A Halloween tour around the world.

One of the wonders of Disney is that they are so effective at spreading American culture freaking everywhere. I mean, people in three different continents know what "Main Street USA" is supposed to look like, have heard barbershop quartets sing, and get immersed in all other kinds of nostalgic Americana. Disney doesn't just spread fairy dust and princesses, it's an engine for sharing the American dream and a lot of American culture.

Halloween is one of those examples. What the heck do Japanese people know about Halloween? But according to this blogger Disney Tokyo and Universal Studios Osaka have been almost the biggest influences in introducing Halloween to this country. As with any localization, they've taken some liberties and made some adjustments. Here are my observations on the flavors of Halloween.

The splash page for Hong Kong is all about chills and thrills at Halloween.

Hong Kong loves scary Halloween. What is it about Chinese people and ghostly spirits? I definitely grew up terrified of ghosts and convinced of their existence. Do Chinese people just like to get scared? They've got spooky trees and headless horsemen and haunted mansions. Plural.

It does seem like Hong Kong Halloween is targeted to adults. And not much emphasis on costumes.

Although Japan apparently have some scary-as-heck concepts of ghosts who are so evil they will kill you just for fun, their Halloween is a lot more upbeat, really cute and somewhat confused with a harvest festival.

Tokyo's idea of Halloween seems much cuter and cheerier than other versions.

Home-made costumes in Japan way surpass other costumes.

As the originator of cosplay, they also have some awesome costumes (seriously, check out the photos in this girl's trip report) and I'm really looking forward to getting a first-hand look at it tonight. Interesting quirk: Tokyo Disney is the only park that ONLY allows Disney costumes. Teenage Ninja Turtles - stay out. Ditto minions.

Somehow, Disney Paris has managed to work fashion into Halloween with a Minnie Couture fashion kind of a thing.

One of many treat stations around Disneyland Anaheim. People pay $64 to spend five hours collecting handfuls of chocolate in the park.

Disney Anaheim, the original American creation, is the place where Halloween is about candy, kids, and whatever thing you've thrown together called a costume. The trick or treating is a big deal, and something people come to the park for. Which I still don't understand, see my previous blog entry. The American parks are also the ones that have this warning on costumes: "Costumes should not contain weapons which resemble or could be easily mistaken for an actual weapon." Presumably because people running around with guns in the park is an actual scenario they've trained for, and they don't want to have to shoot you to protect the other guests.

Costume time in Anaheim.

I had the chance to drop by Disney for a few hours last night and check out the Halloween costume action. For those of you who don't check the Disney web site every week (that would be all of you I'm guessing), Disney throws a giant Halloween party a couple times a week throughout the month of October with dancing and trick-or-treating and almost zero lines in the rides. When I read the Yelp reviews, people say it's abso-freaking-lutely amazing, since they give away so much candy - like, FIVE POUNDS of chocolate in a single night!

It's got to be the most expensive chocolate ever, since even the cheapest party ticket is more than $50, so about $10 per pound of Kit Kats seems a bit steep.

Getting in to see the costumes was pretty cool. I was expecting lots of Disney princesses and villains, but I underestimated the complete free-for-all that is the American Halloween tradition. There were ninja turtles, minions, Batman, and a troupe of about 30 Waldo's on a scavenger hunt. At least three good Hermione Grangers in Hogwarts robes were running around the park.

At the gate I found the entire cast of Peter Pan, including lost Boys, Indians, Michael, Wendy, even a mermaid. By the way, she can walk around in that. Her legs are in the rock, not in the flippers.

This group was one of my favorites: Super Princesses. They were getting stopped for photos all over the park, including by a group of teenage boys dressed as football players. These princesses don't need saving: they have ass-kicking boots.

Both the Peter Pan and the Super Princess group had hand-made their costumes. Some of the best costumes were hand made and one of a kind.

Not to be outdone, Tigger got into the superhero action. You know the only thing better than a Tigger? A Super Tigger. With a corpse bride.

 This was the most detailed costume set, down to the last details and the skin paint.

I think my favorite would have to be Maleficent though. I always loved her. I did finally find a really awesome Maleficent. This very nice lady had been ambushed by her grandchildren, who insisted she must be a villain at the party and brought her to the park. This photo doesn't do the glowing lights of fire behind her, but her costume is velvet, hand-stitched, with fabulous folds and SEQUINS. She was spectacular.

I wish I had more time to share photos but my flight is boarding to Tokyo, so I'll post more later. Hoping for a few hours once there to check out and compare Japanese Halloween costumes. I can imagine these beautiful hand-made deals, but I do have a hard time imagining a Super Tigger in Tokyo.

Where have all the princesses gone?

