The Meaning of Life ... in Japan

Yesterday, I went to the arcade. I didn’t set out to go there; I only meant to go exploring. There is a road almost directly across the street from the main gate that Grant and I had walked just a little way down on our first trip out on town. It seemed like a bustling shopping area - what American’s think of as down town. I wanted to see what was on it.

I found about what you would expect in any down town section of America. There were gift shops and restaurants and people moving here and there with shopping bags looped around their wrists. The shops were smaller than you would find in the states. Most had eight foot ceilings and were about the size of your average one car garage. Some had a second floor or even a third. The Japanese have learned to build up rather than out.

A few blocks down I entered a shopping center - picture a shrunken more cramped version of downtown USA with a roof covering the street. It was filled with the same sorts of shops and restaurants I had seen outside, only in here the front door tended to be wider. Some stores were completely open in the front, more like stalls than shops. I noticed lots of cell phone shops. One store sold only knives – cooking knives, throwing knives, katana and short swords. There was of course, the obligatory hundred yen store where I bought a couple of things I couldn’t find cheaply enough on base. I also noticed an inordinate number of flower shops. These sold many kinds of plotted plants as well as cut flowers. You could buy a little bouquet for only five hundred yen.

All this was very interesting and I felt the need to walk slowly in order to take it all in. Sometimes I went into shops and just picked up the merchandise, looked at it, squeezed the stuffed animals or leafed through the note pads and then set them down. It was hard to know what to make of a place where you could hear American R&B music playing in the same store that sold notepads with the words “The world has taken such good care of me soon I will begin to repay it” printed in the corner of each page.

I had just crossed the street using one of the many pedestrian overpasses and fought down the urge to photograph a Japanese 20-something wearing the most amazingly ridiculous legging, boots and shirtdress ensemble when I noticed a sign that said “SLOTS”. Since I’m not a gambler this peaked little interest beyond the fact that it was written in Romanji. The next sign, however, did grab my attention. It said “Games” and was situated over a flight of stairs leading down into the basement of the slots building. I peaked down there and saw a couple of crane games squatting in the entryway. I went down.

Back when I was on Okinawa I had been to Japanese arcades. I knew them to be large, brightly lit and full of addictive games. The only difference I’ve noticed since coming to Yokosuka is the noise. It sounded a lot like the Pachinko parlor at the mall but the effect was slightly lessened because each machine had its own music and sound effects instead of the uniform rush of the Pachinko games. As I walked down the stairs the sound reached up and wrapped its slimy tentacles around me. I was hooked. A Japanese arcade is like an American arcade in that it is a room full of games. That is where the similarity ends. Japanese arcades always smell and look clean. You can usually find at least one worker sprucing up the place. In this case it was a young woman scraping the ice out of a crane game with ice cream prizes. Yes. Insert a coin; hook an ice cream.

It’s easy to spend a lot of money in a Japanese arcade because each game costs one hundred yen, about a dollar American, and a one hundred yen piece is a small silver coin about the same size and color of a quarter. This makes it easy to feel like you have spent much less money than you actually have spent.

According to the sign on the stairs, this particular arcade was open from 09:00 to 23:00. That’s 9 am to 11 pm for you non-military types. I was there during the school day, which meant the clientele was mostly adults. Still there were ten or 15 people intently focused on whatever game they happened to be playing. Arcade games are an acceptable way for adults in Japan to spend their time.

I felt right at home. Of course I just had to play the candy carousel game. These are much easier to describe with pictures so here you go.


The plastic dome covers a wheel, like a lazy susan, that rotates slowly. You press the button and a little scoop reaches down and attempts to pick up some candy. You then press a second button to release the candy onto one of two platforms. A shorter platform moves back and forth on a longer stationary platform. The goal is to drop the candy in such a way that the moving platform pushes it off the stationary platform and into the prize shoot. It sounds complicated but the principle is actually pretty simple.

While spending large amounts of money, no fair asking how much, playing this game I noticed that the arcade attendants bowed to the room each time they left the arcade proper. Call me an ignorant American, but this baffled me. When I was in martial arts we were taught to bow each time we left the mat as a sign of respect for our learning space, known as a dojo. Could this be a similar practice? These Japanese sure take their gaming seriously.

I finally tore myself away and returned to the world of silence and sunlight that is the Japanese street. On the way home I found a store that sold nothing but socks. I took the lollipop I had won out of my mouth so I could smile properly. This store confirmed my conclusion that the Japanese, as a people, understand what is important in life - Flowers, games, socks and of course, candy.

I leave you today with a quote from Charles M. Schulz the creator of Charlie Brown. "My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"