Mammaries make the world go around

Today I was going to write about Japanese food, but I can't think of anything funny or poignant to say, so today I'm just going to talk about my kids being perverted and sex-obsessed again. Maybe I shouldn't write these blogs in the hour or so of free time between my last lesson and the end of work when I'm too tired to write anything half-decent. It was the day after writing my last blog about sex-obsessed pupils that I became acquainted with my first really perverted pupil. Let's call him Ichiro because he plays baseball (that's an American pop-culture reference; next stop losing my sense of humour and joining the writing staff of a Seth McFarlane cartoon). It was the first time I'd taught his class, so I was doing my self-introductory lesson, and was in the middle of handing out sheets for the kids to guess facts about my life. As I passed Ichiro's desk e stopped me and with a wide grin on his face asked me "Sensei, do you like Kyabakura?"

This word Kyabakura is actually a loan word derived from an English one, or rather two English words condensed into one; Kyaburei and Kurabu, i.e. Cabaret Club. Now when I think of Cabaret, I think of Lisa Minelli, oddly inspirational Nazi anthems and golden cigar cases, but, this being Japan, the caberet club is very little to do with those symbols of Weimar culture. The Japanese Cabaret club is all about attractive women making conversation and flirting with you while you buy them drinks and spend lots of money...allegedly, I've never been of course. So after answering in the negative (naturally), he proceeded to ask me whether I'd been to an Oppai pub (i.e. bar where the women prove not all Japanese have flat chests...allegedly). Time was getting on and I had to finish distributing handouts, not listen to inane questions from some lascivious pubescent, so I ignored him and moved on. Unfortunately he took my lack of comment as a yes.

Following the lesson, he and his friend accosted me and quizzed me about my preferences on the chest department. Trying to be the inspirational teacher I wanted to say that the size of a woman's chest doesn't matter and you should not judge a woman by the size of her rack any more than she should judge you by the size of your little katana. But, as is so often the case in Japan, the language barrier posed an obstacle to my sentiments so I just said 'docchi de mo ii' or all of them are fine. Slapping me on my back, Ichiro gave me a wide grin "You know... senzuri" he asked. I could guess; sen means 1000 and zuri means stroking. In case I needed any further clues he simulated masturbating whilst pulling a face that looked like he was having either a jolly good time or a stroke (no pun intended). Well, that was it, time to go, I gave him a clip round the ear (you are still allowed to do that in Japanese schools) and moved on to my next lesson, strangely relishing the new insights into the psyche of the Japanese adolescent he had given me.

Onsens and sensibility

Having been neither a homosexual nor a member of a high school sports team, I’m not particularly used to looking at naked men. Of course this changed when I went to Japan. One of the most treasured of all Japan’s cultural artefacts is a place where men stand around naked as the day they were born, showering and pouring water over themselves like they’re in a shampoo advert. The Onsen or hot spring is almost ubiquitous in Japan; it’s as common in downtown Tokyo as it is up some god-forsaken mountainside somewhere. Now, before I came to Japan I bought a Lonely Planet guide to Japan, and whilst it had little to say about Nagoya, by local city and the fourth largest in Japan, it did devote thousands upon thousands of column inches to detailing every single onsen no matter how insignificant. I can only assume that this was because being in a big bath is something that forms that backbone of most people’s holidays. However, as much detail as the authors went into about their personal experiences in these various hot springs, they never once mentioned that everyone is naked.

What is your impression of a typical Japanese man? Maybe it’s a samurai type filled with testosterone, or a hard-drinking salary-man (business man) who can’t really handle his booze, or even a trendy, metro-sexual fashionista? Whatever the typical archetype of a Japanese man may be there seems to be one assumption about the Japanese man that seems to be almost universal; that he has a tiny penis. Assumptions about the size of Japanese men seem to condition the foreign mindset; male foreigners will pat each other on the back and feel smugly superior whenever the topic of dong size comes up. So naturally, when the opportunity arose for me to investigate whether there was any truth behind the claims of an unequal distribution of wang, I couldn’t help myself. It was there in the onsen that I started my mission; on a quest to find out whether the Japanese really do have wee willy winkies.

Now, the Japanese do provide modesty towels which, unsurprisingly, are there to provide a modicum of modesty. Being only hand-towels they can only cover the front, not the back, so whilst you can provide decent cover when sitting down by placing it over your lap, you are generally reduced to carrying it loosely in front of you should you decide to walk around. However, all this is hypothetical because no-one ever uses the bloody things. In fact the Japanese seem to make a mockery of the whole situation by placing them on their heads whilst in the bath, for what reason I’m sure I’ll never know, but it allowed me to carry out my research effectively.

In the end, my findings were inconclusive, there were small ones, (including one really, really, embarrassingly small one) and some big ones, but I had to discount the survey because the sample size was too, err..., slim. Besides penis length is supposed to be measured from one’s upstanding citizen, so the experiment was entirely unscientific. That said, the onsen was pretty relaxing, but after half an hour your fingers grow all wrinkly and by then you’ve seen enough wrinkly body parts to last a lifetime. Maybe the whole experience would be different if everyone wore swimming trunks, but if that was the case you would have any memories to wash away with alcohol afterwards, and that wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

Why grandma! What wide eyes you have!

