The Top Random Japan Trends of Summer 2017
One of my missions with J-List is to bring Japan a little closer to you, wherever you are in the world. Today we’ll explore five interesting trends in Japan this summer. Let’s start with the ranking of Japan trends!
- I took a few days off to head to Tokyo last week, which is always fun because everyone is so stylish there. The current trend with high school girls is to buy one of the large shopping bags from Ikea and repurpose them into small fashionable bags, baseball hats, and more. As with many fashion trends these days, this boom is closely linked with China via the Internet.
- Another thing I noticed in Tokyo was the boom in companies branding themselves as “from Brooklyn,” which is apparently the hippest place in the world right now. Grab some super-tart Brooklyn-style lemonade before heading over to the newly opened Gorilla Coffee branch in Shibuya.
- Want to make mediocre wine taste better? Just slide a pair of wooden disposable chopsticks inside and let them sit for a few hours. The chopsticks add an “oaky” flavor to the wine that does seem to improve it, and this is supposedly very popular in Tokyo (to say nothing of my house). The chopsticks should be wooden, not bamboo, and be careful when you pour as the chopsticks will slide out, causing splashing.
- Next time you’re in Ginza, swing by Tsujiri, a fine purveyor of all things green tea. This summer they came out with a new “matcha soft cream” (green tea flavored soft-serve ice cream), which looks heavenly. Like all the best green tea, it comes from Uji, a pleasant town about 30 minutes outside Kyoto famous for its green tea, and a 1000 year old temple.
- Finally, there’s an interesting cafe in Tokyo’s Haneda Airport called the Planetarium Starry Cafe, which allows visitors to enjoy delicious coffee and cakes while looking up at the stars above them. Someone needs to make a solar eclipse cafe.
Bonus trend! The Japanese are big fans of Twitter, and this week there’s been a boom in ツイッターことわわ or “Twitter Proverbs,” which take the wisdom of Japan and adapt it for the age of “SNS” (as social media is called in Japan). If you’re a fan of Japanese language, read the post here.
Since the early days of the Internet, J-List has had a popular email mailing list in which we sent out our “Greetings from Japan” with observations about Japan. Over the years, we’ve had to clean our mailing list several times, so that some readers who have been on it for years ended up getting removed. To get everyone back, we’re giving away $5 in J-List points on Monday to everyone. Just sign up (or re-sign up, if your email got removed) by scrolling down to the bottom of either site, and the coupon will be in Monday’s mail. We never share your email with any third party.
