Saturday, October 19, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.490

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The girl who let me join the cool group at junior high was a sister of a senior student who was the most popular girl at school. As we became close, she invited me to her house. While most Japanese houses were wooden, hers was a concrete three-story house with a Western style. There were balconies and each room has an air conditioner. Her sister’s guitar and koto, which is a Japanese classical instrument, were put against the wall in the guestroom. A big poster of Disneyland hung on the ceiling of her own room. In the bathroom, bottles of expensive shampoo and conditioner were standing. Her mother fixed and served salad with her homemade dressing. Her younger sister was eating pickles as a snack, which I wondered if there could possibly be a store in Japan that carried such an exotic food. After dinner, her elder sister, the most popular student at school, took us to the cafe near the house. Every single thing they had and did was what I had never had or done or seen in my house. It looked too good to be true and I felt as if I had been in a TV show. I realized cool girls practiced a city life at home as well as outside. Then, I brought my effort to be cool at school into my home and launched a style reform of my family. I tried to civilize my family, except for my grandparents who looked hopeless, with a city taste. I exhorted them to live in a city taste and began to complain about anything rustic that was found everywhere in the house. I was an avid critic of my family’s old style. I needed to police my family with a city taste every day and in the end, saying a city taste had become my habit at home…

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