Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Harajuku Girls

Circumnavigating Tokyo on the Yamanote line, the fashion is an analogy of Japanese culture. The dress is uniformly conservative and homogeneous. Men wear business suits. Young women wear skirts with high socks. All very well dressed, but with little variety. A young man with wild hair or a hip-hop look adds the odd bit of flair. These stand out like pale stars against the otherwise uniformly dark sky.

By comparison, the Sunday crowd at Harajuku is a brilliant explosion of fireworks. Every weekend, girls (and a few guys) from the areas surrounding Tokyo ride into the city and converge on Harajuku station. Once there, they emerge like butterflies from the cocoon. The outfits are vast in variety, fulgent, and exquisitely intricate. “Gothic Lolitas” and visions from an anime reel walk the street. It’s an amazing spectacle. A feast for the eyes.











Drawn to this flame is a motley crowd of locals, Japanese tourists, and gaiijin. I was just one of many confused and bemused westerners circling the scene with camera drawn. But we weren’t alone. Buses full of Japanese tourists (yes, they have them too) stopped on the bridge to take it all in from behind tinted glass. Several older Japanese men prowled the scene, asking the girls to pose for their cameras. I couldn’t tell if they were serious photographers or just creepy old men.









Also attracted to this feeding frenzy were others seeking to capitalize on the confluence. A train of vans, painted with slogans and blaring propaganda, stopped to evangelize to the crowd. A man paced back and forth with a UFO adorned flag emboldening everyone to “Welcome E.T.” A peaceful young man held a large sign advertising “Free Hugs”.











Through it all, the girls showed an odd combination of exhibitionism and shyness. I sat along the bridge for a couple of hours, observing the scene and wondering. Why were these girls here? What drove them to this audacious form of expression? And what were they expressing? Doubtless, this was statement of individualism. These girls not only stood out from the crowd, but they also stood out from each other. But there was also a palpable sense of community and belonging. The girls arrived and remained in pairs. They greeted each newly arriving member with gleeful screams and hugs usually reserved for long lost friends. Maybe living in the less cosmopolitan outskirts of the city and alienated in their own communities, they found here a longed for sense of belonging. Many of the girls, underneath their elaborate plumage, didn’t meet the societal ideal of conventional beauty. So maybe this was a way of receiving attention not otherwise afforded.

I’m no anthropologist, so I don’t know. And I probably couldn’t understand anyway. But whatever the cause, the effect is a unique and curious bit of counterculture. Another beautiful idiosyncrasy of Tokyo.










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6 Comments:

Blogger Vince Hemingson said...

Fulgent! Justin, I am as proud of you as ever!

Just for having your eyes open and being prepared to watch, you qualify as an amateur cultural anthropologist...

It is a fascinating form of street theatre.

10:05 AM  
Blogger Chloe said...

I fess up - I had to look up fulgent in the dictionary :)

You painted a nice picture of the scene - I can really imagine it.

10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You gotta love the right wing rascist vans eh

12:50 PM  
Blogger suzanne said...

dame! Now I have to go all the way back to Japan so I can see this for myself! The day I went into to Tokyo to check it out, it was pouring rain so no one was dressed up:( Your pics are so fantastic, I feel more people need to see them. Get published somehow!!
Say hi to Aiden and Dorian for me
Genki de!

9:12 PM  
Blogger Cyriously? said...

Hey Justin! I absolutely love these photos. So nice to have more unsolicited ramblings to read.

I'm also totally envying you getting to travel with your brothers. My sisters and I talk of travelling together but we all have very different ideas of travelling!

Not sure if Dorian would remember me but say hi to Aiden for me and big hugs to you.

Side note: I emailed you a while ago because I'm going to be in Vancouver for a weekend in Feb visiting my sister and would love to catch up. Email me when you get home and we can talk dates and if you'll be around.

Heather

7:05 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

When you have a teenage daughter this will all make sense...

Cheers
John Morrison

3:55 PM  

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