BigMrJosh Fashions: 5 Essential Items for every Japanese Man this Summer

In honour of the fact that the weather has completely one-eightied on us in the last three days, I present my guide to being a Japanese man in summer. Please keep to refer to in 9 months time. You can thank me then.

A Man Bag or ‘Murse’ (man purse)

Question: What’s like a backpack but sixteen times more awesome?

Answer: A man bag!

The evidence for the key role the man bag plays is right in front of the very eyes of every train-goer. Almost every man in Japan seems to have one.

I resolved to get one too. To that end, I sought the advice of Randy, senpai (senior) JET and all-round badass. This is how that conversation went:

Bigmrjosh: “Hey, nice man bag. Where’d you get it?”

Randy: “I’m about to punch you in the balls.”

Bigmrjosh (cringing): “Um... okay. Then you’ll tell me where you got it from, right? Cos I really want one.”

From this we can learn two things. The first is that prevailing attitudes about what is masculine and what is “mega gay” can be hard to shrug off, even when you’re living in the country where nothing is considered too fruity. Many JETs refer to the man bag as a ‘messenger bag’, in an attempt to make them ‘cooler’. Let me ask you this: would you rather be a messenger, or a man?! I am not a messenger! Ahem. Anyway, because of Randy’s previous experience with uncharitable attitudes to the murse, he thought my question less than sincere, even sarcastic. Luckily this did not prevent us from becoming fast friends. This leads me to my second point. Never let the threat of a ball punch deter you from following your dreams, kids.

If David Beckham can wear his hair like that and carry a man bag and not be gay then, truly, there are no limits. I still think he could benefit from a Randy-style punch in the balls.

My murse is especially amazing because of its leather strap. I like to swap the strap from my right shoulder to my left during the long walk to my school. This creates two criss-crossing bands of sweat across my chest. Once I have achieved this effect I feel like Speed Racer’s salary man rival or something.

 The PSP/Nintendo DS/Keitai

At least one of these items is flat out essential for the train-riding gentleman in Japan. This is because your options on the train are limited. This section could also be called ‘learning to shut the hell up.’ Being nosy on the train is verboten. If you’re noisy, people will stare at you. Scary, gnarled, wizened people. So you need to occupy yourself.

Options!

You can sleep (almost impossible for non-Japanese)

You can read manga or a regular book (makes no sense/costs money)

 You can stare uncomfortably at the person opposite you (creepy, especially since they are often staring at you. Or reading porn.)

Or you can play on one of the options from the sub-heading (awesome!)

Note: What Japanese people do on their cellphones while they’re on the train is one of life’s great mysteries. There’s no reception, so they’re not calling or texting anyone. Whenever I sneak a peak I always see a solid screen of Japanese kanji text.

If you are one of those people thinking, ‘Gaming on the train - that’s a bit juvenile,’ then I have this to say to you: in your face! In Japan, people of all ages – and both genders – can be regularly witnessed playing handheld games on the train. From what I’ve seen of Japanese life, I think it’s the only chance some people have to get some serious gaming in! Those people should always get seats.

Danglies

I don’t know what people actually call these, but I’m talking about the little charms that you can hang from your cellphone, game system, wallet, keys or man bag (If you can get one of these on your bag, your cell phone, your game system and possibly through any piercings you have you will achieve a JAPAN SUPER COMBO! You will be so Japanese that people will give you things like rice or noodles. Or more danglies.)

Danglies are a great way to make non-Japanese stuff look Japanese as hell. The least Japanese thing I can think of is a Holden Commodore SS Utility vehicle. That’s about 2.7 times more car than anyone drives in Japan. But if you added a Hello Kitty keychain to it – boom. It fits Japan like a glove.

This...

Plus this... equals KAWAII!!

But it doesn’t just stop at Hello Kitty. These little decorations range from cute to terrifying to sometimes both. Probably the best example of this I have seen is a happy little caterpillar that, when you squeeze it, shits itself.

This is the most Japanese thing on Earth. You can make one at home. You just need 1600 rhinestones and the bottled spirit of a samurai warrior. Oh, and Hello Kitty, obviously.

A Fan

Any time that you are outside, you need a fan. Luckily stores are often giving these out for free. Presumably it is bad business for them to allow their customer to expire from heat exhaustion. One time I saw someone without a fan turn into dust and blow away down the street. It’s that serious. At job training my pink fan matched my pink shirt and I received several compliments about this. That kind of unintentional awesomeness is how I’m living.

A Short-Sleeved Shirt

Have you ever noticed that you don’t sweat out of the bottom of your elbows? I noticed this when I was sweating out of the other 98% of my body. You need to be kind to the bottom of your elbows for providing this small service. You need a short-sleeved shirt. Most of the salary men wear ‘cool biz’, the name for the style of wearing dress pants and a short-sleeved shirt, no jacket, no tie. They tend to go for white, which means that the train resembles a mix between a cast photo for revenge of the nerds and one of those utopian ‘we are all the same’ scenarios.

Wait, you got your white jumpsuit at Uniqlo? Huh. Me too.

