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.

Bunka-fest '10 (The hottest transvestite show in town)

Last blog I talked about the sports festival and its analogue the Western sports day. But, dear readers, there are actually two festivals in Japanese schools; the second is the 文化祭 (bunkasai) or cultural festival. Now the impression I got from TV and manga before coming to Japan was that the cultural festival was like an open day, except it didn't really involve showing off what you learn in lessons or trying to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Biggleswathe that little Dicky would be better off going to your school next year rather than Borstal comp. down the road. No, in the cultural festival, I was told kids run little cafes in their classrooms, they turn their classrooms into haunted houses and they give performances of their light music club, that sort of thing. But no, how wrong I was. Turns out, that stuff happens in senior high school; in junior high it's all about the choirs. Yes each class sings a song straight out of the secular hymn book, which are purposely designed to be as similar to one another as is possible to get. The overwhelming impression is like being in a church and singing evensong minus any God. By church I mean the Church of England, not one of those fun-having, Koran-burning evangelical jobs you get in the States.

So for the entirety of the morning, we listened to each class sing their song, and then each of the year groups sang their own song. A bit dull, but I wasn't really complaining because it in the afternoon that the fun began. You see, I'd signed up to participate in a teacher's performance of AKB48's song Aitakatta, a band which is composed of 48 15-24 year old girls as is probably the hottest act in Japan at the moment.  Over lunch I was presented with my very own skirt and neckerchief, thus fulfilling my number one ambition here in Japan - to dress up like a schoolgirl and make a fool of myself. After watching a three piece rock band (guitars turned all the way up to 2) and a very good pianist, I was ready to get dressed. I slipped into my skirt, (well I say slipped, I mean struggled) and fastened my neckerchief, and got ready to join my co-workers. Some were dressed as Otaku, the primary fan-base of AKB48, others, like me were dressed as schoolgirls.

So there we were, waiting for the cue to come on. Of course the kids had no idea we were in drag; one poor girl strayed into the lobby where we were waiting and promptly died from shock. The skirt was decidedly more breezy than trousers are, it's a good thing I've cultivated a good crop of leg hair to act as nature's own legwarmers otherwise I may have caught hypothermia. Between the unshaven legs, the 6'3" height and the beard, I wasn't going to be fooling anyone that I was a middle school student, but some of the other more effeminate looking teachers put on a slightly more convincing drag act. The teachers dressed as Otaku pulled it off quite well, even the football-mad P.E. teacher, who would be one of the last people I'd expect to see hanging around Akihabara's porn palaces, stuck on his thick-rimmed glassed, tucked-in his socks and pulled out his largest camera. We were to be the reinforcements, joining the group about a minute into the song and surprising the students with the sudden arrival of cosplaying teachers in their midst. As the brass band played the opening notes of the song, we waited for our cue to come charging out from behind the students and make our way to the performance.

Gaijin - ruining Japan since 1854

About half a minute into the song we made our move, rushing out, as slipping on the heavily waxed gym floor in our socks. Having joined the rest of our posse, we stood dumbly for a few seconds, as everyone simultaneously forgot what the moves for that part of the song was. Polished it was not, but I guess it wouldn't have been as fun if we took it seriously. What resulted was one of the most enjoyable performances I'd ever done, although it felt far too short at the time, you could see the kids loved it. As we rushed out of the gym, the cheers went up, I remembered why I had so much fun at the Japanese society dance team in university, except even more so, because I got to wear a skirt.

O brave new world, that has such people in it.

The festival pretty much ended there. There was the usual closing ceremony and some of the kids were given awards, although I'm not entirely sure why. The student council president was quite funny though, witty and confident, most of the jokes went over my head, but the few that I understood I enjoyed. So that was it, my cultural festival. Not entirely what I expected, but an extremely entertaining experience overall. Next year I may try and skive off work at my elementary school again.

