It's strange how things come full circle. Yesterday was seijin no hi, the day when everybody in Japan who turned twenty in the past year officially becomes an adult. As well as being a national holiday, it's naturally one of the best nights out in the year. All the clubs in Tokyo throw massive parties and Roppongi, Daikanyama and Shibuya are thronged with twenty-year-olds in various states of intoxication and extremely high spirits. You can't swing a cat without hitting a young lady (or young man) who's single (or maybe not so single) and looking; put simply, if you can't pull on seijin no hi you might as well put away your pulling hat forever and devote yourself to a life of celibacy.
A couple of years ago wild horses couldn't have dragged me away from Daikanyama on seijin no hi. But you know what I did instead? Stayed in and wrote a blog entry about Fighting Fantasy Books. (Not just that, of course; now I'm a married man and becoming sensible so the wife and I sat indoors with a few bottles of wine watching DVDs and scoffing pizza. But for an hour before that, it was Seas of Blood all the way).
Life's a funny old thing. When I was 13 or 14, reading a Fighting Fantasy book on one of the best club nights of the year wouldn't have seemed at all unusual. I barely knew what a club was. 15 years of progression, of growth, of experience, and I seem to have found my way back to that point. Is this a good or bad thing? I can't quite tell.
Maybe you've arrived at the same point, but with a different perspective? With a fuller appreciation?
ReplyDeleteHey, Plenty of "feel-good" movies have been made with that very premise!
What Trey said. Makes perfect sense to me.
ReplyDelete"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of being thought childish."
ReplyDelete-- C.S.Lewis(?)
Sometimes the simple, quiet, undemanding pleasures you enjoyed as a child are all the grown-up you wants or needs.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to strip slatherings of paint off some old Grenadier leads...
It is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteClubs are loud and dirty and expensive. You can't hear the music so much as feel it. That and the crowds are the only reason you'd want to go to a club.
ReplyDeleteNow if you picked up your shadowruns there, maybe you'd have incentive to go. But that's just one more thing you can do on a social networking site these days.
d30 always speaks the truth!!!
ReplyDeleteI'd say you've joined the slipper club, that wonderous place where if someone says you can either have your favourite alcoholic drink, or a pair of really comfy slippers, you'd go for the slippers, but I've noticed Japan has a special relationship with slippers, so it may not apply.
ReplyDeleteYou get my drift.
Malcuy: Actually, being a total booze hound I think I'd prefer the drink. ;)
ReplyDelete