#3-6 Japanese Subculture

Do you know a type of group called "Visual-kei"?
Basically it is a genre of musicians or bands, but also there is a group of people who like their songs.
It is not official, but according to wikipedia.com, it's said that  the word "visual" come from one of X Japan's slogans, "Psychedelic violence crime of visual shock".
My image of "visual-kei" was black clothes, kinda dark and they put on make ups and so on. But actually it wasn't right. It was just a image in my head. They says the fans' and bands' styles have been changing.
In 80's, they dyed their long hair blue, red, gold, and they put on showy make-ups.
In 90's, it became more feminine. Then, in the end of 90's, their make ups incited fear in people around them.

It is said that the fans are almost women aged teens to 20s, and they wear the cosplay of the band they support or some other fasions like punk, gothic and etc.

As I mentioned above, they are interested in similar musics. However, there are many different types of musics in visual-kei. There are toooooo much so that I cannot explain about them...

It's said that some people used to be influenced by the songs about self-harm in 90's.

I think they don't have any paticular place to gather, but at the concert, maybe??

In my opinion, I was a little bit scared to see them from their make ups at first, but I think I can be with them if they are not a huge number of people gathering. Because I have some friends who love those kind of clothes and musics, and they are nice.

If I misunderstood about visual-kei, I'm sorry because I'm not 100% sure about this peer group...

#3-5 My Future Plan

At first, I'm going to talk about my Time Capsule which my best friend, her sister and I made about 10 years ago. My friend and I had just graduated when we made the Time Capsule. I totally forgot what I had written when we opened it. We opened the capsule this Summer because we had been planning to open it when we became 20 years old. We wrote a letter to myself in the future. "I" said, "My dream is becoming a social worker. Is your dream coming true? I love swimming so much right now, but what about you?" and some other things. ...Actually, my dream has been changing in this 10 years; like I wanted to be a swimmer or gymnast once, I wanted to do something with welfare work, do volunteer work in other countries, go to Germany and study German etc... and I don't swim right now... However, it was so much fun to read the sentences which was written by "me". We couldn't stop laughing while we were reading them.

Back to reality... Since I'm satisfied with my life right now, I cannot think of anything... I'm trying to have a good time every seconds these days because you never know what will happen tomorrow. Maybe I should write a letter to "me in ten years"!!
My future plan could change depends on my life situation, I think.

#3-4 My Neighbours...

I've been live in a same place since when I was in kindergarten.
I think I didn't have a memorable neighbours like Esperanza... well, I just remember one old man. He was not my neighbour but a sanitation worker at my apartment. He was talkative, always smiling and made me smile. I think I was around 6 or 7 years old when I saw him. I remember that he always cheer up and helped me when I was practicing how to ride a bicycle or unicycle. Oh, I remember one more thing. There was an old-fashioned candy store near my house. The owner of the shop was pretty funny man. He usually say something stupid to elementary school kids to make them laugh, and what I remember is that he says, "it costs 20,000 yen!" instead of "20 yen." Then, kids go like, "e----(in Japanese), you're kidding!!!"

That's all. Not so much fun story as Esperanza's...

#3-3 Scialization

 Talking about how my parents raised me, what I remember is punishment and I hated it. When I was about three to 8 years old, I was super active and my parents were struggling with raising me; that's what I heard from them. Since my older sister was pretty quiet and good child, it was a bit difficult for them to teach me how to behave. So, my parents, especially my mom, used to hit me with her hand pretty bad when I did something wrong. That's all I remember now. However, that punishment was disappeared after I became forth grade in elementary school somehow.
 I guess I didn't think about any values and didn't understand why my mom was so angry. But now, my mom says, "Do whatever you want" and that's what I do right now.

 I'll write a little bit about school. I don't remember any displine by my teachers. I won't write about that, but will write about so much responsibilities of the teachers in Japan, which John wrote about on his post. I agree that the teachers responsibility is too much in Japan. I think there must be more responsibility for parents too since they raised him/her.
 Actually, I am thiking about being a teacher in either junior high or high school. However, the fact of teachers' responsibilty in japan is making me difficult to give a final decision.

#3-2 Compare Myself to Esperanza

 In the book, Esperanza said she moved a lot. But I've moved just once when I was 4 years old. Because I was so small, I remember almost nothing. Also, I grow up with same friends since we were in kindergarten.
 Talking about family, I don't have a big family like her. I live with my mom, dad and an older sister. Although Esperanza had some troubles landlord, I don't have any troubles with a caretaker of my apartment. However, I sometimes have some troubles with my neighbours. For example, people living downstairs start to pray with pretty loud voice at about 10 or 11pm. It's really annoying... Anyways. My house is fine to live.
 Finally, talk about Esperanza's characteristics and mine. Even though she is wise and realistic, I'm not so wise like her and I'm not realistic at all. I think I'm always dreaming like "what if...?" or "It' would be fun or interesting if..." like that. I'm thinking I have to face the reality more though...
About struggling with life, I used to be trapped in my situation like Esperanza when I was in high school. But it disappeared somehow after I came back from my exchange student's life.
 I also feel people don't understand me however, I don't want to care much about it.
 In conclusion, my situations are pretty much different from Esperanza's.