初詣 First Shrine Visit of the New Year

This year, on January 1^st, I did hatsumode, or first shrine visit of the year, with my friend. It was my first time to go to a shrine in Japan and it was an interesting first experience. We went to Asakusa, to one of the most famous shrines in Tokyo and since it was the first day of the new year, when most people do hatsumode, it was incredibly crowded. There were so many people that the line went out past the shrine and into the street, probably a half a mile long. The first picture was taken while I was standing in line. The second picture is of my friend teaching me how to cleanse ourselves before entering the shrine. And the third picture is one that I took from the top of the shrine’s steps. You can get a feel for how large the crowd was. There were a lot of rules for how you should offer money and how much money you should offer and I had to practice many times before I could get it right. Even though it was a little stressful, it was a good experience and I am glad that I went. After bowing in front of the shrine and making a wish, I got to take a fortune, or omikuji which can be seen in the forth picture. I actually got the best one, which is daikichi or good fortune. After we were finished at the shrine, we got to enjoy a lot of delicious festival foods, including the candied apples that can be seen in the last picture.  

Anime, Anime Everywhere

Anime and other cute characters can be seen almost everywhere in Japan, from food products, to police boxes, to anti-nuclear war protests. Japan is famous for its love of cute things and the creation of anime and manga that are immensely popular around the world. So, it makes sense for them to project their success onto almost everything. The first picture I have is of Pepsi, featuring a character from the popular manga and anime, One Piece. But putting this character onto Pepsi, they are attracting One Piece fans to buy the Pepsi. People will buy it to support the character even if they don’t like Pepsi. The next picture is of a vending machine with a popular pokemon Eevee and its evolutions. There is a new pokemon game and a pokemon movie coming out, so by putting the pokemon stuffed animals into vending machines, they are inviting old pokemon fans to buy them and also advertising at the same time. The next picture is a tin of chocolates that I bought a Lawson. The chocolates were pretty good, but I obviously didn’t buy it for the chocolates, I bought it because I am a fan of Dragonball Z and I wanted to display the tin on my desk with all of my other merchandise. Selling this tin was also a way to advertise the new Dragonball Z movie that came out recently. The final picture is a picture of a soda with Dragonball Z characters on the outside. Again, recently there has been an increase of Dragonball Z merchandise in circulation due to the new movie’s release.

Japanese "American" Products

One thing that I have noticed is that there are a lot of imported American brands, but they have been changed to be more Japanese. Here are a few examples. The first picture shows Doritos and Cheetos. The Doritos look very similar to the American ones, but the flavor is actually taco flavor, which is a flavor that we don’t have in the US. The Cheetos are barbeque flavored. The next picture is of a product called “Pepsi White”. It is Mikan, or mandarin flavored, a very popular seasonal winter flavor. The next picture is of fried chicken flavored Doritos. This was probably the strangest for me. I can’t imagine having a flavor like that in the United States. But I tried it and it was pretty good. The next two pictures are probably the most interesting. Similarly to Starbucks, which was mentioned in the previous post, another American chain restaurant, McDonalds, also caters to the Japanese consumer. McDonalds also has many seasonal flavored foods such as the sakura teritama (cherry blossom teriyaki egg) burger in the spring. The second to the last picture shows fries with soy sauce flavoring and the last picture shows wasabi dipping sauce for chicken nuggets. These are two of the most obviously Japanese flavors.

Starbucks Seasonal Drinks

Being from Seattle, I love Starbucks. In both American and Japan I drink Starbucks almost every day. Starbucks is known for the fact that it never changes. In the states, we always say that no matter where you go, Starbucks is the same. But since I came here, I realized how wrong that is. Starbucks in Japan is very much catered to the Japanese consumer. Japanese people love seasonal changes. They are very proud of having four distinct seasons, and you can see it in the crazy amount of seasonal food and drinks that they have in almost every restaurant. In America where we do have seasonal drinks, there are very few. Starbucks for example, usually has a new drink or two every season in America, most notable is their famous Christmas drinks, the peperment mocha, the pumkpin spice mocha and the gingerbread mocha. while in Japan they have a new flavor almost every month. One of the most notable and uniquely Japanese Starbucks drinks is the sakura (cherry blossom) latte that can only be purchased for a few weeks in April. The amount of seasonal foods and drinks in Japan has always intrigued me and I always look forward to the next one that comes out. The first picture shown is a picture of a Frappuccino that I ordered in the  wintertime, that had a very long name along the lines of, “chocolate whip chocolate chip vanilla cream Frappuccino”. The second is a picture of the famous “Sakura latte”. The third picture is of the “tiramisu Frappuccino” and the final one is one that I ordered a few weeks ago, the “strawberry cheesecake Frappuccino”.

Purikura

　 

One of the most fascinating things in Japanese culture is the obsession with photo booths, or purikura. Purikura are Japanese photo booths where you take pictures with your friends and you can write on them and decorate them to make them look however you want. Lately, purikura have become even more advanced. When you are taking the picture, they make your skin look clearer, softer and whiter. They also make you look skinnier. At the beginning you can chose how white you want your skin to look or how big you want them to make your eyes look. Even at the so-called “natural” setting, they still manage to make your eyes look much bigger than normal, especially if you are a foreigner. Lately, there are even machines where you can press a button that makes your face look smaller. You can even zoom in on certain parts of your face to erase blemishes or fix your make-up. You can change your hair color and eye color as well. I recently went to one where you could even attach larger tear bags underneath your eyes. All of these functions attempt to make Japanese girls look more foreign. However, for foreign people, it sometimes makes us look like aliens.  

