Fast Food, Fast Women

From an old Japan journal…

Kugayama soggy wet from a heavy early morning rainfall, a half hour of fat raindrops bashing houses and buildings. Hoping the plants on the veranda might enjoy a natural watering, I nudged them toward the front. Probably by now so accustomed to tap water out of plastic bottles, the sweetness of rain has become to them an alien drink.

Sat at the kitchen table with coffee, an English muffin, and a slightly damp Japan Times. According to one article, awareness of culture and art among the Japanese has stayed the same over four years, but morals and values are falling rapidly. The first part is a surprise and the second seems a little like someone informing me that cows can be found at a dairy farm. I wonder about this reported steadiness of interest in art and culture. Aren’t all these things—culture, art, values and morality—linked in a way that one informs and supports the other?

A Japanese businessman was not pleased about his transfer to Singapore from Tokyo, so decided to leave the company. He soon found a new job in research at a university, part of his work including occasional travel to the US. Before his first trip on behalf of the university his boss there gave him an insurance policy to cover his roundtrip flight and his time in the US. Looking closely at the insurance policy at home that night, the man noticed something odd in regard to the beneficiary listed on the policy. Should anything happen to him, anything including injury and death, neither he nor his family would receive a cent—all benefits from his death or injury to be paid to the university, his employer.

Some nutty Japanese-English in the paper this time. Throughout the years of my stay in this country the ongoing life of twisted English among the Japanese has never changed. It’s unkillable, immune to correction and by now almost as much a part of Japanese culture as chopsticks. Interesting examples from the morning paper…

The cover of a restaurant menu: ‘Fast Food, Fast Women’

Sign in after hours store windows across Japan: ‘Close’

Brand of children’s clothing: ‘Lusty’

A new model of Toyota: ‘Fun! Car! Go!’

Cover of a photo album: ‘For enjoy natural color and your best scene own’

Another photo album: ‘Come join the Rapid Party’

Poster at the dry cleaners: ‘Let’s go to my bag’

A birthday card greeting: ‘I wish to fall in happy drops on your head’

Language school ad: ‘For your heartful life’

And their mission statement: ‘To fulfill heartful English lives so people can gentle mind and more very enjoy Japanese English. Also pets.’

In class yesterday…

For some Japanese university students classes seems little more than an interlude in a busy life of complete vacuity. One young lady arrived late to class, entering the room in mid-conversation on her rhinestone encrusted cell phone. Not far inside the door, I halted her in mid-stride, backing her out of the door and closing it in her face. I should have asked, “What were you thinking?” But of course, she wasn’t.

Vending Machines Japanese Style

Most visitors to Japan are not long out of Narita Airport before discovering that among other eye-popping sights greatly visible armies of vending machines stand in squad-like clusters on every other corner. Plain and simple, the Japanese adore vending machines. No question that companies like Georgia (Coca Cola), Kirin and Glico have over the years created a market that is hugely served by a near epidemic of vending machines from one end of Japan to the other, across cities and countryside. When the 100 yen coin was first put into circulation in 1967, vending machine sales skyrocketed overnight. They have been a part of daily Japanese life for so long that it wouldn’t surprise me to hear of Japanese visitors to the US suffering withdrawal symptoms. It may not be an exaggeration to say that many Japanese children learn how to operate a vending machine before learning to tie their shoelaces.

Back when I was still new to Japan, maybe a week or two after my arrival, my first time of using one of several vending machines near where I lived turned out to be a memorable experience. When I dropped a 100 yen coin in the slot, the machine—half the size of a Buick—lit up like a pinball machine and belted out, “WELCOME AND THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING DAIDO!” The enormous thing practically shimmied and I had to walk around to the back to see if a woman was hiding there with a megaphone. There was also in my old neighborhood one vending machine that sold nothing but comic books.

Ice cream, cold drinks, beer, cigarettes and other staples are only the tip of the iceberg in the land that gave us karaoke. Machine contents are often decided in relation to location. Near schools there are more juice, tea and milk products; in front of liquor stores you’ll find machines with alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and soft drinks. Wander into Kabukicho, a Tokyo center of nightlife and you are more likely to find machines selling items of a more adult nature, such as neatly packaged worn, but unwashed panties. Over the years there I saw a range of goods including eggs, oranges, fried food, live lobsters, pornography, sexual lubricants and pot plants.

Whatever they are selling, vending machines in the big cities of Japan are state of the art hi-tech behemoths. For example, to prevent minors from buying cigarettes and alcohol, many machines are now engineered to read ‘proof of age’ cards before dispensing the product. Cell phones can be charged with ‘money’ to allow use with vending machines by swiping the phone across a sensor. An article from CNN today reports installation in some cities of solar powered vending machines operable 24 hours a day.

And the new item for sale in these machines now? Would you believe lettuce?

Last, and by no means least, there were 5.6 million vending machines in Japan in 2008, or one machine for every twenty-three people. You never have to walk far to buy a Coke, a beer, a pair of boxer shorts, or a pair of…