One thing you immediately notice about Disney Tokyo is the absolute scarcity of princesses. You'll find a fair share of Minnies, Alices, even an occasional pirate or Mike Wazowski. There's an occasional Snow White or Rapunzel, but they are way outnumbered by the non-royal Disney family.

Contrast this to a typical morning at Disney World in Orlando, where every morning the Princess Parade walks through Downtown Disney, with ladies-in-waiting and cheering crowds, finally ending at the carousel where the princesses take their victory lap on their faithful steed.

I have a couple of theories about this difference - what I call the Princess Gap.

1) If Japanese people really prefer not standing out, the last thing you would want to be is a princess. They're unique, headstrong, and the story (especially modern ones) start and end with them never fitting in as they should. Think Ariel, Belle, Mulan.
2) Dressing up at the parks extends into the adult population, and no adult is going to be walking around as a princess. The kids follow suit.

Or, this is one of the newest theories I'm considering. The younger Japanese generation seem to be turning up their noses at "happily ever after" or even just plain encounters with the opposite sex. 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship. 33% of Japanese people don't believe in marriage. The Japan Family Planning Association learned that 45% of women and more than a quarter of men "were not interested in or despised sexual contact."

Whoa.

So much for Prince Charming or his blushing bride. Is it possible that the falling birth rate in Japan has to do with the Princess Gap?

Pirates don't need princes.

By the way, the falling birth rate leads to other interesting challenges for the future of Disney Japan, which so far they seem to be handling well. But I'll leave that for another day.

In Japan: The Joy of Belonging

I can't believe it's almost been three weeks since my last post! It's not for the lack of things to write about, really! Things have just been a little busy. But I did manage to make it into the Tokyo parks during my two-week stay in Japan. In all, I managed an 8-hour day at Disney and two six-hour days, and brought home plenty of photos and stories to share.

One of the things I really love about Japanese culture is that they don't have that rigid adherence to individuality and uniqueness that Americans do. I remember someone telling me in high school (in Southern California) that if they ever showed up at a party and saw someone else wearing the same dress, they would turn around and go home. Because, you know, a girl needs to be unique.

In Japan it seems to almost be the opposite. Fitting in and finding comfort in similarities seem to be the norm, and they seem so happy at it. Going to Disney was something that groups of girls did - teens and 20's seemed to be most common - and they did it in style. Together. In identical ears and shirts and sometimes even socks and shoes.

So much of these visitor's enjoyment seemed to come from being girly together and being dressed up. I was truly jealous of the kind of goofy dress-up fun they were having together. This led to a rather unwise decision to purchase a Tigger outfit. But alas, I was a Tigger of one.

Minnie seemed to be the most popular, but Alice is also doing well Or, at least I think these were Alices. I don't seem to remember the cartoon version wearing such revealing skirts.

And, unless you think the dressing up is completely in the realm of grown-ups, there were adorable matching children as well. In particular, this group of Huey, Dewey, and Louie were running around the park. I looked for the outfits in the many shops, thinking I'd buy one (for whom??? I don't even have kids! but it was so cute...) I think this was from a previous season of kids' clothing though. 

I sat behind these two Alices for most of an hour as we waited for the Halloween parade to start. Boy are Japanese kids patient. They entertained themselves and danced around in their dresses the whole time.

Which reminds me. I need to write about how many Alices there are in Tokyo, and how few princesses. Compare that to the Princess Parade that was Disney Orlando. There must be something kind of reasoning behind about how different cultures choose different characters to idolize. I'm not sure the Japanese believe in princesses, or at least the Disney version of it. 

Disney: It's not for kids anymore.

I'm in Tokyo doing a combination sustainable-seafood-Facebook-ads research run. The original plan was to spend the weekend at Disneyland and Disneysea, but I traded those days to go spend some time on a tuna boat in south Japan. Much as I love Disney, when else does one get to go on a tuna boat? One fisherman I met in Tokyo last year grumbled that he should open the real Disneysea. Anyways, bottom line: no Disney weekend for me.

Fortunately, the Tokyo parks have an "After 6 Pass" - about half price for entry after 6pm.  We don't have this option in the US. I'd been wondering why, and I think I might have figured it out, not at the park, but at the store.

Since I don't have time for a full day of Disney for observations, I'm improvising while in Tokyo. Last night I went to the Disney store in Shibuya. This whimsical 3-story castle is stuffed full of Disney merchandise, and two things immediately stood out when I walked in:

1) Unlike American Disney stores, this one is not a princess palace. Instead, there are iPhone covers, leather purses, jewelry, and stationary. They feature Mickey, Minnie, and Duffy for the most part, with an occasional Alice apron or jewelry box.

2) Granted it was 8pm on a Wednesday night, so things probably look different on weekends. But there wasn't a single child under 16 in the entire store. Instead, young couples strolled hand in hand, friends (mostly groups of 2-4 women, but there were a few teenage boys) browsed through the products, laughing together at the inventiveness found in the store.