Eyes

Perhaps one of the most interesting things for me in Japanese beauty is the focus on the eyes. For Americans, the most notable characteristic of the Japanese or oriental face is the “almond eye”. In modern day Japan, they do multiple things to change their eyes, such as the use of circle lenses which make your eyes look much bigger than they actually are and wearing tons of make-up to make your eye look bigger or a different shape than it actually is. Another thing that they do is shown in the picture above. When I saw my friend putting this on one day, I was very interested. This is glue that you place on your eye to glue parts of your eyelids together to make you have a crease above your eyes. This apparently makes your eyes look bigger and more like a foreigners eyes. As a person who has had “foreign” eyes her whole life, I never thought about what it was that makes ones eyes look like Caucasian. But it is true that Caucasian people usually have one or two creases on their eyes while Japanese people have one or sometimes even none. For many Japanese girls, using this glue to get a crease in their eyelids is part of their every day beauty routine.  

No tan!

Not only are there products in Japan to make you appear more white, there are multiple products in order to keep you from getting tan. The reason that Japanese people don’t want to become tan is because of the fact that they tan easily and in the past, people who had to work outside and do hard labor would always be tan, which meant that people with white skin were the people who were wealthier. So basically, having white skin was a kind of symbol of your status. Once, I was describing a friend of mine to a Japanese friend and said that he had dark skin. My Japanese friend looked a little shocked and told me that I shouldn’t say that. I was really confused about this because I was just trying to describe my friend in the simplest means possible. It seems to be an insult to have dark skin in Asia, even though having “gold” skin is desirable in the west. As a result, there are multiple products designed to prevent you from getting tan. The first picture is of these sleeves that you can put on your arms to prevent them from getting tanned. When I first saw these I was shocked and confused. It was 90 degrees and 90% humidity yet these older ladies were walking around with these sleeves on. They must have been so hot, and yet they still considered it necessary to use the sleeves. The next products are UV umbrellas. I was also very confused the first time I saw these as well. So many people use these on sunny days in Japan. These umbrellas are used to keep the suns UV rays from hitting you and tanning your skin. Being from Seattle, where we don’t even use umbrellas when it’s raining, I was intrigued that umbrellas were used here on sunny days as well. All of these products show the importance of “whiteness” in Japan.

White Skin

         Another characteristic of beauty in Japan is having white skin. There are multiple facial products for making sure that you have white skin. These products of course also have UV protection. Recently, Japanese women have had an obsession with white skin. It is ironic considering that in the United States and other European countries, girls spend hundreds of dollars going to tanning booths and buying creams that make you look tanner.  It reminds me of what my mother always said to me when I would complain about my curly hair as a child, “You always want what you can’t have.”

         All three of the products shown in the pictures are skin whitening products for your face. And all three of them have the kanji 美白(bihaku). The first kanji is the kanji for “beautiful” and the second kanji is the kanji for “white”. The fact that those two kanji go together shows the importance of white skin for Japanese beauty. The last product is even called “Grace Sophina” a western name. This relates back to the fact that most Japanese beauty products, similar to the ones shown in the previous post are made to make Japanese women look more western. The biggest irony is that the natural Japanese beauty is considered to be more beautiful to people in the west.

"Small Face"

Japanese girls are obsessed with having “small” or more western-looking faces. I constantly get compliments from my Japanese female friends that I have a small face. At first I was confused as to whether or not it was a good thing to have a small face, but after seeing all of the products on the market to help Japanese girls have a small face, I see that it is indeed considered to be a good thing. The first picture is a mouthpiece that is supposed to make your face look smaller. Notice that the model used on the packaging is a Caucasian female. The next two pictures are of face rollers. The first one is for your nose line and the second one is for your cheeks. The thought process behind these is that the motion from the roller will cause your blood to run, making you lose weight in your face. Notice again that while the model using the product is Japanese, the main picture is of a Caucasian female. Unfortunately, no matter how many times that girl uses the face roller, she isn’t going to look like the Caucasian model. That is what I call false advertisement. The final picture is not pretty at all. I have never tried this product but I am almost 100% sure that it is not comfortable. Apparently, if you put this around your face, it will make your face smaller. This shows how badly Japanese girls feel the need to look a certain way, particularly like a white woman due to pressure from the media.

Diets

In Japan, there is a strong connection between skinny and beautiful. These are two pictures of weight-loss products in Japan. The first one is called, “Cute Diet”, implying that if you do this diet, it will make you “cute”. In reality, it might be able to aid you in losing weight, but of course it will not be able to alter the way you look other then that. This shows that in Japan skinny is a huge factor in being “cute”. The next product has an already very skinny girl, saying, “I want to be beautiful.” By western standards, this girl is already skinnier than the average girl. Yet, they are using her on this diet product, saying that she wants to be skinnier in order to become more beautiful. It is kind of sad that Japanese girls, who are already at a healthy weight, feel the need to be skinner due to pressure from the media. When does it stop? Both of these products are utilizing the Japanese woman’s need to be skinny and the strong connection between “skinny” and “cute” in Japan. There are various diet products, despite being a country known for its healthiness and lack of overweight people. Japanese girls spend a lot of money on being “cute”, whether it be from purchasing diet products, clothing, make-up, or even beauty products in general.