leather boots being equipped with stiletto heels. It is always amusing to be riding an escalator and seeing an older Japanese man as he looks up the escalator to take a peek up these short skirts (more on the sexual nature of the Japanese later). Even the high school girls’ uniform is a short mini-skirt, penny-loafers, knee-high puffy socks (think 80s aerobics classes) and a blue cardigan. I’ve been on the train at almost every possible time, and I always see women carrying shopping bags. Shopping is huge over here, I mean it puts LA and NY to shame. It doesn’t appear that many of these women have jobs, but yet they are always shopping. For a country that has been in a recession for a long time, you would never be able to tell by all the damn shopping bags you see people carrying. I have no idea what percentage of the workforce is female, but it is low in comparison to the US. At the English language school that I teach at, about 50% of our customers are single women in their 20s (oh yeah), and they don’t work, many of them live at home. It got so bad that I stopped asking what their jobs were. But they are decked out in the latest fashions in clothes that do not look cheap. So they are living off mommy and daddy or some salary man somewhere.
- Salarymen are another group that I am trying to figure out. A salaryman is the term used for any man that works for a company. The Japanese traditions of being “hired for life” and promotion by seniority are still alive and well. Also, casual work dress isn’t very big here, so a rush hour train is full of people packed cheek to cheek in their suits (stylish, trendy Prada suits for the young, traditional stiff suits for the older men). Salarymen are pretty much at the mercy of their company and the economic environment right now (though the shopping doesn’t seem to indicate it) is very cold so everyone is doing whatever it takes to hold on to their job. Salarymen work from 9AM to about 8PM every day, including Saturdays (it is very common to see lots of suits on the train on both Saturday and Sunday). After 8PM, no time to go home, because it’s time to go out drinking! This is probably the coolest part about being a salaryman. You are pretty much expected to go out and get tanked after work with your peers, this is an accepted, unwritten rule and wives, girlfriends, mothers, etc. don’t question it. Ride the last train (about 12:45AM during the week) on any given weeknight, and you will see many a salaryman on the train reeking of alcohol. On a Wednesday night, we saw a salaryman laying face first on the ground of the train station, drunk and passed out, briefcase in hand. People simply walked around him. On a Monday night, we saw a drunk salary man passed out in the bushes outside of a bar. Most of the young salarymen, I have no idea what their salary is, but Aki is making about $2200 after taxes per month (the misconception of “teachers being treated like doctors” is also false, more later), so I would hope that would at least double that. But most salarymen I am told live at home or in corporate dormitory housing (living in a dorm when you have a job…hmmm…could be cool for a while, I think….). I had a salaryman as a student the other night, for a 9:15PM lesson. I could smell the beer on his breath, but thankfully he wasn’t drunk.
- Teachers in Japan and the much heralded Japanese educational system…my only reaction to this is “what a fucking joke!” Pardon my language, but after listening and reading for the last two years about how horrible American schools are and how great they are here in Japan, it really changed my perspective about the job teachers are doing in the US, where we are actually, genuinely, whole-heartedly are at least attempting to educate everyone, whether they want it or not. Aki teaches at Kawasaki High School, what could best be described as an “upper middle class” area. Most teachers straight-out lecture, nothing else fancy. Students pay attention…or don’t. Many talk to each other, pass notes, play on their cell phones. Teachers do not discipline them, and they don’t even think of calling home. Failing a student is unheard of, because of the backlash the school would receive. Teachers teach about 3 classes a day. I think the perception of Japanese students being so hard working is due to the College Admissions Test. To even be considered for college, a Japanese student has to pass a test. This test is comprehensive, all subjects, and is way harder than the SAT. The score on this test is way more important than your grades and a minimum score is needed just to be considered, much less if you are applying to a top school, then your scores need to be way higher. So the students who want to go to college, and are sufficiently motivated by themselves or their parents, go to extra cram schools to specifically prepare for this test, beyond the normal high school. If the math and science test scores of American high school students were only taken for those students that were admitted to top 300 colleges in America, I think our scores would be close to the top if not the best. But, because we factor in everyone’s scores, regardless of whether they are college bound or not, we appear to have bad scores. To top it all off, teachers are paid less than all the other “professional” jobs here, just like in the US.
