# Female-only areas in Japan.



## distressed_romeo (Jul 25, 2006)

There was an article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, where it said that Japan had started creating women-only restaraunts and trains, due to the way men behave towards women in public (groping, reading porn on the tube etc.). If it was any other country I'd think it was a bit silly, but given what I've heard about the way women are treated in Japan I can see it being needed...

Any thoughts? Naren, you're better placed than anyone else to offer some perspective on this...


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## Desecrated (Jul 25, 2006)

I dont think segregation is the solution, they should instead find out why they treat women bad and fix whatever causes the problem.


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## distressed_romeo (Jul 25, 2006)

I think part of the problem is that that sort of attitude is so ingrained into the national psyche that it couldn't really be fixed within one generation.


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## thepunisher (Jul 25, 2006)

but won't this just cause further problems down the road?


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## Oogadee Boogadee (Jul 25, 2006)

is it optional? is it like an escape for women? "Come here if you _want_ to.... if you feel like being away from males"? i wouldn't say an optional retreat is the same as segragation.

it sucks that it had to come to that though. guys will hopefully feel the deprivation and either straighten up.... or they'll feel the deprivation and be even more horny and stupid.

problem is that men make the laws (or lack of them) and chose to enforce (or ignore) them.


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## DelfinoPie (Jul 25, 2006)

thepunisher said:


> but won't this just cause further problems down the road?



I'm thinking, yes lol. Instead of men just happening to come across women (no pun intended) in every day scenarios like going to bars, catching the tube, etc... they will actually be aware of where women will be in MASS numbers and just go there, no doubt they won't be welcomed with open arms. 

I'm not saying all men are going to go hunting for the women but you will get the minority who will go seeking them out in their 'women-only areas' and they will know exactly where to find them.


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## distressed_romeo (Jul 25, 2006)

I should have said, it is optional areas the women can retreat to, not forced segregation...

It will be interesting to see how it develops, as it could easily go either way. You'd hope that the kind of men who'd abuse the new system in the way Delfino Pie described will be in the minority, but...


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## Oogadee Boogadee (Jul 25, 2006)

kinda like the girl's bathrooms? there's always nothing but girls in those


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## Chris (Jul 25, 2006)

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> kinda like the girl's bathrooms? there's always nothing but girls in those



Most of the time, anyway.


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## metalfiend666 (Jul 25, 2006)

Hmm, could help, but I think it'll just lead to the problem getting worse. As more women choose to go to these "optional" areas, the harrasment gets worse for the others as there's less women in the general areas. Hence more are inclined to go the the women only areas. Repeat until total segregation occurs.



Oogadee Boogadee said:


> kinda like the girl's bathrooms? there's always nothing but girls in those


 
You've obviously never been to Slimelight. Not that I'd really expect you to have visited a London cybergoth club, it's a bit of a trek for you. The bogs there are a free-for-all. Guys, girls, trannies, couples having sex...


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## DelfinoPie (Jul 25, 2006)

metalfiend666 said:


> You've obviously never been to Slimelight. Not that I'd really expect you to have visited a London cybergoth club, it's a bit of a trek for you. The bogs there are a free-for-all. Guys, girls, trannies, couples having sex...



Sounds interesting, very liberal. But I have images in my head of unshaven girls - think hippies who have cross-bred with bears. 

I have no idea why I'm picturing that, maybe I've had too much sun lol.


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## Roundhouse_Kick (Jul 25, 2006)

distressed_romeo said:


> reading porn on the tube



 Good lads!



metalfiend666 said:


> You've obviously never been to Slimelight. Not that I'd really expect you to have visited a London cybergoth club, it's a bit of a trek for you. The bogs there are a free-for-all. Guys, girls, trannies, couples having sex...



 Fuckin hell!


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## Naren (Jul 25, 2006)

Actually, this isn't new. There have been women-only sections of some trains for over 10 years. For example, the saikyo line has a women-only train. It is obviously optional. When trains get really really crowded, there are people who grope women. Then, of course, it can be so crowded that you'll accidentally touch somebody. For example, today I was riding the yamanote line to Shinjuku (where I work, probably the most crowded station in the world) and I just had my hands at my side. It was really crowded and a woman in front of me bent down, which pushed her butt backwards, touching my hand. I, of course, immediately withdrew my hand and I'm sure she knew I wasn't trying to touch her, but there are some paranoid women who think that everyone is a "masher." I've personally never seen one of these gropings before. There are female gropers as well, but obviously they aren't as common as men.

