Shiro Kuma: More on the Staring Issue
by P & C
Japan Living
It was the spring of 1973 and I had been dating a sweet young girl ( who I would later marry) that wasattending college in downtown Hiroshima. She was going home for the summer and invited me to come with her. Her family lived in a ruralvillage about 40 miles west. I arrived in early summer and quicklyfound work in the rice fields as a laborer. I lived in a hut behindthe barn. It took a while to grab the local dialect but I was gettingby. I was the only hakujin (white person) I saw that whole summer.
For the majority of folks in the village, I was the first white man they had ever seen. They would stop in the street and stare at me in amazement. As I walked around, kids would yell to there parents "Here he comes", their parents would come out of the house to watch me walk by. On one very hot and humid day while working in the fields I decided to take my shirt off. I was working with two older women and the middle aged owner of the farm. The two older women stared at me intensely for several reasons. First, I had violated a modesty code, I was notfully aware of, and secondly they were amazed by my body hair. Bothstarting pulling on the hair on my back and chest. They had neverseen such a hairy person before and were mesmerized. The farm ownercame over and labeled me "Shiro Kuma" . The name stuck. All thevillagers would yell to me " Shiro Kuma" as I walked around.
Pictured: A Japanese wedding, courtesy of Fuji Film Staff
In mid-August at the Obon festival, the mayor of the village brought meup on a stage to formally introduce me to the village. He did not usemy real name (David, too hard to pronounce) but instead called meShiro Kuma. To this day, as I walk through the village, I am stillgreeted by this title. It has kinda grown on me. We live in theStates now. My children refer to me as Shiro Kuma when I correct them. If the shoe fits, wear it.
Where has the adventure gone?
by Marty Church
On the Coming of English to Japan
While riding on the train the other night, trying in vain to crane my eyes over to discreetly look at my neighbors interesting Manga, I realized that I had something of a bone to pick with the JR Corporation. They have too many signs in English these days.
Anybody ridden the Yamanote line lately? Instead of just announcements in Japanese, they have the voice of a well known NHK instructor of English, politely intoning, “Next station, Ebisu. Please change here for the Hibiya line”. Where’s the challenge in that?
Now about this point, you are probably thinking that I have taken leave of my senses. How could increased use of English be anything but a positive development? Any thing that makes the stations easier to navigate, takes the fear out of missing ones’ stop and makes life easier on us poor foreigners has to be useful. Maybe…. However at the same time, it is taking some of the well earned sense of accomplishment away from those of us who have been here for a while.
I’ve spent a lot of yen, doing battle with the Japanese language, trying my best to learn it and overcome it. My Japanese spouse probably would tell you it is a wasted effort…My spoken Japanese is still quite simple and very child like. I’ve given up hoping I will ever sound natural. So much for my dream of replacing Pat-kun on NHK some day.
I can understand what other folks say to me reasonably well though. About a week ago I was able to understand fully when the train engineer came on the announcing system, and told all of us that, because some bonehead had run a train signal and caused an accident, I was going to get to spend an extra 20 minutes squished up between 3 drunk salary men. (And I still can’t see their Manga—damn the luck.). In spite of that, I was feeling pretty proud of my self. Like I had accomplished something. Something that just 5 years ago I never would have imagined I could do. I thought about it all the way home.
Many of us can remeber those first days we came to Japan. Huddled on the train, English train map in hand counting the stops and hoping we counted correctly. Of being afraid to fall asleep on the train, for fear of sleeping through our stop. And when we did, being gently prodded by the station person, informing us that , “OKyakusama, Sakuragicho shuten desu. Hayaku dete kudasai” – A truly ignoble end to a big night in Roppongi.
Or running up the platform and hopping on the train knowing it was going to Shinagawa, because all the trains on this platform go to Tokyo; the sign on the platform said so. Only to get that rude awakening when the train started rolling through unfamiliar scenes and the little voice came up to make our mistake complete --by saying, “ Tsugi wa Totuska de gozaimasu---You are now on the train to Atami” Oh the humanity!
