Three beautiful womenA few days ago I accidentally found the Beautiful Women Clock (美人時計： bijin-tokei). The site does not indicate what its objective is or why it was created. The only thing one knows is that every minute a different woman gives you the time.
The site belongs to a Public Relations firm. I sent them an e-mail asking what their goal is, but they replied with a generic message indicating they had received my message and that they might reply via e-mail.
Curiosity drove me to do some searching, but all I have been able to find, as of this writing, is that the Beautiful Women’s Clock is a joint project among several artists who supposedly want highlight the beauty of ordinary Japanese people. It remains to be seen if this is true; whenever I check the clock, I always see young women whose ages range between 18 and 28 years. Allegedly, there will also be a site that will highlight the handsomeness of ordinary men.
Regardless of whether the objective truly is to just appreciate the beauty of ordinary Japanese, I find this to be a very interesting idea, especially because large media conglomerates nowadays promote a global standardization of beauty that decidedly follows western ideals.
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I harbor no doubts that this is so for (mainly) two reasons. First, a few months ago I read an interesting report on the recent successes of Japanese contestants in the Miss Universe pageant, as evidenced by the 2007 winner and the previous year’s first runner-up. According to the article, for a few years work has been ongoing to gain domestic prestige for Miss Universe Japan. In addition, the contest searches for women who are not only tall, but also of an appearance that would appeal to the West. That may be why the Japanese media, besides mentioning the 2007 win, paid little attention to the outcome of the event. As a side note, I still recall vividly how several Japanese friends, both male and female, told me at the time that they did not think the Miss Universe winner was especially pretty or interesting.
The second reason I owe to a friend who works in company that deals with the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors. This person told me, not long ago, that one of his struggles was to convince Japanese women that bigger breasts are better because women with a larger bosom are more beautiful and attractive. In this country, my friend has run into to obstacles. One of them (at least according to my friend), is the “god-damned legacy of Buddhism”, which discourages Japanese from having surgeries that are not absolutely essential. The other obstacle is harder to overcome. Because most Japanese women are small-breasted, the ones that are flat chested generally do not have any complexes about their “condition” since Japanese society still does not consider it as something that makes women unattractive.
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Three beautiful women
Given the difficulty in convincing Japanese women to change their notions of beauty, my friend’s company and others are working on other fronts as well. The most important is perhaps convincing men that large-breasted women are not only better looking, but also hotter in bed. A corollary to this is that man who has by his side or seduces a buxom beauty is more of a man. It goes without saying that the idea is that if a big change in men’s taste is effected, then women will spend significant amounts of money in implants and related artifices. According to my friend, Japan is an embarrassing market in his business area because the sale of implants is simply laughable if you account for the purchasing power of Japanese women.
We live in a world in which too many women are afflicted with anorexia and bulimia. Because my friend has three small daughters, I asked him if he could sleep well a night and if he ever worried that any or all of his girls, upon becoming teenagers, would join what sometimes seems to be an ever larger number of young females who suffer from those ailments and others due to the pressure to have perfect bodies. My friend shrugged his shoulders and answered that parents are responsible for raising children who can survive in world that is not only tough, but sometimes cruel as well.
In view of the foregoing, and despite the fact that still I do not know the real motive behind the Beautiful Women Clock, today and for the time being, I applaud that site for highlighting the beauty of ordinary women. Rather than referring to ordinary women, the site administrator’s should perhaps address them as natural women.
Japanese cops are usually very nice and the National Police has been, for a great many years, one of the most respected and trusted institutions in this country. Despite this, among some segments of the gaijin community there is great animosity and disdain towards cops. There are quite a few urban legends about how police officers in Japan practically spend all their time scheming how to harass foreigners living here.
I had alluded to this issue indirectly in my previous post; in it I briefly mentioned how a friend had not really believed me, one night when were lost, that we could ask the police for assistance. My friend had not believed me because she had heard that Japanese cops usually mistreat foreigners. I told her that was neither my experience nor the experience of my close friends. I mentioned that I always look for a Kōban (交番 –police box) whenever I cannot find an address and that I cannot help but think there is a good reason children in this country are always taught to look for a cop if they need help. In fact, from the time they are kids Japanese are taught to address police officers affectionately as omawarisan (お巡りさん –Mr. Go Around).
To be sure, like any other place, Japan has its share of bad cops. But I am willing to say those are few and far between (in Costa Rica things are quite the opposite). Be that as it may, I explained to my friend that one of the distinguishing characteristics of the police force in this country is that most of its members are there as a matter of vocation and not because they had nothing else to do. I also mentioned that by far most of the complaints you hear about cops come from citizens of a particular western country. Although more often than not they are unaware of how their own country’s police and migratory authorities work, they whine profusely about what they consider an egregious abuse by the Japanese police; namely, occasionally asking a foreigner at random to furnish his alien registration card showing he is legally in this country.
In the time I have been in Japan I have been asked for my ID thrice. I have always been treated with great courtesy at time of the request and have always received an apology for the inconvenience after showing my document. I have plenty of friends who will tell you the same story. A couple of months ago, Murphy’s Law punished a Filipina friend who has been in Japan for more than ten years. She forgot to take her gaijin card and, needless to say, got asked for it for the first time since moving here. Not having that little document meant she had to accompany the police officers to the station, where she had to wait until a relative brought her alien registration. Once she had shown that everything was in order she apologized for the inconvenience brought on the cops; in turn, they thanked her for her cooperation and apologized for any trouble they might have caused.
The friend that I was talking to about the police was unconvinced and insisted that undoubtedly I was conveying exceptional cases; she had heard about stories of police aggression from several friends. I asked if those friends were from country “X”. She replied that all of them were. Not only was that what I had suspected, I also learned that most of those individuals who “knew” about alleged aggressions had never had problems with the police and never witnessed any of the stories they told.
I told my friend that within the Gaijin community there is one small but strident group made up of querulous whingers whose only hobby seems to be mewling at the legal authority of the police to request an identification document. I filled her in on how in most cases of alleged police harassment against the members of that group one usually ends up discovering that these individuals, when asked for their id card by a police officer, respond that they cannot be bothered because they are citizens of country X (their citizenship somehow gives them a disproportionate sense of entitlement and self-righteousness) and try to remain on their way while ignoring the cops.
In such cases it is common for the police to walk with the person while they continue to request the furnishing of some identification document. Almost inevitably, at some point the person refuses to comply in a bad way; this simply happens to be the best way to ensure the cops ask you to accompany them to the station or the kōban. Failing to heed the officer’s request will induce the cops (usually two) to stand by your side and grab your arm as they become sterner in their request to visit the station. This is where things can go wrong sometimes. The person often “breaks loose” from the officers’ hold and demands not to be touched. This is not bad in and of itself and the situation remains manageable. However, there is always some fool who, in addition to freeing themselves, shove the police. When this happens, the person brings about an entirely different game.