- My previous perception of Japanese sexuality was also way off. I held a stereotype of the Japanese people being very prude, stiff people. But sex/nudity is very open here, very European. Along with that, however, comes a very prevalent chauvinistic attitude within the culture. Women, as I discussed, dress very provocatively. There are also these magazines that men read, in public, on the train and elsewhere. They are “anime” magazines, or basically very thick comic books, but men of all ages (16 – 60) read them. These magazines depict a lot of violent and sexual images. They even have some live nude pictures as well. You may be laughing because you think that I am buying one of these everyday. But when I’m on the train, I can simply look over someone’s shoulder, since people just read these things wherever you want. You can pick them up at any convenience store (more on the power of the convenience store below). There is nudity and sexually explicit scenes, right there in cartoon anime, and the guy in the suit is just reading surrounded by all the other people on the train. Amazing. (no, I don’t wish the US was like that). (maybe, just kidding, or am I?). There are also a plethora of hostess bars, massage parlors, strip clubs, XXX cinemas. In Shibuya, a big bar/restaurant/shopping district, you will find an arcade next to a bar next to a hostess bar next to a strip club, on and on, for blocks and blocks. A hostess bar is not a strip club, but really hot women work there and they wear close to nothing. They hang out with you, listen to your problems, laugh at your stupid jokes. You have to pay about a $100 to get in and also buy your drinks and their drinks as well. If I were a hot woman, it actually wouldn’t be a bad gig, though laughing a bad drinks would get old, but I guess that’s why they have to buy you drinks.
- Tokyo and Yokohama are huge. The two largest cities in Japan and certainly in the top 5 in size in the US. They are completely modern and do not have too much in the way of "traditional Japanese" stuff - temples, statues, shrines, etc. Yokohama even has a China town, and an area with a ferris wheel and amusement park that reminds me of the all those county fairs in Florida, though there is no country music or hay. It really feels just like home, like any US city. Except for all the Japanese people, of course. Tokyo is about 10 million and Yokohama about 6 million people. The center of Yokohama is about 30 minutes by train away from the center of Tokyo.
- The subways are unbelievable. I've been on the New York Subway system, the Tube in London, the subway systems in Chicago, Toronto and Paris, but the subways here are out of this world simply because of the sheer volume of people who travel on them. There are uniformed men with white gloves whose sole job is to push people onto the train, so the doors will have enough clearance to close. It is very common and very funny for a train go by and to see peoples’ faces literally flattened against the cold plastic of the train door. The Shinjuku station in Tokyo is the busiest train station in the world, with over million people passing through its doors everyday.
- For a country that is so resource constrained, the Japanese do many things that seem wasteful. The neon lights here put everything in Vegas to shame. At any major intersection or any district where there are a lot of people, there are neon lights EVERYWHERE. Digital signs, bright lights, electronic billboards. EVERYWHERE. When I post some pictures maybe you will be able to slightly appreciate this phenomenon. There are digital TVs that are the width of a skyscraper building and easily about 10 stories tall. There is not just one, but multiple. In addition to this exorbitant use of wattage, the Japanese are obsessed with packaging. Bundles of bananas are shrink wrapped in plastic. Apples, broccoli, cucumbers, all the vegetable and fruits that are laying around in the open in any US grocery store are protected in plastic. Part of the reason is the notion of the “gift fruit”, or fruits and vegetables that are intended to be given as gifts rather than personal consumption. But at any store, be it clothing, electronics, fast food (yes, I have eaten at McDonald’s here, surprise, surprise), everything is placed in a plastic bag then that bag is placed in another plastic bag. The irony of this situation, however, is really demonstrated at the grocery store. They use all this plastic wrapping fruits and vegetables, and then for some reason they feel the need to try to stuff all of your groceries in the fewest number of plastic bags possible.
- Speaking of food, the Japanese people are ridiculously skinny. Maybe this explains their thorough enjoyment of Sumo wrestling, I don’t know. I think there are several reasons contributing to this. First, there is virtually no bread in the Japanese diet. The grocery stores sell bread, but they bags contain about eight slices. The carbohydrates in their diet are really limited to whole wheat and whole grain sources, which are way, way better for you. Second, the portion sizes here are a fraction of the size in the US. At McDonald’s, don’t try order the Super Size expecting the vat of coke and bucket of French fries. The biggest size you can get is equivalent to a medium at home. But even at their restaurants, a plate of any food is about half of what you would get in the US. Another reason is the big presence of soy (soybeans, edamame, tofu, etc.) in their diets. A typical traditional Japanese breakfast (that I have yet to try) is natto and rice. Natto is some kind of cured soybean that I am told smells horribly, but I still want to try it. Japanese people also eat chicken/beef no more than a few times a month, with the majority of their meals being served with fish (not necessarily sushi, or osushi, as it is referred to here). Finally, as expensive as vegetables are here, they are a huge part of every meal. Aki and I are like giants here, and we are definitely trying to lose as much weight as possible to fit in. That said, you can get any kind of food you want here. Fast food, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indian, etc., and these places are always packed with Japanese people.
