Trolls beware

Members of the Honourable Society of Trolls should note that flaming can go too far. I'm certainly going to take care when I cross the path of Japanese schoolgirls, who I had previously only noted as a source of used panties for the businessman who wants a nostril full of teen juice. (What is it about the Japanese that they should have so many vices that the rest of us just wouldn't see the point in indulging in? After all, we're talking about a nation where a porn dog can earn more than a woman.)

Still, I have fond memories of my brief visit to Japan (I stopped over on a flight from Brisbane to London -- one night in an airport hotel with not enough time to visit Osaka. Mrs Zen insisted on watching the hotel porn, and laughed her teeth out when she realised that they fuzzied up the dirty bits) and, as is the case with most things foreign, our view is coloured by fear and distrust of the new, so that we are happy to accept a vision of the Japanese as nutters who eat bizarre food (forgetting, of course, that all inhabitants of coastal environments enjoy fish, many don't actually cook it -- we do because we were not able to get it fresh often enough -- and the other elements of their cuisine are simply local adaptations of a cuisine enjoyed by more people than any other), have peculiar social customs (forgetting that Japan has less arable land than, say, the UK, and has much longer been crowded, and has a more refined sense of courtesy and place as a consequence -- even so, the English could teach lessons to the world in gradations of insult and language that shows awareness of social station) and all look the same (I think it's quite universal that everyone who doesn't look like you looks exactly the same as all the other people who look a bit like them if they are unfamiliar enough -- the Japanese can't tell Westerners apart either, which surprises a Westerner because we think we're all so very different... now, change into their shoes innit).

But we're all human beings. We all like fucking. We all eat. We all do the things humans do. (Without exception. Even Posh and Becks take a shit, although I could believe they hire someone to suck it out for them. With a vacuum I mean, not... I wish I just hadn't had that thought at lunchtime.)

Still, I will continue to be a connoisseur of Japanese weirdness. They just seem to do it weirder.

posted by Dr Zen @ 1:13 pm