Bunka-fest '10 (The hottest transvestite show in town)

Last blog I talked about the sports festival and its analogue the Western sports day. But, dear readers, there are actually two festivals in Japanese schools; the second is the 文化祭 (bunkasai) or cultural festival. Now the impression I got from TV and manga before coming to Japan was that the cultural festival was like an open day, except it didn't really involve showing off what you learn in lessons or trying to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Biggleswathe that little Dicky would be better off going to your school next year rather than Borstal comp. down the road. No, in the cultural festival, I was told kids run little cafes in their classrooms, they turn their classrooms into haunted houses and they give performances of their light music club, that sort of thing. But no, how wrong I was. Turns out, that stuff happens in senior high school; in junior high it's all about the choirs. Yes each class sings a song straight out of the secular hymn book, which are purposely designed to be as similar to one another as is possible to get. The overwhelming impression is like being in a church and singing evensong minus any God. By church I mean the Church of England, not one of those fun-having, Koran-burning evangelical jobs you get in the States.

So for the entirety of the morning, we listened to each class sing their song, and then each of the year groups sang their own song. A bit dull, but I wasn't really complaining because it in the afternoon that the fun began. You see, I'd signed up to participate in a teacher's performance of AKB48's song Aitakatta, a band which is composed of 48 15-24 year old girls as is probably the hottest act in Japan at the moment.  Over lunch I was presented with my very own skirt and neckerchief, thus fulfilling my number one ambition here in Japan - to dress up like a schoolgirl and make a fool of myself. After watching a three piece rock band (guitars turned all the way up to 2) and a very good pianist, I was ready to get dressed. I slipped into my skirt, (well I say slipped, I mean struggled) and fastened my neckerchief, and got ready to join my co-workers. Some were dressed as Otaku, the primary fan-base of AKB48, others, like me were dressed as schoolgirls.

So there we were, waiting for the cue to come on. Of course the kids had no idea we were in drag; one poor girl strayed into the lobby where we were waiting and promptly died from shock. The skirt was decidedly more breezy than trousers are, it's a good thing I've cultivated a good crop of leg hair to act as nature's own legwarmers otherwise I may have caught hypothermia. Between the unshaven legs, the 6'3" height and the beard, I wasn't going to be fooling anyone that I was a middle school student, but some of the other more effeminate looking teachers put on a slightly more convincing drag act. The teachers dressed as Otaku pulled it off quite well, even the football-mad P.E. teacher, who would be one of the last people I'd expect to see hanging around Akihabara's porn palaces, stuck on his thick-rimmed glassed, tucked-in his socks and pulled out his largest camera. We were to be the reinforcements, joining the group about a minute into the song and surprising the students with the sudden arrival of cosplaying teachers in their midst. As the brass band played the opening notes of the song, we waited for our cue to come charging out from behind the students and make our way to the performance.

Gaijin - ruining Japan since 1854

About half a minute into the song we made our move, rushing out, as slipping on the heavily waxed gym floor in our socks. Having joined the rest of our posse, we stood dumbly for a few seconds, as everyone simultaneously forgot what the moves for that part of the song was. Polished it was not, but I guess it wouldn't have been as fun if we took it seriously. What resulted was one of the most enjoyable performances I'd ever done, although it felt far too short at the time, you could see the kids loved it. As we rushed out of the gym, the cheers went up, I remembered why I had so much fun at the Japanese society dance team in university, except even more so, because I got to wear a skirt.

O brave new world, that has such people in it.

The festival pretty much ended there. There was the usual closing ceremony and some of the kids were given awards, although I'm not entirely sure why. The student council president was quite funny though, witty and confident, most of the jokes went over my head, but the few that I understood I enjoyed. So that was it, my cultural festival. Not entirely what I expected, but an extremely entertaining experience overall. Next year I may try and skive off work at my elementary school again.

