This place is whack

Exactly four weeks into my sociological survey of Tokyo, I have mixed emotions. First, I want to start by saying that living in this city is really awesome in terms of convenience and fun. In fact, if you take out the whack cultural aspects, this city is awesome! What is there not to love about a mega-metropolis that meshes super-modern with uber-Japanese, always has delicious things to eat at all hours of the day, has a culture of partying every night, has something fun to do all the time, is clean and orderly, functions on time all the time, etc.? In terms of ease of living and quality of living, if you have the financial means to afford it, Tokyo tops the charts.

However, as an American-born and raised, independent, strong-willed, opinionated, free-thinking, educated, self-respecting woman, I think the culture here is whack. Whack to the zillionth google power. The more I talk to other ex-pat (or non-native Japanese) women, the more I go out (which lately is almost every night - I think going out helps me not think about how much I miss El Hombre and my life in SF, but then I have to say...when I get home, in the few minutes between walking through the front door and crashing, I feel...empty and miss El Hombre more than ever), the more I meet people and observe the dynamic between the sexes in this city, the more whack I think it is.

This city is a male-oriented chauvinistic society that promotes and supports fetishes, promiscuity, adultery and line-crossing. And the group of people responsible for this? A subset of Japanese women that consists of women whose singular goal in life is to nab an ex-pat guy (with no concern as to whether he is already married or in a relationship). I would add "high-earning" ex-pat guy, but here that's such an understood part of the package that you don't need to clarify - the cost of living is extremely high here so pretty much all ex-pats living here are on an ex-pat package with a law firm or a bank and make substantially more than a regular Japanese salaryman. Let me emphasize that this is a very specific subset of Japanese women, not all Japanese women. But the subset consists of a significant number, especially in the area I work and live.

And woman to woman, I'd like to tell these girls: have some self-respect, and have some respect for other women. Because you are seriously breaking the girl code - hitting on men who are already married or in relationships, making men think it's ok to cheat on their wives or girlfriends (and fostering such cheating), being air-brained, and just generally....whack.

My friend W was visiting from Shanghai this weekend and I took him out to a birthday party my friend was throwing at a karaoke bar - a huge private room with about 40 people and more bottles of wine and liquor than I could count by the end of the night. It was pretty fun and more importantly, I know W had a great time, which was my goal of the evening. But as I don't sing (because I don't want to cause others to go deaf), I spent a lot of the night chatting with my friends and observing the raucous partying. And seriously....I don't know what to say other than to say that these girls are whack, which has the consequence of making the guys be whack too. The ratio of guys to girls was about 1 to 1, but 70% of the girls there were the Japanese-girl-whose-goal-in-life-is-to-nab-an-ex-pat-guy type. And I can see why guys have so much fun in Tokyo - these girls are generally cute, flirtatious beyond anything I've ever seen before, raucous and very touchy-feely. They like to flirt with and touch guys a lot - whether the guy is their boyfriend, a guy they just met or another girl's boyfriend/husband. And they also don't mind when drunk guys touch them (on their ass, their breasts, their waists, backs....it's all fair game).

People here are just really inappropriate ALL THE TIME. I am a very non-touchy feely person, with an exception only for the person I am dating, so I reaaaaaaaally don't like it when people feel like they are allowed to touch you. Guys touch girls inappropriately all the time here - whether by giving you hugs when you just met them (I barely even hug my closest friends and family), which last just a little bit too long, or touching the small of your back or grabbing you by the waist or even just placing their hand on your arm or shoulder or whatever...I seriously want to say: WHO SAID YOU COULD TOUCH ME?!

I didn't know a lot of the people in the room that well, but I couldn't help wondering if the guys don't care that their friends are feeling their girlfriend up, or if their girlfriend is flirting (to a degree that is more than crossing the line) with other guys. I observed so much whack behavior that even as I was seeing it happen, I couldn't believe that people could act like this. And by the end of the night, as I was chatting with a (American raised Chinese girl) friend (whose boyfriend had been totally inappropriately touched and flirted with by multiple Japanese girls right in front of her face all night - at one point one girl even took his hand and led him outside the room as his girlfriend was watching), the only thing I had to say was: this place [Tokyo] is whack.

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W told me that there are also lots of ex-pat guys that move to Shanghai to chase Chinese girls, but it's generally thought that these guys are perverts and the girls that date them are hos (not my word, W's). But in Tokyo, I don't think there's quite the same stigma - it's just pretty normal. I am told, however, that a lot of ex-pat guys will come to Tokyo for a few years and play around with Japanese girls but usually end up going home and finding a normal, independent, self-respecting woman to marry. But there are also those guys that get so addicted to the ego-stroking and being-chased-by girls (here, the guys don't need to chase if they are an ex-pat. They simple need to just BE, and Japanese girls will chase them) that they stay for years - so even at the party last night there were guys who ranged from 25-38.

Honestly....to each his own. How someone lives their life is their business. But the aggregate of individuals' actions ends up shaping the social culture/mores, and the social culture in Tokyo is simply whack.

***

I've been going out a lot here - I think pretty much every night unless I am working super-late. And it's fun. But as I was telling W last night - it's strange...it's really fun and yet I feel that even though I know a lot of people here and see them on a daily basis to go out/eat/drink, the friendships feel so superficial - I feel like in Tokyo, at least among the ex-pats, you meet a lot of people and go out with them a lot, but your friendships generally remain very superficial. I think a lot of people just hang out together to try to forget that they actually feel really lonely inside, but people don't really spend a lot of time getting to know one another. Beyond what you do for a living, how old you are, whether you have a girlfriend/boyfriend or not, where you live in Tokyo and where you are from originally, people don't get to know (or want to seem to know) much more beyond that. W said he totally knew what I meant, because it's a bit like that in the ex-pat community in Shanghai as well.

I miss living in a place where being a smart, independent woman is a good thing. I miss having real conversations with people. I miss being among friends who really know me. I miss reality.

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Deb's Theorem on SF v. Tokyo:

Fun is greater than Not Fun.
Real is greater than Superficial.
Real is greater than Fun.
Real + Fun is greater than Superficial + Fun.
SF = Real + Fun
Tokyo = Superficial + Fun
Therefore, SF > Tokyo.