Krispy Kreme Shinjuku Opening

I normally don't do posts like this but my husband happened to be nearby at the time of the opening and I sent the camera with him. Please click on any picture to open up a much larger shot. He got these shots of the first day. They were taken around 12:30 pm. As you can see, the shop is pretty large.


Here is the first line. My husband counted and said that there were about 200 people in line, counting this line and the second part of the line, as will be seen below. Considering that this is not something which is available for a limited time or is on sale to the first x number of people, it's rather impressive that people would bother to do this. When my husband asked how long it would take to clear the line and get in for donuts, he was told it would be 2 hours. Needless to say, he didn't get any. He's keen to get them, but not quite that keen.

My husband said that he felt that this line is exactly what the Krispy Kreme people wanted for their opening day to generate publicity. He felt the promotion (which I described in a previous post) was specifically designed to get this type of result. Apparently this too was successful, as he saw a man with a large video camera and a tripod, with an armband indicating that he worked for one of Tokyo's main TV stations.


When a new shop or business opens in Japan, these types of flowers are displayed outside. A shop near our house actually cleans and prepares these sorts of things.


There's someone with a video camera shooting in the center and a very happy woman with a huge quantity of donuts on the left. I believe each of those boxes has a dozen donuts. I have no idea what anyone would do with 8 dozen donuts unless they were taking them back to the office with them. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some offices would give leave to office ladies to wait in line for something this frivilous. Office ladies in my former company would often run out for an hour or so for far less "momentous" events.


Here's the second line that snaked around the building. They're a pretty orderly bunch. One of my husband's students said that she believes Japanese people sometimes see a line and assume anything that people choose to wait in line for must be pretty good. She said she thinks some people don't even know all that much about what they're waiting for but just join in (if they have some free time). Even so, some Japanese at his office were equally mystified that such a long line would form for donuts.


And finally, it's the end of the line. The sign that poor guy is holding says "end of the line". I can't imagine a much crappier job than having to stand around for hours holding a sign like that. My husband said that he was pretty prompt about moving the sign backwards when more people got in line, pushing the end further back.

"I Know How American High School Kids Live...

...because I have watched Beverly Hills 90210." Believe it or not, quite a few students have said this to me. My reaction is somewhere between incredulity and horror though I keep that under wraps. It's pretty important for Japanese people to understand we don't all grow up rich, white, manipulative, and promiscuous with a colorful cadre of close rich white friends and friendly token ethnic friends.

Even though the show went off the air in the U.S. six years ago, it is still ran consistently on cable television (on a woman-oriented channel called LaLa) in Japan. In fact, it appears to be sufficiently popular that, as of 2 years ago, aging cast members were still visiting Japan to promote the show and special behind the scenes shows about the series continue to be shown. That means the show continues to "educate" the Japanese about youth culture in the U.S. to this day. I'm guessing that the O.C. will usurp that role eventually but manage not to portray life any more accurately.

While discussing prejudice, ethnicity and poverty, one of my students told me that she thought all white people in America were middle class or rich. I have to wonder to what extent the aforementioned types of shows foster this erroneous belief or if this particular student has a much more skewed viewpoint than most Japanese people. She felt that only black people were poor. The fact that her black college teacher has reinforced the idea that blacks are constantly living in poor conditions and at an economic disadvantage has probably fueled that notion but it's no more true that all blacks are poor than all whites are rich.

While I used to see my students as quite naive for their notions that U.S. television programs reflected real life in any way, I'm pretty sure now that other cultures and Asians in particular are misunderstood or stereotyped no less by Americans based on how they are portrayed on T.V. While we don't see as much culture imported wholesale into the U.S. from other countries, we do see distorted American views of them inserted into U.S. T.V. programs. This is sometimes for comic effect (e.g., Monty Python's depiction of Chinese and Japanese), it's sometimes fairly earnest and, on older shows, rather racist by current standards.

