Around the corner from my apartment is a cafe that is filled with "One Piece" memorabilia. One Piece is a Japanese comic book (manga) and cartoon show (anime). It's quite popular in Taiwan.
I went to this cafe today for the first time with a Japanese friend of mine. I was fearing going here as I thought all the memorabilia would just be an excuse for people to come, thus the food needn't be good. In the end the food wasn't bad and I was quite glad I came.
The reason is because my Japanese friend was BEAMING. Try as she might, she couldn't hold back her smiles, and every few minutes she was discovering something new in the store that made her extremely excited. It was really great to see somebody so completely happy.
And I get it, being away from the comforts of home, the things that are natural to you, it can be quite an experience when you go some place that is a shrine to your old life back home. I remember being almost as giddy when i went to a hot dog restaurant in the city that had a lot of Simpsons memorabilia. Well I was giddy until i had the food....so terrible.
Back to today, because she didn't have a camera, I went around taking pictures with my phone for her. The restaurant owners were very excited that I was so interested in their items, that they toured me around telling me what to take photos of. They were talking with each other about how interesting it was that a foreigner likes One Piece and if foreigners can even see the shows. They even came to table and gave me a special One Piece souvenir. However once I gave it to my friend, and then gave her my phone to take pictures of, they realized that she was in fact the big fan.
Although it also became clear that she is just a fan of one of the characters who has a lot of muscles and doesn't wear a shirt. As I now have a lot of pictures of him on my phone.
To be honest though, I really am glad she likes a cartoon character. Because I once went into a store here in Taiwan that sells these figurines, and about 80% of the inventory was sexy female cartoon characters. At the time I felt a little creeped out by it, that guys would buy them. But now i feel good that in the comic book culture there are women who buy the sculptures of the cartoon half naked men as well.