The meeting of exercise

It's just occurred to me that the previous three entries in this blog have been about sex in some way or another. So I guess this time I'll talk about something wholesome and all-American this time; competitions of athletic prowess. Yes, even an uncivilised and barbaric nation like Japan has Sports days, but their feeble and un-Western minds seem to have distorted the correct (white) way of doing them. Yes, in England, sports days consist of sitting around bored, watching the more athletic members of your class or form run endless sprinting, hurdles and long-distance races, and sometimes for a bit of excitement you can have the privilege of watching boys jump into sand pits instead. Normally the most interesting thing that can happen in a British sports day is if someone gets heatstroke; thus providing everyone else with a talking point.

In Japan, things are a little different. The Japanese equivalent to the British sports day is called an undoukai (運動会), literally a meeting of exercise, although, It is normally translated as 'sports festival.' Whilst festival might be a bit of an overstatement for an event where you're sat down for most of the time, counting the rocks in the sandy sports field, it's much more festive than the British version could ever aspire to be. For a start, there's not much in the way of sports at a sports festival, the kids tend to play communal games; like tug of war, throw the tennis balls into the basket ball hoop, ten-legged race (that's with 11 people). Occasionally, the brass band comes out and plays a stirring marching song (you know, the sort of thing they have at an American football game) and sometimes the kids take part in some sort of North Korean-style gymnastics session. In the end, they're too busy doing anything but sports to fit a 100m race in. The only example of sports at these sports festivals I've seen is the relay race, and even then they get the same amount of attention as the roll-the-giant-ball-over-your-backs-like-you’re-on-Takeshi's-castle event.

Now, I imagine some of you might be saying "Hang on Tom, aren't all these events really boring?" Well, I know nothing can compete with the white-hot excitement of a long jump competition, and true some of the events like the mass skipping event is a real snooze-fest, (especially in the surprisingly hot mid-September sun), but the real advantage of the Sports festival is the variety it has. You know how in Japanese game shows, everyone's involved in some sort of wacky competition that is more entertaining than it is an accurate test of physical capability, well the sports festival is like that. The sports festival is not some sober competition of athletic prowess like the Olympics, but a bizarre and entertaining event, which is less about skill as having fun, like the world cup. Also it has ceremonies. Lots and lots of ceremonies. The opening ceremony features each class marching past a podium with the big boss man (headmaster) on top, and extending their right arm out as if to salute him. They carry flags with their class colour on it and keep in rigid formation. In fact I have a video of it right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXVkgmJk2E. They also raise the national flag whilst the Japanese national anthem (a.k.a. the world's most downbeat national anthem) plays over the loud speaker.

Afterwards all the teachers get together and do what Japanese teachers do best; get drunk and try and set the foreigner up with any single girl under 30. So, that’s the Japanese sports festival in a nutshell; basically an outside Japanese game show with a little disarming militarism thrown in for good measure.

Journey to the center of the Japan part 2 - Topless bars and Manga kisses

Having left the porn/manga store in Akihabara, I noticed that it was rapidly approaching 5.00. My friend and I made our way to the neon playground of Japan - Shinjuku. Shinjuku is probably my favourite place in Tokyo; the streets are crowded, the shops open late  and there are innumerable small little ramen shops, izakayas and toriniku stands crammed in between giant department stores and electronics shops. One area that captures the feel of Shinjuku is its seedy district – Kabuki-cho. There is no real physical boundary between Kabuki-cho and Shinjuku, and it is very easy to stray from one to the other without realizing it, but as soon as you enter into Kabuki-cho the keen observer can immediately tell the difference. Kabuki-cho is famous for long being a Yakuza hangout, and walking down the street there are still many men hanging around with visible tattoos and missing fingers. Nowadays, though it seems more of a place for 'Yankees', by which I don't mean fat American tourists, but young Japanese people with dyed hair and pierced ears, basically, the stereotypical rebellious kid. At first glance, Kabukicho seems to be just like any other district of Tokyo, albeit with a slightly more intimidating crowd, but as you get further into Kabuki-cho, you arrive at the sex shops. Yes, Kabukicho is Tokyo's red light district, and although prostitution is illegal in Japan, the Japanese get around the law by employing various euphemisms and sophistries that keeps the practice of the world’s oldest profession alive and well - compensated dating, remaining the most popular. There are also a variety of other, more legal, institutions related to the sex industry, if you are interested in possible catching hepatitis, you may want to try one of the following:
Oppai-pabu (Titty pub) - topless bars
Soaplands - 'massage parlours' in the very loose sense of the word (i.e. men go there to get 'soaped-up')
Hostess bars - bars where the waitresses are very attentive
Love hotels - hotels where the rooms are rented by the hour