And, I vehemently disagree with people who think that women-only areas are going to make the matter worse. My biggest problem with Japan since the first time I came to Japan 5-6 years ago is the treatment of women. 

I think most of the speculation in this thread is by people who don't have any idea what it's actually like or what the situation is like. It's not segregation. There are not women-only areas of restaurants or anything like that. There are basically just women-only sections of crowded areas. If a man did go onto a women-only train car, they would get in huge trouble (might have to pay a fine, might get attacked by the women). For reference, I'd say that the train I was riding today was 60% female and 40% male. So, it's not like all the women are going to the women-only trains. And most trains don't have these areas. I live in Tokiwadai, Itabashi on the Tobu-tojo line which does not have any women-only train cars. It doesn't need them. There's no need. I can only think of three train lines that have women-only train cars and they all have had specific problems in the past.

Anyway, this is no big deal. Japan has had this common problem with its views on women for hundreds and hundreds of years (I'd say easily over 1000 years). Although there have been variations and I would say the treatment of women now is much better than it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 200 years ago (and anyone who knows Japanese history will agree with me), I can say that this problem is not going to go away anywhere in the near future.


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## eaeolian (Jul 25, 2006)

metalfiend666 said:


> You've obviously never been to Slimelight. Not that I'd really expect you to have visited a London cybergoth club, it's a bit of a trek for you. The bogs there are a free-for-all. Guys, girls, trannies, couples having sex...



Sounds just like the original Limelight in NYC, which I'm sure inspired the name.


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## metalfiend666 (Jul 25, 2006)

Naren, obviously you're better placed to comment on this than we are. We're just voicing our oppinons based on the facts we knew at the time. Your post has made me rethink my first post a little, but it hasn't changed my oppion (and yours) that the Japanese need to improve their treatment of women.



DelfinoPie said:


> Sounds interesting, very liberal. But I have images in my head of unshaven girls - think hippies who have cross-bred with bears.


 
Never seen any hippie/bear hybrids, but there is the occasional shaven headed girl. They've mostly got very funky hair with wool, plastic or foam braided in.



Roundhouse_Kick said:


> Fuckin hell!


 
well it's not normally too bad, the shagging's usually only going on in the "yellow" toilets on the middle floor.



eaeolian said:


> Sounds just like the original Limelight in NYC, which I'm sure inspired the name.


 
Quite possibly. Maybe the "Slime" part came about as it's a bit of a grotty place. It's a paintball / air soft combat game arena that happens to hold a few club nights too.


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## eaeolian (Jul 25, 2006)

Naren said:


> Anyway, this is no big deal.



This has the "smell" of something that's blown out of proportion by the media, like the gay marriage issue in the U.S....


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## distressed_romeo (Jul 25, 2006)

Interesting stuff...

Naren...Sorry if I didn't have all the facts straight...I was just refering to what I read in the paper yesterday, and was interested in your perspective.

Has anyone read 'Fear and Trembling' by Amelie Nothomb (before anyone accuses me of getting offtopic, I already started a seperate thread about her in Media)? That one's about a western woman working for a female boss in a Japanese corporation...great book.


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## Mastodon (Jul 25, 2006)

What's wrong with reading porn on a train?

It's not like they are forcing the women to look at their porn are they?


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## distressed_romeo (Jul 25, 2006)

No, but it's still pretty pathetic...I imagine a lot of women would find it pretty intimidating.


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## Mastodon (Jul 25, 2006)

Those are some weak ass women then.


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## Desecrated (Jul 25, 2006)

distressed_romeo said:


> I think part of the problem is that that sort of attitude is so ingrained into the* national psyche* that it couldn't really be fixed within one generation.



Please tell me that they dont teach you that in school ?


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## noodles (Jul 25, 2006)

OK, twenty replies have gone by without someone stepping up and being the thread sleezeball. So, I'm just going to have to be the one to do it... 

When I read "women only trains and restaraunts", I instantly thought of hundreds of hot lesbians having at each other. I guess my way of thinking is exactly the reason they need someplace else to go.


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## Naren (Jul 25, 2006)

distressed_romeo said:


> No, but it's still pretty pathetic...I imagine a lot of women would find it pretty intimidating.