The meeting of exercise

It's just occurred to me that the previous three entries in this blog have been about sex in some way or another. So I guess this time I'll talk about something wholesome and all-American this time; competitions of athletic prowess. Yes, even an uncivilised and barbaric nation like Japan has Sports days, but their feeble and un-Western minds seem to have distorted the correct (white) way of doing them. Yes, in England, sports days consist of sitting around bored, watching the more athletic members of your class or form run endless sprinting, hurdles and long-distance races, and sometimes for a bit of excitement you can have the privilege of watching boys jump into sand pits instead. Normally the most interesting thing that can happen in a British sports day is if someone gets heatstroke; thus providing everyone else with a talking point.

In Japan, things are a little different. The Japanese equivalent to the British sports day is called an undoukai (運動会), literally a meeting of exercise, although, It is normally translated as 'sports festival.' Whilst festival might be a bit of an overstatement for an event where you're sat down for most of the time, counting the rocks in the sandy sports field, it's much more festive than the British version could ever aspire to be. For a start, there's not much in the way of sports at a sports festival, the kids tend to play communal games; like tug of war, throw the tennis balls into the basket ball hoop, ten-legged race (that's with 11 people). Occasionally, the brass band comes out and plays a stirring marching song (you know, the sort of thing they have at an American football game) and sometimes the kids take part in some sort of North Korean-style gymnastics session. In the end, they're too busy doing anything but sports to fit a 100m race in. The only example of sports at these sports festivals I've seen is the relay race, and even then they get the same amount of attention as the roll-the-giant-ball-over-your-backs-like-you’re-on-Takeshi's-castle event.

Now, I imagine some of you might be saying "Hang on Tom, aren't all these events really boring?" Well, I know nothing can compete with the white-hot excitement of a long jump competition, and true some of the events like the mass skipping event is a real snooze-fest, (especially in the surprisingly hot mid-September sun), but the real advantage of the Sports festival is the variety it has. You know how in Japanese game shows, everyone's involved in some sort of wacky competition that is more entertaining than it is an accurate test of physical capability, well the sports festival is like that. The sports festival is not some sober competition of athletic prowess like the Olympics, but a bizarre and entertaining event, which is less about skill as having fun, like the world cup. Also it has ceremonies. Lots and lots of ceremonies. The opening ceremony features each class marching past a podium with the big boss man (headmaster) on top, and extending their right arm out as if to salute him. They carry flags with their class colour on it and keep in rigid formation. In fact I have a video of it right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXVkgmJk2E. They also raise the national flag whilst the Japanese national anthem (a.k.a. the world's most downbeat national anthem) plays over the loud speaker.

Afterwards all the teachers get together and do what Japanese teachers do best; get drunk and try and set the foreigner up with any single girl under 30. So, that’s the Japanese sports festival in a nutshell; basically an outside Japanese game show with a little disarming militarism thrown in for good measure.

Journey to the center of the Japan part 2 - Topless bars and Manga kisses

Having left the porn/manga store in Akihabara, I noticed that it was rapidly approaching 5.00. My friend and I made our way to the neon playground of Japan - Shinjuku. Shinjuku is probably my favourite place in Tokyo; the streets are crowded, the shops open late  and there are innumerable small little ramen shops, izakayas and toriniku stands crammed in between giant department stores and electronics shops. One area that captures the feel of Shinjuku is its seedy district – Kabuki-cho. There is no real physical boundary between Kabuki-cho and Shinjuku, and it is very easy to stray from one to the other without realizing it, but as soon as you enter into Kabuki-cho the keen observer can immediately tell the difference. Kabuki-cho is famous for long being a Yakuza hangout, and walking down the street there are still many men hanging around with visible tattoos and missing fingers. Nowadays, though it seems more of a place for 'Yankees', by which I don't mean fat American tourists, but young Japanese people with dyed hair and pierced ears, basically, the stereotypical rebellious kid. At first glance, Kabukicho seems to be just like any other district of Tokyo, albeit with a slightly more intimidating crowd, but as you get further into Kabuki-cho, you arrive at the sex shops. Yes, Kabukicho is Tokyo's red light district, and although prostitution is illegal in Japan, the Japanese get around the law by employing various euphemisms and sophistries that keeps the practice of the world’s oldest profession alive and well - compensated dating, remaining the most popular. There are also a variety of other, more legal, institutions related to the sex industry, if you are interested in possible catching hepatitis, you may want to try one of the following:
Oppai-pabu (Titty pub) - topless bars
Soaplands - 'massage parlours' in the very loose sense of the word (i.e. men go there to get 'soaped-up')
Hostess bars - bars where the waitresses are very attentive
Love hotels - hotels where the rooms are rented by the hour

