Have you seen these little black and white patchwork squares? They store text and other data as a matrix! I try to remember to scan these every time I see them, and have found everything from coupons to ads to website links. If you can write it, you can make a QR code out of it. I bought a carton of apple tea from the campus kombin a few days ago, and on the side was one of these. I scanned the code and received a URL leading to the company's "Halloween Campaign" website. Last weekend, in Kyoto, I scanned one on a train and got 4 lines of indecipherable Japanese text with an extra helping of 15+ stroke kanji. After some perusing of my keitai's seemingly infinite features, I discovered that you can generate your own from both English and Japanese text, as well as with your contact information. Imagine printing 100 of these as stickers and putting them all over your hometown. The calls would just roll in! (Until the sanitation department tracks you down and makes you remove them.)
According to the website of the company that invented them, these have been around since 1994, but since QR decoding functions started appearing on keitai, their popularity has extended beyond the industrial uses for which they were intended.
Hemp, Hemp, Everywhere, But Not a Gram to Smoke?
If you've spent any time at all in the presence of 16 - 26 year old Japanese people, you've most likely encountered at least one clothing or accessory design incorporating the infamous pot leaf. In Western countries, not only is it instantly recognizable as marijuana, but we tend to immediately characterize the person displaying it as a marijuana user. It's not a terribly irrational conclusion to come to... In the West. Here in Japan, where being caught with possession of marijuana carries much higher consequences than in North America, people seem to have no qualms about sporting track jackets and rearview mirror ornaments emblazoned with the design.
However, as with all things, one must consider the issue from the Japanese side. According to my former sempai in Gifu Prefecture, the Japanese do not draw a connection between the image of the leaf and the illegal drug at all. "It's just a leaf, right? The stuff we would get arrested for comes in little green nuggets. It's not the same thing, is it?" In this country, the leaf is a symbol of stereotypical laid-back Jamaican attitudes... and apparently world peace, as well. But to us gaijin, this will continue to be a source of confusion as we try to reconcile the image of an otherwise tidy, professional college students with shirts screaming things like "420 SPECIAL GANJA PEACE."
If you've spent any time at all in the presence of 16 - 26 year old Japanese people, you've most likely encountered at least one clothing or accessory design incorporating the infamous pot leaf. In Western countries, not only is it instantly recognizable as marijuana, but we tend to immediately characterize the person displaying it as a marijuana user. It's not a terribly irrational conclusion to come to... In the West. Here in Japan, where being caught with possession of marijuana carries much higher consequences than in North America, people seem to have no qualms about sporting track jackets and rearview mirror ornaments emblazoned with the design.
However, as with all things, one must consider the issue from the Japanese side. According to my former sempai in Gifu Prefecture, the Japanese do not draw a connection between the image of the leaf and the illegal drug at all. "It's just a leaf, right? The stuff we would get arrested for comes in little green nuggets. It's not the same thing, is it?" In this country, the leaf is a symbol of stereotypical laid-back Jamaican attitudes... and apparently world peace, as well. But to us gaijin, this will continue to be a source of confusion as we try to reconcile the image of an otherwise tidy, professional college students with shirts screaming things like "420 SPECIAL GANJA PEACE."
3 comments:
QR codes are an interesting subject to study. One can turn a piece of text into a codified visual representation. As you suggest, this could have a lot of fun applications in addition to the storage and retrieval of information.
Cross-cultural symbolism is another interesting matter to consider. In Japan one can easily see an elderly man with a pot leaf design on his clothes or a junior high school girl with the Playboy bunny on her official uniform socks.
I wonder if Japanese people sporting such fashions have any difficulties going through immigration and customs in such countries as Singapore, Malaysia and the U.S.
I am sure you have heard about the three sumo wrestlers who were kicked out of the sport for alleged marijuana use. This is the first time that sumo wrestlers have ever been kicked out. We also seem to read more and more often about celebrities and others getting busted for growing or possessing. In the not so distant past at some school in Japan foreign students were busted, detained and deported. It ruined any chance of a future in Japan for them.
Haha, a thinly veiled warning. Don't worry, it's not even an issue for me. :)
I recently saw a young woman with a pot leaf tattoo on the back of her neck. I am very curious as to what she is thinking... And probably no onsen for her - how sad...
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