Changing impressions - Integration

It has been almost 4 months since I got back to Japan. And 2 years than I am abroad during while I have been in Italy, Japan, 1 year in England, Scotland, Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Estonia, 1 semester in Korea, Netherland, China, 1 semester in Japan.


Therefore, when I got here, I was not all about discovering new things, as it was what I had done restlessly so far.
I went to Japan in the hope to settle a new life without too many suprises. Challenge ? Yes it was, but avoiding travelling too much around, seeing my old friends,

as well as making new good friendships,

getting an internship for the next 6 months,
http://www.oeff.jp/

getting a part time job with cool colleagues,

getting to know how to get around Osaka, looking for an appartment, finding it in a nice place ideally located, having almost the regular life I would have if I was in my home country...

I think I got very close too that.

So rather than changing impressions, which implies something that escapes my will, I would say changed impressions. Although I know Japan is still full of mystery, I knew what to expect from the fact of moving in another country, and I was able to make of Japan kind of a new home, a land welcoming enough so that I feel good and relaxed. The only place I am looking forward to leave is university as I am about to graduate and feel I can not stand still anymore on chair and need some practical work. Workplace so far, whatever baito in my club, volunteer in some movie festival in Yamagata

and Okinawa, intern in Osaka European Festival, is what I enjoy most here. While making some money and getting experience, I feel more than ever integrated and I can't count the times I had difficulties to say whether the guy cross the street was Asian or not.

And I have been ask if I was HYBRID

I think this is very typical of the processus of integration in a foreign culture. I remember 2 years ago when I landed for the 1st time here, I had the feeling that EVERYONE would stare at me in the street, public transports... Which no one is doing now. Have I become so transparent ? I think so in the way that, the more you feel integrated, the less behaviours that may attract attention you do. And this something reccurent in newcomers stories about Japan.

I enjoy being accepted by the community as a foreigner, and I believe that to enjoy Japan fully, you need to keep in mind that you are not Japanese. I respect my host culture as well as I respect mine.

アメ村 - The pleasure quarter

Amemura is a central zone in Osaka located close to the youngest and active districts of Shinsaibashi and Namba. As one of the best place to shop by day

Some shop open late in the night

Big Step : big shopping center

Still cold but swimming suits already on sale

its nightlife is also considered as a perfect moment to allow all those fashion victims to show off in in what they spent their money during the day.

Even the bikes are fashionable

The other lights of Amemura's nightlife consists in its amusement place of all kind. Osaka counts unnumbered bars, izakaya, clubs, kyabakura, host and hostess clubs, snacks, soapland... All those place more or less related to the mizu shobai : sex industry or only places to get drinks.
Amemura's main Izakaya spots are Doyadoya, with a all you can drink every 30mn for 280 Y

Located in the street right near OPA, it gets such a lot of customer than during weekends a 2H time limit has been set.
The traditional and inevitable Toriki, a selection of chicken brochette with any part of the chicken, ranging from the heart to the skin, to the gristle, to the rump...

Some bars you can wonder whether they actually belong to the Mizu Shobai class.

In Amemura are also located ones of the best dancing nightclubs in Osaka like Triangle bordering the place with the same name 三角公園

Climax on the dancefloor
And no less famous but more considered as a pick-up club ; Grand Cafe.

Plus a number of darker underground places : Lunar, Suite, LL, Vano...

Eventually, although salaray man places like Kyobashi largely outpassed Amemura in this field, you can still find a lot of places related to the sex industry, ranging from Love Hotels which I am sure are

waonderful

with an affordable price, but you have to be fast,

to places soft-prostitution places and even full course 風俗 places although forbidden by the Japanese Law.

What also makes Amemura very popular amound youngsters is its stylish,

some man-like streetlights

some shop wall covered with a stylish paint

and as its name Ame= America, Mura = Village asserts foreign like atmosphere.

Some flag up the stairs in Jamaican like shop

American food which are not without reminding the American spots in Okinawa (see http://franpanese-rantings.blogspot.com/2010/04/okinawa-in-nutshell.html)

Foreigners of any kind are indeed very present and they usually gather in the precendtly called Triangle place, get some drinks, have some chat, mix with Japanese before moving to the numerous amusement places around.
For a more detailed perspective on foreigners in Amemura => http://h-murakami.blogspot.com/
With my Kenyan friend, we have got our pictures taken by this young photographer, although it does not seem that our photo retained its attention so far...

As well as attracting japanese people genuinly interested in foreign culures and language,


it also attracts Japanese guys acting in a pretty much western like way, hooking on girls and giving the whole olace a *dangerous* reputation to hang out by night for girls alone.