There's also your usual selection of pimps, prostitutes, touts, johns, gangsters and the very occasional policeman, who seem to mostly be there to remind people not to smoke on the street. Unfortunately dear reader, I didn't go to any of these establishments and spent the remainder of the evening with my friend in a ￥270 izakaya (that is an izakaya where everything costs ￥270. An opportunity missed? Perhaps, but I'm just thankful not to come away with VD. After meeting up with another friend, our small party left Kabuki-cho behind and headed to the station. Soon, my new friend and I left for Shibuya, another entertainment district, not as expensive as Roppongi, nor as seedy as Shinjuku, Shibuya attracts a lot of foreign visitors. About 1 in 5 people seemed to be non-Japanese, and if that seems somewhat underwhelming to you, bear in mind I can count the number of white people in my hometown (pop. 60,000) on one hand! My friend and I headed to a little Ramen place, where I ordered too much...again. One day, Japan, I will master your Ramen portion sizes. After she left I headed to, of all things, a British pub. As much as I love it here in Japan, I do miss being able to order a pint of ale in a dingy little drinkery where a ban on smoking means all sorts of horrible smells assault your nostrils. So there I was, sitting in a faux English pub, being served by an Australian, with Lancashire hotpot on the menu and listening to the Smiths while some American guy to my left tried to impress a girl by explaining the difference in marital expectations between the West and Japan. It reminded me why I left England in the first place, there was something altogether...depressing about the place. It wasn't like the British pubs we have in Nagoya, which are just full of girls looking for foreigners to sleep with; no this was much more of an authentic British experience.

Having cured myself of my shameful nostalgia, I decided to expose myself to another Japanese institution - the manga kissa, or manga cafe. Whilst there does exist manga kissas which  are basically cafes for reading manga, these ones are specially designed for insomniacs and those too drunk to care where they sleep. You pay around ￥1500 for a small room about the size of a disabled toilet which has a computer and a reclining chair. You can either get some sleep in the hot and slightly noisy environment, or stick the headphones on and every episode of the Colbert Report that came out this month. I did both. There are free soft drinks, free manga library, and even a shower for the morning, but to be honest, it's more of an experience for the cheapskate, the adventurous or the sort of person that always wanted to look over the tops of toilet cubicles and see Japanese men asleep in their underpants.

Journey to the center of the Japan part 1 - Maids and Pornography (Akihabara)

For those of you that didn't know my birthday was last Tuesday, and to celebrate I decided to spend a weekend in Tokyo. What I couldn't have anticipated was how this supposedly innocent seeming trip would turn into an exploration of the seedy, the sordid and the downright Japanese. Having taken the Shinkansen from Nagoya to Shinagawa station, I met up with one of my acquaintances from University. I didn't know him particularly well，and he has quite a quiet demeanor, but all my other friends were working, socialising, watching paint dry; anything to avoid being in close proximity to me, so I just got on with it.

Our first stop was Akihabara, the district of Tokyo famous for its electronics and its Otaku (anime and manga) culture. Having missed out on going here during the Tokyo orientation, I was keen to see what one of Tokyo's most unique districts looked like. What was immediately apparent was that whist many cities have touts on the streets advertising various businesses, very few dress up as Victorian maids. This is a big thing in Akihabara - maid cafes, cutesy cafes where the waitresses dress up as maids. As the saying goes; when in Rome, go to a backstreet cafe and get pampered by women, so off we went. What first notice about the maids is that they all talk in a high pitched cutesy voice; its all "can I get you anything to drink master" this and "would you like to buy any additional services master" that. Everything is cute, the girls are cute, the food is cute, the customers are...lechers, but apart from them, it's all cute, all the time. Which is why it's most amusing to try and get the girls to talk in their normal voice; when I was ordering I muttered to myself "this 'rabbit super sparkle-sparkle parfait' doesn't really look much like a rabbit", to which she replied "yeah I know" before realising the horror of what she had done by letting her mask slip off and going as bright pink as my 'rabbit' parfait.

