Food fantasies

Although I love eating fish and seafood, upon seeing fish swimming in a restaurant aquarium, or eels squirming in a barrel I've never yet started salivating. So I was amazed at a Japanese friend's observation of cultural differences today. She and her English husband went to the Osaka Aquarium with her in-laws. They were standing in front of an aquarium admiring the fish. Whilst the English family were saying ‘Aah, how cute..’, the Japanese family nearby were saying ‘Oishi ne..’ or ‘It looks delicious’! She admitted that seeing fish made her want to eat it too ! I asked her whether this reaction extends to four-legged animals or poultry, and she said that although seeing a cow would not necessarily make her want shabu shabu, seeing a chicken might make her crave yaki niku.

It must be a deeply cultural response, I’ve never heard that kind of reaction back home. I've always felt kind of sorry looking at fish circling the tank, waiting to die. And although I'm happy to eat them, or even to kill, gut and skin them, until they're sizzling under a flame or fried in garlic I just don't get the rumbling tummy ! I could understand that a live fish might translate into fresh and therefore desirable sushi, but seeing a chicken pecking and scratching around suddenly morph cartoon-like into Sunday lunch? I suppose that's a diehard meat-eater's reaction !

Image taken from Indymedia Bulgaria

Japanese Graduation Ceremony

Yesterday I sat through a 2 hour, 15 minutes graduation ceremony for my third year Junior High school students. The day started badly as I’d turned up in a suit and scruffy trainers, assuming I’d only have to change into slippers anyway once we got into the hall.. big mistake. They’d put down special plastic sheeting for the occasion, so everyone could wear their smartest shoes. I definitely have a lot to learn about Japan, I must remember to ask about the shoes situation for any important occasion!

The ceremony started late as girls who’d applied make-up and attempted ‘complicated’ hairstyles were rounded up and poked at and tweaked until they ressembled plain and scruffy schoolgirls once again. I was amused to see several of them hitching their skirts up to skim a few inches of their knickers just before ascending the podium. A highly formal occasion, it became an endurance test in the freezing temperatures, with the endless speeches in Japanese.. interspersed by lots of instructions.. “Rei!” and we all had to stand and bow from the waist, then sit back down again, “Rei!” bowing once more in a different direction, nodding, standing, mouthing the words to songs, one of which had the same tune to Auld Lang Syne.. I became glad of the excuse to move from the hard bench to get feeling into my legs and blood to my head with the bowing.. I understood how the most effective CIA torture techniques include remaining immobile for hours. A slight twitch in the shoulder becomes a dull ache, which becomes a nagging pain, which translates into an excruciating frozen shoulder.. I tried meditation, I tried visualisation, nothing worked..

The naughty kids who tried comedy bowing and exaggerated responses to the formalised receipt of the diplomas kept my sanity. I started to realise the endurance test was nearing its end.. But towards the end of the ceremony two students took the mic to look back on their three years at the school, and the girl started to cry. A wave of sniffling and sobbing started in the students, moved on the the PTA, then the deputy headmaster and the teachers around me.. The last to go were the first and second years sitting beside me. The whole school seemed to be crying.. Some kids were becoming inconsolable, heaving sobs with red faces and running noses. I felt like the only person in the whole auditorium who wasn’t crying.. then I started to get a painful tight feeling at the back of my throat and I realised I was starting to feel weepy with all of this infectious crying all around me. I tried to remember my emotions when I finished school, life was more intense then, and friendships felt as if they’d last forever.. But I also remember a tremendous elation, a feeling of freedom.. knowing I was stepping into the unknown..

Spring blues

In many of my conversations this last week with various people, we’ve discussed hope vs despair, optimism vs pessimism in today’s crazy world. Call me a pessimist, but I’m finding it harder and harder to have cause for hope at the moment. Human rights laws are being violated worldwide, with the US leading by bad example with the brazen illegality of Guantanamo and Abu Graib. Blair may call them anomalies, but most people recognize them for what they are, illegal holding camps for kidnapped prisoners held indefinitely outside of any legal process. Despite millions marching worldwide against a war in Iraq which the UN would not support, the US government went ahead and bombed the country anyway, as it did Afghanistan, and as looks increasingly likely, to do in Iran. The US continues its devastating re-shaping of the Middle East, supported by the British government and the apathy of the mainstream media. The hypocrisy, lies and continued disregard for the environment, treaties on nuclear disarmament, the majority world, human rights and world peace, are endemic in the US regime. On the plus side, the peace movement has never been so popular, with the internet providing education through alternative news media.

