Opinion

Seeing Tokyo through new eyes

By Caroline Pover

My 12-year-old niece, Megan, just visited me for two weeks with her mother (my younger sister, Kristy). It was a great experience for me as well as for my niece because this was her first visit to Japan, and I have never really had the chance to see Japan through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl.

Her first impression was how kind everyone was. Even when I picked them up after their flight, Megan commented on how different Narita airport was from Heathrow, how organized everything was, how friendly all the staff were, but most of all how CLEAN everything was! Heathrow, along with any form of public transport in the U.K., just seems so dirty and disorganized when you compare it with Japan! I think I have got used to Japan now and probably take it for granted, so it was nice to appreciate how clean and organized everything is here!

The other thing was how patient everyone is here, evenin times of potential stress! For example, we went to Odaiba to see the Tokyo Bay fireworks, after which there were HUGE queues trying to get to the train station to go back home. Another example was during our trip to Disneyland. We went during peak season so there were young children everywhere, and queues up to two hours long for some rides! In both situations, everybody waited calmly and patiently, and Megan commented that that would be very unusual in the U.K.

One of Megan's favorite things to do was karaoke - we went three times in the space of ten days! We have karaoke in the U.K., but it is usually in bars (where children cannot go) and usually with a stage, so you have to sing in front of lots of strangers. So for her to be able to sing just with her mum, myself and a few of my friends was great fun for her! She knew many of the songs that her mum and I used to sing when we were her age, because there have been so many covers of them since. So it was really nice for us all to sing those songs together.

I had never noticed how much pink there is in Japan! Megan's favorite color is pink - I think everything she owns is pink! So when she came here she was naturally interested in all the pink stuff you can find in all the shops - I hadn't realized there was so much of it!

As a surprise I planned for Megan to be dressed up in kimono at a place in Harajuku that does your makeup and clothes just like a maiko. That was really exciting for Megan, and she turned into a little lady as soon as she had all the clothes on. We took some beautiful photos in the Japanese garden there and my sister was quite tearful when she saw Megan tottering around in her kimono.

When I asked Megan what her favorite part of the trip was, she thought for a while, then replied that the best thing was that she had realized that she wants to live in Japan when she is older. Then it was my turn to get tearful! So now I hope to bring Megan here every summer, and have her study Japanese in the mornings, and do some work experience in my office during the afternoons. This would be an amazing experience for her, and a very unusual one for a British teenager as we don't have much contact with Japan as schoolkids in the U.K. I had no idea that this holiday would become a life-changing one for my niece!

Shukan ST: Sept. 3, 2004

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