It’s a Hello Kitty World

…and I’m just living in it.

No longer the ‘Land of the Rising Son,’ Japan is now the 'Land of the Cute’ ™ Stewart Johnson. While in the rest of Asia, it is the Year of the Rat; in Japan, it is the Year of the Mouse. I kid you not.

In a recent publication of a magazine targeted to foreigners in Kyushu, there is a Top Ten list of ways to fake Japanese fluency. Number 3 said: Girls, memorize ‘”kawaii.” You are now fluent. If you haven’t guessed it, ‘kawaii’ means ‘cute.’ And the only good to come of this is Stewart’s impression of Japanese girls squealing ‘kawaii!” It's almost worth it.

After Nobie and I went to the ramen shop I was talking about in my last post, she took me cell phone shopping. I basically sat quietly for a half an hour as she talked to the sales girl about purchasing a cell phone for me. Nobie knew that I only really wanted the phone for work and emergency purposes and was hoping to find the cheapest one possible. So, after about seven or eight minutes, the girl goes into the back and comes back with a pink iridescent phone with small white butterflies decorating the outside. I was about to say something when Nobie turned to me and said that it was free. For a split second, I thought about asking if perhaps there were any free phones that weren’t pink, but I thought better of it. So, now I have a pink cell phone that when I close it, white butterflies fly across the cover. It’s very kawaii.

And it starts early. In my first day at school, three second grade girls came into the teachers’ room - all of the teachers have their work desks in one large room along with the Vice Principal and occasionally, the Principal – and through another teacher’s interpreting, told me that I was very cute. Now, ‘cute’ is a term that is usually only ascribed to me by elderly people to whom perhaps anyone younger than fifty is considered a ‘cute, young person .’ I am rarely called ‘cute’ by three little girls who are simply the textbook definition of the word. But since I have resolved not to use that term, I had to tell them that they were adorable. Which, of course, was interpreted into ‘kawaii.’

Like many things, however, what can be considered charming in a young child is rarely as charming when the person grows older. One of the OWLS coordinators that manages my work through the Kikuchi School Board is a young woman perhaps my age. She shadowed me my first day at work to help introductions and make sure that I was comfortable. She also drove me to my first school and afterwards to the school I was going to the next day to ensure I was comfortable with my commute. I don’t believe I can possibly do justice in describing her car, but I will do my best. Here goes.

Like my phone, it has a pale, iridescent pink exterior. Inside, the seats were covered in white leather Hello Kitty covers. On top of that sat a hot pink feathery pillow to sit on. Matching the pillows, which adorn every seat, is a feathery cover for the dash that sat so high, I worried slightly that she couldn’t see the road over it. The steering wheel and every lever exposed were covered with white Hello Kitty covers. The rearview mirror also had a Hello Kitty cover. Decorating the backseat were numerous Hello Kitty pillows and hanging from the handle bars above each window were - you guessed it – Hello Kitty plush dolls. The visual will be burned into brain for as long as I live.

It’s getting late here, so I think I’ll end this. I’m having a great time teaching English to these young, rural children. I promise to talk more about them next post as well as the great food experiences I’ve had recently. One hint: basashi.

- Jenny