I've always enjoyed color, but a couple of things in my life have caused me to take a harder look at color, and think about what it means, and how it is perceived.
The first was a pre-cell phone experience in about... 1985 or 1986 I think it was. Pre-cell phone, you would arrange to meet people by agreeing to meet at a coffee shop. That way, whoever got there first could sit down and relax while waiting for the other person to show up.
One such day in Harajuku I arrived at a coffee shop early, and felt really lucky to get the table right in front of the window (it was a long, narrow shop, so there was just one such table). I ordered a coffee, and then as I slowly drank it, I contemplated the world outside on the Omotesando street. Normal enough thing for the time, but an added element made it even more interesting. Someone had a bunch of flowers set up in front of the coffee shop (an actual flower shop maybe, but more likely through some agreement with the coffee shop).
As I began to drink my coffee, I observed a woman buy some flowers, and then, while waiting for her change, she looked at the flowers in her hand and had this really happy expression on her face.... I thought, "She must really like flowers..." As I continued to drink my coffee while waiting for my acquaintance to arrive, I observed another customer buying flowers - also a woman, and also showing that happy look while looking at the flowers. "Huh... just like the last customer..." thought I.
If it had only been those two customers, I probably would have just forgotten about it, but I observed several other people buying flowers, all women, and all of them looked upon the flowers they bought with that happy expression on their faces. It was quite striking! At the time, I remember thinking, "I like flowers too, but I don't recall them making me feel happy the way they seem to be making that parade of women customers happy... they must be seeing something I don't when looking at flowers..."
Fast forward a couple of decades and there was some research done on how men and women perceive colors and (if I'm remembering this correctly) the result was that women are far more perceptive of color than men. When I read that, I immediately had a flashback to that day - watching people buying flowers from that coffee shop window in Omotesando (near Harajuku Station).
Fast forward some more, and I've found I recently appreciate flowers and their colors in a way I haven't before. As an example, the flowers in the vase further up the page. I carried them home from Shinagawa poking out of the top of my bag. So who gave them a good look in the train? Women.... I'm sure part of the issue is men are supposed to be like cold steel and uninterested in the fragile beauty of flowers, but there's some other element too it seems. How did I feel carrying them home so publicly? I wish I could respond here with, "Huh? What do you mean?", but I found myself feeling defensive about them, thinking basically, "Yeah, that's right, a guy is carrying some flowers home. You got a problem with that?" Why? Well, no other guys had flowers sticking out of their bags and several woman were checking out the flowers with radio wave questions in the air.....
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
tokyoht.blogspot.jp/
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