March 23, 2007

Bag me a bag

Haha, seems everyone was quite amused by the photo of my co-workers! The dude standing on my left is Mizukawa Sensei and quite a tops bloke. He is heaps laid back and likes to talk about real stuff rather than just how good my chopstick skills are. He suggested that we all make silly faces for the photo and I guess the only person who took him seriously was himself... My principal does have a largish head doesn't he! Speak of the devil, he's just come out to gaze about in here for a few moments. I swear he does absolutely nothing, just like me then! But perhaps a little more concerning because he is supposed to be running the school. He isn't a very hands on principal. At some schools they get involved in everything and run around with the kids at lunch and so on. This bloke just sits in his office and sighs when he has to leave it!

This evening I am going to jump on a train to Hiroshima and have a night out with some mates down there, the last opportunity for fun before I leave this country for good. If there is one thing the Japanese do well, it is bags. They have a million different types of bags here, well made ones too, leather in all sorts of colour, not just boring old black and brown like you seem to get in Oz. I have been keeping a look out for one for months but the stars just never aligned for me. If I find one that I really love, I am not in the mood for spending that much money on a bag, if I am in the mood, I can't find one that I love! Might be better off leaving it for Seoul actually, something tells me the Koreans will have plenty of bag action happening too. It's a bit hard to explain, the Japanese obsession with bags. I mean, in Oz everyone carries handbags too after all. But here it just seems a bit more like a hobby rather than simply an easier way to cart your shit around. It is not uncommon to see a girl walking around with 2 or 3 largish (in my opinion) bags hanging off her arm. And rather than hold the straps of the bag in their hand, they will bend their arm and make a hook out of it and hang the bags from it. I have no idea what they are carrying in these bags or why they need to be so big, but they just often are ridiculously over-bagged (that is totally a word). One problem seems to be that they don't believe in backpacks. They are fine if you are going backpacking, or are a school child, but it seems that women my age, just on their way to work, do not use backpacks - not stylish enough. Granted most women my age on their way to work are wearing a suit and tottering on high heels and stockings, not a look complimented by a backpack. But even when I was at uni here, all my Japanese friends would be dragging around heavy bags, dangling them off their arms, knocking about their legs - it's not very practical. It's not just real bags either, they love a shopping bag and will re-use it again and again, just to put their green tea bottle in, or their umbrella when they go out. I should point out that shopping bags here are not plastic rustlers like at home, they are full on glossy cardboard numbers with cord handles. I have a cupboard full of them at home because whenever someone gives you something it must be in such a bag. The more prestigious the name on the bag, the better too. Someone who has never been overseas in her life once gave me a peach in a Harrods bag. I would have been happy to stick the peach in my backpack!

Well, that became quite long winded didn't it! It's the small differences.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i just got a great little brown bag - exactly what i was looking for!!