Karaoke

- What?! Why? What were you supposed to do? My guide and goto guy,Tatsuya, seemed kind of confused.
- I have to figure out what japanese people do. Can you help me?

A couple of hours later we were on the bus on our way downtown. We had decided to go to a Karaoke place near the center of Hirakata City and I had made a specific request to Tatsuya that he would show me a Karoke place where we wouldn't run into alot of ryugakusee (foreign exchange students).

My plan was to do participating observations in Karaoke rooms and that I would be able to try to understand the karoke-phenomenon from the native point of view. Tatsuya had agreed to be my translator for the evening and in someways us as a duo seemed to cover an emic and etic perspecitve.

Tatsuya found my idea of entering strangers karaokerooms to be weird. Apparently it is considered somewhat odd to make contact with people in other karaokerooms if you don't know them. Another of my japanese friends explained it a bit more specific the day after:

- It is only drunk foreign students that enter other peoples karaoke rooms.

If we would have had something similar in Sweden it would probably be seen as the perfect place for meeting new people. But in Japan it actually seems more socially accepted to rent a karaoke on your own then to seek contact with people that you don't know or to invite them into your room.

We arrived at the Karokeplace and a white sign with red font spelled out "Jankara" in Katakana. We rented a karaoke room (you are actually not allowed to enter the place without renting a room first).
But shortly after we've settled in the room the exploration started. I opened the door to one of the neighboring, more crowded karaoke rooms and I introduced myself and the cause of my study(Tatsuya translated).

The members of this group of people were second year university students who were on a spring break. When I started to interview them they were six or seven people but as the observation took place some of them left and others arrived.

Even though I tried to ask them a lot of question I also experienced the tricky parts of doing participating observation. They were asking most of the questions and they also wanted to take pictures with me.

After a while it got better and less exciting for them to meet a foreign student so I made the decision to not try to enter more rooms during the evening because the procedure would probably be similar. They found karaoke as a good way to release stress and tension because you can sing and be as loud as you want.

For someone who have lived in Japan it is understandable that it is not possible to be loud at home if you are living in a dorm, at your parents house or in a apartment as they did. The walls are thin...

Some of the groupmembers also were of the opinion that karaoke was appreciated by most people in Japan and that most people sang karaoke even though it probably was considered to be more popular among the young. Having a conversation with one of the employees gave a another view of the Karaoke visitors in general. Apparently the older generations more oftenly go to Karaoke during day time while the young go during the later hours of the day and therefor the younger generation does not see the "old" singing karaoke as much.

Portrait

It is interesting how roads cross. I remember the first time that I met Tatsuya Ogawa, it was during the orientation week and as every other student I had to register my computer at the school.  Without exaggerating I was somewhat surprised when the Japanese person who assisted me also started to use some simple phrases in Swedish. It was an unimaginable thought and a unreal feeling to travel around the world and there meet a Japanese person who at the time actually spoke better Swedish then I spoke Japanese.

We started talking(in English I might say) and he introduced himself as Tatsuya and turned out to be my first personal connection with the country where I had arrived. Nowadays i consider him to be a good friend of mine. Tatsuya is a 21 year old Japanese student on the way of educating himself to work within tourism and is planning on going to Iceland as an exchange student. The most striking thing about him is he's good humour and how obvious it is that he enjoys learning different languages and to meet new people.

During my stay here I have not yet met any other Japanese student who actually can speak fluent English and make basic sentences in Finnish, Swedish, and German.   

I choose a picture of him that I took at one of the times we were hanging out at the Hirakata bar Seven gods.
I think that the location for the picture suited Tatsuya as a person very well. Even though he prefers kareoke to bars the seven god felt more like a location that represented Tatsuya better.
Just as the bar calls itself the fifth Seminar House and is eager to connect with international students so is Tatsuya. He is my friend and many times he has turned out to be my goto guy if and when I need assistance in any form in understanding the Japanese society. 

My neighborhood

Taking a walk in the neighborhood of Katahoko Higashimachi made me think about what Benedict Anderson referred to as “Imagined Communities” (Anderson: 1991). Even though Anderson used his famous term by describing how one consider him-/herself as a part of a nation despite that a member of a state or nation is very unlikely to meet or know all the people in the state where they are living.  

The same statement can be made about the neighbourhood where I have my stay. As an exchange student in Japan at the lowest  language level and not being able to comprehend daily conversations and participate in discussions with the locals of this part of Hirakata has put me in a position of only observing that which is around me. Theodore C. Bestors probably made a correct observation of how well labeled the Japanese societies are (Bestor: 2003, p 321) but without knowledge of how to decode all the labels and signs the possibility of making false assumptions are tremendous.

As a Seminar House 1 resident one of my daily routines is a walk or bike route from the Seminar House towards the Kansai Gaidai University. The neighborhood can by this route be described as a interesting dialogue of commercialization, tradition, the modern and the old Japan. About half way through the route placed among houses and worn down two story apartments there is a memorial ground called Katahoko Konshidan. I remember the first time I saw the memorial ground and how I wasn’t even sure if was allowed to enter it.

When I returned to this part of my neighborhood I realized that the memorial ground from the beginning of the 18^th century with it’s statues that I almost didn’t dare to touch also can appear as perfect soccer goals for some of the early teenagers of Katahoko Higashimachi. They didn’t mind when I showed them the camera and in my broken Japanese asked if it was OK to take pictures of them. Rather they started to pose a bit before returning to their intensive soccer game. 

Footware & Photos

In Douglas Adams novel “The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy” the main character Arthur Dent becomes aware of the towels importance and how it is considered to be “... the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have” whilst travelling around the universe( Adams:1979 & 2004, p 18). 

In reality and in Japan a towel is simply a towel. However there is one other, from a western point of view, useful bathroom product that might come in handy if you intend to stay or visit the land widely known for samurais, Manga, Anime, sumo wrestling and electronic industry. 


If you already have visited Japan I suppose that you also figured out that:
 - yes,  I am talking about slippers.

Owning and wearing slippers in Japan is crucial. According to the www.japan-guide.com it is neccessary if you want to be seen as a person with good manners. As I arrived and entered the Kansai Gaidai arranged Seminar House I was gently told to take of my shoes by the doorway or genkan as they call it. By that time I realized three important things.

Firstly: That it is custom to wear slippers inside the houses in Japan. 

Secondly: That I hadn’t brought any slippers with me. 

And lastly: Socks smell after a while and wearing shoes doesn't really help in any other way then preserving the stench during the door-to-door 20 hour travel. Luckily the RA’s at the Seminar House prepared a short tour for the newly arrivals and the first stop along this tour was a place to buy the comfortable footwear we call slippers. 


I was by japanese standards a brute.

Luckily the rules for the occassions to wear or not to wear slippers are quite easy. When entering a house you replace your ordinary outdoor shoes with slippers. Wearing your outdoor shoes inside someone’s home is a BIG no, no.

   You don’t walk on tatami with slippers. Instead you should walk on the mat either bare foot or with socks on.

-   
.And for your own good you better remember  to remove and/or switch the
toilet slippers to your ordinarie ones before returning to the dinner table at a 
restaurant.