| Megan Starr is the Transgender Express's roving reporter. Megan is quite a little jet setter and this issue she's getting the low down on Tokyo. |
| Hi Everyone Megan Starr here...I've just spent a few months in Japan and boy! what a great place it is..so much to see and such nice people.... Now where shall I start...I know 'drag' of course. |
| Well drag plays a major role in the Japanese club scene and the drag queens I saw all looked great.. Some were wering traditional kimono but most were wearing modern styles. However all of them were naturally slim and hairless (lucky things). Talking about traditional styles.. It's possible to be made up as a meiko san (apprentice geisha), white face, cherry red lips and jet black wig if you go to the right places....Heaven! |
| Next we have a real Tokyo youth culture phenomenum 'The Shibuya look'.Shibuya style is Japan's answer to punk. This may same a strange thing to say but in a conformist society the 'Shibuya' style and attitude is very daring. The guys streak their hair, wear fake tan, Hawaiin shirts and wear lots of gold looking uncannily like George Michael and Andrew Ridgely in Wham's Club Tropicana days. It's the girls, 'Shibuya Girls', however who take the biscuit. Also known as 'brown girls' because of the heavy fake tan they wear they have a look which is part Hawaiin beach look, part American Trailer Trash, part 60's fashion, with a dash of Jody Foster a la 'Taxi Driver' in the mix. Do you get the picture? Streaked or bleached hair, false eyelashes, coloured contact lenses, micro mini skirts and platform shoes. Finally add the arrogant strutting peacock attitude of Joh Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and that's Shibuya style. Love it!! |
| And if the hustle and bustle of Tokyo is getting to you you can always escape to one of the many beautiful temples around Japan. Mmmmm hanging lanterns gentle swaying in the breeze, a moss garden.... |
| What do you get if you cross modern technology with witchcraft and a deep dark well? Don't know....Just one of the most successful Japanese horror movies of all time that's all... The publicity for 'Ring' makes the immodest claim that it 'makes Blair Witch Project look like a stroll in the park'. This is a horror film that tapped into two of Japan's enduring loves, modern technology and the spirit world. By basing the horror on and around videos, videotapes and television, the scarey bits seem all the more tangible and more plausible than they would be in a more fantastic context. In the same way that 'Jaws' scared audiences out of the water 25 years ago 'Ring' will make you think twice before playing an unmarked video...and as for wells.... |
| Lastly we turn to Japanese literature. While I was in Japan I read 'Kitchen' by Banana Yoshimoto. It was a revelation....Not a great deal happens in the book but the author manages to infuse everyday life with the marvellous and the supernatural, transporting the reader into a landscape where life is poetic and magnificent. 'Kitchen' is made up of two stories 'Kitchen' and 'Moonlight Shadow', both dealing with the subject of people coming to terms with the death of a loved one. However this is not a depressing book, far from it. It carries the message that without experiencing loss and despair how can one really know what joy is. Mikage Sakurai has recently lost her grandmother (her last living relative) and is invited to stay with Yuichi Tanabe (a young acquaintance) and his glamourous mother Erico who used to be his father. Mikage describes her first meeting with Eriko.. " This was his mother? Dumbfounded I couldn't take my eyes off her. Hair that rustled like silk to her shoulders; the deep sparkle of her long, narrow eyes; well formed lips, a nose with a high, straight bridge - the whole of her gave off a marvellous light that seemed to vibrate with life force. She didn't look human..." Eriko lives an unconventional life as a nightclub owner but she is not judged harshly for this or for her sex change. "Because she hates to do things halfway, she had everything done, from her face to her whatever, and with the money she had left over she bought that nightclub.." The story tells of Mikages ease with and attachment to her new family and shows that a 'family unit' can be made up of any individuals love and acceptance being the important elements. Interesting, uplifting and full of the beauty of life, I recommend 'Kitchen' to you strongly. "..Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart. I know about that." |
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