6.14.2004
The Good Life In Osaka
It seems like only a year ago that I decided to move back to Kansai and asked for my old teaching job back...Back then Osaka was expensive digs, especially coming from the East Side of Austin. Of course, the quality of life is different since Osaka is lacking in such essentials as convenience store chimichangas (instant heart attack...truly guesome), 3am BBQ joints and 24/7 police surveillance. But there are a few good reasons to live here: convenience store tofu (no heart attacks, ever), 3am ramen and 24/7 karaoke. Besides, Osaka is now now longer the 3rd most expensive city in the world, but merely the 4th. So after living in Osaka, New York or, say, Geneva would feel like Oklahoma--everything is so cheap! Australia? France? Forget it. Developing nations. Prague, where good old Mick hangs out rounds out next to the bottom of the list. Maybe I should move there...
In India my Texan cohorts who'd been living there joked, "Let Molly pay. She's Japanese, she can afford it." Well...yeah, I never quite got a handle on the money--change a 100 US and I'd have a huge wad of rupees. I've never seen so much paper money since I was working in the cash office at the Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet, so I did spend it all and now I'm back to the simple life-- sitting outside next to the Kamo river in Kyoto munching grilled shitake and enjoying a little cold sake.
Speaking of the good life, I've been in a tizzy reading this book about American social classes. It's quite dated (evidently a lot of social climbers at that time were wearing keds and putting nautical flags on their cars) and very East-Coast centric. There aren't quite as many Anglophiles in Texas for example, nor the disdain for spicy food. But then maybe that's just 'cause I wasn't in that class. Anyway, one thing is abundantly clear from this as I read in Japan--that the America which Japan idolizes is the America of the lower and middle class. E.g. Budweiser beer, t-shirts with lots of writing, those god-awful trucker hats, fast-food. And those things are kind of status symbols for middles and lowers here, taking them up supposedly a notch. Meanwhile to be higher here you really have to be interested in Japanese archaism--traditional arts, things like that. Of course having a knowledge of English and the world via travel are status symbols, but talking about it a lot or being wildly obsessed with it is gauche unless you're quite young.
One thing about the book (and it mostly takes the piss out of *every* class) is it's deep disdain for the pretentions of the middle class. Basically, it says, that's where you find the snobs. The uppers don't really care what people think. Well, that and they're a little clueless. He really has it in for readers of the New Yorker in particular. That and catalog shoppers. (Sounds like my family is taking quite a beating). On the one hand the middle class reads a lot more in terms of novels and "literature" but then they're also the primary audience for "unreadable second-rate pretentious books by...John Steinbeck, Pearl Buck...Hemmingway." Ha ha, who's the snob?
There are even exercises at the end of the book on learning to draw class inferences, and a living room scale by which to rate your own class. Genuine Tiffany lamp? Add three points. Reproduction? Subtract 4. New Oriental rug? Subtract 2. Worn one? Add 5 (each). reproductions of any Picasso painting, subtract 2, each family photo subtract 3 unless it's in a sterling frame, then add 3.
It's funny, but I was kind of wondering, well so what's the alternative buddy? Then I flipped ahead and the last chapter is about the "X" way out. That is, he's more or less advocating getting the heck out of the rat race--being a "bohemian". Evidently living abroad is a pretty good indicator, that and proximity to a good wine store, Army surplus or university library (that you actually use). Now it's starting to sound like Austin. Whew, I guess I can relax and stop worrying about my class standing...of course, that's not a very X thing to do...or is it?
I better go check and see if I still have bohemianhipster@yahoo.com. Haven't checked it in a while. See, it's important to have these little moments of self-awareness. Okay and I only got the address because Jim wouldn't stop calling me that. Tried to tell him I am too out of the loop to be a hipster, but he seemed to think that was precisely the point. I dunno. Hopefully announcing it proves my point. I'm going to the convenience store for some tofu.
**UPDATE** I am no longer the bohemian hipster. Whew, thank god.
In India my Texan cohorts who'd been living there joked, "Let Molly pay. She's Japanese, she can afford it." Well...yeah, I never quite got a handle on the money--change a 100 US and I'd have a huge wad of rupees. I've never seen so much paper money since I was working in the cash office at the Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet, so I did spend it all and now I'm back to the simple life-- sitting outside next to the Kamo river in Kyoto munching grilled shitake and enjoying a little cold sake.
Speaking of the good life, I've been in a tizzy reading this book about American social classes. It's quite dated (evidently a lot of social climbers at that time were wearing keds and putting nautical flags on their cars) and very East-Coast centric. There aren't quite as many Anglophiles in Texas for example, nor the disdain for spicy food. But then maybe that's just 'cause I wasn't in that class. Anyway, one thing is abundantly clear from this as I read in Japan--that the America which Japan idolizes is the America of the lower and middle class. E.g. Budweiser beer, t-shirts with lots of writing, those god-awful trucker hats, fast-food. And those things are kind of status symbols for middles and lowers here, taking them up supposedly a notch. Meanwhile to be higher here you really have to be interested in Japanese archaism--traditional arts, things like that. Of course having a knowledge of English and the world via travel are status symbols, but talking about it a lot or being wildly obsessed with it is gauche unless you're quite young.
One thing about the book (and it mostly takes the piss out of *every* class) is it's deep disdain for the pretentions of the middle class. Basically, it says, that's where you find the snobs. The uppers don't really care what people think. Well, that and they're a little clueless. He really has it in for readers of the New Yorker in particular. That and catalog shoppers. (Sounds like my family is taking quite a beating). On the one hand the middle class reads a lot more in terms of novels and "literature" but then they're also the primary audience for "unreadable second-rate pretentious books by...John Steinbeck, Pearl Buck...Hemmingway." Ha ha, who's the snob?
There are even exercises at the end of the book on learning to draw class inferences, and a living room scale by which to rate your own class. Genuine Tiffany lamp? Add three points. Reproduction? Subtract 4. New Oriental rug? Subtract 2. Worn one? Add 5 (each). reproductions of any Picasso painting, subtract 2, each family photo subtract 3 unless it's in a sterling frame, then add 3.
It's funny, but I was kind of wondering, well so what's the alternative buddy? Then I flipped ahead and the last chapter is about the "X" way out. That is, he's more or less advocating getting the heck out of the rat race--being a "bohemian". Evidently living abroad is a pretty good indicator, that and proximity to a good wine store, Army surplus or university library (that you actually use). Now it's starting to sound like Austin. Whew, I guess I can relax and stop worrying about my class standing...of course, that's not a very X thing to do...or is it?
I better go check and see if I still have bohemianhipster@yahoo.com. Haven't checked it in a while. See, it's important to have these little moments of self-awareness. Okay and I only got the address because Jim wouldn't stop calling me that. Tried to tell him I am too out of the loop to be a hipster, but he seemed to think that was precisely the point. I dunno. Hopefully announcing it proves my point. I'm going to the convenience store for some tofu.
**UPDATE** I am no longer the bohemian hipster. Whew, thank god.