There's also your usual selection of pimps, prostitutes, touts, johns, gangsters and the very occasional policeman, who seem to mostly be there to remind people not to smoke on the street. Unfortunately dear reader, I didn't go to any of these establishments and spent the remainder of the evening with my friend in a ￥270 izakaya (that is an izakaya where everything costs ￥270. An opportunity missed? Perhaps, but I'm just thankful not to come away with VD. After meeting up with another friend, our small party left Kabuki-cho behind and headed to the station. Soon, my new friend and I left for Shibuya, another entertainment district, not as expensive as Roppongi, nor as seedy as Shinjuku, Shibuya attracts a lot of foreign visitors. About 1 in 5 people seemed to be non-Japanese, and if that seems somewhat underwhelming to you, bear in mind I can count the number of white people in my hometown (pop. 60,000) on one hand! My friend and I headed to a little Ramen place, where I ordered too much...again. One day, Japan, I will master your Ramen portion sizes. After she left I headed to, of all things, a British pub. As much as I love it here in Japan, I do miss being able to order a pint of ale in a dingy little drinkery where a ban on smoking means all sorts of horrible smells assault your nostrils. So there I was, sitting in a faux English pub, being served by an Australian, with Lancashire hotpot on the menu and listening to the Smiths while some American guy to my left tried to impress a girl by explaining the difference in marital expectations between the West and Japan. It reminded me why I left England in the first place, there was something altogether...depressing about the place. It wasn't like the British pubs we have in Nagoya, which are just full of girls looking for foreigners to sleep with; no this was much more of an authentic British experience.

Having cured myself of my shameful nostalgia, I decided to expose myself to another Japanese institution - the manga kissa, or manga cafe. Whilst there does exist manga kissas which  are basically cafes for reading manga, these ones are specially designed for insomniacs and those too drunk to care where they sleep. You pay around ￥1500 for a small room about the size of a disabled toilet which has a computer and a reclining chair. You can either get some sleep in the hot and slightly noisy environment, or stick the headphones on and every episode of the Colbert Report that came out this month. I did both. There are free soft drinks, free manga library, and even a shower for the morning, but to be honest, it's more of an experience for the cheapskate, the adventurous or the sort of person that always wanted to look over the tops of toilet cubicles and see Japanese men asleep in their underpants.

Journey to the center of the Japan part 1 - Maids and Pornography (Akihabara)

For those of you that didn't know my birthday was last Tuesday, and to celebrate I decided to spend a weekend in Tokyo. What I couldn't have anticipated was how this supposedly innocent seeming trip would turn into an exploration of the seedy, the sordid and the downright Japanese. Having taken the Shinkansen from Nagoya to Shinagawa station, I met up with one of my acquaintances from University. I didn't know him particularly well，and he has quite a quiet demeanor, but all my other friends were working, socialising, watching paint dry; anything to avoid being in close proximity to me, so I just got on with it.

Our first stop was Akihabara, the district of Tokyo famous for its electronics and its Otaku (anime and manga) culture. Having missed out on going here during the Tokyo orientation, I was keen to see what one of Tokyo's most unique districts looked like. What was immediately apparent was that whist many cities have touts on the streets advertising various businesses, very few dress up as Victorian maids. This is a big thing in Akihabara - maid cafes, cutesy cafes where the waitresses dress up as maids. As the saying goes; when in Rome, go to a backstreet cafe and get pampered by women, so off we went. What first notice about the maids is that they all talk in a high pitched cutesy voice; its all "can I get you anything to drink master" this and "would you like to buy any additional services master" that. Everything is cute, the girls are cute, the food is cute, the customers are...lechers, but apart from them, it's all cute, all the time. Which is why it's most amusing to try and get the girls to talk in their normal voice; when I was ordering I muttered to myself "this 'rabbit super sparkle-sparkle parfait' doesn't really look much like a rabbit", to which she replied "yeah I know" before realising the horror of what she had done by letting her mask slip off and going as bright pink as my 'rabbit' parfait.