This DOES happen, but it's not nearly as common as newspapers make it out to be. I've lived in Japan for over 2 years (been in Japan off and on for about 5 years) and I've only seen people reading "porn" on trains about 2-3 times. And, those "porn" magazines are not porn magazines in the American or European sense of the term. For one thing, in Japanese porn, you cannot show genetalia (no penis, vagina, or anus showable. Therefore, extreme mosaics). For another thing, the magazines these guys read on trains are more "shuukanshi" than "porn." They generally are 60-80% articles, oftentimes dealing with politics, business, or news with some sleazy articles thrown in and some topless women in there. Depending on the extremity of the magazine, there are magazines that have more extreme stuff going on like S&M, oral sex (but you can't really see anything), etc. However, I have never seen any magazines like that in trains. The worst I ever saw was when a guy was blatantly trying to be rude (not just to women) and he had one of the sleazier "shuukanshi." But, really, that's very very tame compared to porn magazines in the US. That said, I find it offensive when I'm sitting next to a guy who is reading a porno. About 3 months ago, I was standing next to a guy who was reading a sleazy newspaper and there was a half-page spread of a topless woman (the only thing she was wearing were panties) acting very erotic. 

Like I said, my biggest problem with Japan has always been the treatment of women. I didn't say that I don't think they should change. I probably think they should change more than anyone else on this board. But I know that they aren't going to change in the near future.



eaeolian said:


> This has the "smell" of something that's blown out of proportion by the media, like the gay marriage issue in the U.S....



One thing I've noticed is that every single newspaper article or internet article I've read based in an English speaking country regarding Japan has been blown way way way out of proportion.

I remember a newspaper article that really bothering me that I read when I was 18. I went to my girlfriend (who was Japanese) immediately after I read it and I was like "This is horrible." and she said "What...? That's not true. If Japan were really like that, it'd be chaotic. I'd be really screwed up." And, I felt relieved. Shortly after, when I went to Japan, I found that the article had NOT ONLY blown stuff out of purportion, the majority of the article was just plain made up. I don't know how people get away with this. I have this image of people writing newspaper articles in the US, Canada, UK, etc. just thinking "Hell, none of readers know anything about Japan anyway. And it's not like they can find out whether it's true or not. Writing something sensational like this will get us more readers."

I think the article you read, distressedromeo, was blown completely out of proportion and full of false information. I find that there is a lot of misinformation regarding Asia in the West.

When I was 13, I remember looking up "Japanese Language" in the Encyclopedia Britannica and one thing it said was "In Japanese, there are no words for 'yes' or 'no', dialogues given in a format of 'do you have some money?' 'I have some money.'" When I first read that, I thought "That doesn't sound right." I started studying Japanese when I was 14 and found within the first few days of study 2 words for "yes" and 2 words for "no." As of now, after about 10 years of studying Japanese, I know about 25 words for "yes" and about 15 words for "no." That's a fuck of a lot more than English. Where did that idiot who wrote that encyclopedia article get his information? His butt?


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## D-EJ915 (Jul 25, 2006)

^from the porn magazines, obviously


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## Naren (Jul 25, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> ^from the porn magazines, obviously



What...?


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## D-EJ915 (Jul 25, 2006)

Naren said:


> What...?


It's where the encyclopedia guy got his info...ok that was a failed joke


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## Naren (Jul 25, 2006)

I thought that's what you meant, but it didn't really make sense, so I had to make sure.

Definitely a failed joke.


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## Mastodon (Jul 25, 2006)

I got the joke...

And what was that article that you showed your girlfriend about anyway?


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## Naren (Jul 25, 2006)

Mastodon said:


> And what was that article that you showed your girlfriend about anyway?



Not worth mentioning since it was 100% lies. I read that over 5 years ago before I had majored in "Japanese studies", went to college in Japan, or worked in a Japanese company. In order words, there was no way I could have known whether it was true or not, which is probably what a lot of these newspapers and magazines are counting on when they write these articles. Now I am very familiar with Japanese history, culture, religion, society, art, language, international relations, politics, music, cinema, literature, etc. and I know that things stated in that article were of either pure ignorance or just blatant disregard for reality.

