And So It Goes

Merry Finger-Lickin'-Good Christmas from Colonel Santa!

It's Christmas, so here's an old photo of that symbol of a traditional Japanese Christmas: fried chicken.

No, seriously. Many years ago, the marketing geniuses -- and I do not use that term ironically -- at Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan started a campaign to convince Japanese consumers that a traditional Christmas dish is fried chicken. They succeeded wildly, not only to the point that people now need to make reservations to pick up their fried chicken on Christmas Day at "Kentucky" (as the place is nicknamed) and that they've expanded the product range to include "premium roasted chicken" on that day, but also that convenience stores and other fast-food chains have gotten into the act, also offering that traditional Christmas chicken.

Which explains why, last night, the 7-11 near my house had a table set up outside in the dark, displaying the Christmas cakes (another, albeit non-KFC, Christmas tradition) and the chicken, sold by three 7-11 employees, one in a Santa suit and the other two dressed as reindeer.

(The chicken didn't seem to be fried, but grilled, with a sweetish teriyaki sauce on top. Pretty tasty, actually.)

As for The Colonel above: there's a statute of him permanently outside every KFC in Japan, but he only wears the  Santa suit at Christmas time. (There's a purely Japanese holiday where he dons a colorful suit of samurai armor, but that's something for another post.)

"Shimo"

There was something in yesterday's International Herald Tribune from my own backyard, as it were, about the neighborhood of Shimo-Kitazawa. No, I don't hang out there and I've only been there a couple of times -- I usually think of it as a transfer station between Shibuya and Kichijoji on the Keio Inokashira train line that I'm always passing through -- but I keep meaning to drop by some weekend and explore the streets and back-alleys to see what I can see. The story I excerpt below certainly gives me an incentive to do so soon, before the unstoppable juggernaut of Urban

For someone else's look at the neighborhood, check out "The cool sounds of 'Shimo'" by Steve McClure of the International Herald Tribune (February 4, 2004). Find out about Pizza of Death Records, and yes, the label's name does make perfect sense once you know the story.

Splitting a Hip Neighborhood, in More Ways Than One

"Until now, nobody cared if we destroyed the culture and environment of Tokyo," says urban planning professor. "People are gradually coming to understand that these things matter, too."

By Martin Fackler, New York Times

Tokyo, Setagaya Ward, Japan - With its vintage clothing stores, live music clubs and cheap noodle shops, Shimokitazawa is Tokyo’s answer to Greenwich Village, an epicenter of youth culture in one of Asia’s trendiest metropolises.

The neighborhood is popular for its cozy residential feel, drawing hordes of students and young office workers, who regularly throng its maze of narrow lanes and alleys.

Its tiny shops, many in converted houses or low-rise apartments, often bear names that recall a counterculture across the Pacific: the Village Vanguard Diner, Haight Ashbury, Mojo Rising.

But a shadow has fallen straight across the heart of this pulsing neighborhood. In four years, city officials plan to start building an 81-foot-wide thoroughfare that will slice Shimokitazawa in two.

The road has set off a rare battle for preservation in a country where big construction projects have long been welcomed as progress and used to grease the wheels of politics.

The fight pits boutique and bar owners, among them the first bearers of hippie culture to the neighborhood three decades ago, against city hall and older residents who resent the relative newcomers.

Read more...

See also:

• "The cool sounds of 'Shimo'" by Steve McClure of the International Herald Tribune (February 4, 2004)

Getting the Salaryman's Attention

 

I don't know what percentage of Japan's Gross National Product is spent on advertising -- a Japanese analyst I once talked with claimed it was lower than in the US -- but the public areas of this country are saturated in advertising. Streets, buildings, train stations, trains -- all available surfaces seemed to be covered in adverts.

That being the case, competing for attention in a very crowded environment -- I'm sure that marketing professionals have some annoying jargon for it, like "Awareness Space" or "Mediascape" or "Attention Environment -- is fierce, so advertisers try to stand out.

The most recent attention-getter I've seen was on a Tokyo subway last week. Almost all of the subway straps (or, at least, those long enough for them to fit) had attached to them -- men's neckties.

The length of the car -- ALL six of the cars -- looked like a giant tie-rack. Each necktie, of course, was imprinted with an advertsing message and phone number, and yes, they were real. Real enough, at least, in construction when I examine one more closely. Made of cloth, folded and stitched like a necktie, though shorter than a standard necktie and with a velcroed loop that held it to the subway strap.

So some advertiser came up with this bright idea, designed and ordered up hundreds of these pseudo-neckties with the messages and the velcro loop, and coughed up the money to Tokyo Metro have some workers go through each car -- and god knows how many cars they went through -- and attach each one of them to almost all the subway straps.

