The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Recently I was at an office party with my fellow English teachers and the subject of "who's the cutest teacher at school" came up. Since all of the English teachers at my school are women except for Mizutani sensei it was a topic that was gobbled up almost as quickly as the spring rolls we had just ordered. The ladies gushed and gossiped while Mizutani sensei looked on intrigued yet perhaps slightly annoyed at the fact that no one bounded from their seat screaming his name.
Anyway, this was a very interesting excercise for me since it gave me a quick glance into the complex mind of the Japanese woman.

Usually at office parties I choose my words carefully and try very hard not to stir the pot. So I decided to take a Mizutani style approach the the conversation and listen rather than jump in. However, my "code of silence" was quickly broken when all the giggly gooses at my table decided to get a foreign perspective on the men of Chubu Junior high school.

me: Tanaka sensei
them: eeeehhhhh!!!???!!!!??? Honto ni! (are you serious!?!?)
me: uh....yup
them: eeeeehhhhhh!!!!!
me: uh....well....Japanese ladies like ugly white men! So there!
them: ahhh soo ka! (hmmm I see)

I must admit to myself and to everyone that yes, I am a sucker for the J-boys. I can't resist them and I have to stop trying because it's just going to drive me crazy. It's like going on a diet and keeping a chocolate bar on your counter. Sooner of later you are going to give into temptation and gobble it up. It's just too available. I live in Japan. It's like I'm going to a Jenny Craig Center housed in a Cadbury factory. It's impossible to keep myself in line. But this puts a whole new twist on things...While all those Japanese gals in their mini skirts and stilleto heels are clawing and fighting over the Twix and Snickers I'm digging down to the bottom of the trick or treat bag for that old box of raisins that no one wants to eat.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, not only am I finally confident enough in myself to admit that I like Japanese boys, I am actually comfortable enough to admit that I like UGLY Japanese men.

This brings me to wonder whether Daichi was ugly or not. I found him incredibly attractive, I still do. But am I the only one? He hadn't had a girlfriend for 2 years prior to me. I just figured it was because he was too busy cleaning up his act after his years on the wild side. But maybe it's because he's too ugly. What a shame! His new girlfriend is a foreigner too, maybe Japanese girls don't think he's hot so he sticks to the Whities. Things that make you go "hmmmmm".

Recently my friend Grace wrote about FON (foreign obsessed Nihon-gin) in her blog. One subgroup of the greater FON phenomena are those really beautiful Japanese women who date super greasy Dungeons and Dragons playing, trench coat wearing, parent's basement dwelling folk who, fed up with their total and complete inability to attract a member of the opposite sex in thier own country coupled with their unhealty obsession with anime, have come to Japan in hopes of snagging one of these unsuspecting beauties. Am I the North American equivalent of the women these guys attract? Am I lusting over the "Comic book guys" of Japan? I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

Well, watch out socially challenged, unattractive men of Japan...here I come!

J