Home » Japan » Deafened by the Roar of Pachinko ... or how to embarrass lesbians without really trying

I was always under what was probably a poorly uninformed impression that Japan was a quiet, understated country. In my few (wasted) years in high school Japanese class I learnt about the culture of a quiet people, who respected tradition and weren’t amenable to the loud, disrespectful ways of us Westerners (hence the trainee Japanese teacher who came on exchange to Maclean High School for a few months and after one period of our Year Nine elective Japanese class she was so shaken by our loud and outrageous behaviour she took off the remainder of the week and steeled herself against any further aural assaults by refusing to come to any more of our classes).

Deafened by the Roar of Pachinko ... or how to embarrass lesbians without really trying

Patrick Gatland
2007-01-23 12:54:33

Displayed times (last time: ) Rating 5/5

Rating: 5.00 out of 5.00. 1 members have rated this article

strong to the “experience” of shopping itself. One day a few mates and I decided to head out to Odaiba to explore. A very wise Japan expert had explained to me that Odaiba was “kind of like Darling Harbour (Sydney’s nasty harbour side shopping centre) on steroids”. Although aptly warned with this description I was still unprepared for what I found there. Any area that has Japan’s largest Ferris wheel, a miniature Statue of Liberty and a Toyota showroom that let you book and test drive super futuristic cars was certainly going to be high on the tack scale. And although I had been lulled into a sense of tranquility by very nice views of Tokyo city and harbour I was still unprepared for what I was to discover in the “Venus Fort” shopping centre.

Have you ever had an experience where you were in a building (usually a shopping centre or the headquarters of the Australian Liberal Party) and no matter what you tried to do you couldn’t get out? The labyrinth of consumerism and evil policies seemed to point you always tantalizing to the outside but never to an actual exit? Whichever way you turned you found yourself faced with another GAP, GAP Kids, Baby GAP or some much maligned Peter Costello figure gnashing his teeth at you and screaming that the door you are desperately banging your fists on is an emergency exit only and an alarm will sound if you use it? Well how could it possible get any worse? How about if the shopping mall you are in has (in a moment of Japanese sense gone mad) painted faux blue skies and fluffy, pink tinged clouds on
the ceiling and made each shop front and the mallways represent the buildings and canals of Venice? I’m not sure why but there was a heightened sense of claustrophobia knowing that the azure blue above me was just Formica that was ready to crash on my head at the slightest moment I considered not buying something. To make matters worse (or just to mark the difference between me and the rest of those in ...