Won't Miss #402 - cosplay

A rack of costumes that young women can borrow for activities in a gaming center. 



The Wikipedia entry for cosplay ("costume play") claims it is a type "performance art". This has to be one of the most pretentious and inaccurate explanations I have ever heard of the tendency of some people to put on costumes resembling anime (cartoon) characters. In the U.S., I think cosplay tends to be a

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Will Miss #401 - the blue lights

I live along a Japan Railway (JR) line that is famous for attracting suicidal jumpers. The line is named the Chuo line, and foreigners waggishly call it the "Chuocide" line because it so frequently is disrupted by those intent on offing themselves. JR obviously would rather this not happen, but rather than do what many subways have done and put up walls with electronic gates that disallow

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Won't Miss #401 - my huge address

This may be my imagination, but writing my address back home was always a lot faster and easier than writing my Tokyo address. The length could have something to do with the byzantine naming of streets and nearly incomprehensible way of laying out blocks that it requires a system of three numbers (chome-banchi-go) in addition to information on the building, apartment number, city within a

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Will Miss #400 - east meets west xmas cards

Click for a bigger picture of Santas carrying a mikoshi in front of a temple. 


I realize that sending Christmas cards is a dying custom, but I still love them. Living in Japan affords me the chance to buy and receive unique designs that mix and match Japanese culture with traditional western Christmas imagery. Seeing this marriage between east and west, particularly when Santa is involved,

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Won't Miss #400 - natto questions

Most people who have never been to Japan but are interested in Japanese culture and cuisine believe the litmus test for tolerating said cuisine weirdness is an enjoyment of sushi, or perhaps, sashimi. If you can stomach raw fish, you may believe you earned your member's badge. If you've actually lived here, you know that adoring sushi is something only lightweights regard as an

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Will Miss #399 - chinsukou

There are a lot of efforts in Japan to simulate Christmas, but most of it comes off as simply copying images without any of the concurrent spirit. Strangely enough, the thing that really tastes like Christmas to me are chinsukou cookies. They smell like what mom was baking for the holidays when I was growing up and taste like heaven. There are many things that are like them made in other

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Won't Miss #399 - dogs in bike baskets

Perhaps I'm paranoid or overly sensitive about how people deal with their pets, but it makes me very nervous when I see an unsupervised parked bicycle with a dog sitting in it. The primary problem I have with it is that parked bikes are relatively unstable and I'm concerned that a careless pedestrian or cyclist, a gust of wind, or even a small earthquake will send the bike toppling and the

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Will Miss #398 - moai replicas

I'm not sure why, but Japan loves it some moai. If you don't know what they are, they're the Easter Island heads. Like the Statue of Liberty replicas, moai seem to show up in the oddest places for no reason other than people seem to think they are neat. In Kyushu, there are replicas of them. There are fan magazines devoted to them and many novelty items sold with a moai theme. I'm not sure

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Won't Miss #398 - being a minority in the minority

Foreign women in Japan have a variety of support networks to help them cope with the difficulties of being a minority here. Unfortunately, I don't fit in with any of those groups. One of the biggest groups is the AFWJ, Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese. Since my husband is American, the "welcome" sign isn't hanging on that door for me. There is also the Tokyo American Club Women's Group

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Will Miss #397 - shops that serve tea

My husband and I were walking around Nishi-Ogikubo, one of many little stops that have little of note to offer that we decided to explore, and I decided to peruse a Japanese sweets shop. I found myself waiting to buy a couple of small bean cakes behind a woman who apparently needed a remedial class in how to purchase goods from a shop. In the few minutes that we twiddled our thumbs, one of

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Won't Miss #397 - pregnancy badges

One of my students once told me about an experience she had while riding the train. She was sitting with several other people when a family of three, mother, father and child, boarded the train. The woman from this trio started loudly sniping about how no one was forfeiting their seat for her despite the fact that she was displaying a badge that indicated that she was pregnant. Like many

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Will Miss #396 - Rilakkuma

I appreciate simplicity. In fact, one of the reasons I set up this blog as a form of short form expression is that I want to try to minimize my verbiage. Sometimes things are better when you take things away from them. In Japan, nothing illustrates this better than some of their cuter cartoon characters like the mouthless cat. While I am sick of "Hello Kitty", because I can never escape her

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Won't Miss #396 - up the down and down the up

I've written before that context really matters in digesting experiences in Japan and I find it incredibly irksome when people break rules in Japan compared to back home. Part of the reason for this is the insistence by both Japanese and foreigners that the Japanese are so lawful and obedient. Another reason is that I get called on any tiny infraction of the rules, spoken or otherwise. I

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Will Miss #395 - elevator girls

She turned her back because I was taking her picture.

Back when I first came to Japan, every department store had an elevator operator who pushed the buttons for you with her immaculate white gloved hands. She was polite and carried out her work as if she were shepherding small children safely to school through perilous lands rather than helping middle-aged housewives spend their husband's

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Won't Miss #395 - the chop and/or wave

Walk through any busy, crowded street or station full of commuters attempting to dodge each other and you will sooner or later run across the "chopper". This is a man who thinks that by putting out his hand and chopping through the air that the crowds will part before him and let him through. In fact, he expects that you will facilitate his easy movement through the throng at your own expense

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Will Miss #394 - respect for and modesty about intelligence

I've talked to quite a few Japanese folks about intelligence and there are two major differences between them and most Americans. First, they want their politicians to be smart and very preferably smarter than they perceive themselves to be. There isn't a thread of anti-intellectualism in political discourse in this country. Second, most Japanese people don't believe they are smarter than

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Won't Miss #394 - being followed in shops

At lunch recently with a new acquaintance, she remarked that she felt all Caucasians should spend some time in Japan to begin to get a clue of what it feels like to be a minority in their home countries. One of the experiences which certainly breeds empathy for black folks back home is not being picked up by cabs. Another is being followed around in stores. This generally happens in larger

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Will Miss #393 - "akapantsu"

I'm not a big subscriber to the "weird Japan" mentality. One of the reasons I don't get so into it is that so much of it is clearly manufactured to be novel (e.g., maid cafes) and is little different than similarly generated oddness in other cultures which links not to human nature, but calculated commercial interests. However, when the weirdness manifests as a small component of a larger "

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Won't Miss #393 - using Japanese English

I don't mind if Japanese people use Japanese English (as opposed to "Engrish", which is a whole other kettle of fish) because it is understandable that they do. If I'm teaching them, I just point out that they shouldn't use it and tell them the correct words or phrases. Unfortunately, sometimes you find yourself being unable to make yourself understood unless you resort to using it yourself.

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