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Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that is really struggling with jet lag.
I’m your host Amanda, and this is episode 219….recorded in…my office here in Lancaster County! That’s right, I’m back home but I wanted to give you one last episode about Japan because I did a bunch of the research and writing about it while I was still on my trip. I just didn’t have time to record it in my last few days in Japan because I was so busy.
So how did I finish out my final week and a half in Japan?
We took the train about an hour from Nagasaki to a tiny unstaffed station. Then we walked for a few hours along the highway, visiting about half of the bus stops until we reached the end of them to the North, where we actually crossed into a different prefecture! Then we waited for the bus to take us back to the train station. Despite the huge bottle of pee, it was actually such a great walk. We saw a lot of birds and flowers, along with the vegetable gardens next to many of the houses. If I were to do it all again (which maybe I will some day because I think Dustin would have loved it), I would bring drinks and snacks (there are no stores and we only passed one restaurant near the tomato bus stop). Still, what an incredible day!
Being home has been a bit difficult so far. It’s suddenly super cold (in the 20s with wind chill). I’m having major jet lag, including major sleep and stomach problems. All of my autoimmune issues and the related chronic pain are here in a big way. And it even got off to a bad start when Dustin was two hours late picking me up from the airport.
But I’m glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed, snuggling with Brenda and Dustin, and just back into my own zone. That’s definitely the sign of a pretty happy life. On past trips, this sense of impending doom and despair would set in the final ⅓ of a trip. I would spend the last few days so sad that I had to return home, to a dumb, stressful job or a lonely life. I remember one trip to Japan when I just started spontaneously crying on a train, knowing that I would have to go back to work at my worst job ever (Wildfang, in case you were wondering) in just a few days. Like I just couldn’t imagine how I would get it together to go back.
In this situation, it feels good to be home…even if I have this song stuck in my head on an endless loop:
That’s the theme song for Don Quijote, a store that somehow blends Walmart with Spencer’s Gifts…but with way more bright lights, neon signage,aisles that could never ever accommodate a wheelchair, and just so much more stuff to buy. Larger ones (called Mega Donki) have a full on grocery store, but they also sell electronics, snacks, clothes, makeup and personal care stuff, lots of souvenirs, colored contact lenses, knives, like 1000 types of sheet masks…it’s all there. There’s even a section (behind a curtain) of sex toys! And this song plays on an endless loop the entire time, which must really add an extra layer of something to shopping for the perfect dildo.
In fact, the cities and train stations of Japan feel super loud to me, as a person who spends most days on a farm surrounded by Amish neighbors. Even a trip to the drug store feels like sensory overload, with each aisle including random little screens on the shelves that play videos and songs about the products. That’s in addition to whatever music or announcements are playing over the loudspeakers. There’s the constant robot voices of the self checkout–and self checkout can be found at just about every kind of chain store now.
And if you haven’t gathered from my recaps of my trip, I took a lot of public transportation in Japan. Yes, I could have rented a car or taken a taxi (even Uber is available there), but I’m always committed to taking public transportation wherever I travel. For one, it reduces the total impact of my trip. And even better, it gives me a more immersive experience.
And every train ride in Japan–whether it is a rural regional rail line, a subway, or even the ultra fast shinkansen–every train trip is full of sounds and music. It all starts when the train approaches a platform, when you’ll hear this mostly unpleasant sound:
Okay, maybe it’s not that unpleasant, but sometimes it’s just so loud and and goes on for so long, it feels like your bones might break.
Anyway, that sound–you’ll hear it on the platform–is to tell you that a train is approaching, so don’t stand so close to the edge. In fact, stand behind the yellow blocks!
And when the train door opens, you’ll hear another song. This song–often unique to both the train line and the station–will play until the door closes. The average stop at a station is about 7 seconds, so these songs are about that long. And they become not only part of the soundtrack to your day, but also a reminder for riders that you have arrived at your final station. It’s really difficult to get lost on any of the trains in Tokyo because every car has multiple screens that shift between the upcoming stop, a list of upcoming stops with the time to each, and even a diagram showing which car you are in and which doors will open on the next stop. In the big city trains, there are additional screens showing weather, short videos about local events and destinations, and of course, ads.