That said, the cafe was fun; the food was a little overpriced, and you have to pay a seating charge, and during the maid`s  concert, the music cut out causing one of the maids to swear under her breath (again in her normal voice), but that kind of added to the charm in a weird way. What was a little bit weirder were the customers, whenever the maids did anything clumsy, most of the customers would peer over. If I was an intellectual I'd say something about the clumsy maid being an archetype in the otaku community,  and how it reflected traditional Japanese conceptions of the role of the woman as the submissive partner and the man as her benefactor. However, I'm not an intellectual so I'm just going to say they wanted to look at her bum when she fell over.

 After leaving the cafe, my friend and I looked for something else to do whilst still in Akihabara, and luckily my guide book suggested a manga shop called 'Tora no Ana' just down the road. What I didn't realise was that this was Akihabara, home of the ronery otaku virgin and as such 'manga shop' actually means porn shop. The shop was a seven story building, the 1st two floors were manga and manga related magazines, and the remaining five floors? All porn. In fairness a shop whose name was 'the tiger's hole' and featured an anime girl in a tiger costume as a mascot probably should have alerted me to it's real nature. For those that are interested, the third floor was professionally produced hentai, both published manga volumes and anime DVDs. The fourth floor was generally a continuation of this, with a heavier focus on poseable figurines. For those that are familiar with the mega-popular band AKB48, one of the members recently quit to pursue a career as an AV idol (read porn star) and her debut video was being promoted on this floor. The fifth and sixth floor sold doujinshi (amateur hentai manga, largely focusing on characters from legitimate anime having sex) and the seventh was second-hand doujinshi. So yes, I was in a used porn store. Some of you may receive souvenirs in the post.

Chikan

Have you ever seen a Japanese train? If you type in `Japanese train` into google images you`ll probably get some pictures of a sexy looking Shinkansen or a slightly old-fashioned but still very reliable local style train. But behind that shiny, shiny, efficient veneer lies the true heart of the Japanese train; its passengers. Inside, the people sit quietly reading manga, magazines or occasionally, hardcore pornography. Either that or they stand, like quiet sardines staring silently into the middle distance like they were the stars of their own romantic film. So far so boring, but occasionally something happens makes the Japanese train journey quite take a turn for the sinister – Chikan; a.k.a. sexual molestation. In Japan, Chikan is much more common than in the west, whether a result of Japanese sexual culture, over-crowding on trains or whatever. Although it’s victims are usually young women and teenage girls, as I will regale this is not always the case.

The place; Nagoya`s Yamanashi line, eastbound, just before Sakae station. Today had been a good day, the annual Japanese festival of the dead - Obon, had meant that very few teachers had turned up to work, and as such I finished at 10.30. Full of youthful vim and vigour left to explore Nagoya, and as I prepared to disembark at Sakae, I felt it. It was a brief but firm touch of my arse. The sensation was unmistakable, I thank God I was spanked as a child else I may not have recognised it. I was shocked, horrified I immediately turned round to confront my tormentor, my abuser, but instead was confronted by a wall of innocent looking girls, noses naturally buried in manga. So incensed was I, that I was about to unleash my righteous fury, when I remembered that I was British, and the British do not a make a fuss about this sort of thing, we just bite our lips and mumble something under our breath. This was obviously a masterful practitioner of chikan, sly, cunning, she had timed the act just as the train was pulling into the station and was I about to leave. There was nothing I could do, to confront them meant that I would miss my stop, and just like Nick Clegg in the formation of the coalition government`s policy, I had to abandon my principles and retreat.

So let this be a lesson to all you young gentlemen planning on taking a trip to Japan, BEWARE, for young women may touch your arse!