Friday, June 13, 2003
Went out to Kichijoji today for a free language lesson. It was pretty easy, more of a probing to see what level I was. Too bad I couldn't have discovered this place earlier--they are really nice and it was good to finally get some practice. Apparently it's a master teacher and several student teachers. Afterwards, I wandered the streets, looking at all the stores. I was hungry so stopped in the basements of the department stores, taking some of their samples, lingering with the bakery smells, and buying some stuff to munch on. People in class are already planning what their first few meals will be when they get back to the U.S.--I definitely am as well. Not that there's not plenty of comfort food with all the western?@chains, but there's something about being able to read the menu and have affordable options aside from McDonalds. At least most places have a picture menu and plastic displays.
Found a great Hello Kitty store. It had Hello Kitty stuff from all the different regions in Japan. What a fun way to find out about regional differences. Amazingly I didn't buy anything--everything was so cute that I couldn't decide. Since I ended up not getting a cell phone, don't have use for the cell-phone trinkets anyway.
Other stores--several Indian/Indonesian clothing stores, a Latin/Native American store, and several "vintage" used 60s and 70s clothing stores. One of the clothing stores had a whole sweatshirt section for different universities and I quickly found one for North Carolina State--a well-worn puke-colored sweatshirt selling for 9800 yen--almost $90! I didn't think that could be right, but got it on film.
Class was a little disturbing today since we watched all these programs with guys getting beaten up and then smoking together afterwards. Fab commented on this male bonding as being a novel concept since the emphasis would normally be on male-female bonding, but I wasn't so sure. It seems like bonding through adversity is a pretty common theme in war/concentration camp movies and the whole idea of friendship enduring even as male-female relationships fizzle out has been present in a lot of movies too. I guess lately I can more easily think of the female bonding movies like "Waiting to Exhale" and "Thelma and Louise". With the guys I've known, it seems as if male bonding is usually stronger than female bonding. And that's with American guys--it seems like the rest of the world has less taboos about same-sex friendships than we do.
Found a great Hello Kitty store. It had Hello Kitty stuff from all the different regions in Japan. What a fun way to find out about regional differences. Amazingly I didn't buy anything--everything was so cute that I couldn't decide. Since I ended up not getting a cell phone, don't have use for the cell-phone trinkets anyway.
Other stores--several Indian/Indonesian clothing stores, a Latin/Native American store, and several "vintage" used 60s and 70s clothing stores. One of the clothing stores had a whole sweatshirt section for different universities and I quickly found one for North Carolina State--a well-worn puke-colored sweatshirt selling for 9800 yen--almost $90! I didn't think that could be right, but got it on film.
Class was a little disturbing today since we watched all these programs with guys getting beaten up and then smoking together afterwards. Fab commented on this male bonding as being a novel concept since the emphasis would normally be on male-female bonding, but I wasn't so sure. It seems like bonding through adversity is a pretty common theme in war/concentration camp movies and the whole idea of friendship enduring even as male-female relationships fizzle out has been present in a lot of movies too. I guess lately I can more easily think of the female bonding movies like "Waiting to Exhale" and "Thelma and Louise". With the guys I've known, it seems as if male bonding is usually stronger than female bonding. And that's with American guys--it seems like the rest of the world has less taboos about same-sex friendships than we do.
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