That said…on a packed train (and omg have I been on some mega packed trains where the only thing holding me in place is the bodies of other people) it can be difficult to see these screens. Or maybe you’ve snagged a seat and you’re absorbed in your phone or book. One thing that will pull you out of that focus is hearing the song for your stop. And if you travel on this train regularly, trust me, you WILL know your song.
Like this is the song for Ueno station on the Yamanote line and I know it way too well by now:
These little ditties are called eki-melo (駅メロ) in Japanese, literally meaning “station melody.” And they are just another part of life in Japan. In 1971, the private railway Keihan Electric Railway introduced these “train melodies.” As more railways across the country were privatized, more of them copied this idea of eki-melo because passengers really liked them. And while at first these songs were intended to function more as alarms (GET OFF THE TRAIN! GET ON THE TRAIN! STAY AWAY FROM THE TRAIN!), over time they served a different purpose:
Not everyone loves the eki-melo. Some say it contributes to noise pollution–and I will say that when I was staying in a hotel in Nagasaki, literally next to the station, overlooking the tracks, I did hear those tunes periodically. I kinda loved it, but it might have grown old over time. Others feel that the music is just another example of the paternalistic attitude that the Japanese government has toward its citizens, treating them like children with constant warnings and announcements. I will admit that there are more caution signs and other directions in Japan than I have seen anywhere else. Signs showing you how to use the escalator properly. Reminding you to keep your hands away from the train doors lest you pinch a finger. Reminding you in the bathroom that someone may check on you if you’ve been in there too long. I personally don’t mind it because some people do live a little dangerously, but I can see how it could feel oppressive.
One of the biggest composers of these train melodies is Minoru Mukaiya. He has written more than 200 of those little jingles, including the 30 stops on the Yamanote line in Tokyo. Mukaiya is a legit musician. He’s been the keyboardist of jazz fusion band Casiopea since 1977. When I mentioned this to Dustin he got very excited because he’s a big fan. But his most-heard music is these eki-melo. He even has concerts where he ONLY plays these songs and people love it! It’s actually a great job for him because in addition to being a musician, he’s actually a major train-head. He is the CEO of a company that produces professional train simulators for Japanese transit systems.
Mukaiya says a few things are essential to a good eki-melo:
For me, as a person who has visited Japan many times now and spent so much time on trains, some of these songs fill me with a mixture of nostalgia, longing, and occasionally, anxiety. For example, this eki-melo that plays when the Yamanote line stops at Tokyo Station:
It’s a cute, kinda soothing song, right? Except it also means that a ton of people are about to get on and off that train all at once. And things are about to get really stressful. Tokyo Station is a major hub for many different train lines and it is a massive station with its own underground city where Dustin and I have been lost many times. And yes, we have gotten quite snippy with one another there. A couple of years ago, we found out that the train we needed to Kyoto wouldn’t be leaving for two hours, so we put our suitcases in a storage locker (in like a sub, sub basement of the station) and set our minds on one mission: finally understanding the layout of Tokyo Station so we would stop getting lost. We found “Character Street” (filled with shops for just about every Japanese cartoon, comic, or general kawaii character), many restaurants (including an outpost of my favorite vegan restaurant, T’s Tan Tan), and so many other food and shopping treasures. Also, Dustin accidentally ordered two coffees and kinda had to check them outside a book store in the station. But we finally figured out how the station worked and even on my last trip, I was able to get in and out without finding myself wandering in circles. Time well spent! Seriously, when I think about Tokyo Station I just feel sweaty and lost.
