What is street culture?
Street culture is related to the identity of a city or district. What street culture you have in your city or district tends to represents the contemporary sentiments of your area. Harajuku for example, is well known as the center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. Not only does the district have its own particular style, but people who often visit there also have trends and modes of dress to represent Harajuku.
Through the lens of the streets, we can begin to gain a better understanding of the culture of Japan. As Japan is still deeply influenced by their traditional culture, kimonos and graffiti that contain traditional drawings are common. The combination of modern cultural and traditional culture is part of what makes Japan special. Furthermore, the people of Japan often add an element of street art to their cars, even something they use in daily basis. (ex: Itasha).
History of Street Culture
Throughout time, streets have been the veins and arteries of any great city. City streets are home to the unique daily turnings that often fail to make it into the history books. Archaeological exploration has done much to unearth this part of ancient life.
For example, we can gain insight into the political sentiments of ancient Rome from the graffiti recovered from the streets of Pompeii, the bawdy sketches serving to humanize those caught in the pyroclasm. And beyond that, we can see the effects of extremely influential districts, like Times Square, or Athen’s Acropolis. The people who lived in these places shaped, and in turn were shaped by, the prevailing culture and sentiments of the times. The effects of some of these microscopic street culture events have spanned thousands of years.
Strategy
Street culture is something that we can observe in our daily life and therefore we are sure that we will find some interesting angles on the street. To get a better understanding of street culture, we intend to interview some Japanese people, and get their perspective of street culture. There are few main questions that we want to ask:
- What do you think about this particular culture? (ex: Harajuku fashion, Itasha, etc.)
- What makes you feel proud of it?
- Why so many youth in Japan treat streets as stages to show their speciality of clothings?
- What makes you want to wear outfits such as Harajuku styles? Do you feel satisfied or more confident?
- How do Japanese think of their combination of modern and traditional cultures?
Specific things we want to see
Street Art
When it comes to graffiti, which city first comes to mind? Maybe the one comes up in your mind is not Tokyo, but hopefully you will remember Tokyo is also famous for its graffiti after reading our blog.
We will go around Tokyo find some funny, attractive and representative graffiti to showcase. We also hope to be able to interview some graffiti artists to learn more about graffiti in Tokyo. We also hope to learn more about people’s views of the legality of graffiti.
There are also many unique types of car modification from Japan. 痛車(Itasha), decorating the bodies of cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games. Akihabara’s UDX parking garage is famous for many itasha that will parked there every weekend.
Food
We are very lucky to have our study abroad program starts on May 11. As 神田祭(Kanda Matsuri) is also going to be held from May 11 to May 17, right after that 三社祭(Sanja Matsuri) is going to be held from May 19 to May 21. Tokyo will have a festival for almost 2 continuous weeks after we arrive, so we have a chance to explore about food and festival culture.
We will also look into other food culture like their behaviour while eating. For instance, there is a type of meal called 立ち食い(stand-up meal) in Japan. Standing room only food establishments are rare outside of Japan. Other than that, we will also look into consumer habits like 肉の日(day of meat), which is basically the 29th day of each month. On that day, meat will be on sale. Hope you will like this topic.
Fashion
Tokyo is known as the city of chic fashion, so we definitely will go to some places of fashion and youth culture and experience the street fashion in Japan. The first two places come to our minds are Shibuya and Harajuku. Both of them are famous for the Gyaru style. However, the Shibuya Gyaru and the Harajuku Gyaru are very different.
We will mainly go to Harajuku. We intend to tour the different fashionable districts and observe new trends that are being popularized in Japan, look for the relationships between these trends and the Japanese culture and the growth potential of these fashion trends.
Street Performances
We will go to several festivals, contrast the street performances, and see the impacts of different street cultures on these performances. In addition, we will not only record these performances, but also interview the performers about their perspectives on the Japanese street culture.
IKIGAI Contributors:
Stella
Hi guys! My name is Stella and I am a fourth year accounting student that will graduate soon. This is my second time to Japan, and I am preparing for my JLPT N2 test. I am probably the best at Japanese in our team so I can be the interviewer and guide of our trips in Tokyo!
Yu Han Kuang
Hello! I am Yu Han and I’m a third year uni student. I am double majoring sociology and Japanese. This is my first time to Japan, and I am looking forward to learn new things in Japan.
Shawn
Hi! My name is Shawn. I am a second year student majoring in Engineering with a minor in Japanese. This is my first time going to Japan. After our program in Tokyo, I will spend another a few weeks in Kansai region. I feel lucky to be able to visit both Tokyo and Kyoto at a time.
Denver
Hello. I’m looking forward to getting to see some street art, musical performance, and car events. This is my second trip to Japan, so I’m going to be seeing a bunch of things I didn’t have the chance to see last time.
Together we want to explore Japanese street culture, and better understand its significance and history. This covers what to expect from IKIGAI in the next four weeks. We will be looking for new and unexpected things that can add to our blog. Please look forward to our posts!