Geisha, Interrupted

Am I THAT Self-absorbed??

"Have you ever had a day," a tired-looking T asks me after arriving home last night, "when you can't stop thinking of all the stupid things you've ever said and done throughout your whole life?"

"That's every day!!" I look up at him smiling brightly, sarcastically.  As a general rule, alcoholics tend to be rather self-obsessed creatures.  And so, breaking the cycle of self-centered, circular thinking tends to be an important goal in recovery.

Since getting sober, I feel like I've been on a never-ending quest to Just Get Over Myself Already.  Which is why it's so funny, that according to my friend Kirkus below, my book is: "self-absorbed even by the standards of this genre..."

Haaa! Ha!

My friends and I got a really big laugh out of this specific turn of phrase.  I mean, to be considered self-absorbed even for a memoirist, you just can't get more self-saturated than that.

Of course my book is self-absorbed: it was written by a drunk 25-year-old, who, throughout the majority of the writing process, was still working nights.

I've been 27 for about a month now, and honestly, 27 feels so, so much older than 25.  (In a good way of course!) And yet, as my memoir is released to the public, it looks as if my self-absorbed-25-year-old-self will be frozen in time on its pages for, if not eternity, than certainly for a while.

More Than Weird

Recently, I've rediscovered a USB device I bought some months ago, which lets me watch and record Japanese TV on my PC (I'd practically been hiding it from myself lately, so as to get work done.)

But even more, I've also recalled the reason why I ever bought this equipment in the first place: to snap pictures of black actors eating bananas and chasing bystanders, as they are regularly portrayed on Japanese network TV.

      

      

That way, when I try to explain such outrageous and blatant racism to anyone unfamiliar with Japanese comedy, people might actually believe me!

My Friend Kirkus

Recently, I got my hands on an early copy of the review of my book that will run in the Feb 1st issue of Kirkus Reviews.  Here we go!

BAR FLOWER: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess

        The exotic, delicately erotic world of Japanese nightclubs, as seen by an American employee.

Jacobson wound up as a hostess in Tokyo’s Ginza strip after she was fired from her post-college job teaching kindergarteners at the “Happy Learning English School.” Outgoing and fluent in Japanese, she had a distinct advantage over the other hostesses, many from Eastern Europe, all hired for their looks, youth and personality. Her Japanese clients loved Americans, and Jacobson dyed her hair platinum blonde to boost business. The hostesses’ job was to entice Japanese businessmen into fantasy dates; conversation and expensive drinking were the primary goals. The more money the hostess convinced her date to spend, the more money she made—and the more praise she got from her “mama-san,” usually an older former hostess. Strict “no-touch” rules were enforced; subtle manipulation and ego boosting, at which Jacobson excelled, were the order of the day. Self-absorbed even by the standards of this genre, her debut memoir intrigues because it opens a window into a little-seen portion of Japanese culture: “the floating world” of transience and personal gratification, in notable contrast to the salaryman’s unchanging world of duty and service. Colorful portraits of her adopted culture and the men she dated eventually bring Jacobson’s tell-all to life. The young feminist was especially horrified that Japanese society expected women to be subservient, while men sought out a brash contrast at night. Less interesting are tiresome hints that Jacobson was on a path of self-destruction and overwrought descriptions of a hostess “selling her soul.” Presumably that’s why the author finally hightailed it back to New York for grad school.

A juicy read for anyone interested in the intriguingly lascivious underworld of a purportedly straight-laced culture. (Agent: Sharlene Martin/Martin Literary Management)

Open 口 Insert 足

As one may gather from my previous post, I did not want to like The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz.  Something about its quasi-real premise felt presumptuous, if not entirely disrespectful.   

And yet, I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed this book very much.  In fact, all weekend I've wanted to do little else other than bury myself in it.

The Commoner is ultimately a powerfully sad, immensely well done work of fiction, with a quality of prose that I cannot help but aspire to match one day.

That said, maybe I've been the presumptuous one all along...

Amazake Wars

"So you don't drink any alcohol at all?" The mother of my two year old student is practically aghast. One advantage of teaching students in their own apartments, is that the Japanese are culturally obliged to treat any visitors to their homes with immense hospitality. This basically amounts to serving me cake or tea when I arrive, and on occasion, sending me home with department store bags filled with anything from chocolate, to rice, to sweet potatoes.