I’ve been feeling the need for some positive input and found it in an interview with the ever inspiring Tony Benn :

“For the first time in human history, the human race has the capacity to destroy itself with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, but also for the first time in human history, we have the technology and the knowledge to solve the problems of the human race, and a fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq would have given everyone in Africa with AIDS free drugs. That is the choice..”

“I spoke in Trafalgar Square, a big center in London, in support of a very well known terrorist in 1964, and I was denounced in the tabloids. The next time I met him, he had a Nobel Peace Prize; it was the president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and if you look at history, I mean, how did the environmental movement become important? How did the third world movement become? Because people went on working at it.”

Spring snow

It was warm at the weekend, so when I woke up to the sun streaming through the windows, I dressed for spring.. and froze biking through the icy blasts on the way to work. It even snowed this afternoon! I’m told snow in spring, 'haru no yuki', signals good luck for the year ahead, which cheered me somewhat as I shivered in a cotton skirt and top!

“The spring wind whispers –
in with the luck!
The plums smell good –
away with the devils!
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
I don’t care –
tonight and tomorrow
we shall drink ginger sake!”

Spring is on its way

I’ve traded my woolly coat for a lighter jacket during the daytime, birds are singing.. and the marketing and ad industries are cashing in on the soon-to-be-blossoming blossoms to sell beer, camcorders, sake, holidays .. anything in fact.

The cherry trees start blooming in Okinawa in January, in mainland Honshu in March/ April and finally in Hokkaido in May. Cherry blossom (sakura) is Japan's unofficial national flower, and cherry-blossom viewing parties or hanami are very popular during the week or so the trees are in bloom.

April is also the start of the new school year in Japan, so blossoms are more than ever associated with renewal and fresh starts, which does perhaps makes more sense than leaves falling as we go back to school in the UK.

The Cherry Blossom Forecast

Cherry blossoms are estimated to be opening earlier than usual due to relatively warm temperatures, so the estimated day for opening is March 26th in Osaka, with the optimum cherry-viewing period estimated to be March 31st to April 7th..

I’m guessing that the parks in Osaka will be full of picknickers competing for the best viewing areas, apparently it’s common practice to arrive early in the morning to stake a claim on a prime picknicking spot, with a sheet marked with the participants names and arrival times.. Crazy..

Silver divorce in Japan

I was talking to someone the other day about marriage. She told me that hers was an arranged marriage, which was a surprise to me as she was quite young, in her late forties. I asked her how it had worked out and she said "Oh, next time I'll have a love marriage." I asked her what she meant by that and she said breezily "When I retire!".

So, a few days later, this article caught my eye on the BBC website :

Divorce rates surge on retirement as couples find they don’t know each other
"The divorce rate in Japan has risen by 26.5% in 10 years, according to the health ministry.

The number of divorces among couples married for 20 years or more hit 42,000 in 2004, double those recorded in 1985."

"Marriage guidance counsellors are warning newly retired couples not to spend extended amounts of time together - recommending day trips over cruises."

The dating game

On Friday night I was invited to a compa along with a few other friends, which I later found out is a kind of Japanese group blind date. It's usually an informal meeting of two evenly numbered groups of men and women. The dating situation for foreigners in Japan is pretty odd. Beautiful, intelligent Japanese women throw themselves at the foreign guys; it seems to be highly desirable to have a gaijin boyfriend. A colleague who has lived in Canada told me that many Japanese girls prefer Western boys because they say what’s on their mind, and are more likely to buy a girl a drink, or pay for the bill at a restaurant. She dated a Japanese guy who was unable to say which film he wanted to see at the cinema, then when they actually decided, he paid for his own ticket and bought himself a coke without offering to treat her. She claims Japanese boys find it hard to speak straight about anything, let alone tell Japanese girls they like them.

Maybe that’s why it’s difficult for foreign women meet Japanese men. In seven months here, the only come-ons I’ve received were from 12 year old students or leering 50 year old men... I’ve never once received any attention from anyone my own age. At first I just couldn’t understand why this was. I think we’re probably viewed as too pushy to attract a young Japanese man, especially when they’re shy and the language barrier is another hurdle to overcome.