That said, the cafe was fun; the food was a little overpriced, and you have to pay a seating charge, and during the maid`s  concert, the music cut out causing one of the maids to swear under her breath (again in her normal voice), but that kind of added to the charm in a weird way. What was a little bit weirder were the customers, whenever the maids did anything clumsy, most of the customers would peer over. If I was an intellectual I'd say something about the clumsy maid being an archetype in the otaku community,  and how it reflected traditional Japanese conceptions of the role of the woman as the submissive partner and the man as her benefactor. However, I'm not an intellectual so I'm just going to say they wanted to look at her bum when she fell over.

 After leaving the cafe, my friend and I looked for something else to do whilst still in Akihabara, and luckily my guide book suggested a manga shop called 'Tora no Ana' just down the road. What I didn't realise was that this was Akihabara, home of the ronery otaku virgin and as such 'manga shop' actually means porn shop. The shop was a seven story building, the 1st two floors were manga and manga related magazines, and the remaining five floors? All porn. In fairness a shop whose name was 'the tiger's hole' and featured an anime girl in a tiger costume as a mascot probably should have alerted me to it's real nature. For those that are interested, the third floor was professionally produced hentai, both published manga volumes and anime DVDs. The fourth floor was generally a continuation of this, with a heavier focus on poseable figurines. For those that are familiar with the mega-popular band AKB48, one of the members recently quit to pursue a career as an AV idol (read porn star) and her debut video was being promoted on this floor. The fifth and sixth floor sold doujinshi (amateur hentai manga, largely focusing on characters from legitimate anime having sex) and the seventh was second-hand doujinshi. So yes, I was in a used porn store. Some of you may receive souvenirs in the post.

Chikan

Have you ever seen a Japanese train? If you type in `Japanese train` into google images you`ll probably get some pictures of a sexy looking Shinkansen or a slightly old-fashioned but still very reliable local style train. But behind that shiny, shiny, efficient veneer lies the true heart of the Japanese train; its passengers. Inside, the people sit quietly reading manga, magazines or occasionally, hardcore pornography. Either that or they stand, like quiet sardines staring silently into the middle distance like they were the stars of their own romantic film. So far so boring, but occasionally something happens makes the Japanese train journey quite take a turn for the sinister – Chikan; a.k.a. sexual molestation. In Japan, Chikan is much more common than in the west, whether a result of Japanese sexual culture, over-crowding on trains or whatever. Although it’s victims are usually young women and teenage girls, as I will regale this is not always the case.

The place; Nagoya`s Yamanashi line, eastbound, just before Sakae station. Today had been a good day, the annual Japanese festival of the dead - Obon, had meant that very few teachers had turned up to work, and as such I finished at 10.30. Full of youthful vim and vigour left to explore Nagoya, and as I prepared to disembark at Sakae, I felt it. It was a brief but firm touch of my arse. The sensation was unmistakable, I thank God I was spanked as a child else I may not have recognised it. I was shocked, horrified I immediately turned round to confront my tormentor, my abuser, but instead was confronted by a wall of innocent looking girls, noses naturally buried in manga. So incensed was I, that I was about to unleash my righteous fury, when I remembered that I was British, and the British do not a make a fuss about this sort of thing, we just bite our lips and mumble something under our breath. This was obviously a masterful practitioner of chikan, sly, cunning, she had timed the act just as the train was pulling into the station and was I about to leave. There was nothing I could do, to confront them meant that I would miss my stop, and just like Nick Clegg in the formation of the coalition government`s policy, I had to abandon my principles and retreat.

So let this be a lesson to all you young gentlemen planning on taking a trip to Japan, BEWARE, for young women may touch your arse!