I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that Japanese women have some sort of special training in “posing for cameras.”

We all know about the V sign that everyone, young and old, makes for the camera, but there’s another common pose struck only by fashionable women. It’s a modelesque chin-down-pouty-smile-eyes-focussed-on-lens-legs-poised pose that I can’t believe is entirely unlearned.

Yet they do it gracefully and without consideration for the surroundings. I’ve seen women arranging themselves this way in front of landmarks, in clubs, in purikura photo booths, on the street with friends. It doesn’t seem to matter what they are wearing or who is holding the camera. The ones who are best at it go on to become event models at technology and automobile conventions.

Perhaps there is a special schoolday in the 6th grade or so, when boys and girls are taken into separate rooms and the “facts of life” are explained. Same as when I was a schoolgirl, but in Japan the girls get an extra lesson in modelling. We missed out on that in my elementary school, so all I can do is look slightly goofy in photos.