Akihabara and Foot Traffic

My first week of teaching was good, but utterly exhausting! As a GTA during my Masters program, I only had to teach for two hours a day for 4 or 5 days a week. Now, I'm teaching three or four and a half hours a day. Although, I know that the first weeks of starting a new semester anywhere are a little exhausting. For the most part, my classes are great. Most classes are relatively high level and full of energy! It's just a matter of harnessing that energy into successful classrooms!

There is a standardized curriculum with pre-made lesson plans. Each pre-made lesson plan consists of suggestions and a few items that must be taught, but most of the lesson plan is optional. However, this has been both a blessing and a curse. When I was writing my own lesson plans from scratch, I could picture the entire progression of the lesson in my head. But now that I'm using a mix of some elements of the pre-made lesson plans, some supplementary materials created by other teachers, and some of my own, the progression and structure of the lesson plan isn't always clear to me until I've looked over everything a few times.

After our first week of teaching, I went out with my work colleagues for a end-of-the-week happy hour. The next day, a few of us went to Akihabara which is an absolute haven for young Japanese men and boys. There are arcades, manga (Japanese comic books) stores, and scantily clad women advertising "maid" cafes. These maid cafes are actually cafes, not a euphemism for something more salacious. Essentially, young women dress as maids and dote on customers. Nothing more than that. Since tipping is not done here in Japan, the maids are incentivized by customers buying gift packages for the maids, so popular maids get more gift packages. However, I'm not sure what exactly these gift packages consist of...make-up kits, possibly?

In any case, it was probably the most culturally shocked I've been since arriving in Japan. Being in Akihabara brought to mind a couple social phenomena that I read about before coming to Japan:  "herbivore men" and "hikkikomori".

Herbivore men are Japanese men who have decided not to pursue relationships with women. I haven't read anything conclusive as to why there is a growing subset of young men who are uninterested in romantic relationships, but there has been speculation that there are a couple of reasons: 1. the scarcity of full-time employment, and 2. the relative increase of successful career-minded women. I've read that financial stability is often a prerequesite for women to be interested in men in Japan. Since part-time work has become so much more common, financial stability has become more difficult for men. Additionally, I've read that many Japanese men are not attracted to powerful, independent women.

Overlapping with the herbivore men are the "hikkikomori". "Hikkikomori" are young Japanese people who isolate themselves and essentially become hermits. Again, there is nothing conclusive about why this has been happening to young people, but researchers speculate that it has to do with the pressures of modern Japanese society. Instead of face competition in the work place or at school and deal with potential failure, many young Japanese people have been isolating themselves in their rooms or apartments.

I wonder if many of these men, whether herbivore men or hikkikomori (or both), come to a place like Akihabara. I imagine that the extreme hikkikomori may never leave their house. However, Akihabara seems like a large playground of escapism for these type of men. Young men can recede from the pressures of society into the fantasy world that Akihabara has to offer: into comics, into games, and into fantasy situations with women. It seems likely.

As a side note, Akihabara was incredibly over-stimulating: lots of flashing lights, loud noises, and people everywhere. The latter has been a by-product of my exhaustion from being out and about. I find that I'm constantly avoiding running into people in crowded areas like Shinjuku or Shibuya. Whereas in the US we always walk on the right side of the sidewalk, that is not so firmly established here. Even the "lazer eyes"* that I've read about in the UK doesn't seem to work here. Instead, people sort of just follow the flow of foot traffic, which could be on either side. This makes it difficult to navigate in crowded areas where people are going in multiple directions, like busy train stations.

I don't want it to seem like I'm complaining, but I think it's interesting! People of some countries have a strong preference for one side of the sidewalk or the other, but some countries don't have a strong preference for one side or or the other.

* I read, and confirmed with British friends, that if you have a determined look in your eyes and your body language says, "I have to be somewhere pretty damn soon", people will automatically part for you like Moses with the Red Sea.