The Kawaii-complex and other nuisances

About two weeks ago I was really annoyed. There was a whole list of things I wanted to complain about, but between school work and dancing, simply didn't have the time to. Then, the following week, when I would have had the time to write, it suddenly felt as if there actually wasn't really that much to complain about, or rather, that maybe those things weren't so bad after all. And still I didn't write. Now it is, if I remember right, three weeks since my last entry. Three weeks after I said that I would finally have time to write more, and instead wrote less than ever.

Well, this basically means: I am fine.

But, just for the record, let me recapture:

After Notoyosakoi things did indeed calm down a little, and that was very nice. But maybe it led me to observe the things around me a little too critically, because quite soon that feeling of annoyance started. I think it is probably just a normal reaction. That after one has started to get a little more used to that new country and some of the shiny glitter of the fascinating unknown has worn off, one starts to see all the negative things there are to be found and starts to compare with their own country, and starts to think how much better everything is at home. Right now I can't even recapture exactly all the things that annoyed me, but I'll list those I remember now here, just for the psycologically cleansing effect it might still have on me.

One of the most annoying things was what I have started to call the 'Kawaii-complex'.

It is pretty hard to translate the word into English (or Finnish or German, for that matter.) Basically it is translated as 'cute' but it really means so much more. The Japanese use it all the time, and for many different things. Kittens and puppies are kawaii, of course. Or a dress or a shirt might be kawaii - my green shoes and my knickerbockers are supposedly extremely kawaii. Different things that would in other languages be called a whole range of things starting with 'disgustingly kitchy' up to 'elegantly beautiful' might in Japan all be called kawaii. But maybe the most important thing is that girls or women absolutely need to be kawaii.

If you are female and not kawaii, you will never have a boyfriend, you will never marry or have kids, you will have a terrible, boring, not-kawaii life and will die a very much not-kawaii death.

Well, along those lines. But seriously, what I noticed was that here it seems the general idea of what a woman should be like runs very closely along the terms 'vulnerable', 'obedient' and 'cute'. Frills and lace, a girlishly high voice (acted if not naturally available). Highheels at least two sizes too big, or rather any shoes, boots or sandals in 80percent of all cases worn in too big sizes. A style of walking, sitting, standing with the toes always turned inward. The habit of apologizing constantly and all the time, or generally self-deprecating: 'I am weak and small and everything I do myself I am doing wrong. Please, oh strong male, won't you come rescue me?'

Terribly overstated of course, but that's what it felt like to me three weeks ago when just the mention of the word 'kawaii' made me want to let out a whole streak of curses, preferably in Finnish.

Ahh, strange thing. I've gotten over my sudden, heated antipathy and am now rather interestedly analyzing it. Where does this come from? It's not as if all woman in Germany or Finland were self-confident, sexy and knew what they wanted, but I there is definitely a difference here.

One Finnish friend sometime said that because the Japanese men were 'weaker', the Japanese women would need to play even more weak, so their males can feel stronger. I personally don't actually think Japanese men any weaker than any other men. Purely physically it is true that many seem to be more slender and not as tall as Europeans, but taken the rice and fish based eating habits that's not really a surprise. And I actually like it, like that they are not as forcedly MALE as for example many Finnish guys seem to be. Actually, now that I think about it, the Finnish male and his Maleness-complex are a little like the Japanese female and her Kawaii!. Both are pretty overdrawn and, after one stops being annoyed by it, they are rather funny to look at. Really, this is match-make in heaven: Finnish male plus Japanese female! He has never felt that strong, and she never that protected!

And before I start getting uncomfortable messages from affronted Finnish male friends, on to other themes...

Other things that annoyed me were, and to some extent still are, a certain crowded classroom and the general size and ergonomics of the furniture here. In that one classroom, the tables are all placed with only about 40cm of space between them. Still people need to constantly pass between them to get to different work benches, which means you have to move all the time to let people pass. At the same time the 'chairs' in those class room are stools with a square top, which is quite big, maybe about 70x50cm and with a height to fit them exactly under the table, which means you cannot sit on them with your legs under the table, because between top of the chair and underside of the table top there are about 2cm which not even the knees of the most frail of any kawaii girl could fit in between. And while those stools fit under the table in height, in length they don't. They always stand out from beneath the table for about 5cm which is just the right distance if you want people hitting their shins while passing.

The problem of table height to chair height can also be found in many other rooms. On my own working table in my 'home class room' I can sit with my legs under the table, but I cannot cross my legs. Same in the room that I attend the Craft History and Modern Craft lectures in. I cannot cross my legs and also, I swear those chairs must be the most uncomfortable in the whole world. They look about the same size as the ones I sat on in 6^th grade their backs there is written '150 – 170cm' they cannot possible be made for people that size unless the Japanese centimetre has only 7 millimetres in it.

Speaking of working environment, they have a very weird way of using safety gear. None for the ears for example. Even in the wood workshop with the big machines there's not obligation to wear earplugs and until now I have found maybe one pair of 'public' earmuffs and not disposable earplugs like we use in Finnland. Ogawa-sensei told me that even when he was working at a carpenter's he never used earplugs, allegedly because if for example something happened you wouldn't be able to hear a person scream. Well, if you go on working without any earplugs at that carpenter's, then in 5 years you probably won't hear anything at all anymore, let alone someone's scream. Also, with the kind of machines they use in a wood workshop, what do you need the scream for if the chance is high that there will be a shower of blood?

Something that you have to wear though, if you want to enter the wood workshop, and which you have to have or you will not be allowed to use a machine, is a baseball cap. Yes, you may laugh now. I laughed too, until I realized they were actually serious. Of course a cap is handy to hold one's hair back, but people with long hair have to bind it back anyways. And to make a baseball cap obligatory, but not earplugs or eyeprotectors? What exactly will the cap safe you from? From the shower of blood from when someone else gets hurt? From a deadly 2cm wood splinter? Because if anything much heavier than that falls onto your head I doubt a little baseball cap will do much good. Maybe, if it's red, you may heroically wave it before the next earthquake flattens the room around and on top of you.

That aside there is one more thing I want to mention that annoyed me a lot some time ago, but which I have accepted by now as a part of this culture, just like that 'kawaii' thing. That's the Japanese ”politeness” or rather, their polite way of being sometimes very impolite. Sometimes it feels as if people think they can be really brazen, but as long as they say 'sumimasen' or 'gomenasai' it's alright. Not so long ago someone came into the classroom while we were in the middle of a lecture and took me to be photographed at my work place for some magazine of the main campus in Toyama or something. None of my teachers had been informed about the whole thing – and that in the overly correct and always-by-the-rules Japan! That one guy from office just came, basically said 'sorry!', and then took me, baffled and not quite understanding, with him. Fifteen minutes later after having been photographed while doing some mock work, I was returned to class. I had no clue what the hell was going on and didn't even have a chance to be angry about being manhandled like that until it was over. I think Ogawa-sensei was pretty pissed (though it's usually not easy to tell if a Japanese is angry or not). I talked with him about it afterwards and he also said the same thing about his own culture: that sometimes those phrases of polite speech have become pretty empty and people sometimes only use them as shields, but still behave impolitely anyways. This one was a pretty obvious example, but it does happen quite often in smaller scale, every day. So, in the end the Japanese people aren't really that much more polite than other people, they're just more eager to cover up impolite acts. Then in other cases again they seem to be just more caring, more outlooking than people in other cultures, but I will write about that in my next entry, which will be about the week following the 'week of annoyance' in which I realized that, really, things aren't that bad after all. In that entry, I will stop being a sarcastic bitch and say some nicer things about the Japanese and their country again, I promise. ;)