The female-only areas thing is true, but I think that article probably blew it way out of proportion and misrepresented it. There is also the thing where newspapers project Western values on a country with completely different values. For example, there are alcohol vending machines all over Japan and, even though you can legally drink at 20, no one ever checks ID and you could technically buy alcohol in a convenience store at 16 or 17 years old without anyone asking for ID. To many Americans, from their set of values, this is shocking and horrific. To Japanese, this is nothing. 150 years ago, 12 year olds could drink alcohol without a bat of the eye. In many people's eyes, it's a lot stricter now. Many Americans see alcohol in a bad light. Even those who drink alcohol, oftentimes consider it "bad" (in a good way. Like "I'm a badass" or "hey, look what I'm drinking"). But, in Japan, there is a famous expression that translates something like "Alcohol is a medicine that extends your life" and a lot of ideas concerning it being good for your health. I explained to a Japanese professor in college that scientifically speaking, alcohol is technically a "poison. A weak poison, but still a poison." She was very surprised and, at first didn't believe me. I used "alcohol poisoning" as an example and soon had her completely convinced. That didn't change her view on drinking or anything, though. It was more like "I didn't know that" and nothing more.

I think sometimes Western newspapers see something in another culture and interpret it as a serious problem from their set of values when the actual culture doesn't see it as a big deal at all - or does not even notice the issue exists at all.


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## Cancer (Jul 26, 2006)

Naren (and thank you for offering your perspective), given the problems between the genders in Japanese society, what is dating like in Japan? As a Westerner, I see thing, I hear things, I know what reported has a "slant" to it, but having never been to Japan (or out of the country for that matter), what, in your opinion, is the reality.

Sadly, the only thing I know about Japanese is what I've gleamed from a few Japanese friends (all adopted), the news, anime, and hentai, and I can't believe that the media I've seen paints an accurate picture.


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## Naren (Jul 26, 2006)

First of all, anime is not a place to look for info on real culture. Anime is meant to immitate a false reality and oftentimes the futuristic sci-fi world in some animations is meant to mirror a futuristic US culture. Because, Japanese are writing it, Japanese culture is a big part of it. But, because of that: it's like a mixture of American culture, Japanese culture, made up fictional culture, and more stuff. Anime is one of the last places to look for reality. Do you watch "Mickey Mouse" or "Looney Toons" to find out about how dating in the US is?

I don't even need to mention "hentai." That's like watching American rape porn and S&M videos to see what dating is like in the US. I mean, there might be twisted guys who watch extreme Japanese porn and think "Oh, Japanese girls must be like this." or "Japanese guys must be like this." But, you could do the exact same thing for any country and you'd be wrong every time.

The news also is not a place to look for info on culture.

I have dated 4 Japanese girls by now. The first one I dated spoke English and I dated her in the US. The other 3 didn't speak any English and we communicated in Japanese. I think I get along better in general with Japanese girls than with American girls. Of course, I knew an American who dated 2 Japanese girls and said "I'll never date one again" because he couldn't get along with them at all. Everyone is different.

My perspective on modern young Japanese dating would take too long to discuss. I'll just say that the US is not the right way and Japan is not the wrong way. I have known American guys who treated their girlfriends like shit and I've known Japanese guys who were very sensitive and caring towards their girlfriends. My opinion of the "treatment of women" in Japan is not an all-encompassing thing. It's something I see prevalent in the media (TV, movies, books, magazines, etc.) and in certain people's opinions. I also see a lot of Americans who have very bad views of women.


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## Shawn (Jul 26, 2006)

distressed_romeo said:


> There was an article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, where it said that Japan had started creating women-only restaraunts and trains, due to the way men behave towards women in public (groping, reading porn on the tube etc.). If it was any other country I'd think it was a bit silly, but given what I've heard about the way women are treated in Japan I can see it being needed...
> Any thoughts? Naren, you're better placed than anyone else to offer some perspective on this...



I liked living in Japan but that was in the 80s, I imagine things have changed but would never imagine this. Wow.


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## Naren (Jul 26, 2006)

^I can say that the restaurant bit isn't true. There are no "women-only" restaurants or women-only sections for restaurants. For trains, it is true. And there have been women-only train cars since 1995 or 1994. Not exactly sure when it started, but roughly 10 years ago.