"No, I quit drinking." On the downside, Japanese offers of hospitality are quite difficult to refuse. In the five years since I arrived in Japan, I've closed my eyes and swallowed fish heads, chocolate-covered grasshoppers, intestines and all sorts of tentacles, simply because a breach of politeness would have been far more painful.

"It's 'amazake,' so it's not really sake. I believe it has less than 1% alcohol." Tomorrow, her daughter will take the 'entrance test' for pre-school. It's an event I've been helping them prepare for since last summer. It appears that the mother would like to drink with me, in order to toast to good luck.

"I'm sorry..." This makes my refusal to partake all the more troublesome.

"You would still be able to drive if you had some, because the alcohol content is so small. You really don't drink any alcohol at all?"

"Not at all."

"But you told me that you used to drink very heavily when you were younger."

"I did."

"So what happenned?"

"I stopped."

The look on her face is too perplexed for words. If we were in another part of the developed world, or more specifically, in a country where alcoholism is generally recognized as a disease, this entire dialogue would just not be happening.

"Ok, I'll make you some hot chocolate instead. You can drink hot chocolate, right?" She jokes.

"Of course I can." I accept the hot chocolate and laugh.

She continues to look puzzled. Her two-year-old meanwhile climbs up and down her mother's back, seeking attention. Though her mother is a kind, friendly and unusually open-minded woman, she is nonetheless a product of her society.

雪だよー！

Today, the concrete jungle I call home witnessed a rare snowfall.  These pictures were taken from our fifth story window this morning.  I'll spare you the view from the other side of the camera, where T and I stick our gaping heads out, grinning at the snowflakes like fools who've never seen such a spectacle before... 

Crappily Ever After

According to this article in the International Herald Tribune, there's a new novel being released today that's roughly based on the life of Japan's Empress Michiko, the wife of reigning emperor Akihito.  "The Commoner," by John Burnham Schwartz, is said to chronicle the life of "Haruko Endo" (Empress Michiko's literary doppleganger), as she becomes the first commoner to marry into the imperial family.  Much like Michiko, Haruko is subject to great criticism upon her entry into the royal household, and is stripped of basically all her freedom.

And yes, this is another glimpse into the evocatively lamentable life of a 20th century Japanese woman, brought to us straight from the pen of a white, Harvard-educated, American man.  This passage comes directly out of the Tribune article:

Doubleday has already gone back to press once, taking the total copies in print to 30,000. Sessalee Hensley, the fiction buyer for Barnes & Noble, said she expected the novel to sell well.

With its Japanese theme (and white storyteller), the comparison to Arthur Golden's best-selling "Memoirs of a Geisha" is inescapable. "The Commoner" is "a kind of sequel, if you will, to 'Memoirs of a Geisha,' " said Steve Shapiro of Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kansas.

Like Golden, Schwartz enjoyed a privileged childhood...

OK, stop there.

That Arthur Golden managed to write his novel in the voice of a Japanese woman, and this worked out for him, is really more of a freak accident than an indication that the white American male of today might possess some innate understanding of the Japanese female psyche.  Schwartz's whiteness is an obstacle here, not a selling point! 

And yet this is not to say that I'm not off to go buy his book, right now.  What?  It looks interesting.  And I am a royal-family-following geek.

It's Not Supposed to Happen This Way...

I am supposed to be punished for acting like a bitch, not rewarded.

So I had a meeting this evening with two of my supervisors from the teaching company.  Tensions at this job escalated last week over a scheduling conflict, culminating in the angry email I sent to my boss three posts ago. 

And so I had to come in for a meeting today. I was not expecting this to be good. 

That in mind, before this meeting I had ardently prepared myself to accept responsibility for my actions (in an all too twelvesteppy sort of way...), to hold my tongue, and to absolutely-not-cry-no-matter-what.

And yet, I've just returned from what was a remarkably uneventful meeting.  I kept waiting for a bombshell to drop, but they only went over my contract again with me. I had expected to be taking a pay cut at the very least, because my teaching hours have recently been less than those specified in the contract.  And yet, they explained to me that they will continue to honor the salary stated in my contract. (And that's way more than I deserve!)

They even said that they understood my sentiments expressed in that now infamously unrestrained email, and at times it seems like they were paraphrasing me directly. It was like: "We are aware that matters X and Y are our responsibilities, not yours, and so we should..." 

The entire production was only a silly formality, perhaps to smooth things over with me.  The Japanese love smooth.

I work with small kids a lot, so I'm all about positive and negative reinforcement when it comes to discipline.  And so it worries me to get all this positive reinforcement for what was essentially bad behavior on my behalf.

