Our Princess of Popura
For those of you who have never been to Japan and are thus unaware, let me give you a brief primer on the convenience store, or combini. Combinis are everywhere in Japan, and can be found on almost every street corner in Tokyo as well as in the middle of nowhere, dotting Japan's beautiful countryside. There are huge nationwide chains like Lawson's, Family Mart, 7-11, and Circle K/Sunkus, as well as many more local and regional chains. Most of them follow the same formula: they're quick and cheap, offering a wide range of packaged and prepared foods, including instant ramen, lunch bentos, rice balls, and a ridiculous array of other stuff. Most of them also sell booze and cigarettes, and are open 24 hours. They offer a huge variety of services, far too many to go into here. To put them in a nutshell, they are glorious, glowing fluorescent bastions of consumption, a ridiculously easy and convenient outlet for your vices, whatever they may be. They are fantastic, and I can't imagine a Japan without them.
On to the point of this post...there is a combini directly in front of my school. It's just across a small local road from the front gate of the school - if you know what you want, you can buy it and get back in less than a minute. It's called Popura, a chain that originated here in Hiroshima and is based in the Chugoku region, but has spread across Kyushu and can be found as far away as Tokyo.
Something I found out pretty recently though, is that the location in front of my school is actually the original location. What's more, it was opened there by a student who graduated from my Kanon High School, for the express purpose of making things convenient for the teachers and students of the school. So all the hundreds, possibly thousands, of Popura locations across Japan have their origin in a humble store that opened to serve the needs, primarily, of my school.
And now that humble store is closing. Just this week, they put up a sign telling customers that Friday will be the final day for the store, and after that they are closing up for good. Not the whole chain, just this one location. The original location. Why on earth would the heads of the chain decide to do that, or if it wasn't their decision, let it happen?
Several years ago, there was a similar article in the food section of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Written by a far more talented writer than I, it was titled "Our Lady of Lawson", or something to that effect. It detailed the author's experiences living in Japan near a Lawson's combini, how the store became a regular part of his life, and how deeply affected he was when he found out that the store was to close suddenly. He described how the shop owners and keepers had become almost like an extended family, how he worried about their well being after the closing as much as they worried about his.
Not quite the same situation here, but I know exactly how he felt. Going in there today during lunch break, and seeing the now almost-empty shelves, was terribly sad. The shopkeepers, providing impeccable service while working for basically minimum wage, have all become a part of my regular routine. From the old woman in the mornings who is the reason I carefully count my change now, to the slightly creepy older man who stares at me whenever I'm in there, to the cute young girl they hired a few months ago, to the middle age woman who is always there no matter how early or late it is...I feel a real sadness that they won't be around anymore.
Popura (which is the Japanese phonetic approximation of "poplar", a tree) is as much a part of this school as the school is a part of it. The poplar is the official tree of my school, and they're planted all around the grounds. The students and faculty (including me) all know the store like the back of their hands, and the slightest changes at the store become big school news. There's even a research-oriented class called Popura for 2nd and 3rd year students at my school.
It's like Popura is actually part of my school, and on Friday we're going to be losing that part.
And then an entire class of students is graduating and leaving us the very next day. This is going to be a very different, much more lonely place next week!
On to the point of this post...there is a combini directly in front of my school. It's just across a small local road from the front gate of the school - if you know what you want, you can buy it and get back in less than a minute. It's called Popura, a chain that originated here in Hiroshima and is based in the Chugoku region, but has spread across Kyushu and can be found as far away as Tokyo.
Something I found out pretty recently though, is that the location in front of my school is actually the original location. What's more, it was opened there by a student who graduated from my Kanon High School, for the express purpose of making things convenient for the teachers and students of the school. So all the hundreds, possibly thousands, of Popura locations across Japan have their origin in a humble store that opened to serve the needs, primarily, of my school.
And now that humble store is closing. Just this week, they put up a sign telling customers that Friday will be the final day for the store, and after that they are closing up for good. Not the whole chain, just this one location. The original location. Why on earth would the heads of the chain decide to do that, or if it wasn't their decision, let it happen?
Several years ago, there was a similar article in the food section of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Written by a far more talented writer than I, it was titled "Our Lady of Lawson", or something to that effect. It detailed the author's experiences living in Japan near a Lawson's combini, how the store became a regular part of his life, and how deeply affected he was when he found out that the store was to close suddenly. He described how the shop owners and keepers had become almost like an extended family, how he worried about their well being after the closing as much as they worried about his.
Not quite the same situation here, but I know exactly how he felt. Going in there today during lunch break, and seeing the now almost-empty shelves, was terribly sad. The shopkeepers, providing impeccable service while working for basically minimum wage, have all become a part of my regular routine. From the old woman in the mornings who is the reason I carefully count my change now, to the slightly creepy older man who stares at me whenever I'm in there, to the cute young girl they hired a few months ago, to the middle age woman who is always there no matter how early or late it is...I feel a real sadness that they won't be around anymore.
Popura (which is the Japanese phonetic approximation of "poplar", a tree) is as much a part of this school as the school is a part of it. The poplar is the official tree of my school, and they're planted all around the grounds. The students and faculty (including me) all know the store like the back of their hands, and the slightest changes at the store become big school news. There's even a research-oriented class called Popura for 2nd and 3rd year students at my school.
It's like Popura is actually part of my school, and on Friday we're going to be losing that part.
And then an entire class of students is graduating and leaving us the very next day. This is going to be a very different, much more lonely place next week!