Ready to Go. Defining my Grand Experiment. (Written 02/25/02)

I'm ready to leave for Planet Japan. Psychologically, that is. I'm ready to put my foot in the stirrup and ride-off. But I can't say I'm not nervous. But my only limitation to the possibilities of tomorrow are my doubts of today, I suppose. I'm ready to experience an exciting, new existence- or at least an approximation thereof.

I have my copy of the "Lonely Planet Guide to Japan". I've got my affairs generally in order for moving there. Got my apartment set-up. My employment contract is arranged. I'm not sure how much more prepared I can be for something like this. I really can't wait to go. Part of me wonders if I'm forgetting to pack something. And I hope I don't experience culture shock again.

Culture Shock

Here's how 'culture shock' usually goes for someone who moves to a foreign country: there's an initial honeymoon period. This might last anywhere between three to eight months. In this period, the excitement of being in a new place is the major feeling. Everything is new and wonderful. But after a while, the realities of adjusting to a place start to sink-in. The frustrations of carrying-out daily business start to become irritating (unfamiliar bureaucratic procedures, language barriers, etc.) Ever try using a phone directory written in Chinese characters, for instance? It's frustrating. There was a period of a few months in Taiwan where I felt really frustrated. I felt like I needed to expend three times as much energy to just carry-on during the day.
But after a while, one learns to adjust. The adjustment period may take anywhere between four to eight months. But afterwards, one gains a more mature and comfortable equilbrium with one's surroundings. The process of going-through culture shock can impact significantly on one's work and social life, so hopefully, I'll be better-prepared to deal with it. Heh, and maybe all you folks at home will witness me going through it again? I hope not, though.

It is said that foreigners don't get to experience the 'real' Japan. It is said that people in Japan throw-up many façades and it's hard for a foreigner to tell when people are being honest or not. It is also said that they will get treated differently because they're visibly outsiders. I know that I'll be an outsider, looking-in. Life in east Asia, however, is often subject by westerners to mystification and exotification- I don't want to do that. I want to see Japan as it really is, not as some exoticized, idealized version of what it really is.

I'll give an example of how simple communication in Japan can be confusing to a foreigner: last time I was in Japan, I was waiting for a bus back to Narita airport. As I was waiting and sipping a Coke, this fellow standing near me had his umbrella blown-away in a gust of wind. A passer-by managed to snatch it and handed it back to him. The person who lost the umbrella bowed slightly, took it back and said 'sumimasen'. (Excuse me.) I was wondering: why would a person who lost his umbrella say 'excuse me' to the person who caught it and gave it back to him? It seemed more intuitive to say 'thanks', didn't it? Was he saying 'excuse me for losing my umbrella'?

It wasn't until later that I managed to figure it out. He was actually saying 'I feel obligated to do something nice for you. I can't, so... excuse me.' Pretty tricky, eh? So, much communication in Japan is non-verbal.

Francis Xavier, a Portuguese missionary who came to Planet Japan in the 1550s, wrote a series of essays on living there. One of them is basically a long list of hasty generalizations: "The Japanese are <adjective 1>, yet they are <opposite of adjective 1>. They are <adjective 2>, yet they are <opposite of adjective 2>" and on and on like that. He was obviously confounded. So if I have trouble fitting-in and comprehending things, I certainly won't be the first. Xavier also had a lot of good things to say about life there, however. On the whole, I think he had a good time.

I've got to learn to fit-in in order to cope. I've heard that even foreigners who've lived in Japan for five years still learn something new each week. But I'll try to live my life and gain acceptance much as I've always tried to do that. This is precisely the kind of challenge I like.

So... that being said, I think it might be a good idea to say flat-out what I'm planning to get into. What do I mean by calling this a 'Grand Experiment'?

The Grand Experiment: A Mission Statement

What do I hope to accomplish? What's my goal? What am I out to prove? Am I out to get as much depravity, buggery and sin of the flesh as humanly possible? No, not exactly- I'm trying to see beyond that and make a larger point.

Here is what I hope to accomplish: I'm out to determine whether or not guys can be nice and still get the girl at the end.

Since I consider this to be a social experiment, I'll try to treat it as one. The experimental process has a number of stages to it, and I'll try to stick to them. These stages are: state the problem, ask the question, create a hypothesis, conduct the experiment, collect the data, create the conclusion.

