Game over, Ladies. Game over. I'm Leaving the Country. (Written 11/26/01)

Well, I've made-good on my long-repeated threat: I'm making advanced preparations for leaving the country. I'm not renouncing my citizenship, mind you, I'm just moving abroad.

Perhaps not on a permanent basis... maybe for a year or two. But it's an open-ended commitment if I want it to be one.

I've been offered a job in Japan, and I think I'd like to go for it. It starts in Spring, 2002.

But that's so far away... why?

I got recently laid-off from my company along with about 1,400 other people (much of the economy appears to be imploding) and I really wasn't totally happy at my old job anyway. But, I was able to get a new job in a major city in Japan. (I shall hereafter refer to my destination city as 'Michinoshi'. Hint: it's not on the island of Tsushima.)

So pursuing a career is my primary motivation for going to Michinoshi. I've long desired to work overseas and now this is my big chance to do so. I've briefly been to Japan twice, and on both occasions I got an overwhelmingly positive impression of what life is like there. Why, I'd be the grandest of fools if I passed-up this chance! That's Real Reason Number One.

My second motivation for this move is to further improve my spoken Japanese. I took a little bit of Japanese in college, and it whetted my appetite to learn more. I also concluded that I need to be constantly exposed to such a challenging language in order to be any good at it. There's nothing more exciting than learning a new language, in my opinion. Especially if you have a cute girl who's willing to teach you. That's Real Reason Number Two.

And my third motivation on leaving the country is: to escape the anti-male bigotry that currently exists in the U.S. That's Real Reason Number Three.

I'm Unpatriotic, Maybe?

You may or may not get the idea that me leaving the country is somehow unpatriotic or un-American. Balderdash! Flimshaw! Horse-feathers! Humbug! Not so, I say. I love the founding principles of this nation, just not its daughters.

In fact, the idea of Americans leaving America is as old as America itself. There are interesting examples of this in the little-known phenomenon of defections to Native American societies. Some of the early colonies had to establish harsh punishments to prevent Europeans from going to live with Indians; Indian society was arguably much freer than that of the colonial states in the 17th century (where the governors demanded fealty to distant monarchs and where the clergy occasionally burned witches). Indeed, it was an embarrassment for colonial authorities to see Europeans actually wanting to leave white society and go live with 'savages'! Whereas interracial couples and biracial children were often seen as assets in native societies, in white societies the so-called "half-breed" children were stigmatized. Not surprisingly, African slaves and white indentured servants were quite eager to escape. And the uptight Puritan colonists of New England... why, they feared Native American influence to the point that they forbade men from wearing long hair(!)

Benjamin Franklin, who had spent some time among the Iroquois Confederation, once commented on Europeans who chose to live with Native Americans: "No European who has tasted Savage [sic] Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies."  

Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur in Letters From An American Farmer wrote: "There must be in the Indians' social bond something singularly captivating and far superior to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians..."

According to the book White Indians by James Axtell, after Colonel Henry Bouquet defeated the Ohio Indians at the battle of Bushy Run in 1763, he demanded that all whites living with the natives must return to the American colonies. Most of the Europeans, especially the children, had to be "bound hand and foot" and forcibly returned to white society.

Defections to Native American nations also continued after the U.S. became independent, and even served as a cause for several wars. Among the major pressure-groups behind the War of 1812 were slave-owners who wanted to push-back Indians who might serve as a lure for escaping slaves. The major impetus behind the little-remembered First and Second Seminole Wars of 1816-1818 and 1835-1842 was that too many escaped slaves were being taken-in by the Seminole Indians who lived around the marshes of central and south Florida. (The Seminoles were a native nation with many interracial members, it is notable to add.) Southern slave-owning states demanded that the U.S. Army be used to secure the borders and stop the escapes to the Seminoles.

"U.S. Army hunting Seminole Indians with bloodhounds. c. 1840."

