| Teenagers |
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| This is not so much about Japan as it is a universal phenomenon- TEENAGERS!
They share universal traits wherever they may be and the most common one
is they are a mystery to adults who have forgotten that we were just like
them many moons ago. I now have the pleasure to have close encounters of the teenager kind every month or more when Koji's "little ones" come over for the weekend. First there's the daughter. She's almost 16 going on 20. A cute, chipper, bubbly teenager who could out-talk a parrot. She is fashion conscious, ear-pierced (a no-no in Japanese high schools), heavily made-up, boyfriend toting thing who turns into a kid when she turns on the charm to coax spending money out of dear ole Dad. The other teenager is a thirteen year-old boy. This needs almost no other explanation. He just slinks silently around the house rather like a shadow in baggy rapper clothes. He only speaks when he's asking his father to buy some more expensive rapper clothes. Now if you're not familiar with this fashion let me fill you in. first there's the pants- rappers have to wear shorts because they let their pants hang at about or below the hip fully exposing all underwear above the fly when they reach up. This results in shorts whose legs (i.e. the crotch area) start at about the knee and finish at about above the ankle. If rappers wore regular length jeans you can imagine that they would have great difficulty actually walking. Then there's the shirt- like the pants, it is also worn loosely and it must be several sizes too big or the shoulders will not sufficiently hang on the elbows. It is usually a T-shirt so that the hands will actually protrude in order to manipulate internet and Eminem CDs with ease. All of this, although it looks like a thrifty, oversized, used clothing, usually comes in price ranges that scare parents into premature cardiac arrest. Jinya, the rapper shadow, has tried valiantly to get his father to buy him a $100 T-shirt but to no avail. So back to the shadow that sometimes inhabits our house. He's starting to speak on occasion and last week he cracked a smile, and because Koji has been taking him to exotic restaurants (i.e. fancier than local noodle joints and burger shops) he has surprisingly good table manners compared to other rappers around him. We three wandered into a rather fancy restaurant last week by accident (lucky they let us in as we were all in shorts though at least Koji's and mine fit) and ordered a 5 course French meal. He wielded his cutlery with ease and knew to ask how to eat food he wasn't familiar with. When we get him out of the rapper get-up and get him into a suit he'll make a fine young man (at least at a table he will). Now we are stumped as to how to entertain them when they come over, but
we try our best to give them some various experiences.
I had taken the daughter to the beach last year and showed her the wonders of snorkelling so when I offered to take her this year she hopped at the chance.  Well this year she didn't just bob and observe but went scampering off
on the rocks for a stick. Next thing I knew, she was rooting sea urchins
out and collecting them. Now, the Japanese like raw seafood so she scampered
back up on the hot rocks cracked one open with a sharp rock and just ate
it right there! This make-up caked, fashionable boy-crazy teenager turned
into a real predator right before my very eyes!After determining the taste, she then went back to gather more for her brother and Dad back home. All the whilst I was still bobbing and looking at other things on the sea floor. This could be a frugal form of entertainment when "the shadow's" voracious appetite hits him in a year or so. |
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