We all went down to the Carrefour in Komyoike; it's a French supermarket chain with a lot of imported goods. I imagine in France it's about as exciting to a French person as it would be to say, "I went to Ralph's/Safeway/Walmart" in the States. In Japan though, it's pretty cool; there are groceries, including more cheeses and wines than one normally finds in Japanese supermarkets, and it has a mini-department store thing as well, -- well, more like Walmart, if Walmart sold 60-inch plasma televisions, $600 digital cameras, and foreign-language magazines.
It's the weekend and the place is packed. Families are walking by; this area is enough of a countryside spot that there aren't a lot of foreigners, so I'm getting stared at by a lot of the kids while their parents fastidiously ignore me. Loitering, but trying to not be an obstacle, I try to place my incongrously-large-for-Japan 92kg frame as far off the walkway as possible, in a spot couched between two kids' clothes shops. One woman in her late twenties walks by with her child; she's bleached-blonde, slim, and a little more fashionably dressed than the other moms. She's still making an effort toward style, in the vein of what Hamasaki Ayumi might wear on the weekend, say, if she were off shopping in a French chainstore: expensive, faded bluejeans with high-heels, a longsleeved white knit shirt with appliqué patterns, which have hiked midway up her tea-and-milk colored forearm -- which is covered with snakescales. Is that some kind of henna tattoo, I wonder, already knowing that it's not the case. It's ink, and ornate, at that...
I blink; this is too strange. In the States, such inks are commonplace enough, but here in Japan, this much ink on a local woman likely means she's married to the mob. A yakuza woman, likely with some chinpira thug. Still, it's so pretty. the rounded checkerboard of snakeskin, the snake itself rolling back and forth across her forearm. She notes me staring, and moves on, not breaking her pace.
What is her life like, I wonder. Is it some small-scale Sopranos in Japan? Is she working at a yattai-shop on the festival days? What happens to kids that grow up near the mob? My mind, triggered by a brief, chance visual, and a load of assumptions, is suddenly a runaway train of curiosity and worry.
Later, we were in the supermarket, and happened on the family again. The father was dressed in full "Black Music" regalia; he wouldn't look out of place on the cover of Vibe, except for being Asian. The mom has pulled her knit-white-sleeves down to her wrists. Skin and snakes concealed by the opposite of shedding.
It's the weekend and the place is packed. Families are walking by; this area is enough of a countryside spot that there aren't a lot of foreigners, so I'm getting stared at by a lot of the kids while their parents fastidiously ignore me. Loitering, but trying to not be an obstacle, I try to place my incongrously-large-for-Japan 92kg frame as far off the walkway as possible, in a spot couched between two kids' clothes shops. One woman in her late twenties walks by with her child; she's bleached-blonde, slim, and a little more fashionably dressed than the other moms. She's still making an effort toward style, in the vein of what Hamasaki Ayumi might wear on the weekend, say, if she were off shopping in a French chainstore: expensive, faded bluejeans with high-heels, a longsleeved white knit shirt with appliqué patterns, which have hiked midway up her tea-and-milk colored forearm -- which is covered with snakescales. Is that some kind of henna tattoo, I wonder, already knowing that it's not the case. It's ink, and ornate, at that...
I blink; this is too strange. In the States, such inks are commonplace enough, but here in Japan, this much ink on a local woman likely means she's married to the mob. A yakuza woman, likely with some chinpira thug. Still, it's so pretty. the rounded checkerboard of snakeskin, the snake itself rolling back and forth across her forearm. She notes me staring, and moves on, not breaking her pace.
What is her life like, I wonder. Is it some small-scale Sopranos in Japan? Is she working at a yattai-shop on the festival days? What happens to kids that grow up near the mob? My mind, triggered by a brief, chance visual, and a load of assumptions, is suddenly a runaway train of curiosity and worry.
Later, we were in the supermarket, and happened on the family again. The father was dressed in full "Black Music" regalia; he wouldn't look out of place on the cover of Vibe, except for being Asian. The mom has pulled her knit-white-sleeves down to her wrists. Skin and snakes concealed by the opposite of shedding.
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