In the independent United States, Whites defected to Native American societies right-up until the end of independent native nations in 1890. Ditto for many blacks who wanted to escape slavery and post-Civil War prejudice; in the 1890s in what was called the Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma) it's been estimated that about 10% of the populace was black. Some blacks even became large farm-owners there or became members of the Indian Territory's tribal councils.

So, you see, even in the earliest days of America, many Americans opted to leave American society behind and start life anew in an environment where they didn't have tax-collectors squeezing them, the King of England breathing down their necks or slave-owners whipping them to death. (And, they were all quite right to do so.)

America: Love it And Leave it.

There are many other examples of Americans leaving America: during and after the Revolutionary War, over forty-thousand Tories (pro-crown colonists) abandoned their homes and fled to Canada, England or British Caribbean colonies to escape harassment. After the redcoats surrendered at Yorktown, British ships were rushed to the ports of Charleston and New York to offer Tories a means of escape. The evacuated loyalists also included between 3,000 and 5,000 freed slaves. (And they were quite right to flee. Pro-crown publishers, for instance, had their writings suppressed by American revolutionary governments. Pro-crown ship-owners and merchants had their vessels and businesses seized. It was made obvious that pro-crown sentiment was clearly not welcome in the newly-independent United States, especially not from those who'd taken-up arms against the revolutionary forces.)

From late 1845 until early 1846, a tense standoff existed between the U.S. and Mexico about the American annexation of a rebellious province (the Republic of Texas). This annexation was done with Texan approval, and the U.S. Army was invited-in to secure the Rio Grande. During this standoff, the Army experienced a number of embarrassing desertions due to rough living conditions, poor supplies and Mexican rewards for defection. The problem was considered so serious, General Zachary Taylor (who later became a U.S. President), ordered his lookouts to shoot on sight any U.S. soldier seen swimming across the Rio Grande. (Desertions tapered-off significantly after two soldiers died this way.)
After the Mexican-American War erupted in 1846, hundreds of Mexicans opted to abandon their homes in California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico when those territories were taken-over by the U.S. Army. They left because they knew that Catholics were not particularly welcome in the U.S. at the time (in 1844, for instance, two Catholic churches in Philadelphia were burned-down by mobs), and the Mexicans didn't want to live under the eyes of a conquering military force.
Here's an interesting factoid: during the war, the Mexican Army had a battalion called the Batallón San Patricio (Saint Patrick's Battalion). This force was made-up of dozens of Catholic Irish-Americans who'd defected from the U.S. Army to get away from the abusive treatment they'd gotten from Protestant officers. At the time, the Irish were an ethnic group which also received a lot of hatred in the U.S. In September 1847, the U.S. Army hanged sixteen surviving San Patricios as traitors. (But all of these defectors, obviously, had sound reasons for their actions and they felt right in doing so.)

Throughout U.S. history, blacks fled persecution time and time again. As you might have remembered from 7th Grade history, quite a few free blacks fled the country to escape the prejudiced 1857 Dred Scott court ruling by moving to Canada, Mexico and Haiti. This court ruling essentially said that once a black man escaped from slavery and moved north, he could still be considered property of his master and denied equal rights. (And these escapees were quite right to flee this decision.)

And of course, it's been estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 slaves made it to Canada before the end of the Civil War by escaping along the underground railroad. Still others escaped to Mexico after slavery was abolished there in 1829. In one incident in 1841: after leaving an American port, slaves being transported aboard a vessel, the Creole, overpowered the crew (killing one) and sailed to safety in the British West Indies.

And after the Civil War, even more blacks moved abroad to escape the lynchings and racial violence that occurred after the halt of post-Civil War Reconstruction in the late 1870s. Nine black American soldiers who were sent to fight the Philippine Insurrection from 1898-1903, quite possibly disgusted by the rampant race-hate endemic among white soldiers, decided to desert their segregated units and join with Filipino guerillas. (Likewise, six white Americans deserted to join the guerillas as well). And W.E.B. Dubois, one of the founders of the NAACP, became so disillusioned with America that he renounced his citizenship and moved to Africa in the early 1960s.

"Harriet Tubman (left) posing with escaping slaves, c. 1850."

