A Japanese Tune?
Mar. 6th, 2008 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarkerJust a short sketch from life here in Japan. Hope you enjoy it.
Our little neighborhood supermarket tends to be busy, housewives bustling, kids in their carts, a veritable center of daily commerce gleaming under the ruthless fluorescent lights. So I suppose it was somewhat out of place the other day when I started laughing.
It's in the middle of a Japanese neighborhood, a suburban development full of houses, mostly from just before the bubble burst. Lots of middle-class wage earners, many commuting into Osaka to put in their time. And the clientele of the supermarket matches that, with a few older men, the occasional husband, but mostly Japanese housewives doing their daily trek to get dinner for the kids.
The groceries are the main attraction. There's a large fresh vegetable region by the front door, balanced by the beer and wine racks and cases at the other end of the store. Fish and meat fill chilled counters along one side wall and most of the back wall. And the middle is rack after rack of shelving, full of everything that a busy housewife might want. A small drug store, a larger book and magazine store, and an express Makudonarudo's with a plastic Ronald smiling over the display of gifts for kiddymeals helps to make this the compleat daily shopping market.
When I walked into this mecca of consumerism, the loud muzak caught my attention. They usually seem to have the muzak set at a level that is a bit high for my ears, perhaps to hide the sounds of shopping and the children.
But this day, the instrumental piece blaring over the speakers throughout the store was Born To Be Wild. A good solid instrumental version of the rock piece, that pulled scattered words out of my memory.
Head out on the highway,
Looking for adventure,
In whatever comes our way
Yeah, darling, gonna make it happen
Take the world in a lovin' embrace
Fire all of your guns at once and . . .
Explode into space
. . .
We were born, born to be wild
We have climbed so high, never want to die
[except I always remember that as none of us wanna die . . . ]
As the housewives shopped.
And I laughed and laughed. Pogo had it right. We have seen the enemy.
The End
From an aging hippy dreaming of past times. I do wonder whether it is cognitive dissonance, anachronistic recognition, cultural context clashes - what is the right label for the splash of cold water recognition that this song (or some other feature) really doesn't quite belong here? There should be a label for stepping on the non-existent extra step, especially when in another culture. That stumble that cracks our perception of ourself wide open and lets the sun shine in?
When we write, we learn about ourselves.
Our little neighborhood supermarket tends to be busy, housewives bustling, kids in their carts, a veritable center of daily commerce gleaming under the ruthless fluorescent lights. So I suppose it was somewhat out of place the other day when I started laughing.
It's in the middle of a Japanese neighborhood, a suburban development full of houses, mostly from just before the bubble burst. Lots of middle-class wage earners, many commuting into Osaka to put in their time. And the clientele of the supermarket matches that, with a few older men, the occasional husband, but mostly Japanese housewives doing their daily trek to get dinner for the kids.
The groceries are the main attraction. There's a large fresh vegetable region by the front door, balanced by the beer and wine racks and cases at the other end of the store. Fish and meat fill chilled counters along one side wall and most of the back wall. And the middle is rack after rack of shelving, full of everything that a busy housewife might want. A small drug store, a larger book and magazine store, and an express Makudonarudo's with a plastic Ronald smiling over the display of gifts for kiddymeals helps to make this the compleat daily shopping market.
When I walked into this mecca of consumerism, the loud muzak caught my attention. They usually seem to have the muzak set at a level that is a bit high for my ears, perhaps to hide the sounds of shopping and the children.
But this day, the instrumental piece blaring over the speakers throughout the store was Born To Be Wild. A good solid instrumental version of the rock piece, that pulled scattered words out of my memory.
Head out on the highway,
Looking for adventure,
In whatever comes our way
Yeah, darling, gonna make it happen
Take the world in a lovin' embrace
Fire all of your guns at once and . . .
Explode into space
. . .
We were born, born to be wild
We have climbed so high, never want to die
[except I always remember that as none of us wanna die . . . ]
As the housewives shopped.
And I laughed and laughed. Pogo had it right. We have seen the enemy.
The End
From an aging hippy dreaming of past times. I do wonder whether it is cognitive dissonance, anachronistic recognition, cultural context clashes - what is the right label for the splash of cold water recognition that this song (or some other feature) really doesn't quite belong here? There should be a label for stepping on the non-existent extra step, especially when in another culture. That stumble that cracks our perception of ourself wide open and lets the sun shine in?
When we write, we learn about ourselves.
