Life Outside Japan

This article from The New York Times was sent to me by a friend:

How Q Found Her Groove By JIRO ADACHI

ER arm locks like a robot's, then pops from the shoulder, sending a wave through her body. Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" blares from a boombox in the Times Square subway station as a crowd of onlookers, heads bobbing, cheer on the performer.

The break dancer is female, which is unusual enough. Even more eye-opening is the fact that she is a 26-year-old Japanese woman with cornrows in Float Committee, the crew of young African-American men with whom she is performing on this day.

Her solo builds as she glides around the concrete floor, limbs electric, torso fluttering as if from some subterranean wind. In another instant, she is back in line with her crew, grinning and rocking to and fro as sweat pours down her face.

To her family in the city of Nagoya, she is Kumi Naito. In her New York life and in the break-dance world, she is simply Q, and a wild departure from the stereotype of the Japanese immigrant, or issei, that New Yorkers have known in the past: the salaryman from a Japanese corporation with a wife in tow.

Q also typifies how the Japanese immigrant of today - young, artistically inclined, open to risks and twice as likely to be female than male - differs from the bulk of immigrants to New York, who come to take advantage of the city's economic opportunities.

These Big Apple Issei, as they could be called, are cultural refugees, drawn to New York's creative clamor and in search of freedom for their spirits.

This was certainly true of Q, who is thrilled to be able to pursue her passion for dancing on the streets and in the city's subway stations; she even tours the country and Europe with a professional company.

For her, this independence is everything. "I can't imagine being in Japan," she said. "I couldn't break dance there."A Place for Purple Hair

In the last two decades, thousands of young Japanese like Q have come to New York in search of the custom-tailored lifestyles that are hard to carve out in a homeland, where johshiki - traditional ways and morality - still exert a powerful influence. Such young people make up the majority of their fellow countrymen, or rather, countrywomen, living in the city.

Census data from 2000 show that 63 percent of the 16,516 foreign-born Japanese living in New York are women, and 64 percent are 20 to 39 years old. That percentage of young people is nearly 23 percentage points higher than it is for Chinese or Koreans, the two largest Asian immigrant groups in the city.

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Comments

[Edward]

On break dancing - I found out not long back that the Koreans are currently world champions (a title they won in France I think). Its not hard to tell why, as even in my sleepy suburban subway station you see groups of young guys practicing, and they're bloody good too. They think nothing of doing hand spins - i.e. in a hand stand position spinning very fast, and then usually ending in some sort of contortionist posture.
Re Japanese overseas, I noticed in Australia also that most Japanese immigrants, (or residents at least), are quite young, and I think its a habit the world over for older Japanese not to emmigrate from Japan. Chinese and Koreans on the other hand will often emmigrate as a family, sometimes with elderly parents in tow, and set up/join communities that allow them to enjoy the best of both worlds. The Japanese just don't seem to do this as much - its probably just the young who are adventurous (or fustrated) enough to leave the 'comfort' of Japan.

[MC]

I saw those breakdacners at your station, they were quite impressive. You always see Japnese hip hop dancerrs practicing at nightin front of large windows in business area like Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and Shibuya-it is truly an urban art form-just bring your beat box.

As far as older emigrates-I've heard that record numbers of Japnese are retiring to New Zealand, Canada and Australia. A freind's girlfriend's parents invested in a group complex outside Manila-which includes a communal kitchen with Philapino servants.