Besides, although I say that the treatment of women is not good in Japan, it's not like people walk up to a girl on the street and grab her boobs or pinch some girl's butt when she goes to get water in a restaurant. I think "women-only" train cars is a good idea for the super crowded train lines that are notorious for "mashers." But, I cannot see the reasoning for women-only restaurants (which don't exist) or anything similar to that. Do they think a guy is just gonna walk up to a girl in a restaurant and start licking her nipples or talking about explicit sexual acts? That's 10x more likely to happen in the US.


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## Mastodon (Jul 26, 2006)

Naren said:


> Besides, although I say that the treatment of women is not good in Japan, it's not like people walk up to a girl on the street and grab her boobs or pinch some girl's butt when she goes to get water in a restaurant. Do they think a guy is just gonna walk up to a girl in a restaurant and start licking her nipples or talking about explicit sexual acts? That's 10x more likely to happen in the US.




*cough* sharking *cough*


^NWS btw.


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## D-EJ915 (Jul 26, 2006)

Mastodon said:


> *cough* sharking *cough*
> 
> 
> ^NWS btw.


...and thus why tube-tops are always a bad idea.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 26, 2006)

All I can say is that Eric (Naren) is walking encyclopedia of all things Japanese. We used to talk for hours about it, and I've always considered myself somewhat educated about Japan. He makes me look like a chump (and tells the funniest fucking stories about it, too. ).

Just to further validate what he says as generally, to my knowledge, very, very accurate. Not that he needs it.


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## Naren (Jul 26, 2006)

Mastodon said:


> *cough* sharking *cough*
> ^NWS btw.



If that was normal, I'd say you have a point. That's just like a lot of the videos I see on the web that take place in the US that I've never seen in real life and no one I know has ever seen.

I don't change my point at all. You start pointing out very rare irregular things that the average person has never personally seen in your life and you can make just about any point you want.

Those sexual predators are horrible... I mean, have you ever seen a child getting molested on the street? That stuff happens in the US. Is it common? No. Have you ever seen someone raped in person? No, but it happens.


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## Lankles (Jul 26, 2006)

I have four things to say.

Thankyou for your educated viewpoint Naren, you're t3h expert.

Aren't "women-only areas" simply an opiate solution like female-only scholarships in tertiary education? Simply countering a problem by generating a problem or demographic restriction with a different effect?

Is there something going on to solve the actual problem?

If I was seen by women reading porn on public transport they would identify me as a complete and utter loser. Possibly correctly. There's no way THEY would be intimidated. I would be scared reading something as mild as FHM or Ralph (nothing more extreme than bikini or lingerie clad ladies and sports/booze articles) on the train. Those 17-25yo girls have such terribly scary grasp of how to shame me. I would've thought the same would be the case in most developed countries.


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## Naren (Jul 26, 2006)

Well, I never said that women feel intimidated by it. I think distressedromeo said that. If someone on the train is reading porno, the women around him feel offended and maybe disgusted (but not intimidated). Many men feel that way as well. This isn't some world where all the men are evil and all the women are innocent. That would be a ridiculous way to take it.

As for if there is anything to solve the actual problem, YES. There have been anti-groping campaigns where I see these posters in trains that say "I say NO to mashers" (I think "masher" is the most accurate term for the Japanese word "chikan") or "I don't tolerate inappropriate touching" and have a picture of an angry woman in her mid-20s and a kind of sinister dark looking man. There are other variations on this, such as one with an angry police man standing between an angry woman and a sinister looking man. If you get caught doing this, you get taken to the police station, yelled at, and I guess they determine what to do with you after that. These guys are treated like they had done an attempted rape.

All of these actions are illegal. I believe it is also illegal to look at porn in a public place. It's just that many people don't report this stuff. One of the main point of these campaigns is to get people who were groped to report to the station authorities. Or, if in a crowded train, to scream "Stop! Pervert!" to draw attention from other people. Most Japanese despise these mashers/molesters and, in an obvious situation, would gang up on the person doing it.

As for Lankles first question, I think that the women-only train cars are more for peace-of-mind for certain women. A place they can go where there are no mashers (because there are no men. The female mashers would go to the regular trains). Women who had been groped or who were afraid of being groped probably asked for these women-only train cars around 1993-1995 and the authorities responded by giving them women-only train cars on lines that had larger numbers of molestation.

