Canadian Thanksgiving and the pop culture of Japan

Hello again

Well, I tantalized you all with promises of Thanksgiving, so here we are.  I had planned on discussing the other things I talked about, like getting my alien registration card or some of the awkwardness of dorm life, but most of that stuff tends to be pretty boring or has been talked about before.  So, Thanksgiving!  Here at Seminar house 1, we have a Canadian girl named Emilie, who is just fantastic.  She's so full of energy and very kind and warm hearted and she just up and decided one day to have Thanksgiving in October.  Canadian Thanksgiving she called it.  Since this monday was a holiday for the Japanese Sport's Festival, we did some shopping and just about everyone in the Seminar house pitched in.  Emilie cooked chicken, pumpkin, and mashed potatoes, I cooked a teriyaki dish consisting of salmon, leek, mushrooms, and bean sprouts, we had mini hamburgers, beautiful cheese potatoes, cabbage and eggs and the deserts...well, it was just the kind of celebration that brings the whole dorm together...well, mostly.  We had about 80% of the dorm present.  It was a wild night of cooking, though the party did overwhelm me a bit closer to the end.  These sorts of close bonds are what I like most about dorm living.  Don't get me wrong, by and large dorm living does make me uncomfortable, with the small rooms, communal bathrooms and showers, and the issues of dealing with certain people, but moments like that make it seem all worthwhile.

 My teriyaki dish.  Trust me, it tasted much much better than it looked.

 The main spread, with Emilie's dishes being covered.

 All of us meaningfully rubbing our bellies while we wait for the dinner gong to ring, so to speak.

 The final piece of the night.  A banana bread esque cake decorated with strawberry pocky, the traditional Japanese snack of choice when one wants something sweet.

And just like that, it was back to the school week.  Midterms are creeping up on us and the stress levels are pretty high.  I still manage to find time to hang out with some of my friends, but the pressure to succeed in Japan, even though I decided to take it easy this semester, is incredibly high.  I've studied more in the past few days than I usually do for a month.  Thank god for Ikebana.

This is my latest flower arrangement.  There's something Zen and meditative about it all...and hopefully, I can continue it when I get back to the states.  It is one of the few things on my longest days that I actually look forward to.  With any luck, I'll be able to present an Ikebana piece for the cultural fair in November.

So...Japanese pop culture.  There is a lot to say on the matter and I'm not qualified to speak as an expert, but I have taken several pictures to make a point.

 Nothing quite says Japan like Mister Donut.  Their commercial are all over the television and, to be fair, their food is of a much higher quality compared to similar chains in America.  However, the one thing that I can't illustrate enough is the power of cute.  Each of the donuts for sail has an animal mascot to go with it that is both adorable, and which corresponds to the donut, like one looking similar to a lion's mane or a tortoise shell.

 And at other points, we have stores like this, that sell exclusively to the geek demographic.  This one stand probably has more One Piece Merchandise than the whole of North Carolina.  That is...shocking, to say the least.  I've been here before and bought from it, for reasons I'll discuss later.

 And the slot and card machines...these are everywhere in Japan.  Rows of machines that sell keychains, toys, trading cards, all for the low low price of about 200 yen, or $2 American.  It seems so cute, so innocuous, so welcoming...yeah, I've wasted almost twenty bucks on these machines.  They sucker you in with promises of fun and toys and to their credit, you get both but...it's addictive.

At the same time, we have areas of Japan that are still pristine, or at least, pristine to our image of Japan, like this tea garden.  How can a raging consumerist culture exist in the same place as a quiet tea house that focuses on ritual and regulation?

Well, they play off each other.  The pop culture of Japan uses the power of cute to draw people in, to give them the fun and act as a release valve for all the pressure of the world.  That's one of the reasons modern anime include almost universally cute characters.  There are some that are gritty or what have you, but they need to be silly, welcoming, fun, so that they can succeed.  It's one of many release valves the Japanese, in their workaholic schedule, can indulge in.  That's why I like the stores and slot machines, at least.  It's an escape.  And that's why places like the tea garden succeed and continue to be preserved as well.  They are an escape not just from the troubles of life, but a little bit of quiet that Japanese pop culture can't give.  Japanese pop culture is very loud, cute, and appealing, with cute girls in skimpy clothes, anthropmorphic animals in adorable getups, or goofy heroes who are very likable.  The quiet acts as another release valve from the pressures of life...and in many ways, from the pressure of pop culture, which requires a huge level of knowledge and conformity at times to fit in.

Ikebana too is a release valve in this manner, stepping into a garden of your own creation and just indulging an hour or two in tending your own little world.  In many ways, I think that's why it's been so consumerized.  The release valve can be opened a little more with each splurge we make on ourselves, which is why anime merchandise, model kits, and even flower arrangement equipment and Sumi-E supplies are so prevalent and profitable in Japan.  In America, we do have stressful lives, but there are release valves everywhere.  We have tons of free time, even if we have the worst of jobs.  In Japan...not so much.  They need not just activities but souveniers, proof that they have had fun.  In many ways, such merchandise can be a replacement for real friends.  Scary as that may seem.

While I don't intend to do any major research on Japanese pop culture other than what I see with my eyes, it is easy to note that many of us see Japanese pop culture as pure liquid crazy.  But, the crazy has a purpose.  It gives some much needed relief from the work, the trains, the buses, school, etc.

Anyway, that's my take on it.  Whether you accept it or not, it's just how I feel on the matter.  I can't sum up an entire culture's pop culture into one blog post after all.  I just wanted to talk about it for those curious.  While it does mean it's easy to get suckered into buying the merchandise, especially since life is rather hectic here around test time, I'd recommend giving it a try to anyone who wants to visit Japan, because this aspect of the culture is absent from the US once you reach a certain age.  Here, merchandise isn't just for kids or collectors.  It's for everyone.

Life is going to get insane soon, so not sure if I'll have my bon dance pictures up any time soon.  May not post until after midterms either.  So, for the readers who've stuck with me up to now, be prepared for a short drought, so to speak.  Even when I try and relax, life finds a way to be busy here.

Until next we can meet though, I bid you adieu.