Another stand out for me is the music for Nippori, the stop before Ueno and home of a cute “cat town” neighborhood. There is an entire cat themed shopping district, and if you’re lucky you’ll get to see some of the stray cats that live there. There’s also a huge cemetery full of enormous crows. It’s actually walking distance from the Hotel Graphy Nezu–and I get to pass a Denny’s and a huge 7-11 along the way–so sometimes I get off there just to have a little extra stroll. And it’s kind of my favorite station song of all:
I want you to close your eyes and picture a traffic cone. It’s neon orange. It’s pointy. It’s…well, that’s about it. But it sends you a message, right? “CAUTION!” or “DON’T PARK HERE BECAUSE I JUST SHOVELED TONS OF SNOW OUT OF THIS SPOT.”
When you think about a lot of the sort of “caution” and “utility” markings and objects here in the United States, they all share a similar aesthetic:
In Japan, these kinds of markers look different. Construction areas are cordoned off with cute bunnies or pandas or lions in lieu of plastic cones. Safety signage shows cute animals warning you to be careful. An adorable shrimp tells you that you cannot smoke on the sidewalk. A turtle reminds you to drive slowly and watch for pedestrians. A cute frog with an umbrella wants you to know that you should close your umbrella as you enter the station. A bunny warns you to keep your fingers away from the closing subway train door. And while some of these posters and signs are brightly colored, many are pastel or at least, softer shades of primary colors.
All of these signs embody the Japanese concept of kawaii.
Non japanese people often pronounce as “ka-why”
The true japanese pronunciation is closer to our pronunciation of “Hawaii”, ka-why-eee
And I’m sure many of you are familiar with this term. In fact, just saying “kawaii” evokes Hello Kitty and Pokemon. Rilakkuma. Manga characters. Pink hearts and pastel purple stars and just tons and tons of merch. But kawaii is actually more than just products (although it is also a huge economic win for Japan). Let’s dig into the history of kawaii culture a little bit…
A lot of experts think of 1914 as the birth of kawaii, when an illustrator named Yumeji Takehisa opened a shop in Tokyo which sold goods aimed at schoolgirls, which was a pretty savvy move when you consider that now most companies focus on marketing to young people/people who want to identify as young. Takehisa’s shop sold woodblock prints, embroidery, cards, illustrated books, dolls etc. Your classic sort of gift shop. Sounds a lot like a Sanrio store today!
It’s important to remember that these goods were primarily for upper middle class girls who might have a little bit of disposable income. The prints merged western style with eastern motifs. He called these illustrations “kawaii” and they had a lot of the qualities that we think of as “kawaii’ like an overall roundness. Unfortunately the Great Kanto earthquake all but destroyed his business in 1926.
A few artists here and there sold letter sets for school girls with kawaii influences, but there wasn’t a huge leap forward otherwise. These letter sets were important because girls weren’t allowed to have a lot of contact with boys, so they would use these letter sets to write love letters to their female classmates instead. And they blazed through this stationary, writing letters upon letters every day, to girls that thought looked cute that day or girls they generally just admired.
As we have discussed here on this podcast many, many times, consumerism was truly born in its modern incarnation after World War II. That was the case here in the United States, but even Japan saw a massive cultural shift after the war in the 1950s and 60s. And girls and women were impacted the most. Previously Japanese women had to mature and become adults very quickly. They were encouraged to have a lot of children to provide a labor force and new soldiers. In fact, before the war, the average Japanese family had 7-10 kids! Much like here in the United States, when the men went off to fight WWII, the women had to work. But unlike the US, the immediate period after the war was brutal in Japan. Life in Japan was marked by extreme devastation. Widespread air raids left the larger cities essentially in rubble. Of course, Nagasaki and Hiroshima were on a next level of suffering. Everyone was grieving the loss of loved ones in the war. There were shortages in food, medicine, any daily essential item. The economy was also heavily damaged. It was a terrible time.
