A taste of anime

Some of my housemates and me went on a "house-trip" last week. We decided to visit the Ghibli Anime museum in Itaka. It seems that a lot of Westerners who are interested in Japan, have a great interest in anime. I've never been too into it so far and honestly know very little about it, so I was interested to learn some more. Ghibli is the name of the premiere anime studio in Japan, by the way.
The museum building as such is already quite a sight. A fairy-talesque form and surrounded by a large garden with numerous anime hero statues, it makes a great location as a "place of worship" for anime. Unfortunately the building and the park are the only thing you can take photos of, the museum's interior is off-limits to photographers.
The museum shows how anime technique evolved from the former model based set-up to computer animation. A few of the models used for the older anime were on display, it's quite cool to see how they used layered 3D models to create a more spatial visual effect.
On the second floor there was a recreated drawing studio and a recreation of the Louvre. Haven't really understood the latter's relevance to anime though... There were also small rooms where you could watch anime excerpts. I really have to catch up on this, that would make the museum more interesting as I didn't understand many of the references to films. Still, the museum is a lovely place and worth a visit. Besides buying a cute "Totoro" (obviously a pretty famous anime figure) keitai pendant, we had a hard time resisting the incredibly delicious-looking strawberry cake in the museum café... But dinner was near.

Japan - finding its new role

I recently came across the homepage of a Tokyo based semi-academic organiziation named The International House of Japan. http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/index.html It's goal is "promoting cultural exchange and intellectual cooperation between the peoples of Japan and those of other countries." They have public lectures on Japanese or Asian issues a few times a month.
I signed up for a lecture on Japanese foreign policy "Japanese Foreign Policy: Balancing off Asia, Europe and the United States", held by a professor of Asian Studies from the University of Berkeley, California, T.J. Pempel. The lecture focussing on Japan defining its new role within the international community due to the rise of its larger neighbour China seemed a highly interesting subject.
The lecture started with a historical backflash to WWII and the Cold War to explain why Japan has had very close connections with the US since and has refrained from building strong economic ties with China (Cold War pressure). So Japan developed a unilateral strong bond with the US while neglecting cooperation with the rest of Asia and Europe.
Today both economic and military connections with the US remain strong. The Bush government has put the emphasis on unilateral relationsships and has therefore continued the existing predominant type of interaction. Should the democratic party win the presidential elections, this would change. Obama's team has already announced that they would focus on multilateral interaction rather, involving various parties in Asia.
With Asia, economic ties have been severed in the more recent past and China has become Japan's major trade partner, replacing the US in that role. Korea has experienced the same shift in Political relations with China and Korea remain somewhat difficult due to what is perceived by both countries as Japan's neglect to deal with the historical legacy, something the country will need to address in order to establish stronger ties with its neighbours. There is a military threat from North Korea and the lecturer suggested a perceived threat by China as well. Ties with Europe remain rather weak, but have had a multilateral nature and are increasing in importance for Japan.
Professor Pempel stated that Japan will remain an important partner for the West in Asia, but will loose the exclusive status of Asia's core economic and democratic center. While Japan is afraid of loosing its dominant role to China, it is likely that Asian-Pacific economic and political institutions will be steered by several different players including India, Australia and Japan. Pempel predicted that a more European-style model of governance would emerge in Asian institutions, with multiple players sharing the lead.