Chinese living in the U.S. faced serious prejudice starting in the 1850s. Chinese immigrants were blamed for generating unwanted economic competition and were stereotyped by whites as being inassimilable to American society. Over 600 ordinances and laws were passed against Asians throughout the United States. Arbitrary fees were levied on Chinese miners, they were disallowed citizenship, and it was even ruled in California that Chinese testimony was inadmissible in state courtrooms. These circumstances almost guaranteed that crimes committed against Chinese would go unpunished; all throughout this period a wave of random violence occurred against Chinese throughout the American west. (One count indicates fifty-five violent anti-Chinese incidents happening in nine western states during the late 1800s, in which scores of Chinese were killed. The worst was an 1885 attack in Rock Springs, Wyoming in which twenty-eight were murdered and the Chinese section of the town was burned. Unsurprisingly, many of the Rock Spring survivors soon moved back to China.) Things got so bad, that as a means of protest, Chinese merchant associations in San Francisco repeatedly published newspaper articles threatening to pull-out of America because they were sick of the treatment Chinese were receiving. Other Chinese decided to move from California to live in the (sometimes) friendlier Kingdom of Hawaii.

"The massacre of Chinese miners at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory. September 2, 1885." Drawing by T. de Thelstrup from photographs by Lt. C.A. Booth, 7th U.S. Infantry.

As nearly everyone knows, over 120,000 American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry were rounded-up and placed in "internment centers" during World War II; this act is today remembered as ranking among the most egregious mass civil-rights violations in U.S. history. They were perceived as a national security risk despite the fact that there was no organized anti-American dissent among them. After the war ended, over 4,700 Japanese-Americans accepted an option to be deported to Japan by the War Relocation Authority. Of these, 1,116 were second-generation Americans who renounced their citizenship while living in the internment centers. In the words of Edward Ennis of the Department of Justice: "They threw their citizenship back at us." Not a surprising reaction, considering that they all were forced to let-go of their property at fire-sale prices and spend the next few years living in poorly-heated cabins behind barbed-wire fences in the middle of East Bumblefuck, Idaho. (However, according to federal courts, these renunciations were later found to have been done under duress and therefore, voided.)

"Seattle, Washington. Japanese repatriates embarking for Japan." November 24, 1945.

Native Americans within the territory of the U.S. often sought to escape the depredations of white settlers, the Army and corrupt agents from the Interior Department.
Although most Seminoles were forcibly removed from Florida to what is now Oklahoma in the 1840s, some managed to escape to various Caribbean destinations such as the Bahamas and Barbados.
In 1862, the Santee Sioux in Minnesota staged an uprising as a protest against the corrupt reservation agents who often stole their food; the Sioux were defeated and scattered by the Army. More than two dozen leaders of the Sioux uprising were hanged in what stands today as the largest mass-execution in U.S. history; some Santee Sioux sought safety in Canada to escape the violence.
In 1876, the Chiricahua Apache were ordered to move from their ancestral lands to the inhospitable San Carlos reservation in Arizona. The leadership of the Chiricahua was deeply divided by the order to move to this arid malarial flat, and about half of them decided to leave for the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico instead.
In 1877, the Hunkpapa Sioux under Chief Sitting Bull in the Dakotas refused to obey a government order to move onto a reservation; so they escaped to Canada (they returned in 1881 after being offered amnesty and were summarily given the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas to live-on).
The most dramatic example of Native Americans trying to escape America was the 1877 flight of Chief Joseph and 800 members of the Nez Percé tribe. They refused to be forced-off land granted to them in an 1863 treaty. So, preempting the forced-removal, they fled from Idaho across more than 1,500 miles of the American Northwest, skillfully outmaneuvering the U.S. Army. They almost got to Canada when the U.S. Army halted them near the border and sent them to reservations in Oklahoma after five days of fighting. A tribal elder named Chief Whitebird made it out of the country, along with over 250 Nez Percé. (After an eloquent protest by Chief Joseph in Washington D.C., the remaining Nez Percé were allowed to move to reservations in Washington and Idaho in 1885.)