The United States led the Allied occupation of Japan that lasted from 1945 to 1952. A lot of this effort was spent rebuilding the country and dismantling the military. But it also brought a major cultural shift, with Western ideas around music, fashion, and even day-to-day life becoming integrated into Japanese life. We talked in the last episode about even American food becoming a trend in Japan during this time. But one of the cultural shifts that happened was the idea of childhood and teenagerhood. In the US, companies were finding that the boom of new children and teenagers after the war were a major cash cow. Children could be sold toys, games, cereal, and candy. Teenagers bought records, magazines, and trendy clothes. A few episodes ago, I told you that even the sewing industry was like “ah, here’s a whole new generation of sewists. Let’s sell them sewing machines, patterns, and sewing classes.” This idea of childhood and teenage years being less about work and more about learning and fun was making its way to Japan by the 1960s. Kids didn’t have to grow up as fast, including girls. And while gender roles remained the same as always, girls weren’t becoming wives and mothers quite as young . Suddenly they could have hobbies and interests. And just like in the United States, this was encouraged because it was an economic boon to sell to kids! Shojo manga–basically romantic comics for girls–began to blow up in the late 50s. Very kawaii aesthetic of big eyes, round faces, feminine details. This industry allowed women artists–previously stuck at home–to have careers drawing and steering culture!
Another strange thing began to happen in the seventies: school girls began adopting this “kawaii” form of handwriting with cute rounded shapes and doodles. Hearts, stars, “emoji.” This cute handwriting was called “maruji” (round handwriting) or (even cuter) “konekoji (kitten handwriting). The thing is, this kind of writing was forbidden. It’s important to remember that. Japanese society at this point was really rigid, conformity was reinforced constantly. Even adorable handwriting was actually a significant act of rebellion. But this was the beginning of a youth-driven cultural movement that changed just about every aspect of culture.
Ironically years later, this style of writing with a mix of letters and cute symbols (along with roundness ) would become THE way to sell products to young people. So it became the status quo for most packaging and marketing.
And…this cute style of handwriting is considered the origin of something you use every day: EMOJI! The cute little images and symbols that were used like hearts, smileys, and stars were the original inspiration for emoji! So even if you think you are staunchly against kawaii culture, and everything cute, well, if you’ve ever used the cry laughing face or the one with the little hand on the chin that i think symbolizes skepticism? Well, you’ve taken part in kawaii culture.
At the same time that this writing style emerged, girls started dressing “cuter/younger” with pastels, prints, etc. There were and are a lot of ‘“rules” around who can wear pink. It’s customarily seen as something that only young girls can wear and it’s unbecoming for a woman to wear. And TBH, we’ve seen pink play out similarly here in the US…thanks to the millennials and their supposed undying love of millennial pink, it’s now a more acceptable color…but in the past, a grown woman who was really into pink (think Paris Hilton or Elle Woods in Legally Blonde) was seen as not very intelligent, maybe a bit eccentric or childish. By the 80s, it became more acceptable for adults in Japan to engage in kawaii aesthetic and culture. It was fine for adults to buy cute things for themselves, to wear cute accessories, and to embrace their sort of “inner child.” And really, this idea of people of all genders and ages wearing pastel, loving cute things…this was and is a radical shift from the gender roles and expectations around age and adulthood in Japan and honestly, most of this world, even now. In the wake of this most recent election, when Americans again showed that women have no value, I am reminded of how powerful pink and cuteness and anything “feminine” can be in a world that rejects these things.
That said, kawaii culture is both a part of Japanese day-to-day life AND a driver of the economy. Opportunities abound in Japan for buying cute trinkets, but moreover, this culture and aesthetic has been successfully exported around the world. I could drive to Target or the mall right now and find Hello Kitty bandaids, Pokemon socks, Pusheen pajamas, maybe some Animal Crossing stickers. There are an uncountable number of Hello Kitty product collabs and merch options at just about every store. And to be honest, the merch aspect of it all, the overconsumption of it all, it depresses me. It gives me anxiety to even look at the Hello Kitty subreddit for more than a minute, where people are fighting about fleece blanket hauls at TJ Maxx and Sanrio hair brushes at Costco. There is mad money to be made in making and selling kawaii stuff.