I have myself been accosted by those how scaring guys.

Eventually, while being the best place in Osaka to show off, Osaka is also recommendable to any foreigner in its 20's/30's to get started. People are easy-going, cheap food and alcohol are everywhere and a good number of part-time job are available all around even if you do not speak Japanese.

Lost in Translation ?

Space - Time Consciousness in Japan

Since antiquity, natural philosophers have struggled to comprehend the nature of three tightly interconnected concepts: space, time, and motion. A proper understanding of motion, in particular, has been seen to be crucial for deciding questions about the natures of space and time, and their interconnections. Since the time of Newton and Leibniz, philosophers’ struggles to comprehend these concepts have often appeared to take the form of a dispute between absolute conceptions of space, time and motion, and relational conceptions.
Standford Encyclopedia of philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/

One thing that first amazed me when I first met Japanese people, before I put a foot on Japan, was their tellings about their livings hours. Only to go to university, some of them would not hesitate going through 1h30 of train every morning and every evening, when it was not double. They would stay 6 hours at university, go to some club for the next 3 hours, and then do either some part time job or go out with their friends and catch the last train

(or not)

and go through all the way back. And to my horrified face, they would genuinly answer that they could not enjoy their life if they were not doing so.
I think this a very basic difference of time consciousness between occident, let's say France, and Japan. In Japan, as long as you have free time, you want to use it to do something "useful", either to have fun or to work. Which is basically the thing when you are a student: indeed, university students are mostly doing some part time jobs after university. But is it that they really need itto survive financially ? Most of them have their parents pay the tuition fees and Japan is not so much more expensive that France is. But this different way of occuping time makes you spend much more money. Of course it would be less expensive to study at home around 5 than to spend 500Y to find a place in a café to do some homework between end of class and start of shopping session (plus 500Y of transport fees). Time in Japan is all about packing, no space for absolute lazyness, that is to say doing nothing, at home.

Space is also tightly related to that concept. Although I just said there is no room for lazyness, I actually think that what they loose on time freedom, they get it back in moving into space.
Trains are a major part of everyday life in Japan, most people could not say the kilometer distance Osaka - Kyoto, but no one ignores that you can use 3 different train companies, that the fastest in JR and the cheapest is Hankyuu.


Concretely, the hours spent in public transports stand for lazy times, or even study time. While their private time is reduced because they use their time with something else, time spent in travelling through space in trains have some private flavor. Even if you travel with someone, everyone is quiet, phone calls are prohibited, people fall asleep, look through the window, on the floor, use their mobile phones to eventually text back people they did not have time to so far... They use space as time.

Okinawa in a nutshell

The sea Influence

My Okinawan friend's brother playing on the beach

海開き day

Okinawa is an archipellago located between Taiwan and Japan mainland. As an archipelago, its relationship and culture related to the see is strong, and every year, Okinawa is the first place in Japan launching the “Sea Season” 海開き.

Interestingly, although for the past 20 years the southern most island of Okinawa had done it in first, this year some little village in mainland,

Okinawa went first and “stole” the merits and the tourism benefits that go along.

Kit Kat with the typical red potato flavor

As Okinawa, formerly Ryukyu, now belongs to Japan, the Japanese influence is the main one. The Japanese language is the official one, the food, although presenting some particularities like the omnipresent pork, has a lot of characteristic in common with mainland one.

Okinawa Soba

Although in standard Japanese you would read that "Kita Tani", the Okinawan reading is "Cha Tan"

They however do have their own language, which even if presenting comparable similarities with standard Japanese that English does do the language spoken on the Britannic Indies (words with close pronunciations but changed to make the speech secret). They also have their own reading of the kanjis.

The Chinese influence although going back in the age, is also strong. Their taste for the red color, the custom to burn fake money to offer ancestors show it particularly.

American soldier

Okinawa is also a lot of America. Wherever you go on the main island, it's difficult to miss the military bases. They are well established here. However, you can not say (yet?) they are well integrated. Some places like “American Village” in Ginowan, close to the capital, look more like a parody of America, with Fast Food every where and army surplus.

American School buses in the base

Flea market: market where Okinawan people can go inside the base (they are usually forbidden)

I found this sign very interesting as you can read "Make Okinawa home" on it. Of course it's much easier to make some place home than to actually try to become Okinawan

The Army hidden in the tropica landscape

In the end as its food specialty the so-called “champloo”, Okinawa is a mix of Japanese, America and former Chinese influence. These 3 have to cohabitate and one could say that the American influence is not well integrated and the fact that only the army part of is represented it may take time before everyone can live together smoothly.

“Now calling the curiosity of the world”