No mobile, no friends

I brought two (Swiss) mobile phones with me when I came to Japan. What I didn't realize is that Japan uses a different technology and our phones do generally not work here. I was annoyed, but thought "what the hell, I have lived without a mobile phone before". Yes, I have BUT a) hardly anyone else had one back then b) I was not in a foreign country frequently meeting people I had just met and c) most importantly I was not in Japan where a mobile phone is the key to social life (it's pretty much become that in Switzerland too by the way).
I soon noticed that Japanese mobile phones are way more sophisticated than ours and that the Japanese use them for many things we generally don't use them for. GPS, dictionary, weather forecast, checking e-mails, blind dating, kanji translator, health and fitness supervisor, cash machine locator, etc., etc. There are few things that you don't seem to be able to do with the more sophisticated versions of the product.
The "keitai" as is its name in Japanese is essential for social life and survival here. And I didn't realize what the consequences would be of not having one. Japanese love to exchange phone numbers. So whereever you go you'd be asked for your phone number (not just by guys ;-). I thought giving an e-mail address would be an adequate substitute. But turned out it was not. These days, a lot of Japanese do not use their web e-mail anymore, but use e-mail over the phone. To filter out spam, all e-mails coming from the web are blocked, only those sent by phone are received. So I ended up being frustrated over failure messages, before I finally found out what had caused these.
Well, a Japanese mobile phone had been on my "must have" list since the beginning of my stay here anyway. Funny, because I never cared about them at home, but here they are just too seductively fancy, hightech, stylish - you name it... They seem to be of quite a different, more advanced breed and I am amazed that they have not spread over to Europe yet. So after having made the mistake of renting a phone for 2 weeks, which cost me a horrendous 70$ while a cheap new phone is 60$, I purchased my own keitai. The guys at the Softbank (Japanese mobile provider) shop got slightly nervous at the prospect of having to explain their deals in English, but somehow we managed to conclude the business (despite my lack of a Japanese address which was a problem too).
It's great to be able to reach people again. I've now had the phone for 2 months and I notice that it's also pretty good to learn Japanese. Writing and receiving text messages really improves my kanji reading and writing skills. I had to first figure out how to write on the mobile phone, but it is actually pretty simple once you've gotten into it. So I can claim that my keitai is useful in more than one way...

This week's sample...

... of J-Pop music... This time I'd like to cite the not-so-scientific book "Dirty Japanese" that mentions the subject, but the author's speaking my mind... :
"Speaking objectively, I have to warn you that Japanese pop music is relentlessly horrendous crap. This is a quantified fact, but also one of the world's great misteries. I mean, Japanese visual arts are uniformly amazing, right? Japanese fashion is light years ahead of everybody. Japanese cuisine is nothing less than delectable. And Japanese video games have invented the industry. So why is J-Pop so unlistenable? Oh yeah... They don't have black people in Japan."
I love "relentlessly horrendous crap" - couldn't find a better expression to describe the J-Pop phenomenon! All the flatteries are correct too, especially the one on fashion, Japanese people tend to look like stylish time travellers from the 22nd century. The last comment has to be corrected though, there are black musicians in Japan, but they now sing Enka, traditional Japanese folk songs, or "Schlager" as we call it in German. I am refering to Jero, the black singer I've read about in a magazine in July and who's now all over tv channels in Japan. A HipHop-looking guy singing cheesy Japanese songs.
Well, here's the J-Pop hit of the week. I handpicked it for my dear blog readers for it's poor quality music and the examplarily silly video. TV watchers of MTV Japan and other music channels are tortured with it every day right now...

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=DIm5lpWaEWc
If you think Enka might be your relief from J-Pop, have a look at Jero's work:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmeVeQe56U

The art of bento

If you are short on time for having lunch in Japan or are just about to catch a train, there's a solution for you: Bento. These are basically lunch boxes, divided into different sections and containing a few mouthfulls of various ingredients.

A typical bento contains noodles or rice, some grilled meat or fish, mini sausages, Japanese pickles, Japanese sour plum, soy sauce, maybe some salad or an omelett, nori and if you're unlucky some natto (rotten soy beans). But there is a vast selection of different bento boxes on offer, in different sizes and for different shapes. Some are containing mostly fish (sushi, salmon roe, sashimi), some are vegetarian (though rarely, this is NOT a vegetarian country), some have a well-balanced, healthy mix of small dishes in it, others are contain the not so balanced tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlet with a thick brown sauce).

Bento boxes can be bought everywhere, in department stores, konbini, at the station. Many people also make their own bento at home the evening before. The picture shows a fish bento from Hokkaido in a lovely patterned box (form is as important as content here).

What Japanese tourists want

I travelled through Japan for 6 weeks and since the vast majority of tourists in this country are domestic travellers, I have gained some insight into the needs and preferences of Japanese tourists. Here are my top recommendations to Swiss tourist destinations (doubt that they will read that, though...) what they should provide to Japanese tourists...

