Tag: Showa

What?!?

The seventies in Kyoto were special. And I know there is a tendency to romanticize them now, but hey folks, it wasn’t all good. I have no lost love for non-flush toilets and rooms with no heat or AC. And… we didn’t know very much.

Imagine coming to live in Kyoto with maybe a little nihongo speaking ability, but certainly zero or a very low reading ability. That left a lot of us lost. We had to rely on eigo sources. But, remember, this is before the internet. So what was there?

For me, there were just three sources of jōhō available in English. The first was The Japan Times. This English shinbun was about ten pages long and a far cry from American newspapers, I thought. But that wasn’t the entire problem. It was very expensive for a poor student. I’d have to get on my bicycle and go into town to get a copy. It was sold in the lobby at both the Kyoto Hotel and the Royal Hotel. I metta ni indulged. However, both hotels also had nice clean Western bathrooms off the lobby. When my mother visited me, we’d make regular stops there since she wasn’t a fan of my squat toilet.

Another source of English information was the Kyoto Tourist Bureau. They had a few publications and would answer questions. But it was located across the street from Kyoto Station and I rarely headed down that way. Also, I wasn’t a kankōkyaku and it was slightly embarrassing to go in there and collect pamphlets that would tell me how to use a Japanese toilet, ohashi etc.

There was one more source of English information. The Armed Forces radio station didn’t come through very clearly on my cheap rajio, but I sometimes caught the news or some music if the air waves were right.

So, one day, I was cleaning my room and I put the radio on to see if I could catch the Armed Forces radio. I did and the DJ was a talkative one. I don’t remember what song he was playing, but he said “… and the late John Lennon.”

WHAT?!? John Lennon was dead? How could I not know such an important thing? When had he died? Why didn’t I know? How could he be dead without me knowing it? I was shocked.

Can you imagine not knowing something like that today? You’d have to be totally off the grid, so I guess it is possible, but the shokku was great and it still remains as a strong memory of the isolation that I didn’t fully realize I was experiencing until that moment. And, by the way, this is why I was compelled to learn to read in Japanese.

  • nihongo – 日本語 the Japanese language
  • eigo – 英語 English (language)
  • jōhō – 情報 information
  • shinbun – 新聞 newspaper
  • metta ni – 滅多に rarely
  • kankōkyaku – 観光客 tourist(s)
  • ohashi – お箸 chopsticks. Note the honorific “o” here as well.
  • rajio – ラジオ radio
  • shokku – ショック shock(s), surprise

Disco Fever

It’s possible that you don’t think of me as any kind of disco dancer. And you’d mostly be right. I’m pretty sure I never went to a disco in the United States. But… when in Japan you end up doing all kinds of things that you might never do in your bokoku. Of course this is mostly because you’re in a atarashii country which has new things to do, places to visit, foods to try etc. But just as my first lesson at Japanese cooking school involved (surprisingly) hamburgers, there was a time in my life that involved a disco. Both the hamburger and the disco were Japanese takes on Western stuff.

For those of you who know Kyoto, would you believe me if I said there had been a disco in Pontochō? Pontochō is that lovely little lane downtown that houses the kind of restaurants and exclusive bars that we think geisha and maiko frequent. Some places require an introduction and if you need to look at nedan, you’re in the wrong area of town.

Yet, in the late 1970’s there was indeed a disco not-so-hidden in a lower level of a Pontochō establishment. It was called Samantha. Or, in Japanese Samansa. They had a large collection of soul music and their focus was on Black musicians. It was a quirky kind of place but it did indeed have a small dance floor.. A friend of mine found it and we became jōrenkyaku there. Most of the time it was filled with single men. It was the first time I ever saw people dancing without partners. It was freeing. Lucy and I would often get out on the floor and dance with abandon.

An old photo of Samansa

I have no idea what the cover charge was because we never paid. In fact, we rarely paid when we went out in the evening. Even a raggedly hippie girl like me was enough of a bonus for any shop that they’d welcome us with open arms, and men would ply us with nomimono with few expectations. We were mezurashii and we soaked it all up. We were young and just loving it. Of course now we know that what we experienced was white privilege. But at the time we didn’t think twice about it. The scarcity of young foreign women worked in our favor. Looking back on this I feel like we definitely took advantage, but this was also a prosperous time in Japan and –okay, I should stop making kōjitsu. We had a blast.

I have no idea what happened to Samansa and how long it lasted. I moved to Tokyo while it was still popular and in Tokyo I’d sometimes find myself in the discos of Roppongi which were notorious in the 1980s. While there were many more gaikokujin in Tokyo, including military and rich expats, I still don’t remember ever paying to get into a disco. Privilege…. and I bet cute models are still reaping those benefits.

  • bokoku – 母国　mother country
  • atarashii – 新しい　new
  • geisha – 芸者　Honestly, if you don’t know what a geisha is, why are you even reading this?
  • maiko – 舞妓　apprentice geisha and you.should.know.this.
  • nedan – 値段　price
  • jōrenkyaku – 常連客　regular customer. When you live in Japan you want a few places where they know you. It helps you feel at home there.
  • nomimono – 飲み物　drink. At a bar it usually refers to alcohol of course, but it includes any kind of drink and is used broadly.
  • mezurashii – 珍しい　rare, unusual
  • kōjitsu – 口実　excuse
  • gaikokujin – 外国人　foreigner

The Colors of Showa

I watched an interesting dokyumentorī on the NHK English channel. It’s a bit slow, but I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in Japan. Some of it felt so incredibly natsukashii to me. The colors of the Showa Era in the 1970s were very distinctive and it reminded me once again of the ubiquitous karā bokkusu.

Color boxes were the best friend of any student trying to live cheaply. You could put them upright or on their side. They worked for books, as a pantry, clothes etc. They were yasui and came in a variety of sizes. Of course I had a green one. And an orange one. The colors were almost neon in their intensity.

The current asadora had a shot of a Showa room this morning that could have been my room. I could swear I had this very table.

Screenshot from the current asadora
Who amongst you had a green color box?
Taken from https://www.kuroshio.co.jp/kodawari/colorbox/

Being a curious type, I tried to find out more about the color box. It first appeared on the scene in 1970 and came from a company called Kuroshio. Apparently it was one of the first pieces that required at-home construction with a screw driver. The chairman of the company saw colorful plastic goods in a depāto and thought it would be a nice change if furniture (mostly wood up until that time) could have those bright Showa colors as well. They had instant appeal among young women who thought they were kawaii.

Timing was everything here! They were a huge hit and eventually were sold around the world. With the current “Showa Boom” maybe the original iro are in again! Sorry, but those colors are still kind of hideous to me.

  • dokyumentorī – ドキュメンタリー　documentary (the kind you see on tv)
  • natsukashii – 懐かしい nostalgic. This word gets a LOT of use in Japan.
  • karā bokkusu – カラーボックス　color box (used for storage and favored by students)
  • yasui – 安い cheap (adjective)
  • asadora – 朝ドラ literally morning drama and refers to dramas that are broadcast in the morning (duh)
  • depāto – デパート　department store
  • kawaii – 可愛い If you use one word to translate it, it is “cute.” But it is simply so much more and has unique parameters which is probably why it has been exported from Japan in reference to manga, Hello Kitty goods, etc.
  • iro – 色　color