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From
Osaka to Tokyo
Adventures
of a French girl when she traveled to Japan
By Pierre
Coda
Continued from previous page: Arriving
in Japan
Monica,
the daughter of my father's colleague was now a good friend of mine.
While she was already 24, we still became good friends.
She missed talking to someone who would understand her as only a
westerner can and was thrilled to have a buddy like me.
She grew up in Seattle, but we still had so much in common.
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She had been in Japan for approximately three years and had a
love-hate relationship with Japan. While
she was absolutely head over heels in love with tea ceremonies and
reiki, she could not stand
Japanese girls who were her students in
the language school where she worked.
She could not imagine that Japanese girls her age would still
behave like thirteen year olds - not only in dress and style but also how
they looked at the world.
Despite
this, she hung out with her Japanese students a lot since she kept getting
invited to parties regularly. Very
soon she obtained an invitation for me as well as she spread the word
about me among her students that she had a French friend who was new to Japan and
was interested in exploring Japanese culture.
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 The
first party I went to was in a nearby town.
Monica had warned me that parties for young people in Japan were
not just about getting together with friends but a lot more about showing
off - dressing up in your best and pretending to be cool, especially if
there were non-Japanese people around. This was a group of about 15 young women, some of whom were
Monica's students while others were their friends. The party was supposedly organized to celebrate a girl's
birthday and it had a Mickey Mouse theme.
We had assembled in a private room of a hotel and it was a little
uncomfortable for me to imagine being in a party while sitting on the tatami
floor. When I looked around
the room, I realized that other guests had been looking at me with a lot
of interest. I could see
signs of interest emerge on everyone's face as they welcomed me to the big
room. No wonder I was smiling more than I usually do since I did
not know what to say. I spoke
slowly and interspersed my speech with a few words of Japanese that I was
gradually picking up. I think that
helped break the ice somewhat.
This
was one wild group of women that I had ever seen.
The absence of men was striking to me since I was not used to going
to parties without guys. However, I found the women to be more comfortable and relaxed
in the absence of men and I started to enjoy the unique atmosphere.
This was a very fashionable group of people and I felt slightly
under-dressed despite my black top and a white skirt.
It was clear that everyone had dyed their hair - while some were
more conservative with shades of brown, others were outright blondes.
While my father would have been interested and pleased, some of
these women actually wore white and green lipstick.
May be he will be in Japan for a long time convincing his company
to start manufacturing white lipstick.
Next part: A
Disney theme party
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