About a year ago, I started this “Things I Don’t Understand About Japan” series, to express and explore significant cultural differences between America and Japan – especially differences I have trouble wrapping my head around. It was only a matter of time before I addressed the whole girl-band/boy-band/group dancing culture. Let me just start off by saying I love girl-bands/boy-bands as much as the next person. I went through a pretty heavy Kpop phase towards the end of high school (and early college) and will always love the Backstreet Boys. I understand the attraction to boy bands and girl bands. What I don’t understand in Japan is the fact that every couple months I see a group of boys (or girls) dancing on the side of the road… who aren’t asking for money. They’re street performers, but they’re not asking for money. Sometimes they are singing and dancing, sometimes it’s just dancing, but they never ask for money. You can buy a CD from them (sometimes) for like 1000yen, but you can’t just throw 100yen into a hat/guitar case/box. They aren’t asking for donations. Not technically a girl band, but they stood out in the hot sun in Harajuku for [...]
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