"Mankato, MN. December 26, 1862. 38 Sioux Indians were hanged."

And it wasn't just non-whites who left after the U.S. became independent, either. During the Civil War, it was estimated that about 15,000 white 'skedaddlers', (predominantly from border states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota) moved north into Canada to escape the draft. After a post-war amnesty was declared, however, many decided to move south again.

Nichola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a pair of Italian-born anarchist activists, left the U.S. and spent much of 1917 and 1918 in Mexico with some sixty other Italian-American anarchists to avoid conscription for World War I. They returned to America after the war, and in 1920 were charged with murder (and executed in 1927); today, most historians consider this trial to have been fraudulent and politically-motivated due to widespread antipathy against political dissidents during the Red Scare of the early 1920s. (Maybe those two should've stayed south of the border, eh? They might've lived longer.)

During the McCarthyite anti-Communist paranoia of the late 40s and early 50s, a number of American citizens left the country due to the overzealous inquisition and blacklisting of leftists in the civil service, labor unions and Hollywood screenwriters' guilds. These included the director Jules Dassin (who left for France), the black playwright Paul Robeson (who left for England), the screenwriter Gordon Kahn (who left for Mexico with his family) and the German-born, anti-Nazi playwright Bertholt Brecht (who left for Hungary).

"House Un-American Activities Committee investigates Communist infiltration of the film industry. 1947."

And not too long ago, draft objectors similarly moved to Canada and Europe during the Vietnam War years. It's been estimated that somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans went to Canada between 1964 and 1977. (And they had well-founded reasons to leave; half of them stayed in Canada despite a general amnesty in 1977.) Thousands of others went to western Europe as well: to France, Sweden, Holland... and still other Americans moved to yet other destinations to avoid the war. An organzation called Beheiren (the League for Peace in Vietnam) was formed during the 1960s, and offered support and shelter to American deserters who wound-up in Japan.

And there are other examples brewing in the modern-day... after the 9/11 terrorism inspired ignorant, thug vigilante-wannabes to attack innocent Muslim-Americans and Sikh-Americans. (Nation-wide, over 300 such hate-crimes occurred: sporadic beatings, death-threats and murders. In Arizona, a Sikh filling-station owner got shot in the head because he wore a beard and a turban. And down the street from where I live, a Yemeni-American storekeeper's windows got smashed-in; remind anyone of Kristallnacht?) A number of Sikhs and Muslims decided to escape the bigotry by leaving the country (including several THOUSAND Pakistanis.) (And they are quite right to do so, obviously. If I was being shot-at or chased by mobs because of my appearance, I'd leave too! One hopes they might decide to move back to the U.S. one day, though.)

Currently, 3.2 million Americans are living abroad, up by more than 1 million in the 1990s alone, State Department estimates show. Some are looking for a slower, more peaceful pace of life. Others seek better education for their kids, economic opportunities or adventure. Some do it for religious reasons (such as missionaries or Jews moving to Israel) or don't want to deal with what they feel is excessive government regulation. Some just want to get away. A small number of wealthy Americans leave to obtain a tax advantage. Others decide to leave because of what they view as the declining quality of life in America.

So why can't I flee the anti-male bigotry which is so pervasive in American society? I'm not exaggerating when I say this: American males do live under circumstances equivalent to bigotry, only we've been raised to "take it like a man". Trying to interact normally with American women is almost like aversion therapy. Seriously, as I've said many times before: I live in a society where it is perfectly peachy-keen for a woman to knee me in the balls and spout hate at me. A female co-worker could demolish any man's career by uttering a false accusation that would be impossible for him to disprove. Distressingly, neither men nor women seem inclined to fight for REAL equal rights instead of the selective, lopsided, faux-equality crap that American women have designed for their own exclusive benefit. I don't want to live among misandristic bigots anymore, dammit! If I decide to leave the country, I think I'm quite right to do so, too. As I've pointed-out, there's a huge body of historical precedent for this kind of thing. Anyone disagree? Didn't think so.