For my single girlfriends in Japan it’s really hard to find a partner, and it’s a strong single woman who can live like this without starting to feel unattractive. Having already found the man of my life I’ve been even less likely to be in a situation to get close to any single Japanese males my own age, let alone test any of my theories... so I viewed this evening as an opportunity get closer to the truth ! I know plenty of older Japanese men and women, and Japanese girls my own age.. but I never get to speak to any young men.

We arrived at the restaurant fashionably late and were introduced to three young, scrubbed, good-looking men who worked at the same web company as our hostess-match-maker, Yoko. There was something innocent and boyish about them. After the initial awkward introductions we were seated boy-girl, boy-girl around the table. It was at this point that I started to feel kind of guilty for being secretly unavailable, as if I was there under false pretences and would be wasting my neighbours' time. I needn’t have worried, my non-existent Japanese and their limited spoken English made it a challenge to communicate anyway, even with Yoko’s sister as a translator. But once the beer got flowing we ended up relaxing and found we could communicate pretty well. Later in the evening the boys rotated around the tables and we all got fresh partners, which is when one of the guys asked me straight if I had a boyfriend and I felt better once I’d ‘come clean’!

My observations :

Chronic workaholism : All the boys work crazy hard, the boss of the firm (who’s only 33) claimed to sleep two hours a night ! A couple of the boys wore their security passes around their necks, which made me feel as if they were going to pop to the office between courses.

Canine companions : Many of the boys seemed to have miniature dachshunds back at home, and proudly showed us their pictures on their mobile phones.. I suppose dogs don’t complain about their masters never being home for dinner.

Every single boy was extremely polite and gentlemanlike.. there was none of the innuendo you’d get in a similar situation back home, or interest for that matter, I felt more that I was being coolly observed more as an alien life-form than as a prospective second date.

Oh, and the chain-smoking. I tried vanilla cigarettes, not bad.

Conclusion: I had a fun night and the whole thing seemed a lot less nerve-wracking than a blind-date with only one other person, and I suppose you have more choice! Plus it was great for language skills. My friend did exchange email addresses with one very good-looking guy, and has plans to meet up for coffee, so who knows… I did wonder whether these guys, nice as they were, actually had time for life partners, as their whole lives seemed to revolve around work. And with 6 days-a-week work schedules and only five consecutive days of holiday time per year their work must be their life.

Horrendous gaijin

I commented to a Japanese colleague today that I sometimes find myself doing things that are considered horribly rude in Japan, like eating rice balls on the street or blowing my nose in public. I sometimes feel a bit naughty, but I still do it. I suppose I wanted to know exactly how rude I really am being in the eyes of the Japanese.. She told me that more and more Japanese women are doing the same because it’s regarded as cool for girls to break the rules like foreign women. She told me that her mother used to tell her she shouldn’t even speak to her friends on the street, for fear of what the neighbours would say. I felt guilty for encouraging bad habits and proud that I’m doing my bit, however trivial, for women’s lib!

New Orleans, 6 months on

Democracy Now reports :

'The storm displaced some 770,000 residents and destroyed over 300,000 homes. Nearly 2,000 people are reportedly still missing in Louisiana alone, at least 130 of whom are children. In the city of New Orleans, whole neighborhoods remain obliterated. In the city’s hardest-hit areas, such as the Ninth Ward, there is still no power or running water.'

Jordan Flaherty, activitst and editor of http://www.leftturn.org :

“You know, Bush knew -- we didn't need to see that videotape to know that Bush knew. Scientists knew. Journalists knew. It was in our local paper. It was on television stations. Everyone knew the levees were in danger. Everyone knew that we needed to do coastal restoration to protect the city. And Bush did nothing. He cut the funding for coastal restoration. He cut the funding for shoring up the levees. He did not care. And that's why we need to do for ourselves and stand up and fight back.”

“They're attacking our school system, they’re attacking our healthcare system, they're attacking public housing system. It's this whole neo-conservative privatization agenda, and we're being hit with it really hard.

..there are several thousand units of public housing that were not damaged, and yet they still have not been opened. Our At-Large City Councilman, Oliver Thomas, said the other day, “We don't want any soap opera watchers in these.” The Housing Authority of New Orleans is going to set up testing. The people have to have job experience and training to go back into their homes, the homes that they used to live in. And, you know, we say, “What about the elderly? What about caretakers? What about women with children? Isn’t that work if they’re carrying with kids?” Apparently not to Oliver Thomas. So people are being kept out of public housing, and that's a tragedy.”