And knowing the lifespan of Japanese advertising, I'll bet they're only going to be there for a week, two at the outside. So now someone has to come p with an even flashier, more attention-getting advertising gimmick for NEXT month.

In any case, you can see the photos to the right, there. Sorry about the quality, but I was using my brand-new mobile-phone camera, and at night, to boot.

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Mobile Pastry

I dropped by Yodobashi Camera (the big electronics retailer with the really annoying jingle) in Shinjuku today to pick up some stuff, and passed through the South Exit of Shinjuku Station on the way home. At the top of the staircase down to the Yamanote Line platform I spotted a big advert for Doughnut Plant NYC, the Japanese branch of the New York City doughnut shop. It seemed oddly out of place and out of scale to me, covering the entire wall alongside the top of the staircase (with the eye-catching slogan "GO NATURAL WITH FRIEND"). 

It was when I passed the staircase that I figured out why: the sign was actually the back wall of a recently opened shop inside the station: a branch of The Doughnut Plant. Man, that business is expanding rapidly here in Japan -- and selling more than doughnuts. This store was selling cake doughnuts as well as the traditional kind, not to mention bagels, salads, and t-shirts.

Of course, it's really a franchise of the original store in New York, not a branch or extension, so it looks like they're doing things in their own way -- Japanese -- way: on offer at this store was the NEW YEAR "和" CAKE DOUGHNUT BOX - a pack of four different kinds of doughnuts: Triple Valhrona chocolate, green tea, yuzu, and kinako flavors (yuzu is a tart citrus fruit native to Asia and kinako is sweet toasted soybean flour often sprinkled on confections).

The biggest sign of this being a Japanese business were the display cases for the non-doughnut products: one refrigerator was labeled: 

PLANT SALAD & PLANT FOOD

After wondering, briefly, how there could be non-plant salads and anyways what was this place doing selling nursery supplies, the light dawned when I looked at the sign over the t-shirt rack, PLANT STORE. Ah, "Doughnut PLANT" --> "PLANT Salads", "PLANT Food", and "PLANT Store". Shows a less-than-certain grasp of idiomatic usage, clearly.

I bought a cinnamon bun and a frozen pizza-bagel, though I was somewhat tempted to buy one of the t-shirts, which has what looks like a Japanese-style slogan on it. I had to wonder if Doughnut Plant employees in New York City actually wear t-shirts reading:

NEVER SAY NO!
ALWAYS SAY YES!
BEST! BEST! BEST!

Honestly, I can easily envision a bunch of Japanese Doughnut Plant employees beginning the day with this chant. New York? Not so much.

UPDATE: And here's some pictures:

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! (Or Happy Hanukkah, or whatever). T'aint't no War on Christmas here in East Asia -- that photo on the right is from the window of a hospital in Wuhan, China, which I took last year during my vain attempt to escape the relentless Christmas atmosphere (shoppers, Santas, and singing of Christmas music on PAs (Tannoys, for you Brits) everywhere here in Tokyo. No luck, exactly the same, especially in Beijing. (We did spend Christmas Day 2004 on a day trip to the Buddhist Dazu Stone Carvings outside of Chongqing (formerly Chunking), a World Heritage Site that which was mercifully Santa-free.

Now pardon me, I need to go do some last-minute shopping: since Christmas isn't an official holiday in Japan, the stores are still open. The only reason I'm not at the office now is because it's Sunday, but I did get the long weekend because Friday the 23rd was the Emperor's Birthday. No Emperor's Birthday Sales or Emperor's Birthday Songs -- well, maybe the latter is true among the right-wing whackos.

Of course, if you want the REAL War on Christmas, you'll have to see Operation Kringle Kill for that.

Seeing the Elephants

Late this afternoon, I was walking through the crowded shopping galleria in nearby Kichijoji, doing a little Sunday shopping, when Liz called me on my mobile phone. "Are you near a computer?" she asked. No, I wasn't, I replied. Why?

"I'm looking at the Africa webcam," she said, "and there's this huge herd of elephants there right now."

I'm the one who told her about this: a live webcam put up by the National Geographic Society, pointing at a watering hole in Botswana called Pete's Pond. Live video feed of wild African animals coming down to drink at the watering hole. People I know, including Liz, rave about the monkeys, zebras, antelope, and elephants they keep seeing. Of course, all I've ever seen is a flock of turkey-like guinea fowl  and a couple of warthogs.

"Liz," I said, "it's official: I hate you."

"You gotta see it, it's so cool!" she said.