Naturally, the balance of immigrations indicates that far, far more people come to the U.S. instead of leaving; immigration is one of America's greatest traditions. But hell, I might even go so far as to say: Americans fleeing America is also an American tradition!

But Seriously, Folks...

I'll try to keep this site updated from overseas as best I can. If anything interesting happens, I'll definitely write about it.

I've long been interested in Japan. Unfortunately, much of what Americans know about Japan is directly left-over from the Second World War and trade friction of the 1980s. Japan is probably one of the most-misunderstood countries on the planet. As someone who's spent time in Taiwan, I understand that I have to be nimble enough to adapt myself to the new cultural surroundings. This will be a challenge, but it is precisely the kind of challenge that I like.

I'll try to write some postings about my interpersonal experiences and what happens to me over the next year or two. I invite you to check-back from time to time (I have a feeling that my updates might be sporadic) and view the peep-show which is my life.

So, buckle your safety-belts and hold on to your wasabi for (dun-da-da-DUN!) NiceGuy on Planet Japan! Join NiceGuy as he perilously navigates life in a new culture! Thrill to his misadventures, share his frustrations and laugh to his inter-cultural and linguistic faux-pas!

Coming: April 2002! Children under 17 will not be admitted without an adult! Free popcorn for the first twenty ticket-holders!

Why I Started this Site

I've pinpointed the exact thing that prompted me to start this site. At this juncture, I'd like to write it out in retrospect as recent events in my life have put an interesting spin on the future direction of this site.

One day in May 2001, I got rejected by a woman. Actually, it was Molly in Lying Nutballs. I was rejected and lied-to because I'm a nice guy. There wasn't much difference in getting that sort of treatment... only this time, something was different in my reaction. This was, apparently, the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Maybe it was just one too many rejections on account of me being nice? I just dunno.

Something inside my head went 'snap!' Maybe a fuse blew or maybe I experienced what some might call a 'paradigm shift'. But, the important thing is: I was lying awake late that night after hearing yet another manifestation of the dreaded "you're a really nice guy, but..." for the millionth time.

I said to myself: "American women are alienating me because they're a bunch of shallow, unaccountable, self-absorbed little bitches. Women are a pack of hypocritical, vain liars who use a façade of innocent helplessness in order to expand their own privileges. They are whiny, entitlement-grubbing, jewel-encrusted, gossip-spreading mud. They suck. I've been spending my entire life trying to interest them, yet they shit down my throat over and over. The women I've met overseas always seem to outclass them in so many ways." And when I said this, I really believed it.

I'd always thought something along those lines when I got frustrated with girls, but I never actually thought it with any conviction. I never wanted to believe it. I always thought there was some good in women. But, why was I always feeling screwed-over for some reason? There couldn't be something wrong with the entire gender, could there? No, no... there had to be something wrong with me. Maybe I had to be an even nicer guy?

But this time, the "Women Suck" statement clicked into place as if a long-missing sprocket suddenly got installed in my brain- and poof! The entire planet finally made sense! No wonder the divorce rate is so high in American society! No wonder men kill themselves and die on the job in such disproportionate numbers! Women act like they're oppressed, yet they live longer, healthier lives than we do! The Women's Movement has NOT liberated males one iota! Women spend their lives wearing a veil of bullshit to hide the fact that they suck! No wonder I felt screwed-over! I had been screwed-over!

Perhaps western society is not dominated by men, but is actually dominated by women who blame men for everything! Those two cultural arrangements would be almost indistinguishable from each other, would they not?!

I shot-up in bed, excitedly. Could it be that I've stumbled-across the Awful Truth!? Do I have a lot of experiences to pour into short stories? I've got to get my thoughts on the web!

This "Women Suck" realization became as good as Holy Writ. It was as solid as granite. It was the only possibility which made any darn sense! And the more I looked-around for evidence, the more evidence I found. And I found a lot of like-minded men who I agreed with. I wasn't crazy- I was one of possibly millions of American men who'd been wronged. There were people out there who I shared common experiences with.