Pentagon develops brain implants to turn sharks into military spies

The Independent newspaper reports:

"Military scientists in the United States are developing a way of manipulating sharks by remote control to turn them into underwater spies or weapons.(..) The neural implants consist of electrodes buried in the fish's brain which can then be triggered by remote control to stimulate specific areas of the animal's central nervous system. (..) Scientists at Boston University have already developed brain implants that can influence the movements of dogfish - members of the shark family - by "steering" them with a phantom odour.(..) The electrodes are attached to the region of the dogfish brain associated with scent detection. When the stimulus is to the right side of the olfactory centre the fish turn right, when it is left, the fish swim left. The stronger the signal, the more sharply it turns."

Read the full article here and The New Scientist source article here

Disturbing stuff.. In an earlier article in June 2004 Jelle Atema, a marine biologist funded by the US Defense Department had this to say :

"'There are some who will worry that, once researchers gain control over sharks, they will move on to humans'. But Atema said he doesn't believe 'anyone is even remotely thinking that way. That's what we have a society for, to prevent these excesses.'

He prefers another comparison.

'We have used dogs for thousands of years around the world to help us smell, pigeons to carry messages, etc.,' he said.

'To me, it's not that different' to direct a shark by remote control."

But surely in the sniffer dog - dog handler comparison there is some kind of symbiotic relationship, the dog is gaining something though its proximity to a human and its 'work' (if it's really perceived as work by animals). The animals gain from being fed and cared for, whilst humans benefit with the animal's natural instincts and keener senses. There has to be an emotional relationship between human and animal, otherwise it couldn't function. Carrier pigeons have the freedom not to return home to roost. Remote-controlled sharks have no free will, as they respond automatically to someone pressing buttons on a remote. It's really the worst type of cowardice to control a creature in such a crude way, when we know we could never achieve such results through other means. I mean, what could be wilder than a shark?

There's something highly disturbing in such an unnatural and unbalanced relationship by a land mammal over a fish which lives in water, especially to be used within the war machine.

Urghh.. it makes my skin crawl.

Which brings me to Derrick Jensen, who can state the pure, ugly truth so much more poetically than I can :

"We pretend that animals have no pain, and that we have no ethical responsibility towards them. (..) We pretend that animals are resources to be conserved or consumed, when, in reality, they have purposes entirely independent of us. It is wrong to make believe that people are nothing more than 'Human Resources' to be efficiently utilized, when they too have independent existences and preferences. And it is wrong to make believe that animals are not sentient, that they do not form social communities in which members nurture, love, sustain, and grieve for each other, that they do not manifest ethical behavior."
A Language Older Than Words

Love .. and chocolate

“LOVE is... a cross between hunger and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's a bit like eating chocolate, in fact.”

Valentine’s Day is either loved or loathed by many in the UK, and that usually depends on whether you have a partner that year or not. But surely all the fun at school was sending and receiving anonymous cards written in block letters or ransom-note stylee with cut out newspaper print? For me Valentine’s Day was the buzz of expectation running up to the actual day. It didn’t matter whether you had a lover or not, it was almost more fun if you were single.. well-meaning friends could forge love notes from your school crushes so you’d feel loved all the same. The Japanese miss out on the whole anonymous card fun, my students were aghast when I told them about our card tradition, for them it would be too embarrassing to contemplate, “But it’s anonymous..” I insisted.. No, they really didn’t like the idea.. One girl couldn’t imagine being given chocolates by an anonymous giver either, “What if they were poisoned?” she pointed out. Hmm, I'd never thought of it like that !



However, Japan’s shops are full of expensive chocolates and gifts. The Japanese tradition is for the ladies to give their men chocolates on February 14th (and this includes mothers to sons, female co-workers to male colleagues, etc..). Apparently this is called *giri choko (obligatory chocolate). So, men get to stuff themselves silly on Valentine’s Day. But here’s the catch.. one month later on March 14th, men must return the favour on 'White Day' and buy chocolates for all the women who gave him chocs a month before.. I’ve heard this can get really expensive for some men, especially in large offices. Valentine’s Day in Japan is largely a pricey chocolate exchanging exercise, between people who have no romantic connection whatsoever ! And of course, the confectioners make a killing, with Valentine chocolate sales a 50 million yen market. The confectioners Morozoff Ltd. claim to have introduced Valentine’s Day with a 1936 advertisement for chocolates. "If we'd been a florist, no doubt we would have tried to sell flowers," Morozoff spokesman Kazuo Kojima said.”



