Women take an eye for an eye, especially on moving
trains
It was the morning of Monday, and Kiyohito Kokita, a reporter for
Aera, observed a woman, aged around 30, boarding the Metro subway
at the first stop on the line. Once seated, she promptly went to
work on her eyelashes using a hinged metal device that resembled a
pair of pliers, or perhaps a dentist's tool used for tooth
extractions.
Such a device, which applies pressure to make the lashes curl
upward in a graceful curve, is referred to in Japan as a
"byuraa."
That task completed, she glanced in a hand mirror and artfully
began applying mascara. Satisfied with her work, she then picked up
a paperback book and began reading until disembarking not long
thereafter.
From beginning to end, the show had lasted 10 minutes. It was
carried out with such measured efficiency, Aera's reporter wondered
that perhaps it was a part of her daily routine.
A week later, Kokita sat aboard a Tokyo-bound aircraft, headed back
to Tokyo from his mid-August vacation. As the plane began its
descent, a young woman seated next to him, who appeared to be
around age 20, took out her mirror and mascara and began applying
eye cosmetics. The ritual continued until the wheels bumped down on
the tarmac.
During this very public beauty treatment, Kokita grumbles, it was
as if she gave no consideration to anyone else's existence. True,
her appearance did improve, but watching the step-by-step
transformation was not especially pleasant, her implication being,
"Well, you're not supposed to look at me while the process is going
on, only after it's finished." But if you do watch her, she could
care less.
But what, suggests Aera's reporter, if he were to tell such young
women what was really on his mind? Like... "Say, how about
refraining from this audacious, self-indulgent behavior, eh?"
To which any woman would be likely to reply indignantly, "It's YOU
who's offending me! You've obviously got a problem, Jack!"
Eyes glistening with hatred, she might provoke him by saying, "If
you're going to say something, tell me what's on your mind! I dare
you!" and then retreat by whining, "If I don't have nice eyelashes,
I won't get anywhere in this world."
This bizarre behavior, writes Kokita, represents nothing less than
eyelash paranoia.
But how did this situation come about? For a female to be stuck
with short, straight eyelashes, writes Aera, was as traumatic as
baldness is for men. Gals want long, curly lashes that enhance the
glimmer of their eyes, and which they can bat furiously to
mesmerize men.
Hiroto Murasawa, a professor at Osaka Shoin Women's University, had
previously spent 28 years editing a beauty research magazine for
Pola, a major cosmetics manufacturer.
According to Murasawa, after Japan emerged from several centuries
of enforced isolation in the mid-1800s, women gradually felt a
stronger attraction to the more pronounced features of Western
faces -- a sentiment that gained further appeal following World War
2.
"The 1950s, which saw actress Audrey Hepburn enjoy a huge
popularity, were a time when women sought to appear 'more glitzy,
and more unnatural,'" Murasawa relates.
By the late 1960s through the 1970s, a stream of female singers and
actresses appeared whose pretty peepers basically stole the show --
even if they were flat-chested, knock-kneed and couldn't sing in
key: Ruriko Asaoka. Linda Yamamoto. Chiyo Okumura. Ayumi Ishida.
Mari Amachi -- just to name a few.
Nowadays the trend is to emulate female cyborgs, layering on the
mascara to cultivate sweeping eyelashes whose exaggerated curves
resemble the spread wing feathers of the cranes used in Japanese
product logo marks. And development of better quality cosmetics has
made it possible for almost anyone to paint themselves artistically
in minutes.
If there's one thing for sure, Aera comments, it's that females'
ability to perform a beauty treatment aboard moving transport has
improved markedly over the years.
"About 30 years ago, I read a weekly magazine's account of a woman
who was trying to put on her lipstick while riding a bus," Murasawa
recollects. "Her hand slipped and she wound up decorating her
nostril. She was blushing with embarrassment as she disembarked.
But she showed composure, and I supposed she got over it all
right.
"But I suppose the girls today have become much more adept at
pulling off a similar feat," he remarks, tongue in cheek.