Two stories here that I feel relate.
One has to do with a girl I dated. She was from a very wealthy advertising family in Tokyo. Her dad, one of the executives, had a house on a canal in Fujisawa. All his neighbors also had houses on canals. They were also Tokyo advertising execs. The canals had boats, tied to private docks. From the back patio of their California style home, you looked out onto palm fringed yards of American style homes, modeled after a certain place in California with canals. Her dad was so proud his daughter had brought me home. He wanted to show me all the famous white American hollywood stars he had used for his campaigns. His daughter also loved white men. Even as difficult as it had been to bang her, I knew I was not likely to have been her first white guy, nor her last.
Second story. I spent a week on a friends farm in the mountains of Nikko. The village was tiny. The only source of beer was a vending machine at the bus stop - no train - that was plugged in when needed. Old men and young boys fished off an ancient bridge.
A few days in we get a call that a man has disappeared during a hike. The village men were going up to where he was supposed to have been to have a look. Being from the mountains myself, I joined in. When we got to the rendezvous spot, I saw in front of me the hardest looking Japanese boys and men I had seen in one place. We set out, realizing at once that we could not track him on the sun crusted snow, and the low cloud made for poor visibility. But we stayed out all day, hoping for something. Eventually, part of the group found his hiking shoes and it was decided it would now become a police matter.
That night my friend invited everyone back to her place for hot sake and beer. The place quickly became humid as 20 men dried out. Sweat. Drunken laughter. Kerosene heater the women huddled around as the men drank and roared near open windows. Lots of facial hair, massive Judo legs. One conversation stuck out to me, as a rugged young man made fun of a young woman who had moved from Yokohama to the small village.
He said that "Tokyo was designed to steal all their women and all the men who didn't want to be men anymore. And that is why she came here; to find out what real men were."
All the men laughed, and she blushed even harder. My girlfriend confirmed this to be true, that she missed her dad, who had died recently. Her dad was a rugged man. Strong, loud, happy and gentle. Something that young men in Yokohama did not have.
The Japanese are insanely smart. Some get it, just like us. Tokyo has been very successful in creating and attracting some of the most beautiful women in the world. But that same allure has turned many men into the same thing. Instead of being the ying and yang that we need, many young men instead allowed the city to turn them soft.
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