Statement of the Problem. Do I really have to descend into the banality of explaining the problem yet again? Okay- for the sake of setting-up the experiment, I will. This is the problem as I see it: I want to treat women nicely, yet a typical woman in the U.S. seems to have this certain kind of attitude. This kind of attitude that reeks of... lessee... I like economy of expression- maybe the most apt combination of descriptive terms is: 'castrating, self-absorbed, hypocritical, exploitative, dishonest truculence'.
A not-too-veiled disdain and utter lack of respect for male things- never seeing a man's belt without having the urge to punch below it. An egocentric arrogance by which she expects the man to initiate contact with her, pay for her, and try to please her. A penchant for blaming all her failures on anything but herself. A behavior pattern based on a thousand, interlocking double-standards for how I should behave versus how she should behave. A habit of ignoring the men who don't treat her like crap or who aren't rich. She'll believe her own doublespeak as fact; she'll believe her own lies when she deploys her 'deny everything policy' about whether or not she behaves at any way in a ridiculous fashion. She also demands that you follow all her rules for dating, relationships and sexual conduct. Inequitable rules, inconstant rules, inconsistent rules, nonsensical rules, illogical rules, and random rules- all of them.
She can do all this due to her specially-protected, unaccountable status as a female. Has U.S. culture bred a hundred million, shit-spewing female horrors? I hope not, but I have a strong suspicion that it isn't too far from the truth. The behavior patterns of U.S. women aren't prevalent universally, thank God. This much, I know from experience. But I'm not going to grant them any more control over my thinking and I'm gonna blaze me a trail of my own without any of 'em standing in the way!

I'm sick of her demanding that I always treat her fairly while she goes-on to display her selfishness, avarice and lunacy with neither checks nor balances to hold her back. I wanted to co-exist with them on mutually-favorable terms, but they largely haven't been willing to keep-up their end of the bargain. American women clearly don't seem to know how to be Ladies.

Asking The Questions. Can nice guys finish first? Am I a slave to whatever women dictate in the dating arena? Can I date based on mutually-favorable terms, instead of on terms that are obviously tilted heavily in favor of the female? Can I avoid the spike-bottomed pits that American women have set for us guys to walk-into? Are Japanese women any different? Will women in Japan treat me any differently? Will they insist that I follow a set of female-written rules that are clearly self-serving double-standards? Will Japanese women not return decency for decency and kindness for kindness? Do Japanese women not proudly wear a badge marked 'bitch'? Will they not offer to help pay on dates? Will they be attracted to someone who tries to be... nice?

Stating The Hypothesis. This is one of those Nature vs. Nurture issues. Japanese women just might be different in very pleasant ways. Not necessarily 'perfect', mind you, but perhaps they might have a distinctiveness that would be a refreshing break from... urrrgh... the usual. Japanese women might react to me in a more affable fashion. They might not hate me because I'm male. They might expect to be held accountable for their wrongdoings. They might not abuse their protected status to connive quite as an enormous amount of stuff out of me and other men. They might have not quite so many double-standard expectations for me to fulfill. Do they not know how to be, dare I say it- Ladies?

I won't be able to escape many aspects of female behavior. Women are women, after all. Some female behavior patterns are universal: by convincing men that they are weak and needy of protection, women the world-over expect strictly men to die on the battlefield. (One major exception is that American women have it both ways: they want the career opportunities and prestige of being in the military yet are still kept-out of harms' way when the shooting starts.) Women the world-over dream about being treated like queens. (But in the U.S., women want that men should pamper them like queens while they clamor for more 'equality'- all without realizing what a load of hypocritical crap-on-a-celery-stick it is that they expect us to unquestioningly swallow.)
I can't escape all of the lunacy of women by moving abroad obviously. But perhaps I can move to a society where female bullshit isn't necessarily accompanied by such a freaking intolerable degree of unaccountable hypocrisy, naked selfishness, anti-male bigotry and that damnable 'proud to be a bitch' attitude?

Procedures of the Experiment. I'm going to try to live my life as I normally have. I'm going to work, try to fit-in, and be social. And, most importantly, I will be myself.

I entered the dating game with a very strong code of conduct. I would not hit a woman (100% compliance so far, despite EvilGuy's urges to the contrary. I promise that my future wife will never be struck by me.) I would not sleep-around while I was committed to someone (which I mostly managed to stick-to, with the unfortunate exception of me sleeping with two women during the six weeks while I was in Taiwan). I would be the type of guy who'd want to discuss our relationship problems rather than have a shouting match (this principle only works when the woman follows a similar principle; which she probably won't.) I wanted to treat women kindly and respectfully (and they usually won't give me the same courtesy.)
I will try to stick to all these principle and all the other principles of a 'nice guy'- in short, I'm going to do the things that cause an American woman to look at you and think you're a chump.

I'm not looking for perfection. I'm not looking for a fashion-model type or one-night stand with a nice body. I'm looking for a healthy balance of attractive features: brains, beauty, education, personality, class, style, sense of humor, civility, reciprocity and respect for who I am. She's gotta be out there somewhere. She's not going to fall into my lap, but I want to find her.