I like to give that a big kick in the face by wearing a purple or grey shirt. And my underpants on the outside, Superman style. What the hell, I stand out anyway, right?

With these five key pieces of equipment, you too can resemble the Japanese man.

I'm every Japanese man who works in an office, and I endorse this message!

Sports Day - Ganbatte!

A while back, I wrote a blog about Modernising Sports. I thought I had some good ideas. Then I went to my first Japanese Sports Day. I realised that every good ideas in the universe has already been had by a Japanese person, and they somehow incorporated all of them into their annual sports day. Most writers would be crushed by the realisation that nothing they do can measure up to the majestic brilliance of sports day, but I’m different. My plan is to ride on its coattails by describing it to you, in the desperate hope that some of its awesome will rub off on me.

Special note: Since we have been told that taking photos of our students is some kind of illegal, all the photos used in this blog are generic ones from the ‘net and have nothing to do with my life. Except for Voltron. That photo I took myself as he was walking past my apartment.

Okay, quick: Name some sports!

Did you say football, baseball, cricket, basketball, volleyball, netball, soccer, badminton, hockey or lacrosse?

You lose. None of these sports play any role in sports day. Sports day consists of variations on these few things: running (speed), dancing (grace), standing on someone’s back (balance), being tough (strength) and screaming (?Huh?) All of this is accompanied by carnival music from the 1900s and instrumental theme tunes to 70s era movies and TV shows. The whole thing has a kind of circus feel to it. At the risk of sounding insensitive, I thought it was China that trained all their kids to be circus acrobats. Sports Day is proof that Batman should have chosen his Robin from Japan. Know why he didn’t? He didn’t want to be outclassed.

Oh. Hey. Batman. You made it. I got here, like, 6 minutes ago. By running on my hands.

Bouhiki: The rough translation for bouhiki is pole pull. It’s best that you just take my word for it and don’t do a google search for pole pull. As it is, bouhiki was probably invented by a pervert. The essence of the game is squads of girls fighting over a big pole. I mean, come on!

It’s like tug of war, but much more awesome. Instead of dragging the first player on the opposing team over a line, you just dominate the other team until their spirits die and they give up. Then the leader of the winning team takes their bamboo victory pole back to their start point and holds it proudly aloft, like a giant bamboo victory sceptre. The team with the most poles wins.

Nothing I can say here would make bouhiki any more awesome than it already is.

Kibasen: To understand kibasen, you first need to be versed in Japanese school hats and Voltron. When I taught in NZ I was forever getting sashes, untangling the sashes, giving the sashes to my students, telling them wear the sashes across their chests, dammit, not tied around their wrists like ridiculous fabric bangles. Anyway, the Japanese have a much better method of splitting their children into teams. The students wear reversible white and red hats. One team wear their hats on the red side, the other team on the white side. So simple! The hats also provide a useful goal for kibasen. To play kibasen - or Voltron-boy-horse, as I call it - you need at least 4 boys for each team. Three boys hoist the fourth boy (usually the smallest, for obvious reasons) up onto their shoulders.

This is probably how they will actually do kibasen in a couple of years. Personal robot lion technology can't be that far off. They're pretty much the same as Suzuki Swifts.

The boy on top wears either a red or a white hat. When the starting gun goes off, the two groups of three boys making the ‘horses’ will basically just play chicken with each other. The boys on top are where the action’s found. Once their horses get close enough they will use every trick in the book to try and remove the other boy’s hat. There’ll be slapping. There’ll be scratching. There may even be some eye-gouging.

The first round is like a polo match: about eight teams on each side. It’s bedlam. And I mean that in the best possible way. The second round is more intimate. Trapped inside a circle of crouching teachers, the sight of which lends the whole thing an aura of mysticism and ritual, two teams engage in a kind of Voltron-boy-horse cockfight. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised to find that the losing team are sacrificed to some dark god.

Cheerleading: Perhaps not the best descriptor. This is not the cheerleading you are thinking of. This has a lot more guttural screaming and general overall aggression. It’s half martial arts fan dance/half screaming match. That dark god I spoke of earlier, this is the equivalent of his karaoke request. Then he asks everyone to ‘sing the chorus’.

Kumi Taiso: When the circus winds up, they usually pull out the gravity-defying motorbike or something similar that involves flames, Sumatran tigers, swords or a combination of all three. At the end of the baseball they have fireworks. At the end of an action movie the bad guy gets ‘sploded, or impaled on an American flag. It’s called the big finish.

Kumi Taiso is the big finish of sports day. I don’t know what it translates to in English, but it might as well be ‘guaranteed tragedy’. Technically, breaking a limb is not an essential part of kumi taiso. But that’s like saying someone being eaten by a lion is not an essential part of a gladiatorial match. It’s still gonna happen, so you might as well enjoy it. Kumi taiso is where all those times you stood on your brother’s back/stomach/face to ‘teach him a lesson’ actually pays dividends. Every boy at my school took part. Every boy at some point had another boy standing on him or was gripped by the legs with his hands held up like an eagle’s wings. In New Zealand that sort of thing would have an injury rate of about 93%. So, impressive? Yes. Insane? Hell, yes. Kumi taiso!

