Before I moved to Tokyo I had several pre conceptions about the city I was moving too. I was well aware of the condensed, concrete jungle I was venturing into. All the usual stereotyped images; a city of neon, sophistication, micro sized gadgetry, manga influenced futurism that sat aside traditionalism and ancient culture, the usual faff. But during my initial honeymoon period of experiencing those stereotypical joys I began to realize how godammned "jimi" the place was at times.

First, let me digress and explain the origins and meanings of "jimi".

Bear with me a little as with all understanding of things Japanese we have to delve into the language, a pretty fascinating and impenetrable language, but as it is language that makes up the very culture of any society, I will have to don my Japanese language teachers cap momentarily and explain the origins of this word, as I said bear with me kids...kanji can be fascinating...

In its complete for we have地味 the word "Jimi" the first symbol 地meaning "earth, soil" its derived from 土 meaning ground, the second character 味 is a combination of mouth and the symbol for "not yet" which commonly gives the meaning flavour (i.e. a flavour has not yet entered our mouth) put the two together and we have "Simple tastes, basic flavour" but only in the Japanese sense...were talking in Western English... "Taste for shit", "unsophisticated tastes" or "mundane predilection"....The term here while having a slight air of offense to it, wouldn't come as a damning statement on someone if named "jimi".

Now before I came to Tokyo I think I was lied to by several culture and style magazines: I would be seeing the cutting edge of youth culture and experience the sharper end of hip. If I went to a local youth hangout spot on a Sunday I could see all the stylish art beatniks my eyes could eat their fill off. Yes there were the gothic Lolita girls, the diehard rockabillies, the nostalgic (but so popular at the moment) kishidan high school rebels but not in great abundance, just disappointingly small cliques dotted here and there. (Please remember that next time you buy an expensive coffee table photo book of "Tokyo harajuku tribe style childs" at your local overpriced designer bookshop. These people can only be seen on CERTAIN DAYS at CERTAIN TIMES in CERTAIN AREAS and in VERY SMALL groups)

One thing had drawn my eye in particular was the majority, not the minority...Large groups of plainly dressed high school girls showing off posters of J-pop stars, bespectacled young men trading the ever so popular weekly manga telephone directory sized comics, middle aged women exchanging fan-art based wall scrolls of Korean soap opera stars, men and women of vastly varying age ranges wearing and exchanging and swapping horrifying tacky Disney merchandise. (In Japan - Disney rules over some peoples lives in a very frightening way)

"Where are all the cool hip kids I've been told about in London Style magazines?" I incredulously asked my friend.

"Ano... that's them over there, see 2 gothic Lolita's talking to a kishidan guy" she replied.

"But, but who are all these other people? What are they doing?" I sputtered.

"Well they come here early in the morning and exchange comics, and toys and posters and fans and things and sit and talk about and swap their favorite music ringtones or exchange pop stuff, or show off a collection of figures or things like that" was the reply.

"But those girls over there, they are swapping those plastic hand fans you get from companies given out free at the summer in the street".

"Uh huh yeah, what's wrong with that ?" My friend replied.

"But its there day off, shouldn't hey be like out having wild young fun?" I asked.

"This is their fun, they like to meet up and talk about these things"

"But it's like 8:30 in the morning!" I bellowed.

At this moment one girl turns up with a box the size of the ark of the covenenant stuffed full of plastic giveaway fans with j-pop idols printed on them only to be met by sheer unbridled religious fervor by her peers holding up possible trades.

"It seems a bit dull if you ask me" I said dejectedly. Letdown at the sights before me, expecting all that was promised in "Yoyogi-Tokyo go-go punk-gals" type magazine features.

"No, not really" my friend coyly replied in a manner I had heard before asking a Japanese person about something that wasn't particularly of national pride.

"I mean look there, they are going nuts over Pizza LA plastic hand fans with Yon Bae Jun printed on them" I cried.

"Well, I guess they are what we call jimi na hito...." She finally said reservedly.

"What kind of people I asked?", understanding "hito" meaning people "Jimi... what's that mean ?"

And thus it was explained, the mundanity of it all, the pedestrian uncoolness, the day to day simple ness of it, the base hobbyist, the waking up at 6 am on a day off to find a good spot with your plain boring stuff to meet other plain boring people and trade till the twilight hours after the art school posing gothic Lolita's had headed home and the psychobillies hitched onto their customized Harleys and rode home to wash the grease from their hair and baby-sit their rock n roll kids for the evening.

I felt cheated at the plain ordinary spectacle I witnessed...I went to these places to see "Tokyo-hip-hop-bangra cyber-punk boyz gone goth" all the stuff-hype and made up stereo typical nonsense that others had perpetuated myths of Tokyo from...it wasn't there...well it was in small enclaves but not the way I was told..."is this it just lots of jimi people?" I grumbled.

But now time has passed and I've lived here longer. I've learnt to love the jimi people, there's such an uncluttered, honest joy in the way they gamble through life. When seeing a pair of housewives complimenting each other on their "SantaLand" sweatshirts, it reminds me of the hows and whys I wanted to get far from Britain, American, even European culture...

I couldn't stand another evening of television that brayed faux high style elitist pseudo-intellectual mid-brow nonsense at me. Every Friday evening spent in not going clubbing at a super club was brought home by a mocking TV commercial for another eurphorical big mix, by the godfather of trance-break-step du jour. I was fed up of conversations with people trying to out-do each other with obscurest cultural knowledge." WHO did I know? WHAT did I do? WHERE have I been?" and more importantly "ARE YOU AS MUCH IN THE KNOW AS I AM !?!"

I thought I would be exotic, reach heady heights of cool and run to farther climes in search of the elusive Tokyo culture stomping grounds that were held in such high regard, but all I found was lots of jimi ordinary day to day people. The internationalist jet setting, big mix weekender style mag wannabe sophisticate who knew better than me was screaming in my ear that I wasn't catching the real Tokyo, but I was.

It was just busy people in a busy city with very little time away from work; they had no time for pretentious posturing and they like what they like for its simplicity, ease of accessibility and just simple joy of the swap meet. There was no pretending or one upmanship or the "I know more than you' cultural knowing, the same friends and associates meeting each weekend to trade toy story 2 t shirts, DAIKIN giveaway air conditioner advert hand fans, 2nd hand baseball caps and trade weekly comic/magazine.

While others may come to Tokyo looking for the elusive, almost non existent style tribes and sub cultures we're alluded to believe, they still overlook the 25 year old woman on a train wearing a "Chip n Dale" T -shirt clutching the entire cast of "Finding Nemo" in plastic miniature toy form key chained to her mobile phone...a young girl like that here and no one bats an eyelid.

Yet I try to imagine her equivalent in Britain. If she was there, would the style elite roll their eyes in embarrassment or snicker at her immaturity? Or guffaw at her unsophisticated tastes? Or would they capitalize on yet another "new look"?

A lady like her in Tokyo is the norm and for me there is most certainly a comfort and a joy to be found in being jimi, it's a world away from what I was told I would find here. As I look back to "home" I see things emerging in Western markets such as Loriel's "manga hair" styling range, Disney's wholesale buying the rights to Studio Ghibli movies, unchilling remakes of classic Japanese horror movies entering the Hollywood mainstream, the 80's revival of the revival of the Tokyo 80's revival and other such nonsense.