365 Days of Japan, Day 15

By Rita H. Chen

 “You can’t get fucking laid in this country. Foreign men only want to fuck Japanese women and foreign women send Japanese men running. It’s a fucking disgrace.” Lena lifted the cigarette between her fingers to her lips, one elbow propped gracelessly on top of the table as she took a long drag.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Valerie said, one finger tracing the rim of her beer mug. “I don’t think it’s as bad as you make it sound like.”

“Well, obviously not for you. You have Japanese men falling at your feet as soon as they see your blond hair and blue eyes.”

Though that was all Lena said out-loud, everyone around the table knew she wanted to add the words, “Regardless of how fucking ugly your face is,” to the end of that sentence. Listening to Lena complain about Valerie, the only foreign woman of the bunch who was able to snag a Japanese boyfriend, was almost like a rite of passage for anyone joining the small group of English teachers who met every Saturday night for drinks.

“Well, if that’s the case you could always dye your hair blond.” Both Valerie’s tone and face were placid but her eyes were as cold as steel, causing Rachel, the group’s most recent addition, to emit a small sigh and Lena to snort derisively.

Personally, while Rachel thought it was true that Valerie, with her blue eyes that were set too closely together on her face, her frizzy blond hair, and her somewhat fleshy figure, would have done nothing to spark the lust of most men in North America or Europe she also felt that Japanese men were equally not as blinded by blond hair and blue eyes as Lena assumed. Despite being British-born, Valerie was a sweet woman who was almost stereotypically Japanese in her docility. That, in Rachel’s opinion, was the real draw for Japanese men who, as far as she could see from her two weeks of classes taught, were unusually reticent and shy.

“What about someone like me?” Rachel purposely cut in before Lena could follow-up her snort with a biting remark that would ruin everyone’s evening. “Do you think I would have problems finding a boyfriend here?”

Her ploy to distract the two women worked as both Lena and Valerie tore their gazes off of each other and instead turned to appraise her silently.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Rachel blinked. “Uh?”

The owner of the “No,” Valerie, said, “I don’t think you’ll have a problem. You’re also Asian so people will probably think you’re Japanese.”

“She may be Asian but she’s from North America,” Lena said, her Irish accent as strong as words. “The way she carries herself, the way she talks, she’s obviously one of us.”

“Well, I was planning to learn Japanese…”

“Even if you do, you’ll never come off as one of them and that’s a fact.”

Lena then snuffed out the glowing embers of her cigarette and turned her attention to Jacob, a 28-year old who hailed from Alberta and taught in the next city over, leaving Rachel sitting in her seat with a disgruntled expression on her face and an irrational desire to prove Lena wrong.

To be continued.

Rita’s Musings: The events are slightly fudged but the characters are all real. Ah, the plight of foreign women in Japan.  I wonder if it’s changed since I left.