subway

She’s in New York. By HERSELF.

Karis with potential costumed pickpockets in NYC.

Though I’m not in Tokyo anymore, as evidenced by my earlier posts, I still have lots to say about mothering a teenager—much to her dismay. I’ll have to keep it somewhat impersonal as she will exact hideous revenge if she feels her privacy has been thwarted. She has been known to Tweet things hashtagged with #shitAndreasays or post screenshots of my texts on Instagram.

So…she left for NY on Saturday night despite desperate measures by the gods, the whims of fate or whomever or whatever is in charge of this life we live, to make sure she stayed home. She’s been feeling a tad under the weather and not overly energetic. As have many of her friends. After several doctor visits and one extremely heated exchange with the medical receptionist (Yes, I understand you don’t give test results out over the phone but can you please have a doctor, ANY doctor, call me ASAP!) and two blood tests, we find out—from the lab, not the doctor—that she has mono. (FYI when you get any lab tests you can ask them for an e-health number which allows you to access your results online as soon as they’re processed and not wait until your doctor’s office finds it in their hearts to let you know.) I immediately go into overdrive, researching natural remedies for mono. Karis, somewhat grudgingly, took various nasty supplements; two teaspoons of coconut oil per day; two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar and lots of Vitamin C to help shorten the cycle of the virus. She was back at her exercise routine in two days, though I did allow her to skip the last two days of school seeing as the majority of her classmates had left on the rugby trip or their family vacations. So she’s OK, a little more tired, but managing.

Next hurdle. Weird redness and rashes on her face. That’s a problem if you’re a model. We didn’t know if it was an allergic reaction to food, to supplements or a mono thing. By a process of elimination, we came up with mangoes. I’d been feeding her mangoes for breakfast as a treat since she was taking all these nasty supplements. We still don’t really know, but what are the chances…I mean really? The child has been eating mangoes forever. Her skin has always been amazing and clear. The week before NY she’s got redness and rashes.

Friday. One day before NY. She goes to Boxfit as she has been doing for over 6 weeks. Wraps her wrists as usual. BUT as of March 9th you need your own gloves for the class, which we of course, don’t have because I’m not quite that organized right now. She is kindly lent a pair but they’re not the puffy kind she’s used to and she obviously overdoes it somehow. She takes off her wraps in the car and can’t move her wrist. Seriously. It’s getting more swollen and sore as the day goes on so we head to Lions Gate ER at 8:30pm. I’m prepared to wait as I’ve checked the website and it says that the wait will be between 2-3 hours. Probably a good idea as I would likely have been sitting there getting angry as it didn’t seem that busy. I have to say…the ER is highly entertaining on a Friday night. They lost a man named Victor who left his gown and all his clothes on the bed. They paged him for a while. He never came back. A few drunks. One of them quite snappily dressed with very expensive shoes (businessman not a gang banger) who refused to tell the nurse how he mangled his hand…despite her assurances that she didn’t actually care and it wouldn’t be recorded. He refused to tell and she refused to treat him (hospital policy). He left with his mangled hand, slurring about how he was going to his family doctor. At 10:30pm. An older man who approached the desk to tell the nurses, in great detail, that he’d had a bowel movement. The nurses gave him a bag (?) for the next one. Don’t even want to know. I could go on. Anyway, the upshot of the three-hour experience was that her hand is likely not broken, though they can’t say for sure because of her age (growth plates). We’re to come back if it still hurts next week. I will make her a cast from her Hello Kitty duct tape if it still hurts.

Despite ALL of this, we managed to pack on Saturday. Clean clothes. A variety of shoes and boots. A towel (that she didn’t need because it’s a swanky serviced penthouse). A warm coat. Her phone charger. Money. A notarized permission letter. Copies of important documents. Some tea and snacks. We headed out to the airport and made it in record time. I was just asking at the Information Desk where the Cathay check-in was located. It was NOT obvious, as you’d think a flight from YVR-JFK would be in the USA departures. Nope. Every counter was closed. It was in the International section as the flight originates in Hong Kong and just stops in Vancouver. Maybe they could put that on the boarding pass or something next time…as a reminder. I did actually know this in the deep recesses of my mind, as I took this very flight home from Tokyo but I just didn’t think that hard about it. Anyway, Karis’s agent Liz whom she was travelling with, rescued us at the Information Desk and she and Karis went on their way to their very turbulent flight where no one got any sleep. But they made it to NY.