1. Give them "kawaii-ness"
   Two of the most (over) used words in Japanese are "kawaii" (cute) and "sugoi" (great, cool) and the Japanese always look for opportunities to use these. So, if you want to please (younger) Japanese tourists, provide them with something that gives them a pretext to use either or both of these words. It is not hard by the way. I have heard Japanese scream "sugoiiiii" at the sight of bones and skulls in the prison museum... Or when reading a story about a woman who has been thrown into a deep fountain in the 16th century... (the Japanese are said to be so over correct, but I sometimes find their choice of words slightly, hmmmm, inappropriate? or just silly?). While fighting animals, not-so-common behaviour (such as shrugging your shoulders) and many other things are labelled as "kawaii". Basically - whatever you give young Japanese tourists, you won't be able to stop them from screaming "kawaii" and "sugoi". So that's an easy one!
2. Give them collectibles
   While young Japanese tourists go for the "kawaii", older Japanese seem to prefer paper proof that they have been to certain places and done certain things. In Japan any railway line, castle, trail, museum etc. provide rubber stamps with the place's logo. Ideally you provide them with a card to put the stamps on. If you run some castle-type-of-place for example, invent some circuit around the place, draw a map of it and print it on a card. Put a specific stamp into each room or other points of significance (like "the most Eastern point of the castle park"...). Hand out a card to each Japanese tourist and they will gladly follow the trail and collect their stamps. It's even more effective to give some incentive for collecting ALL stamps. Usually it's a 50% reduction on the re-entry fee (well, you know they are not likely to come back anyway). You will see that this very structured sort of entertainment has a great appeal with elderly Japanese tourists. Note that they also like to collect stamps on the train. So dear SFF managers, do provide your train staff (ticket clerks and the minibar vendors) with rubber stamps. It's a job-enrichment for your staff and will create additional turnover with Japanese tourists! By the way, I pledge guilty to having collected stamps as well. It was an attempt to understand its attraction, so cultural research. Haven't come to a conclusion though.
3. Give them Mobile accessories
   The "keitai" (mobile phone) is a central part of social life. The Japanese like to decorate their (already super fancy) model with gimmicks. You find thousands of different pendants for sale here. Usually they follow the above described "kawaii-ness" rule or they have some local flair - or both. The prison museum in Abashiri for example would sell keitai-pendants depicting a run-away prisoner and a prison guard, the product being hand-made by prisoners. I suggest something in the line of "cow sitting on a piece of cheese" hand-made by your local farmer. But please refrain from offering gimmicks like "local youth smoking pot". They DO depict Swiss culture, but the Japanese are extremely wary of any type of drugs and don't want to be associated with them in any way.
4. Give them natto
   Natto is one of the things that foreigners will probably never understand about Japan. Why would you want to eat something that is basically rotten soy beans for breakfast? I have tried it like three times and I can't even describe how disgusting it smells, looks, tastes! But fact is, natto is hugely popular in Japan and it's mostly eaten for breakfast, although they also use it to wreck other meals and dishes. So if you run a hotel, spoil your Japanese guests with a bowl of natto for breakfast or create that super edgy Natto-Fondue or Natto-Röschti... It should be a bit hard to get, but as I indicated, it's basically rotten soybeans. Get some of these beans and put them in your cellar to rot. Don't be surprised if neighbours complain about the smell, though.
5. Give them Anime figures
   Japanese love Anime and its heroes (see the kawaii-ness article above). They like to assume that their anime figures like to travel too and love to buy articles that show either "Hello Kitty" or "Doraemon" on the beach in Okinawa, on a shinkansen to Tokyo, in the lavender fields of Furano or whereever. The preferred article are towels, so why not print some "Hello Kitty crossing the Kappelbrücke" or "Doraemon eating Fondue" towels? If you don't know who Doraemon is or if Hello Kitty makes you puke (that's the case with me by now...), don't worry. Heidi is THE best known anime figure of European descent and she is Swiss after all! By the way, did you know that Heidi has travelled to Sapporo (see picture).
6. Give them safety and punctuality
   As hinted at in previous posts, the Japanese seem to have a preference for the organized, punctual and risk-free. That's probably one reason why Switzerland is one of the very top dream destinations here - because it's so ridiculously safe and trains are super punctual. So great natural conditions, not much to improve there. But please make sure you do not translate your brochures for adventure sports like bungee jumping, canyoning and the like into Japanese. It might damage the safe image of your destination. Any activity that you sell to your customers should have a clearly defined schedule with a lot of details (including photo stops of course). Free-style travelling is generally not much appreciated. There are those risk-seeking hitchhiking travellers, but they usually can't afford to come to Switzerland, so not your target group. If you are looking to make some extra money with Japanese tourists, try to hint at some minor risks (like sunburns) and immediately offer a solution (e.g. ultra-sunblock and sun gloves covering the entire arms - they are super popular here). You are sure to have a thriving business!