I didn't react with self-pity... oddly enough, I reacted with excitement. It felt awesome to make this realization! Finally, I feel like the world has come into focus, and I can see clearly for the first time in my life! Now, I know where I stand! I wasn't insane: female behavior is insane! This realization was, in a word, liberating. I laughed out-loud and threw my pillow at the ceiling as I laughed.

"I'm okay! There's nothing wrong with me! It's the women!!" It was the most excited I'd been in a long time.

So, that's where I am now. I'll never let another woman take advantage of me again. And it feels great.

And I'm moving to Japan.

I've interacted with people of Japanese extraction in college and at work, and I must say that my experiences with them have been overwhelmingly positive. I spent time with a few very sweet Japanese women when I was in college. I'm really looking forward to meeting all sorts of new people.

I always do my best to not be a so-called 'Ugly American'. I'll try to be a goodwill ambassador, and I'll try to just be the best guy I can be. I am very self-conscious on this point. Most people I met in Taiwan seemed to act as if I am indeed a Nice Guy. (Not a loser Nice Guy, mind you, but a virtuous Nice Guy.) My experiences studying in Taiwan have been invaluable preparation for living abroad... but at the same time, I understand that Japan is very different from Taiwan and it'll be opening a whole new can of worms. Hey, in the worst-case scenario, Japanese women are no better than American ones and I'm none the worse-off, eh?

Should I Continue to Play 'Please the Bitch' if I Don't Have to?

What, should I just suck it up, ignore the injustice and just 'be a man'? Taking female crap like men are supposed to is what's gotten me into this situation in the first place!

If you read the article (I Don't Need A Magazine To Tell me I'm a Dud) it seems that one of the underlying assumptions that 'Blue Jade' makes in her grotesque writings is that men just naturally have to be held hostage to whatever women dictate. Men have to like it or lump it. 'You have to do as we say, because we're the only alternative to lonely loserville.' That is the singular ironclad assumption upon which all of her little selfish, exploitative conclusions rest. Well, I vow to prove her wrong! There IS something that men can do: men can go to greener pastures. I can vote with my feet. I don't have to play her whoring game of 'shell-out the dough or piss-off' if I have viable alternatives.

This will be a great opportunity to run a grand experiment: I'm going to go to Planet Japan and... be myself. That's right, I'm going to be the nice, caring, respectful (yet slightly geeky) NiceGuy that I normally am and we'll see how many women get attracted to me. If women want to go on dates with me, then I'll treat them nicely and respectfully. I am NOT going to be a jerk; I am NOT going to take advantage of the women there. I am NOT going to be a womanizer. I am going to be a gentleman par excellence. So, let's all see what happens, shall we? In fact, part of me wants to bet that at least 50% of the women I'll meet will totally blow American chicks out of the water. (I'm not a betting man, however. Here's a formal explanation of what the Grand Experiment will be all about.)

But I invite you to follow me as time goes on! NiceGuy on Planet Japan! Coming: April, 2002! Children under 17- (oh wait, I already said all that... never mind.)

A Fondless Farewell:

To all the hatchet-faced, bloodsucking, American chicks: I am through with you. I am disgusted and disappointed by you. I am hereafter turning my back on you and flipping you all the Middle Finger until you screw your heads-on straight! You're not the only game on the planet, so stop pretending you're hot-shit. Stop expecting me to kiss your ass if you're only going to lie to me and disrespect me. As far as I'm concerned, you rank down there with sludge and racists. You are poison. You are raw sewage. You are nuclear waste. You are the drippings from an Ebola carrier's ass! I look forward to getting away from ye. I shed nary a tear for thy riddance. The pox to thee!!!

In other words: buh-bye, girls.

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"Prehistoric woman, say (the anthropologists) Moir and Jessel, with a shorter life span and more pregnancies than modern women, could expect 10 menstruations in her life. Modern women can expect 400! We have to put up with 40 times more shit from our women than biology ever intended, and they expect us to believe that we are the problem... The angst of non-pregnant women is shredding our civilization." -- Rich Zubaty

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