Shanghai Tan

Welcome to sushistan, kawaistan and idolistan! Although Japan has a long and strong culture of its own for the past two milleniums, its modern mainstream culture could be described by three words: sushi, cartoon and idol. During my trip to Japan between September 26th to October 3th, as a first time visitor not speaking their language, that was my impression of this weird isolated and unique country.

We spent the first 3 days in Tokyo (東京), and the last 4 days at Hokkaido (北海道) which is the northen island of Japan. In Tokyo we mostly shopped around, ate like a pigs and drunk like a cows, we didn’t really visit the typical tourist attractions like the Meiji Shrine (明治神宫), the Imperial Palace (皇居), the Tokyo Tower or the Mount Fuji (富士山). Instead we visited the shopping area of Harajuku (原宿), Omotesando Hills (表参道), Shibuya (渋谷), Ginza (銀座), Shinjuku (新宿), Asakusa (浅草) and the Sensoji temple (浅草寺). That was fine by me, actually visiting these places allow me to see the real Japanese live rather than seeing only tourists.

Sensoji temple	Sensoji temple	Sensoji temple
Kaminarimon gate	Shibuya 109 mall	Shibuya at night
Shibuya at night	Shibuya at night	Shibuya at night

In Tokyo we mostly travelled by subway. I estimate that their subway must be built around the same time as Paris’, it’s kinda old style, line transfer is sometime messy, but it’s very clean, no bad smell, and it goes to every corner of the city, so very convenient. The Tokyo public transport system is quite well developped and affordable, lots of people don’t need cars, so they have less road congestion than the other major cities around the world, like Paris or Los Angeles.

When walking on the streets or malls, it is striking to see how much Japanese women and men, especially young women, take care of their appearance. Every young lady is fashionably dressed, impeccable hair style, make-up, mascarat and nails, branded hand bag, and their shoes are incredible to say the least! In other words, nothing on their body is left to random, everything must be perfectly tailored to the latest popular style. I use to think that Shanghai ladies are stylish, and even care too much about their look. But that’s not remotely close to the Japanese ladies. Tokyo’s Shibuya is really the fashion place where every lady dresses and appears like the models on Japanese pop magazines! Actually I can’t tell the difference, maybe they’re actually the models. Nothing is too weird to wear, some girls dress like a princess in the fairy tale, other dress like the hero in some games, but that doesn’t seem to attract any special attention from passer-by on the streets. Maybe their cartoon culture has invaded their real life, manifested as cosplay in the real society.

Many of the following pictures were captured over a very short period of time, and I’ve miss many better opportunities because there were too many people on the streets. But nevertheless, it gives you an idea of this year’s trend in Asia, because everyone will be following the Japanese style eventually.

Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	These young people may have money to buy LV bags and pretty shoes, but they still eat instant noodle on the street.
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya

Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Shibuy station	Shibuya station

As for men, their hair style is remarkable, they all look like the characters in Japanese games or manga (漫画). They either wear teared-down jeans for going out, or black suit for work. I wonder if Men in Black isn’t a Japanese comics inspired by Hollywood. In the subway during rush hour, you can see a long row of men all wearing black suit, some grey suit, but never a colored suit. The same goes for cars, black, white and grey cars are predominant on the streets, I can hardly see a red or blue or green car out there. That’s the men world…

In constrast, in every lady shop, I was blinded by all the colored displays and labels, with pink being the predominant color. Everything destinated to ladies has to be cute, cartoon is commonly used for everything from avertisement to user instruction to packaging.

Where cartoon is not appropriate, such as beauty products or high-end consumer brands, you can expect an idol instead. Japanese idols are everywhere in public view. These quasi-perfect young ladies (and boys too, but relatively less frequent) have everything a young Japanese girl wants: they look good, they’re cute and they wear chic stuff. They’re used to promote everything that cartoon won’t fit. And among the 127 millions Japanese population, the marketing machines can easily produce thousands of new young idols every year, keeping the average age of idol below 20. So, they’re cute, good skin, naive, open minded, adorable and fresh. It’s like breeding a thousand of new Paris Hilton every year!

Actually the following annecdote would explain it all… While my tour mates were shopping in the 0101 mall at Shinjuku, I was exploring a small the street on the side. I saw several mini-casinos, actually there’re only slot machines, but lots of them! What striked me was in those slot machines, instead of the boring melon, cherry, apple, the bell and the 7 signs, what they put in there instead are the latest cartoon characters, the latest game characters, the latest TV show characters, and the hottest idols. Every mini-casino advertise their latest slot machines idols to attract players. I think that’s very creative, they must make lots of money out of those slot machines to justify changing the signs regularly, while even the fanciest casinos at Las Vegas still stuck with the century-old slot machine signs. I was really impressed, deeply impressed by how much their pop culture are found in every aspect of their life.

Slot machines using idol signs

Now, when we talk about Japanese cuisine (日本料理), that’s where the millenium long Japanese tradition remains very strong. In Tokyo, we had sushi (寿司), sashimi (刺身), ramen (拉面), curry rice, charcoal BBQ, tempura and donburi (丼). Our friend Desmond, who is actually our guide at Japan, probably knows more fishes than an average Japanese, and probably has tasted more sake (日本酒), sochu (焼酎) and umeshu (梅酒) than an average Japanese has. Under his guide, we tried many good Japanese foods and wines. We particularly enjoyed our meal at an izakaya (居酒屋, Japanese-style pub) at Shibuya, the atmosphere was good, the BBQ foods were tasty, the wine selection was rich, and it was memorable because Desmond celebrated his 4th wedding anniversary.

Revolving sushi

Stand up noodle restaurant

The last thing to mention is a rather unusual activity, Desmond and I went to the newly opened National Art Center of Tokyo to see Vermeer‘s exposition. It is a very stylish space-for-rent type of museum. We were there early the morning, sunny and blue sky, the interior view is really impressive. We also had lunch there at the very stylish suspended restaurant, Le Rond, founded by Paul Bocuse.

National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	Restaurant Le Rond

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Scrapbook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.