Japan in Motion---Pro-web casting from across Japan.

Strange Habits

■Japanese Men’s Fashion

In the first Japan Lowdown segment, Yoon from Korea talks about being startled by Japanese men’s hairstyles when he first arrived in Hiroshima. While young Korean men tended to wear their hair short and neat, Japanese men of the same generation wore dyed, shaggy hairstyles.

Youth fashion in Japan changes so rapidly that by the time a trend is identified it’s often already on its way out. Japanese fashion trends tend to start in certain urban centers, with Tokyo taking the lead, and radiate outward, sometimes lingering in smaller, more far-flung cities years after they’ve vanished from the streets where they began.

Generally, though, young Japanese men tend to be more preoccupied with their appearance than many western men. High school boys trim their eyebrows between classes; college guys linger at department store mirrors mussing their hair, and young salarymen in their weekend ensembles strut through the shopping districts adjusting Prada shoulder bags.

The more outrageous youth fashions get a lot more attention than they merit. They’re really minor trends, and very few young men walk around in visual-kei rock get-up. Jeans and a t-shirt are far more common. Casual, skateboarder looks are popular, as are hip-hop styles.

But the hairstyle that Yoon mentions is probably one of the first things a visitor will notice. Many Japanese men, and not just the young, have their hair dyed a sort of orange-brown color and cut in layers that, with the help of hair wax and nimble fingers, becomes a tangled, spiky crown that really does look a bit messy at first. Like everything else, of course, you get used to it quickly. As Yoon says, he’s even begun wearing his own hair this way, as have men across East Asia. Whatever else may be true about Japan’s relationships with its neighbors, it is definitely a regional leader in style.

■Japanese and the Peace Sign

People have a lot of crazy ideas about the Japanese, and almost any traveler to Japan will find herself revising her views of the country on an almost minute by minute basis. But if you’ve ever heard that Japanese people always flash the peace sign in photos, you weren’t misled. They really do, and no one is sure why. If you want proof, just approach almost any group of young women in Japan, raise your camera, and see for yourself.

One often repeated theory is that American figure skater Janet Lynn, appearing in the 1972 Sapporo Olympics, tapped into the Japanese fondness for the underdog by tumbling on the ice and taking third place, smiling all the while.

Lynn would flash the peace sign for the Japanese press, and the gesture quickly caught on. Others claim that saying “peace” or “ni” (the number two in Japanese) forces the mouth into a smile, and the gesture is just thrown in for good measure. My favorite explanation, offered by several women, is that making a peace sign in front of your face is a good way for high school girls to hide a pimple or two, and that making the sign near your chin makes your face appear longer and thinner in photos.

But really, if you ask most Japanese, they’ll just say it’s cute, or that everyone does it. My daughter began making the peace sign in photos when she was two years old, without any prompting from her Japanese mother or me. For the next generation, at least, it looks as though the peace sign is here to stay.

Shooting Location: HACHIRO'S BAR

hachiro

>>Access
Takata Bld. 2F,5-15 Nakamachi, Nakaku, Hiroshima

TEL: 082-246-3086

Bus
Hiroshima Station====(Hiroden bus (green bus No. 3, 4, or 6), 20min.)====Fukuromachi===(on foot, 5 min.)===HACHIRO's BAR

Streetcar
Hiroshima Station====(Streetcar No.1, 25 min.)====Fukuromachi===(on foot, 5 min.)===HACHIRO's BAR

>>Open Hours
6:00 p.m. - 3:00 a.m.

>>Holidays
Sunday

>>Map
Hiroshima Downtown Map>>>Click here to view

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-Matt Mangham