- Starbucks is huge here. Starbucks Japan just went public and it is the NSE’s hottest stock. If I had money, I would invest. There is no other company even close to cornering the market (Pete’s, Caribou, etc. aren’t even here), and the local Japanese chains barely come close. Of course, as with all portion sizes, the largest coffee you can get at Starbucks is equivalent to a medium back home. Price of a small cup of coffee at Starbucks (which looks about the size of an espresso shot you would get back home): 298Yen to 361Y for a large (at roughly 120Y/$, that is $2.38 - $2.88). Of course, there are the ever present vending machines here in Japan, where you can both cold and hot cans of coffee, an eight ounce can going for 120Y. It’s not anywhere near Starbucks quality, but if you want some caffeine, this is a good quick hit.
- Cell phones (a “keitai”, pronounced “kay-tie”) are huge here, as they are in most industrialized countries outside of North America. The main reason they are so big here and in Europe is because land lines, or our traditional AT&T, et al phone infrastructure blows away anything else in the world and is way cheaper. So it is much cheaper and reliable over here to get a cell phone. The thing about Japanese cell phones, however, is that they blow away anything in the US. You think your slick little Nokia is the coolest thing on the planet? Think again. DoCoMo and J-Phone make stuff that is two or three generations ahead. Surf the web, play mp3s, take digital pictures, make plane/train/movie/English lesson/restaurant reservations all from your phone, all reliably, all cheap (this is in the US, but few and far between and not enough places have the architecture to support this “i-mode”).
- As with many of my perceived notions about Japan, smoking isn’t as prevalent here as people think (“Everyone smokes in Japan!!!”) But, there are vending machines everywhere that you can purchase cigarettes at. The smoking and drinking age is 20, and the new machines have a slot for you to insert your ID before it will sell the beer/cigarette to you (yes, beer is available at vending machines too, though not as widespread as the cigarette machines), but these new machines are rare. Cigarettes go for as cheap as 250Y ($2). You can pretty much smoke anywhere you want to, too (except on the trains).
- Women make quite the fashion statement here, and in general I’m still figuring out what their deal this. As I said before, all the women here are bone skinny. For the few and far between chunky ones, they are so out of luck, they better have a damn good personality because there are 50 bone skinny women for every one slightly chunky Japanese woman I see. Also, older Japanese women are so skinny and fit that it’s hard to place anyone’s age, but for the women that ‘look’ 20 – 40, the typical dress is a very short mini-skirt accompanied with knee-high leather boots, the leather boots being equipped with stiletto heels. It is always amusing to be riding an escalator and seeing an older Japanese man as he looks up the escalator to take a peek up these short skirts (more on the sexual nature of the Japanese later). Even the high school girls’ uniform is a short mini-skirt, penny-loafers, knee-high puffy socks (think 80s aerobics classes) and a blue cardigan. I’ve been on the train at almost every possible time, and I always see women carrying shopping bags. Shopping is huge over here, I mean it puts LA and NY to shame. It doesn’t appear that many of these women have jobs, but yet they are always shopping. For a country that has been in a recession for a long time, you would never be able to tell by all the damn shopping bags you see people carrying. I have no idea what percentage of the workforce is female, but it is low in comparison to the US. At the English language school that I teach at, about 50% of our customers are single women in their 20s (oh yeah), and they don’t work, many of them live at home. It got so bad that I stopped asking what their jobs were. But they are decked out in the latest fashions in clothes that do not look cheap. So they are living off mommy and daddy or some salary man somewhere.