7. Give them sweets
   At every train station there are several "omiyage" (souvenir) shops. The most popular article are sweets, very very sweet sweets. When Japanese people go travelling, their family and colleagues at work expect them to bring home something edible. Boxes of sweets should be nicely wrapped in printed paper. Everything here is nicely wrapped and selling a plain box with just a picture of the product printed on it will seem very shabby. The more wrapped, the better. So wrap each and every sweet in the most lovely paper, put them in a beautiful box and wrap the box in even more delightful paper. And don't forget to put the souvenir in a pretty bag before you hand it over to your Japanese customer. By the way, almost all sweets here contain "azuki", a sweet red bean. So how about starting to grow them in Switzerland and add them to our chocolate and so on?
8. Give them super friendly
   Service in Japan is notoriously superb and employees in any shop are smiling and bowing constantly and in a seemingly permanent happy, friendly, sweet mood. When customers enter they scream a loud "Irrashaimaseeeee" (welcome), they are not being pushy or following the customer around, but are there to support if you need them to, they wrap your purchased goods in lovely printed paper and put it into a cute little bag and thank you many times for kindly considering their store. They are not always competent, but you would never get annoyed about that, because they are just simply too sweet. NOW -imagine Japanese tourists entering a Swiss store!!! Not that Swiss shop assistants are always grumpy individuals, but they are not simply not as capable of hiding hang-overs, broken marriages, disgust for the customer in front etc. So they will never ever be able to provide the service level that Japanese tourists are used to. A German friend of mine who was tasked to take care of Japanese exchange students at her home University told me the story of a Japanese girl who went to H&M and called my friend afterwards in total despair. The guy at the cash desk had been unfriendly with her and she thought she had made some serious mistake... If you think about giving some intercultural training to your staff - I don't reckon they will be able to reach Japanese levels of friendliness. Better hire some Japanese staff for your customers.
9. Give them "purikura"
   Anyone in Switzerland knows how crazy Japanese tourists are about taking pictures. They take them anytime, everywhere and people always need to be on the picture. Landscapes alone are boring and would not prove that they have actually been there. Striking a V-sign always looks really "kawaii", so when posing with Japanese, be sure to strike one. But besides taking pictures on their own, another Japanese picture obsession are "purikura" (J-inglish for "print club"). These are small, passport size pictures with various backgrounds. Purikura booths are ubiquitous in Japan and attract mainly girls. They take numerous pictures with their friends and edit them afterwards, adding little hearts, flowers or whatever gimmick. At tourist destinations you can choose various local scenes as a background. I couldn't resist making some at Mount Aso... Some purikura booths also provide costumes in which you can dress up. A purikura booth in Zermatt with Matterhorn backgrounds, Heidi's and goats as add-ons and traditional Swiss costumes to dress up with, how about that?
10. Give them fashion
    The Japanese, especially young Japanese are not just fashionable, they are from from another planet, called "Planet Fashion". Walk in the streets of Zurich (priding itself as Switzerland's most fashionable) and any random Japanese city (not to speak of Tokyo) and you'll see the difference. Japan is daring, fashion-forward, often over-the-top, but always really, really progressive fashion-wise. Trying to compete is no option, failure would be certain. Reaching a fashion average like here is quite impossible and I have seen it nowhere else in the world. Hell, like this grandma I've seen recently, she's like mid 70's, but wears this stylish coat and her walking stick has a really cool flower design on it. Of course there are people who are not so well-dressed, but on average the Japanese's sense of fashion and style is really impressive. They really like to shop, but will surely find merchandise in Swiss shops less than exciting. How to still make some money? a) International designer brands - although these are available in Japan too, the Japanese are crazy enough about labels that they would feel the urge to buy them in Switzerland too. The opening of the new Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo recently attracted masses of women camping outside the night before. b) Vintage - it's very popular here and since it's already past fashion you can't make a fool of yourself by being a step behind. c) Swissness - something that is not necessarily current fashion, but originally Swiss (made). I've seen Swiss "Sennechutteli" (traditional mountain farmer's vest) being sold here for ridiculous amounts of money.

