14 November 2019
The opposite end of the aeon
Shopping at Aeon Town in Koriyama
It was cold tonight, I didnt take many photos, so time for a rant.
I dont understand why geishas are romanticized as they are. On the one hand, I come from a round eye country where grid girls have been banned at car races, beauty pageants no longer exist, using attractive females in advertising of any kind leads to product boycotts.
Meanwhile in Japan, 15 year old girls are trained to entertain wealthy men and because they do so while painting their face white and wearing a kimono, its considered magical and wonderful, the flower and willow world.
I am aware that they have taken sexual services off the menu, officially, despite former prime minister of Japan Sosuke Uno losing his job in 1985 for providing stingy gifts in exchange for sex to the Geisha Mitsuko Nakanishi. The funniest part about that story is there wasnt outrage for his affair with a Geisha, the outrage was that he did not lavish her with enough gifts! I will assume that no longer happens.
We are still left with the concept of girls and women who are housed under a 'mother', cut off from their families and the outside world, and trained in music, dance and appearance to flirt with wealthy men and make them feel important, for a huge fee. $800 an hour seems to be the going rate.
Wherever I looked online today, I saw only people defending this wonderful practice. Because, tradition. The actual tradition is far worse than the watered down version of what a Geisha now is but I digress.
What I dont understand is, if you go to Tokyo or Osaka or any other big Japanese city, there are young girls, in maid outfits, sometimes with a tail and cat ears, who feed fat guys cheesecake and sing for them in cafes.
Whats the difference? The maid cafe girls get to have lives outside of the cafe, see their friends and family, watch tv, own a phone, have a partner of their choosing etc. Geishas, do not.
Thats enough rant, back to Tokyo for me tomorrow.
I crossed over to the wrong side of the tracks. It was an illuminating experience. These are all hand decorated.
Before long I ended up at Aeon town. A different sort of shopping centre. Lots of big box stores.
The big value store appeared to be a Wal-Mart clone.
My mother said no noodles no curry, so here it is, honey chicken / fish / pork / tofu with vegetables, miso, rice, salad.
One side of Aeon town had a factory outlet kind of setup. And a nice ice cream shop that let me order a 200 yen kiddie cup. They were very confused that I made my selection without tasting them all on disposable plastic spoons.
On my way back, a long exposure. Star beams are not very nice looking, I think f/16 aperture makes them look crappy, should have stuck to f/8. The bullet train goes over head here, and they dont all stop at Koriyama, they go past at full speed. I can also see them from my hotel window. Everything shakes and electricity arcs from the wires. At one time today I think a passing train set off car alarms.