Karis is now roaming around NY without her mother to micromanage her every move. So far, so good, though I would not have let the costumed pickpockets in Times Square touch my phone to ‘take a picture’…as I’ve heard they sometimes run off with them. So many things I haven’t told her…and next time, just to be safe, I will offer up some Hot Tamales (the candy) to the pig shrine as this is how I got through university successfully.

Change is the only constant.

Admittedly it has been 23 years since I was last in Tokyo and my memory is a little foggy, but I have noticed some changes since I was there last. I’m sure there are noticeable changes in ANY society is 23 years, but the ones I remember are things that were always curious or different or noteworthy to me, even back in the day.

Smoking: Tokyo used to be one big smoke pit. Not only was it legal to smoke everywhere (as I’m sure it was in many places in 1991), but it seemed like more people smoked. It is still legal to smoke outdoors but only in designated and gated-off smoking areas. There doesn’t seem to be any public indoor smoking areas that I saw, but I’m not completely ruling it out. There is still smoking allowed in many restaurants and it seems that many people will still smoke…even right under the non-smoking sign.

Booze in vending machines: Sadly this is no longer the case. Apparently the law was changed to help reduce underage drinking. I have fond memories of the various booze dispensing vending machines in my old neighbourhoods. Of particular note was the vodka machine. It sold only vodka (can’t remember if it was Russian or Japanese but I’m thinking Russian) in a veritable plethora of sizes ranging from airplane miniatures to a large plastic jug with a handle. It was quite affordable and eminently drinkable. There were also many machines that sold beer–brand specific or just any type of beer–and sake in jars, bottles, cans (heated or cold) and casks. Magnificently convenient though I do understand why they had to stop this practice. You can now buy alcohol at any convenience store or grocery store. The only form of ID is that you must tap a button on a touch screen acknowledging that you are at least 20 years old. I can’t help but wonder if the Japanese are too polite to question you…especially if you’re a foreigner.

Height: The overall average height of the Japanese people has risen significantly in my experience. Or else I’ve gotten shorter which is also a distinct possibility. Regardless, people are taller. When I was here last, I went to galleries and museums at least once a week. The crowds never bothered me as even if they were five people deep, I could always see over everyone’s head. No, I didn’t wear heels. I am still taller than the majority of women but not all the men anymore. I also saw some distinctly tall children. Very few overweight people though. I suspect this is because most people have to walk or bicycle every day. I’m finding my car and driving to be painful. I miss walking, even if it was 40 degrees.

English: There is MUCH more English spoken and written now. In the subway and on the trains, most signs are in English and on the major subway and JR lines, all the station announcements are also made in English. This makes life MUCH easier. There seem to be more English speakers around as well. Japanese students all study English beginning in high school but they are taught only to pass an exam and often by non-native speakers. They have impressive grammar skills but lack the ability to converse. This seems to still be the case as most of the people I had conversations with learned their English abroad.

