Happy 20

By Japanese law young people reach adulthood at the age of twenty. They are then allowed by law to vote, to drink alcohol and to smoke. Of course, for many the alcohol and cigarettes come a little earlier, ‘hush hush’ but I suppose that is likely the case in other societies as well. Parents and community leaders hope that by the age of twenty young people will begin to recognize their responsibilities as adults, and start practicing the basics of becoming productive members of the community.

To recognize this landmark in life, Japan celebrates a holiday on January 15 each year called Seijin no hi, or Coming of Age Day. It is a holiday for those boys and girls who reach the age of twenty anytime between April 2 of the previous year and April 1 of the current year. Because it is a national holiday, schools and businesses are closed and you will always see crowds of twenty year-olds dressed up and out for a good time. It remains the one day in the year when streets and restaurants are flooded with girls dressed in colorful kimonos, a style called furisode. For many of the girls it is one of only four or five times they will ever don this traditional style of dress. Most of the young men are happy to wear a suit on January 15, though some do opt for the traditional hakama, or formal pleated trousers and haori (formal jacket).

Since it a holiday celebrating the coming of adulthood, too often it becomes a day of happy indulgence in alcohol, and recently community leaders have been critical of irresponsible behavior at special holiday events. To those with an eye to past years, past celebrations, the young today are almost unrecognizable compared to earlier generations. Comparison of the two photos on the right gives an excellent example of modern (top) vs. traditional (below). As for the young man at the bottom, his posture is typically nervous and erect, but crowned with a 2011 hair color and hairstyle. Notice too that three of the girls in the top photo are on their cell phone, while the three below from 1991 would not have owned a cell phone.

Foolish to describe oneself as surprised over the differences in for example, 1982 and 2010. Changes in all spheres have been phenomenal over that span, and fashions as well as public behavior are right at the top. On January 15, 2010 it surprised me not at all to see more than one pretty young lady in kimono walking unsteadily and slightly tipsy down the street, a cigarette in one hand, cell phone pressed to her ear. Nor was it a surprise to see young men like the one in the photo here throwing up from too much beer. In 1982 I would never have seen these examples. Yet that old-fashioned propriety does not necessarily mean that I censure the twenty year-olds today who act and behave according to the norm of their more modern, more permissive society. In a nutshell, times are different.

To all those Japanese twenty year-olds celebrating this January 15, I offer congratulations and hope your day is fun, as well as safe.

Can’t Shake it Loose

Despite great strides made over the past six months toward acclimating to a different, and in part less familiar culture, there are things I miss almost daily about Tokyo, my city of twenty-eight years. A look at the calendar tells me that 184 days have passed since arriving in this little Florida town on the beach. Half a year, quite a lump of days, but even still, few days pass when I don’t say to myself, ‘Wish I could run out to Tower and pick up a Monkey Majik CD.’ Or maybe, ‘Sure would like to have some ebi tendon at Futaba.’ ‘Maybe I’ll go to Maruzen tomorrow and check out the new Sailor ink.’

I wrote to a friend in Tokyo yesterday asking if she would mind sending something I badly need and can’t find here. Leaving Tokyo in late April, I packed six of the notebooks long used for both journal and first drafts of writing projects. Guess it’s because of more free time here, but now all but the last pages of the last Life Noble Note notebook are filled.

Been unable to find in my area here, a café or coffee shop where I can pass an hour or so doing a John Lennon—watching the wheels go round, scribbling in my journal and occasionally blotting errant drops of iced coffee from the pages. I miss the sunbright third floor of Doutor Café in Kugayama…miss that late afternoon coffee hour.

Think too about the numbers of young Japanese boys and girls I so often passed among, those of the green hair and pierced lips, the boys in skirts, the girls in hot pink hightop Keds. The hooked-up youth nose down in cell phones, plugged into iPods, draped in chains and dragging bushel-sized tote bags. The college kids on trains locked into comic books, wearing boots big and heavy enough to cross the Amazon jungle. I miss them all.

Shimizu-san was for years my regular supermarket checkout cashier at Peacock near the Kugayama apartment. She sent a New Year’s card each January first, and never a Valentine’s Day passed that she didn’t give me a box of chocolates. Now I think of her as I stroll the aisles of my beachtown Publix, remembering a faithful friend and wondering about the cost of soy milk at Peacock these days.

I had my hair cut last Friday, and not a bad job either, but it will take a lot to erase from my wants a few more haircuts from Hikaru at Minato 3710. Hardly a time that I look at my hair in the mirror and don’t miss the skill and caring service given by my Japanese barber. I wonder often enough what color Hikaru’s hair is this month. He pretty much switched colors once a month, from black to yellow, and then to orange and maybe the next month the ever popular favorite tea-brown chapatsu.

These Florida days continue to be crowded with thoughts of the daily, weekly sights and sounds that soothed and jangled my long passage through Tokyo and the whole Japan experience.