Friday, May 8, 2009

Children's Day-kodomo no hi (子供の日)

This day was the last day of Golden Week. TOO SHORT. I don't understand why Golden Week ends on a freaking Thursday. After the Wakayama trip and before my trip today I spent that time at the computer editing my Speaking Japanese Video Skit. Which turned out nice. I still cringe when I hear my voice as the narrator. Anyways, for a once in a lifetime experience...my friends (three girls, two guys, all Asian-looking study abroad students) decided to go to a Maid Cafe. It was one of the most awkward things I have done in Japan.

Maid Cafe...basically a Japanese thing were women dressed in maid outfits and serve you. The atmosphere is very cutesy with cheesy high-pitched music and kawaii decorations and food. Some places they do a dance every time you order something or get on their knees to give you something. You are not allowed to take picture inside of the maid cafe except of the food. Maid cafes are not limited to cafes. They are also hair salons, bars, and body massage places were the women dress up as maids...I'm not kidding.

The place we went to was in the infamous Den-Den Town or Nipponbashi area of Osaka. It is the electronics, otaku, and porn section of the city. It was my second time in Den-Den town. We went to what looked like a bunny/maid themed cafe called Hand Maid Cafe. It is funny pun I think. While we walked up the stairs someone was already at the door waiting to lead us in. It was a girl in a yellow bunny maid outfit. Before going up the stairs we were all scared. I was brave and went in first...I don't even know why I did that because in the group I was the second lowest Japanese class level in the group. Everyone else could read and speak Mandarin and Cantonese and were level 3-5. I didn't learn keigo yet so I did not comprehend a word the woman said. It was half mumble and keigo. A horrid combination. Eventually, we figured out that there is 5oo yen for a 2 hour duration fee for everyone and that we have to order something once we are inside.

One inside, we could see that the cafe was a forest theme. We each got a trading card of the maids as a souvenir I guess. At the time we had not idea what we had to do with the card. My girls friend and I were the only female customers in the entire cafe. Everyone else was a man sitting by themselves. The menu was this photo album looking thing full of cutesy designed food items (full of hearts and bunnies) with childish sounding names...all over priced. It took us awhile to decide what we wanted to order.

To order we had to shake a carrot with a bell on it. I ordered something called 'furu furu kakurenbo'...which was basically a strawberry sundae for 900 yen. Once inside was all spoke in English because we knew that no one would understand us. We all felt a bit confused and awkward inside. The men inside the cafe we more interesting than the maids. They were sad looking men sitting by themselves and would ring the bell in order to talk to the maids. One instance, we saw one man hand over cards to a maid and she would glance at them and look interested.

In the cafe we discussed what kind of place a maid cafe is. Interestingly enough, I learned about maid cafes through a class presentation which was extremely well done. The female Japanese student pretended to be a maid with the voice and actions. Unfortunately, the presentation seem to approve of the cafes and seem to even promote it. I can't help but have a gut feeling about how wrong the concept is. Someone in the class equivocated to Hooters in the US (another thing I don't necessary like.) The words repressed sexuality, desperation of human interaction, and female exploitation kept running through my head.

It is hard to believe that Japan is a sexually repressed country because of all the porn I can see through the windows of konbinis, and half naked women adds passing through den-den town. As for human interaction, people in Japanese always seem to be on their cellphone emailing people. Female exploitation seems to be a natural part of Japanese culture. Once you study about business culture in Japan you'll understand why. Women in Japan are expected to quit their jobs and devote 100% of their effort marriage, keeping a household, and having children. The majority of the burden is on the women...even to this day. Japan also has a sucky record for women's rights too.

So I was having a lot of conflicting feelings in the Maid Cafe. One guy friend was clearly uncomfortable in there. We tried to explain to him the concept of moe which is an integral part of maid cafes. I'm not sure if there is even a proper explanation available for this concept. Moe is cute...sickly cute. Kind of a overtly, stereotypical image of innocent, cute, and feminine girl. Digi Charat is Moe. Umm...you see this concept all the time in anime and manga when the main character is a beautiful klutz who needs help all the time. Some kind of vulnerability that I think is underlying sexually appealing to men.

Not everyone like moe. Not every Japanese person knows about maid cafes and otaku culture too. This was a memborable experience and I'm happy to have done this in a group instead of by myself. I'm still trying to figure out maid cafes but I think its impossible.

Some things I was allowed to take. Left was the coast, middle-left is the receipt (I only spent 1400 yen,) middle-right is the bussiness card, and right is the trading card.

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