|
If you jostle your way through Shinsaibashi Arcade, you
could be forgiven for thinking that Japanese scientists have succeeded in experiments
in cloning people, teenage girls, in fact. You will
see dozens of tanned girls with brown hair and narrow eyebrows, wearing baggy
socks and Burberry scarves. They will be looking at
their pagers, talking on portable phones, exchanging tiny photographs of themselves
with others or, some especially envied girls will be playing with their tamagotchi,
a game where an electronic chicken is brought up by its owner. These
girls are called "Kogyals", which roughly translates as "cool teenage
girl". The Kogyal are the children of parents
who grew up in the sixties and seventies and were the first generation to experience
the mass-ownership of videos and computers. It seems
that parents and teachers spend little time trying to communicate with children. Many
of the students have part-time jobs, even though they know it is against school
rules. Many of their teachers know about this, but
don't say anything, leading to a feeling among the children that anything is all
right if it isn't discussed. Many people think that
they are spoiled and not used to waiting to get something they want. Some
people think that this is creating a selfish "me first" generation of
teenagers who know what they want and want it straight away. | 