Costs: I was in Japan just before the economy really and truly dumped. It was still the land of milk and honey. I made ridiculous amounts of money as a hostess ($500/night for about 4 hours and 45 minutes work) and as an English teacher ($75/hour up to 8 hours per day). No, I didn’t do anything morally suspect as a hostess unless you count bad karaoke–we weren’t allowed to drink, smoke, eat or cross our legs. If you were up for doing anything morally suspect you could make huge amounts of cash. I brought home enough money to pay for university AND to fund school in the south of France and travel around Europe the following summer. Things were expensive though and I saved money my last six months by working 6 days a week so I didn’t have time to spend anything. Food and lodging were more expensive in 1991 than I paid in summer 2014. Clothing was actually cheaper in many cases this time around as we were there during the sales. Some of the best stationery products in the world are significantly cheaper and heaps better than what we can get in Canada. It goes without saying that green tea–matcha powder which I pay $10 for a small package–is much cheaper. Even Haagen-Dazs ice cream is cheaper. I looked at a few real estate papers and it seems that house prices are down…still really expensive, but that old urban myth about crumpling up a US$100 bill as small as you can and dropping it on the floor in Ginza and having it represent the actual value of the tiny bit of space it covered seems to not be the case anymore. Despite all the news to the contrary, the economy on the surface is still functioning as the sheer number and variety of consumer goods available is mind-boggling.

No secret squirrel stuff here…

I have no idea if this was always the case or if it’s a new thing in Japan, but I have to say that I love the information sharing on the train (in ENGLISH) even though it makes no difference to me except to satisfy my inner Gladys Kravitz. I was on the JR train today, the Yamanote Line, heading to Akihabara–the electronics mecca of Japan–when in-between the helpful station notifications and route maps, I noticed the following sign: Train delay on the Tagata Shinkansen (bullet train) due to an antelope collision. There was also another notification for a delay on the Keikyu Line due to a passenger injury. Now knowing about a delay is indeed helpful, knowing why gives you an odd satisfaction or perhaps a little more patience.

When I was in Tokyo before there was no information in English beyond the name of the station. They now have announcements in English, ticket machines in English, as well as route maps, fare calculators and a handy chart that tells you how long it will take to get to your station, all in English. It’s actually quite easy to get around. Also if you are at all confused, if you simply stand there looking confused, a helpful Japanese person will ask if you need help…usually in less than a minute.

I wonder what the impetus was for the information sharing… Was there a study done that found people were more patient if they knew the reason for the delay? Was it something that came up in a corporate brain-storming session? Or indeed is it something altogether more sinister as my conspiracy theorist friend would say–should we be thinking about what they’re NOT telling us? Japan can be quite a paternalistic society in many ways and at times citizens are protected from the truth. Apparently, this happened during the nuclear accident at Fukushima; there was a bit of a news blackout.

The notification on the train got me thinking…the suicide rate in Japan is quite high and many people jump in front of trains, usually on specific routes chosen because your chances at a successful death are higher if you find an express train that goes through an underground station (poor visibility) at top speed. When I lived here in 1990, I lived on one of the “suicide lines” which I would never have known had I not mentioned the number of delays I experienced trying to get home to one of my students who filled me in on the darker side of life in Tokyo. Now I’m wondering if the antelope was really an antelope….

Better. Stronger. More heat-resistant.

The people here in Tokyo are better than me. In many ways, but one in particular: they are not wussies about the heat. If you’ll notice in the photo, which is taken inside Shibuya station, there is a woman wearing stockings and a cardigan. I took this photo on Friday. It was 34 degrees (‘feels like 42’) outside, and it’s much hotter in the bowels of the station though the actual trains are air-conditioned.

The people here are stoic. It’s almost as if they dissociate themselves from the heat, then they won’t be hot. According to a friend who lives here, dissociation and distancing oneself is a necessary survival mechanism in a city this big. I see his point…it’s pretty orderly and polite all in all, otherwise anarchy would quickly take over. Anyway, I digress. The heat is insane. Everyone carries handkerchiefs here and in the summer, it’s basically the equivalent of a small washcloth to literally mop the sweat from your fevered brow. They are quite fashionable, embellished with all manner of brand names ranging from Betsey Johnson to Kitson to Laudree (which is a French baker specializing in macarons). They also have special tissue paper that soaks the oil off your skin. However, many people don’t appear to actually be sweating at all. These are often women, dressed in full kimono or in stockings, a dress and a cardigan. Stockings, as in nylons or pantyhose…with high heels. It actually boggles the mind. To add insult to injury, most of the mid-range and cheap clothing here is polyester (an abomination from biblical times) so it doesn’t even breathe. No cheap linen and cotton from Old Navy. They do have The Gap, Zara and H&M but it’s not as affordable as you would expect, though the Japanese equivalent, Uniqulo, has some good deals.

