Anyone who’s lived in Japan for any length of time will be aware of the phenomenon by which Japanese society seeming to be more accepting of both men and women checking their reflections. One tends to see it here a lot more than is common in other countries. The Japanese have a love affair with label clothing and are aware that they are an image-conscious nation. But the self love doesn’t always stop there. Lets take this morning for example.
So I saw three naked Japanese men before work today. The first was on his balcony opposite my gym. He’s throwing some shapes and admiring himself in his window. Perhaps he doesn’t realise there is a giant Racto department store and gym just across the road from his apartment. When he eventually notices the 30-odd people on the treadmills and cycling machines to whom he is offering a full frontal view he hurriedly closes the curtains. And much appreciated it is too. Perhaps he is new to the area, lets give him the benefit of the doubt.
This morning’s second exhibitionist is drying off as I come out of the shower. In the doorway, next to the towel shelf, there’s a guy looking in the mirror with his right leg high in the air like a sumo wrestler.
I thought I’d become inured to the abundance of FUBAR in Japan, but this one catches me a little off-guard.I guess he’s ill-advisedly acting out a pre-match sumo fantasy in a public place with no clothes on. Either that or he’d misplaced his towel and was trying to air out his undercarriage “the natural way”. He put his leg down pretty darn sharpish when he saw me emerge from the showers and I do the polite thing of looking around as if I hadn’t seen his shame. When I say “shame” I of course mean “gooch”. Why it would come as a surprise to him that someone should be using the shower is a mystery to me.
Then struck number three. I walk into the changing room and there’s a portly chap standing in front of a full-length mirror, next to an electric fan. I presume the fan/mirror setup is purportedly for the purposes of a post shower dry off. Sadly some people seem to treat it as a glamour shoot with a wind machine. This man is no exception and is facing his reflection while playing with his diminuitive equipment when I round the corner. To my chagrin I’m perfectly placed to have my eyes assaulted with the left and right profile views of his public fiddling sesh.
Perhaps he was trying to “image up” in case someone should walk in and catch a glimpse. Sadly I did walk in and it he seems he, like the others before him, did not expect to see any other customers in the gym that day. He dropped it immediately when he saw me (luckily it didn’t have very far to fall) and looked embarrassed. As well he should.
So a good morning for weird, naked Japanese guys, but not three memories I’d like to hold onto until my dying day. Ideally I’d like to toss them into the recycle bin to make room for more important/less stomach-turning recollections further down the road.All in all though, the morning got me thinking: I don’t appreciate being subjected to gag-inducing horror any more than the next guy but should we choose to see it as a positive thing that Japanese men are the highly-sexed, narcissistic bonobos of the world? Or is it worrying to think that a large number of guys you cross swor… I mean paths with is so weird that he does nothing to improve the international reputation of Japanese men as sex pests and hentai-anime-loving perverts?
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