It's all about what you wear

There are not enough words to tell about Japanese pop-culture. Especially extraordinary I find to be street fashion. The clothing styles are beautiful, astonishing, bold, strange, bizarre, original, and you can go on and on trying to describe them. Osaka’s America Mura is one of the districts where you can find great variety of street fashion. Some styles fall under the specific trend, some appear to be a mix of several trends, and some do not seem to have a known origin. My attempts to figure out the style illustrated in this photograph were in vain. However, when I asked my Japanese host-family if they knew what fashion it was, and my siblings said that it might be men’s version of Gothic Lolita style adapted by women, but the girl on the right also may be soft punk. Here is a video which in short summarizes what this style is all about:

This outfit also presented a challenge for me. When I showed this photograph to my Japanese friends and host-family, the most common response was "Eeeeeh," you know the one Japanese use for "What in the world?" However, one of my friends said that this is Furugi Gyaru, trend that uses second hand clothing. Also note that the variety of bright colors in these outfits is very particular to Osaka fashion.

This next style, called Ganguro, is well-known, and in literal translation it means "black face." It is one of the sub-trends of Gyaru, which essentially stands for “gal” or “girl”. Typical characteristics of Ganguro are dark tanned skin, dyed blond hair, and high platform boots (Talarowska-Kacprzak 2001). This look was very popular in 1990-2000 time periods, but it still can be seen on the streets today. Shoichi Aoki, creator of FRUiTS magazine, in his interview with Tony Barrell said about Ganguro, “Where they came from is actually a mystery, no one really knows but there is some speculation that they were girls who were infatuated or fascinated with Janet Jackson or black American musicians or perhaps Naomi Campbell, the super model, but it’s still a mystery what their origins were.” However, Talarowska-Kacprzak in her paper argues that Ganguro was created by media with intention to contradict traditional gender roles, where women played a peripheral part, and “promote a new style of being a woman.”

Overall, when you end up in one of these street fashion districts, it seems that here in Japan it is all about what you wear. There are always things to look at and to be amused by.

References:

"Shoichi Aoki Interview." Interview by Tony Barrell. The Night Air. Brent Clough, 9 Mar. 2003. Web. 6 Oct. 2009. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/nightair/stories/s788802.htm.

Talarowska-Kacprzak, Kinga. "Media and the Construction of the Ganguro Trend in Japan." Journal of Mundane Behavior (2001). Web. 6 Oct. 2009. http://www.mundanebehavior.org/issues/v2n1/kinga.htm.

Neighborhood Hirakata

If you pass by Hirakata station in the morning on a week day, it is impossible not to notice students, all in a hurry to get to their classes. Even in a rainy weather, uniforms of middle and high school students undoubtedly will catch the eye, especially that of a foreigner.

Of course we all know that the “school girl” look became famous mainly because of Japanese, but it is a different experience to see teenagers wear these uniforms in a natural environment, so to say. Most of the middle schools and also many high schools in Hirakata require their students to wear uniforms, which differ from school to school. However, shift your gaze towards one of the bus stops, and the picture changes: you will see a long line of college students waiting to get on a bus going to Kansai Gaidai Nikamiya Campus*.

Here, distinctive and bold clothing styles substitute innocent (or not so much) school uniforms. It is quite overwhelming to see over one hundred girls looking (or trying to look) unique and stylish. Near all of them wear heels and own something of kirakira**. As for me, every time I see this crowd of dressed up college girls standing there ready to impress and show off all kinds of imaginable accessories, my immediate thought is “Oh my Gosh, I need to get to get new clothes and some nice kirakira!”

*yearly enrollment of this University constitutes about 10,000 people. At that, majority of the students are female (http://www.kansaigaidai.ac.jp/asp/01_the_university/02.html)

** kirakira refers to cute and shiny accessories very popular in Japan

It is good that I am in Japan

After 11-hour flight San Francisco - Osaka, I finally stepped off the plane. I was more than ready to get on the bus, taking me from the airport to the Kansai Gaidai University seminar house, and stare my way out of the window forming very first impressions about Japan. My excitement however was disturbed by 16-hour jet leg, and in less than 10 minutes I was asleep, observing the back of my eyelids instead of this new to me country. When I woke up, the students were already rushing to pick up their luggage. I didn't have another choice but to begin my journey in the international dormitory instead. As I entered, I was asked to take off my shoes. I knew that Japanese people take off their shoes the minute they enter their homes, but in the dormitory?

The floors looked very clean and therefore I did not mind going barefoot. However, I was asked to put my shoes on of the shelves in the corridor that is accessible to anybody who passes by. My first thought was, "There is no way I am leaving my 60 dollar puma sneakers out of my site!" Nevertheless, I was too tired to argue, and I left my
pumas on the shelf as was instructed. In the past 5 year I've lived in the United States; however, I was born and brought up in Ukraine. If this was happening in my home country, my shoes would be guaranteed get stolen within an hour after leaving them on the common shoe shelf; moreover, there would be a high probability for my sneakers to be gone before I could even unlace them. If you've ever been to Japan, you know that here it is not at all the case. In fact, now I've been here for 3 weeks and it just does not settle in my mind how any human can be as conscientious as the Japanese.

I also had a chance to test Japanese honesty on myself. Yes, my shoes were on the shelf as I had left them, but not only that. One day I was heading to the store when I suddenly I realized that I did not have my wallet. I left it in the computer room more than 40 minutes ago. "Oh no! - I thought - my life is in that wallet! All of my cash, my debit card, credit card, international student ID, and my U.S. green card! If it is gone... " I didn't want to think further, and I ran back to the computer room. My wallet wasn't there, but it was in the Lost and Found. Everything was there to the last hyaku yen. It is good that I am in Japan.

In a similar manner, one of the New York Times articles by Notrimitsu Onishi also describes fascinating to foreigners Tokyo's Lost and Found Center, reflecting well on Japanese culture http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/world/never-lost-but-found-daily-japanese-honesty.html.