It’s also a more formal society here so you wouldn’t be seeing casual cotton shorts and T-shirts in the city anyway. Often when women and young girls wear shorts, they wear them with stockings; sheer or skimpy tank tops are usually worn with a camisole and they have special arm gloves to protect your you from the sun should you be wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Men wear full on suits (also polyester) with long-sleeved shirts and ties and many employees and blue-collar workers wear uniforms…also polyester. It’s a bit more casual on the weekend but still, on the whole, people wear a lot more clothing despite the heat. I’m not sure how they do it… Karis and I seem to get the beginnings of heat stroke whenever we’re out for more than an hour. Maybe it’s a Zen thing? Probably not something I’ll be mastering any time soon.

Pinball for grown-ups.

Nostalgic for the bright lights and bad colour combos and the friendly neighbourhood pachinko parlour

I was out and about the other night, a few train stops away from Shibuya in a somewhat more residential area when I saw it…a pachinko parlour! In both of my previous apartments in Tokyo in the 90s, I was out of the CBD (central business district for those of you who have happily forgotten high school geography) where pachinko parlours abound. Bright and flashing lights, horrendous colours clashing all surrounded by banners and fake flowers.

What is this pachinko you may ask. Basically an arcade for grown-ups. The game is a lot like pinball but apparently the point is to collect up as many little balls as possible. You then exchange them for prizes on site or coupons which you can apparently exchange for cash offsite. Gambling for cash is not allowed under Japanese law. Apparently gambling for coupons that can be exchanged for cash two doors down is ok 😉

Tokyo for everyone.

Eisa Matsura Festival participants and the Braille pathways I keep tripping over 😉

Accessibility isn’t the first thing you would likely think of when Tokyo comes to mind; however, they’ve made a valiant effort with elevators, ramps, stair lifts and a raised Braille pathway along the sidewalk. Most packaged products also have Braille labels. Do we have that in Canada? I’m thinking we don’t but I could be wrong as it may be one of those things you don’t really notice unless it pertains to you or when you’re in a foreign country and everything is novel. Anyway, today must have been my day to notice how the Japanese treat the disabled or partially-abled. I’m not sure what the correct term is these days. I’ve been here since June 30 and scuffled around, stubbing my toes a few times, on the raised yellow sidewalks but I hadn’t seen one blind person in Tokyo using the aforementioned pathways. Today I saw four blind people–one in the subway station and three at the festival (see below). I’m not kidding AND I’m happy to report they were using the raised yellow sidewalk and it seemed to be fulfilling its purpose guiding people safely through the city and subway stations. Personally, I can barely figure out the subway stations and I can see so I have deep respect for those who navigate this crazy place with any sort of disadvantage beyond not speaking or reading Japanese.

Today I decided to go to the Eisa Matsuri Festival in Shinjuku. There was another festival in Kagurazaka but it necessitated a longer time on the subway and a change of trains and it was simply to hot to cope. Shinjuku is a no-brainer–three stops on the Yamanote Line, 160Y. It was, as usual, ridiculously hot–34 degrees but ‘feels like’ (a term I have grown to hate) forty-one degrees; however, this seems to be the way of things and I can’t simply stay inside all day.

So you’re probably wondering how accessibility, the blind, the weather and a festival all fit together. Well, the weather is simply an aside that I can’t help but mention as it is truly oppressive and hard for me to overlook. The other three do come together nicely. I’ll write more about the festival later but the coolest thing about it was that there were kids with both mental and physical disabilities completely participating in the dancing and drumming. I didn’t actually notice any difference between the kids until the one young man in the photo turned towards me and gave me a huge smile. It was a fun experience, despite the heat and I figured if they’re out in the sun dancing and drumming I should stop whining and take a few photos!

