The White Peril 白禍

I'd been thinking that I'm about due for a weird-search-term post, but when I looked back, I realized that there hasn't been all that much variety after all. There's just a lot of variation on a few themes, some of which are kind of disturbing:

"japanese forget the year party grope"
"groping chik@n videos"

That first one is actually from almost a month ago; I started a post and saved it and then didn't get around to finishing it. Despite the fact that the New Year is long gone, the topic is a perennial.

You would not believe the number of searches I get looking for things about chik@n: "videos" and "instructions" especially. I can only assume it's the same for any other Japan-focused blogger who's been unwise enough to mention the phenomenon. I'm trying to believe that the overwhelming majority of Googles are from social scientists doing research. (Please don't show up to disillusion me.) But whatever the motivation--and I don't want to be encouraging any sickos here--I have to say: instructions??!! Who needs instructions to figure out how to grope?

"JAL close shave"

Which one, pray tell? There's been a new report issued about the turbulence-induced shake-up of a Tokyo-Fukuoka flight a few years ago that caused a bunch of injuries. But perhaps you mean the near collision a few years ago that would have been one of the highest-fatality disasters in civil aviation history if it hadn't been averted.

"gay culture kyushu"

HANDS OFF MY MAN, BITCH!

Oh, uh, sorry.

What I mean to say is, I think it's most active in Fukuoka, which would make sense since that's the largest city and a major transportation hub. Japanese friends are always going on and on about how hot Kyushu guys are; I've never really seen it. Now, Okinawan guys....

"do all white men have defined chests"

If only! Actually, there was another, almost identical search a few days ago, so either someone is investigating this with the assiduousness it deserves or there are two people out there who might do better in their quest if they pooled their resources.

BTW, do I really use the word chest that often? I don't rightly remember doing so, but I can't think of any other reason I'd be showing up in so many "chest" searches.

"smooth chest guys"

[smirk] Wrong blog, honey.

"Japanese ripening woman mature sex picture"

Also wrong blog, honey. Or buddy, or whoever you are. Though take my word for it: if that's your thing, I think it's great.

You know, over there somewhere.

I was going to post this immediately after putting this up about my trip to Taiwan. Then I just kind of didn't and figured it was expendable. Then I read a few things that kept reminding me of the topic and thought--this is one of the bad things blogging does to you--Hey, I've still got that post I didn't put up, and there's still time to GIVE IT TO THE WORLD! So this is the other thing that struck me, not for the first time, over the weekend.

I ended up staying at the apartment of the woman who runs the office there--my trip had been arranged pretty hastily, and I guess there are a lot of people trying to get things done in Taipei before the Chinese New Year. My flight was delayed by rain and fog here in Tokyo; when we got in at her building, we had a midnight supper (tortellini and green salad and beer--quick and casual but, for me, like la Tour d'Ar-freakin'-gent after the stuff on the airplane) and talked animatedly for a while before turning in. We had several other meals together in the next few days--we've known each other for years and have become friends, and food in Taiwan is yummy--and I went out for lunches and stuff in various pick-up groups with other people from the office. Some of it was shop talk; I was there for shop, after all. But a lot of it was just the kind of stuff you find yourself talking about with other foreigners who live in Asia (and with Asians who've spent time living in the West; the groups tend to be mixed).

And I kept finding myself thinking how much I like the people I'm surrounded by and, despite my need to spend loads of time alone and my spiel about being a loner, how easy it is to talk to them.

The sheer relief of being able to say that catches up with me at odd moments. Growing up, I never really expected to be in my element. Not that I expected to be a full-on hermit. I was a pretty unpopular kid, but I was never really, seriously, scarily isolated. I always had a few close friends. And they were real, serious friends. I'm only in consistent contact with one of them now, but there's enough writing back and forth with two or three of the others that if by some chance I do go to our twenty-year reunion, I won't be in the dark about which marriages and children and career paths go with whom.

