Convenience Store Woman

Keiko does not remember much about life prior to becoming a convenience store woman. Her family was an average suburban one, but everyone considered her a little “weird” as a child. As a young girl, Keiko and other children found a dead bird in the park. She picked it up and told her mother that they should grill it as yakitori to feed her father. Her mother was speechless and suggested they bury the bird instead. Other crying children picked flowers—which Keiko describes as killing them—in order to cover the bird’s grave. Her mother reiterated that the incident was sad, but Keiko did not feel sad at all.

Another time, Keiko saw boys fighting during break time at school and heard someone shout about the need to stop them. She took a spade from the tool shed and bashed one of the boys over the head with it. Shocked teachers asked why she did what she did, and she said it was the fastest way to get the boys to stop fighting. Keiko eventually realized that she shouldn’t have hit them with the spade, but admits to not understanding why she shouldn’t have. Similarly, she could not understand why it was wrong to take her teacher’s clothes off to get her to stop crying. She had seen a woman on TV fall silent once her clothes were taken off, and the teacher did stop crying.

Keiko’s parents loved her, and Keiko learned to either follow instructions or copy what everyone else did to avoid unwanted attention. Keiko’s parents and her younger sister were deemed “normal;” on the other hand, a therapist told the family to shower Keiko with affection and teachers encouraged her to make friends. Keiko didn’t form any close bonds but still graduated elementary school, secondary school, and high school with little trouble. Keiko believed she needed to be “cured” and grew into adulthood while keeping to herself, even in university.

The Smile Mart by Hiiromachi Station opened in May of 1998, soon after Keiko began studying at university. Keiko remembers seeing the unopened store for the first time and being impressed by how deserted she felt in the office district (in which the store was located). She felt like she had stumbled into a separate dimension. The empty store looked like an aquarium, and she decided to apply for a job. She was hired and trained a week later.

At training, Keiko followed a checklist and watched as the other staff did the same. They slowly transformed from regular people into convenience store workers. The trainer instructed them on what tone of voice to use and how to make their faces look like those of the employees in the training materials. Keiko notes that this training period was the first time anyone taught her how to speak or use facial expressions in a “normal” manner. She notes that it was fun to watch everyone play-act as customers and workers during training, changing costumes at the end of a shift to revert back to the “creatures” they were before entering.

Finally, Smile Mart’s opening day arrived. The shelves were fully stocked, and the space looked exactly like a convenience store. However, to Keiko, the merchandise looked fake. As customers entered, she noted how real everyone looked and how all of the set phrases she had been taught seemed so different with real customers. The space filled with noise, and she noted that the arranged products were transformed by the touch of customers. Still, Keiko repeated the phrase “Irasshaimasé!” (“Welcome!”) over and over again, just as she had been taught in training. She remembers telling the store’s first customer (an old woman with a walking stick) that the store would be open 24 hours a day henceforth. After receiving praise from her manager, Keiko felt reborn—a “normal” cog in society for the first time.

Keiko is now 36, and by her calculation, Hiiromachi Station’s Smile Mart has remained open for 157,800 hours since its first day. No one else who opened the store still works there. Keiko notes that there used to be a detailed manual that taught her how to be a store employee, and that she still lacks any idea of how to behave outside of this manual. She used to feel bad for her parents and would go through the motions of trying to find a new job, but she could never get past an interview—so she stopped trying. Now, she is so used to the store that she even dreams about it at night and uses the knowledge that it is always open to lull her to sleep—until she can become a “normal” person the next day as a cog in society, a convenience store worker.

Each day, Keiko arrives at Smile Mart an hour before her shift to drink a mineral water and eat a sandwich or bun that is about to go bad. Her lunch is usually a convenience store rice ball, and dinner is often something from the store too. With her body completely powered by food from the store, Keiko feels she is a part of the store herself. She notes that it is important to pay attention to the weather to determine what is likely to sell that day. About half an hour before her shift, her coworkers arrive. Most are students or job-hoppers, but her store manager is a woman one year older than her: Mrs. Izumi. Mrs. Izumi is a flashy dresser and a housewife on top of being a good worker. The other staffers are Sugawara, a singer in a band, and two other temporary employees. Keiko adopts her coworkers’ mannerisms and considers herself to be roughly 30 percent Mrs. Izumi, 30 percent Sugawara, 20 percent her current manager, and about 20 percent a combination of former colleagues. Keiko considers this normal, noting that Sugawara’s friends often sound like her when they enter the store.

Keiko intentionally copies her coworkers. She looks at blogs about Mrs. Izumi’s choice of brands and picks out clothes accordingly. Mrs. Izumi compliments Keiko’s bag and flats, and Keiko responds in a speech pattern she describes as a mix of Mrs. Izumi and Sugawara’s patterns. This way, Keiko can appear as someone with age-appropriate style and mannerisms. She also tries to get mad about the same things that everyone else does to fit in. She feigns anger at the store’s condition (left in the night manager’s wake) and is proud at having succeeded at perceived personhood.

Mrs. Izumi announces morning practice and gives everyone sales instructions for the day. They practice their phrases in unison: “Irasshaimasé!” Keiko has faith in the world when she is inside the convenience store.