Ashiya Princess: Continued

Wow! It’s been four long months since I’ve posted, and for that I extend deep apologies. But fatherhood is kicking my posterior, which coincidentally is the subject of my follow up book to ‘Yellow Fever.’ “The title?” You might ask. ‘From Deadbeat to Heartbeat: A Sociopath’s Journey to Becoming a Good Father.’ Anyway, without further ado, onward with Yellow Fever. For Deadbeat Heartbeat won’t be ready for some years to come.

ASHIYA PRINCESS: CONTINUED

Like Tomoko before her, Karin had been extensively exposed to the world and men outside Japan. Traveling since her early years at a prestigious all girl school in Ashiya, she even spent three years on a Japanese government program teaching Japanese at high schools in Illinois. The last thing she wanted was to return to oppressive Japan, she said. But it was impossible to remain in the States with the love of her life – an African-American Architect – as it was forbidden under the restrictions of the program, which stipulated that no participant therein could have his or her visa status modified to permanent resident without first returning to Japan for some years. Bitter and heartbroken, after experiencing the freedom of the United States, she, like countless other Japanese women in her shoes reluctantly returned home to confront the daunting feat of readjusting to her strangulating society and trying to find a suitable man as her thirties encroached. Like Tomoko, she was 34 and intolerant to Japanese men, but was fully aware of the ease with which many Japanese women hurled themselves at Western men and the tendencies for these men to eagerly oblige. The all too familiar catch 22 for these women exposed to the world outside Japan.

“I hate Japanese men, but you guys are such whores. Doshio?” (What should I do?”) Along with Japanese, men, she had a profound disdain for what she called, “yellow cabs:” those baka (stupid) Japanese women who open their legs to every Western man. Mukatsuku!” (FUCK!)

“But didn’t you do the same thing when you came to my apartment?” I asked.

“What are you talking about? You raped me.”

“I raped you?”

“Yes, I told you to stop. I went to your apartment for dinner, you are my student and you invited me to dinner.”

“You’re perfectly right, I am your student, and I did invite you to my apartment for dinner but I didn’t rape you.”

“You did!”

“Why didn’t you call the police and why did you come back to my apartment and why did you continue to be my Japanese teacher if I were your rapist?”

“You were a private student and I couldn’t change because it would look bad.”

“So, I raped you, but you were more concerned with how things would look if you stopped being my teacher or reported me? That’s a dumb argument, that’s just stupid. If I raped you, if I violated you I’m very sorry, but why are you here now, in my bed, did you fall in love with your rapist?”

“Maybe I’m lonely,” she sheepishly replied after giving some thought to my queries.

“Yeh, you and most Japanese women,” I thought.

“Well, maybe you were lonely then too.”

Had I not extensive experience with her kind in the West, those borderline types, Karin and Japanese society in general would have posed a mystery. But it was through her that I observed that the enigma and perplexing behaviour which surrounds the Japanese, bares some resemblance to those surrounding people with personality disorders in the West. After all, hers was a typical Japanese existence, from a typical invalidating and oppressive Japanese family, with the typical pressure cooker upbringing. And then like a bullet train it hit me: Understanding the Japanese requires a firm grasp of abnormal and child psychology. Truth be told, a thorough understanding of abnormal child psychology would be more applicable.