Japan, land of contradictions
A woman walks through the gardens of the Meiji Jingu shrine, in Shibuya
Japan: If you look online, like I did, you’ll get bombarded with videos about everything from how what to pack, to where to eat, to how the Japanese dress, to how you should too but they treat Japan as a monolith - and I’m learning, that is the furthest thing from the truth. In Japan, many things are true at once, the sacrosanct sits alongside the profane, best seen in the neighbourhood I, along with every other first-timer to Japan chose to book ourselves into: Shinjuku, which is essentially the Times Square of Tokyo. Here, young girls in short frilly dresses hawk seats at “Girl Bars” and “Girl Shows” by waving at you innocently from street corners. Many, in fact, are eager to sell you a “Boy show”, which seem to tickle older women keen to ogle at young, fresh faced men with names that seem to have come out of an online English name generator used by online agents in a country that now owns the majority of our customer service jobs, ie: Luy Serpenti. Shinjuku, filled to the brim with tourists just as lost as I am adds to the wonder and chaos of crossing the street alongside more than 1000 other people, so, as walkable city, Tokyo sure checks all the boxes. On my first day alone, I walked over 28,000 steps and saw more than three neighbourhoods in Tokyo’s many different wards. Unfortunately for me, everyone else in town also had the same idea.
Japan’s economy is experiencing somewhat of a blip, with the oldest generation retiring, and without workers to come up behind them to keep the economy going. Economists also blame a lack of buying power from a younger generation too, which is dealing with stagnating wages and lack of job growth. Yet, even with frozen wages, Japan’s youth does not seem to hold back when it comes to shopping, as I learned yesterday, when I became physically weak after roaming the labyrinthian floors of the nearby Lumine mall, foolishly trying to escape the throngs of people outside of it (only to find them inside), in search of something, anything to eat that did not contain pork. As I wandered through and around shops that also got the online-name-generator treatment, stores like “Oriental Traffic” and “Superfly now!!!” were all packed with shoppers at 8pm even though they curiously all sold the same thing: different iterations of a French maid ensemble - frilly blouse, short skirt, a ruffled white apron that was pinned or riveted in place, and delicate hair accessories to match. From what I noted, the outfits came apart for the woman that wanted to go effortlessly from office to “Girl Bar”….and isn’t that what every woman wants? To take an outfit from day to night without much hassle? And that is just what I see most of them do, on Sunday morning at 7am, when many of the city’s young people come stumbling out of the Girl and Boy Bars, having partied all night, sick to their stomaches and all over the street. One girl, I notice, with the characteristic eyes of a recipient of double-eyelid surgery which makes her face look pained, tucks the frilly edges of her top into a neat pair of black slacks, threw her pink wig into a spacious duffle bag, and smoothing her hair, slides gracefully into a nearby cab, and into her daytime persona.
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