Well, these are some thoughts of mine on how to better cater for Japanese tourists. Obviously it's not all meant to be dead serious, but the underlying observations are real. What would be "no-gos" for Japanese tourists then? As indicated, I think the biggest problem is the service level / mentality and that is something that can not be changed on the fly I guess. Anything messy, unorganized and risky will not be appreciated either. As for prices, I have the impression that quality is the criteria N°1 and the price is less important. A big "no-go" are "Made in China" products also. Chinese products are considered inferior and the recent food scandals have strenghtened this image. I am sure an expensive "Swiss made" is much more attractive with Japanese tourists.

Settling down

After my first night in that disastruous guesthouse I made sure to have a look at the new place first. There are several agencies in Tokyo that are specialized in providing short or longer term furnished accomodation. I first surfed a couple of sites on the internet to check availability and prices. I again wanted something that is not too far off and not outrageously expensive. There was not much available on such short notice, but "Sakura House" did have a few suitable openings. About double the price than the first place (around 800 CHF/month), but much nicer looking too. I decided for a guesthouse in Ekota, about 15 minutes by subway from Shinjuku.
The house is in a quiet residential area and has 10 bedrooms, three bathrooms and three toilets, a livingroom and a big kitchen. My room is about as big as the one in Fukuoka, so not super spacious, but fine enough.
I have quite a few housemates of course. A couple of Americans, a guy from Mexico and a Dutch and Italian guy. It's quite fun to come home in the evening and hang out in the livingroom with flatmates, comment on stupid tv shows and do other random things. Funnily enough usually everybody hanging around in the livingroom also has a Japanese book in front of him and her and tries to study besides... Well, I have some victims for the oral exercises like that. Karen, Michael (US), Sander (Dutch) and Daniel (Mexico) are the ones that are around most and the most social minded so far. They're fun to be with, really can't complain. Patrick (US) is a recruiter and terribly busy. Comes home late, goes right to bed and gets up very early. Japanese lifestyle I guess. The girl next to me, Susan, is the one I like least so far. Walks around with a super pissed look on here face, doesn't bother to say a friendly word, quarrels with her boyfriend all the time (in the room next to my) and stomps around at night and wakes people up. Some others are getting a bit annoyed too... Ah, there is an Irish guy here too, but he is really invisible. Comes home says briefly "hi" and disappears into his room, not to be heard or seen again.
Michael has been in the house for quite some time and he's a good source for stories on former housemates. It seems that the current combination is rather a decently quiet one. One former housemate had a Japanese girlfriend and when he broke up with her she started stalking him. She had the doorcode and would just come into the house whenever she wanted. Or she started banging on his or other people's door at night. So they had to urge "Sakura House" to change the door code asap. Another housemates, in the room next to Michael's, operated some "business" in the house. She advertised her "services" on the internet and performed them in her room. Michael described it as "a business that involved the use of whips and chains". She was soon voted out of the house too...
http://www.sakura-house.com/english/premise/shin_egota.php

Cheap housing in Tokyo?

After having spent a few weeks on the road I have now settled down in Tokyo and will stay here until the end of my stay in Japan. Which is not that far away by the way, which feels strange. But I am coming back, so that's ok.
My arrival in Tokyo should have been smooth, I had booked a guesthouse in advance and thought the accomodation would be settled. The place had looked nice enough on the internet and was both cheap and central. When I went to pick up the keys I paid half of the one month rent already. But the place turned out to be - eeehm, well, it's hard to call it anything else than a rathole! Imagine an old shabby building next to a noisy railway line. Two walls of your "room" are not real walls but 1) a thin-"hear whatever your neighbour does" panel separating it from the next room. While a second wall consists of a row of metall lockers where people put stuff in and take some out all day and night. And yes, metall lockers DO make noise when being opened. Other features of the proposed accomodation would be a tiny dirty kitchen and and equally tiny and dirty bathroom, squeaking doors, lacking isolation and a leaking roof that requires pots to be placed everywhere to collect valuable natural rain water... And I am NOT exaggerating, this place was a dump.
I tried to convince myself that it was not that bad, but I felt really uncomfortable there.
So I went to tell the agency the next morning and told them I intended to stay just one more night and wanted my money back. Well, they could have made troubles about the money, because the contractual notice period is 2 weeks (and I had paid for 2 weeks..). Maybe it was my luck that they were Japanese, instead of making trouble they apologized a thousand times and gave me back the money without any discussion. The harmony seeking nature of Japanese culture can be an advantage sometimes...
And I learned that you really can't have a cheap (380 CHF a month), central AND nice apartment. You need to make some concessions. And I decided that next time it would not be the "nice" part...