HARAJUKU2

2.31-4.41 “Pink Man wears a plain pink smock dress over his schoolgirl sailor suit with white trim and scarlet neck-scarf. A dark pink teddy bear with grey feet hangs from a strap around his neck. Its black eyes stare straight ahead as his scan the crowd for takers. His black hair is cropped short, mostly hidden under a plastic fairy princess tiara from a hundred yen shop. The accompanying veil is pink as well; dirty furry Mickey Mouse ears the cherries on his sundae. His eyebrows have been thinned, and his sad eyes are framed by circles of peach eye shadow. He smiles awkwardly at the passersby, holding up a homemade cardboard sign with the words, “Hello Free Hug” written on it in English. He stands by the wall like all the others, but he stands out because he wants to interact with the watchers. He needs to be noticed, but his outfit draws more photos than hugs. He smiles for each photo, refusing no-one, unlike the veteran posers at either end of the bridge who rarely deign to pose for amateurs. He smiles and makes the ubiquitous peace sign with his other hand, his eyes betraying the anxiety of being noticed but not being noted.

I occupy his gaze from the safety of the crowd; see the makeup crusting around the corners of his eyes and the skin of his face beginning to sag despite the best efforts of his smile. A fat tourist waddles over, points to the sign and mimes a hug. Pink Man steps in cautiously, bending in at the shoulders and out at the waist like a schoolgirl at her first high school dance class. He drapes rather than hugs, his face grimacing slightly as the fat man pulls him in for a hearty Western-style hug, all arms and meeting torsos. Offering free hugs here, where we suffer without proximity to others but rarely subscribe to actual contact, is a recipe for confusion. Maybe he is already confused. I think he just wants to be noticed and loved. Doesn’t everyone? Don’t you? Nonchalant teens in shiny jackets also hold hastily scrawled ‘free hugs’ signs. They do better business than Pink Man. An invisible busker’s hat fills with passing smiles. So much easier to hug when you aren’t carrying baggage. He watches them strut: every hug they get is one stolen from him. He is older than them: last year’s or even last month’s model. It wouldn’t matter if he was yesterday’s. The world is moving on without him, a man in his early thirties. There is a difference here. The confidence is lacking, the eyes are sad but willing. It is like he has created an expectation that can never be fulfilled here. The emotion is missing, the actions almost mechanical. He wants to be on a magazine cover too.”


I don’t know how long I have. How long I can stay here. This place that gives me hope. These people are different, are free to be.

Black screen, “Singing Man” beaming from the darkness. The time meter is creeping forwards. It grows as the video dies. Always moving forwards, ever closer to the end.

4.49-6.54 “Over where the road to Yoyogi dissects the bridge-top, there is a new contender for originality champion. An escapee from the ranks of the dancing Elvises over in the park, Singing Man wears their uniform of black jacket, pants, and boots although his jacket isn’t leather and his Elvis quiff is not nearly as tall as most of theirs. He faces the road, toes aligned and feet spread under the knee-high chain link that separates the two forms of traffic. He may act as though he does not want to be seen, but this is the most photographed place in Tokyo. He will certainly be heard, with the portable stereo by his feet blaring out U2 classics. He doesn’t so much sing as scream along with them, tapping his heels and throwing his hands out in supplication to an imaginary audience. Karaoke may well be our national sport, but as you know, solo public karaoke is almost unthinkable.

Why is he singing an English song, one that his teenage audience will not know? Every tourist passing stops to admire and marvel, hoping their cameras have video functions so that they can record this scene to amuse their friends back home. Singing Man’s eyes are screwed shut as he sings; he is not on a Tokyo street but in a European stadium somewhere; not singing alone but with thousands of backing vocalists. He is not here to pose or to make the pages of some foreign fashion magazine—he is here to escape. Where is the embarrassment at performing before peers? Where is the shame of revealing one’s inferior singing ability to a gaggle of strangers? He has worked out the secret to surviving the SHAME culture: you can’t be shamed if no-one knows who you are. Look around, see all these people playing dress-ups, trying to assume the identities of their favourite anime characters? Hours spent on makeup, on hair, on outfits which can only be worn every so often before they need to be discarded. All this effort to become someone else.


How many tourists, snap-happy and footsore, stop to wonder what these kids’ names are? They all want to know what they are supposed to be, but no-one ever bothers to ask who they are? Singing Man has found his freedom for a few short hours, safe in another language, another culture, another place.”

Pause the file. She is right. The thought burns in me like bad indigestion. She thinks like I do. She can see the great lies tying us down. She knows how to escape them. But it can’t be that simple. We can’t all hide in another language. We can’t all sing in Harajuku. Imagine that: one hundred and twenty million singing. Millions of quiffs, boots and portable stereos. But then no one would be alone anymore. We would all be doing the same thing. Just because it was fashionable or ‘right’. Just because people expected us to. Because no-one wants to be left out. Something is wrong with you if you are. No-one wants that knowledge. Except me.