The girl on the train

There she sat, on the bench across from my friend and I, on a local train through Kamakura full of returning salary-men and construction workers. Almost 6pm. Somewhere between 17 and 27 – hard to tell, she was wearing one of the ubiquitous germ-masks, so common in Japanese crowded public spaces. not a high school student, or at least not in uniform, but wearing a very personally thought out bulky, loose-fitting, almost too big jacket and long dress outfit that must have started as a tribute to 1960’s girls high school uniforms and ended up as a  uniform for a secret society of ninja library science students.

I mumbled something to my friend, but she vigorously enforces all the rules of proper behaviour in Japanese trains and gawking at the acting-out fashion is not something done, so she shhhh’s me.

“Look”, I whisper out of the corner of my big stupid gaijin mouf: “look at what she is reading!”

On her lap, the girl on the train has a big bulky nondescript purse-bag and is rifling through it, pulling out one BL tankoubon after another, as if trying to decide which to read while indulging in a little public show of “what the fuck are YOU ALL looking at?!?!”

Priceless!

Keep up the good work kiddo, wherever you are!

In keeping with that moment, here’s a link to a new-ish post on TOKYO DAMAGE REPORT that just plain rocks.

http://www.hellodamage.com/top/2013/02/15/the-mother-of-all-japanthropology-posts/

Oh and hunt for his music links and download the rock operas.. they are big fun too.

That’s all, shitloads of theory and fanning next post.