life & style // no. 12

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Japan Corner

> An expanding area of Metrotown

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Jerrison Oracion Senior Columnist

etrotown has a lot of great

multicultural stores. In the past few months, a few Japanese stores have opened in the ground level of the of the mall. In August of 2017, a well-known Japanese department store called Muji opened and in October of 2017, the Japanese clothing store Uniqlo opened in Metrotown. A famous bakery from Toronto, Uncle Tetsu’s Cheesecake, will be coming to the Lower Mainland and added into the mall. Due to all of these places opening around the same

area of Metrotown, it has earned the unofficial moniker “Japan Corner.” Muji is one of the biggest department stores in Japan. It has everything for your everyday needs. In the front of the store there are TVs that show what makes their products interesting along with other displays that showcase their most popular items. They have home products, kitchen supplies, storage supplies, beauty products, clothes, furniture, candy, and stationary. During the holiday season last year, there was an area in the store where you could decorate a paper bag, put gifts in it, and give it toa store associate to sew it shut.

Reading the stars

> Horoscopes’ history in pop culture

Jillian McMullen Staff Writer

was recently scrolling through

Facebook, seeing my feed filled with— as it often is—clickbait compatibility quizzes. I was doing a good job of keeping myself away from headlines like “Find Your Career Path Based Only on Colour Preference” and, “Which Friend’s Friend Would You Be Friends With,” until I scrolled past one from the ever- trustworthy Buzzfeed: “Which Zodiac Sign are You Most Compatible With.” As surprising as it may sound, the quiz did not accurately guess the most recurring sign on the list of my ex-partners.

I had to wonder, however, why it was that I knew what my exes signs were, especially considering my markedly low interest in astrology on the whole. Why is it that many of us would know that, despite similarly small investments in this pseudoscience?

The journalism industry played a huge role in cementing astrology as part of our day-to-day life. According to an article posted by the Smithsonian entitled “How are Horoscopes still a Thing?” the first newspaper horoscope column is generally attributed to R.H. Naylor. Naylor was the assistant to a popular astrologer among the British elite, Cheiro, and when bossman was too busy to consult the stars at the time of Princess Margaret’s birth, Naylor was tasked with determining the infant royal’s horoscope for the newspaper the Sunday Express. According to the Smithsonian,

on August 30, 1930, the Express published his report which claimed that “events

of tremendous importance to the Royal Family and the nation will come about near her seventh year,’ a prediction

that foresaw the timing of King Edward III's abdication from the throne.

After another few shockingly correct predictions, Naylor was given a weekly column in the paper. The author of the Smithsonian article, Linda Rodriguez Robbie, claims that it was in this advice-driven column that Naylor developed the use of “sun signs,” or what we now recognize as zodiac signs. They are determined by figuring out in which of 12 30-degree celestial zones the sun was positioned during your birth, with each zone named after an adjacent star constellation. For example, the sun spends June 21 to July 27 in approximately the same zone, which is named after the Cancer constellation.

Just think of all those times you've been handed one of those daily small-form newspapers at a SkyTrain station; did you really read the headlines, or did you flip to the last page to find out what your day had in store for you? The funny thing is, even highly-respected publications like the Globe and Mail and even the New Yorker have sections dedicated to providing daily horoscopes for their readership. Even this publication has dabbled in astrological divinations—though, admittedly, the majority of our dabbling never gave the pretense of being in any way serious.

This isn’t to say that you can’t find value in astrology—to each their own.

Uniqlo is a clothing store that makes clothes with Japanese quality. You might have heard of Uniqlo, as the store has sponsored famous tennis players including Novak Djokovic and Japan’s Kei Nishikori. They have a variety of clothes for everyone. They also feature activewear with technology that Uniqlo developed, such as their HeatTech shirts which keep you warm even if it is very cold outside. For the warm days, they also have AIRism shirts, which are very cool, smooth, stretchable, and odour- blocking. To promote the store, Uniqlo did an ad campaign where they talk about Vancouver and the active lifestyle of the city that featured various residents.

theotherpress.ca

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

Uncle Tetsu’s Cheesecake is a bakery in Toronto that offers Japanese-style cheesecakes. There will be a location in Metrotown in the next few months. I was able to visit one of their locations when I went to Toronto last summer. The cheesecake tastes great and it has the signature Japanese cheesecake texture, which differs from regular cheesecake in how light and airy it is.

Muji and Uniqlo are doing well in Metrotown and with more Japanese stores opening in “Japan Corner,” there will be more places to buy uniquely Japanese products.

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Image via Astrology-Zodiac-Signs.com

C ¢C ...1n this advice-driven column that Naylor developed the use of ‘sun signs,’ or what we now recognize as zodiac signs.”