Fuk 8/07 - pt 1

OK, in order to keep up with the rising tide of pictures from my trip, let's start on them now.

In light of last week week's China Airlines fire in Japan,  I was almost glad I ended up taking China Eastern Airlines this time.  It required me to change planes in Shanghai instead of Taipei:

  I actually almost missed this flight, because my first flight from HK was delayed on the ground for almost 2 hours.  I had only 45 minutes to get to my new plane by the time we landed.  I accidentally got on the 'first class' bus back to the terminal too (2nd photo). but no one said anything to me as I got on. One of those cases where being white works in your favor, at the very least they assume you don't understand any Chinese so they won't even try to tell you what you're doing wrong. :-P

The ground staff at Shanghai airport was really nice,  they were waiting for me at the transfer counter and personally rushed me through the security/immigration check (not sure why i had to do that anyway, but).  And most importantly, after landing I was happy to find my luggage was able to make it to my new flight in time.

Anyway, about Japan...  A lot of you AnDers have been asking me about what Japan is 'really like'... particularly the non-touristy things.  I'll try to educate and enlighten a bit here... tell me if its too boring!

日本人ご注意：僕は外国にいる時たくさん人はよく”日本ほんと如何ですか？”と聞きます。それからこのブログに教えてみてする。これは日本にの外国人のPOVです、面白いもの、外国から違うもの、変なもの、etcです。間違う有たら、教えてください！

SNACK BAR:

When I got in I emailed one of my old friends, J-chan.  I met her a few years ago through a mutual friend when I was living here. She used to be a 'hostess' - ie a girl who gets paid to sit and drink w/ guys. 

This is one of those things about Asia that a lot of westerners don't necessarily understand.  We're led to believe that its a pretty negative career choice akin to prostitution...  this is really not accurate though.

Certainly it isn't something to write home about, but on the other hand in a place like Japan,  I can't really criticize a young woman who chooses to make US$40+/hour to sit and drink with unhappy businessmen rather than toil away as a waitress or a cashier for US$8/hour.  In Japan some girls don't have the chance to go to college or find a good career, so I can't blame them for resorting to this choice given their situation.   Many of the women I've met who do this kind of stuff are pretty normal, nice, friendly people, so I can't judge them negatively.

Anyway my friend J-chan saved up her salary from years of this work bought her own bar a few months after I left Japan.   Her place is what is called a 'Snack Bar'  in Japan (see this link for a definition), generally the less expensive type of hostess establishment.    I stopped by to say hello after checking in.

This is one of her employees - she is paid to pretend like she wants to hear whatever the customer is yapping about.  its not as easy as it sounds.

I should note that in general foreigners don't go to these types of places, and in many cases they aren't even allowed to enter (the alcohol + female attention can get quite pricey, so they prefer to just avoid the whole language barrier misunderstanding problem by not letting non-japanese enter in the first place!) 

So knowing the owner is literally the only way Etchy (a non-japanese, who also doesn't drink any alcohol) can get to see one of these types of places from the inside (and report to the outside world via this blog).  To me it was pretty interesting to see it in person rather than just reading articles or asking people... :-P

Anyway, this particular night two or three of the customers were pretty sloshed and they didn't seem to want to leave even though it was past closing time, so J-chan and I ducked out to get some ramen while her bartender and the other hostesses politely waited for the customers to figure out that it was time to leave (Japanese people can be soindirect some times!)

RAMEN: She took me to a Hakata-style ramen counter place nearby.  Hypothetically this is the real deal,  we were in Hakata! :-D

It was pretty good but a little more oily than I prefer.  I was glad we went to a real restaurant instead of a ramen cart (more on those later).  No matter what country i am in, I am always paranoid about getting sick from street food. :-P

Conveni: as you may know, the Japanese like to borrow English words and then shorten them... so in Japan a convenience store is called a ' conveni'.  They are literally on every corner, and open 24 hours a day.  Unlike US ones, they generally are cleaner and better staffed, although some of the cooked food they have there is kind of sketchy sometimes. 

I was suprised to see this very Simpsons like situation at the FamilyMartnext to my hotel:

The bottom row on the left is labeled 'Jumbo Cheese Frank'...  but it was all dessicated and  scaly...  (click to enlarge).  Even Homer Simpson wouldn't dare to eat it...

One thing that many people have heard about is the prevalence of sex and porn in Japanese culture.   I wouldn't say its any worse than many other cultures, but they certainly handle it in a much more direct way than the US:

Rather than keeping the p0rn out of eyesight of youngsters, in Japan they don't bother,  at most they put up those green signs that say 'adults only'... but meanwhile any 6 year old will get an eye full of scantily covered bosoms or comics with covers of women getting molested by alien monsters. 

In some convenience stores there are actually more p0rn related magazines and comics than there are 'regular' ones... i guess it depends on what part of town its in. :-P

ok, thats just Thursday night! more to come.  hope this is has been educational.