The Nomad`s Land

Author’s note : I get A LOT of questions in my Tumblr inbox asking me how to get a boyfriend in Japan. I really don’t have much game, but for your reading pleasure, here is what I wrote a while back. Not particularly proud of it, but go ahead.

I arrived in Japan on a sweltering August day in the summer of 2006, fresh off the university boat and ready to get away from the 5 years I had dedicated to the Rwandan genocide. As any genocide scholar worth their salt will tell you, the quickest way to get wanderlust is to be trapped for months under a pile of books with titles like `Season of Blood` and `We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families`. And, as any JET will tell you, the perfect solution for a case of home country blues, is to move to Japan and karaoke your problems away with a giant, cereal filled parfait.

My masters professor sat me down half waythrough my thesis and said to me , `Sarah, you`re burned out. I can see it from your lackluster writing (this was false. He could see it because I had just come into his office babbling like a crazy person about the methods in which people were murdered in Kigali). Have you thought about taking a year off to clear your head?` He helped me fill out the JET application form and the rest was history. I’ve been here for five years, with a dusty incomplete masters still peering over my shoulder, but a wealth of other knowledge I am very pleased to be able to share with you. The edi- tors of this magazine asked I write about women’s issues in Japan, but apart from being an issue-filled woman myself, I’m not 100% sure what constitutes woman-in- Japan-related topics. I googled it and came up with a slew of `How to Get a Japanese Man Friend` articles.

I asked my significant other, `Do you think I would be able to write an article about how to find a Japanese boyfriend?`

`Well, you certainly have experience,` he said.

`I’ve only ever succeeded in picking you up, I doubt that makes me an expert.`

`Are you saying that you need to pick up more than one?`

He had me there. In reality, you only need one fish to take a bite off your baited tackle.

So, you want a Japanese boyfriend? Actually, if you’re anything like I was a few years back, maybe you don’t. Maybe your J-boy (to ad-lib from everyone’s favorite life guru, Oprah, for her phrase was obviously meant for this exact situation) ‘A-ha Moment’ hasn’t quite arrived yet. When I first got here, all those many angst filled years ago, I was infatuated with an American JET by the name of Jeffry who sat at the back of the Tokyo orientation in a shiny navy suit, with a black man bag full of jelly beans. My J-boy awakening came about one Saturday morning about seven months into my first year, when I went to my friend’s apartment and caught her watching a Japanese TV programme called `Ikemen Paradise` - Hot Boy Paradise. After three episodes, I realized my eyes had opened to the world of Japanese boys. Jeffry had turned out to be batting for the other team (go back and read the sentence that ends with `shiny navy suit, with a black man-bag full of jelly beans`) and I had no viable options in my own BoE. That day, in Celeste’s apartment, I realized that when in Rome, one should always try to do the Romans.

Sarah’s Very Scientific Tips for Long Term Coupling Up in Japan

1_Don’t go for someone just because they are Japanese. This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people actually do this. If my boyfriend weren’t Japanese, I would still like him. Even if he were Australian. *

2_You have to be prepared to make the first move. And probably the second one too. If you think boys you knew from back home were blind to your advances, Japanese boys are ten times worse. (Boyfriend says that this is an unfair assessment. He says `I thought when you fluttered your eyelashes that it was just a `gaijin thing`)

3_Many of what you think are obvious moves on your part will be brushed off by him as aforementioned gaijin things. Your copy of He’s Just Not That Into You probably says that if, when flirting, the boy does not respond to light physical touches then (chorus) He`s Just Not That Into You. But things like touching, hugging, extended eye contact or being friendly and perky to him while ignoring everyone else in the room, will not work. You think you’re busting out your best game , but meanwhile you’re just checking off his list of Friendly Foreigner Attributes.

4_Throw away ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. Now. That shiz does NOT apply here. In fact, toss out everything you have learnt about boys since the third grade playground incident with Adam Parker. Living in Japan means that dating wise, you’re back to square one, honey.

5_Just keep swimming. Yeah, you’ll be rejected because dating in Japan is still a battle field.

The game in Japan is the same as it is behind the barbwire fences of my Johannesburg home - you have to pick yourself up and move on to the next option. Being a foreign woman in Japan can sometimes be a great ego booster, but those same differences that make you special can sometimes be the cause of your downfall when you decide to find something serious.

In my case, it was good luck, good timing and a good match of personalities, but none of that is particularly Japan-specific. Actually… maybe that IS the key to this whole thing. We’re all just going through life looking for someone to share the same restaurant table with us. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Tokyo or Timbuktu, the whole dating game is a farce hinged on the magic combination of (i) mutual attraction that comes together at (ii) the right time. The only difference is that in Japan, a lot of the time, you have to buckle down and be the game master.

If there is one thing I want you to take away from me, it is this special, freshly written Sarah Japanese Dating Mantra : ‘Ask A Boy Out, I Too Can Wear The Pants.’

What have you got to lose? Nothing. Even in Japan, pride grows back. And, if your pick up plan goes awry and the boy you asked out says ,`sorry, I just don’t like you like that`, throw your hands up and wave them about in a sumimasen wave, laughing, `No no! That’s not what I meant! You obviously didn’t understand my English / Japanese, you crazy boy.` Problem solved.

* Rugby World Cup 2011 wounds are still raw for this Springbok.