HERE’S ANOTHER overseas correspondent in Japan wasting his own time and that of his readers at the breakfast table: Justin McCurry of the Guardian.
His latest article falls squarely into that old standby category of space filler: Japan as the Goofball Kingdom of East Asia. This one’s about how the Japanese are so desperate for companionship they’re renting “fake”, “phony”, and “bogus” friends.
Here’s the first sentence:
Best man Ryuichi Ichinokawa took his place before the assembled wedding guests, cleared his throat and for the next few minutes spoke movingly about the bride and groom.
So who’s the fake, Justin? This is a dead giveaway that McCurry has (a) never been to a Japanese wedding, (b) didn’t go to this one, or (c) doesn’t understand enough Japanese to understand what went on if he did. I’ve been to about 20 nuptials here, and I’ve never heard a nakodo (go-between), or what McCurry is referring to as a “best man”, speak “movingly” at any of them. Indeed, most people have trouble staying awake during those speeches.
Perhaps he means that Mr. Ichinokawa pinch hit for one of those people who give separate introductions of the bride and groom. They’re usually more interesting, because they give guests a glimpse of what the man and woman have actually done in their lives, but “moving” is not a word that applies to the ones I’ve heard.
After a successful debut making the wedding speech, the requests came flooding in, says Ichinokawa, who takes days off from his job at a toy manufacturer to go on assignment.
How much is a “flood”? Don’t ask the author. I doubt it would be enough to get his stockings wet. It’s probably not even the word that Mr. Ichinokawa used. People with full time jobs in Japan have a lot less discretionary time off than in the U.S. (and presumably Britain), and fewer opportunities to use them. Approval also requires a lot more explanation, both to one’s superiors and to one’s colleagues. Mr. Ichinokawa is unlikely to be devoting very much time to this sideline, which is apparent from this sentence:
He even managed to keep his wife in the dark about his extra-curricular activities until two months ago, when she spotted him in a cafe being interviewed by a Japanese reporter.
Keeping one’s wife in the dark about one’s comings and goings, particularly on weekends or holidays when weddings and school sporting events are held, is no easy matter in Japan. Yet a Japanese reporter knew about it and his own wife didn’t?
Note also that one Japanese news outlet found this phenomenon so unusual they decided to file their own man-bites-dog story about it.
The number of rent-a-friend agencies in Japan has doubled to about 10 in the past eight years.
It took as many as eight years to go from five agencies to ten in a country of 127 million? Ah, sang McCartney, look at all the lonely people!
The best known, Office Agent, has 1,000 people on its books.
How many of these 1,000 people are active, and how much time they spend at this job, are more true facts that McCurry can’t be bothered to find out doesn’t tell us.
In recent months demand has surged for…
What constitutes a “surge”? Nah, don’t ask the author.
But as with the other members of his guild elsewhere, he does manage to find the space to practice sociology without a license:
The rise of the phony friend is a symptom of social and economic changes, combined with a deep-seated cultural aversion to giving personal and professional problems a public airing.
Snort! And what social and economic changes might those be?
Don’t ask the author.
As for being averse to airing one’s dirty laundry in public, the U.S. and Britain could certainly learn a thing or two—or three or four or five—from Japan. I know which cultural standard I prefer.
There are hundreds of fascinating stories McCurry could file about Japan if he would only bother to look. But hey, why do some real work when you can spitball your way through life?
Most puzzling of all is why McCurry thinks this minor “rent-a-friend” trend in Japan is worth writing about. The journalistic puffery employed to fill column inches is apparent before one is halfway through the piece.
But perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on him. Maybe he led a sheltered life in England before his Tokyo assignment. That might explain why he’s so unfamiliar with the concept.
The lad seems to have never heard of gigolos.
Or prostitutes, for that matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment