Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 17: Rose: Harajuku Girl

Harajuku was very, very urban and built up. It was also brightly colored, and the streets were closed to traffic, at least around the shopping district and the bridge. Even more brightly colored, though, were the people. There was hardly a naturally colored head of hair to be seen, assuming everyone gathered there was a normal human, not a meta, and also Japanese.

Rose looked around at the crowd thronging the area and ventured a question. "Is it, like, Halloween here or something?" Everyone seemed to be in some sort of costume, and not the kind you wore to save the world, either. She could see punks of both sexes, girls in Alice-in-Wonderland style dresses either dark and moody or bright and cheerful, a lot of guys in vampire or Victorian dandy clothes, both genders in kimonos mixed incongruously with things like corsets and bowler hats, and some dressed as cartoon or movie characters.

There were even people dressed more or less ordinarily, but whose garb mixed, for example, a plaid coat with mismatched leggings, one rainbow striped and the other polka dotted, and then loaded down with every accessory possible and a few that weren't possible. Their costumes weren't the trashy kind from Halloween pop-up stores, either. Every stitch, every bauble was beautifully made.

"No, it's just Harajuku on a Sunday, and not even in full swing yet," Yukie replied.

"Okay—why?"

"Either at school or at work, these young people are expected to adhere to a strict dress code. There isn't much room for self-expression and there's no such thing as Casual Friday, so when they get to the weekend, they make up for it by dressing up whatever way they like."

"But—why the baby bonnets and the Punky Brewster overalls and cutesy stuff?" Rose asked. "Why do they want to look like they're about six years old?"

"It's a statement: 'I'm so young I'm still playing dress-up. I'm too young for adult things like sex and marriage and managing a household.'" Yukie led them around a group who had gone with a 'Scooby-Doo' theme, each member dressed like one of the toons.

"To answer your next question, 'Why do they want to make such a statement?', Japan is still a very sexist society and a youth-obsessed one at that. Women are expected to retire from the work force by about age thirty, if not when they marry, then certainly when they have children. Some progress has been made, but not enough. If I were looking for a job here today and somehow got to the interview stage, I assure you they would look at my resume and then say something like, 'Very impressive, but do you know any women with all these qualifications who are at least fifteen years younger than you?'"

"You're kidding me."

"Unfortunately, no." Yukie returned.

"What?" Rose spluttered. "But—that's illegal! Employers aren't allowed to discriminate on things like sex and age!"

"In the US, it may be illegal, but not here. Even in the States, it can be extremely difficult to prove unless a prospective employer makes an indiscreet remark in front of witnesses or has practiced such discrimination often enough to show a pattern. Again, even then it can be difficult to prove to a court—for example, the class action suit against Wal-Mart which so memorably failed."

"That—," Rose cast about for the right words. "That sucks! It isn't fair—aren't we supposed to be beyond all that?"

Yukie stopped and turned to face her. "Yes. But these are minor problems, first-world problems. In South Korea, by law a medical professional cannot tell a couple the sex of their unborn child because even though abortions are illegal there, if it is female, they will more often than not get rid of it. Even well to do, well educated women would far rather have boys rather than raise daughters who will go through what they went through.