sublingua

(Be present.)

(It's past.)

(Go there now.)

I began another journal online, over at blogspot. It's not under Sublingua and I'm considering one-way traffic from Sublingua to the blogspot diary, but not the reverse, mainly because the blogspot spot was begun in order to give friends and family a way to read about my Japanese adventures without my having to write each of them emails. Many of them are mentioned by Sublingua in not-the-greatest manner, so I hesistate to send them here, to Diaryland, to read about her adventures. And, too, I want a place to post more close-to-the-bone issues, things that I don't necessarily want Max's mother or Mayflower reading about.

One of those issues is already cropping up in re: Japan. I've been cruising the boards that are populated by Westerners and other gaijin in Japan. They all seem to be populated by Western men who believe themselves infallible with women after a few seasons in Japan. For example, one young man (presumably) posed the question: Since I'll be in Japan in June, what should I take with me? And the first response he received was (verbatim): "double the condoms and money and half the clothes" Other topics dealt with how to get Japanese women to swallow your "cum" and why Japanese were so much more attractive than other (presumably Western) women.

Now, I know that a lot of these guys are otaku (with a capital O) who couldn't get dates with American women to save their lives. (I mean, even Mitch had a Japanese wife, for chrissakes.) But it still irks me that this is the naked view (pardon the pun) of women that they hold. And they wonder why they never are able to get dates with Western women. Right.

And then there was this post in a forum titled "How Do I Meet American Women In Japan?":

I'm American and I'm leaving for a teaching position in Japan in a month. I'm just curious how hard it is to meet western women over there. I don't have anything against Japanese women at all; I just figure I'll have more in common with another westerner.
-I've heard two different things. Some say that it's impossible because most of them aren't there for very long, and that there are much fewer of them than western men. That many of those there long-term are into Japanese men.
-I've also heard that it's not so hard because there are enough western men who are only dating Japanese women to make up for the disparity in the male/female ratio among westerners there. That many of the ones who start dating only Japanese men get frustrated with the cultural barriars and expand their horizons.
-I just wanted to get some more reactions on this, and any ideas for good places to meet them over there.

And there was this reply:

Dude, you don't want it.
lol. man, the people here are some of the most self righteous anywhere. lol. But I'll play devil's advocate.
There's pros and cons to everything. Got engaged in Japan after living there for a year. Dated both American and Japanese in Japan. Both had ups and downs. Japanese get clingly fast, and with all of the complexities and rituals involved with the cultural and language, I found it very hard to have interesting conversations. But that's my personal choice. There's always going to be a big fat cultural barrier between some born and raised in the west vs some born and raised in Japan. Anyone who disagrees is either some self rightoues prick who's never traveled anywhere and have any experience in the actual situation are some 50 year old fat man who teaches english and dates a gorgeous 25 year old woman who never talks and cooks him dinner every night while controlling every penny he makes.

Anyway, I relate to your situation. It's great to meet people from different countries, it's important to. But just because you go to Japan doesn't mean you have date Japanese. What an asshole to say that if you want to date western, travel somewhere western. F**K off man. But here's my two cents on the situation.

You don't want any american women living in Japan. I never met a single American woman who's lived in Japan for more than a year who I didn't want to smack.

Japan is the circus from Pinnochio. It's a fantasy land for western men. It's a terrible place for foreign women. Every westerner I met in Japan who's lived there for a while was a jackass too (male and female), hence the Pinnochio analogy.

Men who live in Japan become arrogant pigs who've been spoiled in every way and eventually learn all the ways to exploit a naive culture. I know plenty o japanphiles are gonna get up in arms over this. lol.

You'll see these people at Gas Panic every night taking a new girl to a love hotel and at Harajuku on Sundays drunk making fun of all the wacky Japanese.

Or you'll see them walking around the red light district in formal Japanese dress flirting with women in broken Japanese. They bring their own chopsticks to restaurants and consider themselves experts in all things Japanese. They call it gajin power.

American women get to witness all of this and become really really angry. I met two types of American women "living" in Japan. I say this, because there's plenty of cool western women who go to Japan to study for a semester and than leave. Every sensible woman I met left Japan after a few months.

Otherwise, you'll only come across Otaku who are so nasty and asexual that you wouldn't want anything to do with them anyway. They'll be the ones covered in acne, wearing animal customs and talking about the newest PS2 games while hanging out at huge underground manga stores in Shibuya.

And than there's the pissed off anthropologists who thought it would be cool to move to Japan without ever reading or learning anything about the culture before. They majored in asian studies and are now stuck in a country full of people who don't like them. They're desperate for American boyfriends, but they're angry and judgemental ways drives them all away.

Upon my first week in Japan I went to the Pink Cow. A really cool bar for Americans working in Japan. An attractive American woman was there.

I introduce myself to which her response is.

"So you here for Anime, martial arts, video games, or the women?"

"Ugh. I got a scholarship through my University."

" Why come here though?"

"seemed like a fun idea. Certainly more interesting than London."

" So you're here for Japanese women huh?"

This lead to a big debate on prostiution, mail order brides, asian pornography, yellow fever etc etc etc.

When I finally told her my previous girlfriend was chinese and I though everything she said was wrong,she rolled her eyes and walked away. Yeah, not the best way to win a man over. Most of my encounters with quote on quote "intelligent" American women went something like this.

Ever read anything by Karen Kelsky? If you want to get a good idea of American women in Japan, read Women on the Verge by Karen Kelsky. She's an angry woman living in Japan. You'll know what you're up against after reading that. You'll also get a better idea of what kind of person Sofia Coppola is. Men who go to japan make obsessively nerdy and orientalist movies like Kill Bill. Women who go to Japan make angry,nihilistic, woe is me crap like Lost in Translation.

And when you go, you can laugh your ass off. Trust me, unless you're in the military, every American woman you approach in Tokyo is automatically going to assume you're some nerdy anime nut who's slept with dozens of Japanese women.

I love reading all these posts are American women trash all guys with japanese girlfriends and than feel holier than though for dating a Japanese guy. lol.

My advice, you're not going to live in japan forever. Forget the relationship. Just go and have some fun.

Right.

I don't know how much comment this deserves, if any. But it is this the kind of attitude I"m up against?

retreat or surrender

More lies:
Waking Sleeping Demons II - Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
Waking Sleeping Demons - Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
time - Friday, May. 20, 2011
- - Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
The Return - Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2010