But that said–I love the aesthetic of it all. Maybe not the western versions of it, which tend to focus on the hot pink spectrum. But the actual day-to-day use of it in Japan on signage and posters, well it delights me. And when I tell you that the first trip I took to Japan with Dustin was life changing for me, I’m not kidding. Specifically, it inspired me creatively, particularly in the area of graphic design and how cuteness could be powerful. It’s really the jumpstart for the entire aesthetic of Clotheshorse, even if that trip came years before the actual launch of it. When you think about the way we tend to receive serious information on social media, it always has a similar aesthetic: black and white, lots of Helvetica. In the world of sustainability, throw in some olive green and tan. A hint of botanical flourishes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it shocks me to this day that I spend so much time thinking about social media every day. But a few months into making Clotheshorse, I realized that it was building its own community on social media. And how to share information and connect with people was a creative and intellectual challenge. Most sustainable fashion content was beige and green, filled with thin, young, wealthy, white cis-gendered women. I knew I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to reach working class people like me. People who were often invisible to fashion. Who were always left out or mocked. I also knew that I couldn’t afford models or photographers, so it wasn’t like I was going to be doing photoshoots to make content. I wondered if I could do things in a different way, by sharing the aesthetic that I loved, that gave me comfort and optimism. Could things be cute and pink? So that’s what I did. And yes, I have received feedback over the years that this quote “feminine” approach was off-putting to masculine people. That I should go more neutral and less cute. Listen, there are plenty of other creators out there making that. It’s not true to me and I am in fact, Clotheshorse. There’s something powerful in sharing serious information and thoughts alongside kittens and hearts. I also believe that pink is a very powerful color. I like to surround myself with it when I’m working because it helps me feel safe and optimistic. When I’ve been working in a hellscape of fluorescent lighting and toxic coworkers, it’s been good to feel cozy at my pink desk.
I’m not alone when it comes to finding a combination of peace and productivity in the proximity to cuteness. A 2013 study conducted at Hiroshima University found that participants were calmer, happier, and more productive when shown cute images. In fact, the field of “cute studies” is really a thing, investigating why and how people are impacted positively by cuteness. And certainly it is the chosen path for sharing public information in Japan, with the intention of keeping people engaged but calm. This decision is not without its critics: much like the eki-melo tunes, some people feel that showing people cute signs and painting train interiors pinks just reinforces a paternalistic approach from the Japanese government, treating the Japanese people like children, who must be herded, watched, and coddled with cute things, soothing colors, and cute songs. And beyond that, kawaii as a fashion and social trend pressures women to stay young and feminine, reinforcing the gender binary and ageism. Which I can also see. I think where cuteness becomes a radical statement is when we remind the world that something shrouded in pink can be intelligent, important, and valuable. That cuteness or even femininity doesn’t mean stupid or silly. That these things are a choice and choosing them doesn’t make us less of anything.
I always give Clotheshorse guests a pep talk before we start recording. And yes, it includes things like “I will edit out all burps and farts,” but I also say this: Don’t worry about saying “like” or “um.” Don’t worry about vocal fry or your voice being too soft or high pitched. This is how intelligent people speak. And we’re here to challenge all of the tired patriarchal ideas of what intelligence sounds like. How serious information is delivered. And what radical thought and revolution looks like. So I’ll keep sharing cute graphics with serious information. And I’ll keep wearing pink, because that’s who I am. And if you’re more of a wearing all black or all grey or only red or whatever kind of person, that’s fine, too. Because all of these are valid and important.
I could talk about cute shit and kawaii culture for hours. Don’t even get me started on Japanese mascot culture. But that’s another episode for another time. That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed the Japan episodes and you weren’t too annoyed. But if you were like “please stop, I hate this,” well, one, thanks for listening to the end but two, I’ll be back next week with some more standard Clotheshorse style content. Until then…
If you want to share your opinion/additional thoughts on the subjects we cover in each episode, feel free to email, whether it’s a typed out message or an audio recording: [email protected]
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