A typical day (Model child)

Karis walking to the agency. It’s 32 degrees out and cloudy. #areweinBangkok?

Karis’s days are rarely the same in terms of timing and scheduling. She gets a text the night before sometime between 9-11pm telling her how many castings she has the next day and what time she has to be at the agency. She walks there from the apartment which takes about 15 minutes as it’s so ridiculously hot that you just can’t go any quicker. There’s nothing special she has to wear…just a cute outfit. The girls mostly wear dressy shorts or skirts with short-sleeved T-shirts or short dresses. They have to bring heels and a bikini with them to every shoot just in case the client needs to see them walk for a shot or how they’d look for a swimwear or lingerie shoot. They all meet at the agency (whoever is going to the castings) and head out in the fancy bus/van driven by one of their bookers Kai, Tai or Sho (whom I’ve never met but I’ve been told he exists). Most of the castings start in the mid-to late afternoon and go well into the evening. She doesn’t usually get home until 8 or 9pm. Sometimes later.

When the girls get work they are responsible for getting there on their own. They are given written instructions detailing which subway or train line they are to take and from which station, where they are supposed to change and the next subway or train line and so on. They also get a map to follow from the subway station which tells them which exit to use which is really important as the bigger stations have many exits…just to put this in perspective, Shinjuku station has over 3 million passengers per day, 36 platforms and 200 exits…servicing 12 different lines from five different rail companies: the subway, the metro, the Keio line, the JR line and the Odakyu electric line.

New Faces like Karis also do photo shoots called testing (sometimes called creatives in Vancouver) to give them experience working with Japanese photographers and stylists as well as learning how to pose. It’s quite a different look than what we’re used to in North America and Europe.

The agency gives them an allowance every Tuesday of 10 000 Y which is a little over $100 for food and sundries. Your flight, accommodation and transportation is advanced to you by the agency. For more information on how this works in Japan (or anywhere actually) check out the Business Model Mag. It’s a very informative site AND it’s Canadian.

Models usually get the weekend off unless there’s a special event or they have a photo shoot. Time to see the sights, shop, workout or just relax. No clubbing though. It’s written into their contract that they’re not allowed to drink or go clubbing if they’re underage. Even if they’re of legal age (20) they’re supposed to keep it to a minimum or they’ll be sent home. And the agency always finds out….

I think I work for the child (the teenager)…

So it was a busy day today. Exercise. Recycling. Grocery store. Creating a professional Facebook page for Karis…her agency just got a new website (http://www.lizbellagency.com if you’d like to check it out) and they now have the ability to add FB, Twitter and Instagram for the models; however, it can’t be a personal page–gotta keep it professional. So Karis has little downtime to update said FB page so that’s what I did today: source and edit photos, research the names and websites of the stylists, photographers, publications and makeup and hair people. Tomorrow she’s working and it’s her first day on the subway…I’m going with her to show her the ropes. It’s a little overwhelming at first, though her booker gave her very clear instructions with important info like how LONG it takes, which lines to take, where to change trains, how much it costs. She should be able to get the hang of it after a few trips 🙂

On the subway

Took the subway today…just to see if I could do it. It’s not that hard if you’ve got all the time in the world. Also if you stand around looking perplexed someone will come and help you. Every time I stopped and looked at a map today someone asked me if I needed help within about a minute. Anyway, the subway ticket machines have an English button, but not all have the handy-dandy fare calculator. So I overpaid to get to Shinjuku…should have only been 170Y. Live and learn. I also figured out that I don’t have to transfer…I can get off at Shinjuku sanchome instead of transferring as that gets me to the ‘fun’ side where the cool shopping and the English bookstore (Kinokuniya) are located. The subway does have announcements and signs in English though there are still many things I don’t understand. Like the stainless steel box with the flashing red light. And why some trains don’t stop at all the stations and how do you know which ones? There’s WAY more English than there used to be though…but I still have a chance to practice reading hiragana (more on that later).