Standing on the Sobu line platform yesterday afternoon, I was approached by a middle-aged (but not all that much older than me) salaryman sporting a punch-perm and wearing a dark grey suit, a blue polyester tie, a pale blue shirt and some sort of office ID on a neckstrap. Pretty bog-standard salaryman. We had the following conversation in Japanese.
Him: Do you understand Japanese?
Me: Yes, a little bit.
Him: (not hearing me) Huh?
Me: A little.
Him: Are you French?
Me: No.
Him: Are you American?
Me: Yes.
Him: (glancing at my hands). Ah, you are married.
Me: Yes, I am.
Him: Is your husband Japanese?
Me: No, he’s American.
Him: Would you like to come to a hotel with me?
Me: I don’t understand your Japanese. I’m sorry.
What this man thought I was likely to answer is beyond me. I thought about punching him, but he apologised and walked away before I could let my violent American tendencies reach the surface.
I can’t get over the forwardness of some of these middle-aged salarymen. This has happened to every girl I know - and the success rate = 0
Do they honestly believe that soemone is going to answer yes to a question like that?
Posted by: gomichild on March 1, 2003 02:25 PMYet once again you are unable to contain your natural beauty and charm and men are drawn uncontrollably to you. ;)
Posted by: Seth on March 2, 2003 01:24 AMWhat a perril you had!
This happened to me twice or so when I was still “young.” One was Japanese Salalyman, but the other was a Isram business man.
I must think, this kind of men exist everywhere.
What’s a punch-perm?
Posted by: Laga on March 2, 2003 05:30 PMI’ve *never* had a drunk Japanese salaryman proposition me in the four years I’ve lived in Tokyo…*looking down at self*…Is there something wrong with me? :-P
Of course the answer would still be a resounding “NO”!
Laga - a punch-perm is an excessively tightly curled short-haired perm, commonly found on middle-aged men (oyaji-san) who exhibit a profound lack of style and good taste.
Posted by: lil on March 2, 2003 11:23 PMI worked in Japan for about 2 months in 1986. Several times during that stay I was propositioned by (ususally married) women in what I thought were odd places: a bookstore, on the train platform, in a shopping “mall”. All of them spoke english and initiated the conversation. This surprised me as I did not expect japanese women to be this forward. Has anyone else had this sort of experience?
Posted by: Bob on March 4, 2003 02:33 AMYou really should’ve punched him (or at least ridiculed him mercilessly in front of everyone within shouting distance), Kristen! ;-)
Bob asked an interesting question, though: How often are foreign men propositioned by Japanese women?
Thinking back to an event that happened a couple of years ago, I remember one instance where a colleague of mine asked a rather forward, open-ended question that was almost certainly a pass.
After an office shinnenkai, when the obligatory karaoke and other nijikai activities were winding down, she offered to give me a ride home. Happy to not have to take the train during the post-holiday shinnenkai season, I gratefully accepted.
“So…where would you like to go from here?” she asked once we were alone in her car. Her pause, and the flirtatious look on her face, seemed to strongly imply an invitation to go somewhere other than my apartment.
“Uhm…home, I think,” was my somewhat-dumbfounded response. (After all, home is where I had been expecting her to take me!)
“Right. That would be best,” she responded, apparently crestfallen.
In that context, with our friendly relationship at work as a backdrop, I would be more inclined to tolerate (but not accept, mind you) a one-time, oblique invitation like that, but a blunt one from a total stranger on a train platform? No.
What in the world are such people thinking?
I suppose a logic similar to that of most spammers could be at work: Even if the success rate of such an approach is miniscule, a response rate that is favorable even 0.001% of the time could yield a payoff, eventually, if attempted often enough.
Posted by: Sako on March 4, 2003 07:09 PMI told my Japanese husband your story over lunch and he was a little surprised about it.
Then I used “Punch Perm’s” pick up line on him in a drugstore but I didn’t have any success.
I’ve never been hit on to go to a hotel. I usually get hit on for English practice. Here in the boonies there aren’t many foreigners so it used to happen to me often.
Glad I’ve never been propositioned like that. Sorry it happened to you.
Posted by: Helen on March 5, 2003 12:59 AMPUNCH PERMS RULE! ROTFLMAO!
Posted by: HeLG3N-3X on March 9, 2003 12:21 PMPUNCH PERMS RULE! ROTFLMAO!
Posted by: HeLG3N-3X on March 9, 2003 12:21 PM