I have a hard time imagining young American couples wanting to go to the Disney store together.

It's a different kind of Disney here. This is a Disney not targeted at 6-year-old girls with dreams of being a princess. No, no no. This is a Disney solidly targeted at the 20 to 30 year old market: young people looking for cute things. And by the way, cute - kawaii - is completely acceptable in Japan. For grown ups, for men, for everyone. I watched a group of 20 year old boys picking out Disney-themed pens near the check-out.

So I think this explains the After 6 Pass. There's no sense offering it to parents after a hard day of work, with kids who need to go school the next day. It makes a lot of sense to provide a place for young adults to go, especially in this culture of cute.

This Is Not a Good Sign

My friend Rainne has a Tumblr site called "This Is Not a Good Sign." I'd like to submit this Disney poster for her blog, because truly, this is not a good sign.

A little background first. Heather and I just got back from our Disneyland trip. This was our first trip since the opening of Cars Land. For the record, Heather and I love love LOVE Cars Land. More specifically, we love that it attracts all the people away from our favorite ride, Toy Story Mania, leaving the ride deserted and unloved, like an old toy. Our old toy, that we so dearly love.

If you're not already familiar with it, Toy Story Mania is a midway-like simulation dark ride where you wear 3D glasses while riding through a series of ring tossing, ball throwing, dart shooting arcades. It's great fun and guaranteed to wear out your arm. I got a blister on my finger from a particularly frenzied attack on the last round of mine carts. If you've not been on it, I'd highly recommend it for your next Disney trip.

At the entrance to Paradise Pier. No crowds!

So anyways, back to the poster. There are a series of "vintage" midway posters about the games on the ride, and this beauty is one of them. I love attention to detail Disney is so famous for. Paradise Pier is built to look and feel like a Victorian beach boardwalk, with matching posters and people dressed in period costume, and the effect is enchanting.

Perhaps in Victorian innocence, Flying Tossers should get a bye, but I do crack up every time we go past the poster again. I get it - Flying Tossers, flying saucers. It's a ring toss game themed around aliens. But I wonder if the designers ever knew what it meant, or had a laugh about all the Brits visiting California, wondering why there's a game of Flying Tossers to play with their children.

Three days!!!

When my niece was eight, I told her that I would take her to Disney World - when she was twelve. "That's half my life!" she complained. To an eight year old, four years seemed like an eternity. But we did go to Disney World, and for every year after that, Heather and I have had our thing - Disneyland. Once a year, just me and her. I have the best aunt job ever.

BugVision glasses on, waiting underground for our first "It's Tough to be a Bug" show.

Of course there are other close people in my life - Rob, Thomas, Alice - who also enjoy Disney but Heather is my Disney Twin. If we lived in the Pacific Rim world, we would be mentally compatible for drift, and effortlessly crush any Kaiju coming our way. As long as our way was Disneyland.

She understands the park the same way I do. You have a plan, hit the park early, always do rope drop, make use of Fast Passes, pin trade when the crowds come in and then retreat to your cool hotel room with a bucket of Tony Roma's ribs to watch TV and relax until the crowds disperse and the park is yours again. We've been doing this for three years and we've got it down. I look forward to this trip ALL YEAR. This year has the added bonus that she's started watching Star Trek: Voyager, so we can watch it together in the afternoons. Disney, Star Trek, more Disney. I feel faint just thinking about it.

Little girls who think they're princesses don't get more excited than I do about Disney.

We got delayed this year because of conflicting schedules, but managed to squeeze this in ahead of her first day of high school and my business trip. We leave in three days, and I am beyond all reasonable levels of excited. Little girls who think they're princesses going to a real magic kingdom don't get more excited than this. I've been going through my pin collection, pulling out my least favorite ones for trade. Which Ursula should I keep? Do I break up the Muppets? What are my chances of finding a Baloo to keep Mowgli and Colonel Hathi company?

A few of the hundred or so pins I've collected since our first Disney trip together.

And I've been studying the Disney line wait times for two weeks, using all three apps I downloaded from the iTunes store. Radiator Springs runs out of Fast Passes early, so we'll need to grab one in the morning. Not before hitting Toy Story Mania though, because those lines also build in the morning and there are no Fast Passes there. California Screamin' seems to have lost much of its lines to the opening of Cars Land, so we could grab a Fast Pass for that one on our way out of Toy Story Mania, and still be able to get one for Radiator Springs ten minutes later.

Are you keeping up with all this? If you are, I'd like to know, because if you're tracking this we're probably Disney compatible too.

So. Three days. Between me and the trip stand two 12-14 hour work days, but I'm keeping my eyes on the prize.