Fine fine, I says, I'll see if I can find an Internet cafe somewhere, it's sweltering out anyways and I could use the air-conditioning.

Finding an Internet cafe in the shopping district wasn't difficult; finding one that had space was. It was at the third one (a place called Popeye Media Cafe) that I found a space, after a brief wait.

Internet cafes are bit different here, as I'd forgotten: not just Internet access, but also a library of comics (manga) and magazines, video games, and DVDs, along with unlimited soft drinks from dispensers. They also try to, since there are so many of them, differentiate themselves  stylistically: all three I dropped by looked differently, with this particular one going for the sleek black Blade-Runner vibe.

After a bit of pidgin communication at the front counter, it was agreed that, yes, I wanted Internet, no smoking, no massage (I assume that meant one of those fancy electric massage chairs I've seen in appliance stores, but I didn't press the issue). Only smoking seats were available, so I took that, with the counter person emphasizing the word "reclinera couple of times to be sure I understood. I was issued a receipt with the time and my booth number, and I threaded my way through the dimly lit narrow aisles (why the hell did they paint everything, including the ceiling, black?) to my booth.

Well, a cubicle, really, with a sliding door, roughly the size of a bathroom stall, painted black with brushed metal panels. Into this was fitted a table with the TV and computer (with attached stereo headset) and an honest-to-god vinyl recliner. I managed to wedge myself in and into the chair, boot up the computer, and navigate to the Africa webcam.

Naturally, most of the elephants were gone (one remained, knee-deep in the water), along with a couple of zebras. Typical. So I used my time to to do aimless web browsing, drinking some free Cokes and eating some soggy microwave french fries I bought from a vending machine.

It was when I was leaving that I figured out why the counter person kept emphasizing "recliner": one of the empty booths I passed, I noticed, did not have any seats at all. Instead, it had wall-to-wall cushions and a low table for the equipment. Whether it was for two people to get cozy or for people not used to sitting in chairs when playing video games/using computers I don't know, maybe both.

Someday I'll see these damned elephants, but not today.

Fire Drill

Today, my company held its annual scheduled fire drill. I somehow missed last year's (maybe I was out of town, I don't recall) so this was my first experience of it. Notices have been posted everywhere for the last few weeks, giving the exact date and time, so it was no surprise. So when the buzzer went off, I was expecting it, so I jumped up, ready to join the orderly exodus out the door.

Nobody moved.

That's not quite true: one of my neighbors got up -- but she was going to a nearby table for an informal meeting with a couple of other workers. I stood at my desk, a bit confused. The PA system (or tannoy, for you Brits) continued blaring an announcement, but still no one budged. So I sat down: the designated emergency exit was one of those alarm-wired doors, and I was NOT about to trigger it unnecessarily, even though I was pretty sure that the alarm had been turned off for the occasion.

My neighbor returned, and so I asked her what was up: wasn't that the fire alarm and the fire drill? Oh yes, she said, but everyone was too busy to pay attention until they really had to. I stood around feeling awkward.

A few minutes later, the floor's designated emergency co-ordinator stepped over to the emergency exit, wearing a hard hat and carrying one of those small plastic megaphones you see at Japanese baseball games (which he used to announce that everyone should head for the exits and the designated gathering point. NOW everybody got up from their desks headed for the fire exit.

As we headed down the street to the designated gathering point outside of the main building, I talked with my Japanese co-worker about the slow response: to me, a fire drill is a fire drill, or so I was taught, and when the bell rang you were supposed to go out the door immediately, no questions, as a training for what do during a real emergency. It kind of misses the point otherwise.

We walked past the city fire engines brought in for the occasion the lawn behind the main building behind the flags representing our sections. I noticed a whiteboard set up where the hard-hatted co-ordinators were writing times next to section numbers I assume these were the times that each section had finished arriving, meaning apparently that speed did count. We sat down on the grass to watch a couple of talks and some fire extinguisher demonstrations, and then let go.

Some people stayed to check out the city's portable earthquake demonstration trailer, where people could stand in a mock-up of a kitchen and get shaken around by a simulated Richter 8 quake. I could hear the women squealing in terror as we walked past on the way back to our desks.

Shopping, the New Recreation

No, not really: it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that.  I did, however, spend Saturday shopping and I have to wonder if shopping isn't a form of recreation for people in this country.  I went, basically, because Liz invited me to go out to Costco with her.  I used to have a Costco card, but they were so far away and I shopped there so infrequently it didn't seem worth keeping up the membership.  On the other hand, I did need a few items, or could find some items that I thought I needed; besides, the pizza they serve there is mayonnaise-free American-style, just like the Costco's back home. Seemed as good a reason as any for getting out of the house.