Unfortunately, I lack a 'control' sample to form a basis of comparison for my experiment. It would be really convenient if I had a clone of myself living in the U.S... but I don't. So my past experiences will have to serve as the control samples. There's a fair body of data to suggest what my experiences in the U.S. were. So... let's compare my painfully-compiled experiences with what'll happen once I leave the hostile dating environment in America, shall we?

Collecting the Data. This will be the long, ongoing process that'll unfold over the next year. As best I can, I'll update this site with my experiences as I go. I don't know how often I'll get to update my pages or respond to reader email. I'll be busy working and trying to experience Japan. I aim to pack-in as much living as humanly possible on weekends, naturally there might not be as much room for me writing articles and rants. But I'll try to make updates at least once a week or once every two weeks, provided that I can access the I-net with little inconvenience.

Acknowledging the Naysayers

Yes, a few women have said that my idea is bollocks, garbage, tripe. The rantings of a bitter, hopeless, failure who will only meet with disappointment. They've said that my conceptions of Japanese women are "hopelessly naïve", that women must be the same everywhere. Quite a few people have pointed-out that Japanese in general tend to use considerable dishonesty in an attempt to be polite and preserve good relationships- confounding attempts to get accurate information and honest opinions sometimes, so I can't trust any Japanese woman to ever be frank with me. One woman even said that Japanese women are deeply "submissive" and despite their politeness, they wouldn't really find it attractive when I dishonestly and patronizingly expect them to actually put effort into creating a good relationship (which speaks volumes about her rather huge biases rather than mine). They've suggested that in time, I'll come to the exact same conclusions about Japanese women as about American women because I'm utterly hopeless, unattractive and clueless when it comes to women. I've noticed a trend- the naysayers have mostly been women who insist on calling me a bastard. The main exception is an Asian guy who said that he thinks Asian women are even more childish and whiny than American women- that again is an interesting question that could be explored. Shrug. I think I should acknowledge here that I've heard their arguments and I'm aware of their arguments. They may be right. But this is an experiment, and their factors will be taken into consideration when designing the experiment. I hope they're not correct, but they might be.

I want to say it here: I do not consider Asian women to be submissive. My experiences in the past have led me to believe that Asian women are very independent, strong-minded and capable. Largely, they are not milquetoast push-overs any more than people of any other races can be thought to be, and it irritates me greatly when Americans rely on stereotypes to insist the contrary! (A few Americans also rely on some kind of perverse stereotype of Vietnam War-movie prostitutes to think that Asian women must be especially "easy". Absolutely not. In fact, American women are more often popularly stereotyped in east Asia as the ones who are actually "easy".) Asian women are human beings and not little porcelain dolls, fer Pete's sake! I can't stand hearing these stereotypes. I think the reason these stereotypes exist is that many Americans make the mistake of assuming that a lack of overt bitchiness must be a sign of being submissive. Sadly, once in a long while, white men who date Asian women are even dismissed by (mainly white) Americans as being in pursuit of "submissive housewives", or as being losers who want "mail-order brides" or as having some kind of "yellow fever" fetish. There is a difference between a preference and a fetish, for crying out loud. Can you get more shamefully racist than those disgusting remarks? Who is more racist: someone who is willing to date outside their own race, or someone who castigates the guy for doing so?

Conclusion. A best-case and worst-case scenario. We'll see how it turns-out in time, I guess.

Best case scenario: I'll have a great damn time. I'll meet a lot of cool, fun women who will love being around me. I'll learn to speak Japanese and get to experience the 'real' Japan. And hey, who knows? Maybe I'll like it so much that I'll decide to stay longer than my one year contract?

Worst case scenario: I'll have a sucky time. The women there will be even more foul and offensive than the sorry skanks back home. After a long stretch of physical and psychological torment, I'll wind-up dying the exact same way I was born-- naked, screaming and covered with fluid in the scummy back-alley behind a Dairy Queen. Then, our sun will collapse into a black-hole and we'll all be sucked-in by the nameless dark void that swallows time and space in its great, indifferent maw. Can't get much worse than that. Oh, the universe always has ways of making worse-case scenarios a little bit worse, but I think that has to be the absolute worst case that my rather sick imagination is capable of dreaming-up for now.

So...

I'm out to make this happen- or I'll break all of God's laws in the process. Let's go for it! Or, as they say in Japanese, isshyoni ganbare!!

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"Only woman can break the vicious cycle of (her) manipulation and exploitation (of man)- but she will not do it. There is absolutely no compelling reason why she should. It is useless to appeal to her feelings, for she is callous and knows no pity. And so the world will go on, sinking deeper and deeper into this morass of... insanity called femininity. And man, the wonderful dreamer, will never waken from his dream." -- Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man.

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