And, yeah, the people who read porn on trains don't care that the people around them think they are complete and utter losers. They also don't care that it's illegal. But, if one of the board members came to Tokyo for 1 week, I doubt they would see anyone reading porn on the trains within that period.


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## Lankles (Jul 26, 2006)

Good answer.  

Yeah, my references to intimidation and such were directed at what others said. You've explained it to me so thanks.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 26, 2006)

Naren said:


> And, yeah, the people who read porn on trains don't care that the people around them think they are complete and utter losers. They also don't care that it's illegal. But, if one of the board members came to Tokyo for 1 week, I doubt they would see anyone reading porn on the trains within that period.


Unless we were the ones doing it. 


(A little more of that sarcasm thing, there. Personally, I'd wait until I at _least_ was off the train, and sitting at the station, before I busted out my porn.  )


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## Cancer (Jul 26, 2006)

Naren said:


> First of all, anime is not a place to look for info on real culture. Anime is meant to immitate a false reality and oftentimes the futuristic sci-fi world in some animations is meant to mirror a futuristic US culture. Because, Japanese are writing it, Japanese culture is a big part of it. But, because of that: it's like a mixture of American culture, Japanese culture, made up fictional culture, and more stuff. Anime is one of the last places to look for reality. Do you watch "Mickey Mouse" or "Looney Toons" to find out about how dating in the US is?
> I don't even need to mention "hentai." That's like watching American rape porn and S&M videos to see what dating is like in the US. I mean, there might be twisted guys who watch extreme Japanese porn and think "Oh, Japanese girls must be like this." or "Japanese guys must be like this." But, you could do the exact same thing for any country and you'd be wrong every time.



Uhhh, forgive me if I didn't CLEARLY communicate that I understood that anime, hentai, and the news, were not accurate representations of your culture.

Since this may take too long to adequately explain in this forum, could you perhaps recommend a good book.


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## Naren (Jul 26, 2006)

psyphre said:


> Since this may take too long to adequately explain in this forum, could you perhaps recommend a good book.



Man, that's difficult. I don't think culture can be properly explained through a book and some of the traditional anthropological books I've read on Japanese culture struck me as just plain insulting (such as The Sword and the Chrysanthamum). If I had to recommend a book, it definitely wouldn't be one you'd find in a regular bookstore... 

Modern Japanese culture is quick complicated. Traditional elements are still present, but they have faded away quite a bit. This is the type of thing that is hard to learn through a book. What do you want to know? If you want to know how Japanese view things or perceive things, you could read a book on Japanese philosophy, but then you'd get into a lot of stuff you might have no interest in like Shinto philosophy, Buddhist schools of thought, Neo-Confucianism, etc. If you want to know about the "Japanese way of life", you could get a book on "society" or "culture", but then you might get overloaded with that and not have a balance there.

I really can't recommend any books... sorry...


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## Cancer (Jul 28, 2006)

Naren said:


> Man, that's difficult. I don't think culture can be properly explained through a book and some of the traditional anthropological books I've read on Japanese culture struck me as just plain insulting (such as The Sword and the Chrysanthamum). If I had to recommend a book, it definitely wouldn't be one you'd find in a regular bookstore...
> Modern Japanese culture is quick complicated. Traditional elements are still present, but they have faded away quite a bit. This is the type of thing that is hard to learn through a book. What do you want to know? If you want to know how Japanese view things or perceive things, you could read a book on Japanese philosophy, but then you'd get into a lot of stuff you might have no interest in like Shinto philosophy, Buddhist schools of thought, Neo-Confucianism, etc. If you want to know about the "Japanese way of life", you could get a book on "society" or "culture", but then you might get overloaded with that and not have a balance there.
> I really can't recommend any books... sorry...



Perhaps some background would help here....

About a year ago TechTV (before the <sarcasm>*Awesomely Great G$Tv*</sarcasm> took over) they have some show about an American videogame designer who moved to Japan. He said alot of things about the video game industry, but one thing that always stuck in mind was (and I'm paraphrasing) "If one wants to see the future of the world, one only need to look to Japan, as they truly are the only post-apocalyptic culture presently on Earth....", the show they went into how the cellphone was a dating tool of choice in Japan, with strangers meeting up for sex after text messaging each other...yadda yadda yadda G$TV sucks yadda yadda.

