Gaijin Chronicles Issue 3 - Sensible Shoes and Jedi Knights (Bonus story)

It's funny for me now to look back at my early posts and see how many centered on shoes. Like any stereotypical woman, I like shoes a lot...I just also believe in practicality, and it was hard for me to fathom women who--for the sake of fashion--walked miles in ill-fitting, 3-inch heels. My feet twinge in empathy for their rapidly developing bunions every time I think of it.

What amazes me is that we went to a festival just a few days into my arrival in Japan, and for some reason I didn't choose to write about it. Held at a winery, it was a yearly celebration with dancers and taiko drums and all sorts of neat stuff. If I remember correctly, it was for the Japanese version of Halloween, in a way… a celebration of the ancestors, called Obon. More "Day of the Dead" than Halloween.

Below the regular Issue 3, I've written a new entry, with my recollections of that night at the winery.

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Sensible Shoes and Jedi Knights

 Remember the girl that tottered past me on her recklessly high heels in the Seattle Airport?  Apparently she’s a trend-setter.   Such a trend-setter that my first coherent impression of Japan was that the Japanese women are, to all appearances, insane.  Approximately one in fifteen women wears what I would consider sensible shoes.  That means something with an inch heel or less.  And the other fourteen women?  You guessed it.  Recklessly high heels.  Heels of all sorts: stiletto, wedge, platform.  Chunky, skinny, straight, curvy.  Lace-up, strap-up, slip-on, pumps, sandals, “flip-flops”, boots.  With jeans, with skirts, with fedoras and striped shirts!  With suits, with shorts, with khaki slacks, but never skorts!  They wear them in a house, they wear them with a mouse, they wear them in a box, they wear them with a fox!  

     

I do not lie. This unwise fashion statement has reached the point of near epidemic-status.  Fashion-forward young women even wear high heels on the beach.  Yes, you read correctly.  On the beach.  I suppose that they think they look good.  It must be some reassurance to know that their feet are fashionable and pretty even as they blunder ungracefully through the sand with the rest of their bodies. 

Now, I suppose I’m being unfair.  I haven’t actually seen this phenomenon with my own eyes, but have had it reported to me by numerous reliable sources.  And judging by the footwear I’ve seen on women who are walking downtown all day, I find it extremely easy to believe.  Plus, I’m just jealous.  I know I don't have the stamina to support myself like that. As I said earlier, to perch upon heels of this magnitude requires a raw athleticism, an innate skill that I was, unfortunately, born without. And while I have accused them of lurching ungracefully through the sand, the truth is that many of the women wear them quite well and even with an air of elegance, which I'm sure is the whole point.

  
For every five women who wear them well, however, there is one who doesn’t.  Her ankle is rolling out to the side.  Her itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, super-skinny heel looks like it’s about to snap off at any moment.  She can’t bend her feet, so she clomps through like a tin soldier.  Her outfit is meticulously selected to accessorize with her shoes.  So far we’ve seen the Japanese equivalent of Hilary Duff, Lindsey Lohan, the Olsen Twins, and Avril Lavigne.  But you know what’s funny?  Even in the midst of perfect “accesorization,” the Lavigne wanna-be was wearing sensible shoes.  Avril would be so pleased.

In the midst of all this musing, Sean and I descended the subway steps with a crowd of after-workers.  And there, smack-dab in the middle of modern society as we know it, were two scrupulously dressed young women, fully done up in their traditional kimonos with the wide belt called an obi.  The only exceptions were their cell phones and modern hair-dos, but it was a glimpse of traditional Japan in a very, very modern world. 

And of course, seeing the obi sent me off on a different tangent all together.  It occurred to me that in the Star Wars universe, nearly all the Jedi Knights have Japanese-sounding names, or at least Asian-sounding names.  For instance, Obi-wan Kenobi.  Qui-gon Jin.  Mace Windu.  Yoda.  And now that I’ve embarrassed myself by being able to name any Jedi-knights at all (I would like to blame my nephews, but anyone who knows me knows that I can’t pass that off on them), I do have this to add:  I think the Jedi would be very proud of these young kimono-clad women.  You see, I looked at their feet.  They were wearing sensible shoes. 

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Obon, Taiko, and Grapes

Shortly after I arrived in Japan, Sean and I went to go see the Obon festival with several other of the JET teachers. I still felt intimidated and awkward. Not only was I in a new place (a foreign country, no less), but I was the only spouse in the group, and the only one who arrived late. Though they had all been in the country less than two weeks together, already a bond had formed. 

It was hot and muggy in the way that tropical climates are, and it took me approximately 30 seconds to get gross and sticky. I remember chatting with a couple of the other teachers, and one of them teasing me for using words like "exponential" when I said something like, "put me in humidity, and my sweat increases at an exponential rate."

"Exponential?" they said. "Who uses words like 'exponential'?"

I looked at Sean, a little bit in shock. I've been teased for my vocabulary before, but I had thought 'exponential' was something relatively normal. Sean just kind of grinned and shrugged and shook his head all at once. It was normal for him, too. Funny the random things that stick with you.

Since this Obon Festival--the Japanese celebration of the ancestors, one of the only times during the year when the spirits of the dead come back home (a happy thing, not a creepy one)--was being held at a winery, the talk naturally turned to wine. One JET mentioned that they were surprised there were any wineries in the area, because it didn't seem conducive to grapes.

"Really there's only one," said Brindley, a ridiculously tall South African on his second year in Japan. It's a miracle he didn't develop a permanent stoop from ducking all the time. When he got excited, I had trouble understanding what he was saying. "And the wine is total shit. But their plum wine is good."

I don't remember much more of the ride, but I do remember being inside the courtyard and seeing all the people in their yukatas, so we must have gotten off the bus just fine. To the casual westerner, it might be hard at first glance to tell the difference between a kimono and a yukata. Kimono is formal wear, while the Yukata--as one of the teachers later told me--is like the Japanese version of pajamas. Now, this isn't strictly true, but it IS far less formal. It's usually made out of cotton or some other light fabric, and there's only one layer and a simple belt (obi), as opposed to the multiple and complex layers of silk that make up a kimono. Because this was a traditional festival, many of the men and women were wearing their summer yukatas.

The courtyard was strung with red paper lanterns, traditional for Obon. In the middle there was a large tower, probably only about 6 feet high, but seeming bigger because of the posts on top, from which the lanterns were strung. The platform housed a massive taiko drum, with other drums around the base. The drummers--both men and women--were also in traditional garb: the standard black pantaloon-style pants, sleeveless wrap shirt, and coiled sweat band on their forehead. Throughout the night they pounded out various traditional rhythms… but the magic came when the little old ladies (and some not-so-old) formed a moving ring around the central plinth, singing traditional folk songs and moving slowly,

slowly around the circle in the steps of a traditional dance that their grandmothers did, and THEIR grandmothers' grandmothers did, and THEIR grandmothers did.

It was a great night, even if I couldn't stop sweating. It was a low-key, great way to be introduced to "the" Japan. Brindley was right… the wine really WAS horrible, but that wasn't really why we were there in the first place. The two edited pictures--one with the older lady in blue and white, and the other with the young girl in red--still hang in our house. Perhaps that's why I can remember these impressions so clearly all these years later.