Japanese Fashion

In a previous post, I mentioned I had been shopping at the base thrift store for Japanese clothing items. On my birthday, I went to a Japanese version of Ross and went on a shopping spree. The store is called "Paseos" and sells clothing items from 300 yen to about 1400 yen, or about $4 to about $16. I got so many cool clothes. I decided to post all my finds (thrift store and Paseos) so everyone can see why I'm in love with Japanese dresses and shirts (not so crazy about their pants or shorts). I chose just a few of my favorites.

This is a shirt I bought from the thrift store. It's a jersey material and the hem line falls below your hips. I plan to wear it with black leggings and boots. The hood is lined with a striped fabric. Although the stomach and hip area are roomy, the sleeves and chest are meant to fit a small girl between the sizes of 0-6.

The previous two pictures are of a shirt I bought at Paseos. The English makes no sense. It says, "California, Bird Humming, Blue Moon Bay." Although this shirt is boxy and marked as a "L" it's meant for a girl size 0-4. The hem falls about mid-hip.

Another shirt I bought from Paseos. Once again, the English word makes no sense. I think it says Civiced. the pink areas are cats in various playful poses. The length falls about mid-hip. Once again, this is a fairly small shirt, although it appears rather puffy.

This is one of the biggest shirts I bought from Paseos.  The English of course, dosen't make sense. It says, "Big love as soon as maybe get it!" It's a long shirt and the hem falls below the hip. I plan to wear this one with black leggings and boots during the fall.

This shirt was on sale for 300 yen. It says, "Notable." It's a pretty tiny shirt and the hem falls to the hips.

This is a dress and I love it so much. I bought this one at Paseos. The writing says, "Measures Establishment" and "Environment Boundaries." The bottom of the dress has two lace ruffles sewn into the hem. This dress is super cute. I'm sure Japanese girls would wear it with leggings, but I think it looks great by itself.

This is a thrift store find. The pattern is a little crazy and the dress is big, but with boots it looks cute.

This is a tank top I found at the base thrift store. The outside of the tank is wool, with braided wool straps. The inside of the tank is lined with silk. It's long and the hem falls below the hips. This looks great with jeans or leggings.

Now, to answer a few questions you may have:

Why doesn't the English make sense?

The English alphabet is called "rooma-ji." It's primarily used for design fodder. This means the makers of the clothes are more concerned about the letters having the right shapes rather than making sense. It's similar to us finding a "Japanese" vase at Wal-Mart and thinking, "Ohhh...that's beautiful! Look at the decorative Japanese writing!" then showing it to a Japanese friend only to find out it's just a bunch of characters crammed together for decoration, it actually has no meaning.

Why are the shirts so long?

It's kind of the style right now in Japan. The Japanese women tend to wear clothes that are conservative on top (no cleavage, long) and less conservative on the bottom. In the US, we tend to be the opposite. Also, I'm really into the leggings and boots look, so it's my personal preference that my shirts be long. There are shorter shirts in Japan, but it's not particuarly my style.

What size are the shirts?

The Japanese have a terrible clothes measuring system and almost everything is marked "M"..although it may truly be an American small or large. Although most of the shirt I bought are long and roomy in the middle, the shoulders, sleeve openings and torso area are meant for a smaller woman. The first shirt I posted has incredibly small sleeves, almost to the point of it being uncomfortable around my arm.

Oof. A language rant.

I think being a native English speaker and learning Japanese is probably one of the hardest learning processes. The Japanese language and it's grammar structure is a far cry from the English language. 

Too often, native English speakers want Japanese word A to equal English word A and furthermore, they want Japanese sentence A to equal English sentence A. For lower level, entry words and phrases, this can work, but when you get to the higher levels (expressing thoughts, actions, feelings, etc), you have to start thinking more in terms of thoughts. Language learners have to forget the whole "this word = that word" equation and start working on, "How do I express this idea in Japanese?" So basically, you're working thought for thought instead of word for word.