White Day was apparently invented as a marketing gimmick in the 1980’s by a marshmallow manufacturer (hence the name), cashing in on men’s guilty feelings at receiving all of this chocolate, by getting them to buy some back in return. I’ve heard this chocolate is slightly pricier for the men too, hmm.. No wonder some of them are ducking their responsibility and Japanese women are getting bitter at the obligatory Valentine’s chocolate arrangement, according to this Yahoo article.

Funnily enough, Christmas is regarded a ‘lover’s holiday’ in Japan. Couples take off for cozy weekends or go out for a nice meal, so it seems December 25th has usurped Valentine’s Day.


Mmm give me Green and Blacks Organic Cherry Dark Chocolate any day .. especially when you know that :

Eating chocolate may halve risk of dying

Chocolate makes you sexy
“women.. who consumed the most chocolate had the highest levels of desire, arousal and sexual satisfaction.”

Chocolate stops you coughing

Unborn babies like chocolate
“The babies born to women who had been eating chocolate daily during pregnancy were more active and "positively reactive" - a measure that encompasses traits such as smiling and laughter.”



*giri = "giri" refers to an innate sense of duty, obligation, morality and the absolute need to return a favor. Everyone is bound by giri - giri toward ones parents (filial piety) and giri toward ones teachers and benefactors. giri is also expressed at the societal level by meeting ones obligations and responsibilities as best as possible. The American anthropologist, Ruth Benedict in her book, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" explains that the reason why the Japanese are so bound by giri is, "if they do not, they would be regarded as 'ignorant of giri' and be put to shame in front of others."
From here.

Listening as an Act of Love

What a great idea, recording the oral histories of normal people, "listening as an act of love"..

"DAVE ISAY: Story Corps is a project that started about 2 1/2 years ago in Grand Central Terminal. It is a very simple idea. We built a booth in grand central. And you bring anyone you want to the booth. Your grandmother, a friend, the person who brings you eggs in the morning at the diner every day. Anyone who you want to get to know. You are met a at the time booth by someone called a facilitator. Someone who works with us. For a few minutes the facilitator talks to you about how to do an oral history and then brings you inside the booth and closes the door. We have designed it as a sacred space. It is very dark and perfectly quiet in the middle of grand central terminal."

"the idea is that the stories of every day people are just as interesting and important as the stories of Martha Stewart and Donald Trump and all this nonsense we are fed all the time."

The project home : http://storycorps.net/
Read the whole interview here

You can hear the stories of former slaves on the Library of Congress website Voices from the Days of Slavery

Contemplation

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

John Muir
Our National Parks

Totsukawa prefecture, Japan

Crimes Against Humanity

Full page ad published in The New Internationalist.. wishful thinking ?

Funny things about Japan

I've already been here for six months and I've only just got around to reporting back on some of the weird and wonderful things Japan seems to spawn.

Okay, let's get this out of the way.. Japan is full of weird stuff, and here are a few of my observations.

Plastic food

Saves gaijin from going hungry I suppose. Very useful. You can even buy plastic food in Doguyasuji around Namba if you so wish..



Construction workers

Workmen look extremely cool here, they wear tabis (blue or black calf-high cotton boots with a cleft in the big toe) and wide cotton trousers, usually with a white towel wrapped around their heads. I’ve heard that a lot of yakuza are recruited from construction crews, and this wouldn’t surprise me.

Every construction crew will have an old man standing at the entrance to the site, who is solely employed to wave passers-by past with a flashing wand reminiscent of a light-sabre. He seems to do that all day, every day..

Whiney shop assistants

Wherever you go in Osaka, shop assistants will call ‘Irrashaimase’ ('Welcome') with a nasal whine as you enter a shop, or even get close to the door.. not weird but plain annoying.

Bowing

On street corners and underground stations all over Japan groups of Japanese attempt to ‘out-bow’ the others as they part company . It seems the deeper and the longer you bow, the more reverence is accorded to your bowing partner.

Department store assistants will commonly bow down so low they even touch their foreheads to the counter as they thank you for your custom.. I’ve seen this in the PC department of Yodobashi camera.

Elevator attendants commonly bow and apologize like they've done something to offend you.

Flashy fashions

Namba is full of Osakan youth with blonde-tinted 80’s hair, fake tan, tight jeans, and vinyl puffer jackets with fake fur trim (and that’s just the boys).