Still, I am not a child.  I've been a grownup for at least a year now (see cake in upper left hand corner), so I should be fully able to learn from this situation regardless, and show more restraint next time. 

You Rememory Me?

A good part of this weekend was spent answering some questions for the media, about my experiences as a bar hostess in Japan.  Most questions were the same as the last time I was interviewed, some six months ago.  Yet I worry that, as I describe the hostess bar scene in Tokyo as I remember it, my answers lack a certain consistency.

More to the point, I feel like my attitude towards my past is changing so rapidly that I'm not sure how I should describe how I felt in those bars anymore. I'm not sure which few sentences would best describe a few years of total chaos.

And on top of all that, I have to constantly remind myself to keep my memories tightly in line with how I described the hostessing world in my book. 

After all, everyone is obsessed with "the truth," in memoir writing these days.  When I was writing my book, I was often told that my story had to be accurate enough so that no one would ever accuse of lying, yet distorted enough to mask the identity of anyone and everyone involved (especially those who could potentially sue me for slander)...whatever "truth" that amounts to.

Yet memories, I think, are just as much about present feelings as they are about past events.  So my perception of the past is changing, because my present is changing, and that's the truest thing I can tell you right now.   

Pirates of the Antarctic: A Game of Cards

As of this writing, two members of a militant anti-whaling group are still being held aboard a Japanese whaling vessel in the Antarctic. These activists boarded the Japanese ship illegally from an Australian conservation vessel.  As more and more people and organizations become involved in the whaling conflict, the standoff continues.  In my opinion, the politics involved here can be best summed up by a simple game of cards. Observe:

Australia draws the first card.  Not surprisingly, it's the:

Cute Sea Creature Card

This adorable creature is considered by many (although not the Japanese, obviously) to remain an endangered species. Look at that face!  She's looking right at you and she needs you to save her.  You!  Save the whales, save the world!!

But uh oh, what's that Japan's holding?  It couldn't be.  But it is.  It's...

The Racism Card!

Yes, a Japanese pro-whaling video that is currently circling YouTube is calling racism.  I have not actually watched this video (it apparently shows graphic images of Australians killing Kangaroos and Wallabies) but it is reported to state that:

"Australians must not use whales to justify the racist ideology...Australians have to eliminate prejudice and racism against the Japanese. Don't forget Cronulla race riots! These riots show the xenophobia and white supremacy. The next victims are the Japanese?"

While the whaler's calls of racism sound pretty far fetched, a British Newspaper has also reported that:

...Australia radio stations were flooded with angry calls (after the capture of the activists), some of which bordered on racism. "I worry for those two young men they have captured," said one woman caller to a Sydney radio station. "The Japanese didn't care about British and Australian troops during the war – look how they were treated – so there must be concerns for those young men on that whaling ship."

Few hands can beat the racism card.

That is, of course, unless you have...

The Terrorism Card!

Captain Paul Watson captain of the Sea Shepherd conservation vessel (which sent the captured activists on their original protest mission) has told various media outlets that: "Holding two hostages and demanding that the whaling protests stop before the men were handed over is nothing short of terrorism," and that: "When you hold hostages and make demands, that is the definition of a terrorist organization and that is the way they are acting."

The terrorism card is hard to beat.  But wait, it's not over!  One more card has come to the rescue, and it looks to be debunking the entire relevance of the Terrorism Card.  It's...

The Piracy Card!

This bit's from the Associated Press

"It is completely illegal to board anyone's vessel ... on the high seas," said Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research, which organizes the hunt. "So this can be seen as nothing more than an act of piracy by the Sea Shepherd group."

And it's backed up in this article too, as

And an Australian expert on international maritime law (says that)...

"The unauthorized boarding of any vessel on the high seas raises, in the current international security environment, significant issues. These actions could be viewed as a breach in the first instance of Japanese law, because it is a Japanese flagged whaling vessel that was boarded," Don Rothwell a professor at Canberra's Australian National University, claimed.

Rothwell said the whalers had acted within their rights to detain the activists.

"Any unauthorized boarding of a vessel under these circumstances gives to the master of the vessel a clear capacity to detain these persons to try to verify their intentions," Rothwell said. "Their detention is perfectly appropriate and reasonable, in much the same way as any person who uninvited entered anyone's home can be detained for effectively trespassing."

So Game Over, at least for now.  Jack Sparrow wins.