Since I'm one of these bright and cheery souls who believes the world is heading for some kind of major catastrophe that we will no doubt survive, this is all very fascinating to me, and since the survival of humanity depends at least in part (unless we go back to cavemen ways) on human dating and mating, if I can get some glimpse into what the future is like well then ...super.

That and I'm fledgling japanophile who wants the inside track on dating Asian women.....


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 28, 2006)

psyphre said:


> Uhhh, forgive me if I didn't CLEARLY communicate that I understood that anime, hentai, and the news, were not accurate representations of *your* culture.


Hey guys... I guess you could argue that since he lives there, it's his culture, but that's a bit of a stretch to me, since he's as American as apple pie. I know him. FTR, Naren is a big, strapping white dude. He ain't Japanese!  But he does know as much if not more about Japan and such than probably most Japanese people, plus he's totally fluent in Japanese.

I think lots of people get the impression from being on here that you're asian, E.


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## Mastodon (Jul 28, 2006)

Hmmm...how would one describe american culture?


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 28, 2006)

Mastodon said:


> Hmmm...how would one describe american culture?


Just like Japanese culture...

ONLY BIGGER!!!


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## Naren (Jul 28, 2006)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Hey guys... I guess you could argue that since he lives there, it's his culture, but that's a bit of a stretch to me, since he's as American as apple pie. I know him. FTR, Naren is a big, strapping white dude. He ain't Japanese!  But he does know as much if not more about Japan and such than probably most Japanese people, plus he's totally fluent in Japanese.
> I think lots of people get the impression from being on here that you're asian, E.



Ah, I interpreted that completely different. When he said "Uhhh, forgive me if I didn't CLEARLY communicate that I understood that anime, hentai, and the news, were not accurate representations of your culture." I didn't interpret that as him meaning I was Japanese. I thought he meant "I understood that animation, porno, and the news, are not accurate representations of anyone's culture." I thought the "your culture" was the all-encompassing "you." For example, "History is not a good representation of your culture" (whatever culture that may be). Note: that was just an example.

Yeah, well, if anyone thinks I'm Japanese, all they have to do is look at the "real name:" field next to my post. 100% Caucasian.



psyphre said:


> Perhaps some background would help here....
> About a year ago TechTV (before the <sarcasm>*Awesomely Great G$Tv*</sarcasm> took over) they have some show about an American videogame designer who moved to Japan. He said alot of things about the video game industry, but one thing that always stuck in mind was (and I'm paraphrasing) "If one wants to see the future of the world, one only need to look to Japan, as they truly are the only post-apocalyptic culture presently on Earth....", the show they went into how the cellphone was a dating tool of choice in Japan, with strangers meeting up for sex after text messaging each other...yadda yadda yadda G$TV sucks yadda yadda.



Cell phones aren't "dating tools." In the US, most people who go to have sex with some complete stranger use some internet website like adultfriendfinder or sexfriends.com or sexsexsexbuddies.org or whatever. In Japan, the internet is not as prevalent as it is in the US, so if someone gets all horny and wants to have sex with some complete stranger, they can do that on their cell phone. That's quite different from dating. I wouldn't say that someone using "adultfriendfinder" to have sex with people is "dating" those people.

And, I work as a translator at a video game company here in Tokyo and you don't see me on shitty TV shows like that, do ya?


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 28, 2006)

^ Dude, don't make me sic Godzilla on yo' ass.


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## Naren (Jul 28, 2006)

Mastodon said:


> Hmmm...how would one describe american culture?



It would take me over 400 pages to describe American culture, so I won't bother. It's too complicated.



The Dark Wolf said:


> ^ Dude, don't make me sic Godzilla on yo' ass.



Dude, I OWN Godzilla.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 28, 2006)

Naren said:


> Dude, I OWN Godzilla.


I bet you and him play dueling banjos at karaoke night, too. You on your 7, him on your mandolin!


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## Naren (Jul 28, 2006)

How'd you know?! He plays a damn good mandolin. I'd never imagine with those huge fingers he'd be a mandolin shreddin' monster. Not a bad singer, either.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jul 28, 2006)

Naren said:


> How'd you know?! He plays a damn good mandolin. I'd never imagine with those huge fingers he'd be a mandolin shreddin' monster. Not a bad singer, either.


As long as you stay away from his radioactive breath I bet, huh?

"OOOH SOOO... la mio.... " *ZAP* 

 

"Whoops."


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