So I made arrangements with, and rode the train out to the other side of Tokyo, out in Chiba, to Makuhari.  This is the equivalent of starting from Trenton, New Jersey, and riding a train out Long Island to go shopping.  This is an early to surprise and, given the nature of cost of retail business.  This is not the kind of store that fits into the highly priced downtown or urban area of Tokyo.  I rode downtown to Tokyo station, then caught the Keiyu Line eastward past the waterfront of Tokyo Bay to Makuhari. it'd been awhile since I've written a train far out this way, riding the same train that goes out to Tokyo Disneyland, which is built along the waterfront in what used to be industrial waterfront land. 

You still pass acres of warehouses, factories, and tank farms.  However, past Disneyland, you also start to see a lot of fairly new shopping centers and big box merchants, they kind that require parking lots and customers who drive up: a very American idea in a country where retail is generally close to the train stations.* I sometimes, cynically, think that this is a more a form of recreation than an economic necessity in a country as affluent as this one.

Much to my surprise, a few stops before Makuhari, I saw an enormous, nearly finished retail building under construction along the line: an IKEA store, at least 7 stories tall (though 3-4 of them will probably be the parking garage. The closest IKEA, I understood, was in Singapore, so was taken by surprise -- a pleasant surprise, I have to admit. Yes, i like shopping at IKEA, and keep your opinion to yourself thankyouverymuch.

I met Liz at Kaihin-Makuhari station, and we rode the little 100-yen "pocket bus" out to the Costco, sitting off be itself in an empty field. As I expected, I bought some things I wouldn't have ordinarily gone out of my way to buy (including a T-FAL folding Healthy Grill. Like I need another kitchen appliance) and some staples, including a massive jar of peanut butter, a package of Farmer John bacon (Japanese pork producers have yet to figure out the "curing" portion of bacon making), a few pounds of M&Ms for my office desk's candy jar, and a heavy loaf of "rustic bread" (it's batard size but weighs 900 grams -- nearly 2 pounds).

This should hold me for awhile.

P.S.: One little thing that happened startled myself and Liz on the train ride home: the train stopped at the station that serves Tokyo Disneyland, and like just about every urban Japan Rail station platform I've been on, the PA system (or Tannoy, for you Brits) played a little melody to signal the train's impending departure. Almost always it's some non-descript little deedle-dee-dee -- but here, in a move certain to cause Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing (what with his Disney and Wacky Japan fetishes) to wet his pants in glee, played a few bars of -- "It's a Small World". Liz and I looked at each other: we didn't just hear what we thought we heard, did we?

*In fact, some retail stores OWN train stations and train lines -- Seibu, Keio, Tobu -- and have used them as springboards for developing real estate and shopping complexes along their routes.

Weekend in New York and other places

I decided to go on a little trip this weekend, and after a restful night at my hotel (THAT is worth a story in itself), found myself this morning -- uneasily -- standing at the foot of New York's World Trade Center, looking up.  While there gaping at the sight, I took that picture you see there on the right. 

Yes, the date above is correct.  No, I don't own a time machine, nor have I gone insane.  What I did, was travel by train an hour north out of Tokyo to Tochigi Prefecture, and visit what, on the surface, is an extremely cheesy and overpriced tourist attraction that I nevertheless found strangely compelling. 

Where I went, on the Kinugawa Line off from the main line to Nikko, at a place halfway betwwen Kosagoe and Kinugawa-Onsen stations, was a sort of miniature architectural theme park built and owned by the Tobu Corporation. Well, back in the late 1980s, the Tobu Company, which owns the Tobu Railway Company that runs trains up to Nikko, was hoping to increase tourism to the area.  You remember the miniature buildings from the Godzilla movies, the intricately detailed buildings of Tokyo which were smashed flat by the big guy in a rubber suit? Someone at the Tobu company had a bright idea of hiring these guys to build an entire park full of miniature representations of famous world buildings.

So in 1993, Tobu World Square opened, with about 100 meticulously detailed structures, all constructed the same scale, 1:25, the same as those Revell model car kits I used to see as a kid (do they still make those?), and lumped together in a few acres of land, grouped loosely by region, including a Europe Zone, Asia Zone, Japan Zone, Egypt Zone -- and an America Zone, of course.

The centerpiece of the America Zone, of course, is a miniature chunk of New York City, featuring the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty --- and, of course, the World Trade Center. 

Do the math: even as miniatures at the 25 to 1 scale used, the models of the 1,362 ft (415 m)-tall World Trade Center towers are rendered as 54½ feet (16.6 meters) tall, so they're still pretty damned tall -- and when I was standing at the foot of this detailed model, it was disturbingly like my first trip to New York City in the early 1980s, when I stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center looked up at the towers from there.  It was spooky in ways I have difficulty describing.

