Explore everyday life in Japan
It’s hard to explain the small, but everyday differences about Japan because, even though they are obvious, they are very subtle and very deep. The subtlety of these differences and their cultural depth often leaves foreigners in Japan with the awareness that something is different, but like a word that sits on the tip of your tongue, the actual difference remains just out of reach.
For example, take record shopping in Japan. Many people have said that it is different, and for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is probably related to the quality and condition of the records themselves. How is it that records, many over thirty and forty years old now, can still be in nearly mint condition after having been owned, played, and having changed hands? And how is it that they can be sold with original record sleeves, album covers, and promotional posters?
I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m going to venture a guess. Things in Japan are typically assigned a purpose. Having a purpose, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways and times to use these things. One of the reasons why I think so many people ride ordinary bicycles around Japan as opposed to BMX style bikes and mountain bikes is because ordinary bicycles are thought of as the appropriate bicycle to use when riding around a town or a city. While riding to the station or to your friend’s house, you don’t need to do tricks and you most likely won’t be riding off-road, so you don’t need a BMX style bike or a mountain bike.
Likewise, records are things that have been relegated as a collector’s item. They are considered precious and of value, not only in a monetary sense, but in regard to their owner’s status as well. Records have a real ‘legitimacy factor’, and their condition is related to this. As a result, records have a specific way they should be handled. There is a way to care for them. There is a way to transport them.
Growing up in the States, I can’t tell you how many people I knew who owned records but didn’t own a record box for carrying their records around in. On countless occasions, I saw records thrown into backpacks, left sitting horizontally on car seats for days on end, crammed into milk crates and whatever else they fit in. In Japan, it seems to me that everyone I know who owns records has at least one, if not a number of record cases for holding and transporting records safely through any kind of weather. Many people also have wheel carts to help them safely pull their heavy record cases around with them.
It is just the way it is here. If you are going to collect records in Japan, you are going to be a record collector, and being a record collector requires that you have certain accessories. It requires that you approach records in a certain way. It is much more than just being a music fan and a vinyl buff. Yet it is the same. But in a very deep way, it is different.
For excellent thoughts on music from a Japan based DJ, please check out this blog Raw Select Music.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.