Given the number of old American shows on Japanese cable, I've at times stumbled on some pretty overt racist statements which were not seen as such at that time. On the old show Quincy M.E., Robert Ito portrayed an assistant for a dozen and a half shows and, at one point, Dr. Quincy remarks on how "inscrutable" he is. In Star Trek, the character of Sulu, being Japanese (yet not having a Japanese name), knew how to use a sword and the character of Keiko on Star Trek the Next Generation seemed to have grown up with less exposure to western culture than Japanese people in our era. Being Japanese, she had to wear her hair with sticks stuck in it, eat food from the sea, grow bansai trees (though to be fair, she was a botanist), and get married in a kimono.

These portrayals seem to be beating us over the head with the characters' ethnicity but I'm pretty sure that the writers didn't realize how trite their characterizations were. Just like my students know Americans from shows like Beverly Hills 90210, those writers know Japan from things like Shogun. Among U.S. television shows, the only one that gets it right is "The Simpsons" though, of course, they exaggerate things for comic effect.

K Minus 14 Hours and Counting

In about 14 hours, Japan's first Krispy Kreme will open in Shinjuku (Southern Terrace). I'm not so excited about it that I'm keeping a count-down but the Japanese Krispy Kreme web site is set up to do so, so it seems in the spirit of things.

The main reason I'm so aware of this is that my husband works about a 5-minute walk away from the soon-to-be-opened shop. Last week, employees wheeled out carts full of boxes of their raised glazed donuts and gave away entire boxes to passers-by on the streets. My husband didn't get one but a few of his coworkers did and they shared them with the rest of the office. He brought one home for me to try. I was struck by its freshness, which is, after all Krispy Kreme's main selling point in the U.S. There is something different about the donut itself as well. It was much more evenly-raised and not as tough as some raised donuts I sometimes encounter in Japan.

The first person in line for the donuts tomorrow morning will get a dozen free donuts a week for a year and the first 100 will get free T-shirts. I'm not sure how insane the Japanese will be at the prospect of what will amount to about 70,000 yen worth of free donuts but I wouldn't be shocked at all to learn that someone might decide to sit out in the cold all night for that honor.

While I'm sure that there will be a fair amount of hoopla and patronage of the shop early on, I do wonder about the long-term viability of another donut chain in Japan. The freshness will be a plus but Dunkin' Donuts has already lost out to the ever popular Mister Donut in Japan and succeeding in Tokyo takes a lot of business on a daily basis given the high cost of renting space in high traffic areas such as Shinjuku.

Mister Donut has done a good job of finding ways to cater to the Japanese market. This is due, in part, to offering some menu items that uniquely appeal to the Japanese market but it may be more likely that, in a country that almost universally shuns the notion of a free refill, they offer free refills of their (abysmal quality) coffee. In Japan, where many young people can't find privacy in their own home, the ability to linger in restaurants for hours on end nursing a drink is one of the things patrons value most. It's a lot harder to kick people out when you offer bottomless cups. (Incidentally, the reason that young people sometimes can't find privacy in many cases is that they live with their families for far longer than western kids. It's not unusual to find kids residing with their parents up until marriage or work requires them to move out.)

Mister Donut also has adapted to Japanese tastes to some extent by diversifying the menu. They include some noodles and soups as well as steamed buns so that "real food" can be had in addition to sweets. The donuts they offer do not appear to be any less sweet than American-style donuts (in my opinion) of similar varieties but they do offer seasonal variations which include ingredients the Japanese favor such as sweet potato, sesame, and chestnut.


Finally, they offer a "club card" with which customers can accumulate points which allow them to get free gifts. The gifts vary wildly but, at present, they are offering Japanese-style paper lanterns. The campaigns are rather cleverly timed such that you have to consistently patronize the shops in order to get enough points before the campaign's deadline approaches or the points you've accumulated become useless. Most of the items are fairly cute and seem to be designed to appeal to the teenage girl to young office lady crowd. This is probably wise since young Japanese women are notorious for daily consumption of sweets and are likely frequent purchasers of donuts to take back to their office and share.

