Demanding life

The Japanese in general is very correct, well behaving, and polite. However at evenings you frequently also see a contrasting image. In bars, in the streets and trains a common sight is businessmen loosen up after some drinks. They are still polite (I believe) but quite uncontrolled and uninhibited. Obviously, if you spend a lot of your time working hard and a lot of efforts adjusting to quite hard living conditions it might be a necessity to find ways to let the strain out. That is true everywhere. Additionally in this beautiful country you are under a constant threat of natural disasters. No wonder you need some relief now and then.

Three Drunken Women, 1787 - Torii Kiyonaga

Perfect & cute

Another area of contrasts is fashion. Stylishness and perfectionism exists side by side with the phenomena of youngsters appearing at weekends in Harajuku wearing outfits that are beyond descriptions. However, the perfectionism is true for all styles. Be sure that the most extreme punk fellow will have the most perfect and stylish punk attributes.

The mascot syndrome

One thing I find fascinating is how a country can embody a tradition of such and elegant and stylish style in design that co-exists with a form language that many in west would call childish or label as kitsch. Take the trend in Japan of putting small cute figure and mascots on “everything”. Examples could be figures on manholes, T-shirts, mobile phones not to mention that almost everyone’s desk in the office is covered with these cute figures. Furthermore, there is probably not any company or public service that doesn’t have its own cute mascot linked to its brand. The picture above is taken from the sport news in the main TV channel (NHK) some hours ago. In this case the mascots represent two different sport teams. I don’t know the reason for the “mascot syndrome”. Maybe it can, to some extent, be explained by the long tradition of using symbols and illustrations in communication….?

I'm having vacation. October is a wonderful season in this amazing country, so full of contrasts. The picture above is taken today at the roof-garden in our house. The temperature is around 25 C and life is beautiful!

Remarkable appearance(s)

Is there any other place in the world where women are so well dressed as in Tokyo? A majority of the female around are extremely well dressed and have perfect make-up, manicures, coiffures and are wearing exclusive brand’s hand bag. Not to mention their shoes, which in general are remarkably fancy and trendy (and high-heeled). In other words; the overall appearance is just amazing! I bet these beauties spend a whole lot of money and time to manage to look and dress so well. Being a western women in Japan can be quite challenging. Not only are you always the biggest but your style is most probably (especially coming from Sweden) coloured by a wish to dress in a way that is very comfortable and well functioning. Only at rare occasions you dress up in a way that is used as “everyday dress code” here. The special occasions in Sweden would be for Christmas, weddings and some other very special occasions.

Let me tell you a quickie about someone close to me. She has been in Japan for roughly 10 months. My good friend was brought up in Sweden during the 70’s. That was when the mainstream of the teenager’s ideals was to be natural, the “Love, Peace & Understanding”-era. We are talking about 'earth' shoes and natural material. After arriving to Tokyo my good friend began to feel extremely big and old-fashioned after a while. Some bad days she felt as if she had some kind of kinship to ogress's.

So by now almost every morning, she tries to build up her confidence and spends long time to fix the hair, apply some make up and tries different kind of clothes (over and over again). Finally she feels at ease with the result and gets out, ready to conquer the world. However, during her way, she becomes weaker (and here I must tell you that she lives in the most fashionable area, with all the famous fashion houses around the corner) so by the time she arrives to the office she has transformed back to the big, old fashioned troll again.

But hey, no ache in her feet’s due to high heeled shoes and her comfortable clothes will make her feel convenient the rest of the day. And anyway, there is nothing but sour grapes in the tree!

It makes sense

Some things can seem very strange arriving to a new country. But after a while most of it makes very much sense.
The politeness, calmness and the Japanese well organised society makes sense knowing that so many people are living very close together. The population in Japan is around 125milj, living on only 20% of the land (the rest is covered by mountains). Only in the conglomerate consisting of Tokyo-Kawasaki-Yokohama lives 33 millions people! No wonder things must be well organised if this is to work well.

The umbrella parking outside shops is very logical; thinking of amount of water it would be, especially during the raining seasons. Wearing a mask covering the mouth is also something you see frequently. Considering how (sometimes extremely) close you stand to each other on the trains I am quite grateful when people around me are wearing a mask, knowing the reason is to avoid passing an infection to others. The crowd probably also explains, to some extent, the “blank” faces ability to “turn off” the surroundings. I guess it is a necessity to cut out a great deal, to not get overwhelmed.

One item that almost shocked first the time I saw it was the selling of holograms, aimed to be put on the display on your mobile phone! Being an UI designer I almost fainted of surprise and astonishment, thinking what a crazy idea to put a picture right over the user interface. After a few weeks I realized that by putting a hologram over the display, you get some privacy since it makes it impossible for others to read over your shoulder while it is still possible to read and write yourself!