But without really verbalizing it to myself, I essentially figured I'd turn into one of those elderly bachelors who dote on their books and stuff and don't socialize much and (needless to say) never really have even one serious romance. I genuinely love books, so I wasn't too bothered. The implied lack of romance also didn't disturb me, since my best efforts to get worked up over girls came to naught, anyway. And as I say, I always had a very small but genuine set of friends, and you can't complain about that.

Like most people who only really grew into their personalities in college and afterward, though, I found it a new experience to be able to talk to people--just people in general--without having that constant low-level hum in my head that I had to stay reined in so I didn't give myself away somehow. Most of it, yes, was that I'd lost the subconscious fear of inadvertently saying or doing something that might make me look like a fag. (You kind of have to get over that if you're going to call men "honey" as often as I do.) And yet it was a lot of other little general-personality things, too: Being around people who know what it's like to want to move far away from where you grew up even though you love your family and the upbringing they gave you--that's a big one. And having it just assumed in the background, so that you don't have to keep explaining it all the time.

This is turning into one of those posts that dissolve into purposelessness. Perhaps it's just that I've written so many querulous this-article-SUCKS posts this week that I seem to be projecting a rather crabby mood and wanted to write about something positive. Atsushi can't get back for our anniversary tomorrow, but we'll be celebrating next week. Several friends of mine whose relationships ended last year are finding love...or at least fun distractions. The 300th anniversary of Ben Franklin's birth was a few days ago. A close college friend is getting married in May. Things are good, even if a lot of people are saying dumb things about Japan.

I normally think it a little unnecessary when bloggers post stuff like "Appointment with podiatrist and then probably stopping to pick up vacuum cleaner bags--posting will be light until about noon or maybe 12:15." It occurs to me, however, that it might have been a kindness to let everyone know that I was flying to Taiwan on Saturday afternoon and will return to Tokyo tomorrow. I may post a bit later today--Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gave an interview in the Nikkei the other day that had a few things worth mentioning (such as, IIRC, "We don't want Japan to be a passenger [in the WOT]; we want it in the cockpit with us"). Otherwise, I've mostly been away from the computer, not least because the weather here is unseasonably warm and clear. Back later today or tomorrow.

It seems to have been Pelt Sean with Memes Day when I wasn't looking, and since I didn't arrange to be on an inaccessible island in time, Ghost of a Flea got me.

Okay. This one is "five weird things about me," which means we need to get something out of the way right from the get-go: I'm normal; it's the other 6,499,999,999 of you who are weird.

Actually, I don't think there's much that's all that interestingly quirky about me. I'll focus on five things that other people are constantly telling me are weird.

1. I was named for the Beatles rhythm section. My first name is Sean (Irish form of John; also, it recalls Sean Connery, of whom Mom was a fan) and my middle name Richard (given name of Ringo Starr). My parents met just after high school, when they ended up playing in the same cover band. My mother drums and my father plays bass. I spent my years as a toddler playing around with stray cords and strings and brushes and things while they jammed with friends. It's a wonder I never strangled or electrocuted myself. Anyway, lots of people born in the early 70s were named after celebrities from the period, so as I say, other people think this is weirder than I do.
   
2. My favorite band is the Church. Whenever I say so to a hetero guy who actually knows who the Church is, he invariably--invariably--stares in disbelief and says, "But they're so STRAIGHT!"
   
3. I wear jeans until they basically fall off me in shreds. You would think that in the Shibuya-Shinjuku zone of Tokyo, wearing ripped up jeans would be so unimaginative as to be hardly worth commenting on. And it's not like I wear them to the office, or to dinner when everyone else is in coat and tie. I have plenty of proper trousers. But when things are cas, people are always like, "Wow! Those are some seriously air-conditioned jeans you've got there." Well, yeah, they're ten years old, and I'm from a thrifty family. Besides, good stuff ages well, even when it's threadbare. (One of my buddies responded to this with "I somehow don't think Granddad meant you to apply that to jeans through which guys can see your boxers when you're hanging out at gay bars." Some people just can't turn off the catty.)
   
