Back in the day-shuttling from work to Tokyo for Japanese class-one of my favorite things to see upon rolling into the Black Lion pub in Meguro, was to pick up the latest edition of Japanzine. ( The Black Lion was right around the corner from my Japanese class-thus it was popular with me. Good beer and lots of people to meet.)
Early in the decade it used to run the comic strip, Charisma Man:
It was pretty funny because it played on stereo-types-the lusty western man who can’t score at home, but gets laid like a big dog in Japan. And Western women living in the country seemed to really take exception to a bit of harmless fun:
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just had my first experience with a classic “charisma man” type of foreign male. This is the type of guy who lacks sufficient social skills and emotional maturity in his home culture that he would have a lot of difficulty cultivating a romantic relationship with a woman in his home country, but cross-cultural differences allow him to form relationships in Japan. His “foreignness” explains his awkwardness and lack of grace in a manner which allows Japanese women to forgive him. They can’t tell the difference between someone who doesn’t conform to their cultural expectations because he doesn’t know how to and someone who is an oafish dork. Also, Japanese people value tolerance and “enduring” hardship silently as a part of their culture so the women feel that part of being in a relationship is accepting the rough patches in their mates to a far greater extent than foreign women do. Previously, I talked about how Japanese women also generally have different expectations of a mate and that’s part of the situation as well.
Most western guys dismissed the criticism-after all, they were the ones getting laid. However like all stereo-types there was the occasional grain of truth. On both sides:
But it seems to be that disparity that bugs our foreign sisters so much. All is fair in love and war, unless your ugly, in which case it is cheating. That seems to be at the root of the sentiment. I also hear a lot of “guys come over here and get arrogant.” I can hear the vitriol in women’s words when they say it. I also recently read a woman blogger’s send up of “charisma men,” in which she seemed to think that these guys completely lack in all social graces and dis other foreigners in favor of hanging out with J girls. A type of guy I have yet to encounter here.
I keep hearing about these terribly awkward and rude guys, but I never meet them (it admittedly could be a factor of where I live: inaka(Skippy-san note-this means rural)). All the guys that I know that are dating J girls seem pretty nice and normal to me. So I am wondering where all the sour grapes come from. I hate to say it, but I think it’s a racist and jealous thing. And that is going to hurt some feelings, but some people really need to take the time and reflect on why they would be bothered by an interracial relationship. I hear words like “yellow fever” and I cringe, because while I think fetishists exist in small numbers in all demographics, I don’t think but a tiny portion of guys target specific races to date, and this term only exists out of hatred.
There are guys that use the J girls’ tendency to jump into relationships to their advantage. But it happens back home too; they’re called players and some are so proficient in America that they tutor other guys for money. So being a sleazy guy has nothing to do with Japan. Sleazy guys may end up here, but I think they are rare enough that the usual anti white/Japanese sentiments are still oddly numerous and shrill . It’s a bias that some girls carry, like a chip on their shoulder.
While it is true that more guys end up working in Asia, more women end up working in Europe for the exact same reason; they find the opposite sex particularly attractive in that reason. They perceive their prospects of romance to be on a higher scale. But, since it is most likely an Occidental-Occidental relationship that women will end up with in Europe, there is no discussion on the possibility of their “failed lives” back home.
And besides-the comic was pretty funny.