Where "word for word" ideals becomes particularly sticky is learning the Kanji. Japanese has three alphabets: Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are fairly easy to learn as each symbol represents a sound, much like the English alphabet. Simple.

Kanji however, is more complicated. Each symbol can represent a series of sounds or one sound. Additionally, there are several way to interpret many of the Kanji characters. The way English speakers want to learn Kanji is by saying, "This symbol stands for fire." 

  

Here's the issue with that: the Japanese language has no word "fire"...so how can a Japanese symbol stand for a word that does not exist in their language? Notice I didn't say they have no word FOR fire...just the word "fire" itself does not exist in the language. Fire is an English word. 

However, the root of the Kanji symbol is the Japanese word for fire (ka)...so when you see the Kanji whose root is "ka" (which means fire) the sound you should think of is "ka." You should not think, "Oh, this Kanji means fire." because it does not. It means "ka."

火 = ka

So now, you can take the Kanji for "ka" and make other words, such as: 火曜日(kayoobi or Tuesday).

I'm really not too upset about it, but I think it's important not to get caught up in trying to make Kanji mean an English word. Kanji is simply symbols for different series of sounds.

Secondhand Rose

The thrift store on the American base in Yokosuka is called Secondhand Rose. It's only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2 and the 2nd Saturday of every month. Additionally, the staff takes a hiatus for all the major school holidays (for example, they'll be closed from July 14 - August 14 for summer break).

The space inside is small, consisting of one large room, a hallway and three smaller rooms. Due to limited space, the staff takes great care to put only sell-able items out on the floor. In this regard, it's like a boutique. You won't find a mustard yellow puffy-sleeve mini-skirt style prom dress. After shopping at the thrift store once, I was hooked.

My favorite thing about this thrift store is the wide variety of Japanese items you can get for dirt cheap. On my first trip to the store, I got about 20 small Japanese tupperware dishes that I use for sauces and small serving size snack containers.

On the next trip, I racked in a few Japanese tank tops (you can tell because the labels are written entirely in Japanese), a couple of Japanese summer dresses, a Japanese mug that was obviously a freebie from a bank and a number of tote bags.

This past trip, I loaded up with a few more skirts and tops (some Japanese, one from American Eagle and one from Aeropostale) and found a mug someone bought as a souvenir from Amsterdam.

On each trip, I never spend more than $20. If anyone out there (who lives in Yokosuaka) has never been to this thrift store, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

A few words of advice:

- They only take US dollars (no yen, checks or plastic cards).
- The space is pretty small and many people bring their kids, so watch out for roaming babies and toddlers.
- They have one fitting room that's just some sheets hung around a metal divider, it offers no privacy.
- Check all items before you buy as they do not accept returns or exchanges.

It feels good to have a routine.

John and I went to NYC a little over a year ago. While there, I met up with a wonderful friend of mine who graduated college with a Fine Arts degree and moved to NYC to make her dreams come true. She fills her time with auditions and various odd jobs (guitar playing, small shows, modeling) to help pay her rent. When we arrived in NYC, one of the first things she did was apologize and say, "You know, when you work in a city, you never really get to see much of it." Now, take that mentality and apply it to a whole country.

I would say after almost a year of living here, John and I have finally found a routine that works. Since we've been married we've made three major moves and this move was the hardest. It seemed like everyday was a new crisis or a new rule we had to learn. I worked for a little bit and then I stopped working. John's job has him shuffling around to different duties.

Finally, after a year, we've settled into a pretty easy routine. One of the bad things about a routine is that you don't often break out of it. We have to have money to see Japan (and quite a bit of money as Tokyo was named the most expensive city in the world), you have to work to make money, you don't get to travel at a whim when you're working. It's the ultimate Catch-22.

We have some upcoming trips planned that I'll blog about and hopefully things will get more interesting. Last month, I didn't take any community center courses because any extra money went to paying our road tax and car insurance (about $600) as car insurance here is paid by the year, you are required to pay all the money upfront.

I'm hoping to sign up for some community center courses this month, specifically the flower arranging and art course. Just thought I'd give a little update and let everyone know things are okay!