There it was, a typical hot summer day, this families with kids and pushing baby carriages or wandering around admiring all the miniature buildings, and here I am, having my weird nostalgic American patriotism moment, something I sure was completely unnoticed by everyone around me. 

The first time I went to New York City, I flew by budget airline on an afternoon flight to Newark. arriving around 9:00 in the evening, and from Newark Airport the first thing you could see across the bay was the lit-up towers of the World Trade Center at the foot of Manhattan.  The glowing towers were my first sight of New York, and I'll always remember that sight. 

I circled that building, staring upward, remembering the original.  I came around to the side where the plaza was, and was startled to recognize in the center in miniature representation of the sculpture (Fritz Koenig's "Sphere") that once stood at the center of the plaza -- the ruins of which I had seen standing in Battery Park in New York City just a few months ago, where it had been moved as a sort of memorial.  Around this miniature but intact sculpture,  miniature people walked in the plaza and sat at the benches enjoying the sunshine, much like the real, much-larger people in Tobu World Square were doing.

On the left: the miniature WTC Plaza at Tobu World Square. On the right: The ruins of Fritz Koenig's 'Sphere' standing in New York's Battery Park

There is a certain thrill to seeing miniature representation of the familiar: anyone anyone who's admire a model railroad lay out understands this.  I had the same feeling when walking through the Japan Zone, on the way to this spot, admiring the miniature reconstructions of Tokyo Station, the Tokyo Tower, and even Terminal 2 at Narita International Airport (complete with miniature 747s taxiing up and down the tarmac -- why somebody thought this was worth building I don't know).  But seeing this familar echo of the now-gone was disturbing in ways -- well, if I were Susan Sontag or Calvin Trillin or Jon Carroll I might be able to put it into words, but I don't think I have the tools for the job.

Lest you think I spent the entire day moping, that's not true: it was a bright sunny day (albeit hot), and I shook off my feelings of unease and continued my tour, enjoying myself far more than I thought I would. At the buildings that I had been to, I envisioned myself back there again (for example, in effect walking through Beijing's Forbidden City again, being able to follow my exact path through the central area represented) or imagining myself visiting the places I haven't been to yet (St. Peter's Basilica and Square is a lot bigger than I'd first imagined). I bent down and squinted, trying to place myself at the proper level I would be, and admired the level of detail and odd touches -- the New York area has one street dug up for a sewer replacement project, an alley in the Harlem area looks like it has a few dancers from West Side Story kicking up their heels, and on the Great Wall of China can be seen the characters from Journey to the West (the Buddhist monk Xuanzang and his three guardians, including the Monkey King). Naturally, I took a few hundred photos while I was at it.

One thing struck me: given that all of the famous buildings depicted here are tourist attractions in their own right, the designers have, of course, populated their settings with plenty of miniature tourists. So we have the spectacle of crowds of real tourists looking at crowds of fake tourists.

All in all, I spent at least 4 hours walking around the relatively compact space, losing myself in a little virtual tourism before heading back to Tokyo by the evening. My forearms, it wound up, were badly sunburned, but thanks to the big floppy Tilley Endurable I wore, mostly on a whim -- I haven't worn it in years, not since my Peru trip -- my face was completely protected.

April in Paris -- Almost

It was a pretty low-energy day for me; I didn't stir from home until about 3 o'clock, and only because I was out of coffee, and if I weren't to rely upon supermarket coffee (not if I could possibly help it) I'd have go out to Kaldi Coffee Farm, their Italian Roast coffee being the closest thing to Peet's dark roasted coffee I've found around here -- and cheaper than Starbuck's, to boot.

While I was out, stopped by Shinjuku and the basements of some the department stores down there (Isetan and Mitsukoshi). Mitsukoshi, in particular, has completely revamped the area to creat a shopping space aimed at young women, a place they call "Alcott" (I'm assuming after the author of Little Women), among other things replacing the Cinnabon with a branch of New York's Doughnut Plant -- more upscale, don't you know.

What I found particularly striking while wanderng the aisles was how many French gourmat brands I saw represented there with kiosks/stores: Fauchon and Hediard, the competing Parisian gourmet groceries have areas to flog their tea, duck terrine, and truffles (real, hideously expensive truffles, not the chocolate kind). Marie-Ann Cantin, the famous cheese shop which I made a point of visiting while in Paris, has a stand in the basement of Isetan. Today, Istopped by for a little cheese and a taste of Paris.

If it's French and gourmet, you can get it Tokyo.