4. About once every four months or so, I'll feel like a cigarette when everyone around me is smoking--and in Tokyo, everyone around you is always smoking--so I bum one, smoke it, and then...you know, go back to not smoking. Totally freaks people out. They're like, "Sean? YOU with a cigarette?" Well, sure. Considering that I live in one of the largest urban agglomerations on the planet, with the air to match, I don't think that my life expectancy is going to sink like a stone because of three cigarettes a year. I don't seem to have the addictive personality.
   
5. When I write in cursive, I turn the paper sideways. I'm a lefty, and we were away for the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth if you're Jewish; we were in a Sabbatarian Christian church) the week my third grade teacher starting teaching how to angle the paper, so when I got back and was hastily catching up, I kind of winged it. The way it ended up was, the paper was sideways and I was writing, essentially, vertically. Mr. Davis thought it was odd, but the letters were formed correctly, so he didn't go ballistic. But other people are constantly doing exaggerated double-takes. Once I was at...uh, Saks, maybe, or Barneys...you know, one of those places where the sales clerks cultivate an air of too-cool-for-you unflappability...and when I signed the credit card statement, the girl got all animated and asked her friend from another counter to come over and get a load of this guy who was writing sideways. What the big deal was, I have no idea. My signature is as illegible as anyone else's, anyway.

Now you know.

Gaijin Biker has tagged me with one of the blogosphere's endless number of variations on the Cosmo quiz. Get ready to, like, totally learn more about the real me.

*******

I. Seven things to do before I die:

Figure out how to rein in my class-clown/flirt impulse

Visit Poland (ancestral homeland on my mother's side of the family)

Own a pick-up truck

Go a week without wearing anything purple (a friend has bet me--handshake and all--that I will never be able to do this)

Learn Korean

Find a Soseki novel I enjoy

Take the Japanese Proficiency Test



II. Seven things I cannot do:

Play any instrument really well, though I've taken lessons on several

Follow the words to 「上を向いて歩こう」 (ue wo muite arukou: "I'll Walk with My Head Up," a.k.a. "Sukiyaki," which Japanese people think all Americans can sing) after ten drinks at the karaoke box

Drive in Japan

Remember anyone's birthday on time

Sleep with a shirt on

Function on too little sleep

Inflict blog-meme-things on people


III. Seven things that attract me to blogging:

It gives me a vehicle for showing Atsushi my unfiltered, in-English, American personality without subjecting him to endless in-person rants.

Translating news articles for an audience that includes others who are also proficient in Japanese forces me to make sure I'm understanding what I'm reading and not just doing that fluent-but-shallow skimming thing.

Reader feedback restores my faith in humanity.

The sicko search strings that bring some people here send my faith in humanity right back out the window, but they do tend to be good for a nervous chuckle.

It's led to several friendships I otherwise wouldn't have, some of which have now extended off-line.

I'm not nearly as naturally bold and unflappable as I like to present myself here. Knowing that whatever I write about my principles, my politics, and my sexuality is going to appear on a Google-able archived page with my full name there big as life has forced me to think harder about what I'm willing to commit myself to. I'm both more hesitant to jump to lazy conclusions and less hesitant to voice deeply held beliefs just to avoid ruffling feathers.

Crap television is much less grating--indeed, downright enjoyable--when 75% of your brain is occupied with composing a post.


IV. Seven things I say most often:

"honey"

"Atsushi"

"bureaucrat"

"bitch"

"hairy"

"civilization"

"harder"


V. Seven books that I love:

新古今和歌集

智恵子抄

A Benjamin Franklin Reader

The Future and Its Enemies

Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

Miss Pym Disposes

Sexual Personae

The Story of English


VI. Seven movies that I watch over and over again [Note to straight folk: If you're going to tag gay men with these things, you probably want to specify "feature films." Just for future reference.--SRK]:

2001: A Space Odyssey

Alien

Auntie Mame

Desperately Seeking Susan

Double Indemnity

The North Avenue Irregulars

Vertigo


VII. Seven people to whom I pass the meme:

See II, Item 7, above.