Given that Krispy Kreme has a relatively limited menu and pretty much hangs it value and reputation on lavishly-sweet treats that are fresh, I'm not sure that they will be showing the adaptability that the Japanese market might require in order to succeed in the long run. So far, the only concession to the Japanese market seems to be a reduction in the variety of donuts that the shops offer. If you compare the U.S. menu to the Japanese one, you'll see that a lot of the more ostentatiously sweet varieties are missing (as are the cinnamon ones for some reason). This could be related to simplifying the preparation process for new workers or due to limited space forcing them to pare down the menu but it also could be that the Japanese don't like piles of sweet crumbly things on top of their donuts.

I'm guessing that it won't take more than a year to find out one way or another if they're here to stay for awhile or if they'll have to give up on the Japanese market and go home. If you're part of the foreign crowd and want to give them a try, I'd recommend trying them out sooner rather than later in case it vanishes in the not too distant future.

Happy Birthday, Sharon!

My sister's birthday is December 13th. When we were kids, I was aware of the fact that having this date as a birthday was a drawback on two counts. First of all, and somewhat of limited importance, her birthday sometimes fell on a Friday and everyone would be going on about it being an unlucky day. Second, and much more importantly, her birthday was only 12 days before Christmas and that invited the dreaded combo-gift situation where people would give one gift for both days rather than a separate gift for each day. It rather made me glad that my birthday was in August.

Anyway, the internet has been a great facilitator in allowing my sister and I to build up a relationship again despite distance. When I first came here, we had little or no contact because she's not much of a letter writer and neither of us had the cash for calls (nor are we necessarily big on chatting on the phone). More than the internet itself though, multiplayer gaming has been the force behind a renewed and closer relationship for my sister and I. Starting with Diablo II , we began to regularly meet up on-line to play games. The games gave us a reason to be on-line at the same time as well as a common topic to talk about. After a lot of years apart where we lost track of each other, this was an easy way to re-build our rapport.

Anyone who thinks on-line gaming is about geeks role-playing as they grow pimples and cultivate a pale, unearthly glow doesn't get the point. For a lot of people, it's about the socialization aspect. It allows you to come together in a community and relate to each other through the game. It's little different than couples who used to bond over games of Bridge or Hearts. It just doesn't require you to do it in each other's homes.

At first, we mainly chatted by typing in messages in the game and then later graduated to using talk. Now, it's very much like we're hanging out at home talking like we did when we lived in the same house. We have that same level of comfort that you have where you don't feel obliged to feel the gaps in conversation with idle chatter and you can just say things when you feel like it or just say nothing at all. Cheap computer-based talk has allowed for that and being able to do this with my sister has been immensely valuable to me in my relative social isolation since quitting my job a year ago. It's also been very nice to feel a part of my family again.

A lot of people have blood-bond-based relationships with their families and their siblings in particular. They associate out of obligation rather than a desire to be around each other but my sister is actually my friend. We have a lot of things in common and some things not so much in common but I'd want to hang out with her even if we weren't related. I wish I could be there to bake you a cake, Sharon! Have a great day and see you on Arena.net!

(The above image was pinched from Nimwendil's Blog - I'd ask for permission but I don't speak the language - I hope he/she doesn't mind! Please visit the blog to see other very nice bits of fantasy artwork.)

Looking Way Back

Since I've been in Japan for so long, I've seen a lot of changes, both big and small. Some of these changes are the result of technological progress and others a result of the encroachment of more western culture and business. While the rest of the world has simultaneously experienced some of these changes, a lot of them are more dramatic when viewed from the perspective of being relatively deprived of the comforts of home in a foreign culture and then being greatly less deprived nearly two decades later.

Here are some of the changes, both big and small, comparing nearly 18 years ago (when we first arrived) to now.