Kumi taiso next to the running track. Continuing the Japanese tradition of reckless disregard for personal safety.

Conclusion!

To sum up, Japanese Sports Day resembles the Sports Days from NZ that I am used to in the same way that a rap music video resembles an actual trip to the beach. That is, not at all. Sports Day is like war: there’s guns going off, tinny but inspiring music coming from somewhere and before the day is out, there will be a pile of bodies and blood mixed into the dirt.

10 Things New Zealand does Better

Japan rocks the party.

That said, New Zealand does do a few things better. 10 things, to be precise. I found them all and listed them here for you. That way those of you still living in the plughole of the Earth won't feel so bad.

Milk – In Japan, milk is hard to find. And when you do find it, there’s no guarantee it hasn’t been coaxed from an octopus.

Bread – There’s... something missing... I don’t know what it is. If this were a Japanese cartoon the answer would be either love or destiny. But I think it’s probably more like salt, or flour or something like that.

Coffee – Things tend to be coffee flavoured rather than, you know, made of coffee. Cafes? Not really. Unless you count Mr Donut. But Mr Donut is the smokiest place on the planet earth that isn’t currently being burnt to the ground. So don’t go to Mr Donut. Unless you are a smoker and you like cholesterol. Then you may have just found your special place.

When God realised that the Japanese life expectancy was too high, he made Mr Donut.

Fruit – Fruit here is utterly perfect, but stupidly expensive. It’s like paying for one of those hookers that comes with a limousine and a bottle of dom perignon when all you want is Divine Brown. Fun Fact: The Japanese don’t go in for fruit skins at all. That even extends to grapes.

Six pounds well spent, Hugh.

Clothing – Japan has some great clothing, but I don’t fit most of it. The only thing worse than living in New Zealand and having to choose between wearing a monochromatic Hallensteins tee or spending half a week’s wages on a surf shop tee is getting to Japan and finding a dream world of magical clothing that you don’t fit. It’s like Flowers for Algernon. Now that I have this knowledge I can’t go back. There’s only one thing for it: I have to somehow lose 28kg and about 17 inches of height without dying. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Tattoos – Who knew an astronaut and a star would make me resemble a gangster? All I’m saying is that if I’d known that any visible tattoo was going to make me an unsavoury person I would have at least gone for something badass, like a mountain lion holding a trident. Or just the phrase, in Olde English font: I’m about to punch you in the balls.

Beaches – To survive a Japanese beach you need to be one of those Indian pain gurus. Legend says that when the era of the samurai ended all of their swords were turned into sand and scattered on the beaches to keep out those dirty white imperialist pigs. To this day the beaches of Japan hate foreigners. And they will stab you in the feet until you get the message.

Gambling – Pachinko is like the only gambling you can do in Japan! Unless you count crossing the street against the lights at night-time. Or buying groceries with kanji you don't recognise.

Banking – Did you know ATMs sometimes get the day off here? The ones that are open outside of business hours charge you a fee to make up for the inconvenience of having to give you the money that belongs to you. You’re a robot, ATM!! What’s next, maternity leave!?

ATMs are people too, dammit! Hey! Let me out of this glass cage! It's my rostered day off! Hey!!

Weather – The humidity here is deadly. I always said I’d rather be too hot than too cold. That was a ridiculous lie. The truth is whenever I said that I was imagining stripping down to a mankini and lying on a beach (but not one made of broken glass and caltrops like the ones here in Japan). It never occurred to me that I might have to go to work in that shit. In a full suit. Bring on the cold weather. I will lap it up until my tongue freezes to whatever I am lapping up at that time.

But it's not over! Stay posted for 10 things Japan does better than NZ. 

Art

I recently unwittingly became an art collector. Because this is my first piece, I would appreciate your thoughts on whether it is a good piece from which to start building a portfolio. Description to follow.

Bigmrjosh

Rather than a painting or wall hanging, I made the bold choice to go for a sculpture. I hope you don’t think me too ostentatious. Emblazoned with the word ‘National’ on its face (whether this is the name of the artist or simply a part of the aesthetic I do not know), you can see that the piece has been fabricated to imitate a modern air conditioner. Masterfully crafted, it is the attention to detail – like the ‘dust particles’ trapped in the ‘brushes’ – that elicit emotion from the viewer, causing them to wonder, ‘in a different time, at a different place, could this really be an air conditioner?’ It is a discomfiting notion, from a bold piece with a bold message. I feel that it simultaneously symbolises man’s struggle to master the elements, along with the endless search to fulfil one’s dreams. The taped wires reference the shackles with which those dreams can bind us, leading us down a path the end of which we fear to reach. The visible innards of the ‘machine’, glimpsed through its metallic case, highlight that vulnerability that all human beings hide just beneath the surface. In my opinion the most confronting element of this piece’s composition is its positioning. It lies prone on the floor. Helpless. Vulnerable. And directly beneath the hooks one would use to install a real air conditioner. Powerful, powerful stuff.

I paid 40,000 yen for this piece of art. Do you like it?

A Haiku about Love

Drink or ice cream?
Could you be both in this world?
Coolish, I love you.