There is a time in every man's life when he has to make a confession, the truth is I was not always the paragon of manliness and confidence that you see (or more likely don't see) before you. Indeed when I was but a spotty teenager I was not what you would call a consummate ladies man. An unfortunate early un-requited infatuation meant much of my experience of women as a schoolboy was centred on the early halcyon days of the internet; when one had to rely of the scraps and titbits from pay-for-porn sites in order for one to get their pubescent jollies. It was in university that I had my first long-term girlfriend, which I found out mostly consists of apologising for transgressions you may or may not have made. Now, as a single man once again, I’m starting to enjoy single life a little; I can choose any facebook profile picture I want without feeling a pang of guilt and I have more money to spend on things like extension cords and floor pillows.

"Now why are you telling me about your love life?" you ask. "It's just like the budget deficit; it's totally boring, I don't want to hear about it and the only people that would are probably slightly creepy old men." Well, I tell you this, so that I can put in context just how easy it is for a young white male to meet girls in Japan. Now, the lot of the gaijin in Japan is not an easy one, we have to sit at the front of the bullet train, we have to go to segregated pornographic manga stores and the Japanese KKK is made entirely out of samurai, ninjas and battle robots. On the other hand, if you have an X chromosome and are foreign looking, at least Japanese women (and men, as I found out) will think you're sexy. You see, as a foreigner you embody the exotic other; wild, outgoing and a heavy drinker. In short, you are seen as a Conan the barbarian figure only weaving a shirt and tie and your +69 staff of penetration is entirely metaphorical. The same goes for women too, foreign women are seen as sassy, sexy and outspoken – the Xenu warrior princess archetype if you want to continue this tortured metaphor. The point I am trying to make is that foreigners find themselves foisted with a whole new sexualised identity when they come to Japan, even if they were the world’s biggest shut-in in their own country.

Allow me to demonstrate. Last weekend I went out with a friend to visit a women's university’s cultural festival. It seemed that the entire reason I was him that day was to make him seem more attractive to women through a process of osmosis in which he would acquire (what he considered) my natural gaijin masculinity. So for a day, I was his tool, hanging around and drawing women in with my long eyelashes and flabby gut. It didn’t really work, he was too...herbivorous...to ask them for their phone numbers and left the girls with vague assurances that they would email him. The largest problem with his method of ‘catching girls’ was presuming that they would instantly fall for a foreigner, let alone a man who happened to be friends with one, as opposed to actually spending time talking to women and getting to know them on a personal level. Ultimately it was because I was a foreigner that he considered me to be God’s gift to women. That said, the women here probably pay more attention to my inane prattle than they did back in the UK...

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the fact that people consider me sexy is super prejudiced and racist. The next woman to complement me on my hairy legs, tall stature or wide eyes is going to get SLAPPED...with a racial discrimination lawsuit. WE SHALL OVERCOME!

The entry that is all about my penis

My children are always asking me how big I am. Day in day out they ask me "how many centimeters" "how many centimeters." They've probably heard from their friends just how big Westerners are, but since I've been at school, the children just can't help but admire my length and girth. Of course I'm talking about my height, standing at 6'3" and quite broad (read fatty still hasn't lost his beer belly) kids often fall silent when I walk into a room. Either that or they stare, slack-jawed at, what I like to assume is the tallest man they've ever met. Now, Japanese children are notorious for being shy, and many of them are, but as you may have guessed from the title, many of them have interests that could at best be described as eclectic and at worst as downright perverted.

I was sat eating the school lunch with some of my 6th year elementary school children, i.e. 11&12 year olds. The desks in all Japanese schools are notoriously small, so Godzilla here has to either sit spread-eagled and risk being entered onto the sex offenders register or balance my desk on my knees and watch as my miso soup spills into my green tea. So we sat there making small talk, about Dragonball Z or whatever anime was on the boy next to me's pencil case, let’s call him Oedipus (for reasons that shall become clear later). I started talking about my beard (now dearly departed) and asked young Oedipus if his father had a beard. Oedipus said his father didn't have a beard, but he did have a very hairy penis. I spat out my green tea in shock. Oedipus burst out into fits of giggles but in between chuckles he managed to ask me whether I had a hairy penis. I tried my best to pretend I hadn't heard the question, but the boys on the table were having none of it. The girls naturally rolled their eyes, "boys are such children" one said. It was then that Oedipus' friend opposite him asked me in an absolutely deadpan fashion "Tom, how long is your penis?"

That was it. "Hey, what do you think are you saying" I replied, well the Japanese equivalent, and I'd like to say that was the end of that, but when the time came around for my next lesson with them in which the children drew monsters according to my English instructions, lo and behold, Oedipus and his friends had all drawn penises on their monsters. Oh well, at least they didn't try to stick their fingers up my arse. Oh wait, they did that too.