Konbini country

Another week has gone by, and it’s still a lot hotter than I’d like it to be here in Osaka. You know you’re in for an absolutely scorching afternoon when you realize that your comfortably-cool air conditioning is set to the equivalent of 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and it’s easily pushing 100 outside. Apparently, August is supposed to be hotter; I guess I’ll find that out soon enough. But in the meantime, there is once place I can always count on to get me out of the heat and into a protective zone of comfort and familiarity. It’s open all day and night, is air-conditioned, and the friendly face at the counter will never tell me that I’ve worn out my welcome. This, of course, would be a convenience store.

Convenience stores in Japan (called konbini, in the Japanese way of simplifying all long words down to precisely 4 morae) are, in a word, ubiquitous. This country went from having close to none 30 or so years ago, to being pretty much saturated. It’s hard to walk more than a block in any direction around here, without encountering at least one, and as a matter of fact, there happens to be one in the builiding next to the one my apartment’s in. There’s practically one on every corner of a city… except that sometimes you’ll find one in between the ones on the corners, and perhaps another one at the same corner, peering back from across the street. I suppose that certainly makes them a convenience, when you barely even have to walk to get there. I’m equally impressed that they get enough business to warrant such tight placement; the population density of Japan’s cities probably accounts for some of that, but it’s still really weird to see in practice. The only thing I can compare it to is the ludicrously closely-spaced McDonald’s and Starbucks one might see in places like New York City, but the convenience stores here are usually also competing businesses, which somehow seem to thrive in spite of technically trying to outdo the other ones.

The other thing that really strikes me about Japanese convenience stores is that they completely dispense with the gas station. Perhaps it’s not as surprising as it might sound: gas stations in Japan are typically full-service affairs, with gasoline filler nozzles suspended from overhead, garage facilities on the premises, and a footprint that’s as small as possible to have them. The end result is that there’s simply no room to put the American style convenience store at most gas stations, and most people seem perfectly happy to separate out their fuel and konbini outings into separate trips.

As for the stores themselves, they are all (as far as I’ve seen) brightly lit, stocked with everything you could possibly need at 3 in the morning: food, stationery, grooming products, drinks, and even basic clothes when it comes to one particular chain. They’re popular during the daytime as well, featuring plenty of foodstuffs, catering to Japanese tastes. Not only do they have prepackaged lunches in a variety of styles (“konbini bento,” or “convenience store boxed lunch”), but they’ve also got lots of different bread-based items, from the sweet (danishes, donuts, chocolate “sandwiches”) to the savory and somewhat… odd-sounding (ham and egg buns, tuna-mayonnaise rolls, and the infamous curry donut). But that’s not all – you can also pay your bills at the convenience store (which I do), use its ATM (again, which I do), ship packages (again, I’ve done this), and in some places, purchase movie and concert tickets at special computerized kiosks. Essentially, Japanese convenience stores redefine what you expect out of a place that does, after all, have “convenience” as part of its name. One of the things you can’t get at the local 7-Eleven, though, is a Slurpee – apparently, they never caught on here. Lottery tickets are also generally sold at dedicated kiosks outside of other stores, so you won’t find them at a konbini either. At least in these cases, I don’t have any particular objections.

Now, as for beating the heat… while loitering in a convenience store is perhaps not the most productive way to spend one’s time, the air conditioning there is hard to beat, and the store clerk seems generally reluctant to encourage me to go elsewhere. This could just be official policy, or it could be that I’m a Scary Foreigner. Either way, I still try not to hang around too long… or thumb through the magazines, since they seem to let their customers do that without ever buying them. Go figure. But any rate, convenience stores are just another aspect of this country that I find especially appealing: after all, where else can you buy a decent quality boxed lunch, a pair of socks, a curry donut, and tickets to your favorite band’s concert – all at 4 in the morning?