There are some fashions I like here, this is the 'everything goes' look :



Short skirts in all weathers

Girls have even been spotted in Hokkaido in - 7 degree temperatures wearing mini skirts..



Preening

Japanese ladies will unashamedly spend ages rearranging perfect hair in the loos, or reapplying make-up onto already heavily made-up faces. There are whole floors of amusement arcades dedicated to photo booths where girlies can pout and preen and then create and doodle kawai little photos.. so of course Mim and I had a go :

Warmed toilet seats, and bidet style facilities on public toilets..

An electronic toilet with a warm seat, spray function and the canned sound of water flowing .. bliss.. ! I liked the warmed seat in a ski station, but it must be so wasteful of energy..



Toilet slippers

Don’t forget to change out of them.. when getting back to your table, or leaving the restaurant. One Japanese colleague walked out of the restaurant before the restaurant staff came running after him with his shoes ! He was very red-faced when he realised he’d still got his plastic toilet slippers on !

“Toilet slippers are a holdover from the past, when houses did not have modern plumbing facilities. Before flush toilets became available, toilets were just a hole in the floor that people squatted over, and were not exactly the most hygienic places in the world. Wearing slippers that had been in the toilet in would might bring flies, maggots or excrement into the house, so people always changed their footwear. Although toilets are much cleaner now, toilets are still considered to be dirty, and the custom of separate house and restroom slippers continues. This fecal-phobia is also the reason that so many people dislike having to take a bath in the same room that the toilet is located in.”

White gloves worn outside of the clubs

Bus conductors all wear unnecessary white gloves.

Sleeping

The whole train carriage appears to be fast asleep but they never seem to miss their stop.. Amazing..



Students sleep in class and it doesn’t seem to bother teachers in the slightest.



Manga

Grown men read violent erotic manga on the bus/ train/ tram.

Overstaffing..

Why put one person onto a job when you can get the same job done with six , ie. sweeping train platforms, fixing lights etc.

Vending machines

There are beer and cigarette machines on the street, but no food machines. I’ve heard this is because it’s considered bad manners to eat while walking, so people are not accustomed to buying food from vending machines.

You can buy canned hot coffee or hot corn soup in vending machines, terrible for the environment but great for warming frozen hands whilst waiting at country side train stations.

Staring

It’s quite common to be stared at outside of the major cities. I usually stare right back.

Compliments

The Japanese love to give compliments, but it’s best not to take them too seriously. They especially like to compliment foreigners on their handling of chopsticks or their command of Japanese.

I’ve been told I have a ‘small face’ and a ‘high nose’, both of which are compliments I’m told.

Drunkenness

Walk around any town around 11pm to see groups of drunken Japanese salarymen staggering home.

Engrish

Weird ‘Engrish’ is all over the place on t-shirts, signs, pencil cases, anything in fact.. Almost as common is the weird French..




Wasteful packaging

Everything is packed into 5 separate plastic bags with ribbons around them in shops.

Gas stations

5 guys wave the driver into a gas station and treat him to service from 3 attentive employees who fill the car, wash the windows..

Mobile phones

Ubiquitous, but not as imposing as in the West, it’s common to see people speaking on the phone with hands over their mouths. On the underground people are glued to their phones, texting, surfing the ’net, watching TV..

Germs

People wear white masks to prevent the spread of germs or to protect themselves. Employees gargle every lunchtime to kill germs. It’s considered very rude to place anything on the floor, bags should be kept on the knees whilst riding the underground. Children who aren’t yet able to walk are considered germ magnets as they crawl on the floor and so people wash their hands after playing with them.. Obsessed?

The V-sign

Girls make the ‘v sign’ whenever they have their picture taken.

Like this:



Not like this :



Pigeon-toes

I've noticed a lot of Japanese women walking down the street pigeon-toed, often in high heels.

This has perplexed me for a while; is it genetic, or just pure affectation ? This is what I’ve been able to find out on the ’net:

“Walking pigeon-toed is considered feminine in Japan, and is an affectation rather than a physical characteristic. Some people have suggested that it is because their legs are deformed from sitting in seiza (on your shins with your legs folded under you) but this is simply untrue. The real answer is that it is a holdover from the days when people still wore kimono. If you walk normally while wearing one, the kimono tends to comes open so for modest people began walking pigeon-toed. Even though people no longer wear kimono, a shuffling walk with one's feet turned inward is still considered modest, feminine, and even cute.”

Elaine has documented some more Japanese oddities here