1. Spoken communication abroad was extremely costly and difficult when we first arrived and is now virtually free due to internet services such as Skype and GoogleTalk. When we first arrived, not only would phone calls back home cost a dollar a minute but a lot of foreigners chose not to have a telephone at all because NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph) required a hefty deposit for the privilege of having a phone installed. At that time, the deposit was in the $500-$600 range.
2. Diet sodas were rare to impossible to find. The best you could do was a Japan-only beverage called "Coca-cola Light" which had reduced calories relative to regular Coke. Pepsi was completely off the radar. Now, you can get both diet Pepsi and Coke though you can't always get both at any particular shop and other types of diet soda can only be purchased at places specializing in imports.
   
3. Tokyo was a smoker's paradise. All coffee shops and restaurants allowed smoking and the non-smoking areas, when present, were relatively small and not the least bit shielded from wafting smoke from the smoking section. Nowadays, Starbucks is a smoke-free coffee shop option (the only one, I believe) and restaurants are expanding non-smoking sections relative to the smoking areas. Additionally, some streets are smoking-prohibited in Tokyo. That is, you cannot walk and smoke on them at the same time.
4. Foreign entertainment was strictly in the form of videotape rental or limited pay access to services which are the Japanese equivalent of HBO (Wow Wow being the biggest). The selection for these channels was pretty poor and the relative cost for the quality high. Access to U.S. television was only possible through the largesse of relatives who were willing to tape shows and send the tapes abroad. Now, there is cable television which shows select T.V. series as quickly as one year behind the U.S. and more channels seem to be dropped in every few years. Currently, "Lost" is airing about a half season behind the U.S. on AXN. However, comedy is still pretty hard to find except for "Friends", "The Simpsons", and other Fox-produced shows (since Fox has its own channel on Japanese cable).
5. Access to foreign food was limited to the odd item here and there at some markets and the expensive supermarkets in the "gaijin ghetto" areas of Tokyo. I use the term "ghetto" in the sense of it being a pooling of a certain type of person, not as any indication of poverty. The people living in those areas are quite wealthy compared to those of us living in Japanese communities. These days, you can get more foreign food consistently at local markets compared to the past, go to Costco (though only far from central Tokyo in a relatively long day trip), and order from the Foreign Buyer's Club though this takes a month and a half to deliver items.
6. Getting English language books was very expensive. The main way to get them was through Kinokuniya bookstore where you were charged double the cost of the books back home. A secondary way was through one of the used books stores that kept starting and going out of business like restaurants in bad locations. In both cases, selection was limited. Nowadays, we have a stable used book store to visit (Good Day Books) as well as any branch of Amazon. Both Amazon U.S. and Japan will allow you to buy English books. From the U.S., you can buy anything you want at U.S. prices but the postage can be a nasty bite. From Amazon Japan, the price tends to be higher than Amazon in the States because they don't apply the same discounts. However, selection is far better and overall prices much cheaper than 18 years ago.
7. The salary structure for foreign employees and working conditions have changed and are far less favorable than they were 18 years ago. The minimum amount a foreigner can make and still qualify for a working visa is 250,000 yen a month. In the past, you could make 250,000 yen in 25 hours of teaching work. Now, that has shifted to 30 hours for the same salary. Additionally, teaching children was a specialty and relatively uncommon as part of the average teacher's workday. These days, because of the shrinking population, almost all major language schools require some teaching of children. This is a way of increasing the market even though there are fewer and fewer people to teach. Finally, most schools have shortened class times as well as teacher break periods and schools that once offered paid national holidays no longer do so.
   

Some things have actually gotten worse rather than better. For instance, I used to be able to buy more English language computer software and hardware from Cyberian Outpost (now Fry's Outpost.com) before Japan jumped whole-heartedly into the tech boom. Once Japan's market bloomed, restrictions on imports seemed to be more wholeheartedly enforced and getting English software became very difficult without the help of a third party back home. This is somewhat off-set by the ability now to download and buy software rather than having to buy it in boxes at shops though you still can't get major releases from a download.

All in all though, it's a lot easier to live in Japan than it used to be. However, it's still not home.