The Japanese: Repressed or Liberated?

(Continuation of Day Two)

After the fish market, we search for the Hama Rikyu Garden, the only place where the waterbus to Asakusa is accessible. The garden is gorgeous with its perfectly cropped trees, enormous irises, & serene lake. On the 40-minute boat ride to Asakusa, we meet a couple from Saratoga who are celebrating their 30th anniversary. Surprisingly, they are both 1973 graduates from Palo Alto High School.

At Asakusa, the main pedestrian road leading to the Sensoji Shrine is lined with small booths selling souvenirs & kitsch: tiny animals sewn from colorful fabrics, small ceramic models of household pets, decorated fans, miniature versions of the large red paper lamp that hangs at the entrance of the shrine, dangling decorations to hang from cell phones, & red & white headbands that remind me of the film Karate Kid. The most popular stalls sell snacks. Teenage & adolescent school children in neat uniforms hover over these counters while little old ladies fold & place sweets on the counter. We try three small mochi balls on a stick that are covered in caramel-looking goo. They are a little sweet but not flavorful. People flock around stalls that sells soy chunks on a stick that look like meat, fried mochi balls, & ice cream stuffed in a spherical wafer.

Outside the temple is a communal fountain. Visitors use tin cups to clean their hands before stepping into the temple. Unaware of the sign posted with directions, I approach the fountain & drink from the cup. Robby first stares at me in amazement & then at the sign. “You’re not supposed to drink from that. Other people are washing their hands with it. Great, now you have syphilis.” I feel momentarily sick in the stomach (must be psychosomatic), pop a Dentyne Ice, & try to forget my faux pas.

The exterior of Sensoji Shrine is being renovated, so it is neatly covered by thin white walls, and green mesh. Dust in the air and on the outer structure is completely absent. The interior is a distant, ornate display of gold, fake flowers, & a few small statues. The inside is dark; only the shimmer from the gold altar gives light to back of the room. The tinkling of coins echos as people toss invisible coins into the wooden rack in front of the faraway altar. An old man bent in the shoulders asks a teenage boy to light a candle for him. The boy looks embarrassingly at his friends, repeatedly bows, & obediently complies.

Upon exiting the Sensoji Shrine, we circle the building & visit the mini-shrines around it. We head back to our ryokan from the Asakusa Station. Instead of taking an intended one-hour nap, we sleep for three hours, thoroughly ruining our attempt at conquering jet lag. At 8:30pm, we take the JR train to Shinjuku. Assaulted by the neon lights plastered on every building, we aim for the area that most piques Robby’s interest - the seedy district of Kabuki-cho, where Africans sell drugs on the corners & fashionable men loiter around trying to pick up clients for their available hostesses. Large Japanese words cover small storefronts. The entrances are shielded by flat strips of plastic, so we curiously enter to find the walls lit up with photos of hundreds of beautiful Japanese women. Approximately 6,000JPY/hour will give you the pleasure of spending time with any one of these flawless hostesses. How the time is spent is ambiguous. These places discourage foreign patrons, which explains why the eager pimps avoid hassling Robby. I even tail him from a distance to see if they would talk to him, but they don’t bite.

Every American or Westerner who walks through Kabuki-cho probably ponders the ironic differences between our cultures. If the Japanese are stereotypically repressed, why the openness of prostitution? Kabuki-cho remind us of Amsterdam, though these business operations are more discreet & hidden. Nonetheless, the liberal view of sex seems to contradict the upright & proper appearance of Japanese daily life. On the other hand, American culture is rife with sexual liberation - teenage girls purposely wear low-waisted jeans to flaunt their thong, boys wear colorful boxers under their sagging jeans, adolescent girls strive to look like adult sluts, Hollywood boasts of big-breasted Venuses. Yet when it comes to public opinion & public policy, we are still demure & prissy Puritans at heart. From there, Robby & I discussed which culture we preferred. All of this left much to talk about.

& so ended our first full day in the exiciting Tokyo city.