- Salarymen are another group that I am trying to figure out. A salaryman is the term used for any man that works for a company. The Japanese traditions of being “hired for life” and promotion by seniority are still alive and well. Also, casual work dress isn’t very big here, so a rush hour train is full of people packed cheek to cheek in their suits (stylish, trendy Prada suits for the young, traditional stiff suits for the older men). Salarymen are pretty much at the mercy of their company and the economic environment right now (though the shopping doesn’t seem to indicate it) is very cold so everyone is doing whatever it takes to hold on to their job. Salarymen work from 9AM to about 8PM every day, including Saturdays (it is very common to see lots of suits on the train on both Saturday and Sunday). After 8PM, no time to go home, because it’s time to go out drinking! This is probably the coolest part about being a salaryman. You are pretty much expected to go out and get tanked after work with your peers, this is an accepted, unwritten rule and wives, girlfriends, mothers, etc. don’t question it. Ride the last train (about 12:45AM during the week) on any given weeknight, and you will see many a salaryman on the train reeking of alcohol. On a Wednesday night, we saw a salaryman laying face first on the ground of the train station, drunk and passed out, briefcase in hand. People simply walked around him. On a Monday night, we saw a drunk salary man passed out in the bushes outside of a bar. Most of the young salarymen, I have no idea what their salary is, but Aki is making about $2200 after taxes per month (the misconception of “teachers being treated like doctors” is also false, more later), so I would hope that would at least double that. But most salarymen I am told live at home or in corporate dormitory housing (living in a dorm when you have a job…hmmm…could be cool for a while, I think….). I had a salaryman as a student the other night, for a 9:15PM lesson. I could smell the beer on his breath, but thankfully he wasn’t drunk.
- Teachers in Japan and the much heralded Japanese educational system…my only reaction to this is “what a fucking joke!” Pardon my language, but after listening and reading for the last two years about how horrible American schools are and how great they are here in Japan, it really changed my perspective about the job teachers are doing in the US, where we are actually, genuinely, whole-heartedly are at least attempting to educate everyone, whether they want it or not. Aki teaches at Kawasaki High School, what could best be described as an “upper middle class” area. Most teachers straight-out lecture, nothing else fancy. Students pay attention…or don’t. Many talk to each other, pass notes, play on their cell phones. Teachers do not discipline them, and they don’t even think of calling home. Failing a student is unheard of, because of the backlash the school would receive. Teachers teach about 3 classes a day. I think the perception of Japanese students being so hard working is due to the College Admissions Test. To even be considered for college, a Japanese student has to pass a test. This test is comprehensive, all subjects, and is way harder than the SAT. The score on this test is way more important than your grades and a minimum score is needed just to be considered, much less if you are applying to a top school, then your scores need to be way higher. So the students who want to go to college, and are sufficiently motivated by themselves or their parents, go to extra cram schools to specifically prepare for this test, beyond the normal high school. If the math and science test scores of American high school students were only taken for those students that were admitted to top 300 colleges in America, I think our scores would be close to the top if not the best. But, because we factor in everyone’s scores, regardless of whether they are college bound or not, we appear to have bad scores. To top it all off, teachers are paid less than all the other “professional” jobs here, just like in the US.
- My previous perception of Japanese sexuality was also way off. I held a stereotype of the Japanese people being very prude, stiff people. But sex/nudity is very open here, very European. Along with that, however, comes a very prevalent chauvinistic attitude within the culture. Women, as I discussed, dress very provocatively. There are also these magazines that men read, in public, on the train and elsewhere. They are “anime” magazines, or basically very thick comic books, but men of all ages (16 – 60) read them. These magazines depict a lot of violent and sexual images. They even have some live nude pictures as well. You may be laughing because you think that I am buying one of these everyday. But when I’m on the train, I can simply look over someone’s shoulder, since people just read these things wherever you want. You can pick them up at any convenience store (more on the power of the convenience store below). There is nudity and sexually explicit scenes, right there in cartoon anime, and the guy in the suit is just reading surrounded by all the other people on the train. Amazing. (no, I don’t wish the US was like that). (maybe, just kidding, or am I?). There are also a plethora of hostess bars, massage parlors, strip clubs, XXX cinemas. In Shibuya, a big bar/restaurant/shopping district, you will find an arcade next to a bar next to a hostess bar next to a strip club, on and on, for blocks and blocks. A hostess bar is not a strip club, but really hot women work there and they wear close to nothing. They hang out with you, listen to your problems, laugh at your stupid jokes. You have to pay about a $100 to get in and also buy your drinks and their drinks as well. If I were a hot woman, it actually wouldn’t be a bad gig, though laughing a bad drinks would get old, but I guess that’s why they have to buy you drinks.
posted by Unknown at
12:23:00 AM
