No recipe, just a picture of last night’s dinner. Macadamia crusted tilapia filet from Whole Foods, (suprisingly good) boxed risotto, and sauteed spinach from Combs Herbs at the farmer’s market. Yum.
BROWN HAIR IS `IN’ AMONG JAPAN’S HIPPEST YOUNG PEOPLE.(News)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer May 2, 1996 If a few space aliens landed in Japan and conducted scientific research, they might conclude that elderly Japanese have gray hair, middle-aged Japanese black hair, and young Japanese brown hair.
This is because to be young in Japan these days, at least young at heart, is to dye one’s hair brown – or, as it is called in Japanese, chapatsu, or tea hair. There are youthful black heads left in Japan, but those people might as well wear white socks and crew cuts and signs saying, “Kick me.” “Those guys with black hair – even if they say a joke, it’s not funny,” said Yukie Yamamoto, an 18-year-old college student, shaking her head with disgust. “Brown-haired guys make better boyfriends, because they’re more fun to hang around with.” The rush to dyed hair is sociologically interesting because bleaching one’s hair was traditionally regarded as the mark of a social dropout or delinquent.
Even now, most schools ban brown hair, and big companies and government ministries are very reluctant to hire someone with dyed hair for any responsible position.
Thus, at least for some Japanese, tea hair is a bit like long hair was for some men in the West: an assertion of individuality, a signal that one will not just be another obedient cog in the machinery, an act of rebellion. But in Japan, the rebellion lasts only until it is time to join the machinery.
“I have a job interview tomorrow, so I’ve got to dye my hair black again tonight,” said Yuki Makiguchi, an 18-year-old college freshman sporting tea hair. “It’s part-time work as a math tutor, and if I had this hair, I’d never get the job. They wouldn’t hire me like this – no way!” The boom in tea hair has set off a bit of a debate, mostly because many older people think the trend is unwise, unhealthy, and un-Japanese. this web site highlights for brown hair
“Behind the fashion, there is I think a deep-rooted inferiority complex toward Westerners, which may make people think that black hair is uncool,” a reader wrote in a letter to the editor of the Asahi Shimbun, a major national newspaper. “I hope that they value their identity as Japanese and Asians.” Other critics fight back not just with words. A police chief and his deputy on the northern island of Hokkaido were dismissed this year after a ruckus in a bar that began when the chief spotted a young man with brown hair. “Why do kids these days dye their hair?” the chief asked, before pouring a mug of beer over the young man’s head.
Some sports figures have sported brown hair, but the general manager of the Yakult Swallows, the champion baseball team in Japan last year, announced this spring that he would ban tea hair on all players. He said he found it distracting. in our site highlights for brown hair
The cat-and-mouse game over hair color is played with great sophistication in the nation’s high schools and junior high schools. Most schools have rules banning tea hair, but a huge proportion of students claim to be part of the small minority of Japanese who have naturally brown hair.
“Once a month, we have to get our hair checked by the teacher at school,” said Remi Sato, a 16-year-old high school girl. “If it’s brown, then we have to bring in a childhood photo to show that it’s always been brown.” The policy does not seem very effective, for Sato’s hair is undeniably colored brown. She shrugged and explained that the teachers had given her “guidance,” but it seemed to have been left at that.
“The act of dying hair is banned,” Sato said. “So dying it black again would be illegal, too.” Still, the teachers occasionally take action. The winner in an 800-meter race at a junior high school track meet last year climbed the stand to get his gold medal, and officials noticed that he had brown hair. They denied him the medal even though the boy asserted that the color came from “overuse of a hair dryer.” Young people say that brown hair promotes an image of casualness and informality, while black hair conveys seriousness. Both men and women said that as a result, there is a tendency to look for brown-haired dates but black-haired spouses.
“If I were just playing around, I’d prefer a girl with tea hair,” said Tomotaka Hamohara, a 19-year-old college student. “But for a girlfriend, I’d like a black-haired girl.” An industry group conducted a survey last fall suggesting that 44 percent of working women in their 20s have dyed their hair, along with 38 percent of high school students.
Occasionally, young people dye their hair shades of orange, purple, or green, but those are a tiny minority regarded by the rest of society as fascinating zoo animals: the orange-crested guitarist, the glow-green mohawk with earrings, and they stand about as much chance of entering mainstream careers as pandas or gazelles do.
If the idea of brown hair is to assert oneself, it may seem counterproductive to be individualistic in precisely the same way as everyone else. But in Japan, perhaps even more than in the West, young people sometimes rush in new directions at the same time. “Back in the States, the point of fashion is to look different,” said Miho Teruya, 16, who has lived in Boston. “But here, you follow fashions to look the same.”