However over time, those mistakes stopped happening. We learned certain key words like mamonaku (soon) and wasuremono nai yo ni, and Shuten ( terminus). We stopped being unsure and slowly but surely became seasoned Japan veterans. As my knowledge of the language grew I was ready to face down that surly Eki-in ( station employee) and buy my ticket on the Shindaisha(sleeper train). (Or as the first time I tried it….the neru densha….the lady at Shibuya station thought that was funny).
Because I think one of the real joys of living in Japan is the ability to overcome its challenges. To realize that it’s very different here than Europe and it’s a lot tougher to fake your way through language wise. At least in Spain you can sort of read the signs. Not here. To thrive in that environment and adapt, as you realize that you are not in Kansas anymore. This not just adapting an air of doing like the natives…..its full all out war with a world very different than the one Dorothy lived in.
So as time goes by, and we each win our own little victories of a “system” that our Japanese neighbors don’t think twice about because they grow up in it, confidence and a feeling of achieving something grows. At least it did for me. Now the folks at JR are depriving a whole new generation that feeling of frustration and accomplishment. As I said, while probably good in the long run, I weep for the new breed that will never have to experience it.
Now if they would just get the salary men to buy Manga in English……..
Sex in Japan
"I`m so happy. We have this house, our two boys, and a sexless marriage.""You`ve got to be joking?!" Makiko wasn`t. Bob realized in that horrible moment, that his wife didn`t need sex. He waits patiently for her to want to make love--which happens about once every three months.
by John Walker
Bill is married to a Japanese too, and says that it is a marriage in name only, there is no physical contact. He feels that his wife is dissatisfied with their life, and blames him for it.
"Give me a hug too." Bob says to his Japanese wife after she has been very loving to the children. "Why don`t you hug me like you hug them (the children)?""I guess because you aren`t as cute as they are," his wife responds.
"To be a wife and mother really means being a mother in Japan. Men and young single women have sex, married women with children do not seems to be the thinking,"according to a Tokyo psychologist.It seems to be fairly common that Japanese spouses do not need nor want sex from their partners. That doesn`t mean that they do notwant sex from other sources. In one survey, 50% of married Japanese women admitted to having at least one affair. For men the percentage was higher.
Indeed the sex industry in Japan is huge. Kabukicho, one of Tokyo`s many red light districts is a town in itself. It covers many city blocks and boasts a variety of services. A stones throw from one of the police boxes, blowjobs and other services can be had by any man that desires them. Certainly, this huge multi-million dollar sex industry is one result of the lack of sex in many of the relationships in the land of the drooping......
Dave is sad. His beautiful Japanese wife never hugs nor kisses him. She will make love to him. But Dave says it is more like masturbation thanlove making. "She is in the room, but really I am just masturbating in her vagina. She spreads her thighs and lets me go to it." We make love about once a week, but there is no passion. She never hugs nor kisses me. She loves me, but shows it by making bread or a pumpkin pie. I`d rather she put her arms around me sometimes.
Masako jokes, "I have cobwebs down there it has been so long since the last time." She says she and her Japanese husband rarely make love.
Yumiko says her husband rarely touches her. He seems more interested in baseball than her body. She needs more.
It seems that after having children, many Japanese wives lose interest in sex with their partners. Their main role becomes that of-- mother. Beingsexual doesn`t fit with that role in their opinion. Married men are often too tired to perform, or may lose interest in their partners after a while.Marriage does tend to kill sex.
Gay men complain that their Japanese partners have lost interest in sex too. So it isn`t restricted to heterosexuals.
A psychologist in Tokyo explains that this problem of sexless relationships is very common. It is mostly Japanese women who lose interest in sex, but Japanese men do to. There is not as much a sense of lifelong sex with your partner, as there is in the west. Western women seem to be more open to the idea of lifelong sex with the same partner than are Japanese women.
Some get used to the idea that there will be little or no sex in their marriage, and let their desire dampen down. Others have affairs. Still others drive theirwives to the point that the wife tells them to get a girlfriend or pay for it.
It`s a very common problem the world over, but it seems to be more pronounced in Japan.