Japan Society of Fairfield County
Culture Watch, Society Watch (5)
by Dr. Ikuko Anjo Jassey
I left Japan and came to the United
States in 1993. At that time, Japan, including large cities like Tokyo
of 12,500,000, was fairly clean with rarely scattered trash or
graffiti. However, it
is not the same any more: We sometimes see graffiti on walls and often
empty soda cans and beer bottles on the roadsides. Likewise, in the
public
spaces, you will encounter even more annoying scenes today that had
never
been seen when I was young. According to PHP Japan Close-up (August 2004),
applying one’s facial make-up is ranked the fifth among the nuisances
observed in stations and trains.
Several years ago, on one wintry day,
my husband and I visited Asakusa in Tokyo, which was a must-see spot
for
foreign tourists. This neighborhood still preserves an ambience of the
good old Japan represented by a Buddhist temple called Sensoji rebuilt
in Kamakura era (1185-1333) after numerous fires. On our way back, we
used Ginza subway line—the oldest underground in Tokyo. The train was
not
crowded, leaving empty seats.
Soon after we snuggled into a cushioned
seat, four young Japanese women, perhaps in their late teens or early
twenties, came in and sat next to us. They took out a sandwich from
their
identical brown paper bags and ate them, without words to each other.
And then, almost simultaneously, they opened their handbags, took out
their
cosmetics and started putting on their make-up. They completely
repainted
their faces with mascara and lipstick as if they were in a powder room.
For some time, we thought that this phenomenon could be applied to just
young
people like those women. We were wrong!
We witnessed another scene of the kind on
Chuo line bound for Takao, the outskirts of Tokyo, in the summer of
2004. This time the woman was not very young; she was perhaps in her
late thirties or early forties. She applied lotion and cream on her
face first; then
foundation, drew her eyebrows, then put on lipstick and slight rouge on
her cheeks. By the time the train was pulling into the station she was
to get off, her make-up session—approximately 15 minutes—was completed
as if she had timed it. Both my husband and I were simply amazed with
her time-management skills--as well as her ability of disregarding
public
scrutiny.
Outside Japan, I have not ever seen women
applying make-up in the public arena, though it is true that I
occasionally observe American women who put on lipstick at a table in a
restaurant
after eating. However, I have once witnessed a woman performing an
acrobatic action in a car, specifically putting mascara while driving
on Route 7
in Wilton. For me, who cannot chew gum or listen to the radio while
driving since I would be distracted, her action was beyond my
imagination.
Polluting the environment with trash and
graffiti is undoubtedly due to lack of civic responsibility. However,
how should we interpret the psychology of those who apply cosmetics in
public without embarrassment? If we warn them, those women might
respond, saying, “What’s wrong? Why can’t we put on make-up in public?”
Certainly, it
does not affect other people’s health like smoking or defile a public
arena
like graffiti and trash. For them, the action “applying make-up in
public
spaces” might have nothing different from girls’ belly-button-shirts
vogue
and boys’ hanging-down-pants fashion. Nonetheless, putting on make-up
in
public eyes is disturbing in the same way as other ill manners. In
Japanese culture, in which modesty is still one of the highest virtues,
it is distracting all the more. Perhaps, Japanese people might be
losing “self-control”
under the right of “freedom.”
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