One for women, and one more the men.
Women serve men. I’ve written about how female teachers—even those with more seniority than their male counterparts—serve the men (even the gaijin) their morning, break and lunch-time green teas. I did initially state that I loved it here, but talking to the women, I told them how things were back in Canada. I’ll probably lose my ‘he-man woman hater’s club’ card for doing that.
But the double standard goes well beyond tea.
I have heard from numerous lecherous men in Japan that it is okay to cheat on your wife with your mistress… that the women know about and put up with it as long as it still keeps the family dynamic somewhat dynamic.
I don’t have any numbers on how many men have a mistress, but I do recall hearing the number 70 percent bandied about. Bikurishita! (Oh my garsh!). Do you guys recall Madame Butterfly? – the Puccini opera set in 1904 Nagasaki. It’s all about a Mistress.
For more on Japan and his Mistress, I’d suggest giving this e-book a read: READ.
Japan is also loaded with what the locals call a ‘ra-bu ho-te-ru’ which is phonetic Katakana English for ‘love hotel’.
One of my favourite love hotel names is the national chain: Go-Go-Go. In Japanese, the word ‘go’ means five, so it’s the hotel ‘five-five-five’… but those of us who speak English see the obvious double entendre (a phrase that is itself only half-English), implying a chant of “going for it”.
Love hotels offer a convenience to the young folks who live with their parents until marriage. You may stay for the night, or stay for the hour - see photo above, and you can see the price differences.
On one such excursion to Tokyo, Ashley and I were hopelessly lost. It was late, and we were tired. We just wanted a place to crash. And then we saw it. A love hotel – the one in the photo below the title.
Since we were looking to sleep, we chose the ‘stay for the night’ option. Nowadays, customers need not actually see a hotel worker—kind of a privacy thing—as you can put your money into a slot, and a set of keys/entry cards will pop out. But not back in 1990. We had a female clerk – a mama-san, if you will, who took our money, made a phone call and soon we had four or five Japanese people come out to stare at the two gaijin who wanted to stay at the love hotel.
Because of the lateness of the hour (1AM), there was only a single room left…
Now, love hotels come in various shapes and sizes – or at least their rooms do. Should you be so inclined, you could rent out the Tarzan room, complete with jungle vines, or the Star Wars room that offered replica lightsabers and costumes, or even the classroom – with teacher and female student clothing. See the last blog for more on this phenomenon - CLICK.
Our room was actually quite tasteful… red silk everywhere, rose petals scattered on the very round bed and floor and a hot tub.
Forget passion, we needed sleep—one of us (not me) more than the other.
I do recall rolling off the bed at least twice during the night.
We awoke to the sound of banging – on our door. I glanced at my watch (still wearing the same watch 19 years later) and noticed it was 10:30AM. I guess we missed checkout time. Part of the problem for us was that the windows—well, there weren’t any. The room was sealed and painted black. No sunshine to wake us up.
Anyhow, back to the story I wanted to tell.
Japan has a strange hang-up regarding sex. They have love hotels all over the place. The men have mistresses, but the women sure as hell don’t have misters. Every men’s magazine contains scantily clad women – or topless (which I guess is scantily clad since they are wearing bottoms). And, there are numerous soapland massage parlours (see THIS blog).
Yet, despite it all, sex is not a subject talked about in the open. It’s all very hush-hush… that they know everyone is doing it, so no one needs to talk about it.
And then there’s homosexuality. The Japanese are not very tolerant… virtually everyone who whom I queried on the subject really was uncomfortable in discussing it. They’d screw up their faces and say “okama”.
The ‘o’ is an honorific, and is used here in a non-polite way. A ‘kama’ is a pot or kettle. Originating in the Edo period (1603–1868), it refers to the pot or kettle looking like an anus. Okama usually refers to a gay man, but more often than not, it refers to a transvestite. Now I'm neither, but presented for you tongue-clucking is this photo. It was Halloween. I'm a Japanese school girl. Aren't I pretty?
And, in those turbulent 1990s, one can’t have homosexuals without mentioning AIDS.
Back then, AIDS was non-existent in Japan—at least that was the official stance by the country’s politicos. It was a foreign matter, not Japan’s. That was how it was conveyed to me.
As a visible minority growing up in England, Toronto and Ohtawara, I’m not prejudiced… that would be like calling the kettle black (ba-dum-bump). As such, I just tell anyone who’d listen that it was okay to be yourself.
However, I was told (by many a sighing Japanese person) that: “The nail that stands up, gets hammered down.”
Ugh. I guess individuality is not really a good thing here. “Except for you, An-do-ryu. We like you.”
Baby steps. As part of my job as an English teacher here in Japan, I was asked by the JET program to ‘internationalize’ the Japanese… basically, let them know how the rest of the world (Canada) acts and thinks.
So I did. Do you know how many single Japanese women (with boyfriends) befriended me to ask for advice on what to do with their chauvinistic men? Plenty. It could have been my full time job. Although, what the heck did I know about relationships? You know the old saying, though: “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.”
Back to AIDS. With the Japanese men going out to dally with a mistress (or two), and their latex (I mean latent) fear of condoms—something’s gotta give.
Men would also frequently go on business trips to Thailand. Not for business, but rather to get busy.
In my second year, I traveled to Thailand (so you’ll have to wait awhile for those tales—I went with my mother!), and talked with a lot of the locals, who would only shake their head when I told them I was living in Thailand. I was regaled with story after story of how the Nihonjin (Japanese) would come in for a day-trip, load up on hookers and head back home.
If AIDS was only a foreign concern, it would soon be a Japanese concern.
I hope you can all dig that although I had only ever slept with one woman up until this time in Japan, I am writing this 19 years later with some knowledge on the subject.
It’s a funny place, Japan is. One full of warmth, humour, honour, and kindness… but like every culture, it, too, has its dark little secrets.
Somewhere, not sworn to secrecy,
Andrew Joseph
Title brought to you by Aerosmith.
